I am not familiar with this poet but found the poem on 3Quarks Daily and loved what it had to say.
The More Loving One
W.H. Auden
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.
Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time
2 comments:
All stars but one
(I refer to the sun)
may soon pass away,
be not missed for a day.
But what a conundrum.
No more simple "humdrum"
of blinking and twink'ling,
then fading away.
But cosmologist tremble;
Philosophers dissemble,
at the thought of the loss
of the light of the day.
Light, with property sublime
of absolutely lacking time,*
Einstein's source of fame and strife,
Ageless, timeless, source of life.
* Look it up in any good book on relativity.
beautiful poem(s)
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