Friday September 1, 2017<\/p>\n
A long time soul friend and fellow lover of poetry, emailed me two days ago \u2013 a poem by W H Auden, much loved by both of us over the years. \u00a0S\/he wrote:<\/p>\n
\u201cThis poem of WH Auden was quoted, briefly, at the end of a Sunday NYTimes op-ed a few days ago on the value of memorizing poetry, and also of reading it aloud. \u00a0I will send the link to you but also want to suggest the poem as one you might in turn suggest. \u00a0It seems to fit the political mood of a country that has to be thinking, often, \u2018Didn\u2019t we get rid of Hitler? Don\u2019t we know enough to repudiate fascist demagoguery?\u2019 \u00a0Evidently not \u2014\u00a0 \u201d<\/p>\n
Have a blest 1st weekend of September,<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
john sj<\/p>\n
p.s. Yes, even the NY Times thinks it helps to read a poem out loud, to which I add,\u00a0\u201cwith pauses.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I sit in one of the dives<\/p>\n
On Fifty-second Street<\/p>\n
Uncertain and afraid<\/p>\n
As the clever hopes expire<\/p>\n
Of a low dishonest decade:<\/p>\n
Waves of anger and fear<\/p>\n
Circulate over the bright<\/p>\n
And darkened lands of the earth,<\/p>\n
Obsessing our private lives;<\/p>\n
The unmentionable odour of death<\/p>\n
Offends the September night.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Accurate scholarship can<\/p>\n
Unearth the whole offence<\/p>\n
From Luther until now<\/p>\n
That has driven a culture mad,<\/p>\n
Find what occurred at Linz,<\/p>\n
What huge imago made<\/p>\n
A psychopathic god:<\/p>\n
I and the public know<\/p>\n
What all schoolchildren learn,<\/p>\n
Those to whom evil is done<\/p>\n
Do evil in return.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Exiled Thucydides knew<\/p>\n
All that a speech can say<\/p>\n
About Democracy,<\/p>\n
And what dictators do,<\/p>\n
The elderly rubbish they talk<\/p>\n
To an apathetic grave;<\/p>\n
Analysed all in his book,<\/p>\n
The enlightenment driven away,<\/p>\n
The habit-forming pain,<\/p>\n
Mismanagement and grief:<\/p>\n
We must suffer them all again.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Into this neutral air<\/p>\n
Where blind skyscrapers use<\/p>\n
Their full height to proclaim<\/p>\n
The strength of Collective Man,<\/p>\n
Each language pours its vain<\/p>\n
Competitive excuse:<\/p>\n
But who can live for long<\/p>\n
In an euphoric dream;<\/p>\n
Out of the mirror they stare,<\/p>\n
Imperialism’s face<\/p>\n
And the international wrong.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Faces along the bar<\/p>\n
Cling to their average day:<\/p>\n
The lights must never go out,<\/p>\n
The music must always play,<\/p>\n
All the conventions conspire<\/p>\n
To make this fort assume<\/p>\n
The furniture of home;<\/p>\n
Lest we should see where we are,<\/p>\n
Lost in a haunted wood,<\/p>\n
Children afraid of the night<\/p>\n
Who have never been happy or good.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The windiest militant trash<\/p>\n
Important Persons shout<\/p>\n
Is not so crude as our wish:<\/p>\n
What mad Nijinsky wrote<\/p>\n
About Diaghilev<\/p>\n
Is true of the normal heart;<\/p>\n
For the error bred in the bone<\/p>\n
Of each woman and each man<\/p>\n
Craves what it cannot have,<\/p>\n
Not universal love<\/p>\n
But to be loved alone.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
From the conservative dark<\/p>\n
Into the ethical life<\/p>\n
The dense commuters come,<\/p>\n
Repeating their morning vow;<\/p>\n
‘I will be true to the wife,<\/p>\n
I’ll concentrate more on my work,’<\/p>\n
And helpless governors wake<\/p>\n
To resume their compulsory game:<\/p>\n
Who can release them now,<\/p>\n
Who can reach the dead,<\/p>\n
Who can speak for the dumb?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
All I have is a voice<\/p>\n
To undo the folded lie,<\/p>\n
The romantic lie in the brain<\/p>\n
Of the sensual man-in-the-street<\/p>\n
And the lie of Authority<\/p>\n
Whose buildings grope the sky:<\/p>\n
There is no such thing as the State<\/p>\n
And no one exists alone;<\/p>\n
Hunger allows no choice<\/p>\n
To the citizen or the police;<\/p>\n
We must love one another or die.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Defenseless under the night<\/p>\n
Our world in stupor lies;<\/p>\n
Yet, dotted everywhere,<\/p>\n
Ironic points of light<\/p>\n
Flash out wherever the Just<\/p>\n
Exchange their messages:<\/p>\n
May I, composed like them<\/p>\n
Of Eros and of dust,<\/p>\n
Beleaguered by the same<\/p>\n
Negation and despair,<\/p>\n
Show an affirming flame.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
W.H. Auden Friday September 1, 2017 A long time soul friend and fellow lover of poetry, emailed me two days ago \u2013 a poem by W H Auden, much loved by both of us over the years. \u00a0S\/he wrote: \u201cThis poem of … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/170\/2015\/10\/Auden.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\nFebruary 21, 1907 \u2013 September 29, 1973<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"