All sins tend to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is damnation. W. H. Auden More Quotes by W. H. Auden More Quotes From W. H. Auden The Three Wiseman: The weather has been awful, The countryside is dreary, Marsh, jungle, rock; and echoes mock, Calling our hope unlawful; But a silly song can help along Yours ever and sincerely: At least we know for certain that we are three old sinners, that this journey is much too long, that we want our dinners, and miss our wives, our books, our dogs, but have only the vaguest idea why we are what we are. To discover how to be human now Is the reason we follow this star. W. H. Auden stars dog song In Brueghel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster, the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green water, And the expensive ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on. W. H. Auden sky boys fall In headaches and in worry W. H. Auden fancy worry today The older lives like not to be stood in rows or at right angles. W. H. Auden angle The Ogre does what ogres can, W. H. Auden doe men hands Soft as the earth is mankind and both need to be altered. W. H. Auden mankind earth needs Clear, unscaleable ahead, Rise the mountains of instead From whose cold, cascading streams None may drink except in dreams W. H. Auden mountain dream may We who must die demand a miracle. W. H. Auden demand miracle facts Behind the corpse in the reservoir, behind the ghost on the links, Behind the lady who dances and the man who madly drinks, Under the look of fatigue, the attack of migraine and the sigh There is always another story, there is more than meets the eye. W. H. Auden eye men looks An unmanly sort of man whose love life seems to have been largely confined to crying in laps and playing mouse. W. H. Auden love-life lap men Our claim to our own bodies and our world is our catastrophe. W. H. Auden our-world body claims Human beings are, necessarily, actors who...can be divided...into the sane who know they are acting and the mad who do not. W. H. Auden mad actors acting The poet marries the language, and out of this marriage the poem is born. W. H. Auden born poet language Accurate scholarship can W. H. Auden mad evil culture Long ago the accusations had begun, W. H. Auden accusation long-ago judgment It's impossible to represent a saint [in Art]. It becomes boring. Perhaps because he is, like the Saturday Evening Post people, inthe position of having almost infinitely free will. W. H. Auden saint people art There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair, W. H. Auden verbs machines responsibility Warm are the still and lucky miles, White shores of longing stretch away, A light of recognition fills The whole great day, and bright The tiny world of lovers' arms. Silence invades the breathing wood Where drowsy limbs a treasure keep, Now greenly falls the learned shade Across the sleeping brows And stirs their secret to a smile. Restored! Returned! The lost are borne On seas of shipwreck home at last: See! In a fire of praising burns The dry dumb past, and we Our life-day long shall part no more. W. H. Auden home sleep fall Sexual fidelity is more important in a homosexual relationship than in any other. In other relationships there are a variety of ties. But here, fidelity is the only bond. W. H. Auden homosexuality ties important Lay your sleeping head, my love, Human on my faithless arm. W. H. Auden faithless arms sleep
