Eric Fesmire-Outside Reading #1-I walked out one Evening

This is the poem I brought to class when we were discussing poetry.

As I Walked Out one Evening-W.H. Auden

As I walked out one evening,
        Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
        Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
        I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
        "Love has no ending.

"I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
        Till China and Africa meet
And the river jumps over the mountain
        And the salmon sing in the street.

"I'll love you till the ocean
        Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
        Like geese about the sky.

"The years shall run like rabbits
        For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages
        And the first love of the world."

But all the clocks in the city
        Began to whirr and chime:
"O let not Time deceive you,
        You cannot conquer Time.

"In the burrows of the Nightmare
        Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
        And coughs when you would kiss.

"In headaches and in worry
        Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
        To-morrow or to-day.

"Into many a green valley
        Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
        And the diver's brilliant bow.

"O plunge your hands in water,
        Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
        And wonder what you've missed.

"The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
        The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
        A lane to the land of the dead.

"Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
        And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer
        And Jill goes down on her back.

"O look, look in the mirror, 
        O look in your distress;
Life remains a blessing
        Although you cannot bless.

"O stand, stand at the window
        As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
        With your crooked heart."

It was late, late in the evening,
        The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming
        And the deep river ran on.




I love this poem because of the interplay between the unconquerable nature of time and the lover's expectations.  On first notice, the poem might come across as depressing, but I see the beauty in his final words "and the deep river ran on." Notice the clocks themselves had "ceased their chiming." This alludes to the idea that there is something deeper than even Time which swallowed up the young lovers.  There is a deeper love, a deeper reality than what the lover's believed in their naivety.  The line "life remains a blessing, although you cannot bless" hints at this truth. Our vulnerability is described when he says we are to love our crooked neighbor with our crooked heart.  The blessings of life  are then outside of our ability give out in our own way because of our crookedness. Still, life however brief and fleeting, carries with it a blessing beyond our own ability.