W. H. Auden – In Memory of Sigmund Freud

When there are so many we shall have to mourn, when grief has been made so public, and exposed      to the critique of a whole epoch    the frailty of our conscience and anguish, of whom shall we speak? For every day they die among us, those...

W. H. Auden – On the Circuit

Among pelagian travelers,Lost on their lewd conceited wayTo Massachusetts, Michigan,Miami or L.A.,An airborne instrument I sit,Predestined nightly to fulfillColumbia-Giesen-Management'sUnfathomable will,By whose election justified,I bring my gospel of the MuseTo fundamentalists,...

W. H. Auden – Grub First, Then Ethics

Should the shade of PlatoVisit us, anxious to knowhow anthropos is, we could say to him: "Well,we can read to ourselves, our useof holy numbers would shock you, and a poetmay lament—'Where is Telfordwhose bridged canals are still a Shropshire glorywhere Muir who on a Douglas Sprucerode...

W. H. Auden – The More Loving One

Looking up at the stars, I know quite wellThat, for all they care, I can go to hell,But on earth indifference is the leastWe have to dread from man or beast.How should we like it were stars to burnWith a passion for us we could not return?If equal affection cannot be,Let the more...

W. H. Auden – In Memory of W. B. Yeats

IHe disappeared in the dead of winter:The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,And snow disfigured the public statues;The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.What instruments we have agreeThe day of his death was a dark cold day.Far from his illnessThe wolves ran...