I just knew you wouldn't be able to resist mentioning the Amazing Vanishing
Dildo.
But seriously, why did Auden cut his earlier poems like that, to what is
very often their detriment? Can he really have felt so insecure?
joanna
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robin Hamilton" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 7:08 PM
Subject: Re: Dipodic is...? (Re: is dipodic a no-no? )
> As Peter has done the major work, I'll just add a few snibbets.
>
> The poem, where the lines in question appear as part of the third and
> final section, was written shortly after Auden arrived in America in 1939,
> not long before he wrote "September 1, 1939".
>
> The original version is reprinted by Edward Mendelson in _The English
> Auden_, where there is this note to the text:
>
> "
> XXXIX : In Memory of W. B. Yeats. When first published in The New
> Republic, 8 March 1939, the poem lacked the present part A (except for its
> first line, in third person not second, at the end of the fifth
> verse-paragraph); when the poem appeared in The London Mercury in April
> 1939, this section had been added.
> "
>
> It first appeared in book form in part 3 of _Another Time_ (1940), along
> with "Spain" and "September 1, 1939".
>
> There's a discussion of the composition at the start of the second volume
> of Mendelson's biography of Auden, _The Later Auden_.
>
> The most convenient place to find the uncut version is probably in
> Mendelson's edition of Auden's _Selected Poems_ (Faber, 1979), which also
> has the other two poems (excluded from the _Collected Poems_, since there,
> Mendelson was following [the older] Auden's directions as to exclusions
> and
> excisions) and the version of "In Praise of Limestone" which includes the
> Amazing Vanishing Dildo.
>
> Robin
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Shore Poets" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 5:51 PM
> Subject: Re: Dipodic is...? (Re: is dipodic a no-no? )
>
>
>> The full monty is in the Faber book of 20th century verse, 3rd edition
>> (1975), and runs to 9 stanzas, against the revised version's 6. There are
>> amendments in the first section too, though only the third is published
>> in
>> that particular anthology. From memory, the one that particularly
>> disappointed me was from 'oh, all the instruments agree' to the
>> distinctly
>> offhand 'what instruments we have agree'.
>>
>>
>> Earth, receive an honoured guest:
>> William Yeats is laid to rest.
>> Let the Irish vessel lie
>> Emptied of its poetry.
>>
>> x Time that is intolerant
>> Of the brave and innocent,
>> And indifferent in a week
>> To a beautiful physique,
>>
>> x Worships language and forgives
>> Everyone by whom it lives;
>> Pardons cowardice, conceit,
>> Lays its honours at their feet.
>>
>> x Time that with this strange excuse
>> Pardoned Kipling and his views,
>> And will pardon Paul Claudel,
>> Pardons him for writing well.
>>
>> In the nightmare of the dark
>> All the dogs of Europe bark,
>> And the living nations wait,
>> Each sequestered in its hate;
>>
>> Intellectual disgrace
>> Stares from every human face,
>> And the seas of pity lie
>> Locked and frozen in each eye.
>>
>> Follow, poet, follow right
>> To the bottom of the night,
>> With your unconstraining voice
>> Still persuade us to rejoice;
>>
>> With the farming of a verse
>> Make a vineyard of the curse,
>> Sing of human unsuccess
>> In a rapture of distress;
>>
>> In the deserts of the heart
>> Let the healing fountain start,
>> In the prison of his days
>> Teach the free man how to praise.
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