I
sit in one of the dives
On
Fifty-second Street
Uncertain
and afraid
As
the clever hopes expire
Of
a low dishonest decade:
Waves
of anger and fear
Circulate
over the bright
And
darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing
our private lives;
The
unmentionable odour of death
Offends
the September night.
Accurate
scholarship can
Unearth
the whole offence
From
Luther until now
That
has driven a culture mad,
Find
what occurred at Linz,
What
huge imago made
A
psychopathic god:
I
and the public know
What
all schoolchildren learn,
Those
to whom evil is done
Do
evil in return.
Exiled
Thucydides knew
All
that a speech can say
About
Democracy,
And
what dictators do,
The
elderly rubbish they talk
To
an apathetic grave;
Analysed
all in his book,
The
enlightenment driven away,
The
habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement
and grief:
We
must suffer them all again.
Into
this neutral air
Where
blind skyscrapers use
Their
full height to proclaim
The
strength of Collective Man,
Each
language pours its vain
Competitive
excuse:
But
who can live for long
In
an euphoric dream;
Out
of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's
face
And
the international wrong.
Faces
along the bar
Cling
to their average day:
The
lights must never go out,
The
music must always play,
All
the conventions conspire
To
make this fort assume
The
furniture of home;
Lest
we should see where we are,
Lost
in a haunted wood,
Children
afraid of the night
Who
have never been happy or good.
The
windiest militant trash
Important
Persons shout
Is
not so crude as our wish:
What
mad Nijinsky wrote
About
Diaghilev
Is
true of the normal heart;
For
the error bred in the bone
Of
each woman and each man
Craves
what it cannot have,
Not
universal love
But
to be loved alone.
From
the conservative dark
Into
the ethical life
The
dense commuters come,
Repeating
their morning vow;
"I
will be true to the wife,
I'll
concentrate more on my work,"
And
helpless governors wake
To
resume their compulsory game:
Who
can release them now,
Who
can reach the deaf,
Who
can speak for the dumb?
All
I have is a voice
To
undo the folded lie,
The
romantic lie in the brain
Of
the sensual man-in-the-street
And
the lie of Authority
Whose
buildings grope the sky:
There
is no such thing as the State
And
no one exists alone;
Hunger
allows no choice
To
the citizen or the police;
We
must love one another or die.
Defenceless
under the night
Our
world in stupor lies;
Yet,
dotted everywhere,
Ironic
points of light
Flash
out wherever the Just
Exchange
their messages:
May
I, composed like them
Of
Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered
by the same
Negation
and despair,
Show
an affirming flame.
Wystan Hugh Auden, Anglo-American poet (1907-1973)
