Conversion
Remembering W. H. Auden’s “The Shield of Achilles”
Daydreams as a little boy I recallIn bits and pieces, tricornes and sabers,Jolly-Rogers’s, coon-skin caps, and ribbonsFor my sweetheart when I came a-courting.
Whether a sailor or a frontiersman I was always the one people looked up toSince a man can’t bear people should look down on him.This I understood from a very young age—
I saw the men who could not lift their heads,I saw the men who would not lower theirs,I saw the men who had to favor a limb,I saw men die as men before their bodies died.
You see, I was born just after the war To one of them who came back maimed inside Who could do nothing but drink and rewindAnd could not hope for help and no help came.
When I was old enough to read the poetAnd understand the wrath of Achilles,I was too young to be lashed to the mast:My appetite for sex swelled and drugged my will
As it hardened my flesh against my mind—I would have capsized as the gods laughed at me. My tears, I could see, would water no change,No more my words, though wrung from my heart.
So the poets taught me, the makers of song,The strong iron-hearted man-slaying AchillesWould not live long, but they did not teach meHow to think with ribbons no one should wear.
Remembering W. H. Auden’s “The Shield of Achilles”
Daydreams as a little boy I recallIn bits and pieces, tricornes and sabers,Jolly-Rogers’s, coon-skin caps, and ribbonsFor my sweetheart when I came a-courting.
Whether a sailor or a frontiersman I was always the one people looked up toSince a man can’t bear people should look down on him.This I understood from a very young age—
I saw the men who could not lift their heads,I saw the men who would not lower theirs,I saw the men who had to favor a limb,I saw men die as men before their bodies died.
You see, I was born just after the war To one of them who came back maimed inside Who could do nothing but drink and rewindAnd could not hope for help and no help came.
When I was old enough to read the poetAnd understand the wrath of Achilles,I was too young to be lashed to the mast:My appetite for sex swelled and drugged my will
As it hardened my flesh against my mind—I would have capsized as the gods laughed at me. My tears, I could see, would water no change,No more my words, though wrung from my heart.
So the poets taught me, the makers of song,The strong iron-hearted man-slaying AchillesWould not live long, but they did not teach meHow to think with ribbons no one should wear.