In yesterday’s post, I reflected on Philip Larkin‘s poem “An Arundel Tomb,” especially it’s haunting last line, “What will survive of us is love.” It reminded me of another great 20th century English poet, W. H. Auden, who also wrote a poignant line about love and death, “We must love one another or die.”
Auden’s poem “September 1, 1939“—with its obvious reference to the beginning of World War II—begins like this:
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
And the poem originally had this penultimate stanza:
All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.
Auden famously turned against this stanzas final line, omitting it when the poem was reprinted in Collected Poems
Clearly the original sentiment—we must love one another or die—suggests that love could save us from war, or even conquer death. The revised version—we must love one another and die—expresses an existential sentiment. We can love, but it makes no real difference, for we all die. Life is ultimately tragedy.
I am not sure why Auden turned against the line so vehemently and publicly. Maybe he was embarrassed by its emotional earnestness or ashamed of such a public display of sentiment. Yet the line as originally written is at least partly true—unless we become more altruistic, we will destroy ourselves. But can we go further and say that love conquers death? Here we have no answers, we only have hope.
The hope that traces of our love will reverberate through time, in ripples and waves that will one day reach peaceful shores now unbeknownst to us.
I do agree with the possibility of Wysten being embarassed by his own words, or because some of his peers gave him grief over them. This is ironically plausible.
The dynamic that is labeled “hope” is wrung from us, clung to by us, verbally thrust outward as a battle cry….to be WITH one another on this planet, not needing or wanting the other to be like us, but that we SEE each other – HERE, and rightfully so. Isn’t that why we’re on the planet to begin with?
After just reading on line Edward Mendelson’s wonderful essay in the New York Review of Books, “The Secret Auden” it seems to me like maybe Auden felt there was something sanctimonious about this poem, about the posture of the speaker. But it’s a poem that resonates so strongly with the present moment, including the line, “We must love one another or die”. To me”die” is used there in a spiritual sense, become dead to my life. It’s my love of other people that keeps me aware of the miraculousness of being alive. And that’s basically all I have, when, as in 1939 and now, the future looks bleak.
It isn’t the last line, is it? There’s a whole other stanza after it.
Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
You are correct. I inadvertently wrote “final” in my post. I have changed it. Thanks for pointing that out. JGM
How do I join this?
not sure what u mean.
I thought ” Love or perish” was attributed to Jesus. (?)
Echoes of Martin Luther King Jnr.
“We must learn to live like brothers
Or we will perish like fools”
great quote which I had forgotten. Thanks for reminding me. JGM
The eternal struggle of good and evil and the Buddha’s realisation that only awareness and practise of Loving Kindness can contain this mutual murder is beautifully expressed in Sir.Edwin Arnold’s Light of Asia.
I like the original ending…love one another or die. I am 81. I grew up believing that life was a tragedy but over the years I have come to believe that life is not a tragedy, that we can and should overcome that belief and not wallow in a tragic end. Especially in the context of our life today, coming to love one another, being at that desperate point, is possible. I really don’t see anything noble about tragedy. I see only ignorance. Getting beyond that, let’s love one another…it’s possible.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Mr. Kempthorne. JGM
I think that as long as “we must love one another or die” is not the last line of the poem, a sense of preachiness or religiosity is avoided. Auden would not have wished to sound like a Christian apologist.
Fair point, although I admit to liking the original ending better. JGM
Having just read the full poem for the first time, it does come across as being somewhat sanctimonious and preachy in its overall tone. It is certainly understandable that Auden wasn’t proud of it.
Having never read the poem before in its entirety, I thought it’d be quite good but it wasn’t.
In fact, the line ‘we must love one another…’ is the only line that sounds deep and profound. The rest of the poem sounds superficial by comparison.
Maybe Auden changed the final line so that people would stop reading the poem?