Poems of Auden: One September, 1939

The poem ‘1 September, 1939’ is one of Auden’s most well-known and celebrated. In an apparently simple form, the poet ranges over a wide range of subject matter, casting his eye over the totality of human existence at the outbreak of the Second World War. The poem consists of nine 11-line stanzas written approximately in iambic trimeter – that is, with the occasional reversed initial foot or extra initial syllable. The result is one of partial rhythm, which is occasional broken or jolted by the incursion of unwanted external events in a manner which is perhaps appropriate for a world menaced by potential violence.

There is no formal rhyming scheme but there are some hints of final rhymes in a way that reminds me of the work of the great WWI poet Wilfred Owen: Owen’s principal stylistic contribution to poetry was the para-rhyme, which is a type of semi-rhyme at the end of a line that suggests partial meaning in a fractured world or environment. The result is the creation of a powerful voice speaking in the trenches of the war in which unimaginable horrors confronted those unfortunate enough to be forced to endure them. Auden seems to be deliberately echoing these sentiments here and is quite explicit in evoking the notion of ‘never again,’ which was the overriding concern of 1918. Of course, in September of 1939, ‘never again’ has become ‘yes again.’ How has it come to this?

The opening lines of the poem are immediately recognizable and evocative: “I sit in one of the dives/ On Fifty-second Street/ Uncertain and afraid/ As the clever hopes expire/ Of a low dishonest decade.” Like the legend of vampirism, which is the unspeakable curse that follows people from the old countries of Europe to the new world of America, Auden finds the misery of war still afflicts him across the Atlantic Ocean. In common with Adorno and others who fled persecution, his eyes remained wide open to the failings of his new home. While Europe reaps the savage harvest of imperialism and the evil about to be done by those to whom wrong has been done, the society of bourgeois mundanity (brilliantly described in other forms by Philip Roth) offers little respite: “Faces along the bar/ Cling to their average day;/ The lights must never go out,/ The music must always play.”

This is a complex and often quite wonderful poem which will repay attention by all lovers of modern poetry. Auden’s was one of the great voices of the twentieth century.