A Poem for a Thursday #158

At work the other day, I was sorting book donations for the Friends of the Library book sale. Let’s take a minute to appreciate that my job put me in a room absolutely filled with boxes and shelves of books and told me to sort through them. That was a good day. I came across a lot of books I wanted and, since I tend to like older books, the ones I wanted to buy were the ones my coworker thought wouldn’t sell well. It worked out for everyone. I have a box of books on the shelf at work and I slowly carry a few home with me when I remember. This week’s books included a book of poetry. I spent a little while paging through it this morning and found this poem to feature today.

"O where are you going?" said reader to rider,
"That valley is fatal when furnaces burn,
Yonder's the midden whose odours will madden,
That gap is the grave where the tall return."

"O do you imagine," said fearer to farer,
"That dusk will delay on your path to the pass,
Your diligent looking discover the lacking
Your footsteps feel from granite to grass?"

"O what was that bird," said horror to hearer,
"Did you see that shape in the twisted trees?
Behind you swiftly the figure comes softly,
The spot on your skin is a shocking disease?"

"Out of this house"--said rider to reader,
"Yours never will"--said farer to fearer,
"They're looking for you"---said hearer to horror,
As he left them there, as he left them there. 

"O Where Are You Going?"
W. H. Auden

Visit Brona at Brona’s Books for more poetry.