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As I Walked Out One Evening: Songs, Ballads, Lullabies, Limericks & Other Light Verse
W. H. Auden once defined light verse as the kind that is written by poets who are democratically in tune with their audience and whose language is straightforward and close to general speech. Given that definition, the 123 poems in this collection all qualify; they are as accessible as popular songs yet have the wisdom and profundity of the greatest poetry.
As I Walked Out One Evening contains some of Auden's most memorable "Now Through the Night's Caressing Grip," " Lay your Sleeping Head, My Love," "Under Which Lyre," and "Funeral Blues." Alongside them are less familiar poems, including seventeen that have never before appeared in book form. Here, among toasts, ballads, limericks, and even a foxtrot, are " The Chimney Sweepers," a jaunty evocation of love, and the hilarious satire "Letter to Lord Byron." By turns lyrical, tender, sardonic, courtly, and risqué, As I Walked Out One Evening is Auden at his most irresistible and affecting.
As I Walked Out One Evening contains some of Auden's most memorable "Now Through the Night's Caressing Grip," " Lay your Sleeping Head, My Love," "Under Which Lyre," and "Funeral Blues." Alongside them are less familiar poems, including seventeen that have never before appeared in book form. Here, among toasts, ballads, limericks, and even a foxtrot, are " The Chimney Sweepers," a jaunty evocation of love, and the hilarious satire "Letter to Lord Byron." By turns lyrical, tender, sardonic, courtly, and risqué, As I Walked Out One Evening is Auden at his most irresistible and affecting.
240 pages, Paperback
Published August 8, 1995
About the author
W.H. Auden
597 books1,078 followersPoems, 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
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
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
January 5, 2020
The crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.
Does anyone else find an unspoken trepidation in these early days of 2020? Perhaps the menace is in my mind, just another projection as I unconsciously weary of another installment of sameness? That might be harsh, though the warbled music from the other room isn't clear. I have held on to Auden so far. It is beyond me to expect another Fall of Madrid, an Anschluss but we collectively whistled as the glaciers tumbled and a mad landgrab for food security appears to be the song of the summer even as the drones carbonized wedding parties and Russian munitions levelled hospitals, even as the water revolted and the aquifers screamed.
No, I didn't have time for that.
Auden makes me gasp and more often chuckle. I need that, just as I do driving by a wind farm--even if the existence of such doesn't mean anything in lieu of a burning age which will halt our strutting, perhaps permanently.
A lane to the land of the dead.
Does anyone else find an unspoken trepidation in these early days of 2020? Perhaps the menace is in my mind, just another projection as I unconsciously weary of another installment of sameness? That might be harsh, though the warbled music from the other room isn't clear. I have held on to Auden so far. It is beyond me to expect another Fall of Madrid, an Anschluss but we collectively whistled as the glaciers tumbled and a mad landgrab for food security appears to be the song of the summer even as the drones carbonized wedding parties and Russian munitions levelled hospitals, even as the water revolted and the aquifers screamed.
No, I didn't have time for that.
Auden makes me gasp and more often chuckle. I need that, just as I do driving by a wind farm--even if the existence of such doesn't mean anything in lieu of a burning age which will halt our strutting, perhaps permanently.
September 1, 2022
I seldom read poetry these days. I had to in school, of course, and even wrote some (terrible, terrible stuff.) I remembered liking Auden, so, this being short, I gave it a little time. And some of it was good, and some of it didn't suit me. In the great battle between Apollo and Hermes for the soul of the University, I probably would have seen some merit in both sides, so probably Auden and I wouldn't have been friends. I don't much like rowdy parties anyway. And now I'll just quote some lines I liked:
Again, our age is highly educated;
There is no lie our children cannot read
- from "Letter to Lord Byron"
...So I wish you first a
Sense of theatre; only
Those who love illusion
And know it will go far:
Otherwise we spend our
Lives in a confusion
Of what we say and do with
Who we really are...
- from "Many Happy Returns"
...His [Apollo's] radio Homers all day long
In over-Whitmanated song
That does not scan,
With adjectives laid end to end,
Extol the doughnut and commend
The Common Man....
...In our morale must lie our strength:
So, that we may behold at length
Routed Apollo's
Battalions melt away like fog,
Keep well the Hermetic Decalogue,
Which runs as follows: --
Thou shalt not do as the dean pleases,
Thou shalt not write thy doctor's thesis
On education,
Thou shalt not worship projects nor
Shalt thou or thine bow down before
Administration.
Thou shalt not answer questionnaires
Or quizzes upon World-Affairs,
Nor with compliance
Take any test. Thou shalt not sit
With statisticians nor commit
A social science.
Thou shalt not be on friendly terms
With guys in advertising firms,
Nor speak with such
As read the Bible for its prose,
Nor, above all, make love to those
Who wash too much.
Thou shalt not live within thy means
Nor on plain water and raw greens.
If thou must choose
Between the chances, choose the odd;
Read The New Yorker, trust in God;
And take short views.
- from "Under Which Lyre"
Again, our age is highly educated;
There is no lie our children cannot read
- from "Letter to Lord Byron"
...So I wish you first a
Sense of theatre; only
Those who love illusion
And know it will go far:
Otherwise we spend our
Lives in a confusion
Of what we say and do with
Who we really are...
- from "Many Happy Returns"
...His [Apollo's] radio Homers all day long
In over-Whitmanated song
That does not scan,
With adjectives laid end to end,
Extol the doughnut and commend
The Common Man....
...In our morale must lie our strength:
So, that we may behold at length
Routed Apollo's
Battalions melt away like fog,
Keep well the Hermetic Decalogue,
Which runs as follows: --
Thou shalt not do as the dean pleases,
Thou shalt not write thy doctor's thesis
On education,
Thou shalt not worship projects nor
Shalt thou or thine bow down before
Administration.
Thou shalt not answer questionnaires
Or quizzes upon World-Affairs,
Nor with compliance
Take any test. Thou shalt not sit
With statisticians nor commit
A social science.
Thou shalt not be on friendly terms
With guys in advertising firms,
Nor speak with such
As read the Bible for its prose,
Nor, above all, make love to those
Who wash too much.
Thou shalt not live within thy means
Nor on plain water and raw greens.
If thou must choose
Between the chances, choose the odd;
Read The New Yorker, trust in God;
And take short views.
- from "Under Which Lyre"
December 30, 2014
His poetry gives me goosebumps <3
‘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.
‘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.
Read
April 7, 2025Av alla hundratals dikter var Calypso min absoluta favorit
August 27, 2015
I am in love with his poems
March 17, 2023
Overall, the book was well organized, and it has some true gold nuggets, so if you like poetry that's a little more playful you would probably like this, but it felt a little dense at times and wasn't my cup of tea.
When I first began this book I was a little concerned because I really wasn't a fan of a lot of the poetry and it felt disconnected and short, but as the book went on it began to become more thematic. Beginning with the letter to Lord Byron I liked it a lot more and found myself often underlining lines or stanzas that I appreciated. The poems toward the end were definitely some of my favorites. I wasn't a fan of how the poetry covers such a wide range of topics and experiences, although I must admit it shows not only the range of Auden but also allows the reader a plethora of poems to relate to (but I didn't particularly enjoy them). I must admit that I might be biased because I'm really not a fan of poetry books; I don't believe that it was the way that poetry was intended to be read (as poems are far too dense to be ready back to back).
When I first began this book I was a little concerned because I really wasn't a fan of a lot of the poetry and it felt disconnected and short, but as the book went on it began to become more thematic. Beginning with the letter to Lord Byron I liked it a lot more and found myself often underlining lines or stanzas that I appreciated. The poems toward the end were definitely some of my favorites. I wasn't a fan of how the poetry covers such a wide range of topics and experiences, although I must admit it shows not only the range of Auden but also allows the reader a plethora of poems to relate to (but I didn't particularly enjoy them). I must admit that I might be biased because I'm really not a fan of poetry books; I don't believe that it was the way that poetry was intended to be read (as poems are far too dense to be ready back to back).
March 10, 2019
A collection of light verse that covers a variety of topics and range from light in substance to only light in style. All poems are nothing short of good and some are even great. Recommended, especially if you don’t think reading poetry should be a slog.
March 21, 2023
There are some Auden poems that I still really enjoy (Funeral Blues will, predictably, always be a favourite of mine), and many that I find to be simply meh. His limericks are, occasionally, fun to read if one likes limericks. Personally I'm not the biggest fan of limericks.
November 3, 2018
I love his poetry. I keep dipping into it.
December 3, 2020
Such a treat to reread some favourite poems and enjoy some I haven’t read. The limericks were hugely entertaining too.
February 10, 2023
I only enjoyed one or two poems in this collection
August 25, 2023
What was this dude on the evening he walked out?
Sometimes this books just got me and I was suprised that I actually liked it. Other times I was so confused about what he was trying to say
Sometimes this books just got me and I was suprised that I actually liked it. Other times I was so confused about what he was trying to say
September 9, 2023
A mixed bag of light poems. Some were funny, some rude, some I didn't understand, some I didn't like but a good anthology of Auden's work.
March 4, 2024
kaut kas tur ir, bet ir arī daudz “nācijas” dzejas
March 24, 2024
“Live beyond your income /
Travel for enjoyment, /
Follow your own nose”
This collection — delightful travel companion!
Travel for enjoyment, /
Follow your own nose”
This collection — delightful travel companion!
March 27, 2024
When I started reading Auden's work I thought it was cheesy. As I finish reading this book I think it was cheesy, indeed (and so so so good).
August 1, 2024
Apparently, I dislike light verse.
January 13, 2025
It’s not very good.
Highlights are: Funeral Blues, some bawdy limericks and a Foxtrot about English love. Everything else is very poor.
Highlights are: Funeral Blues, some bawdy limericks and a Foxtrot about English love. Everything else is very poor.
January 21, 2008
If I had only one book to give to a good friend, I think this would be it. To my frail subjectivity, W.H. Auden is the best writer in the English language. And yes, I do mean "best" and not favorite.
Let us compare him to Shakespeare. This is why Shakespeare ultimately fails: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFof9A... And no, I don't buy the argument that Shakespeare is telling us about himself but none of us can really understand. As far as we can tell, he never left England or really fought in a war, which I believe is evident in his writing.
Auden is different because his poetry is intensely personal, we know he is writing about himself. If you look up the story of his life, you'll also know that he was a journalist in the Spanish Civil War, travelled and lived in different parts of the world (including pre WWII Berlin) and was actively engaged in trying to save people from the Nazis and alert the world to the dangers of Hitler.
This comes through in his poetry. Auden is an active participant in the one of the great shifts of humanity's intellectual and moral grounding, giving his writing a greater resonance, an intangible ringing far outstripping anything the cool tones of Elizabethan English can muster on the soft tissue of our modern auricle.
Let us compare him to Shakespeare. This is why Shakespeare ultimately fails: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFof9A... And no, I don't buy the argument that Shakespeare is telling us about himself but none of us can really understand. As far as we can tell, he never left England or really fought in a war, which I believe is evident in his writing.
Auden is different because his poetry is intensely personal, we know he is writing about himself. If you look up the story of his life, you'll also know that he was a journalist in the Spanish Civil War, travelled and lived in different parts of the world (including pre WWII Berlin) and was actively engaged in trying to save people from the Nazis and alert the world to the dangers of Hitler.
This comes through in his poetry. Auden is an active participant in the one of the great shifts of humanity's intellectual and moral grounding, giving his writing a greater resonance, an intangible ringing far outstripping anything the cool tones of Elizabethan English can muster on the soft tissue of our modern auricle.
July 6, 2012
I don't read much poetry and, Shakespeare aside, honestly tend not to understand most of it. That which I do like is simple and straightforward: Emily Dickenson, Ogden Nash, Verlaine, Rimbaud. WH Auden certainly fits in this category and produced a range of funny, sad, poignant and even downright ribald poems over the course of his career. This book collects many of them, including quite a number of poems that started life as lyrics in musicals or light operas among them the famous "Stop All the Clocks."
I would suggest that readers not take the "light verse" part of the subtitle too much to heart. There's not a lot of deep analysis required here, but there's plenty of imagery and passion alongside some frolics.
I would suggest that readers not take the "light verse" part of the subtitle too much to heart. There's not a lot of deep analysis required here, but there's plenty of imagery and passion alongside some frolics.
January 6, 2008
I rarely read books of poetry, only because I've never read a poet whose poetry I enjoy so completely as I do W. H. Auden's. Strangely enough, I learned about Auden from a movie: Four Weddings and a Funeral. John Hannah's character recites a poem toward the end of the movie, and I had always loved it. After watching the movie for the umpteenth time, I finally gave up and looked up the poem and found Auden.
I like a lot of poems and I like a lot of poetry. Auden's wry humor pervades his melancholic poems; his imagery is often a dark one, but I think that's what I like about him.
I like a lot of poems and I like a lot of poetry. Auden's wry humor pervades his melancholic poems; his imagery is often a dark one, but I think that's what I like about him.
November 7, 2010
Most light verse I have read is terrible. This book proves that it should only be undertaken by a great poet. Leave the epic, ode, and sonnet to the mediocre, the limerick is the realm of the genius.
There was a young poet whose sex
Was aroused by aesthetic effects;
Marvell's The Garden
Gave him a hard-on
And he came during Oedipus Rex.
(169)
There was a young poet whose sex
Was aroused by aesthetic effects;
Marvell's The Garden
Gave him a hard-on
And he came during Oedipus Rex.
(169)
February 2, 2014
I read this collection, selected by Edward Mendelson, based on the Alexander McCall Smith book "What W. H. Auden Can Do For You" (see my GoodReads review). I am not well-read in poetry. But I know what I like. In this collection I liked "Funeral Blues" and a few other of Auden's shorter poems. He lost me on most.
September 24, 2015
Maybe even more entertaining that reading Auden's light verse this time around was reading the marginal notes made by my 20-year-old self. Hahahha, what a dork. I obviously knew nothing about anything. :) Note for gentle readers: "Light verse" refers more to style and tone than subject matter. With Auden, there's always the possibility of dark subject material and sharp language.
November 6, 2007
I don't know about "light verse". Even the lightest of Auden's verse still contains at least one line with such piercing insight into the human condition, and such wailing beauty as to render it a little "heavier".
July 27, 2009
Too many favorites to mention.
Suffice to say that this collection is among the most desireable of Auden collections in print. That's not bad for the greatest English lanuage poet of the 20th century.
Suffice to say that this collection is among the most desireable of Auden collections in print. That's not bad for the greatest English lanuage poet of the 20th century.
August 8, 2011
Auden's work is so versatile, fun and engaging. There are some really famous poems in here such as Funeral Blues which was featured in the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral, but there are plenty of other little gems.
March 1, 2016
Meh. A few profound moments (and the limericks were at least amusing) but most of them just baffled that anyone would think them worth publishing. It may be that in their original context (various Isherwood revues, plays, toasts for college special occasions) their interest was more apparent.
August 22, 2009
Ah, the kind of verse that's light but deep. Good through and through.
February 22, 2010
Poetry that moves the soul.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews