“And the poor in their fireless lodgings, dropping the sheets
Of the evening paper: "Our day is our loss, O show us
History the operator, the
Organiser, Time the refreshing river."”
<p> And the nations combine each cry, invoking the life
That shapes the individual belly and orders
The private nocturnal terror:
"Did you not found the city state of the sponge,<p>"Raise the vast military empires of the shark
And the tiger, establish the robin's plucky canton?
Intervene. Descend as a dove or
A furious papa or a mild engineer, but descend."
Source: Spain (1937), Lines 33–44
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W. H. Auden 122
Anglo-American poet 1907–1973Related quotes

“O water of the river Ganges, thou rememberst the day
When our torrent flooded thy valleys...”
Source: quoted in Annemarie Schimmel - Gabriel's Wing_ Study into the Religious Ideas of Sir Muhammad Iqbal (1989, Iqbal Academy) also in Jain, M. (2010). Parallel pathways: Essays on Hindu-Muslim relations, 1707-1857.
Attributed without citation in Janice R. Matthews et al. (2000) Successful Scientific Writing. p. 53
Sometimes attributed to Douglas Adams.

No. 3.
The Biglow Papers (1848–1866), Series II (1866)
The Whig Interpretation of History (1931)

A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Müller Written by Himself, Fourth Part.
Fourth Part of Narrative

Sermon 20 http://www.newmanreader.org/works/subjects/sermon20.html (1834).