Quotes by W. H. Auden

“The Ogre does what ogres can,Deeds quite impossible for Man,But one prize is beyond his reach,The Ogre cannot master Speech:About a subjugated plain,Among its desperate and slain,The Ogre stalks wi...”

“Now the leaves are falling fast, Nurse's flowers will not last; Nurses to their graves are gone, And the prams go rolling on.”

“Cold, impossible, ahead Lifts the mountain's lovely head Whose white waterfall could bless Travellers in their last distress.”

“And the poor in their fireless lodgings, dropping the sheets Of the evening paper: Our day is our loss, O show us History the operator, the Organiser, Time the refreshing river. And the nations com...”

“On that arid square, that fragment nipped off from hot Africa, soldered so crudely to inventive Europe; On that tableland scored by rivers, Our thoughts have bodies; the menacing shapes of our feve...”

“To-morrow the rediscovery of romantic love, The photographing of ravens; all the fun under Liberty's masterful shadow; To-morrow the hour of the pageant-master and the musician, The beautiful roar ...”

“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.”

“I'll love you, dear, I'll love youTill China and Africa meet,And the river jumps over the mountainAnd the salmon sing in the street,I'll love you till the oceanIs folded and hung up to dryAnd the s...”

“'O plunge your hands in water, Plunge them in up to the wrist; Stare, stare in the basin And wonder what you've missed.'The glacier knocks in the cupboard, The desert sighs in the bed, And the crac...”

“About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters.”

“They never forgot That even the most dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse Scratches its in...”