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W. H. Auden (1907-73)
That night when joy began
Our narrowest veins to flush,
We waited for the flash
Of morning's levelled gun.
But morning let us pass,
And day by day relief
Outgrows his nervous laugh,
Grown credulous of peace,
As mile by mile is seen
No trespasser's reproach,
And love's best glasses reach
No fields but are his own.
November 1931
["Five Songs" II --Collected Poems (ed. Mendelson)]
Copyright (c) 1976, 1991 The Estate of W. H. Auden
Bibliography
- Bahlke, G. W., The Later Auden (1970)
- Bloomfield, B. C., and Edward Mendelson, W. H. Auden: A Bibliography 1924-1969 (1972)
- Bold, Alan ed., W. H. Auden: The Far Interior (1985)
- Callan, Edward, Auden: A Carnival of Intellect (1983)
- Carpenter, Humphrey, W. H. Auden: A Biography (1981)
- Farnan, D. J., Auden in Love (1984)
- Gingerich, M. E., W. H. Auden: A Reference Guide (1978)
- Greenberg, Herbert, Quest for the Necessary: W. H. Auden and the Dilemma of Divided
Consciousness (1968)
- Haffenden, John, ed., W. H. Auden: The Critical Heritage (1983)
- Hecht, Anthony, The Hidden Law: The Poetry of W. H. Auden (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1993)
- Levy, Alan, W. H. Auden: In the Autumn of the Age of Anxiety (1983)
- McDiarmid, Lucy, Saving Civilization: Yeats, Eliot, and Auden between the Wars (1984)
- Mendelson, Edward, The Early Auden (1981)
- Mendelson, Edward, ed., W. H. Auden: Plays (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1988)
- Mendelson, Edward, ed., W. H. Auden: Collected Poems (New York: Vintage Books, 1991)
- Rodway, Allan, Preface to Auden (1984)
- Rowse, A. L., The Poet Auden (1988)
- Wright, G. T., W. H. Auden, rev. ed. (1981)
I've compiled the above information referring to some standard reference materials, including The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-century Poetry, Grolier Encyclopedia, etc.
By the way, I am honored to note that Professor Taketoshi Furomoto, one of the best Auden scholars in Japan, teaches on the Faculty of Cross-cultural Studies at our Kobe University.
Auden Poems
"Funeral Blues" (April 1936)
A couple of verses from "Funeral Blues" ("Stop all the clocks . . .") were recited in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral (UK, 1994).
Auden Pages
- The W. H. Auden Society
Bibliography, links to some of his poems, a selective list of recordings of his readings and of musical settings of his poems, news of publications and events of interest to readers of Auden, scholarly and interpretive notes about his work, archives of back issues of the Society's Newsletter.
- 'Asking Auden'
Australian poet and author Peter Nicholson's poem, commemorating the centenary of the birth of the poet W. H. Auden which falls on 21 February, 2007 (thanks, Peter).
Last updated: 25 January 2007
20th-century Poetry Index Page