A Few More from W.H. Auden
Man must either fall in love
with Someone or Something
or else fall ill.
---------------
Who can picture
Calvin, Pascal or Nietzsche
as a pink chubby boy?
---------------
Knowing that God knew
that what she really liked best
was not the stable
but the crowded inn, she built
a fine hospice for pilgrims.
---------------
Lonely he may be
but, each time he bolts his door
the last thing at night,
his heart rejoices: "No one
can interfere with me now."
---------------
How could he help him?
Miserable youth! in flight
from a non-father,
an incoherent mother,
in pursuit of -- what?
---------------
Few can remember
clearly when innocence came
to a sudden end,
the moment at which we ask
for the first time: Am I loved?
with Someone or Something
or else fall ill.
---------------
Who can picture
Calvin, Pascal or Nietzsche
as a pink chubby boy?
---------------
Knowing that God knew
that what she really liked best
was not the stable
but the crowded inn, she built
a fine hospice for pilgrims.
---------------
Lonely he may be
but, each time he bolts his door
the last thing at night,
his heart rejoices: "No one
can interfere with me now."
---------------
How could he help him?
Miserable youth! in flight
from a non-father,
an incoherent mother,
in pursuit of -- what?
---------------
Few can remember
clearly when innocence came
to a sudden end,
the moment at which we ask
for the first time: Am I loved?
Labels: DZ, Literature
posted by DZ at
2:13 PM
3 Comments:
Richard Adams opens each chapter of his novel "Watership Down" with a quote of some sort. Auden heads at least two or three different chapters.
Here's a frightening passage that heads a dark chapter of WD. It's from Auden's "The Witnesses":
===============
When the green field comes off like a lid
Revealing what was much better hid:
Unpleasant.
And look, behind you without a sound
The woods have come up and are standing round
In deadly crescent.
The bolt is sliding in its groove,
Outside the window is the black remov-
ers' van.
And now with sudden swift emergence
Come the woman in dark glasses and humpbacked surgeons
And the scissors man.
I love the pink chubby boy!
Answer to "pink chubby boy" question: Only their mothers.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home