H. Auden
H. Auden
long-ago judgment accusation
Long ago the accusations had begun, And suddenly knew by whom it had been judged
fear children worry
the child unlucky in his little State, Some hearth where freedom is excluded, A hive whose honey is fear and worry, Feels calmer now and somehow assured of escape
truth important want
The most important truths are likely to be those which society at that time least wants to hear.
hope fear clever
I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade
art people saint
It's impossible to represent a saint [in Art]. It becomes boring. Perhaps because he is, like the Saturday Evening Post people, inthe position of having almost infinitely free will.
jobs work men
Between labor and play stands work. A man is a worker if he is personally interested in the job which society pays him to do; whatfrom the point of view of society is necessary labor is from his point of view voluntary play. Whether a job is to be classified as labor or work depends, not on the job itself, but on the tastes of the individual who undertakes it. The difference does not, for example, coincide with the difference between a manual and a mental job; a gardener or a cobbler may be a worker, a bank clerk a laborer.
work devil done
We till shadowed days are done, We must weep and sing Duty's conscious wrong, The Devil in the clock
hero law suffering
The truly tragic kind of suffering is the kind produced and defiantly insisted upon by the hero himself so that, instead of making him better, it makes him worse and when he dies he is not reconciled to the law but defiant, that is, damned. Lear is not a tragic hero, Othello is.
lying sadness eye
Intellectual disgrace Stares from every human face, And the seas of pity lie Locked and frozen in each eye.
regret hands water
O plunge your hands in water, Plunge them in up to the wrist; Stare, stare in the basin And wonder what you've missed.
grateful joy generations
To my generation no other English poet seemed so perfectly to express the sensibility of a male adolescent. If I do not now turn to him very often, I am eternally grateful to him for the joy he gave me in my youth.
skins disease behind-you
Behind you swiftly the figure comes softly, The spot on your skin is a shocking disease.
death children thoughtful
Time and fevers burn away Individual beauty from Thoughtful children, and the grave Proves the child ephemeral
god prayer children
To pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself. Whenever a man so concentrates his attention - on a landscape, a poem, a geometrical problem, an idol, or the True God - that he completely forgets his own ego and desires, he is praying. The primary task of the schoolteacher is to teach children, in a secular context, the technique of prayer.