@damyantig: thanks for the clarification. It’s quite revealing. When i first read the poem, i was told that it was for a lover who suddenly died. I made a bit of investigation after reading your comment, it turns out that the poem originated from a play as a satirical piece on a politician’s death. then Auden re-wrote it for a cabaret song, retaining the first two stanzas and replacing the rest, making it about the death of a lover.

the other thing that i discovered is that it wasn’t written for Chester Kallman, Auden’s lover. Auden died two years before Kallman!

Thanks for instigating this attempt to learn more about the poem. These new stories about it have not altered how i feel about it, i must add. and here, to celebrate auden’s poetry, is another of his poem that i like:

The Dream
W.H. Auden

Dear, though the night is gone,
Its dream still haunts to-day,
That brought us to a room
Cavernous, lofty as
A railway terminus,
And crowded in that gloom
Were beds, and we in one
In a far corner lay.

Our whisper woke no clocks,
We kissed and I was glad
At everything you did,
Indifferent to those
Who sat with hostile eyes
In pairs on every bed,
Arms round each other’s necks,
Inert and vaguely sad.

What hidden worm of guilt
Or what malignant doubt
Am I the victim of,
That you, then, unabashed,
Did what I never wished,
Confessed another love;
And I, submissive, felt
Unwanted and went out.

This is the four stanza version made famous by the movie “Four weddings and a Funeral”

I love it too.