Wystan Hugh Auden Poems

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
...

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
...

Did you ever hear about Cocaine Lil?
She lived in Cocaine town on Cocaine hill,
She had a cocaine dog and a cocaine cat,
They fought all night with a cocaine rat.
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I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
...

A cloudless night like this
Can set the spirit soaring:
After a tiring day
The clockwork spectacle is
...

As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.
...

Each lover has some theory of his own
About the difference between the ache
Of being with his love, and being alone:
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Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.
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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;
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I

He disappeared in the dead of winter:
The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,
...