Selected Poems of W. H. Auden by W. H. Auden (PDF)

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This significantly expanded edition of W. H. Auden’s Selected Poems adds twenty poems to the hundred in the original edition, broadening its focus to better reflect the enormous wealth of form, rhetoric, tone, and content in Auden’s work. Newly included are such favorites as “Funeral Blues” and other works that represent Auden’s lighter, comic side, giving a fuller picture of the range of his genius. Also new are brief notes explaining references that may have become obscure to younger generations of readers and a revised introduction that draws on recent additions to knowledge about Auden.As in the original edition, the new Selected Poems makes available the preferred original versions of some thirty poems that Auden revised later in life, making it the best source for enjoying the many facets of Auden’s art in one volume.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: From Publishers Weekly One of the 20th century’s greatest poets, Auden (1907–1973) has also joined the ranks of its most popular. His “Funeral Blues,” a 16-line song about lost love, became a widespread favorite after its use in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral; his “Sept. 1, 1939” (“Those to whom evil is done/ Do evil in return”) seemed to be everywhere after September 11, 2001, as readers used its somber public voice to make sense of a senseless day. Mendelson—Auden’s literary executor, and the man who knows more than anyone else alive about Auden’s life and writings—has already assembled the standard books Auden fans know, among them an earlier 100-poem Selected, which included poems famous during Auden’s life, such as “Sept. 1” and “In Memory of W.B. Yeats,” but excluded some of his finest light verse—the tongue-in-cheek self-descriptive haiku series called “Profiles,” for example, the barbed wartime quatrains of “Leap Before You Look,” and “Funeral Blues” itself. Mendelson now rectifies those faults, adds 17 more poems and amplifies his articulate preface, just in time for the centennial of Auden’s birth. The volume reveals a poet by turns charming and authoritative, masterful and humble, deftly evasive and ringingly quotable. (Feb.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From the Back Cover This edition presents the original versions of many poems, which Auden revised to conform to his evolving political and literary attitudes later in his career. In this volume, Edward Mendelson has restored the early versions of some thirty poems generally considered to be superior to the later versions, allowing the reader to see the entire range of Auden’s work. Selected and edited by Edward Mendelson About the Author W. H. Auden (1907-73) was born in York, England, and educated at Oxford. During the 1930s he was the leader of a left-wing literary group that included Christopher Isherwood and Stephen Spender. With Isherwood he wrote three verse plays. He lived in Germany during the early days of Nazism, and was a stretcher-bearer for the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War. Auden’s first volume of poetry appeared in 1930. Later volumes include Spain (1937), New Year Letter (1941), For the Time Being, a Christmas Oratorio (1945), The Age of Anxiety (1947; Pulitzer Prize), Nones (1951), The Shield of Achilles (1955), Homage to Clio (1960), About the House (1965), Epistle of a Godson (1972), and Thank You, Fog (1974). His other works include the libretto, with his companion Chester Kallman, for Stravinsky’s opera The Rake’s Progress (1953); A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (1970); and The Dyer’s Hand and Other Essays (1968). In 1939 Auden moved to the United States and became a citizen in 1946, and beginning that year taught at a number of American colleges and universities. From 1956 to 1961 he was professor of poetry at Oxford. Subsequently he lived in a number of countries, including Italy and Austria, and in 1971 he returned to England. He was awarded the National Medal for Literature in 1967. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 1Who stands, the crux left of the watershed,On the wet road between the chafing grassBelow him sees dismantled washing-floors,Snatches of tramline running to the wood,An industry already comatose,Yet sparsely living. A ramshackle engineAt Cashwell raises water; for ten yearsIt lay in flooded workings until this,Its latter office, grudgingly performed,And further here and there, though many deadLie under the poor soil, some acts are chosenTaken from recent winters; two there wereCleaned out a damaged shaft by hand, clutchingThe winch the gale would tear them from; one diedDuring a storm, the fells impassable,Not at his village, but in wooden shapeThrough long abandoned levels nosed his wayAnd in his final valley went to ground.Go home, now, stranger, proud of your young stock,Stranger, turn back again, frustrate and vexed:This land, cut off, will not communicate,Be no accessory content to oneAimless for faces rather there than here.Beams from your car may cross a bedroom wall,They wake no sleeper; you may hear the windArriving driven from the ignorant seaTo hurt itself on pane, on bark of elmWhere sap unbaffled rises, being Spring;But seldom this. Near you, taller than grass,Ears poise before decision, scenting danger.August 19272From the very first coming downInto a new valley with a frownBecause of the sun and a lost way,You certainly remain: to-dayI, crouching behind a sheep-pen, heardTravel across a sudden bird,Cry out against the storm, and foundThe year’s arc a completed roundAnd love’s worn circuit re-begun,Endless with no dissenting turn.Shall see, shall pass, as we have seenThe swallow on the tile, Spring’s greenPreliminary shiver, passedA solitary truck, the lastOf shunting in the Autumn. But nowTo interrupt the homely brow,Thought warmed to evening through and throughYour letter comes, speaking as you,Speaking of much but not to come.Nor speech is close nor fingers numb,If love not seldom has receivedAn unjust answer, was deceived.I, decent with the seasons, moveDifferent or with a different love,Nor question overmuch the nod,The stone smile of this country godThat never was more reticent,Always afraid to say more than it meant.December 19273Control of the passes was, he saw, the keyTo this new district, but who would get it?He, the trained spy, had walked into the trapFor a bogus guide, seduced with the old tricks.At Greenhearth was a fine site for a damAnd easy power, had they pushed the railSome stations nearer. They ignored his wires.The bridges were unbuilt and trouble coming.The street music seemed gracious now to oneFor weeks up in the desert. Woken by waterRunning away in the dark, he often hadReproached the night for a companionDreamed of already. They would shoot, of course,Parting easily who were never joined.January 19284Taller to-day, we remember similar evenings,Walking together in the windless orchardWhere the brook runs over the gravel, far from the glacier.Again in the room with the sofa hiding the grate,Look down to the river when the rain is over,See him turn to the window, hearing our lastOf Captain Ferguson.It is seen how excellent hands have turned to commonness.One staring too long, went blind in a tower,One sold all his manors to fight, broke through, and faltered.Nights come bringing the snow, and the dead howlUnder the headlands in their windy dwellingBecause the Adversary put too easy questionsOn lonely roads.But happy now, though no nearer each other,We see the farms lighted all along the valley;Down at the mill-shed the hammering stopsAnd men go home.Noises at dawn will bringFreedom for some, but not this peaceNo bird can contradict: passing, but is sufficient nowFor something fulfilled this hour, loved or endured.March 19285Watch any day his nonchalant pauses, seeHis dextrous handling of a wrap as heSteps after into cars, the beggar’s envy.”There is a free one,” many say, but err.He is not that returning conqueror,Nor ever the poles’ circumnavigator.But poised between shocking falls on razor-edgeHas taught himself this balancing subterfugeOf the accosting profile, the erect carriage.The song, the varied action of the bloodWould drown the warning from the iron woodWould cancel the inertia of the buried:Travelling by daylight on from house to houseThe longest way to the intrinsic peace,With love’s fidelity and with love’s weakness.March 19296Will you turn a deaf earTo what they said on the shore,Interrogate their poisesIn their rich houses;Of stork-legged heaven-reachersOf the compulsory touchersThe sensitive amusersAnd masked amazers?Yet wear no ruffian badgeNor lie behind the hedgeWaiting with bombs of conspiracyIn arm-pit secrecy;Carry no talismanFor germ or the abrupt painNeeding no concrete shelterNor porcelain filter.Will you wheel death anywhereIn his invalid chair,With no affectionate instantBut his attendant?For to be held for friendBy an undeveloped mindTo be joke for children isDeath’s happiness:Whose anecdotes betrayHis favourite colour as blueColour of distant bellsAnd boys’ overalls.His tales of the bad landsDisturb the sewing hands;Hard to be superiorOn parting nausea;To accept the cushions fromWomen against martyrdom,Yet applauding the circuitsOf racing cyclists.Never to make signsFear neither maelstrom nor zonesSalute with soldiers’ wivesWhen the flag waves;Remembering there isNo recognised gift for this;No income, no bounty,No promised country.But to see brave sent homeHermetically sealed with shameAnd cold’s victorious wrestleWith molten metal.A neutralising peaceAnd an average disgraceAre honour to discoverFor later other.September 19297Sir, no man’s enemy, forgiving allBut will his negative inversion, be prodigal:Send to us power and light, a sovereign touchCuring the intolerable neural itch,The exhaustion of weaning, the liar’s quinsy,And the distortions of ingrown virginity.Prohibit sharply the rehearsed responseAnd gradually correct the coward’s stance;Cover in time with beams those in retreatThat, spotted, they turn though the reverse were great;Publish each healer that in city livesOr country houses at the end of drives;Harrow the house of the dead; look shining atNew styles of architecture, a change of heart.October 19298IIt was Easter as I walked in the public gardensHearing the frogs exhaling from the pond,Watching traffic of magnificent cloudMoving without anxiety on open sky–Season when lovers and writers findAn altering speech for altering things,An emphasis on new names, on the armA fresh hand with fresh power.But thinking so I came at onceWhere solitary man sat weeping on a bench,Hanging his head down, with his mouth distortedHelpless and ugly as an embryo chicken.So I remember all of those whose deathIs necessary condition of the season’s setting forth,Who sorry in this time look only backTo Christmas intimacy, a winter dialogueFading in silence, leaving them in tears.And recent particulars come to mind:The death by cancer of a once hated master,A friend’s analysis of his own failure,Listened to at intervals throughout the winterAt different hours and in different rooms.But always with success of others for comparison,The happiness, for instance, of my friend Kurt Groote,Absence of fear in Gerhart MeyerFrom the sea, the truly strong man.A ‘bus ran home then, on the public groundLay fallen bicycles like huddled corpses:No chattering valves of laughter emphasisedNor the swept gown ends of a gesture stirredThe sessile hush; until a sudden showerFell willing into grass and closed the day,Making choice seem a necessary error.April 1929IIComing out of me living is always thinking,Thinking changing and changing living,Am feeling as it was seeing–In city leaning on harbour parapetTo watch a colony of duck belowSit, preen, and doze on buttressesOr upright paddle on flickering stream,Casually fishing at a passing straw.Those find sun’s luxury enough,Shadow know not of homesick foreignerNor restlessness of intercepted growth.All this time was anxiety at night,Shooting and barricade in street.Walking home late I listened to a friendTalking excitedly of final warOf proletariat against police–That one shot girl of nineteen through the knees,They threw that one down concrete stair–Till I was angry, said I was pleased.Time passes in Hessen, in Gutensberg,With hill-top and evening holds me up,Tiny observer of enormous world.Smoke rises from factory in field,Memory of fire: On all sides heardVanishing music of isolated larks:From village square voices in hymn,Men’s voices, an old use.And I above standing, saying in thinking:”Is first baby, warm in mother,Before born and is still mother,Time passes and now is other,Is knowledge in him now of other,Cries in cold air, himself no friend.In grown man also, may see in faceIn his day-thinking and in his night-thinkingIs wareness and is fear of other,Alone in flesh, himself no friend.”He say ‘We must forgive and forget,’Forgetting saying but is unforgivingAnd unforgiving is in his living;Body reminds in him to loving,Reminds but takes no further part,Perfunctorily affectionate in hired roomBut takes no part and is unlovingBut loving death. May see in dead,In face of dead that loving wish,As one returns from Africa to wifeAnd his ancestral property in Wales.”Yet sometimes man look and say goodAt strict beauty of locomotive,Completeness of gesture or unclouded eye;In me so absolute unity of eveningAnd field and distance was in me for peace,Was over me in feeling without forgettingThose ducks’ indifference, that friend’s hysteria,Without wishing and with forgiving,To love my life, not as other,Not as bird’s life, not as child’s,”Cannot,” I said, “being no child now nor a bird.”May 1929IIIOrder to stewards and the study of time,Correct in books, was earlier than thisBut joined this by the wires I watched from train,Slackening of wire and posts’ sharp reprimand,In month of August to a cottage coming.Being alone, the frightened soulReturns to this life of sheep and hayNo longer his: he every hourMoves further from this and must so move,As child is weaned from his mother and leaves homeBut taking the first steps falters, is vexed,Happy only to find home, a placeWhere no tax is levied for being there.So, insecure, he loves and loveIs insecure, gives less than he expects.He knows not if it be seed in time to displayLuxuriantly in a wonderful fructificationOr whether it be but a degenerate remnantOf something immense in the past but nowSurviving only as the infectiousness of diseaseOr in the malicious caricature of drunkenness;Its end glossed over by the careless but known longTo finer perception of the mad and ill.Moving along the track which is himself,He loves what he hopes will last, which gone,Begins the difficult work of mourning,And as foreign settlers to strange country come,By mispronunciation of native wordsAnd by intermarriage create a new raceAnd a new language, so may the soulBe weaned at last to independent delight.Startled by the violent laugh of a jayI went from wood, from crunch underfoot,Air between stems as under water;As I shall leave the summer, see autumn comeFocusing stars more sharply in the sky,See frozen buzzard flipped down the weirAnd carried out to sea, leave autumn,See winter, winter for earth and us,A forethought of death that we may find ourselves at deathNot helplessly strange to the new conditions.August 1929IVIt is time for the destruction of error.The chairs are being brought in from the garden,The summer talk stopped on that savage coastBefore the storms, after the guests and birds:In sanatoriums they laugh less and less,Less certain of cure; and the loud madmanSinks now into a more terrible calm.The falling leaves know it, the children,At play on the fuming alkali-tipOr by the flooded football ground, know it–This is the dragon’s day, the devourer’s:Orders are given to the enemy for a timeWith underground proliferation of mould,With constant whisper and the casual question,To haunt the poisoned in his shunned house,To destroy the efflorescence of the flesh,To censor the play of the mind, to enforceConformity with the orthodox bone,With organised fear, the articulated skeleton.You whom I gladly walk with, touch,Or wait for as one certain of good,We know it, we know that loveNeeds more than the admiring excitement of union,More than the abrupt self-confident farewell,The heel on the finishing blade of grass,The self-confidence of the falling root,Needs death, death of the grain, our death.Death of the old gang; would leave themIn sullen valley where is made no friend,The old gang to be forgotten in the spring,The hard bitch and the riding-master,Stiff underground; deep in clear lakeThe lolling bridegroom, beautiful, there.October 19299Since you are going to begin to-dayLet us consider what it is you do.You are the one whose part it is to lean,For whom it is not good to be alone.Laugh warmly turning shyly in the hallOr climb with bare knees the volcanic hill,Acquire that flick of wrist and after strainRelax in your darling’s arms like a stoneRemembering everything you can confess,Making the most of firelight, of hours of fuss;But joy is mine not yours–to have come so far,Whose cleverest invention was lately fur;Lizards my best once who took years to breed,Could not control the temperature of blood.To reach that shape for your face to assume,Pleasure to many and despair to some,I shifted ranges, lived epochs handicappedBy climate, wars, or what the young men kept,Modified theories on the types of dross,Altered desire and history of dress.You in the town now call the exile foolThat writes home once a year as last leaves fall,Think–Romans had a language in their dayAnd ordered roads with it, but it had to die:Your culture can but leave–forgot as sureAs place-name origins in favourite shire–Jottings for stories, some often-mentioned Jack,And references in letters to a private joke,Equipment rusting in unweeded lanes,Virtues still advertised on local lines;And your conviction shall help none to fly,Cause rather a perversion on next floor. 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Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐The first edition of Auden’s Selected Poems was a welcome publication for Auden fans everywhere. Never before had Auden’s earlier, pre-revision poems been published side-by-side with his best mature work. Now, in this second, expanded edition of the Selected Poems, Auden’s literary executor Edward Mendelson has given us a comprehensive selection of Auden’s most memorable work.Highlights include full, unrevised texts of such poems as “September 1, 1939” and “Lay your sleeping head, my love” alongside poignant lyrics like “As I walked out one evening” and “In Praise of Limestone,” as well as genuinely funny verses like “Under Which Lyre” and “On the Circuit.” The volume also includes the full text of Auden’s greatest long poem “The Sea and the Mirror” and the later “Horae Canonicae” sequence of poems based on the canonical hours. New to this edition are several poems, including the popular “Funeral Blues,” as well as a few explanatory notes (in the back) that identify obscure names and other references in the poems. These are very welcome updates to the original volume. Add to that an engaging, insightful introduction written by Mendelson, and it all adds up to a superb introduction to Auden’s poetry.Of course no “selected” edition will satisfy everybody, and I find that a few of my favorites have been left out. So on the off-chance that Professor Mendelson reads this when he is ready to do a third edition, I would have cut the excerpts from The Age of Anxiety (the only memorable thing about that poem is the title) and replaced them with excerpts from For the Time Being, specifically “The Temptation of St. Joseph” and the epilogue. And how on earth could anyone have left out “The Love Feast,” one of Auden’s saddest funny poems?If this is your first time reading Auden, a word of caution: the first 30 pages or so contain some of the densest, most obscure poetry Auden ever wrote. When he began publishing poems, he was widely regarded as the natural heir of Eliot and the Modernists, and in some ways he is. Auden is obsessed with form and self-indulgent when it comes to allusions. His approach is often indirect, though he is often very funny–but the humor is easy to miss if you’re taking everything seriously. He loves putting everything into grand schemas, and some of his best poems reflect on people as types rather than as individuals. His great themes are romantic love, personal anxiety, and the necessity of rejoicing. At his best, he is a keen observer of the inner life of the modern, anxious man, and he has much to teach us about introspection, love, and praise.

⭐This is the revised edition of a selection of Auden’s poems. Both this edition and the original selection were prepared by Auden’s literary executor, Edward Mendelson. The original edition contained 100 poems. This edition adds 20 poems, including some of Auden’s lighter work, to give a broad prespective on Auden’s work. Potential readers need to be aware of 2 important features of this selection. While there are some selections from some of Auden’s longer works, the full texts of most longer poems are necessarily excluded. Later in life, Auden revised parts of some poems and even omitted some well known poems from his collected works. Mendelson chose the earliest texts for this book. The selected poems include all of Auden’s most famous work and cover the whole breadth of his career.This book is simply wonderful reading. Auden is one of the greatest poets of the 20th century and one of the greatest in the English language. His wonderfully controlled use of and variety of language, moral vision, wit, and unobtrusive erudition are peerless among modern poets. For anyone wishing to read more Auden, I also recommend the Collected Works.

⭐There are three speakers in this poem: The observant “I” of the first line and of the last stanza, the lover, and, the longest part, the personified chimes of the modern city clock, rebuking the Romantic lover. The chimes have the most famous and affecting lines, but, importantly, not the last word. What is the “deep river” in the last line that seems to encompass both chimes and lover? This question is for the reader to ponder on his/her own. Like all great poetry, particularly Auden’s, the poem is nuanced and ambiguous.

⭐If I ever get another horse, I’m going to name him Wystan.I’ve always loved Auden’s poems, of course starting with his most famous, Funeral Blues. Just recently I decided to dig a little deeper into his works, and I’ve been pleased so far. Some of his works are nebulous, some are esoteric, and some are stellar, but all have a flowing, moving quality to them.One thing I absolutely love about Auden’s poems is that I’m constantly reaching for the dictionary. I love it when authors challenge my vocabulary.Overall, I’d highly recommend this book to anyone, poetry lover or no. If you’re not a poetry lover, read with an open mind, and you might learn something.

⭐Who am I to rate Auden? Of course he’s one of the best modern poets — at least that’s what professors say. I bought this book because of a few poems I knew I liked. I thought it would be a pleasant and thought-provoking read. However, the poems are dense and not easy to grasp. I lost patience pretty quickly. Returned to it a few more times. Tried reading with a different approach. Let’s just say I was unsuccessful.

⭐Product arrived quickly and was exactly as described.

⭐I needed to replace my decades-old copy of the same book, which had become stiff and not fun to hold & read. The new copy is lovely.

⭐I began reading this collection of Auden’s poetry over two years ago. I very much wanted to like it, partly because of Auden’s literary stature, and, more significantly, because Auden is the only poet I remember my father singling out to me: he gave me a copy of the poem by Auden that begins, “Lay your sleeping head, my love,” a poem that I love because of that memory. Alas, I did not like most of the poems in this book. Auden often has turns of phrase that I find beautiful, but there were few poems here that I liked in their entirety. Out of 120 poems, I marked ten that I liked, only two of which I marked as greatly liking. (For the curious, those are the poem that my father gave to me, and “The Shield of Achilles.”) Auden is an important and influential poet, but for the most part his poetry doesn’t appeal to me, barbarian that I am.

⭐arrived as stated

⭐Love it.

⭐If you like Auden’s work, you’ll likely rate this book very highly – expanded collection, intro, etc. and service was perfect.If you’re otherwise new to Auden, i suspect rating wont be as high. Auden was very talented and versatile but also very much contemporary, rooted in the events of his time. Many poems have political, current events and WW2 background that might be difficult for current readers to connect with. They tend to be structured and formal carrying 19th century poetic conventions. For academic purposes, including Auden is a must; for recreational reading not sure this will meet the expectation.

⭐Perhaps the best collection of WH Auden poems. Well organized!

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