Great Regulars: The timing matters because,

as the third line of the poem shows, [Edith] Sitwell's Dives and Lazarus--those representatives of “the sore and the gold”, suffering alike under the bombs--are figures in the grandest possible drama: for every year in the Christian era, there is a cruel nail in Christ's cross.

Sitwell's quotation from the final scene of Doctor Faustus suggests that mankind, in its self-destructiveness, risks missing out on Christ's mercy--like Marlowe's erring scholar.

Still Falls the Rain
(The Raids, 1940: Night and Dawn)

from The Times Literary Supplement: Poem of the Week: Still Falls the Rain by Edith Sitwell

~~~~~~~~~~~