[1038] Epitaph on a tyrant

Guest poem submitted by Aseem Kaul, <Aseem_Kaul@>:

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

	-- W. H. Auden

Perfection is the word. In six simple lines, Auden paints a portrait of a
tyrant that is both human and absolute. Auden's tyrant is not a political
machine - no mention is made of his military aspirations or his place in
history. Instead we have a tyrant who is frightening precisely because he is
so ordinary - he laughs, he cries, he seeks perfection, indulges his
interests. He is not even the motive force behind the destruction he causes
- he means no harm to the children, it's just that the momentum of his tears
causes them to be destroyed.

What makes tyranny so terrifying is the idea that the fate of an entire
country and all its people is governed by the magnified yet frail ego of a
single individual. And that's exactly what this poem captures.

Aseem.

[Minstrels Links]

Wystan Hugh Auden:
Poem #50, In Memory of W. B. Yeats
Poem #68, Musee des Beaux Arts
Poem #256, Funeral Blues
Poem #307, Lay your sleeping head, my love
Poem #371, O What Is That Sound
Poem #386, The Unknown Citizen
Poem #427, The Two
Poem #491, Roman Wall Blues
Poem #494, The Fall of Rome
Poem #618, The More Loving One
Poem #677, Villanelle
Poem #708, Five Songs - II
Poem #728, from The Dog Beneath the Skin
Poem #762, Miranda
Poem #868, Partition
Poem #889, September 1, 1939
Poem #895, August 1968
Poem #913, In Time of War, XII

From: Adam Fulford <fulford@>

Just wanted to say thanks to Aseem.
I have been trying to recall this poem on and off for
years having imperfectly remembered
it in my schooldays.

Adam Fulford