 As I Walked Out One Evening |
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by W. H. Auden
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As I walked out one evening, Walking down Bristol Street, The crowds upon the pavement Were fields of harvest wheat. BPc)N-vpbw~~60_35.jpg)  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.
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ReplyDeleteLet's try again. Nice illustrations of Auden's imagery. He was an odd one. Gotta wonder if he discovered mushrooms before we did. I attended a reading by him half a century ago (did I say that out loud?) at the U. of Wisconsin. He was a lousy reader. Seemed to lose his place, as if unfamiliar with his words. Maybe just appreciating them anew. I don't remember what he read. I never appreciated him until this moment. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteMoments before I read this I posted this little verse on Fictionaut:
ReplyDeleteStarstruck
He called it Rosebud, this chocolate starfish orb
Of jacksy ring
To rectify the back door thing
His brown-eyed, elementary cleft did sing
For Venus, Mars and more
Considering the sun don't shine
So much on Jupiter, but for
The Plutoid bung of Saturn's rung
To run with Mercury's speed on Earth
“No!” they cried You never tried
Your Neptudism's tune's derived
Uranus, you must call this find.
Ashamed of myself? Of course!
Maybe this should be "in the Burroughs of the Nightmare".
ReplyDeleteWas not Auden the wrinkliest man in history? Was he wrinkly when you saw him? But of course he was, he must have been near the end of his craggy old, Goodyear-tire-resembling life.
ReplyDeleteHe looked like a Shar Pei,those Chinese dogs with three times more skin than they need. I think with people it comes from too much smoking. He died in '73, and this would've been after I returned from Germany, most likely, which was in '67. It's possible it happened before I joined the Army, which was in '63. Somewhere in that time frame.
ReplyDelete