This isn’t the best reading of a poem, but I had fun last Fall when I recorded it. I’m not sure why I sound like Christopher Walken at the start of the piece: “He WATCHED with all his organs of concern …”
Tag Archives: The Third Temptation
“The Third Temptation,” by W. H. Auden, read by Eric Robert Nolan
Part VIII of W. H. Auden’s “The Quest.”
That wicked cool moment when “The Gunslinger” reminds you of W. H. Auden.
The following is from Auden’s “The Third Temptation,” part of “The Quest.”
He watched with all his organs of concern
How princes walk, what wives and children say,
Re-opened old graves in his heart to learn
What laws the dead had died to disobey,
And came reluctantly to his conclusion:
“All the arm-chair philosophies are false;
To love another adds to the confusion;
The song of mercy is the Devil’s Waltz.”
And the quote below is from Stephen King’s “The Gunslinger.”
“The Quest” actually contains a bunch of key images reminiscent of King’s series. We can easily conclude that these are coincidental, as they serve different thematic purposes. But it’s still fun to spot the common images.
You can find the entirety of “The Quest” right here:
“The song of mercy is the Devil’s Waltz.”
“The Third Temptation” (Part VIII of “The Quest”), by W.H. Auden
He watched with all his organs of concern
How princes walk, what wives and children say,
Re-opened old graves in his heart to learn
What laws the dead had died to disobey,
And came reluctantly to his conclusion:
“All the arm-chair philosophies are false;
To love another adds to the confusion;
The song of mercy is the Devil’s Waltz.”
All that he put his hand to prospered so
That soon he was the very King of creatures,
Yet, in an autumn nightmare trembled, for,
Approaching down a ruined corridor,
Strode someone with his own distorted features
Who wept, and grew enormous, and cried Woe.
“He … re-opened old graves in his heart to learn/ What laws the dead had died to disobey.”
“The Third Temptation,” by W. H. Auden
(Part VIII of “the Quest”)
VIII. The Third Temptation
He watched with all his organs of concern
How princes walk, what wives and children say,
Re-opened old graves in his heart to learn
What laws the dead had died to disobey,
And came reluctantly to his conclusion:
“All the arm-chair philosophies are false;
To love another adds to the confusion;
The song of mercy is the Devil’s Waltz.”
All that he put his hand to prospered so
That soon he was the very King of creatures,
Yet, in an autumn nightmare trembled, for,
Approaching down a ruined corridor,
Strode someone with his own distorted features
Who wept, and grew enormous, and cried Woe.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 