W. H. Auden - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

W. H. Auden

Overview

Wystan Hugh Auden who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet, name="OEDdef">The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED (2008 revision) is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England (or Britain) and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also the definition "an American, especially a citizen of the United States, of English origin or descent" in See also the definition "a native or descendant of a native of England who has settled in or become a citizen of America, esp.

Quotations

Written 1930, published in The English Auden :Written 1936; also known as "Funeral Blues" File:Tunnels of Time.jpg|144px|thumb|right|Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.Silence the pianos and with muffled drumBring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overheadScribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead

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 forever: I was wrong. Now the leaves are falling fast, Nurse's flowers will not last; Nurses to their graves are gone, And the prams go rolling on.

Written 1936. Lines 1-4 Cold, impossible, ahead Lifts the mountain's lovely head Whose white waterfall could bless Travellers in their last distress.

Lines 17-20 Acts of injustice done Between the setting and the rising sun In history lie like bones, each one.

Written with Christopher Isherwood|Christopher Isherwood in 1936. Act II, Scene V

Quoted by Richard Adams|Richard Adams in his novel Watership Down|Watership Down. Lay your sleeping head, my loveHuman on my faithless arm;Time and fevers burn awayIndividual beauty fromThoughtful children, and the graveProves the child ephemeral;But in my arms till break of dayLet the living creature lie:Mortal, guilty, but to meThe entirely beautiful.