This poem has come up in conversation here twice lately
so here it is in its entirety, a message apt when it was written on the eve of World War II and now, too. September 1, 1939 by W. H. Auden I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives; The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night. Accurate scholarship can Unearth the whole offence From Luther... Sign in to see full entry.