W. H. Auden

"The greater the love, the more false to its object Not to be born is the best for man After the kiss comes the impulse to throttle Break the embraces, dance while you can."

"The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews Not to be born is the best for man The second best is a formal order The dance’s pattern, dance while you can. Dance, dance, for the figure is easy The tune is catching and will not stop Dance till the stars come down with the rafters Dance, dance, dance till you drop."

"Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone. Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come."

"He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; For nothing now can ever come to any good."

"Like love we don't know where or why Like love we can't compel or fly Like love we often weep Like love we seldom keep"

"And children swarmed to him like settlers. He became a land."

"Evil is unspectacular and always human, And shares our bed and eats at our own table."

"The Godhead is broken like bread. We are the pieces."

"As a rule, It was the pleasure-haters who became unjust."

"And still all over Europe stood the horrible nurses Itching to boil their children. Only his verses Perhaps could stop them: He must go on working."

"Lay your sleeping head, my love Human on my faithless arm; Time and fevers burn away Individual beauty from Thoughtful children, and the grave Proves the child ephemeral; But in my arms till break of day Let the living creature lie: Mortal, guilty, but to me The entirely beautiful."

"Every farthing of the cost, All the dreaded cards foretell, Shall be paid, but from this night Not a whisper, not a thought, Not a kiss nor look be lost."

"About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters: how well they understood Its human position; how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along."

"They never forgot That even the most dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse Scratches its innocent behind on a tree."

"The expensive delicate ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on."

"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."

"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."

"Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after, And the poetry he invented was easy to understand; He knew human folly like the back of his hand, And was greatly interested in armies and fleets; When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, And when he cried the little children died in the streets."

"Our researchers into Public Opinion are content That he held the proper opinions for the time of year; When there was peace, he was for peace; when there was war, he went."

"Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd: Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard."

"He 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 agree The day of his death was a dark cold day."

"By mourning tongues The death of the poet was kept from his poems."

"When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse."

"Each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom."

"You were silly like us: your gift survived it all; The parish of rich women, physical decay, Yourself; mad Ireland hurt you into poetry. Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still, For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives In the valley of its saying where executives Would never want to tamper; it flows south From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs, Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives, A way of happening, a mouth."

"Earth, receive an honoured guest; William Yeats is laid to rest. Let the Irish vessel lie Emptied of its poetry."

"Time that with this strange excuse Pardoned Kipling and his views, And will pardon Paul Claudel, Pardons him for writing well."

"In the nightmare of the dark All the dogs of Europe bark, And the living nations wait, Each sequestered in its hate;Intellectual disgrace Stares from every human face, And the seas of pity lie Locked and frozen in each eye."

"In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start, In the prison of his days Teach the free man how to praise."

"An important Jew who died in exile."

"To us he is no more a person Now but a whole climate of opinion."

"One rational voice is dumb: over a grave The household of Impulse mourns one dearly loved. Sad is Eros, builder of cities, And weeping anarchic Aphrodite."

"I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives; The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night."

"I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return."

"Into this neutral air Where blind skyscrapers use Their full height to proclaim The strength of Collective Man, Each language pours its vain Competitive excuse."

"For the error bred in the bone Of each woman and each man Craves what it cannot have, Not universal love But to be loved alone."

"All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die."

"Defenceless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame."

"Base words are uttered only by the base And can for such at once be understood; But noble platitudes — ah, there's a case Where the most careful scrutiny is needed To tell a voice that's genuinely good From one that's base but merely has succeeded."

"To the man-in-the-street, who, I'm sorry to say, Is a keen observer of life, The word 'Intellectual' suggests straight away A man who's untrue to his wife."

"At Dirty Dick's and Sloppy Joe's We drank our liquor straight, Some went upstairs with Margery, And some, alas, with Kate."

"My Dear One is mine as mirrors are lonely."

"Reason will be replaced by Revelation. Instead of Rational Law, objective truths perceptible to any who will undergo the necessary intellectual discipline, Knowledge will degenerate into a riot of subjective visions...Whole cosmogonies will be created out of some forgotten personal resentment, complete epics written in private languages, the daubs of schoolchildren ranked above the greatest masterpieces. Idealism will be replaced by Materialism. Life after death will be an eternal dinner party where all the guests are 20 years old...Justice will be replaced by Pity as the cardinal human virtue, and all fear of retribution will vanish...The New Aristocracy will consist exclusively of hermits, bums and permanent invalids. The Rough Diamond, the Consumptive Whore, the bandit who is good to his mother, the epileptic girl who has a way with animals will be the heroes and heroines of the New Age, when the general, the statesman, and the philosopher have become the butt of every farce and satire."

"Let us then Consider rather the incessant Now of The traveler through time, his tired mind Biased towards bigness since his body must Exaggerate to exist, possessed by hope."

"Sob, heavy world, Sob as you spin Mantled in mist, remote from the happy."

"We would rather be ruined than changed We would rather die in our dread Than climb the cross of the moment And let our illusions die."

"Unendowed with wealth or pity, Little birds with scarlet legs Sitting on their speckled eggs, Eye each flu-infected city.Altogether elsewhere, vast Herds of reindeer move across Miles and miles of golden moss, Silently and very fast."

"In a national capital Mirabeau and his set Attacked mystery; the packed galleries roared And history marched to the drums of a clear idea, The aim of the Rational City, quick to admire, Quick to tire."

"There is no love; There are only the various envies, all of them sad."

"... This land is not the sweet home that it looks, Nor its peace the historical calm of a site Where something was settled once and for all: A backward And dilapidated province, connected To the big busy world by a tunnel, with a certain Seedy appeal."