“Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice; With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress; In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountains start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.”

—  W. H. Auden

Source: In Memory of W.B. Yeats (1939), Lines 66–77

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W. H. Auden photo
W. H. Auden 122
Anglo-American poet 1907–1973

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