Auden and Spender

Spender and Auden described different aspects of war and destruction in their poems; for example in Auden’s poem September 1. 1939, Auden refers to different aspects of war and the consequences of it like human destruction and the lack of a sense of patriotism in human kind.
On other hand, Spender’s poem Ultima Ratio Regum also refers to destruction, but reflected in the dead of the little boy under the olive tree.

These authors’ writing is so descriptive that without knowing anything about the period of time they lived in, you could guess that they lived through war times.