Auden poem

The pitch that this reaches at the end is incredible.

It's a fantasy of a lot of imagination and it gets to the point of resentment in which happiness cannot be allowed to anyone else. Even the lowest of people, the one legged beggars, should be crawling on their bellies like snakes.


I. Song of the Beggars 
"O for doors to be open and an invite with gilded edges 
To dine with Lord Lobcock and Count Asthma on the platinum benches 
With somersaults and fireworks, the roast and the smacking kisses" 

Cried the cripples to the silent statue, 
The six beggared cripples. 
"And Garbo's and Cleopatra's wits to go astraying, 
In a feather ocean with me to go fishing and playing, 
Still jolly when the cock has burst himself with crowing" 

Cried the cripples to the silent statue, 
The six beggared cripples. 
"And to stand on green turf among the craning yellow faces 
Dependent on the chestnut, the sable, the Arabian horses, 
And me with a magic crystal to foresee their places" 

Cried the cripples to the silent statue, 
The six beggared cripples. 
"And this square to be a deck and these pigeons canvas to rig, 
And to follow the delicious breeze like a tantony pig 
To the shaded feverless islands where the melons are big" 

Cried the cripples to the silent statue, 
The six beggared cripples. 
"And these shops to be turned to tulips in a garden bed, 
And me with my crutch to thrash each merchant dead 
As he pokes from a flower his bald and wicked head" 

Cried the cripples to the silent statue, 
The six beggared cripples. 
"And a hole in the bottom of heaven, and Peter and Paul 
And each smug surprised saint like parachutes to fall, 
And every one-legged beggar to have no legs at all" 

Cried the cripples to the silent statue, 
The six beggared cripples.