Poems About W H Auden Seeking Honest Critique

I cannot enjoy one poem by Shelley and am delighted by every line of William Barnes, but I know perfectly well that Shelley is a major poet, and Barnes a minor one.’ - WH Auden, Nineteenth-Century Minor Poets

Am I a hedonist to say
that pleasure’s all there is, really?

To read alone is worthy of the cause.
Is that a statement so profane?

I shall confess, my Lord, I just don’t care,
when all’s been writ, who holds the gilded glove.

I’ll salt my sweet ambrosia with pulp.
And you can say I lard my soul with crap.

Yet in...

( After W. H. Auden )

I would say nothing like I told you so *,
Despite knowing the course your choices take;
Because I cannot interfere, you know.

Tis pointless inventorying your escrow:
Aware of outcomes, before it's too late;
'Tis all for the best; it ensures your growth.
 
There is no future that isn't malleable,
No nightmare exists, which you cannot wake;
Because I cannot interfere, you know.
 
The signs are there, in the spiritual world,
Glints of light, whispers, nudges as you play;
'Tis...

( After William Butler Yeats
for WH Auden )
 
When I am gone, euthanized by days' end,    
My physical housing no longer apt; 
And you, by water's edge, grieving, enrapt    
Of moments, lingering as perfumed skin;  
   
Eyes reflect greyish waters of the stream,  
with teeth, white as river rock, sun-bleached  
Atop the sandy current's countenance;    
Flaxen hair, as sea grass in a marine,    
   
Waving; and amid the reflection see  
A clear resemblance: features that are yours,    
Drifting within...

The old masters were never wrong about suffering
though we continuously stumble.  
We witness atrocities, then look away  
resuming the mundane, shrugging shoulders  
for it was no one we knew.  
The old masters painted scenes of agony  
in the most ordinary places  
as if to prove suffering is an isolated experience.  
Onlookers see and sympathize,  
but they are somehow yet removed,  
not quite totally there with the sufferers.
Yes, the old masters understood  
the human position of suffering,  
how it is...