Autumn Song

Now the leaves are falling fast,
Nurse's flowers will not last,
Nurses to their graves are gone,
But the prams go rolling on.

Whispering neighbors left and right
Daunt us from our true delight,
Able hands are forced to freeze
Derelict on lonely knees.

Close behind us on our track,
Dead in hundreds cry Alack,
Arms raised stiffly to reprove
In false attitudes of love.

Scrawny through a plundered wood,
Trolls run scolding for their food,
Owl and nightingale are dumb,
And the angel will not come.

Clear, unscalable, ahead
Rise the Mountains of Instead,
From whose cold, cascading streams
None may drink except in dreams.

---

Auden at 19 years of age, i.e.,
a decade before writing this poem.
After a photograph by James Soame.

---

For more portraits of Wystan Hugh (W.H.) Auden, try the National Portrait Gallery. And for more Auden on this site, visit his Museum of Fine Arts. There you can even listen to his own voice!

---

By the way, on the German side I mentioned that Auden likes short words with multiple meanings, which would all fit the poem and what it tries to say. For instance, have the two birds of very different voices, owl and nightingale, fallen silent, or is "The Owl and the Nightingale" (a debate poem in Middle English with themes ranging from sanitation to sex) stupid, or has it just been kept quiet? You'd be the judge...

---

Later (Feb. 2010)

I have just heard a recitation by "SpokenVerse", which fits this page hand-in-glove:

You will find additional comments in this YouTube Video and they are well worth reading. But just in case you don't, I'll take the liberty of reproducing them here:

SpokenVerse writes:

"Sometimes I the words I speak are slightly different. Apart from carelessness there are two other reasons: one is like "Chinese Whispers". It's a side effect of knowing the poem for a long time. At intervals I have recalled it imperfectly and patched it up. Often I'm astonished when I see how different my version is from the original. Sometimes I even like my version better: such is my conceit. It's thinking that I know the words that makes them come out wrongly.

The other reason is that poets are infamous for improving their words when presented with a fresh opportunity for publication. Auden was inordinately fond of doing it. Different versions exist. "Autumn Song" first appeared in New Statesman, 14 March 1936, under the title "Poem". It has also been published as one of a dozen poems and it was then called "Twelve Songs, VI".

Auden face got more impressive as he got older "like some old saurian in decay" - didn't somebody say, "Like a Christmas cake that had been left out in the rain?"

Here's a version showing some of Auden's alternative wordings:

Now the leaves are falling fast,
Nurse's flowers will not last;
Nurses to THEIR graves are gone,
And the prams go rolling on.

Whispering neighbours, left and right,
Pluck us from OUR real delight;
(Daunt us from our true delight)
And OUR active hands must freeze
(Able hands are left to freeze)
Lonely on OUR separate knees.
(Derelict on lonely knees)

Dead in hundreds at the back
(Close behind us on our track)
Follow wooden in our track,
(Dead in hundreds cry Alack, )
Arms raised stiffly to reprove
In false attitudes of love.

Starving through the leafless wood
(Scrawny through a plundered wood,)
Trolls run scolding for their food;
And the nightingale is dumb,
(Owl and nightingale are dumb,)
And the angel will not come.

Cold, impossible, ahead
(Clear, unscaleable, ahead)
Lifts the mountain's lovely head
(Rise the Mountains of Instead, )
Whose white waterfall could bless
(From whose cold cascading streams)
Travellers in their last distress.
(None may drink except in dreams.) "

---

Right. Thank you, SpokenVerse! Now, esteemed bilingual reader, do you still accuse me of taking a few liberties with the German?

Herbstgesang

Alte Blätter fallen dicht,
Ammenblüten halten nicht,
Ammen starben aus, jedoch
Kinderwagen rollen noch.

Nachbarntratsch von links und rechts
rügt die Freuden des Geschlechts,
fäh'ge Hände müssen flieh'n
hilflos vor verlass'nen Knien.

Hinter uns, schon in der Näh',
Totenhorden schreien Weh!,
steifarms drohend unseren
falschen Liebesstellungen.

Trolle rennen durch den Wald,
suchen fluchend Unterhalt,
Eul' und Nachtigall sind stumm
und kein Engel sieht sich um.