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The Truth About Auden |
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Auden was a poet |
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As one is a lawyer |
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A doctor or an architect; |
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He rarely took his work home |
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And had even his moments of leisure |
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Blocked out in a schedule |
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He felt about his work and subjects |
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As a lawyer 'feels' about |
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A particularly challenging tax agreement, |
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A submission to a judge well delivered, |
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Or a client who - by a careful |
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Argument from some laws of a land - |
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Escapes a prison sentence |
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He was rarely estatic |
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Just as he was also rarely miserable |
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And felt God's touch just once, |
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Sitting on the lawn |
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At the end of� a dinner party |
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He could keep |
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The world of thought |
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Far from what he actually did |
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And with this in mind, |
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His conversion to the Catholic Church of Angles |
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Was the chance to accept |
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A well tried framework of certainties |
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And a vague commitment |
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To acts of charity |
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It was proclaimed - in the interests |
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Of respectability - that he married Erika |
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Mann, and - in his private war on Fascism - |
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Broadcast radio from within Spain's Civil War; |
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But the unproclaimed truth (if one digs deeper) |
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Is that Wystan and Erika |
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Never shared a bed nor more than |
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Friendship and a useful contract, |
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And alas his radio career |
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Lasted seven days, in a language |
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No listener could speak |
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It?s not that he was bad |
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Or did not care - |
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It was just that |
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He was a gay Englishman |
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Living in New York |
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Who wore slippers all day long, |
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Read detective novels, |
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Solved crossword puzzles, |
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And went to bed |
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On the strict stroke of nine. |
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- 15/10/02 |
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