WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.780 align:middle line:90%


00:00:00.780 --> 00:00:04.230 align:middle line:84%
And the next one,
which is a sort

00:00:04.230 --> 00:00:12.000 align:middle line:84%
of adolescent poem of a slight
disillusionment I suppose.

00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:17.370 align:middle line:84%
What I expected was thunder
fighting long struggles

00:00:17.370 --> 00:00:21.000 align:middle line:90%
with men and climbing.

00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:25.920 align:middle line:84%
After continual straining,
I should grow strong.

00:00:25.920 --> 00:00:31.650 align:middle line:84%
Then the rocks would
shake and I rest long.

00:00:31.650 --> 00:00:36.930 align:middle line:84%
What I had not foreseen was the
gradual day weakening the will,

00:00:36.930 --> 00:00:39.570 align:middle line:90%
leaking the brightness of way.

00:00:39.570 --> 00:00:44.460 align:middle line:84%
The lack of good to touch,
the fading of body and soul,

00:00:44.460 --> 00:00:50.460 align:middle line:84%
smoke before wind
corrupt and substantial.

00:00:50.460 --> 00:00:54.120 align:middle line:84%
The wearing of time and
the watching of cripples

00:00:54.120 --> 00:01:00.330 align:middle line:84%
pass with limbs shaped like
questions in their odd twist.

00:01:00.330 --> 00:01:04.739 align:middle line:84%
The power force grief
melting the bones with pity,

00:01:04.739 --> 00:01:07.830 align:middle line:90%
the sick falling from Earth.

00:01:07.830 --> 00:01:10.710 align:middle line:90%
These I could not foresee.

00:01:10.710 --> 00:01:15.750 align:middle line:84%
Expecting always some
brightness to hold in trust,

00:01:15.750 --> 00:01:22.200 align:middle line:84%
some final innocence exempt
from dust, that hanging solid

00:01:22.200 --> 00:01:25.980 align:middle line:84%
would dangle through
all like the created

00:01:25.980 --> 00:01:28.680 align:middle line:90%
poem or the faceted crystal.

00:01:28.680 --> 00:01:32.730 align:middle line:90%


00:01:32.730 --> 00:01:38.040 align:middle line:84%
I think that all
through the early 1930s,

00:01:38.040 --> 00:01:41.190 align:middle line:84%
there was a feeling of
living between two wars.

00:01:41.190 --> 00:01:45.420 align:middle line:84%
In fact, I've been reading
lots of documents about Auden

00:01:45.420 --> 00:01:51.180 align:middle line:84%
lately, and I'm really
surprised how much really we

00:01:51.180 --> 00:01:54.240 align:middle line:84%
were conscious of
the First World War

00:01:54.240 --> 00:01:58.200 align:middle line:84%
which after all was
only 10 years before

00:01:58.200 --> 00:02:02.970 align:middle line:84%
we were at 20 or so, but
which seemed tremendously

00:02:02.970 --> 00:02:07.260 align:middle line:84%
remote because things had
happened 10 years before or 20

00:02:07.260 --> 00:02:10.770 align:middle line:84%
do seem very remote
more even than quite

00:02:10.770 --> 00:02:12.570 align:middle line:90%
remote things in history.

00:02:12.570 --> 00:02:16.620 align:middle line:84%
But nevertheless, we
were very aware of this,

00:02:16.620 --> 00:02:21.420 align:middle line:84%
and I think also we were
very aware of the possibility

00:02:21.420 --> 00:02:24.300 align:middle line:90%
of another war happening.

00:02:24.300 --> 00:02:26.640 align:middle line:84%
I think this possibility
became more or less

00:02:26.640 --> 00:02:29.880 align:middle line:90%
a certainty about 1933.

00:02:29.880 --> 00:02:35.320 align:middle line:84%
But already in 1929,
owing to the unemployment

00:02:35.320 --> 00:02:38.310 align:middle line:84%
and various sort
of disasters, there

00:02:38.310 --> 00:02:42.150 align:middle line:84%
was a feeling that
civilization was breaking down

00:02:42.150 --> 00:02:45.660 align:middle line:84%
and that a very strong
feeling of that kind

00:02:45.660 --> 00:02:47.250 align:middle line:84%
I mean, quite as
strong as people

00:02:47.250 --> 00:02:53.040 align:middle line:84%
had about the atom bomb or
the h-bomb some years ago.

00:02:53.040 --> 00:02:59.820 align:middle line:84%
And this rather sort
of overhang us really

00:02:59.820 --> 00:03:03.450 align:middle line:84%
who live under the
shadow of a war,

00:03:03.450 --> 00:03:06.990 align:middle line:90%
what can I do that matters?

00:03:06.990 --> 00:03:15.270 align:middle line:84%
My pen stops and my laughter
dancing stop or ride to a gap.

00:03:15.270 --> 00:03:19.380 align:middle line:84%
How often on the
powerful crest of pride

00:03:19.380 --> 00:03:24.150 align:middle line:84%
I am shocked with thought
that halts the untamed horses

00:03:24.150 --> 00:03:27.870 align:middle line:90%
of the blood, the grip on good.

00:03:27.870 --> 00:03:31.710 align:middle line:84%
But moving,
whimpering, and mating,

00:03:31.710 --> 00:03:36.480 align:middle line:84%
bear tunes to
death years stuffed

00:03:36.480 --> 00:03:42.170 align:middle line:84%
with a realer passions of the
Earth beneath this hearth.

00:03:42.170 --> 00:03:43.295 align:middle line:90%