Quote

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 with hands on hips, While drivel gushes from his lips.

W. H. Auden

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W. H. Auden
Age: 66 †
Born: 1907
Born: February 21
Died: 1973
Died: September 28
Author
Composer
Essayist
Librettist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Playwright
Poet
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
Jórvík
Wystan Hugh Auden
Wystan Auden
Wystan H Auden
W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
Doe
Masters
Plain
Men
Speech
Hips
Gushes
Among
Prize
Ogre
Beyond
Desperate
Subjugated
Quite
Deeds
Stalks
Impossible
Master
Drivel
Hands
Lips
Slain
Cannot
Reach
Stalking

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the child unlucky in his little State, Some hearth where freedom is excluded, A hive whose honey is fear and worry, Feels calmer now and somehow assured of escape
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A god who is both self-sufficient and content to remain so could not interest us enough to raise the question of his existence.
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Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings.
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There are good books which are only for adults. There are no good books which are only for children.
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Herds of reindeer move across Miles and miles of golden moss
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The most important truths are likely to be those which society at that time least wants to hear.
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August for the people and their favourite islands. Daily the steamers sidle up to meet The effusive welcome of the pier.
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But he would have us most of all remember to be enthusiastic over the night. Not only for the sense of wonder it alone has to offer but also because it needs our love. For with sad eyes its delectable creatures look up and beg us dumbly to ask them to follow. They are exiles who long for a future that lies in our power.
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Money is the necessity that frees us from necessity.
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An unmanly sort of man whose love life seems to have been largely confined to crying in laps and playing mouse.
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And none will hear the postman’s knock Without a quickening of the heart. For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?
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There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair, Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem From insignificance.
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I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return.
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When someone between twenty and forty says, apropos of a work of art, 'I know what I like,' he is really saying 'I have no taste of my own but accept the taste of my cultural milieu.
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It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.
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What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish.
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Proper names are poetry in the raw. Like all poetry they are untranslatable.
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Intellectual disgrace Stares from every human face, And the seas of pity lie Locked and frozen in each eye.
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Acts of injustice done Between the setting and the rising sun In history lie like bones, each one.
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We all have these places where shy humiliations gambol on sunny afternoons.
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