This quotation has been traced to John Foster Hall (1867–1945), an English comedian known as "The Reverend Vivian Foster, Vicar of Mirth". See: Edward Mendelson, "'We are all here on earth to help others...'", audensociety.org (n.d.)
More quotes by W. H. Auden
To save your world you asked this man to die;
Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?
Let us honor if we can
The vertical man
Though we value none
But the horizontal one.
Attribution
Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: W. H. Auden (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.