by W.H. Auden
(1907-1973)
When two of my friends got married, they asked me to read something at their wedding. These days the Church has tightened the rules so that all the readings must come from the Bible, but in the early 70's young couples were shoe-horning all sorts of popular writing into their ceremonies. Passages from The Prophet or The Velveteen Rabbit were among the more common ones chosen by marrying couples who wished to put a twist on the traditional. Both of these books have faded from the scene. I will see a copy of The Prophet every once in a while, but the syrupy Velveteen Rabbit is happily consigned to used bookstores. There was another popular book at that time whose very mention makes people cringe – Jonathon Livingston Seagull. It is a long parable using the experience of a seagull to illuminate the mysteries of life. I was not a fan of the book. I would like to go on the record and state that I never owned a copy and at no time did I think it was worthwhile and certainly never thought of it as illuminating. My friends apparently found it moving because they asked me to read from it during their wedding ceremony.
Fast forward to the grand day and to St. Thomas Moore Church on Chicago’s Southwest side. The wedding started at 9:00 a.m. but, as God is my witness, I was certain that it was 10:00. I arrived at 9:15 to find the wedding already underway and my moment as a reader in the past. I do not know who pinch-hit for me (I owe that person an apology) but I burned with embarrassment in the pew and waited for the ceremony to conclude so I could apologize to the bride and groom. They were gracious and, fortunately for me, preoccupied with more important things.
Fast-forward again, this time 25 years their silver anniversary. Again, I was asked to read from Jonathon Livingston Seagull. The reading was to be followed, at the reception, by a detailed rendering of my wedding-day gaffe. The silver-anniversary reading was somehow to make everything whole. The problem was that no one could remember what part of the book I was supposed to read. Tellingly, we were able to pick a section almost at random because it made no difference where I started or finished.
My friends are wonderful people but took just a bit too much pleasure in reminding everyone of my screw-up of 25 years before. I pointed out to everyone at the reception that it was they who should be feeling uncomfortable because they wanted to include the grating Jonathon Livingston Seagull in their wedding. And both of them are educators! One an English teacher, for heaven’s sake!
How does this connect with Auden’s poem about love? Revenge. Someday they will celebrate another marriage milestone and I’ll bet they are going to inflict another reading of that awful book upon me. I’ll bring the book and I’ll open it, but I will recite Auden’s poem instead of reading from Seagull. I think it will work because Auden begins with a reference to a bird: “Some say that love’s a little boy; And some say it’s a bird.” No one will know I’ve made a switch until it’s too late. That’s the plan.
Auden’s poem is a rhythmic beauty loaded with unexpected pairings that sustain the rhyme scheme. “Pajamas” and “llamas” and “hedge is” and “edges” are my favorites. When I first encountered the poem, I was intrigued by the seamless use of remarkable words and phrases, such as “eiderdown fluff,” and “a hungry Alsatian,” yet much of the poem is constructed of simple words and phrases.
The poem’s title, “O Tell Me the Truth about Love,” asks for the impossible. It reminds me of a line in Yeats’ poem A Young Man’s Song (Brown Penny) wherein he says that “Love is the crooked thing; There is nobody wise enough to find out all that is in it.” The truth about love may be beyond our understanding but in this poem, Auden triangulates love’s location. Auden spends most of poem looking for a way to tell the truth about love, but it all sounds futile until the final lines. In the final lines we do not get a definition of love but a tell-tale bit of love’s DNA – the way we are altered by it. That may be my favorite part of the poem:
Will it come like a change in the weather?
Will its greeting be courteous or rough?
Will it alter my life altogether?
O tell me the truth about love.”
When I recite this poem, I vary the speed a great deal. Some parts of the poem should go slower so the images can sink in, while other sections seem to go better if the pace is faster. For example, the third and fourth stanzas are organized around the senses and sound very systematic; a slower more careful reading brings that out.
Does it look like a pair of pajamas
Or the ham in a temperance hotel
Does its odor remind one of llamas
Or has it a comforting smell
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is
Or soft as eiderdown fluff
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges
O tell me the truth about love
These next stanzas sound better starting at normal speed and then accelerating but with a pause between “vulgar” and “but funny” in the next to last line.
Can it pull extraordinary faces
Is it usually sick on a swing
Does it spend all its time at the races
Or fiddling with pieces of string
Has it views of its own about money
Does it think patriotism enough
Are it stories vulgar [pause] but funny
O tell me the truth about love.
The poem is a bit long and one might think it would be difficult to memorize, but it was surprisingly easy. And it does not degrade in memory over the years. Some poems will fade if I don’t return to them frequently, but this one is always there intact even if I neglect it for weeks or months.
Finally, it is the only non-children’s poem I know that refers directly to nose-picking.
O Tell Me the Truth about Love
Some say that love’s a little boy
And some say it’s a bird
Some say it makes the world go round
And some say that’s absurd
And when I asked the man next door
Who looked as if he knew
His wife got very cross indeed
And said it wouldn’t do
Does it look like a pair of pajamas
Or the ham in a temperance hotel
Does its odor remind one of llamas
Or has it a comforting smell
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is
Or soft as eiderdown fluff
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges
O tell me the truth about love
Our history books refer to it
In cryptic little notes
It’s quite a common topic
On the trans-Atlantic boats
I’ve found the subject mentioned in accounts of suicides
And even seen it written on the backs of railway guides
Does it howl like a hungry Alsatian
Or boom like a military band
Can one give a first rate imitation
On a saw or a Steinway grand
Is its singing at parties a riot
Does it only like classical stuff
Will it stop when one wants to be quiet
O tell me the truth about love
I looked inside the summer house
It wasn’t ever there
I tried the Thames at Maidenhead
And Brighton’s bracing air
I don’t know what the bluebird sang
Or what the tulip said
But it wasn’t in the chicken run
Or underneath the bed.
Can it pull extraordinary faces
Is it usually sick on a swing
Does it spend all its time at the races
Or fiddling with pieces of string
Has it views of its own about money
Does it think patriotism enough
Are its stories vulgar but funny
O tell me the truth about love.
When it comes will it come without warning
Just as I’m picking my nose
Will it knock on my door in the morning
Or tread in the bus on my toes
Will it come like a change in the weather
Will its greeting be courteous or rough
Will it alter my life altogether
O tell me the truth about love.
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