W. H. Auden ||
Refugee Blues
Say this city has ten million souls,
Some are living in
mansions, some are living in holes:
Yet there's no place for us, my dear,
yet there's no place for us.
Once we had a country and we thought it
fair,
Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:
We cannot go there
now, my dear, we cannot go there now.
In the village churchyard there
grows an old yew,
Every spring it blossoms anew:
Old passports can't
do that, my dear, old passports can't do that.
The consul banged the
table and said,
"If you've got no passport you're officially dead":
But
we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.
Went to a
committee; they offered me a chair;
Asked me politely to return next
year:
But where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go
to-day?
Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said;
"If
we let them in, they will steal our daily bread":
He was talking of you and
me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.
Thought I heard the
thunder rumbling in the sky;
It was Hitler over Europe, saying, "They must
die":
O we were in his mind, my dear, O we were in his mind.
Saw
a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,
Saw a door opened and a cat let
in:
But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews.
Went
down the harbour and stood upon the quay,
Saw the fish swimming as if they
were free:
Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.
Walked
through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;
They had no politicians and
sang at their ease:
They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the
human race.
Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,
A
thousand windows and a thousand doors:
Not one of them was ours, my dear,
not one of them was ours.
Stood on a great plain in the falling
snow;
Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:
Looking for you and
me, my dear, looking for you and me.
*
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