  As Europe sank into war, the Priors were ardent pacifists. Not long after their visits to Germany and Austria, and as the Spanish Civil War raged, they joined the pacifist organisation Pax. New Zealand writer Dan Davin—who described the prewar Prior as resembling Welsh poet Dylan Thomas—spent some time with him in Oxford during the weeks before Britain’s declaration of war on Germany, saying that Prior would argue for long hours about pacifism in Oxford’s ‘Lamb &amp; Flag’ pub (Kenny 1971).