I wanna conclude with a poem by James Wright which
is not a terribly famous poem, but it is an elegy.
It has a delicacy and a modesty I
think that I love a great deal about it.
It's called Lighting a Candle for W.H. Auden.
And I like to think that, some of what
we feel for right perhaps, may be
in the conclusion of this poem.
There's a bit of German in it and I will mispronounce
it, so, forgive it.
Lighting a candle for W.H. Auden at the Church of Maria
am Gestade, Vienna.
The poet kept his promise to the Earth before he died,
he sleeps now in Kirchstetten, some 20 miles from here.
I did not go to mourn him, although I
could have gone and found him among beaches, best
to leave him alone.
Maria am Gestade, Mary on the shore,
the loud gouge of the subway scuttles my silences,
if I come here to laud a wise shadow,
I restore the first light in my hallway,
a strange forgiving grace.
20 miles west, Vienna scrambles to keep its trees.
Since 1957, the poet, shragged and wise,
sang in an Austrian choir, a sudden holiness
behind the crag-faced fire, the prayer, the good man's prayers.
I happen now to be within his 20 miles,
kindly, as Thomas Hardy, whose dream the towpath fills,
the poet Auden lies down his 20 miles from here,
his perfect love is limestone, Maria on the shore, what have I
got to do with a kind poet's death?
One day he wrote to me, I had a book
to give, I gave my book Maria, while Auden was awake,
I give you my small candle, for the large masters' sake.
[APPLAUSE]