H. Auden
H. Auden
dog grief cutting
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.
suffering masters
About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters.
men taste uncertain
The surest sign that a man has a genuine taste of his own is that he is uncertain of it.
suffering criticism ugly
It's better to say, 'I'm suffering,' than to say, 'This landscape is ugly.
listening prose remarks
Yet no one hears his own remarks as prose.
running loneliness father
Alone, alone, about the dreadful wood / Of conscious evil runs a lost mankind, / Dreading to find its Father.
mother heart sleep
The nightingales are sobbing in The orchards of our mothers, And hearts that we broke long ago Have long been breaking others; Tears are round, the sea is deep: Roll them overboard and sleep.
art apples giving
To me Art's subject is the human clay, / And landscape but a background to a torso; / All Cezanne's apples I would give away / For one small Goya or a Daumier.
time told-you-so
Time will say nothing but I told you so...
dream heart eye
Beauty, midnight, vision dies: Let the winds of dawn that blow Softly round your dreaming head Such a day of welcome show Eye and knocking heart may bless, Find our mortal world enough; Noons of dryness find you fed By the involuntary powers, Nights of insult let you pass Watched by every human love.
lying rising done
Acts of injustice done Between the setting and the rising sun In history lie like bones, each one.
zero losing loser
In life the loser's score is always zero.
money
Money is the necessity that frees us from necessity.
heart crooked neighbour
You shall love your crooked neighbour, with your crooked heart.