These Days I Would Give Almost Anything to Be Able to, Once More, Write in the Affirmative @ AMERICAN DIGEST

January 31, 2016

These Days I Would Give Almost Anything to Be Able to, Once More, Write in the Affirmative

In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;

Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.

Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice.

With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress.

In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountains start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.

In Memory Of W.B. Yeats Poem by WH Auden

Posted by gerardvanderleun at January 31, 2016 7:42 PM

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I liked the poem and the title. These days it's almost difficult to think in the affirmative. Then I remember that God is good. He alone keeps His promises. God bless.

Posted by: Arlene Billson at January 31, 2016 10:15 PM

"Now he is scattered among a hundred cities
And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,
To find his happiness in another kind of wood
And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.
The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living."

So true now, in ways that Auden never predicted. Dead white guys ...

Posted by: Darkwater at February 1, 2016 9:42 AM