[Reader-list] Fw: cycle of history

[philip pocock]

it is a poem by Auden sent to the spectre mailing list by timothy
druckrey, a fine media curator/writer living in brooklyn new york

Hansa Thapliyal wrote:

> got this from a friend who has been the other phone end of long
> disturbed conversations.any idea who the author is?  my sister
> associated the last paragraph with the vigil on the indo pak border
> she was tellingme about only this evening, before we read this-
> apparently it happens every year, and the two lots of people are never
> alowed to go over to the ' other side'  but they keep trying.hansa A
> beautiful poem I got from a friend in response to recent
> events.. PV  September 1, 1939
> > > >
> > > > 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. oops just discovered, it is auden- the
> famousness does not appeal so much now- also because auden went on to
> join the fascists? am i wrong onthis- shoudl i have not written this
> at the end- the poem is heart breakingly - beautiful(sorry for that
> word)on another list, minstrels at yahoogroups.comthis poem appeared with
> this note appended.The poem (which has long been my favorite in
> English) speaks for itself. I
> might just note that in fact, as Auden himself pointed out some years
> later,
> we must love one another *and* die; it's a little light-minded to
> suppose
> that somehow love conquers mortality. It doesn't, though it can make
> the
> knowledge of mortality bearable.
>
> -- jvb
>
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