to hold off chaos at arm's length

With the exception of the inestimable John Donne, W.H. Auden is my favorite poet. There are a lot of reasons for this, but one of them is that he was exceptionally prolific, and had a kind of poetic range and breadth that's hard to match—or even, sometimes, to imagine. Auden was very, very good at what he did, and he was wry and witty and sarcastic and clever and emotional and true, sometimes all at once. I post an Auden poem every year, but it's always a challenge to figure out which one it's going to be, because there are so many that I love, for so many different reasons.

But today is my birthday, and it's one of those big round number birthdays, so let's go with this one. I post it with both irony and fondness—precisely as much irony, I have no doubt, as Auden intended; late Auden is like this a lot, and I find him delightful.

Our earth in 1969
Is not the planet I call mine,
The world, I mean, that gives me strength
To hold off chaos at arm's length.

My Eden landscapes and their climes
Are constructs from Edwardian times,
When bath-rooms took up lots of space,
And, before eating, one said Grace.

The automobile, the aeroplane,
Are useful gadgets, but profane:
The enginry of which I dream
Is moved by water or by steam.

Reason requires that I approve
The light-bulb which I cannot love:
To me more reverence-commanding
A fish-tail burner on the landing.

My family ghosts I fought and routed,
Their values, though, I never doubted:
I thought the Protestant Work-Ethic
Both practical and sympathetic.

When couples played or sang duets,
It was immoral to have debts:
I shall continue till I die
To pay in cash for what I buy.

The Book of Common Prayer we knew
Was that of 1662:
Though with-it sermons may be well,
Liturgical reforms are hell.

Sex was of course—it always is—
The most enticing of mysteries,
But news-stands did not then supply
Manichaean pornography.

Then Speech was mannerly, an Art,
Like learning not to belch or fart:
I cannot settle which is worse,
The Anti-Novel or Free Verse.

Nor are those Ph.D's my kith,
Who dig the symbol and the myth:
I count myself a man of letters
Who writes, or hopes to, for his betters.

Dare any call Permissiveness
An educational success?
Saner those class-rooms which I sat in,
Compelled to study Greek and Latin.

Though I suspect the term is crap,
If there is a Generation Gap,
Who is to blame? Those, old or young,
Who will not learn their Mother-Tongue.

But Love, at least, is not a state
Either en vogue or out-of-date,
And I've true friends, I will allow,
To talk and eat with here and now.

Me alienated? Bosh! It's just
As a sworn citizen who must
Skirmish with it that I feel
Most at home with what is Real.

—W.H. Auden (1907-1973), "Doggerel by a Senior Citizen," for Robert Lederer, May 1969.