These values have resonated down from Socrates’ to Lincoln’s and finally Levertov’s orations, and they continue to influence, persuade and challenge responders from any context to critically perceive and improve their own societies. As in Lincoln’s oration, Levertov uses rhetoric to sway our emotions. The hyperbolised oxymoron “a ‘balanced’ view of genocide”, combined with repeatedly re-enforced images of decay and destruction through long sentences of anaphoric listing, has an amplified emotional effect in highlighting the morally degraded state of society, challenging 1970s audiences to act. These images of decay simultaneously evoke an emotional response within future responders, forcing them to consider the enduring social and moral issue of war. Images of tranquility and beauty, “the spring sunshine, the new leaves” are contrasted to the reality of 1970s society. The universal appreciation of this image of beauty and peace not only influenced Levertov’s American audience to oppose the horror that was the Vietnam War, but continues to force future responders to question the very notion of warfare and oppose this impediment on society’s moral progress. Indeed, this indictment of governmental control over the moral direction of society is…