Comment 13 of 34, added on October 4th, 2005 at 11:18 AM.

Confusion is abundant in W. H. Auden’s poem “Song”. Auden does not like to use many details for his characters. In his poem readers can never tell how old a character is or who a character is, or if the characters symbolize certain characters of time; for example, Father Time, Death, or even Adam. Auden uses three different characters in his poem “Song,” one of his characters is an old man. And there are also two other characters in the poem, the clocks, and a lover. Auden lets all three of his characters refer to themselves as I, so a reader can never exactly know who is talking unless they pay close attention. Auden does not use many details to tell you who the character is, but Auden leaves space for the readers to figure out who the characters are. He should not have written his poem like that, because it confuses readers really easy.
The reason the old man is confusing is due to the lack of details, and he refers to himself as I, through the rest of the poem other characters refer to themselves as I along with the old man. The old man’s character is not well put together, because he has the least amount of lines in the whole poem that do not tell us much about him. Auden give this stanza to the old man; “As I walked out one evening, Walking down Bristol Street, The crowds upon the pavement, Were fields of harvest wheat.” This is where Auden tends to not use much description. He leaves us to figure out who is walking and how old he is. To me, the person walking is most likely and old wise man. The old man probable has bad vision if he thinks that people on the pavement look like harvest wheat. The fact that the people on the pavement look like fields of harvest wheat, says that it is around sun-set. Also since the wise old man thinks that the people on the pavement look like harvest wheat, the old man probable grew up on a farm. Is that what Auden wanted his readers to get out of that stanza? One person’s ideals cannot be true to the poem, due to the fact that Auden did not give many details to the reader about what he or she is reading. Toward the end of the poem, the poem starts to talk about the old man again. Auden decides to give the old man a second chance at confusing the reader again. He lets the last stanza in the poem say nothing about the old man but be about the old man. In the stanza “It was late, late in the evening, The lovers they were gone; The clocks had ceased their chiming, And the deep river ran on.” Auden tells us through the poem that no longer are the clocks speaking to the reader. Only the old man is not mentioned, that means the wise old man is back in the end. It is really late, so the sky is probably dark by now. Auden leaves us to figure all that out on our own, also he leaves us to figure out a whole lot more. The old man was there hearing what the clocks had to say about the lover the whole time that the lover was singing, and the clocks were chiming. The old man is confusing here because he stayed and listened to the clocks chime for a vast amount of time. The old man did not say or think anything, so time probably said all he had to say on the subject of love. The old man also is confusing do to the fact he listened to the clocks. Auden probable wanted the old man to be meekly crazy. When I look back at the whole poem, a thought occurs to me. The old man could be “Father Time.” That would explain why he said there the whole time and listened to the clocks chime, and could actually understand what they were saying. The fact that Auden can use non-descriptive words, yet make a reader impose many different things about a character would confuse many readers; due to the fact that a reader would never know whether or not what they think is what Auden intended on that reader to get out of the poem.
The tone at the beginning of the poem is laid back, but then Auden talks about the old man walking down the brimming river, “And down by the brimming river, I heard a lover sing.” The poem just switches to a lover, Auden tends to do that a lot through this whole poem. He needs to alert the reader some how that a totally different character is going to speak. Auden lets the lover refer to it’s self as I also. This is making the poem even more confusing by having two characters so far refer to themselves as I. The stanzas about the lover have better imagery than the old man, and are more descriptive. But that does not help the reader due to the fact that the lover is never described only the person the lover is in love with is described. All of the imagery is about the lover’s love. Something that is immeasurably confusing is “The years shall run like rabbits, For in my arms I hold, The Flower of the Ages, And the first love of the world.” The lover really expects years to run like rabbits, but what does that really mean? That might mean that when the lover is with his or her lover that when they are together time is going by so fast, but only seems like moments. Then Auden gives the reader a hint of the sex of the lover by the statement about being “The Flower of Ages” which leads to hint that the lover singing is a male, since his lover is a famine object like a flower. Auden chooses a weird way to tell the readers that though. I would have been a lot easier if Auden would have given the lover a name or even given the lover a description. One of the most confusing statements that the lover says is “And the first love of the world” is kind of confusing due to the fact that the first lovers of the world were Adam and Eve. The lover must think that his lover is Eve and he is Adam. Auden might have put that line in the poem to portray the loves as Adam and Eve, to give the lover a more romantic tone.
The Lover is confusing and the tone is love sick, but the Clocks seem to win, when it comes to confusion and tone. The clocks have the best tone, their tone is gloomy and bereavement. The reason that time is bereavement is manly due to the statement “In headaches and in worry, Vaguely life leaks away, And time will have his fancy, Tomorrow or today.” Normally death will come to a person any day or maybe the next, eventually death will find you and get you. Auden says the same thing as time in this poem. He makes his character of the Clocks as Death. Auden seems to like hiding who his characters are really. The Clocks may have the best tone; but could possible be one on the most confusing, because all the Clocks say, are riddles. One of the most confusing riddles is “O plunge your hands in water, Plunge them in up to the wrist; Stare, stare in the basin, And wonder what you’ve missed.” This could be the most confusing stanza in the whole poem. The reason it could be the most confusing is due to the fact, that you get out of it what you want. There is a deeper meaning to that stanza than a reader could ever get just reading through the poem once.


Brandin from United States

Comment 11 of 34, added on June 2nd, 2005 at 9:05 PM.

Something really important about understanding this poem is to look at the *contrasts* in it. There are two speakers and one narrartor. The two speakers understand life very differently. One is full of innocence, and one knows everything there is to know about life. The first speaker is the young man who is wooing someone. The second speaker is a clock. And the narrartor begins the poem, ends the poem, and is what holds the two speakers together.

There narrator opens the poem saying "As I walked out one evening". He seems like an old man, someone who understands the world. He walks along the street at what a romantic time of day. The sun is setting and making everything golden, even "the crowds on the pavement are fields of harvest wheat" (they are painted gold by the setting sun). So predicatably, the narrator comes across a young man trying to romance a young woman while hiding under a bridge (maybe they're both under there, or maybe he is yelling up at her window). This is where the first speaker begins, Stanza 3.

In Stanza 3, we are no longer reading the thoughts of the man walking, instead, we are hearing all the impossible promises the young man is making. From Stanzas 3 - 5, we hear the young lover saying a lot of terribly corny things. Auden makes it sound poetic, but he is actually spoofing what the young lover is saying. It's the worst kind of syrupy disgusting lovey-dovey stuff in the world. Nonetheless, we can relate to what the young lover has to say. When you're in love, it really does seem as if
"in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world."
So Auden is making fun of the young lover by making him say all these syurpy words, but at the same time he has compassion by making it sound sweet and poetic at the same time. He balances repulsion with compassion.

In Stanza 6 we are back to the narrartor, the man walking. He knows about the world, and about what happens to young lovers. They act foolishly and get their hearts broken, and love doesnt last forever. The narrartor hears clocks chiming in the distance as he thinks these things. To him, the clocks seem to speak. The clocks speak his thoughts for him.

So in Stanza 7 we are hearing the clocks speak (which really means we are hearing what the walking man is thinking about). So from Stanza 7 - 14 the clocks tell the truth about what happens to love. People grow old, people find out about sorrow, and loneliness. The years certianly dont run like rabbits, and people get stuck in the ruts and boredom of existence. People meet despair. Nonetheless, they still find a way to make sense out of everything. The world is never beautiful and rosy again like when you're a young lover, and everything seems old and ugly to you, including your own self. But instead of growing bitter about it, you have to realise that
"Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless"

In the last Stanza the clocks stop talking and we come back again the walking man. He doesnt have any comment to make, because the clock has spoken for him. All around him is the stillness of the night.

This poem is about Time and how we all have to face it. The clock is Time personified and made to speak like a person. It tells us what happens to all of us. We grow old, we meet despair. This poem is about foolishness, and sorrow, and how foolishness can lead to sorrow. Imagine if the young lover's girlfriend marries him, and then imagine her again ten years later with a job and kids and all the details and despair of life, and how she somehow has to find a way to keep going even though life seems ugly to her and it did not turn out like she thought it would. The poem is about how love is a lie, but at the same time, how love can still be true:
"You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart."

Understanding who is talking in what part of the poem is really important to understanding the poem. There are 2 completely opposite points of view held together by one narrartor: to the lover everything is sweet, while to time everything is bitter. The truth is somewhere in between, life is bitter-sweet.



Cherish

Comment 9 of 34, added on May 15th, 2005 at 12:38 PM.

Lily boy is an English Folk figure of "light-hearted fun". A Roaer is a teenage thug, so bascially Auden is saying that even the good iconic figure of the British will turn bad within time. That time has the power over all.

qweer from United States

Comment 7 of 34, added on May 7th, 2005 at 3:54 PM.

What I see in this poem is the persistence, and the blindness of love. Totally heedless of the inexorable rush of time, these lovers profess their eternal bond. It's easy to see the destruction wreaked by time following their profession, but it's not so simple. After laying low heroes, beggars, buildings and mother nature herself, love is still standing, albeit crookedly.

Tyce Velde from United States

Comment 5 of 34, added on January 22nd, 2005 at 11:46 PM.

This poem is describing the continuity of time, and that time is the only thing which is constant. This contrasts the brevity of love and the crooked way in which lovers see. Everyone is crooked by the simple fact that they are so narrow-sighted in their perspective on life.

Silver Moon