Lay
your
sleeping
head,
my
love,
Human
on
my
faithless
arm:
Time
and
fevers
burn
away
Individual
beauty
from
Thoughtful
children,
and
the
grave
Proves
the
child
ephemeral:
But
in
my
arms
till
break
of
day
Let
the
living
creature
lie,
Mortal,
guilty,
but
to
me
The
entirely
beautiful.

 

 

 

Soul
and
body
have
no
bounds:
To
lovers
as
they
lie
upon
Her
tolerant
enchanted
slope
In
their
ordinary
swoon,
Grave
the
vision
Venusv sends
Of
supernatural
sympathy,
Universal
love
and
hope;
While
an
abstract
insight
wakes
Among
the
glaciers
and
the
rocks
The
hermit's
carnal
ecstacy.

 

                                                                                                                                                          Lullaby by W. H. Auden

 

Certainty,
fidelity
On
the
stroke
of
midnight
pass
Like
vibrations
of
a
bell
And
fashionable
madmen
raise
Their
pedantic
boring
cry:
Every
farthing
of
the
cost.
All
the
dreaded
cards
foretell.
Shall
be
paid,
but
from
this
night
Not
a
whisper,
not
a
thought.
Not
a
kiss
nor
look
be
lost.

 

 

 

Beauty,
midnight,
vision
dies:
Let
the
winds
of
dawn
that
blow
Softly
round
your
dreaming
head
Such
a
day
of
welcome
show

Eye
and
knocking
heart
may
bless,
Find
our
mortal
world
enough;
Noons
of
dryness
find
you
fed
By
the
involuntary
powers,
Nights
of
insult
letv you
pass
Watched
by
every
human
love.