THE ISLAMIA UNIVERSITY OF

BAHAWALPUR
(RAHIM YAR KHAN)
ASSIGNMENT (01)

Submitted by: MEHWISH REHMATULLAH

Submitted to: Maam Amna Aslam

Class: (Bs English (6th sem).

Roll No: (F22RENLT1M03012).

Subject: (Modern poetry)

Topic: (“As I Walked Out One Evening”)

Author Biography
Auden was born in 1907 and was raised in northern England, the son of a doctor
and a nurse. He received his primary education at St. Edmund’s School in Surrey
and Gresham’s School in Kent. Auden’s early interest in science and engineering
earned him a scholarship to Oxford University; however, his interest in poetry led
him to switch his field of study to English. Throughout his career Auden won
numerous honors and awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for The Age of Anxiety
He died while on a trip to Vienna in 1973. He is buried in Poet’s Corner
of Westminster Abbey.

As I Walked Out One Evening

Lines: 1-4
As I walked out one evening,
   Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
   Were fields of harvest wheat.

This first stanza establishes a setting and a pace for the walk we are about to begin
with the speaker. Auden introduces the time of day (“one evening”) and specific
location (“Bristol Street”), which we might guess is in the city of Bristol, just west
of London, England. Bristol Street is crowded this time of day, and the people
moving together reminds the speaker of “fields of harvest wheat.” As we walk
down the crowded street with the speaker we begin to feel the pace of his stride
echoed in the rhythm of each line.

Notice too that Auden describes the wheat in terms of time, or when it is to be
harvested. Fall, the harvest season, is often used in art as a metaphor for old age
because it is the last stage of the life cycle, with the plants past bloom and fruit and
cold winter coming. Here the speaker sees the crowd and thinks of the fields in the
fall, the golden wheat, and our journey to our “winter” years.
Lines: 5-8
And down by the brimming river
   I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
   'Love has no ending.

After passing through the crowd, the speaker arrives at a “brimming river” where
he hears two lovers talking under “an arch of the railway.” The poem becomes a
dialogue which will extend for the rest of the stanzas, and here the scenery seems
to reflect the mood of the lovers: the water in the river rises on its banks, the arch
they stand under resembles a huge door to a cathedral or the gates of heaven. The
two perhaps believe their love will keep them together forever, since “Love has no
ending.”

Lines: 9-16
'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you   
   Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
   And the salmon sing in the street,

'I'll love you till the ocean

   Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
   Like geese about the sky.

The speaker eavesdrops on the lovers, and for the next several lines listens to their
promises of eternal devotion. Their words seem almost absurd, like when they
place their love on a geologic time scale. They conclude that their love will survive
as long as it would take for China and Africa to slide together in continental drift,
or for a river to find its course over a mountain. The “seven stars” in line 15 are
probably the constellation Pleiades, known in mythology to be the seven sisters.

Lines: 17-19
'The years shall run like rabbits,
   For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
In these lines the lover makes perhaps the most grandiose claim; he asserts that the
years will pass as fast as “rabbits” because he holds the “flower of the ages” in his
hand, as if their love were so apart from time he could pluck all of history like a
flower and offer it to her. Perhaps like many lovers, they are convinced their love
is “the first love of the world.” This image is the last of several which imply that
love can conquer time and keep the two together for eternity. But these lines also
mark the end of the lover’s dialogue, which is cut short by the tolling of the city
bells.

Lines: 20-24
And the first love of the world.'

But all the clocks in the city

   Began to whirr and chime:
'O let not Time deceive you,
   You cannot conquer Time.

Just as the lovers reach their most exaggerated claims of devotion, “all the clocks
in the city / began to whirr and chime.” The speaker imagines in the tolling bells
another voice, perhaps responding to the youthful promises of the lovers. Line 22
begins a dialogue which will extend for the next eight stanzas; Auden gives the
clocks human voices in a poetic device called “allegory.” Using allegory, a poet
treats more abstract concepts like “time” and “justice” as if they were characters in
a play, their names capitalized appropriately. In this way the clocks are able to
speak for Time, warning the lovers “O let not Time deceive you, / You cannot
conquer Time.” No matter how much they may love each other, it is not going to
save them from the their own mortality.

Lines: 25-32
'In the burrows of the Nightmare
   Where Justice naked is;
Time watches from the shadow
   And coughs when you would kiss.

'In headaches and in worry   

   Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
   To-morrow or to-day.
The description of Time in these lines is compared to something that hides in the
“burrows of the nightmare,” watching the lovers from the shadows and waiting for
them to kiss just so it can interrupt with a cough. Whereas the dialogue of the
lovers is filled with statements of eternal hope, the clocks quickly remind the two
that Time is always there, lurking, clearing its throat like an impatient conductor
waiting for the last few passengers to get aboard the dark train. We are not going to
live forever, Time reminds us, because the day we are born is the first day counting
down to our death, because “In headaches and in worry / Vaguely life leaks away.”
Time’s “fancy” in line 31 may be death itself, which could arrive at any moment,
even “tomorrow or today.” This horrible, raw truth may be the naked Justice
mentioned a few lines previous, the mortal rules we must all follow.

Lines: 33-40
'Into many a green valley
   Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
   the diver's brilliant bow.

And'O plunge your hands in water,

   Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
   And wonder what you've missed.

Echoing the image of “harvest wheat” at the beginning of the poem, this stanza
returns to the cycle of the seasons, the green valley of youth giving way to winter
and its “appalling” snow that covers the ground. “Appalling” means “terrible,” but
also literally means “to make pale.” The snow makes the hills white, “white” like
the color of an old man’s hair or the pale faces of the sick and dying. The clocks
seem to scold the arrogance of the lovers, telling them that not only is it impossible
to conquer time, but rather Time itself “breaks the threaded dances / and the diver’s
brilliant bow.”

Following the image of a diver’s descent from cliff to water, Time’s instructions
for the lovers to “plunge your hands in water, / Plunge them in up to the wrist”
may be a symbolic act of cleansing, similar to the ritual of baptism or the washing
of a body before its burial. While their hands are submerged, Time commands the
lovers to look at themselves in the mirrored surface of the water and “wonder what
you’ve missed.” The lovers up until now had only been looking forward; here
Time reminds them to look back and take inventory of their short lives.
Lines: 41-48
'The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
   The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
   A lane to the land of the dead.

'Where the beggars raffle the banknotes

   And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
   And Jill goes down on her back.

The tone shifts in the next two stanzas, taking on almost fairy-tale or nursery-
rhyme qualities. The images become more fanciful and absurd, such as a glacier
knocking in a cupboard and a desert sighing in a bed. Even the crack starting in the
teacup widens until we can see the road we are walking down in life for what it is:
“A lane to the land of the dead.” The tone shift to a more childlike voice (while
still describing the morbid reality we face) gives these lines an even spookier
effect, the soundtrack and the scene not quite right for each other, leaving us
feeling uneasy. Time goes on for another stanza in this nursery-rhyme voice,
invoking images from “Jack and the Beanstalk” and “Jack and Jill.” Unlike their
moral and innocent counterparts, the characters in these stanzas are a bit more
perverse, the giant “enchanting to Jack” and Jill—seduced—who “goes down on
her back.”

Lines: 49-52
'O look, look in the mirror,
   O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
   Although you cannot bless.

Bringing us back to the water’s reflection, Time commands the lovers again to
“look in the mirror,” to look inside themselves and realize who they really are.
What does Time want them to see? Perhaps their status as “fallen” creatures
expelled from the garden of eternal beauty and life. According to Judeo-Christian
mythology, man was expelled from Eden for his sins and willingness to be
corrupted. As a result, we are mortals who are given a short time to walk on the
earth, no longer in control of time but prisoner to it, as “Life remains a blessing /
Although [we] cannot bless.”
Lines: 53-56
'O stand, stand at the window
   As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
   With your crooked heart.'

The mirror of the previous stanza gives way to a window in line 53, as if the
reflective surface faded and the lovers now stare through clear glass. Realizing
their mortal fate, their “tears scald and start,” blurring their vision. The corruption
introduced in lines 45-48 seems to resurface in this stanza. These lines seem to
trace Judeo-Christian mythology which cites our own sin and corruption as the
reason for our mortal lives; in other words, Adam and Eve had the chance to live in
a garden of eternal love, but were seduced by Satan and forced to leave.

Lines: 57-60
It was late, late in the evening,
   The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
   And the deep river ran on.

After eight stanzas of allegorical dialogue where Time scolds the lovers for their
arrogance, these last four lines return the reader to the dramatic situation of the
poem—the two lovers near the river. Just as sudden as they had started, the bells
stop their chiming, and we realize the whole imagined dialogue may have only
spanned the time it took for the clock tower to toll 8, 9, or 10 times.

The dramatic situation of the poem may be as simple as this: the speaker walks
down to the river and hears the lovers singing; the city clocks chime the hour and
interrupt the lovers. But in that brief chiming, the speaker hears the underlying
meaning of the moment. No matter what the lovers may’ promise each other, the
clock is ticking, and their time on this earth is measured out in hours, days, months
and years.

Before the speaker realizes how far his mind had drifted, “the lovers they were
gone,” perhaps final proof of their impermanence. Even for the speaker it is “late,
late in the evening” by the end of the poem. But like the cycle of seasons we pass
through, Time will continue as we come and go, just as the river brimming nearby
will continue to flow, carving its path forever deeper toward the ocean.

Themes
Cycle of Life
Underlying the theme of Time is the cycle of life, or seasons revolving like a
smaller gear turning a larger wheel. The speaker may already be thinking about the
passing seasons of his own life when the crowds on the pavement remind him of
“harvest wheat.” Auden describes the wheat in terms of time: fall, the harvest
season, is often used in art as a comparison, or metaphor, for old age. It is the last
stage of the life cycle—the plants past bloom and fruit, the cold winter imminent.
Here the speaker sees the crowd and thinks of the fields in autumn, the golden
wheat, and is perhaps reminded of the cycle we all pass through in heading toward
our “winter” years. Even the young lovers will grow pale with old age, just as “into
many a green valley / Drifts the appalling snow.”
Death
Auden portrays Time allegorically in almost sinister terms, inhabiting the “burrows
of nightmare” and watching the lovers from the shadows. It waits until they are just
about to seal their love with a kiss before it coughs its objection. The same church
bells that chime the hour also toll for the dead, and on this night near the river both
bells have the same tenor.

The bells serve as a scheduled reminder that “the crack in the teacup opens / A lane
to the land of the dead.” The speaker, walking along the river down Bristol Street,
may have found himself suddenly further down that lane than expected, finding
himself located somewhere between the lovers and “all the clocks in the city.”
Standing there at in the midst of the chiming bells, he loses track of time, hearing
an entire song in response to the lover’s singing. He suddenly realizes how much
time has passed: “It was late, late in the evening, / The lovers they were gone.”

Style
W. H. Auden is highly regarded for his formally crafted and musical lines. “As I
Walked Out One Evening” is constructed using four-line stanzas called quatrains,
the second and fourth lines locking rhymes to create on overall poetic form known
as “common measure.” Emily Dickinson also used this form on a regular basis, and
its origins are old. Each line holds three stressed syllables which echo the speaker’s
footsteps toward the river, and as we walk down the crowded street with the
speaker, we begin to feel the pacing of his stride in the rhythm of each line.