The Fall of Rome The Fall of Rome
June 14, 1947 The piers are pummeled by the waves; In a lonely field the rain Lashes an abandoned train; Outlaws fill the mountain caves. Fantastic grow the evening gowns; Agents of the Fisc pursue Absconding tax-defaulters through The sewers of provincial towns. Private rites of magic send The temple prostitutes to sleep; All the literati keep An imaginary friend. Cerebrotonic Cato may Extol the Ancient Disciplines, But the muscle-bound Marines Mutiny for food and pay. Caesar’s double-bed is warm As an unimportant clerk Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK On a pink official form. Unendowed with wealth or pity, Little birds with scarlet legs, Sitting on their speckled eggs, Eye each flu-infected city. Altogether elsewhere, vast Herds of reindeer move across Miles and miles of golden moss, Silently and very fast. This article is part of The Nation’s 150th Anniversary Special Issue. Download a free PDF of the issue, with articles by James Baldwin, Barbara Ehrenreich, Toni Morrison, Howard Zinn and many more, here. W.H. Auden (1907–1973) contributed many poems and critical essays to The Nation between 1938 and 1951.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / W.H. Auden
Hound Voice Hound Voice
December 10, 1938 Because we love bare hills and stunted trees And were the last to choose the settled ground, Its boredom of the desk or of the spade, because So many years companioned by a hound, Our voices carry; and though slumber bound, Some few half wake and half renew their choice, Give tongue, proclaim their hidden name—“hound voice.” The women that I picked spoke sweet and low And yet gave tongue. “Hound Voices” were they all. We picked each other from afar and knew What hour of terror comes to test the soul, And in that terror’s name obeyed the call, And understood, what none have understood, Those images that waken in the blood. Some day we shall get up before the dawn And find our ancient hounds before the door, And wide awake know that the hunt is on; Stumbling upon the blood-dark track once more, That stumbling to the kill beside the shore; Then cleaning out and bandaging of wounds, And chants of victory amid the encircling hounds. This article is part of The Nation’s 150th Anniversary Special Issue. Download a free PDF of the issue, with articles by James Baldwin, Barbara Ehrenreich, Toni Morrison, Howard Zinn and many more, here. William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) published his first poem in The Nation in 1933; his last appeared three months after his death.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / William Butler Yeats
The Great Chastening The Great Chastening
For Francis Fukuyama and John Dunn, our democratic crisis is the result of an intellectual failure.
Mar 4, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Thomas Meaney
‘Insoumission’ ‘Insoumission’
The categorical imperative “Do Not Draw the Prophet” clashes with the thousand nuances of art.
Mar 4, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Stéphane Delorme
Impossible Standards Impossible Standards
The poems and a new biography of James Laughlin tells of his public success as a publisher and his private disappointments.
Mar 4, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Adam Plunkett
Jean-Luc Godard and the End of Cinema Jean-Luc Godard and the End of Cinema
The French director is still grappling with the collapsing culture of cinema while imagining its future incarnation.
Feb 25, 2015 / Books & the Arts / J. Hoberman
A Volcano of Documents A Volcano of Documents
How the discovery of police archives has altered the memory of political atrocities in Guatemala.
Feb 25, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Peter Canby
Dhaka Stories Dhaka Stories
K. Anis Ahmed’s stringent tales of life in the sprawling capital of Bangladesh.
Feb 25, 2015 / Books & the Arts / André Naffis-Sahely
Shelf Life Shelf Life
Khirbet Khizeh is a study in ambiguity of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
Feb 25, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Eyal Press
Always Already Alienated Always Already Alienated
Ben Lerner and the novel of detachment.
Feb 11, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Jon Baskin