Collected Poems

Between 1927 and his death in 1973, W. H. Auden endowed poetry in the English language with a new face. Or rather, with several faces, since his work ranged from the political to the religious, from the urbane to the pastoral, from the mandarin to the in

Characters

W. H. Auden (3)Edna St. Vincent Millay (2)Mark Strand (2)Robert Lowell (1)Jane Kenyon (1)Kenneth Patchen (1)Thom Gunn (1)

A small grove massacred to the last ash, An oak with heart-rot, give away the show: This great society is going to smash; They cannot fool us with how fast they go, How much they cost each other and the gods. A culture is no better than its woods.

— W. H. Auden, amazon.com

Nature People Woods humans Society

A well-kempt forest begs Our Lady's grace; Someone is not disgusted, or at least Is laying bets upon the human race Retaining enough decency to last; The trees encountered on a country stroll Reveal a lot about a country's soul.

— W. H. Auden, amazon.com

Nature environment Trees humans Pollution

Two trunks like bodies, bodies like twined trunks . . . . Truly each other’s, they have embraced so long Their barks have met and wedded in one flow".

— Thom Gunn, amazon.com

Nature Love Relationship Differences developing feelings developing love

Is dying harder than being already dead?

— Robert Lowell, amazon.com

depressed Empty Dying Anxiety

Why do I love what fades?

— Mark Strand, amazon.com

Love pain in love pain in loving suffering in love Heartbreak

It will always be this way. I stand here scared that you will disappear, scared that you will stay.

— Mark Strand, amazon.com

Love self Living Life poem

Say what you will, / Call me in all things what I was before, / A flutterer in the wind, a woman still; / I tell you I am what I was and more.

— Edna St. Vincent Millay, amazon.com

Womanhood Poetry Identity

If it’s darkness we’re having, let it be extravagant.

— Jane Kenyon, amazon.com

Darkness Enthusiasm

It is good to be weary from that brilliant work It is being God to feel your breathing under me A waterglass on the bureau fills with morning . . . Don’t let anyone in to wake us.

— Kenneth Patchen, amazon.com

Love Poem

He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest.

— W. H. Auden, amazon.com

How To Say I Love You

I know I am but summer to your heart, And not the full four seasons of the year; And you must welcome from another part Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear. No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing; And I have loved you all too long and well To carry st…

— Edna St. Vincent Millay, amazon.com

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