  Poetry
This week: W. H. Auden Edited by: Stormy Lady  
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September 1, 1939
by W. H. Auden
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.
Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.
From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
"I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,"
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?
All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.
Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
Wystan Hugh Auden was born in York, England, on February 21 1907. His father was George Auden a physician, his mother Constance Bicknell a nurse. He was the youngest of three boys. Auden went to Christ Church College, which is part of the University of Oxford. There he study poetry and was influenced by great poets like William Blake, Robert Frost, and Emily Dickinson. After graduation Auden spent the next five years as a schoolmaster in England and Scotland.
Auden's first book, Poems, established him as a respected poet. Trips to Iceland and China led to two more books, jointly written by Auden's college classmates. The first book, Letter from Iceland, was written with Louis MacNeice, and the second book, Journey to War, was written with Christopher Isherwood.
In 1935 Auden married Erika Mann. They moved to the United States in 1939, he became a citizen in 1946. It was in that same year he met his lover Chester Kallman. Auden was not only a poet but a noted playwright and editor. His works include Double Man, For the Times Being, Collected Poetry, The Shield of Achilles, Collected Longer Poems and The Age of Anxiety which won him the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. He also wrote several opera librettos with his lover Chester Kallman. In 1956 he became a professor of poetry at Oxford and he taught there for the next five years. His wife Erika Mann died on August 27 1969. Over the years Auden lived in many countries and won several poetry awards. He was also a "Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets" until he died from heart failure on September 29, 1973.
As I Walked Out One Evening
W. H. Auden
As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.
And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
'Love has no ending.
'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,
'I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.
'The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.'
But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
'O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.
'In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.
'In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.
'Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.
'O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.
'The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.
'Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.
'O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.
'O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.'
It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.
Thank you all!
Stormy Lady
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The winners of "Stormy's poetry newsletter & contest" [ASR] are:
{bitem:1663089 }
The most painful thing is-
the beating of a broken heart.
Neither it heals completely,
nor it shatters apart.
Etched on it remains-
the memories of my past,
and the haunting presence of
the love that didn't last.
In the shadows of darkness,
my eyes search for a familiar face.
But no one helps a man
who has fallen down from grace.
One day I'll shed my veil of grief,
and ignore the wink of spasmatic pain.
I'll take control of my quivering fate;
and live my life once again.
| |  | Invalid Item
This item number is not valid.
#1661181 by Not Available. |
A Walk at Night
I love a walk in the darkness.
I enjoy the solitude and quiet.
I truly partake of the blindness.
Often I feel like an evening bandit.
It is surreal as if a shadow.
I feel as if I am invisible.
Within my body I am aglow.
I feel so confident, so agile.
Never are my moments shattered.
I pretend I am a super hero.
I know I'll never be battered.
Nothing will curb my ego.
Most are frozen with constant quivers.
Fear of the unknown takes over.
Those folks are mere actors.
They are fearful of their past blunders.
I partake of the ever present haunting.
My confidence is never shaken.
To me this state is not disarming.
I find it a time to be prepared for action.
Pity those whose fears can't be shed.
They don't recognize this simple pleasure.
They spend those moments in total dread.
I love a walk in the darkness.
Honorable mention:
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Poetry: April 14, 2010 Issue [#3673]
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