A Walk After Dark - W.H. Auden A cloudless night like this Can set the spirit soaring: After a tiring day The clockwork spectacle is Impressive in a slightly boring Eighteenth-century way. It soothed adolescence a lot To meet so shameless a stare; The things I did could not Be so shocking as they said If that would still be there After the shocked were dead Now, unready to die Bur already at the stage When one starts to resent the young, I am glad those points in the sky May also be counted among The creatures of middle-age. It's cosier thinking of night As more an Old People's Home Than a shed for a faultless machine, That the red pre-Cambrian light Is gone like Imperial Rome Or myself at seventeen. Yet however much we may like The stoic manner in which The classical authors wrote, Only the young and rich Have the nerve or the figure to strike The lacrimae rerum note. For the present stalks abroad Like the past and its wronged again Whimper and are ignored, And the truth cannot be hid; Somebody chose their pain, What needn't have happened did. Occuring this very night By no established rule, Some event may already have hurled Its first little No at the right Of the laws we accept to school Our post-diluvian world: But the stars burn on overhead, Unconscious of final ends, As I walk home to bed, Asking what judgment waits My person, all my friends, And these United States.
It's odd how often great poets are pretty poor at reading their own work. It was true of TS Eliot and Philip Larkin. And Auden too, judging by this. A brilliant poem, but a pretty wretched reading. Still interesting to hear it, though.
I love W. H. Auden!!!! Just memorized his "Funeral Blues". He is my favorite poet.
A Walk After Dark - W.H. Auden
A cloudless night like this
Can set the spirit soaring:
After a tiring day
The clockwork spectacle is
Impressive in a slightly boring
Eighteenth-century way.
It soothed adolescence a lot
To meet so shameless a stare;
The things I did could not
Be so shocking as they said
If that would still be there
After the shocked were dead
Now, unready to die
Bur already at the stage
When one starts to resent the young,
I am glad those points in the sky
May also be counted among
The creatures of middle-age.
It's cosier thinking of night
As more an Old People's Home
Than a shed for a faultless machine,
That the red pre-Cambrian light
Is gone like Imperial Rome
Or myself at seventeen.
Yet however much we may like
The stoic manner in which
The classical authors wrote,
Only the young and rich
Have the nerve or the figure to strike
The lacrimae rerum note.
For the present stalks abroad
Like the past and its wronged again
Whimper and are ignored,
And the truth cannot be hid;
Somebody chose their pain,
What needn't have happened did.
Occuring this very night
By no established rule,
Some event may already have hurled
Its first little No at the right
Of the laws we accept to school
Our post-diluvian world:
But the stars burn on overhead,
Unconscious of final ends,
As I walk home to bed,
Asking what judgment waits
My person, all my friends,
And these United States.
It's odd how often great poets are pretty poor at reading their own work. It was true of TS Eliot and Philip Larkin. And Auden too, judging by this. A brilliant poem, but a pretty wretched reading. Still interesting to hear it, though.
It is true, but that is an actor's task after all :)