Poem by Wystan Hugh Auden

Words

A sentence uttered makes a world appear
Where all things happen as it says they do;
We doubt the speaker, not the tongue we hear:
Words have no words for words that are not true.

Syntactically, though, it must be clear;
One cannot change the subject half-way trough,
Not alter tenses to appease the ear:
Arcadian tales are hard-luck stories too.
 
But should we want to gossip all the time
Were fact not fiction for us at its best,
Or find a charm in syllables that rhyme,

Were not our fate by verbal chance expressed,
As rustics in a ring-dance pantomime
The Knight at some lone cross-roads of his quest?

1. O What Is That Sound
2. Under Which Lyre
3. Atlantis
4. For What As Easy
5. The Geography of the House

Ella Wilcox Words ("Words are great forces in the realm of life")

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