POEM OF THE DAY

Soon, soon, through dykes of our content
The crumpling flood will force a rent
And, taller than a tree,
Hold sudden death before our eyes
Whose river dreams long hid the size
And vigours of the sea.

But when the waters make retreat
And through the black mud first the wheat
In shy green stalks appears,
When stranded monsters gasping lie,
And sounds of riveting terrify
Their whorled unsubtle ears,

May these delights we dread to lose,
This privacy, need no excuse,
But to that strength belong,
As through a child’s rash happy cries
The drowned parental voices rise
In unlamenting song…..

– from W.H. Auden’s “A Summer Night” (1933).