W. H. Auden's Conclusion to For the Time Being

The Daily Poem

Goldberry Studios

Education For Kids, Arts, Kids & Family

4.6 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 26 December 2024

⏱️ 6 minutes

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Summary

“To those who have seen/The Child, however dimly, however incredulously,/The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios. I'm Sean Johnson, and today is
0:06.3	Thursday, December 26th, 2004. And as promised in yesterday's episode, today's selection is another
0:15.2	portion of W.H. Audens for the time being, this is the concluding section of that long Christmas oratorio.
0:23.3	The nativity narrative wraps up with Mary and Joseph fleeing to safety in Egypt as they escape
0:31.4	Herod's attempt to kill the child Jesus. And then a narrator breaks in in what must be the voice of Auden himself.
0:42.3	Auden, who had just recently moved to America, uprooted his life, had lost his mother,
0:49.2	had reclaimed the Christian faith of his childhood, and yet was still struggling to let go of
0:58.3	portions of his old life that were not compatible with that faith.
1:03.1	It was caught between two lives and two realities.
1:08.0	He speaks to that tension and kind of universalizes it for all of those who have to
1:12.1	take leave of Christmas and return to something more like normal life and all that that
1:19.7	promises and forbodes. But then ends with a kind of coda by the chorus of the oratorio,
1:29.4	which puts a nice bow on it to use a seasonally appropriate term.
1:35.5	Here are the concluding portions of W.H. Audens for the time being.
1:44.4	Well, so that is that.
1:46.3	Now we must dismantle the tree, putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes.
1:51.8	Some have got broken, carrying them up to the attic.
1:55.2	The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt, and the children got ready for
1:59.1	school.
2:00.2	There are enough leftovers to do
2:01.7	warmed up for the rest of the week. Not that we have much appetite, having drunk such a lot,
2:07.0	stayed up so late, attempted quite unsuccessfully to love all of our relatives, and in general
	...

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