W. H. Auden Quotes - Page 17

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• August for the people and their favourite islands. Daily the steamers sidle up to meet The effusive welcome of the pier.

  W. H. Auden

  August, Islands, People

  'Look, Stranger!' (1936) no. 30

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• Over the tea-cups and in the square the tongue has its desire; Still waters run deep, my dear, there's never smoke without fire.

  W. H. Auden

  Running, Fire, Squares

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• Poetry makes nothing happen.

  W. H. Auden

  Poet, Happens

  "In Memory of W. B. Yeats" l. 36 (1940) See Auden 39; Andrew Fletcher 1; Samuel Johnson 22; Percy Shelley 15; Twain 104

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• The countenances of children, like those of animals, are masks, not faces, for they have not yet developed a significant profile of their own.

  W. H. Auden

  Children, Animal, Faces

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• You will be a poet because you will always be humiliated.

  W. H. Auden

  Poetry, Poet, Humiliated

  Entry for April 11, 1979. "Stephen Spender, Journals 1939-1983". Book by Stephen Spender, 1985.

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• The sky is darkening like a stain Something is going to fall like rain And it won't be flowers

  W. H. Auden

  Rain, Flower, Fall

  'The Witnesses' (1935) l. 67

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• All the rest is silence On the other side of the wall, And the silence ripeness, And the ripeness all.

  W. H. Auden

  Wall, Silence, Sides

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• Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.

  W. H. Auden

  Hurt, Mad, Ireland

  "In Memory of W. B. Yeats" l. 32 (1940)

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• 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.

  W. H. Auden

  Stars, Ocean, Love You

  Another Time (1940) "As I Walked Out One Evening"

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• Warm are the still and lucky miles, White shores of longing stretch away, A light of recognition fills The whole great day, and bright The tiny world of lovers' arms. Silence invades the breathing wood Where drowsy limbs a treasure keep, Now greenly falls the learned shade Across the sleeping brows And stirs their secret to a smile. Restored! Returned! The lost are borne On seas of shipwreck home at last: See! In a fire of praising burns The dry dumb past, and we Our life-day long shall part no more.

  W. H. Auden

  Fall, Sleep, Home

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• Out on the lawn I lie in bed, Vega conspicuous overhead.

  W. H. Auden

  Lying, Vegas, Bed

  'Look, Stranger!' (1936) no. 2

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• Had Greek civilization never existed ... we would never have become fully conscious.

  W. H. Auden

  Civilization, Greek, Conscious

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• Caesar's double-bed is warm
  As an unimportant clerk
  Writes i do not like my work
  On a pink official form.

  W. H. Auden

  Work, Writing, Clerks

  W. H. Auden, “The Fall Of Rome”

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• We till shadowed days are done,
  We must weep and sing
  Duty's conscious wrong,
  The Devil in the clock

  W. H. Auden

  Work, Devil, Done

  W.H. Auden (2016). “Canción de cuna y otros poemas”, p.83, DEBOLS!LLO

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• Time and fevers burn away
  Individual beauty from
  Thoughtful children, and the grave
  Proves the child ephemeral

  W. H. Auden

  Death, Children, Thoughtful

  'Another Time' (1940) no. 18, p. 43

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• 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.

  W. H. Auden

  Art, Apples, Giving

  1936 'Letter to Byron', pt.3, stanza 20, collected in Poems, Essays, Dramatic Writings 1927-1939 (1977).

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• Alone, alone, about the dreadful wood / Of conscious evil runs a lost mankind, / Dreading to find its Father.

  W. H. Auden

  Running, Father, Loneliness

  W. H. Auden (2013). “For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio”, p.7, Princeton University Press

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• The stars are dead. The animals will not look: We are left alone with our day, and the time is short, and History to the defeated May say Alas but cannot help nor pardon.

  W. H. Auden

  Stars, Animal, Looks

  'Spain' (1937) p. 12

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• Long ago the accusations had begun,
  And suddenly knew by whom it had been judged

  W. H. Auden

  Long Ago, Judgment, Accusation

  W. H. Auden, “In Memory Of Sigmund Freud”

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• If time were the wicked sheriff in a horse opera, I'd pay for riding lessons and take his gun away.

  W. H. Auden

  Horse, Gun, Wicked

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• Behind you swiftly the figure comes softly,
  The spot on your skin is a shocking disease.

  W. H. Auden

  Skins, Disease, Behind You

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• For time is inches
  And the heart's changes,
  Where ghost has haunted
  Lost and wanted.

  W. H. Auden

  Time, Heart, Ghost

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• 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

  W. H. Auden

  Children, Fear, Worry

  W. H. Auden, “In Memory Of Sigmund Freud”

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• Composing mortals with immortal fire.

  W. H. Auden

  Fire, Immortal, Composing

  'Three Songs for St Cecilia's Day' (1941)

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• In headaches and in worry
  Vaguely life leaks away,
  And Time will have his fancy
  To-morrow or today.

  W. H. Auden

  Worry, Fancy, Today

  W.H. Auden (2016). “Canción de cuna y otros poemas”, p.75, DEBOLS!LLO

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