On Re-reading W.H. Auden’s “Collected Longer Poems” & “Collected Shorter Poems”

There lurked more than a little bawd in The Weitansicht of Wystan Auden. Never content to be a Spender, He minted his own legal tender, Splurging the silver in quick rhyme, In limericks and wasted time. He overflowed Bloomsbury’s flats, Found little joy in Eliot’s cats, Sniffed once at death in tortured Spain, Then wiped his hands of Marxist stain. America was more his measure, Quick in its anger and its pleasure, Broad in its humor, more adoring, Less apt to scorn poetic whoring. Slapping out verses, little more, As if perfection were a bore, He left this world, his life deriding, In full sail, like a tall ship, riding.

Ralph de Toledano

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Ralph de Toledano

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There lurked more than a little bawd in The Weitansicht of Wystan Auden. Never content to be a Spender, He minted his own legal tender, Splurging the silver in quick rhyme, In limericks and wasted time. He overflowed Bloomsbury’s flats, Found little joy in Eliot’s cats, Sniffed once at death in tortured Spain, Then wiped his hands of Marxist stain. America was more his measure, Quick in its anger and its pleasure, Broad in its humor, more adoring, Less apt to scorn poetic whoring. Slapping out verses, little more, As if perfection were a bore, He left this world, his life deriding, In full sail, like a tall ship, riding.

Ralph de Toledano