WH Auden

I have been slow in coming to Auden, aware of him the light that shines on him, his manner of speech.  Now, poetry I like most is often the poetry which makes me rhyme and so the easiest way in to a poet’s work -  or the most fun, for me - is the declamatory stuff.  Blow winds, crack your cheeks.  etc.


This from The Age of Anxiety,

Well, here I am but how, how, asks the visitor,
Strolling through the strange streets, can I start to discover
The fashionable feminine fret, or the form of insult
Minded most by the men? In what myth do their sages

        Locate the cause of evil?
        How are these people punished?

How, above all, will they end?  By any natural
Fascination of frost or flood, or from the artful
Obliterating bang whereby God’s rebellious image
After thousands of thankless years spent in thinking about it,

        Finally finds a solid
        Proof of its independence?

compadres

Simply for the pleasure of it, this talkative group: Peter, Dominic, Quentin.

The Photo was taken the afternoon before the event below, and is a souvenir of a few days together that week on the East coast.

A happy time with Steak and Kidney pie, Norfolk sausages, Cromer crab, flashes of merriment, occasional seriousness and as much Yeats as anyone else, apart from ourselves of course.