bloomsbury: Nocturne I

Mayo 16, 2007

Appearing unannounced, the moon
Avoids a mountain's jagged prongs
And sweeps into the open sky
Like one who knows where she belongs.

To me, immediately, my heart:
"Adore Her, Mother, Virgin, Muse,
A Face worth watching Who can make
Or break you as Her fancy choose."

At which the reflex of my mind:
"You will not tell me, I presume,
That bunch of barren craters care
Who sleeps with or who tortures whom."

Tonight, like umpteen other nights,
The baser frankness wins of course,
My tougher mind which dares admit
That both are worshippers of force.

Granted what both of them believe,
The Goddess, clearly, has to go,
Whose majesty is but the mask
That hides a faceless dynamo;

And neither of my natures can
Complain if I should be reduced
To a small functionary whose dreams
Are vast, unscrupulous, confused.

Supposing, though, my face is real
And not a myth or a machine,
The moon should look like x and wear
Features I've actually seen,

My neighbor's face, a face as such,
Neither a status nor a sex,
Constant for me no matter what
The value I assign to x;

That gushing lady, possibly,
Who brought some verses of her own,
That hang-dog who keeps coming back
For just a temporary loan;

A counter-image, anyway,
To balance with its lack of weight
My world, the private motor-car
And all the engines of the State.

W. H. Auden

Posted by sarita at Mayo 16, 2007 6:16 PM