NE LE 21 FEVRIER 1907, MORT LE 29 SEPTEMBRE 1973

As I walked out one evening,

   Walking down Bristol Street,

The crowds upon the pavement

   Were fields of harvest wheat.



And down by the brimming river

   I heard a lover sing

Under an arch of the railway:

   'Love has no ending.



'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you

   Till China and Africa meet,

And the river jumps over the mountain

   And the salmon sing in the street,



'I'll love you till the ocean

   Is folded and hung up to dry

And the seven stars go squawking

   Like geese about the sky.



'The years shall run like rabbits,

   For in my arms I hold

The Flower of the Ages,

   And the first love of the world.'



But all the clocks in the city

   Began to whirr and chime:

'O let not Time deceive you,

   You cannot conquer Time.



'In the burrows of the Nightmare

   Where Justice naked is,

Time watches from the shadow

   And coughs when you would kiss.



'In headaches and in worry

   Vaguely life leaks away,

And Time will have his fancy

   To-morrow or to-day.



'Into many a green valley

   Drifts the appalling snow;

Time breaks the threaded dances

   And the diver's brilliant bow.



'O plunge your hands in water,

   Plunge them in up to the wrist;

Stare, stare in the basin

   And wonder what you've missed.



'The glacier knocks in the cupboard,

   The desert sighs in the bed,

And the crack in the tea-cup opens

   A lane to the land of the dead.



'Where the beggars raffle the banknotes

   And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,

And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,

   And Jill goes down on her back.



'O look, look in the mirror,

   O look in your distress:

Life remains a blessing

   Although you cannot bless.



'O stand, stand at the window

   As the tears scald and start;

You shall love your crooked neighbour

   With your crooked heart.'



It was late, late in the evening,

   The lovers they were gone;

The clocks had ceased their chiming,

   And the deep river ran on. 

“All sin tends to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is what is called damnation”

W.H AUDEN

BIBLIOGRAPHIE

• Poems (London, 1930; second edn., seven poems substituted, London, 1933; includes poems and Paid on Both Sides: A Charade^[41]) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood).
• The Orators: An English Study (London, 1932, verse and prose; slightly revised edn., London, 1934; revised edn. with new preface, London, 1966; New York 1967) (dedicated toStephen Spender).
• The Dance of Death (London, 1933, play)^[41] (dedicated to Robert Medley and Rupert Doone).
• Poems (New York, 1934; contains Poems [1933 edition], The Orators [1932 edition], and The Dance of Death).
• The Dog Beneath the Skin (London, New York, 1935; play, with Christopher Isherwood)^[41] (dedicated to Robert Moody).
• The Ascent of F6 (London, 1936; 2nd edn., 1937; New York, 1937; play, with Christopher Isherwood)^[41] (dedicated to John Bicknell Auden).
• Look, Stranger! (London, 1936, poems; US edn., On This Island, New York, 1937) (dedicated to Erika Mann)
• Letters from Iceland (London, New York, 1937; verse and prose, with Louis MacNeice)^[42] (dedicated to George Augustus Auden).
• On the Frontier (London, 1938; New York 1939; play, with Christopher Isherwood)^[41] (dedicated to Benjamin Britten).
• Journey to a War (London, New York, 1939; verse and prose, with Christopher Isherwood)^[42] (dedicated to E. M. Forster).
• Another Time (London, New York 1940; poetry) (dedicated to Chester Kallman).
• The Double Man (New York, 1941, poems; UK edn., New Year Letter, London, 1941) (Dedicated to Elizabeth Mayer).
• For the Time Being (New York, 1944; London, 1945; two long poems: "The Sea and the Mirror: A Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest", dedicated to James and Tania Stern, and "For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio", in memoriam Constance Rosalie Auden [Auden's mother]).
• The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden (New York, 1945; includes new poems) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman).
• The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (New York, 1947; London, 1948; verse; won the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry) (dedicated to John Betjeman).
• Collected Shorter Poems, 1930–1944 (London, 1950; similar to 1945 Collected Poetry) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman).
• The Enchafèd Flood (New York, 1950; London, 1951; prose) (dedicated to Alan Ansen).
• Nones (New York, 1951; London, 1952; poems) (dedicated to Reinhold and Ursula Niebuhr)
• The Shield of Achilles (New York, London, 1955; poems; won the 1956 National Book Award for Poetry) (dedicated to Lincoln and Fidelma Kirstein).
• Homage to Clio (New York, London, 1960; poems) (dedicated to E. R. and A. E. Dodds).
• The Dyer's Hand (New York, 1962; London, 1963; essays) (dedicated to Nevill Coghill).
• About the House (New York, London, 1965; poems) (dedicated to Edmund and Elena Wilson).
• Collected Shorter Poems 1927–1957 (London, 1966; New York, 1967) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman).
• Collected Longer Poems (London, 1968; New York, 1969).
• Secondary Worlds (London, New York, 1969; prose) (dedicated to Valerie Eliot).
• City Without Walls and Other Poems (London, New York, 1969) (dedicated to Peter Heyworth).
• A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (New York, London, 1970; quotations with commentary) (dedicated to Geoffrey Gorer).
• Epistle to a Godson and Other Poems (London, New York, 1972) (dedicated to Orlan Fox).
• Forewords and Afterwords (New York, London, 1973; essays) (dedicated to Hannah Arendt).
• Thank You, Fog: Last Poems (London, New York, 1974) (dedicated to Michael and Marny Yates).