We would rather be ruined than changed We would rather die in our dread Than climb the cross of the moment And let our illusions die. - W. H. Auden

We would rather die in dread/ Than climb the cross of the moment/ And let our illusions die.

O plunge your hands in water, Plunge them in up to the wrist; Stare, stare in the basin And wonder what you've missed.<p>'The glacier knocks in the cupboard, The desert sighs in the bed, And the crack in the tea-cup opens A lane to the land of the dead.

By mourning tongues The death of the poet was kept from his poems. <p> But for him it was his last afternoon as himself, An afternoon of nurses and rumours; The provinces of his body revolted, The squares of his mind were empty, Silence invaded the suburbs. The current of his feeling failed: he became his admirers. <p> Now he is scattered over a hundred cities And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections; To find his happiness in another kind of wood And be punished under a foreign code of conscience. The words of a dead man Are modified in the guts of the living.

Before people complain of the obscurity of modern poetry, they should first examine their consciences and ask themselves with how many people and on how many occasions they have genuinely and profoundly shared some experience with another; they might also ask themselves how much poetry of any period they can honestly say that they understand.