Wednesday, September 1, 2021

#244 / September 1, 1939*

 
W.H. Auden, poet, is pictured above. One of his most famous poems is reproduced, below. This poem, and its highlighted language, is my message for today:
 
September 1, 1939
W.H. Auden 
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

 
All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.


Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
__________________________________________
* On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland.
 
Image Credit:
https://www.wnyc.org/story/w-h-auden/
 

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