Fragments on the Death of a Muskrat
A POEM
Ballpeened by a bumper,
Struck down by steel,
Bowled hard over pavement,
Done in with a wheel.
O cinders, O gators, O gadabout hens,
O children with maces and pigs in clean pens,
Please arrest, I do pray you,
Your primordial urge
To pause in sad convocation
And sing this rat’s dirge.
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Evidently a man of coarse, even slovenly, personal habits, Auden was as meticulous as T.S. Eliot in the precision of his verse.