A Few More Marginalia from W.H. Auden

Who can picture
Calvin, Pascal or Nietzsche
as a pink chubby boy?
—————
Knowing that God knew
that what she really liked best
was not the stable
but the crowded inn, she built
a fine hospice for pilgrims.
—————
Lonely he may be
but, each time he bolts his door
the last thing at night,
his heart rejoices: “No one
can interfere with me now.”
—————
How could he help him?
Miserable youth! in flight
from a non-father,
an incoherent mother,
in pursuit of — what?
—————
Few can remember
clearly when innocence came
to a sudden end,
the moment at which we ask
for the first time: Am I loved?

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COMMENTS

3 responses to “A Few More Marginalia from W.H. Auden”

1. John Stamper says:

   03/17/2009 at 4:24 pm

   Richard Adams opens each chapter of his novel “Watership Down” with a quote of some sort. Auden heads at least two or three different chapters.

   Here’s a frightening passage that heads a dark chapter of WD. It’s from Auden’s “The Witnesses”:

   ===============

   When the green field comes off like a lid
   Revealing what was much better hid:
   Unpleasant.
   And look, behind you without a sound
   The woods have come up and are standing round
   In deadly crescent.

   The bolt is sliding in its groove,
   Outside the window is the black remov-
   ers’ van.
   And now with sudden swift emergence
   Come the woman in dark glasses and humpbacked surgeons
   And the scissors man.

   Reply
2. Jacob says:

   03/17/2009 at 5:09 pm

   I love the pink chubby boy!

   Reply
3. Michael Cooper says:

   03/17/2009 at 5:43 pm

   Answer to “pink chubby boy” question: Only their mothers.

   Reply