The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout Is not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About Diaghilev Is true of the normal heart;… - W. H. Auden

For the error bred in the bone of each woman and each man craves what it cannot have, not universal love but to be loved alone.

The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout Is not so crude as our wish.

For the error bred in the bone Of each woman and each man Craves what it cannot have, Not universal love But to be loved alone.

The wolves will get you if the moths won't.

But round your image
there is no fog, and the Earth
can still astonish.

Beloved, we are always in the wrong,
Handling so clumsily our stupid lives,
Suffering too little or too long,
Too careful even in our selfish loves:
The decorative manias we obey
Die in grimaces round us every day,
Yet through their tohu-bohu comes a voice
Which utters an absurd command - Rejoice.