Auden: Poems

by W.H. Auden, Edward Mendelson (Editor)

The Everyman's Library Pocket Poets hardcover series is popular for its compact size and reasonable price which does not compromise content. Poems: Auden is just another reminder of his exhilarating lyric power and his understanding of love and longing in all their sacred and profane guises. One of English poetry's great 20th century masters, Poems: Auden is the short collection of an exemplary champion of human wisdom in its encounter with the mysteries of experience.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, 20th Century, Literature, Nonfiction, British Literature, Anthologies

256 pages, Hardcover

First published May 10, 1995

About the author

Poems, published in such collections as Look, Stranger! (1936) and The Shield of Achilles (1955), established importance of British-American writer and critic Wystan Hugh Auden in 20th-century literature.

In and near Birmingham, he developed in a professional middle-class family. He attended English independent schools and studied at Christ church, Oxford. From 1927, Auden and Christopher Isherwood maintained a lasting but intermittent sexual friendship despite briefer but more intense relations with other men. Auden passed a few months in Berlin in 1928 and 1929.

He then spent five years from 1930 to 1935, teaching in English schools and then traveled to Iceland and China for books about his journeys. People noted stylistic and technical achievement, engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and variety in tone, form and content. He came to wide attention at the age of 23 years in 1930 with his first book, Poems ; The Orators followed in 1932.

Three plays in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood in 1935 to 1938 built his reputation in a left-wing politics.

People best know this Anglo for love such as "Funeral Blues," for political and social themes, such as "September 1, 1939," for culture and psychology, such as The Age of Anxiety , and for religion, such as For the Time Being and "Horae Canonicae." In 1939, partly to escape a liberal reputation, Auden moved to the United States. Auden and Christopher Isherwood maintained a lasting but intermittent sexual friendship to 1939. In 1939, Auden fell in lust with Chester Kallman and regarded their relation as a marriage.

From 1941, Auden taught in universities. This relationship ended in 1941, when Chester Kallman refused to accept the faithful relation that Auden demanded, but the two maintained their friendship.

Auden taught in universities through 1945. His work, including the long For the Time Being and The Sea and the Mirror , in the 1940s focused on religious themes. He attained citizenship in 1946.

The title of his long The Age of Anxiety , a popular phrase, described the modern era; it won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1947. From 1947, he wintered in New York and summered in Ischia. From 1947, Auden and Chester Kallman lived in the same house or apartment in a non-sexual relation and often collaborated on opera libretti, such as The Rake's Progress for music of Igor Stravinsky until death of Auden.

Occasional visiting professorships followed in the 1950s. From 1956, he served as professor at Oxford. He wintered in New York and summered in Ischia through 1957. From 1958, he wintered usually in New York and summered in Kirchstetten, Austria.

He served as professor at Oxford to 1961; his popular lectures with students and faculty served as the basis of his prose The Dyer's Hand in 1962.

Auden, a prolific prose essayist, reviewed political, psychological and religious subjects, and worked at various times on documentary films, plays, and other forms of performance. Throughout his controversial and influential career, views on his work ranged from sharply dismissive, treating him as a lesser follower of William Butler Yeats and T.S. Eliot, to strongly affirmative, as claim of Joseph Brodsky of his "greatest mind of the twentieth century."

He wintered in Oxford in 1972/1973 and summered in Kirchstetten, Austria, until the end of his life.

After his death, films, broadcasts, and popular media enabled people to know and ton note much more widely "Funeral Blues," "Musée des Beaux Arts," "Refugee Blues," "The Unknown Citizen," and "September 1, 1939," t

Reviews

[Trish · Rating 2 out of 5]

W.H. Auden was born on 21st February 1907 in York. He grew up in and near Birmingham in a professional middle-class family. He attended English public schools and studied English at Christ Church, Oxford.
After a few months in Berlin in 1928–29, he spent five years (1930–35) teaching in English public schools, then travelled to Iceland and China in order to write books about his journeys.
In 1939 he moved to the United States and became an American citizen in 1946.

Auden was also gay, maintaining a lasting but intermittent sexual friendship with Christopher Isherwood, with whom he also collaborated on three plays, while both had briefer but supposedly more intense relations with other men.
In 1939 Auden fell in love with Chester Kallman and regarded their relation as a marriage; this ended in 1941 when Kallman refused to accept the faithful relation that Auden demanded. The two maintained their friendship and from 1947 until Auden's death they lived in the same house or apartment in a non-sexual relation, often collaborating on opera.

From 1941 to 1945 Auden taught in American universities, followed by occasional visiting professorships in the 1950s (he was the Professor of Poetry at Oxford from 1956 to 1961 for example).

From 1947 to 1957 he wintered in New York and summered in Ischia; from 1958 until the end of his life he wintered in New York (in Oxford in 1972–73) and summered in Kirchstetten, Austria, where he died on 29th September 1973.

He won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for his long poem The Age of Anxiety (published 1947), the title of which became a popular phrase describing the modern era. Unfortunately, this poem was not included in this book; a shame since a collection should always include the best/most known works.


Auden wrote prose essays and reviews on literary, political, psychological and religious subjects. He also worked on documentary films, poetic plays, and other forms of performance. Throughout his career he was both controversial and influential. Critical views on his work ranged from sharply dismissive, treating him as a lesser follower of Yeats and T. S. Eliot, to strongly affirmative (as in Joseph Brodsky's claim that he had "the greatest mind of the twentieth century").

I must admit that I had hoped to love Auden’s works more. I discovered him when Stephen Fry recited Funeral Blues in one of his documentaries about language and fell in love with the lines. Auden was definitely the romantic type. However, he was strong in expressing political views too, as is evident in Refugee Blues (yeah, he seems to have had a thing for „blues“, using that word in several titles). That became my second favourite en par with Archaeology and almost en par with Musée des Beaux Arts (again, the romantic kind). Also a pretty good one was The Shield of Achilles, which describes expectations of war vs reality. To be clear: those deserve 4 to 5 stars each (I'm only mentioning this because of my exceptionally low rating).
Nevertheless, there were only these few works that really stood out; the rest were either not really very memorable or even „ugly“ to me. That was surprising and saddening. Since Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, religion, and its variety in tone, form and content, I had hoped to spend several hours marvelling in the poet‘s world, seeing that I was understood or learning new perspectives even (which is what poetry is chiefly about) – but that was unfortunately not the case.

So 5 (6 with the Pulitzer-Prize-winning but not included one) out of 102 poems in this collection ... that's not a good bottom line.

[Vladys Kovsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Domesday Song

Jumbled in one common box
Of their dark stupidity,
Orchid, swan, and Caesar lie;
Time that tires of everyone
Has corroded all the locks
Thrown away the key for fun.

In its cleft a torrent mocks
Prophets who in days gone by
Made a profit on each cry,
Persona grata now with none;
And a jackass language shocks
Poets who can only pun.

Silence settles on the clocks;
Nursing mothers point a sly
Index finger at a sky,
Crimson in the setting sun;
In the valley of the fox
Gleams the barrel of a gun.

Once we could have made the docks,
Now it is too late to fly;
Once too often you and I
Did what we should not have done;
Round the rampant rugged rocks
Rude and ragged rascals run.

[Ccmaria62 crow · Rating 5 out of 5]

A slice of Auden:

Vintage
I
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.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public
doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.


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 for ever: 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.


W H Auden

Nuf said.

[cass · Rating 5 out of 5]

people in love with ryan ross are not logical and do insane things but,,,

“perhaps I always knew what they were saying: even those earliest messengers who walked into my life from the books where they were staying.”

wow. yeah.

[Micah Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A consummate modernist, I can feel his angst and desire for meaning and stability on every page. While many of the whole poems did not resonate with me (though many certainly did), nearly every poem has a line or two that pierced me to the heart. Auden is maybe the preeminent exemplar of Harold Bloom's inevitability principle: that a good poem or poetic line is one that could never have been said any other way.

[Stephanie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I liked how I was able to use W.H. Auden's poems to lull me to sleep.

[Marc Lamot · Rating 2 out of 5]

W.H. Auden, that's quite a name in poetry. I expected a lot of this anthology, but it was disappointing. Auden is a very versatile poet, that's for sure: he had a long carrier, and went through an interesting evolution. His work shows a great diversity of theme's and of poetic techniques. But, nevertheless, I wasn't appealed by it; especially the longer poems seemed to be tedious. Of course, there are some beauties (the classic "funeral blues" for instance, or the witty "archeology"). Perhaps my irritation is due to the editor of this anthology: there's no explanation about the choice (I don't know if it is in chronological order), and there are no notes that give context. A missed opportunity!

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Auden can be beautiful, delightful, ponderous, and haunting. About 70% of the collection in the Everyman's Library Pocket Poets edition [hand-sized, 256 pages] is easily accessible and enjoyable without contextualizing aids. I understand the publisher's concerns about book size and "pocketability," but I wish this edition included the poems' individual publication dates, if not a brief biographical timeline. Surely this would have only required another five or ten pages?

[April Capil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every time a starlet gets a Botox injection, I think of W. H. Auden: "O let not Time deceive you. You cannot conquer Time."

[Hayley · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one was hard work for me. The majority of poems I found wordy with no emotional impact for me.

The poems I did love I really loved. My favourite, the reason I bought the book was Funeral Blues. Made popular in the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Other standouts were O Tell Me The Truth About Love, In Memory of WB Yeats and Refugee Blues. The Shield of Achilles and Thanksgiving not too bad.

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like Auden. Most of the time.

[Patrick Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Up there with Wordsworth, Hardy, and Larkin. Heartbreakingly, staggeringly good.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Edward Mendelson was professor of English and Comparative Literature and Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, as well as the literary executor of the Estate of W.H. Auden. The poems in this collection of Auden's work were selected by Professor Mendelson but without all of the usual pretentious stuff where the expert tells the benighted reader what we are about to read. Part of the excitement of reading poetry is the one-to-one, face-to-face, mind-to-mind meeting of the author and the reader. This connection does not need an intermediary. Later, after puzzling over this or that about a poem, one may well seek the insight of the expert, but not before. I really only knew two poems by W.H. Auden: "Funeral Blues" and "The Labyrinth." "Funeral Blues" is the one that begins "Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone ... " For a certain generation, it can only be imagined in the Scottish accent of Matthew, who reads it aloud at the funeral of his lover Gareth in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" (1994). I have known "The Labyrinth" since I was very young. It is one of those poems which, like scripture, has the disconcerting property of changing its meaning in the several years between readings, many times over. It begins "Anthropos apteros for days / Walked whistling round and round the Maze, / Relying happily upon / His temperament for getting on." Auden's theology is a long way from my own but his sense of being lost as an infinitesimally small part of an inconceivably large Universe is superiorly expressed. How odd that Dr Mendelson did not choose it for inclusion in this book! Perhaps this is the point at which I should gush that the 102 poems in this book converted me from a reader only peripherally acquainted with Auden to a devotee. It didn't, but I'm still pleased to have read this much of the corpus.

[Tylyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm embarrassed to admit that I had been given this book ten years ago, and only just now had I gotten myself to read it. Though now having read it, more than embarrassed, I feel bad for myself that I missed out for so long on an experience with Auden.

I like to take my time with poetry anyway, but this is a book that is especially demanding of a slow read. With varying structures of rhyme and meter, as well as different lengths of poems, I found this collection worked better doing short reads of 2-4 poems a sitting than simply going through the entire book at once.

By my understanding just from the text, this is an anthology of sorts, with various poems published from Auden throughout his career. This was also fun for me, to watch certain changes occur, or at least how they're placed. For example, there are a lot of shorter poems in the beginning, and get longer as they go on.

However, the quality of poem, in my opinion, remains the same. Looking at my copy of the book right now, there are more dog-ears than I can count, and many poems that I can tell I'll be coming back to in order to reflect on later.

In a way, I suppose I'm glad I waited this long to read these poems. I doubt that my middle-school aged self would have been able to fully appreciate many of the topics at hand.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorites:

AUTUMN SONG

Now the leaves are falling fast,
Nurse's flowers will not last,
Nurses to their graves are gone,
But the prams go rolling on.

Whispering neighbors left and right
Daunt us from our true delight,
Able hands are forced to freeze
Derelict on lonely knees.

Close behind us on our track,
Dead in hundreds cry Alack,
Arms raised stiffly to reprove
In false attitudes of love.

Scrawny through a plundered wood,
Trolls run scolding for their food,
Owl and nightingale are dumb,
And the angel will not come.

Clear, unscaleable, ahead
Rise the Mountains of Instead,
From whose cold cascading streams
None may drink except in dreams.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am that strange beast that loves poetry, but dislikes most lyric poetry. I love the art and the craft when well done – when the full powers and tools of language are used in rhythmic expression. The problem with lyric poetry is twofold. Its brevity prevents the deep investigation of an idea and the development of an accompanying emotion. Second, lyric poetry is ultimately about the poet. And I’ve rarely seen a poet whose life or thought was interesting enough to sustain the seemingly thousands of poems they write.

That said, in the age of stacked prose and dumbed-down verse, Auden offers the night-blind poetry lover a glimmer of light. His mastery of verse – rhythm, rhyme, rhetoric and vocabulary – are a sensuous delight. He’s never one to take the easy way out and offer cut up lines of prose. The rhythms and rhymes play in our ears, and vibrate deeply within.

But like a lesser Yeats (and that is meant as a compliment – I wish I were a “lesser Yeats”), Auden’s poems – or more accurately their topics – are for the most part only mildly interesting. There are some that touch the depths (Death’s Echo and Refugee Blues) and some that are simply a delightful music (Lullaby and Calypso). Other poems left me confused, like Diaspora, and Sept. 1, 1939 (not included in this set). Is Auden blaming Jews for anti-Semitism? The “mistreatment” of Germany for Nazism? If not, he comes right to the edge.

This Everyman’s set is nice. It would have been helpful to include dates. But if you enjoy lyric poetry, this is a highly enjoyable collection.

[J]

"High over France, a full moon, cold and exciting
Like one of those dangerous flatterers we meet and love
When we are utterly wretched, returns our stare:
The night has found many recruits; to thousands of pilgrims
The Mecca is coldness of heart.
The cries of the gulls at dawn are sad like work:
The soldier guards the traveller who pays for the soldier,
Each prays in a similar way for himself, but neither
Controls the years or the weather. Some may be heroes:
Not all of us are unhappy."

- 'Dover'

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.

- 'In Memory of D.B. Yeats'

"Caesar's double-bed is warm
As an unimportant clerk
Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK
On a pink official form.

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."

- 'The Fall of Rome'

[Elena Sala · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a lovely collection of poems, selected by Edward Mendelson, Auden's literary executor. This edition includes many of his best poems, however, it lacks an introduction or a preface, which may be very useful for a reader encountering this poet for the first time.
Auden is not an easy poet at all. Sometimes he tries too hard to be clever and uses words for effect, without regard of their meaning. For this reason, parts of some of his poems can be incomprehensible. However, with a little help from bibliography, Auden can be made accessible to the novice.
His chief concern was, I think, the question of how we are to live. He is committed to telling the truth, unclouded by any sentiment. Many poems muse on our physicality and the vulnerability that goes with it. Above all, his poetry engages strongly with the landscape and natural life and often some kernel of truth will be distilled from his observation. He is really a wonderful poet, but his poetry requires some patience and much re-reading.

[Giulia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although I think Auden is a very strong writer and the poetry featured in this collection show immense skill, I did have a lot of difficulty following the poems, esp. the longer ones. Through most of the book I felt like I was just reading the words without getting the picture. This is more so my error than the author's, though I wish a small context caption was provided for the poems (besides the ones dedicated to other authors).

My favorite poems were 'O Where Are You Going?', "O What is That Sound", and "Funeral Blues". These were the most memorable, to me, and I loved the format of the individual poems. The content is also very powerful.

[Eleanor · Rating 4 out of 5]

WOW I really wish I'd bought my own copy so I could have annotated this!

An incomplete list of W.H. Auden poems that slap:
- "Taller To-Day"
- "September 1, 1939"
- "O What is That Sound"
- "At Last the Secret is Out"
- "Funeral Blues"
- "O Tell Me the Truth About Love"
- "In Memory of W.B. Yeats"
- "The Unknown Citizen"
- "Refugee Blues"
- "Eyes Look Into the Well"
- "In Memory of Sigmund Freud"
- "Lady Weeping at the Crossroads"
- "If I Could Tell You"
- "The Fall of Rome"
- "First Things First"
- "The More Loving One"
- "Compline"
- "River Profile"
- "Old People's Home"
- "Nones"

[Eugenea Pollock · Rating 5 out of 5]

By the end, I was really wrapped up in Auden’s witty, urbane, accessible, lyrical verse—though I admit that my affection was not instant. As with making any new friend, it took me a while to catch on to and appreciate his sense of humor, as well as his depiction of love and longing in a broad, inclusive sense. My absolute favorites were A Summer Night, Casino, The Lesson, Alonso to Ferdinand, The Shield of Achilles, Nones, The Common Life, and Archaeology. Note to the shade of W.H.: I wish we could have been friends.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favorites:
'O Where are You Going?'
A Summer Night
O What is That Sound
As I Walked Out One Evening
Autumn Song
Funeral Blues
Roman Wall Blues
O Tell Me the Truth About Love
Epitaph on a Tyrant
In Memory of W. B. Yeats
The Unknown Citizen
Refugee Blues
Woods
Plains
First Things First
The More Loving One
The Shield of Achilles
The Love Feast
Friday's Child
The Cave of Nakedness
A Thanksgiving

[Mia R · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think my favorite thing about reading this collection was watching the change in Auden's style and subject matter through the years, seeing how his ideas and perspective shifted as time moved on. If I had to pick a few favorites, I'd say: "The Secret Agent", "Funeral Blues" (because of course), "Lady Weeping at the Crossroads", and "Woods". Oh, and "The More Loving One", for the stellar line: "Looking up at the stars I know quite well, that for all they care I can go to hell."

[Addie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read some Auden selections in a poetry anthology and was interested to dive deeper. What is interesting to me about his subjects is that most of them are outward facing — friends, historical figures, objects of art or nature, and most of his poems don’t fixate on the internal or emotional landscape. Though I am not well-researched on it, I suspect this has to do with time period more than individual temperament, though surely it must be some of both.

[Christina Cuming · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed his poetry, especially more of his early poems, but my favourites were:


- Sir, no man’s enemy, forgiving all
- This lunar beauty
- To ask the hard question is simple
- O what is that sound which so thrills the ear
- Now through night’s caressing grip
- Lay your sleeping head, my love
- The more loving one

[Hans · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've wanted to read Auden since seeing John Hannah read his poem in 4 Weddings and a Funeral and it did not disappoint. With a breadth and depth of imagery and emotion Auden writes from somewhere in our own lives. He takes a position and aims at the familiar only to elevate it to the extraordinary - perhaps my new favourite poet.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 Some highly memorable verse here and, thankfully, more humor than Eliot. His too familiar rhyme schemes at times felt hackneyed and that only underscores my preference for free verse. But when he’s good, he’s great.

[James Violand · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uneven. This edition dissuades the reader. The opening poem selections are so peculiar as to impart that Auden was one of those avant-garde poets promoted by the hip. This is misleading. Continue reading and you will be rewarded despite the few poems that are puzzling.

[Andrew Bethke · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorite poets, and that's saying something seeing as how I don't like a lot of rhyming poetry. One of my favorite lines of his is one of the maxims I try to live by:

If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

[madelaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

at least 3 of these made me cry absolutely ridiculous i dont think any poetry has ever done that before. but theres some stuff that went over my head and i had to look up to contextualise

i adore his references to ancient societies tho very good to me