O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.
O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.’
It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.
— excerpt from W. H. Auden’s “As I Walked Out One Evening”
‘I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,
‘I’ll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.’
— from W. H. Auden’s “As I Walked Out One Evening”
Photo credit:By Plismo – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9584464
‘O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.
‘O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.’
— excerpt, “As I Walked Out One Evening,” W. H. Auden
Photo credit: By Johan Hansson from Gävle, Sweden – Scary lake, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40576835
This woman’s speaking voice is gorgeous. This reading is definitely different, but it’s one you should hear.
I am linking here to a video in the “I Didn’t Write This” series on Youtube. I love it — director Yulin Kuang and the actors here create a visually rich, soft-spoken, and quietly contemplative treatment of of what might be W. H. Auden’s most famous poem, “As I Walked Out One Evening.”
The reader’s relaxed and conversational tone are a nice contrast to the piece’s dark imagery.
It’s beautiful work.
I posted a new poem of mine a little while ago; this is the poem that it makes reference to — W. H. Auden’s “As I Walked Out One Evening.”
This was the first of Auden’s poems that I’d ever read, maybe 25 years ago. I believe it is his most popular.
“As I Walked Out One Evening,” by W. H. Auden
As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.
And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
“Love has no ending.
“I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you
Till China and Africa meet
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street.
“I’ll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.
“The years shall run like rabbits
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages
And the first love of the world.”
But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
“O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.
“In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.
“In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.
“Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver’s brilliant bow.
“O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you’ve missed.
“The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.
“Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer
And Jill goes down on her back.
“O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress;
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.
“O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.”
It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming
And the deep river ran on.
Talk about synchronicity. I was just chatting with my best friend last night — I read to her W. H. Auden’s “The Tower,” (part of “The Quest”), and then we were talking about books on tape. I told her I wanted to hear Tom Hiddleston read something, because his voice is my favorite.
Then I find this linked from the Dagda Publishing website by its (apparently telepathic) editors:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvL1IjU43I0
“As I Walked Out One Evening” was the first Auden poem I ever read.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 