Another Time

A long time ago, one of my favorite people showed this to me. I still love it.


For us like any other fugitive, 
Like the numberless flowers that cannot number 
And all the beasts that need not remember, 
It is today in which we live. 

So many try to say Not Now, 
So many have forgotten how 
To say I Am, and would be 
Lost, if they could, in history. 

Bowing, for instance, with such old-world grace 
To a proper flag in a proper place, 
Muttering like ancients as they stump upstairs 
Of Mine and His or Ours and Theirs. 

Just as if time were what they used to will 
When it was gifted with possession still, 
Just as if they were wrong 
In no more wishing to belong. 

No wonder then so many die of grief, 
So many are so lonely as they die; 
No one has yet believed or liked a lie, 
Another time has other lives to live.


- W. H. Auden