Song Of The Master And Boatswain by W H Auden
At Dirty Dick’s and Sloppy Joe’s We drank our liquor straight, Some went upstairs with Margery, And some, alas, with Kate; And two by two like cat and mouse The homeless played at keeping house. There Wealthy Meg, the Sailor’s Friend, And Marion, cow-eyed, Opened their arms to me but I Refused to step inside; […]
At the Party by W H Auden
Unrhymed, unrhythmical, the chatter goes: Yet no one hears his own remarks as prose. Beneath each topic tunelessly discussed The ground-bass is reciprocal mistrust. The names in fashion shuttling to and fro Yield, when deciphered, messages of woe. You cannot read me like an open book. I’m more myself than you will ever look. Will […]
Old People’s Home by W H Auden
All are limitory, but each has her own nuance of damage. The elite can dress and decent themselves, are ambulant with a single stick, adroit to read a book all through, or play the slow movements of easy sonatas. (Yet, perhaps their very carnal freedom is their spirit’s bane: intelligent of what has happened and […]
A New Age by W H Auden
So an age ended, and its last deliverer died In bed, grown idle and unhappy; they were safe: The sudden shadow of a giant’s enormous calf Would fall no more at dusk across their lawns outside. They slept in peace: in marshes here and there no doubt A sterile dragon lingered to a natural death, […]
Like A Vocation by W H Auden
Not as that dream Napoleon, rumour’s dread and centre, Before who’s riding all the crowds divide, Who dedicates a column and withdraws, Nor as that general favourite and breezy visitor To whom the weather and the ruins mean so much, Nor as any of those who always will be welcome, As luck or history or […]
In the Time of War, XII by W H Auden
And the age ended, and the last deliverer died. In bed, grown idle and unhappy; they were safe: The sudden shadow of the giant’s enormous calf Would fall no more at dusk across the lawn outside. They slept in peace: in marshes here and there no doubt A sterile dragon lingered to a natural death, […]
Here War Is Simple by W H Auden
Here war is simple like a monument: A telephone is speaking to a man; Flags on a map assert that troops were sent; A boy brings milk in bowls. There is a plan For living men in terror of their lives, Who thirst at nine who were to thirst at noon, And can be lost […]
Give me a doctor by W H Auden
Give me a doctor partridge-plump, Short in the leg and broad in the rump, An endomorph with gentle hands Who’ll never make absurd demands That I abandon all my vices Nor pull a long face in a crisis, But with a twinkle in his eye Will tell me that I have to die. ————— The […]
from The Cave of Making by W H Auden
Who would, for preference, be a bard in an oral culture, obliged at drunken feasts to improvise a eulogy of some beefy illiterate burner, giver of rings, or depend for bread on the moods of a Baroque Prince, expected, like his dwarf, to amuse? After all, it’s rather a privilege amid the affluent traffic to […]
Edward Lear by W H Auden
Left by his friend to breakfast alone on the white Italian shore, his Terrible Demon arose Over his shoulder; he wept to himself in the night, A dirty landscape-painter who hated his nose. The legions of cruel inquisitive They Were so many and big like dogs: he was upset By Germans and boats; affection was […]
The Shield of Achilles by W. H. Auden
She looked over his shoulder For vines and olive trees, Marble well-governed cities And ships upon untamed seas, But there on the shining metal His hands had put instead An artificial wilderness And a sky like lead. A plain without a feature, bare and brown, No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood, Nothing to […]
The More Loving One by W. H. Auden
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well That, for all they care, I can go to hell, But on earth indifference is the least We have to dread from man or beast. How should we like it were stars to burn With a passion for us we could not return? If equal affection […]
The Fall of Rome by W. H. Auden
(for Cyril Connolly) The piers are pummelled by the waves; In a lonely field the rain Lashes an abandoned train; Outlaws fill the mountain caves. Fantastic grow the evening gowns; Agents of the Fisc pursue Absconding tax-defaulters through The sewers of provincial towns. Private rites of magic send The temple prostitutes to sleep; All the […]
Epitaph on a Tyrant by W. H. Auden
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. […]
Cocaine Lil and Morphine Sue by W H Auden
Did you ever hear about Cocaine Lil? She lived in Cocaine town on Cocaine hill, She had a cocaine dog and a cocaine cat, They fought all night with a cocaine rat. She had cocaine hair on her cocaine head. She had a cocaine dress that was poppy red: She wore a snowbird hat and […]
Base Words Are Uttered by W H Auden
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. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry […]
August 1968 by W H Auden
The Ogre does what ogres can, Deeds quite impossible for Man, But one prize is beyond his reach, The Ogre cannot master Speech: About a subjugated plain, Among its desperate and slain, The Ogre stalks with hands on hips, While drivel gushes from his lips. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem […]
As the poets have mournfully sung by W H Auden
As the poets have mournfully sung, Death takes the innocent young, The rolling-in-money, The screamingly-funny, And those who are very well hung. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the ultimate repository of world poetry. Poetry Monster — the multilingual library […]
Academic Graffiti by W H Auden
Henry Adams Was mortally afraid of Madams: In a disorderly house He sat quiet as a mouse. Mallarmé Had too much to say: He could never quite Leave the paper white. Thomas the Rymer Was probably a social climber: He should have known Fairy Queens Were beyond his means. Paul Valéry Earned a meagre salary […]
A New Year Greeting by W H Auden
On this day tradition allots to taking stock of our lives, my greetings to all of you, Yeasts, Bacteria, Viruses, Aerobics and Anaerobics: A Very Happy New Year to all for whom my ectoderm is as Middle-Earth to me. For creatures your size I offer a free choice of habitat, so settle yourselves in the […]
The Huntsmen by Walter de la Mare
The Huntsmen by Walter de la Mare Three jolly gentlemen, In coats of red, Rode their horses Up to bed. Three jolly gentlemen Snored till morn, Their horses champing The golden corn. Three jolly gentlemen At break of day, Came clitter-clatter down the stairs And galloped away. ————— The End And that’s the End of […]
The Ghost by Walter de la Mare
The Ghost by Walter de la Mare Peace in thy hands, Peace in thine eyes, Peace on thy brow; Flower of a moment in the eternal hour, Peace with me now. Not a wave breaks, Not a bird calls, My heart, like a sea, Silent after a storm that hath died, Sleeps within me. All […]
Snow by Walter de la Mare
Snow by Walter de la Mare No breath of wind, No gleam of sun – Still the white snow Whirls softly down Twig and bough And blade and thorn All in an icy Quiet, forlorn. Whispering, rustling, Through the air On still and stone, Roof,; everywhere, It heaps its powdery Crystal flakes, Of every tree […]
The Mocking Fairy by Walter de la Mare
The Mocking Fairy by Walter de la Mare ‘Won’t you look out of your window, Mrs. Gill?’ Quoth the Fairy, nidding, nodding in the garden; ‘Can’t you look out of your window, Mrs. Gill?’ Quoth the Fairy, laughing softly in the garden; But the air was still, the cherry boughs were still, And the ivy-tod […]
The Keys of Morning by Walter de la Mare
The Keys of Morning by Walter de la Mare While at her bedroom window once, Learning her task for school, Little Louisa lonely sat In the morning clear and cool, She slanted her small bead-brown eyes Across the empty street, And saw Death softly watching her In the sunshine pale and sweet. His was a […]
The Fool Rings His Bells by Walter de la Mare
The Fool Rings His Bells by Walter de la Mare Come, Death, I’d have a word with thee; And thou, poor Innocency; And Love — a lad with broken wing; Apnd Pity, too; The Fool shall sing to you, As Fools will sing. Ay, music hath small sense, And a tune’s soon told, And Earth […]
Sunk Lyonesse by Walter de la Mare
Sunk Lyonesse by Walter de la Mare In sea-cold Lyonesse, When the Sabbath eve shafts down On the roofs, walls, belfries Of the foundered town, The Nereids pluck their lyres Where the green translucency beats, And with motionless eyes at gaze Make ministrely in the streets. And the ocean water stirs In salt-worn casement and […]
Some One by Walter de la Mare
Some One by Walter de la Mare Some one came knocking At my wee, small door; Someone came knocking; I’m sure-sure-sure; I listened, I opened, I looked to left and right, But nought there was a stirring In the still dark night; Only the busy beetle Tap-tapping in the wall, Only from the forest The […]
Silver by Walter de la Mare
Silver by Walter de la Mare Slowly, silently, now the moon Walks the night in her silver shoon; This way, and that, she peers, and sees Silver fruit upon silver trees; One by one the casements catch Her beams beneath the silvery thatch; Couched in his kennel, like a log, With paws of silver sleeps […]
Old Susan by Walter de la Mare
Old Susan by Walter de la Mare When Susan’s work was done, she’d sit With one fat guttering candle lit, And window opened wide to win The sweet night air to enter in; There, with a thumb to keep her place She’d read, with stern and wrinkled face. Her mild eyes gliding very slow Across […]
November by Walter de la Mare
November by Walter de la Mare There is wind where the rose was, Cold rain where sweet grass was, And clouds like sheep Stream o’er the steep Grey skies where the lark was. Nought warm where your hand was, Nought gold where your hair was, But phantom, forlorn, Beneath the thorn, Your ghost where your […]
Miss Loo by Walter de la Mare
Miss Loo by Walter de la Mare When thin-strewn memory I look through, I see most clearly poor Miss Loo, Her tabby cat, her cage of birds, Her nose, her hair — her muffled words, And how she’d open her green eyes, As if in some immense surprise, Whenever as we sat at tea, She […]
Melmillo by Walter de la Mare
Melmillo by Walter de la Mare Three and thirty birds there stood In an elder in a wood; Called Melmillo — flew off three, Leaving thirty in the tree; Called Melmillo — nine now gone, And the boughs held twenty-one; Called Melmillo — and eighteen Left but three to nod and preen; Called Melmillo — […]
How Sleep the Brave by Walter de la Mare
How Sleep the Brave by Walter de la Mare Nay, nay, sweet England, do not grieve! Not one of these poor men who died But did within his soul believe That death for thee was glorified. Ever they watched it hovering near That mystery ‘yond thought to plumb, Perchance sometimes in loathèd fear They heard […]
Bones by Walter de la Mare
Bones by Walter de la Mare Said Mr. Smith, “I really cannot Tell you, Dr. Jones— The most peculiar pain I’m in— I think it’s in my bones.” Said Dr. Jones, “Oh, Mr. Smith, That’s nothing. Without doubt We have a simple cure for that; It is to take them out.” He laid forthwith poor […]
At Ease by Walter de la Mare
At Ease by Walter de la Mare Most wounds can Time repair; But some are mortal — these: For a broken heart there is no balm, No cure for a heart at ease — At ease, but cold as stone, Though the intellect spin on, And the feat and practiced face may show Nought of […]
All That’s Past by Walter de la Mare
All That’s Past by Walter de la Mare Very old are the woods; And the buds that break Out of the brier’s boughs, When March winds wake, So old with their beauty are– Oh, no man knows Through what wild centuries Roves back the rose. Very old are the brooks; And the rills that rise […]
Alexander by Walter de la Mare
Alexander by Walter de la Mare It was the Great Alexander, Capped with a golden helm, Sate in the ages, in his floating ship, In a dead calm. Voices of sea-maids singing Wandered across the deep: The sailors labouring on their oars Rowed as in sleep. All the high pomp of Asia, Charmed by that […]
A Song of Enchantment by Walter de la Mare
A Song of Enchantment by Walter de la Mare A song of Enchantment I sang me there, In a green-green wood, by waters fair, Just as the words came up to me I sang it under the wild wood tree. Widdershins turned I, singing it low, Watching the wild birds come and go; No cloud […]
Nicholas Nye by Walter de la Mare
Nicholas Nye by Walter de la Mare Thistle and darnell and dock grew there, And a bush, in the corner, of may, On the orchard wall I used to sprawl In the blazing heat of the day; Half asleep and half awake, While the birds went twittering by, And nobody there my lone to share […]