(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.
There's so much to be said about this one, some of which I hope you will supply. This is Auden at his sardonic best, wouldn't you say? One part of his greatness was that he provided for us the human spirit's necessary response to much of the twentieth century's evil: the alienation, the banal violence. Elsewhere his voice, though still ironic, comes out in a cry of outrage; here the tone is more detached.
The Wondering Minstrels (well worth browsing) give an excellent analysis, including observations about the effects of the rhyme scheme, and of the line-breaks in mid sentence. (For more about line breaks, and how to read poetry out loud, here's a real live poet.)
Instead of meditating on a single scene, this poem constantly switches scenes, with juxtaposed images that build up a sense of absurdity and corruption. There is a pattern to the scene changes, though: we begin on the city's outskirts, zoom in towards the bowels, then pan out again; finally we are taken "altogether elsewhere." What is the relationship of this completely-other place to the city? That seems crucial to the poem's meaning.
One of the themes here is the fragmentation of the city's life. Each segment of society is isolated, oblivious to the others. The "temple prostitutes" and the "literati" each seek their own mode of distraction. Religion, sex, poetry-- they have all been debased. The city's military protectors, forgotten by a decadent society, have no use for classical traditions of virtue. The ruler's bed is warm-- probably not so much from sensual passion as from mere sloth; while he sleeps late, the office worker labors on, trapped in an impotence only bureaucracy can inflict.
But what about those reindeer? Are they, like the scarlet-legged birds, a threat to the city? Or are they in some way the city's hope? They have an elemental power and beauty.
NOTE: I apologize to Auden and to all of you. In the sixth stanza, "flu-infested" has been corrected to read "flu-infected."
