W. H. Auden

The Waters

Poet, oracle and wit
Like unsuccessful anglers by
Th ponds of apperception sit,
Baiting with the wrong request
The vectors of their interest;
At nightfall tell the angler’s lie.
 
With time in tempest everywhere,
To rafts of frail assumption cling
The saintly and the insincere;
Enraged phenonmena bear down
In overwhelming waves to drown
Both sufferer and suffering.
 
The waters long to hear our question put
Which would release their longed-for answer, but.
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