Follow, poet, follow right To the bottom of the night, With your unconstraining voice Still persuade us to rejoice; <p> With the farming of a verse M… - W. H. Auden

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Follow, poet, follow right To the bottom of the night, With your unconstraining voice Still persuade us to rejoice; <p> With the farming of a verse Make a vineyard of the curse, Sing of human unsuccess In a rapture of distress; <p> In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountains start, In the prison of his days Teach the free man how to praise.

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About W. H. Auden

Wystan Hugh Auden (21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was an Anglo-American poet known for his vast poetic work in many forms on many themes.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Native Name: Wystan Hugh Auden
Alternative Names: Wystan Auden • Wystan H Auden • W. H. Wystan Hugh Auden
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Shorter versions of this quote

In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise
poetry
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Originators like W. H. Auden:
T. S. Eliot Czesław Miłosz E. M. Forster William Carlos Williams Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Additional quotes by W. H. Auden

Far from his illness
The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,
The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;
By mourning tongues
The death of the poet was kept from his poems.
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Although you be, as I am, one of those
Who feel a Christian ought to write in prose,
For poetry is magic: born in sin, you
May read it to exorcies the Gentile in you.
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