Thus stydy examines Geoffrey Hull`s unique and uncompromising work, especially his first two books of poetry-For the Unfallen(1959) and King Log(1968)-in terms of the relationship between history and poetry, and the duplicity of language dealing with historical atrocities. For the Unfallen: Poems 1952~1958 seems to enact his growing awareness of the problem that "language may deceive as it transforms." Hill is aware of the problematic that is the complacent aesthetic reduction of atrocious actualities. In particular, his war poems express uncertainty and difficulty in speaking about and for victims. Thus reality is "witness-proof". In King Log, we come to encounter, as dominant themes, "violence and suffering," so-called historical "atrocities," and Hill`s scrutiny of the "historical problems of power." Through some good exemplary poems, this study discusses Hill`s poetic language in dealing with painful history. Here to write a poem is to be a "living witness," where the poet`s use of the "living word" is a defense of the dignity of the human individual. At the same time, however, Hill never neglects the problematic of his only medium, "living words" to compose his work. Hill feels the bond of language-burden and solidarity, and the violence and sin of language in history. He oscillates between double meanings of "bond": "shackle, arbitrary constraint, closure of possibility" and "reciprocity, covenant, fiduciary symbol." Although he is keenly aware of language`s duplicity, slipperiness, impurity, and opacity, he confronts openly its helplessness, far from sinking into "negative skepticism". This quality of moral intelligence is what grows in his poetry and our rereading of it.