Lullaby by W. H. Auden [with text]- Read by poet Arthur L Wood

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Lullaby by W. H. Auden - Read by poet Arthur L Wood
Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.
Soul and body have no bounds:
To lovers as they lie upon
Her tolerant enchanted slope
In their ordinary swoon,
Grave the vision Venus sends
Of supernatural sympathy,
Universal love and hope;
While an abstract insight wakes
Among the glaciers and the rocks
The hermit's carnal ecstasy.
Certainty, fidelity
On the stroke of midnight pass
Like vibrations of a bell,
And fashionable madmen raise
Their pedantic boring cry:
Every farthing of the cost,
All the dreaded cards foretell,
Shall be paid, but from this night
Not a whisper, not a thought,
Not a kiss nor look be lost.
Beauty, midnight, vision dies:
Let the winds of dawn that blow
Softly round your dreaming head
Such a day of welcome show
Eye and knocking heart may bless,
Find the mortal world enough;
Noons of dryness find you fed
By the involuntary powers,
Nights of insult let you pass
Watched by every human love.
#WHAuden #Auden #ArthurLWood #Poetry #PoetryCommunity #PoetryReading #Literature

[@Dina_Amir]

Thank you

[@exildoc]

‘The hermit’s carnal ecstasy’. Auden knew to surprise

[@poetry_aloud]

Very well read, this was one of my favourite poems when I was at university I had almost forgotten it until I saw your video and came across it by mistake, thanks. You pick up the rhythm well and subtly.

[@rosiejack9069]

Lovely Auden poem

[@juttahawthorne6196]

Just beautiful and well read!