A-MUSED

W. H. AUDEN by Yousuf Karsh [1972]

A KARSH REFLECTION | “In Stephen Spender’s garden in London, the poet W. H. Auden talked about “coming home.” The Oxford University he knew, which he had longed for during bouts of deep nostalgic depression while living in New York, no longer existed for him when he returned to England. He spent two hours talking to my wife - prophetically - about friends who had died. He smoked incessantly, his conversation punctuated by wracking coughs. Meanwhile the light was gone from the garden, and I could take only a quick photograph of a beautiful and ravaged face. “Come soon, come soon,” he invited, but I knew I would never see him again.” | Yousuf Karsh

PLUNGE INTO THE WORDS AND WORLD OF W. H. AUDEN

• Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can; all of them make me laugh. | W. H. Auden

• Let all your thinks be thanks. | W. H. Auden

• We would rather be ruined than changed; We would rather die in our dread Than climb the cross of the moment And let our illusions die. | W. H. Auden

• A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us.  | W. H. Auden

• There must always be two kinds of art: escape-art, for man needs escape as he needs food and deep sleep, and parable-art, that art which shall teach man to unlearn hatred and learn love. | W. H. Auden

• Laziness acknowledges the relation of the present to the past but ignores its relation to the future; impatience acknowledge its relation to the future but ignores its relation to the past; neither the lazy nor the impatient man, that is, accepts the present instant in its full reality and so cannot love his neighbour completely. | W. H. Auden in W. H. Auden: Prose, Volume III, 1949-1955
  

Take some time to ponder one or two quotations that resonate with you and share your reflections in the comments section.