altariel | Happy birthday, Auden

The Fall of Rome

The piers are pummelled by the waves;
In a lonely field the rain
Lashes an abandoned train;
Outlaws fill the mountain caves.

Fantastic grow the evening gowns;
Agents of the Fisc pursue
Absconding tax-defaulters through
The sewers of provincial towns.

Private rites of magic send
The temple prostitutes to sleep;
All the literati keep
An imaginary friend.

Cerebrotonic Cato may
Extol the Ancient Disciplines,
But the muscle-bound Marines
Mutiny for food and pay.

Caesar's double-bed is warm
As an unimportant clerk
Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK
On a pink official form.

Unendowed with wealth or pity,
Little birds with scarlet legs,
Sitting on their speckled eggs,
Eye each flu-infected city.

Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herds of reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss,
Silently and very fast.

January 1947

Auden's review of Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring and his review of The Two Towers. Tolkien said: "I am […] very deeply in Auden's debt in recent years. His support of me and interest in my work has been one of my chief encouragements. He gave me very good reviews, notices and letters from the beginning when it was by no means a popular thing to do. He was, in fact, sneered at for it."

Elsewhere:

communicator has posted September 1, 1939

kalypso_v has posted Lullaby (my favourite Auden)

katlinel has posted The Secret Agent, Numbers and Faces, and If I Could Tell You

hafren has posted The Secret Agent

And, because I am reading it right now, a few lines from Auden's ~~fanfic~~ poetry cycle about The Tempest, The Sea and the Mirror:

Now, Ariel, I am what I am, your late and lonely master,
Who knows what magic is - the power to enchant
That comes from disillusion.