W.H. Auden was a controversial poet, legitimized in literature for his context. His writings can’t be read without personal profit relative to his imagination and thinking. They challenge perception and soul. Perhaps his favorite theme was love, even though his marriage served platonic friendship for both husband and wife. He was intimately attracted to a man who was less than faithful to him. Even from an illicit relationship (by Christian perception) we find a model of something happening that can occur for any loving human being. Auden wrote:
How should we like it were stars to burn,
With a passion for us we could not return,
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
We have it in few words, and take on the context of love without counting the percentages, the denials, the oddities, even the hypocrisies. Although Auden is opting for the greater virtue to be found in him, he did not account for the strangeness of the relationship with his wife. Something is missing, not in the poetry, but in Auden. Poetry, when cast well, is rich and seems above us. With striking ability the poet, when fully prepared, can in a few words tell a very large story pointing to life, even truth and falsity. It is so large that readers sense that they are vaulted into the context of what is written so able from self-resources to embellish the magnificent language that translates for them . Poetry becomes larger than that appearing on the page. Supreme poets are masters of language. There are no synonyms. Each word has its own meaning, so euphemisms are unlikely, except in design. At best the poetical lines cannot be stated any better than this statement. Poetry is not for the physical world but for the life of it. It embraces experience, both for good and ill. It does not dodge, and should not. Even those who might bristle at the meaning of poetry know that if this resonates good, it is true for all. Little wonder that a major approach in Scripture is poetic, so requires the soul to grasp the meaning and the experience.
We are not surprised that the Bible has its poetic books. Like secular poetry the statements say more than the meaning of words might indicate. We expect more words in prose, and fewer in poetry. We may be left in our own context which becomes an important matter. In that context God speaks to us in the special way that literature becomes great in penetration of our minds and souls. We are carried away by the poetry of Psalm 23. We need the warning that the beauty of the words, the context of thought, the ideals enunciated, are not fairy tales. They are what God wants to tell us in reverie, or in parable, or in justice, or in evaluation, but also in love. Even the worst situation seems to have objectivity offering direction in it. It is spoken from some truth that must be acknowledged, and from which some effect is made on thought and conduct. The proud person who bristles at the analogy of humans to sheep misses the glory of Psalm 23. The very poetry tells me that it is more than pastoral. God is more than shepherd, and we are more than sheep. The distractions of actual sheep and shepherd fall away. We can glory in the picture. The resistant person can make reality a distraction so lose meaning. Poetry is an avenue to rightful inspiration, aspiration, and realization. When poetry faded in the twentieth century from its heights of centuries from the Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, and for English language users, until recent decline set in again with lesser themes, we lost an avenue to truth and inspiration from moderns. With apologies to poets who stayed the course, we need recovery. When Israel sang the poetry of the Psalms they knew that God and persons lived and loved. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020