Wystan Hugh Auden

The fall of Rome

 

(poetry, english text)

 

 

(for Cyril Connolly)

 

 

The piers are pummelled by the waves;

In a lonely field the rain

Lashes an abandoned train;

Outlaws fill the mountain caves.

 

 

Fantastic grow the evening gowns;

Agents of the Fisc pursue

Absconding tax-defaulters through

The sewers of provincial towns.

 

 

Private rites of magic send

The temple prostitutes to sleep;

All the literati keep

An imaginary friend.

 

 

Cerebrotonic Cato may

Extol the Ancient Disciplines,

But the muscle-bound Marines

Mutiny for food and pay.

 

 

Caesar’s double-bed is warm

As an unimportant clerk

Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK

On a pink official form.

 

 

Unendowed with wealth or pity,

Little birds with scarlet legs,

Sitting on their speckled eggs,

Eye each flu-infected city.

 

 

Altogether elsewhere, vast

Herds of reindeer move across

Miles and miles of golden moss,

Silently and very fast.

…

..

.

Wystan Hugh Auden – The fall of Rome

(1940, poetry, English text)

 

 

 

Audiobook, poetry: “The fall of Rome” by W. H. Auden

(read by Tom O’Bedlam)

 

 

 

Wystan Hugh Auden

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Wystan Hugh Auden

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