Friday, March 20, 2009

Poesy: WH Auden

Lullaby

Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.

Soul and body have no bounds:
To lovers as they lie upon
Her tolerant enchanted slope
In their ordinary swoon,
Grave the vision Venus sends
Of supernatural sympathy,
Universal love and hope;
While an abstract insight wakes
Among the glaciers and the rocks
The hermit's carnal ecstasy.

Certainty, fidelity
On the stroke of midnight pass
Like vibrations of a bell
And fashionable madmen raise
Their pedantic boring cry:
Every farthing of the cost,
All the dreaded cards foretell,
Shall be paid, but from this night
Not a whisper, not a thought,
Not a kiss nor look be lost.

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.

- WH Auden

via poets.org

4 comments:

Newscoma said...

I love Auden. Thank you.

Rachel Joiner said...

I love Puppies, so thank you!

Char said...

LOL I had something sweet to say but then I saw your response so I had to laugh instead.

But I love Auden too. Underneath an Abject Willow is one of my favorites.

Rachel Joiner said...

Haha. Well, Newscoma is nice enough to post pictures everyday of her very, very young puppies, and sometimes it is the light that gets me through an otherwise dark day. I suppose that sounds pretty silly taken out of context!