Category W. H. Auden

Look there! The sunk road winding To the fortified farm. Listen! The cock’s alarm In the strange valley.   Are we the stubborn athletes; Are we then to begin The run between the gin And bloody falcon?   The horns…

(For Arthur and Angelyn Stevens)   Kicking his mother until she let go of his soul Has given him a healthy appetite: clearly, her r6le In the New Order must be To supply and deliver his raw materials free; Should…

Just as his dream foretold, he met them all: The smiling grimy boy at the garage Ran out before he blew his horn; the tall Professor in the mountains with his large Tweed pockets full of plants addressed him hours…

(For John Rettgei) Johnny, since today is February the twelfth when Neighbours and relations Think of you and wish, Though a staunch Aquarian, Graciously accept the Verbal celebrations Of a doubtful Fish.   Seven years ago you Warmed your mother’s…

I It was Easter as I walked in the public gardens Hearing the frogs exhaling from the pond, Watching traffic of magnificent cloud Moving without anxiety on open sky — Season when lovers and writers find An altering speech for…

Its leading characters are wise and witty; Substantial men of birth and education With wide experience of administration, They know the manners of a modern city.   Only the servants enter unexpected; Their silence has a fresh dramatic use: Here…

It’s farewell to the drawing-room’s civilised cry, The professor’s sensible whereto and why, The frock-coated diplomat’s social aplomb. Now matters are settled with gas and with bomb.   The works for two pianos, the brilliant stories Of reasonable giants and…

In gorgeous robes befitting the occasion For weeks their spiritual and temporal lordships met To reconcile eternity with time and set The earth of marriage on a sure foundation : The little town was full of spies; corrupt mankind Chatted…

Holding the distance up before his face And standing under the peculiar tree, He seeks the hostile unfamiliar place, It is the strangeness that he tries to see   Of lands where he will not be asked to stay; And…

His gift knew what he was — a dark disordered city; Doubt hid it from the father’s fond chastising sky; Where once the mother-farms had glowed protectively. Stood the haphazard alleys of the neighbour’s pity.   — Yet would have…