W. H. Auden Quotes - Page 17

Quotes about:

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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Encased in talent like a uniform, The rank of every poet is well known; They can amaze us like a thunderstorm, Or die so young, or live for years alone.

W. H. Auden

Years, Uniforms, Talent

1940 'The Novelist'.

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When one looks into the window of a store which sells devotional art objects, one can't help wishing the iconoclasts had won.

W. H. Auden

Art, Wish, Looks

"The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays" by W. H. Auden, ("Postscript: Christianity & Art"), (p. 461), 1962.

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One rational voice is dumb: over a grave
The household of Impulse mourns one dearly loved.
Sad is Eros, builder of cities,
And weeping anarchic Aphrodite.

W. H. Auden

Death, Cities, Voice

"In Memory of Sigmund Freud" l. 109 (1939)

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

W. H. Auden

Civilization, Greek, Conscious

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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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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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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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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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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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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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Sob, heavy world Sob as you spin, Mantled in mist Remote from the happy.

W. H. Auden

Grieving, Fog, World

Age of Anxiety (1947) p. 104

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But he would have us most of all remember to be enthusiastic over the night. Not only for the sense of wonder it alone has to offer but also because it needs our love. For with sad eyes its delectable creatures look up and beg us dumbly to ask them to follow. They are exiles who long for a future that lies in our power.

W. H. Auden

Dream, Lying, Eye

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The surest sign that a man has a genuine taste of his own is that he is uncertain of it.

W. H. Auden

Men, Taste, Genuine

"The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays" by W. H. Auden, ("Reading"), (p. 6), 1962.

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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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W. H. Auden

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Born: February 21, 1907
Died: September 29, 1973
Occupation: Poet
Cite this Page: Citation

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