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''September 1, 1939'' - W. H. Auden.

<blockquote>
I sit in one of the dives<br>
On Fifty-second Street<br>
Uncertain and afraid<br>
As the clever hopes expire<br>
Of a low dishonest decade:<br>
Waves of anger and fear<br>
Circulate over the bright<br>
And darkened lands of the earth,<br>
Obsessing our private lives;<br>
The unmentionable odour of death<br>
Offends the September night.<br>

Accurate scholarship can<br>
Unearth the whole offence<br>
From Luther until now<br>
That has driven a culture mad,<br>
Find what occurred at Linz,<br>
What huge imago made<br>
A psychopathic god:<br>
I and the public know<br>
What all schoolchildren learn,<br>
Those to whom evil is done<br>
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew<br>
All that a speech can say<br>
About Democracy,<br>
And what dictators do,<br>
The elderly rubbish they talk<br>
To an apathetic grave;<br>
Analysed all in his book,<br>
The enlightenment driven away,<br>
The habit-forming pain,<br>
Mismanagement and grief:<br>
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air<br>
Where blind skyscrapers use<br>
Their full height to proclaim<br>
The strength of Collective Man,<br>
Each language pours its vain<br>
Competitive excuse:<br>
But who can live for long<br>
In an euphoric dream;<br>
Out of the mirror they stare,<br>
Imperialism's face<br>
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar<br>
Cling to their average day:<br>
The lights must never go out,<br>
The music must always play,<br>
All the conventions conspire<br>
To make this fort assume<br>
The furniture of home;<br>
Lest we should see where we are,<br>
Lost in a haunted wood,<br>
Children afraid of the night<br>
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash<br>
Important Persons shout<br>
Is not so crude as our wish:<br>
What mad Nijinsky wrote<br>
About Diaghilev<br>
Is true of the normal heart;<br>
For the error bred in the bone<br>
Of each woman and each man<br>
Craves what it cannot have,<br>
Not universal love<br>
But to be loved alone.<br>

From the conservative dark<br>
Into the ethical life<br>
The dense commuters come,<br>
Repeating their morning vow;<br>
"I will be true to the wife,<br>
I'll concentrate more on my work,"<br>
And helpless governors wake<br>
To resume their compulsory game:<br>
Who can release them now,<br>
Who can reach the deaf,<br>
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice<br>
To undo the folded lie,<br>
The romantic lie in the brain<br>
Of the sensual man-in-the-street<br>
And the lie of Authority<br>
Whose buildings grope the sky:<br>
There is no such thing as the State<br>
And no one exists alone;<br>
Hunger allows no choice<br>
To the citizen or the police;<br>
We must love one another and die.

Defenceless under the night<br>
Our world in stupor lies;<br>
Yet, dotted everywhere,<br>
Ironic points of light<br>
Flash out wherever the Just<br>
Exchange their messages:<br>
May I, composed like them<br>
Of Eros and of dust,<br>
Beleaguered by the same<br>
Negation and despair,<br>
Show an affirming flame.
</blockquote>

—W. H. Auden

* https://poets.org/poem/september-1-1939

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