Preface p. xiii

Paid on Both Sides p. 1
Poems 1927-1931
Bones wrenched, weak whimper, lids wrinkled p. 21
No trenchant parting this p. 21
Who stands, the crux left of the watershed p. 22
Suppose they met, the inevitable procedure p. 22
The crowing of the cock p. 23
Nor was that final, for about that time p. 24
From the very first coming down p. 25
Control of the passes was, he saw, the key p. 25
Taller to-day, we remember similar evenings p. 26
We made all possible preparations p. 26
Again in conversations p. 27
From scars where kestrels hover p. 28
Under boughs between p. 29
Love by ambition p. 30
Before this loved one p. 31
Watch any day his nonchalant pauses, see p. 31
The strings' excitement, the applauding drum p. 32
Upon this line between adventure p. 32
Sentries against inner and outer p. 33
On Sunday walks p. 33
The silly fool, the silly fool p. 34
Will you turn a deaf ear p. 35
Sir, no man's enemy, forgiving all p. 36
It was Easter as I walked in the public gardens p. 37
Which of you waking early p. 41
It's no use raising a shout p. 42
To have found a place for nowhere p. 43
Since you are going to begin to-day p. 44
Having abdicated with comparative ease p. 45
Consider this and in our time p. 46
Get there if you can and see p. 48
Pick a quarrel, go to war p. 50
This lunar beauty p. 52
Between attention and attention p. 52
Who will endure p. 53
To ask the hard question is simple p. 54
Doom is dark and deeper than any sea-dingle p. 55
What's in your mind, my dove, my coney p. 56
Look there! The sunk road winding p. 56
The Orators
Prologue p. 61
The Initiates
Address for a Prize-Day p. 61
Argument p. 64
Statement p. 69
Letter to a Wound p. 71
Journal of an Airman p. 73
Six Odes
Watching in three planes p. 94
Walk on air do we? And how! p. 96
What siren zooming is sounding our coming p. 98
Roar Gloucestershire, do yourself proud p. 101
Though aware of our rank p. 106
Not, Father, further do prolong p. 109
Epilogue p. 110
Poems 1931-1936
For what as easy p. 113
That night when joy began p. 113
Enter with him p. 114
Now from my window-sill I watch the night p. 115
The chimneys are smoking p. 116
O Love, the interest itself p. 118
The sun shines down on the ships at sea p. 120
Brothers, who when the sirens roar p. 120
I have a handsome profile p. 123
O what is that sound p. 125
The Witnesses p. 126
The month was April, the year p. 130
Hearing of harvests rotting in the valleys p. 135
Out on the lawn I lie in bed p. 136
What was the weather on Eternity's worst day? p. 138
Here on the cropped grass p. 141
The earth turns over p. 144

Turn not towards me lest I turn to you p. 146
On the provincial lawn I watch you play p. 146
At the far end of the enormous room p. 147
The latest ferrule now has tapped the curb p. 147
One absence closes other lives to him p. 147
The fruit in which your parents hid you, boy p. 148
Just as his dream foretold, he met them all p. 148
Fleeing the short-haired mad executives p. 149
To lie flat on the back with the knees flexed p. 149
Dear to me now and longer than a summer p. 149
A shilling life will give you all the facts p. 150
Love had him fast, but though he fought for breath p. 150
To settle in this village of the heart p. 151
Our hunting fathers told the story p. 151
May with its light behaving p. 152
Easily, my dear, you move, easily your head p. 152
O for doors to be open p. 154
August for the people and their favourite islands p. 155
Look, stranger, at this island now p. 157
The Creatures p. 158
Let the florid music praise p. 158
Now the leaves are falling fast p. 159
The soldier loves his rifle p. 159
Underneath the abject willow p. 160
Dear, though the night is gone p. 161
Night covers up the rigid land p. 162
Fish in the unruffled lakes p. 163
Stop all the clocks p. 163
As it is, plenty p. 163
Casino p. 164
Certainly our city p. 165

Letter to Lord Byron p. 169
Poems 1936-1939
Journey to Iceland p. 203
Detective Story p. 204
O who can ever praise enough p. 205
'O who can ever gaze his fill' p. 205
Lay your sleeping head, my love p. 207
It's farewell to the drawing-room's civilised cry p. 208
Blues p. 209
Spain 1937 p. 210
Orpheus p. 212
Johnny p. 213
Miss Gee p. 214
Schoolchildren p. 216
Wrapped in a yielding air p. 217
Victor p. 218
Dover p. 222
James Honeyman p. 223
As I walked out one evening p. 227
Oxford p. 229
Some say that Love's a little boy p. 230
The Voyage p. 231
The Sphinx p. 232
The Ship p. 232
Passenger Shanty p. 233
The Traveller p. 234
Macao p. 235
Hongkong p. 235
The Capital p. 235
Brussels in Winter p. 236
Gare du Midi p. 236
Musee des Beaux Arts p. 237
Rimbaud p. 237
A. E. Housman p. 238
The Novelist p. 238
The Composer p. 239
Epitaph on a Tyrant p. 239
Edward Lear p. 239
Voltaire at Ferney p. 240
Matthew Arnold p. 241
In Memory of W. B. Yeats p. 241
Where do They come from? p. 243
September 1, 1939 p. 245

In Time of War p. 251
Commentary p. 262
Theatre, Film, Radio
Manifesto on the Theatre p. 273
Choruses and Songs
You who have come to watch us play p. 273
You who return to-night to a narrow bed p. 274
Alice is gone and I'm alone p. 275
You were a great Cunarder, I p. 275
Hail the strange electric writing p. 276
Seen when night was silent p. 277
Love, loath to enter p. 277
A beastly devil came last night p. 278
You with shooting-sticks p. 279
So, under the local images p. 280
The Summer holds p. 281
Happy the hare at morning p. 283
Now through night's caressing grip p. 283
The General Public has no notion p. 284
Evening. A slick and unctuous Time p. 285
The chimney sweepers p. 286
Death like his is right and splendid p. 286
Let the eye of the traveller p. 287
At last the secret is out p. 287
O quick and furtive is the lovers' night p. 288
Ben was a four foot seven Wop p. 288
The biscuits are hard and the beef is high p. 288
Roman Wall Blues p. 289
Three Fragments for Films
Coal Face p. 290
Night Mail p. 290
Negroes p. 292
Essays and Reviews
Journal Entries p. 297
Review of Instinct and Intuition p. 301
Writing p. 303
Private Pleasure p. 312
Problems of Education p. 314
How to Be Masters of the Machine p. 315
Review of Culture and Environment p. 317
Review of The Book of Talbot p. 319
Review of T. E. Lawrence p. 320
The Liberal Fascist p. 321
Introduction to The Poet's Tongue p. 327
The Bond and the Free p. 330
Psychology and Art To-day p. 332
The Good Life p. 342
Review of Documentary Film p. 354
Psychology and Criticism p. 356
Poetry, Poets, and Taste p. 358
Impressions of Valencia p. 360
Jehovah Housman and Satan Housman p. 361
Light Verse p. 363
The Sportsmen: A Parable p. 368
Introduction to Poems of Freedom p. 370
Essay from I Believe p. 372
Educational Theory p. 380
A Great Democrat p. 386
The Public v. the Late Mr. William Butler Yeats p. 389
The Prolific and the Devourer p. 394
An Early Version of 'Paid on Both Sides' p. 409
Textual Notes p. 417
The Contents of Auden's Books of Poems 1928-1940 p. 431
Uncollected Poems 1924-1942 p. 436
Index of Titles and First Lines p. 463