Thursday, March 28, 2013

W.H.Auden: 'This Lunar Beauty'

Because yesterday's full, spring moon, buttery disc that it was. Also, because this is a poem that should be read aloud and I've been looking at poems for too long now. Delighted also, at it's slow increase, so lunar. Time is inches, yes; but also lines.

This Lunar Beauty
W.H.Auden

This lunar beauty
Has no history
Is complete and early;
If beauty later
Bear any feature
It had a lover
And is another.

This like a dream
Keeps other time
And daytime is
The loss of this;
For time is inches
And the heart's changes
Where ghost has haunted
Lost and wanted.

But this was never
A ghost's endeavour
Nor finished this,
Was ghost at ease;
And till it pass
Love shall not near
The sweetness here
Nor sorrow take
His endless look.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

auden makes you respect poetry.

Cheshire Cat said...

Auden as the ghostly reflection of Gerard Manley Hopkins...