A Few Words from W. H. Auden
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A Few Words from W. H. Auden
Jan 6, 2021
I keep a book of Auden’s poems on the table next to my bed. Now and again I settle in with a few minutes of stop all the clocks and the like before I go to sleep.
I have had the book for decades. It’s a small hardback with “Auden” embossed in gold on the front and a woven cloth bookmark that comes fully integrated.
For a few years, I have kept the bookmark fixed at the same place. Even though I have it memorized, I have always started with this one, words written in 1939:
Epitaph on a Tyrant
Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.
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