Стихи и эссе

W.H.AUDEN. SELECTED POEMS

In certain poems the audio version differs from the published text.

W. H. AUDEN

(from a preface by J. D. McClatchy)

When he arrived at Oxford as an undergraduate, W. H. Auden went to see his tutor in literature, who asked the young man what he meant to do in later life. "I am going to be a poet," Auden answered. "Ah, yes," replied the tutor, and began a small lecture on verse exercises improving one's prose. Auden scowled. "You don't understand at all," he interrupted. "I mean a great poet."

The Wanderer

     Doom is dark and deeper than any sea-dingle.
     Upon what man it fall
     In spring, day-wishing flowers appearing,
     Avalanche sliding, white snow from rock-face,
     That he should leave his house,
     No cloud-soft hand can hold him, restraint by women;
     But ever that man goes
     Through place-keepers, through forest trees,
     A stranger to strangers over undried sea,
     Houses for fishes, suffocating water,
     Or lonely on fell as chat,
     By pot-holed becks
     A bird stone-haunting, an unquiet bird.
     There head falls forward, fatigued at evening,
     And dreams of home,
     Waving from window, spread of welcome,
     Kissing of wife under single sheet;
     But waking sees
     Bird-flocks nameless to him, through doorway voices
     Of new men making another love.

     Save him from hostile capture,

     From sudden tiger's leap at corner;
     Protect his house,
     His anxious house where days are counted
     From thunderbolt protect,
     From gradual ruin spreading like a stain;
     Converting number from vague to certain,
     Bring joy, bring day of his returning,
     Lucky with day approaching, with leaning dawn.

1930

O Where Are You Going?

     "O where are you going?" said reader to rider,
     "That valley is fatal where furnaces burn,
     Yonder's the midden whose odours will madden,
     That gap is the grave where the tall return."

     "O do you imagine," said fearer to farer,

     "That dusk will delay on your path to the pass,
     Your diligent looking discover the lacking,
     Your footsteps feel from granite to grass?"

     "O what was that bird," said horror to hearer,

     "Did you see that shape in the twisted trees?
     Behind you swiftly the figure comes softly,
     The spot on your skin is a shocking disease."

     "Out of this house"-said rider to reader,

     "Yours never will"-said farer to fearer
     "They're looking for you"-said hearer to horror,
     As he left them there, as he left them there.

1931

Hunting Fathers