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W.
H. Auden
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Always
giving the aerial picture
of the age in which you lived, the odd war,
(for this a trip to Iceland served as cure)
your face became the map of metaphor.
Your pals Spender, MacNeice & Isherwood
agreed that a weed was far too pretty
while the gas-tank held the Platonic Good;
beauty you assessed as cause for pity.
Now the Berlin Wall has come tumbling down
& neo-fascist youth is on the rise;
many as gorgeous as the boys you knew.
Narcissus has taken a new disguise
with refugees flooding every town,
that Europe is a mess wouldn't shock you. |
©
1998
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