Who Taught You?
A POEM
Butterfly, who taught you
Your exotic dance?
Who made your wings melodious?
What makes your spirit chance
That life is meant for sailing,
That days are light and free?
Do you have a “nest egg”
Or only liberty?
You May Also Enjoy
Envy of the Empty Air
Of what do they dream
— the white-robed monks?
while we
with half-shaped forms
from…
Paradoxical in the Extreme
Evidently a man of coarse, even slovenly, personal habits, Auden was as meticulous as T.S. Eliot in the precision of his verse.