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The Fall of Rome W. H. Auden. TWO SONGS FOR HEDLI ANDERSON. Give me a doctor. О тиранах. Iceland revisited. (for Basil and Susan Boothby)
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The Fall of Rome W. H. Auden
(for Cyril Connolly)
The piers are pummelled by the waves;
In a lonely field the rain
Lashes an abandoned train;
Outlaws fill the mountain caves.
Fantastic grow the evening gowns;
Agents of the Fisc pursue
Absconding tax-defaulters through
The sewers of provincial towns.
Private rites of magic send
The temple prostitutes to sleep;
All the literati keep
An imaginary friend.
Cerebrotonic Cato may
Extol the Ancient Disciplines,
But the muscle-bound Marines
Mutiny for food and pay.
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.
TWO SONGS FOR HEDLI ANDERSON
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 cr? pe 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.
II
O the valley in the summer where I and my John
Beside the deep river would walk on and on
While the flowers at our feet and the birds up above
Argued so sweetly on reciprocal love,
And I leaned on his shoulder; 'O Johnny, let's play':
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.
O that Friday near Christmas as I well recall
When we went to the Charity Matinee Ball,
The floor was so smooth and the band was so loud
And Johnny so handsome I felt so proud;
'Squeeze me tighter, dear Johnny, let's dance till it's day':
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.
Shall I ever forget at the Grand Opera
When music poured out of each wonderful star?
Diamonds and pearls they hung dazzling down
Over each silver and golden silk gown;
'O John I'm in heaven, ' I whispered to say:
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.
O but he was fair as a garden in flower,
As slender and tall as the great Eiffel Tower,
When the waltz throbbed out on the long promenade
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O his eyes and his smile they went straight to my heart;
'O marry me, Johnny, I'll love and obey':
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.
O last night I dreamed of you, Johnny, my lover,
You'd the sun on one arm and the moon on the other,
The sea it was blue and the grass it was green,
Every star rattled a round tambourine;
Ten thousand miles deep in a pit there I lay:
But you frowned like thunder and you went away.
Give me a doctor
Give me a doctor partridge-plump,
Short in the leg and broad in the rump,
An endomorph with gentle hands
Who'll never make absurd demands
That I abandon all my vices
Nor pull a long face in a crisis,
But with a twinkle in his eye
Will tell me that I have to die.
О тиранах
Small tyrants, threatened by big,
Sincerely believe
They love Liberty.
* * *
Tyrants may get slain,
But their hangmen usually
Die in their beds.
* * *
The tyrant's device:
Whatever is Possible
Is Necessary.
* * *
When Chiefs of State
Prefer to work at night,
Let the citizen beware.
Iceland revisited
(for Basil and Susan Boothby)
Encounter July 1964
* * *
Unwashed, unshat,
He was whisked from the plane
To a lunch in his honour.
* * *
He hears a 1oud-speaker
Call him wen known,
But knows himself no better.
* * *
The desolate fjord
Denied the possibility
Of many gods.
* * *
Twenty-eight years ago
Three slept well here.
Now one is married, one dead,
Where the harmonium stood
A radio:
Have the Fittest survived?
* * *
Unable to speak Icelandic,
He helped instead
To do the dishes.
* * *
The bondi's sheep-dog
and the visitor from New York
Conversed freely.
* * *
Snow had camouflaged
The pool of liquid manure:
The town-mouse fell in.
* * *
A blizzard. A bare room.
Thoughts of the past.
He forgot to wind his watch.
* * *
The gale howled over lava. Suddenly,
In the storm's eye,
A dark speck,
Perseus in an air-taxi,
Come to snatch
Shivering Andromeda
Out of the wilderness
And bring her back
To hot baths, cocktails, habits.
* * *
Once more
A child's dream verified
The magical light beyond Hekla.
* * *
Fortunate island,
Where all men are equal
But not vulgar-not yet.
THE PRESUMPTUOUS
They noticed that virginity was needed
To trap the unicorn in every case,
But not that, of those virgins who succeeded,
A high percentage had an ugly face.
The hero was a daring as they thought him,
But these peculiar boyhood missed them all;
The angel with the broken leg had taught him
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The right precautions to avoid a fall.
So in presumption they set forth alone
On what, for them, was not compulsory:
And stuck hallway to settle in some cave
With desert lions in domesticity
Or turned aside to be absurdly brave
And met the ogre and were turned on stone.
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