Poem by W. H. Auden

From Another Time , 1940

by W.H. Auden

b. 1907-d. 1973.

"September 1, 1939"

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 odor of death offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can unearth the whole offense from Luther until now

that has driven a culture mad; find what occurred at Linz,

what huge image made a psychopathic god.

I and the public know what all school children 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;

analyzed all in his book, the enlightenment driven away,

the habit-forming pain, the 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,

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 this voice to undo the folded lie,

the romantic lie in the brain of the sensual man in the street

and the life 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.

Defenseless 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...