W. H. Auden wrote some of the greatest love poetry of the twentieth century. This book contains ten of his poems about love. They range in mood from the exhilaration of a new love affair, through love's anxieties and fears, to the sorrow that comes with the end of love.
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
The publication of this slender volume was inspired by the runaway success of Four Weddings and a Funeral, in which Auden's "Funeral Blues" practically stole the show. Yet every poem in the collection delivers some grandiose or mundane truth about love. There is, for example, the playful "Calypso," in which the recently transplanted Briton anticipates a rendezvous at New York's Grand Central Station: "For there in the middle of that waiting-hall, / Should be standing the one that I love best of all." Several of the pieces here share that jolly air and belting rhythm--in fact, Auden wrote a few of them as cabaret songs. Yet in a poem like "Funeral Blues," the poet's Cole Porter-like flippancy can't mask the underlying sense of grief. "Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves," he suggests, and declares the very emblems of romance redundant: "The stars are not wanted now; put out every one." Finally, there is "Lullaby," one of the great love poems of this century. With immense mystery and power, Auden evokes the preciousness of a single night of passion.
Time and fevers burn awayLeaving much unexplained, the poet lingers nonetheless over his heartbreaking particulars--and draws the reader back again and again: "Lay your sleeping head, my love, / Human on my faithless arm..." What an astonishing opener. --Cherry Smyth
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.
From the Inside Flap
W. H. Auden wrote some of the greatest love poetry of the twentieth century. This book contains ten of his poems about love. They range in mood from the exhilaration of a new love affair, through love's anxieties and fears, to the sorrow that comes with the end of love.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A romantically wonderful introduction to Auden's work!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Tell Me the Truth About Love: Ten Poems (Paperback)
This brief volume presents the reader with 10 poems covering different aspects of love. "O Tell Me the Truth About Love" asks what does love look like and how will it be recognised, using everyday metaphors. "At Last the Secret is Out" talks of an affair discovered and the gossip spreading. "Funeral Blues" was made famous by the movie "Four Weddings and a Funeral".This book is great for the romantic at heart and the reader will be able to identify with the struggles and heartache that comes from being in love!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ten unforgettable poems from the master,
By
This review is from: Tell Me the Truth About Love: Ten Poems (Paperback)
This little volume `Tell Me the Truth about Love' only contains ten poems, but the small number is easily compensated by the sheer warmth and authenticity of the ten pearls it contains. The poetry of W. H. Auden belongs clearly to one of the most beautiful created in the twenties century. It is never complex or high-flown, but gets its timeless charm exactly form its simplicity and remarkable honesty. Just to read that love does not look like a pair of pyjamas or the ham in a temperance hotel, can only bring a smile on the readers face, without making it sound like a lot of twaddle.Of course, the most famous of all the poems listed in this book is bound to be `Funeral Blues', simply because is the heartbreaking center point of the funeral scene in the popular movie Four Weddings and a Funeral. But the other poems too make clear that Auden has until today not lost anything of its eloquence.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Auden on Love,
By H. F. Corbin "Foster Corbin" (ATLANTA, GA USA) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Tell Me the Truth About Love: Ten Poems (Paperback)
Much of Auden's poetry is not easily accessible-- at least to this reader-- but these ten love poems are. This small volume was published after the success of the film "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and the inclusion of "Funeral Blues" which a grieving man recites at the funeral of his lover. Auden wrote these poems between 1932 and 1939 and many of them were set to music by Benjamin Britten.
If we are to believe Auden, love is elusive, often transitory, marred by war, unfaithfulness, time and death but ultimately worth it all. In "O Tell Me the Truth About Love," the poet humorously asks if love will come "without warning/Just as I'm picking my nose?" and does not answer his final question: "Will it alter my life altogether?" It is "more important than/Even a priest or a politician (Calypso). My goodness, we can only hope so. Otherwise we are in dire straits. In "As I Walked Out One Evening" the narrator of the poem hears a lover sing that love has no ending. Then the chiming clocks remind him that neither we nor love can conquer time. "Funeral Blues," the last of the ten poems printed here, is a lament for the death of a lover/friend and contains these sad, beautiful lines: He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong. "Lullaby," perhaps the most famous Auden poem included here, is a perfect example of why poetry still matters: Lay your sleeping head, my love, Human on my faithless arm; Time and fevers burn away Individual beauty from Thoughtful children, and the grave Proves the child ephemeral: But in my arms till break of day Let the living creature lie, Mortal, guilty, but to me The entirely beautiful. A similar version of this volume made the bestseller list in the UK but sadly not in these United States.
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