Selected Poems of W. H. Auden
W. H. Auden (1907-1973)
As I Walked Out One Evening [1940]
As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.
And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
'Love has no ending.
'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,
'I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.
'The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.'
But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
'O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.
'In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.
'In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.
'Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.
'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 crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.
'Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.
'O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.
'O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.'
It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.
Questions for Discussion
1. In the first stanza, the “fields of harvest wheat” (line 4) is a (an)_____ for crowds of people.
A) symbol
B) metaphor
C) simile
D) example of personification
E) paradox
2. The first speaker (stanza 1) of this poem is
A) young lover
B) narrator
C) a woman under a bridge
D) a student
E) the poet
3. The second speaker in this poem is
A) a young lover
B) narrator
C) a woman under a bridge
D) a student
E) the poet
4. The expression “I’ll love you / Till China and Africa meet,” is a(an)
A) paradox
B) personification
C) metonymy
D) metaphor
E) simile
5. The diction us ed to describe the river (line 5) is best interpreted to mean
A) the lovers are crying
B) the speaker is drowning
C) that the narrator sees it as important
D) it is the spring of the year
E) all the earth mourns
6. All of the following are exam ples of personification EXCEPT
A) “brimming river” (line 5)
B) “river jumps” (line 11)
C) “salmon sing” (line 12)
D) “stars go squawking” (line 15)
E) “Time breaks” (Line 35)
7. The phrase “till the ocean / Folded and hung up to dry” (lines 13-14) is a (an)
A) assonance
B) alliteration
C) metaphor
D) simile
E) allegory
8. Stanza 5 implies that the woman is
A) unfaithful
B) faithful
C) most beautiful
D) most ugly
E) eternally lasting
9. The third speaker in this poem is the
A) lover
B) narrator
C) clock
D) stars
E) Justice
10. The dominant theme of the poem involves
A) the idea that love lasts forever
B) the mutability of time
C) the immutability of time
D) the powerful nature of time
E) man’s helplessness where time is concerned
11. Stanza 7 implies that time is the _____ of man.
A) friend
B) lover
C) epitome of indifference (to)
D) enemy
E) parent
12. The powerful image found in stanza 9 is that of
A) life
B) joy
C) sadness
D) color
E) death
13. The warning implied in the poem is that all must
A) disregard the effects of time
B) conquer time
C) be indifferent to time
D) takes advantage of time
E) use time wisely
14. The tone of the poem is
A) joyous
B) sad
C) cautious
D) optimistic
E) pessimistic
15. The puzzle in lines 45- 48 concerns
A) a series of images portraying the impossibility of life and its mysteries
B) a series of metaphors comparing life to fairy tales
C) an image of fairy t ales that exemplify life
D) admonitions to man to heed the lessons of fairy tales
E) advice to readers that fairy tales lie
1b, 2b, 3a, 4a, 5d, 6a, 7c, 8e, 9c, 10e, 11d, 12e, 13e, 14e, 15a
Musee des Beaux Arts [1938]
About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the 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 innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
Questions for Discussion
1. The Old Masters mentioned in the poem are:
A) poets
B) painters
C) martyrs
D) saints
E) novelists
2. The antecedent of the pronoun “they” in line 9 is:
A) children
B) Old Masters
C) the aged
D) someone
E) there is no antecedent
3. The allusion in the poem to the “dreadful martyrdom” probably refers to the:
A) fall of Icarus
B) suffering of the ploughman
C) pain of childbirth
D) crucifixion
E) massacre of the innocents
4. The drowning of Icarus in the poem is a (an):
A) event that could have been avoided
B) act determined by fate
C) a sign of God’s displeasure
D) added illustration of martyrdom
E) subject appropriate for art
5. The poem begins with a (an):
A) general statement
B) vivid image
C) bemused ironic statement
D) mythological allusion
E) apostrophe to artists
6. The speaker states that Icarus’ death was:
A) the result of a failure to obey
B) a sign of God’s wrath
C) a movement of historic importance
D) an event that produced no reaction
E) the result of a misjudgment of the sun’s power
7. The speaker suggests that the miraculous birth was:
A) an event that please only the aged
B) a great moment in the history of religion
C) the beginning of Christianity
D) a popular subject of art
E) an event that drew the ploughman to the manger
8. The poem expresses:
A) moral indignation
B) religious fervor
C) aesthetic appreciation
D) direct and matter-of-fact comment
E) misanthropy
9. The poem provides evidence to support the statement:
A) For Icarus, it was not an important failure.
B) Even dreadful martyrdom must run its course.
C) Everything turns away from disaster.
D) The aged wait for miracles.
E) The Old Masters knew the meaning of suffering.
10. The tone of the poem is:
A) sublime
B) sentimental
C) ironic
D) indignant
E) vitriolic
11. The reading of the poem will cause the reader to:
A) change her/his attitude about suffering
B) become more attuned to art
C) want to learn more about Greek mythology
D) be aware that s/he shares the indifference of onlookers to tragic events
E) understand better humanity’s potential for evil
12. Whose horse "scratches its innocent behind on a tree" while the events of the poem unfold?
A) the yeoman’s
B) the Irish airman’s
C) the butcher’s
D) the torturer’s
13. The speaker suggests the Old Masters understood very well the "human position" of events like the fall of Icarus. Which of the following best summarizes what "human position" means?
A) its special status as a unique event
B) its mythological and religious significance
C) its tendency to redefine what makes us human
D) its relative place within a mundane context
14. What were the "Old Masters," like Pieter Brueghel, never wrong about?
A) aesthetics
B) subject matter
C) suffering
D) indifference
15. What was the subject of Pieter Brueghel’s Fall of Icarus, which Auden describes in this poem?
A) a precarious Icarus being pushed off a cliff by Xanthippe
B) a pious Icarus preaching to a school of fish
C) an airborne Icarus falling into the sea
D) an overly proud Icarus succumbing to a tragic flaw
16. What kind of ship is anchored in the harbor, and therefore must have been witness to the events of the poem?
A) an ironclad steamship
B) a fishing trawler
C) a pleasure boat
D) a wooden man-of-war
17. Upon seeing the fall of Icarus, how does Auden’s speaker describe the reaction of the dogs who witness it?
A) They stop what they are doing to watch.
B) They go on with life as usual.
C) They paw the ground in anticipation.
D) Even they mark an unusual event.
D
D
C
C
C
B
In this passage, poet W. H. Auden discusses the life and work of fellow poet W. B. Yeats.
I shall not attempt in this paper to answer such questions as, “How good a poet is Yeats? Which are his best poems and why?”—that is the job of better critics than I and of posterity—but rather to consider him as a predecessor whose importance no one will or can deny, to raise, that is to say, such questions as, “What were the problems which faced Yeats as a poet compared with ours? How far do they overlap? How far are they different? In so far as they are different, what can we learn from the way in which Yeats dealt with his world, and about how to deal with our own?”
Let me begin with the element in his work which seems most foreign to us, his cosmology, his concern with the occult. Here, I think, is a curious fact. In most cases, when a major author influences a beginner, that influence extends to his matter, to his opinions as well as to his manner—think of Hardy, or Eliot, or D. H. Lawrence; yet, though there is scarcely a lyric written today in which the influence of his style and rhythm is not detectable, one whole side of Yeats, the side summed up in the Vision, has left virtually no trace.
However diverse our fundamental beliefs may be, the reaction of most of us to all that occult is, I fancy, the same: how on earth, we wonder, could a man of Yeats’s gifts take such nonsense seriously? I have a further bewilderment, which may be due to my English upbringing, one of snobbery. How could Yeats, with his great aesthetic appreciation of aristocracy, ancestral houses, ceremonious tradition, take up something so essentially lower-middle class—or should I say Southern Californian—so ineluctably associated with suburban villas and clearly unattractive faces? A. E. Housman’s pessimistic stoicism seems to me nonsense too, but at least it is a kind of nonsense that can be believed by a gentleman—but mediums, spells, the Mysterious Orient—how embarrassing.
In fact, of course, it is to Yeats’s credit, and an example to me, that he ignored such considerations, nor, granted that his worldview was false, can we claim credit for rejecting what we have no temptation to accept, nor deny that the poetry he wrote involving it is very good. What we should consider, then, is firstly, why Celtic mythology in his earlier phases, and occult symbolism in his later, should have attracted Yeats when they fail to attract us; secondly, what are the comparable kinds of beliefs to which we are drawn and why; thirdly, what is the relation between myth, belief, and poetry?
Questions for Discussion
1. The primary purpose of the passage is to
A) draw attention to Yeats’s belief in the occult
B) explain why Yeats is a better poet than most people believe
C) explain why it is fruitless to try to interpret Yeats’s poetry
D) argue that more time must be spent on interpreting Yeats’s poetry
E) suggest an approach for interpreting Yeats and his poetry
2. The author uses rhetorical questions in the first paragraph to
A) begin an interrogation
B) state a conclusion
C) dispute an argument
D) offer examples
E) outline a thesis
3. The author uses “cosmology” to refer to Yeats’s
A) fascination with stars and the heavens
B) belief that the cosmos has hidden meaning
C) beliefs about how the universe works
D) ability to understand the cosmos
E) preoccupation with surface appearances
4. The “curious fact” noted by the author is that
A) Yeats’s writing style has been very influential, but not his concern with the occult
B) Yeats is more influential than Hardy, Eliot, or D. H. Lawrence
C) Yeats’s influence extends to his matter as well as his rhythm
D) even the aspects of Yeats that seem foreign to readers have been influential
E) Yeats’s concern with the occult is bewildering to most readers
5. The author uses italics for the word “could” to emphasize
A) the silliness of Yeats’s preoccupation with the occult
B) the reaction of most readers to Yeats’s preoccupation with the occult
C) the fact that Yeats identifies with the lower-middle class
D) the irony of Yeats’s belief in the occult in light of his skills as a writer
E) the negative reaction of Yeats’s contemporaries to his preoccupation with the occult
6. By inserting “or should I say Southern Californian," the author uses
A) a stereotype to evoke an image
B) a metaphor to illustrate an argument
C) an aside to provide an example
D) a simile to highlight similarities
E) an analogy to create dissonance
7. In the third paragraph, “ineluctably” most nearly means
A) unavoidably
B) indelibly
C) inscrutably
D) frequently
E) periodically
8. In the final paragraph, the phrase “and an example to me” is used by the author to highlight
A) reasons why Yeats’s belief in the occult should not be taken seriously
B) the author’s embarrassment over Yeats’s preoccupation with “mediums, spells, and the Mysterious Orient”
C) the suggestion that the author should reconsider his own impulse to Yeats’s preoccupation with the occult
D) the extent to which Yeats’s worldview was provocative and interesting
E) that Yeats was right to ignore questions about his preoccupation with the occult
9. In the final paragraph, the author suggests that readers of Yeats should not “claim credit for rejecting what we have no temptation to accept,” but should instead
A) consider the possibility that Yeats’s worldview is accurate
B) learn more about occult symbolism and Celtic mythology in 17th century Ireland
C) keep in mind that Yeats dealt with occult symbolism only in his earlier phases
D) change their system of belief to make it more like that of Yeats
E) reflect on myths in their own lives that are comparable to those that Yeats believed
1. E; 2. D; 3. C; 4. A; 5. B; 6. A; 7. A; 8. C; 9. E