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Quotes from Another Time — W. H. Auden

1907–1973 England

← All quotes by W. H. Auden

32 quotes

To us he is no more a person
Now but a whole climate of opinion.

Another Time (1940)

For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

Another Time (1940)

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.

Another Time (1940)

Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice.

Another Time (1940)

Each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom.

Another Time (1940)

The expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Another Time (1940)

I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Another Time (1940)

When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse.

Another Time (1940)

Earth, receive an honoured guest;
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.

Another Time (1940)

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse.

Another Time (1940)

Evil is unspectacular and always human,
And shares our bed and eats at our own table.

Another Time (1940)

By mourning tongues
The death of the poet was kept from his poems.

Another Time (1940)

And children swarmed to him like settlers. He became a land.

Another Time (1940)

The Godhead is broken like bread. We are the pieces.

Another Time (1940)

Law, say the gardeners, is the sun,
Law is the one
All gardeners obey
To-morrow, yesterday, to-day.

Another Time (1940)

In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.

Another Time (1940)

As a rule,
It was the pleasure-haters who became unjust.

Another Time (1940)

Every farthing of the cost,
All the dreaded cards foretell,
Shall be paid, but from this night
Not a whisper, not a thought,
Not a kiss nor look be lost.

Another Time (1940)

Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace; when there was war, he went.

Another Time (1940)

Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

Another Time (1940)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: W. H. Auden (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.