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You are here: Home / Not Books / The Fall of Rome, By: W.H. Auden

The Fall of Rome, By: W.H. Auden

The Fall of Rome, By: W.H. Auden

Speaking of Auden, his poem The Fall Of Rome gave me pause this week.

Maybe it’s all the turmoil in America that has made the country feel like a ticking time-bomb right now.

But it feels as though the USA is about to give away something profound.

The Fall of Rome
By: W.H. Auden

The piers are pummelled by the waves;
In a lonely field the rain
Lashes an abandoned train;
Outlaws fill the mountain caves.

Fantastic grow the evening gowns;
Agents of the Fisc pursue
Absconding tax-defaulters through
The sewers of provincial towns.

Private rites of magic send
The temple prostitutes to sleep;
All the literati keep
An imaginary friend.

Cerebrotonic Cato may
Extol the Ancient Disciplines,
But the muscle-bound Marines
Mutiny for food and pay.

Caesar’s double-bed is warm
As an unimportant clerk
Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK
On a pink official form.

Unendowed with wealth or pity,
Little birds with scarlet legs,
Sitting on their speckled eggs,
Eye each flu-infected city.

Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herdsof reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss,
Silently and very fast.

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Filed Under: Not BooksTagged With: #Loss, #Poetry

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