"The More Loving One"

Happy Labor Day, everyone! I've been lounging around the house all weekend, reading and going on bike rides and visiting or being visited by friends who are in town for a few days. My only "labor" has been gutting my graduate thesis to make two chapbooks (something I've wanted to do ever since I compiled the original book-length manuscript).

I've also been reading An Invitation to Poetry: A New Favorite Poem Project Anthology. The anthology was one of Robert Pinsky's projects when he was Poet Laureate. It's a collection of Americans' favorite poems. Each poem is prefaced with a brief explanation of what the poem means to the person who nominated it.

I think it's a great collection because of its lack of thematic or academic premises; these poems aren't supposed to illustrate or teach us anything except why someone loves them. The anthology treats poems the way they should be treated: not as instruments of academic edification, but as works of art that can inspire passion and understanding in an individual reader.

Here's one of my favorites from Pinsky's collection. I've always liked Auden because he's such a thoughtful poet; he reminds me of Frost in that there's always an argument lurking behind the beauty of his images. This particular poem didn't really strike me when I first read it (I wasn't in love with the rhyme scheme), but it's been bouncing around in my head ever since. It's teasing me into thought, which makes me suspect that it's a better poem than I first took it for.

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The More Loving One

W.H. Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.