Collected Poems Book

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
. . W.H. Auden, "Twelve Songs," Song IX (1936)

Rather than pen a review of a "collection" of such sublimity in Auden's oeuvre, this is simply in homage.

Unless you're studying a poet, it's doubtful you read a book of poems beginning at page 1 and ending at, here, page 897. To me, a collection of poetry such as this, created by such an acclaimed and beloved poet, is really an assortment of comfort foods for the gods, full of epicurean pleasures to push a mortal's dopamine rush. This is poetry to be sampled, savoured and treasured over the years. After having this on my library card for a few months, I'm determined to purchase my own now.

I think most literati recognize Song IX of Auden's "Twelve Songs," which begins "Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone...." (1936) (quoted in full in the endnote *), made popular in the modern day by the film Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994). It's one of my favorites, but the most surprising delight for me has been "Academic Graffiti (In Memoriam Ogden Nash)" (1952, 1970), a fun and puckish poem, parts of which are quoted below:
St. Thomas Aquinas
Always regarded wine as
A medicinal juice
that helped him to deduce.

Ludvig van Beethoven
Believed it proven
That, for mortal dust,
What must be, must.

William Blake
Found Newton hard to take,
And was not enormously taken
With Francis Bacon.

Lord Byron
Once succumbed to a Siren:
His flesh was weak,
Hers Greek.

Dante
Was utterly enchanté
When Beatrice cried in tones that were peachy:
Noi siamo amici.

Thomas Hardy
Was never tardy
When summoned to fulfill
The Immanent Will.

No one could ever inveigle
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Into offering the slightest apology
For his Phenomenology.

Henry James
Abhorred the word Dames,
And always wrote "Mommas"
With inverted commas.

When the young Kant
Was told to kiss his aunt,
He obeyed the Categorical Must,
But only just.

Nietzsche
Had the habit as a teacher
Of cracking his joints
To emphasize his points.

Louis Pasteur,
So his colleagues aver,
Lived on excellent terms
With most of his germs.

Christina Rossetti
Thought it rather petty,
When her brother, D.G.,
Put laudanum in her tea.

When Sir Walter Scott
Made a blot,
He stamped with rage
And started a new page.

T. S. Eliot is quite at a loss
When clubwomen bustle across
. At literary teas,
. Crying:--"What, if you please,
Did you mean by The Mill on the Floss?"


*Song IX of Auden's "Twelve Songs":
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.