Look, Stranger! Poems by W. H. Auden. Faber and Faber. Pp. 68. 5s. By Basil de Selincourt
ÒThe world is out of joint, O cursed spite,Ó &c., seems to be the basis of Mr. AudenÕs inspiration; he has decided things are so bad that poetry itself must change its nature:
What can truth treasure, or heart bless,
But a narrow strictness!
he inquires in a four-line motto-poem: and one wishes he were a little stricter with himself, to begin with. His poetry is vigorous and large, or capable, anyhow, of largeness; but its tone is slap-dash. ÒUnderstand me if you like or can, and realise you will pay the penalty, probably with your head, unless youÕre quick about it,Ó is his attitude, and one cannot avoid the surmise that if he knew better what was wanted he would take more pains to make his message clear. His verse-forms are, in general, restless, impulsive, and inconclusive, like his ideas. He can work out a pattern well enough when he has one: witness his seven-stanza poem, in imitation of SydneyÕs pastoral, built on a recurrence of six identical rhyme-words. Well enough Ñ and yet his copy lacks the quality which might explain why the imitation was made; it plods on and gets through, but irony (the probable motive) needed something much better than that.
Not that Mr. Auden is incapable of a brilliant terseness or that he lacks the true poetÕs image-making genius. He has these things, but he expects much more of them than they can do. After all, there must be connivance in poetry; a poet must build before he can uplift his reader; it is no good his throwing half-bricks at his readerÕs head.
The problem of our time is much deeper than Mr. Auden has yet realised, and his poetry remains ineffective because he is using it as a means of forcing himself into a faith:
Never higher than in our time were the vital advantages;
But pompous, we assumed their power to be our own,
Believed machines to be our heartÕs spontaneous fruit,
Taking our premises as shoppers take a tram.
While the disciplined love which alone could have employed these engines
Seemed far too difficult and dull, and when hatred promised
An immediate dividend, all of us hated.
Let us learn love and discipline by all means, and, particularly, let us pray for poets who may lead us towards them by their example.