The Composer -- W H Auden

Guest poem submitted by Janice:

(Poem #1845) The Composer All the others translate: the painter sketches A visible world to love or reject; Rummaging into his living, the poet fetches The images out that hurt and connect. From Life to Art by painstaking adaption Relying on us to cover the rift; Only your notes are pure contraption, Only your song is an absolute gift. Pour out your presence, O delight, cascading The falls of the knee and the weirs of the spine, Our climate of silence and doubt invading; You, alone, alone, O imaginary song, Are unable to say an existence is wrong, And pour out your forgiveness like a wine. -- W H Auden

Auden always surprises me. Just when I think I've read everything, or almost
everything, out pops another poem that I've never seen -- and end up loving.
Take "The Composer" for example. I have Auden's collected poems lovingly
stashed on my book shelf and then I find this poem on my GRE subject test --
the one I took last Saturday! Just goes to show that poetry does truly find
you and not the other way round!

I love what he says about the painter and the poet, even though they only
'translate'... interesting how he says 'relying on us to cover the rift'.
And then suddenly -- almost like a symphony itself -- the poem takes off and
rises high above itself when he describes music. Music that delights,
uplifts, cascades over us and 'our climate of silence and doubt invading'.
So beautiful :)

Janice.