W.H. Auden
Leap Before You Look
The sense of danger must not disappear:
The way is certainly both short and steep,
However gradual it looks from here;
Look if you like, but you will have to leap.
Tough-minded men get mushy in their sleep
And break the by-laws any fool can keep;
It is not the convention but the fear
That has a tendency to disappear.
The worried efforts of the busy heap,
The dirt, the imprecision, and the beer
Produce a few smart wisecracks every year;
Laugh if you can, but you will have to leap.
The clothes that are considered right to wear
Will not be either sensible or cheap,
So long as we consent to live like sheep
And never mention those who disappear.
Much can be said for social savoir-faire,
But to rejoice when no one else is there
Is even harder than it is to weep;
No one is watching, but you have to leap.
A solitude ten thousand fathoms deep
Sustains the bed on which we lie, my dear:
Although I love you, you will have to leap;
Our dream of safety has to disappear.
---
Dichtung und Wahrheit
(An Unwritten Poem)
Selections
I
Expecting your arrival tomorrow, I find myself thinking I love You: then comes the thought:--I should like to write a poem which would express exactly what I mean when I think these words.
X
I can imagine a forger clever enough to imitate another's signature so exactly that a handwriting expert would swear in court that it was genuine, but I cannot imagine a forger so clever that he could imitate his own signature inexactly enough to make a handwriting expert swear that it was a forgery. (Or is it only that I cannot imagine the circumstances in which anyone could want to do such a thing?)
XXXIII
Alas, it is as impossible that my asnwer to the question Who are you? and your answer to the question "Who am I?" should be the same as that either of them should be exactly and completely true. But if they are not the same, and neither is quite true, then my assertion I love You cannot be quite true either.
XXXIV
"I love you"; "Je t'aime"; "Ich liebe Dich"; "Io t'amo"...there is no language on earth into which this phrase cannot be exactly translated, on condition that, for what is meant by it, speech is unnecessary, so long as, instead of opening his mouth, the speaker might equally well point a finger first at himself, then at "You" and follow this up with a gesture in imitation of the act of "making love". Under these conditions the phrase is devoid both of I-feeling and You-feeling; "I" means "this" member of the human race (not my drinking companion or the bartender), "You" means "that" member of the human race (not the cripple to your left, the baby to your right or the old crone behind you) and "love" identifies "which" physical need I am at this moment the passive victim of (I am not asking you the way to a good restaurant or the neart W.C.).
XXXVI
I can pretend to others that I am not hungry when I am (I feel ashamed to admit I cannot afford a decent meal) or that I am hungry when I am not (my hostess's feelings will be hurt if I don't eat): But--Am I hungry or not? How hungry? It is difficult to imagine being uncertain or self-deceived as to the true answer.
XXXVII
I am slightly hungry; I am very hungry; I am starving: it is clear that I am speaking of three degrees of the same appetite. I love You a bit; I love You a lot; I love You madly: Am I still speaking of different degrees? Or of different kinds?
XXXVIII
Do I love you? I could answer No with a certainty that I was speaking the truth on condition that you were someone in whom I took so little interest that it would never occur to me to ask myself the question; but there is no condition which would allow me to answer Yes with certainty. Indeed, I am inclined to believe that the more closely my feelings might approximate to the feeling which would make Yes the answer, the more doubtful I should become. (Were you to ask:--"Do you love me?"--I should be readier, I believe, to answer Yes, if I knew this to be a lie.)
XXXIX
Can I imagine I love when in fact I do not? Certainly. Can I imagine that I do not hate when in fact I do? Certainly. can I imagine I only hate when in fact I both hate and love? Yes, that is possible too. But could I imagine that I hated when in fact I did not? Under what circumstances would I have a motive for deceiving myself about this?
XLII
Of the many (far too many) love poems written in the first person which I have read, the most convincing were, either the fa-la-la's of a good-natured sensuality which made no pretense at serious love, or howls of grief because the beloved had died and was no longer capable of love, or roars of disapproval because she loved another or nobody but herself; the least convincing were those in which the poet claimed to be in earnest, yet had no complaint to make.
XLVIII
"I will love You forever", swears the poet. I find this easy to swear too. I will love You at 4:15 p.m. next Tuesday: is that still as easy?