Refugee Blues: W.H. Auden

[marnanightingale]

I was recommending this poem to audrawilliams earlier tonight, and it's stuck in my head now. It's frequently stuck in my head, actually.


Refugee Blues by WH Auden


Say this city has ten million souls,
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us.

Once we had a country and we thought it fair,
Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:
We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.

In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,
Every spring it blossoms anew;
Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that.

The consul banged the table and said:
"If you've got no passport you're officially dead";
But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.

Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;
Asked me politely to return next year:
But where shall we go today, my dear, but where shall we go today?

Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said:
"If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread";
He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.

Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;
It was Hitler over Europe, saying: "They must die";
We were in his mind, my dear, we were in his mind.

Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,
Saw a door opened and a cat let in:
But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews.

Went down to the harbour and stood upon the quay,
Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:
Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.

Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;
They had no politicians and sang at their ease:
They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the human race.

Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,
A thousand windows and a thousand doors;
Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.

Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;
Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:
Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.

Comments

[st-egfroth.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this. I hope you don't mind that I have linked to it in my journal since it was rather appropriate...

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

It may just be my cultural heritage, but I clued into the fact that they were Jewish before I hit that part of the poem.

Thanks for posting this.

[soho-iced.livejournal.com]

I usually dislike Auden because I find his poems too self-consciously clever for my taste, but in this case the campness offset the seriousness of the subject and the result is really effective. Thanks for the post.

[audrawilliams.livejournal.com]

That's really chilling.

[radiantfracture]

Oh.

Thank you.

{rf}

[litalex.livejournal.com]

I've never read this before, so thank you for introducing it to me. It was...wow.

[lalouve.livejournal.com]

I'll say thatfor Auden - when he gets it right he really gets it right.