As I Walked Out One Evening, By W.H. Auden Read by Tom Hiddleston
Submitted by Sarah Wingo
“As I Walked Out One Evening” was written in the mid-1930s, early in Auden’s career. In technical terms the poem is a literary ballad with ABCB quatrains and other elements of the lyric poem. The poem deals with love, mortality, and the steady march of time. Although there is melancholy in this poem, one of my favorite take aways from it is that although life is fleeting, and perhaps even more so because it is so fleeting “Life remains a blessing.” My favorite line comes near the end of the poem:
“You shall love your crooked neighbor
With your crooked heart.”
This line acknowledges the deep imperfections of humanity, while at the same time celebrating the human capacity for love.
As we count down to Christmas you will hear my voice and other voices from the library reading some of the poems that have been selected, but to start us off with a little treat I found an audio clip of Tom Hiddleston reading “As I Walked Out One Evening”:
As I Walked out One Evening
by W. H. Auden
As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.
And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
‘Love has no ending.
‘I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,
‘I’ll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.
‘The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.’
But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
‘O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.
‘In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.
‘In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.
‘Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver’s brilliant bow.
‘O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you’ve missed.
‘The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.
‘Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.
‘O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.
‘O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.’
It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.
Article by Sarah Wingo, team leader- Humanities II, subject librarian for English, literature and theatre.
Article by Sarah Wingo, team leader- Humanities II, subject librarian for English, literature and theatre.
Breathless…