The problems a poet would solve. How does a poet respond to life’s problems, in politics and otherwise? W.B. Yeats records one lyrical response to Thomas Mann.

‘In our time the destiny of man presents its meanings in political terms.’  Thomas Mann

How can I, that girl standing there,
My attention fix
On Roman or on Russian
Or on Spanish politics,
Yet here’s a travelled man that knows
What he talks about,
And there’s a politician
That has both read and thought,
And maybe what they say is true
Of war and war’s alarms,
But O that I were young again
And held her in my arms.

“Politics” in Last Poems (1938-39)