For us like any other fugitive, <br />Like the numberless flowers that cannot number <br />And all the beasts that need not remember, <br />It is today in which we live. <br /> <br />So many try to say Not Now, <br />So many have forgotten how <br />To say I Am, and would be <br />Lost, if they could, in history. <br /> <br />Bowing, for instance, with such old-world grace <br />To a proper flag in a proper place, <br />Muttering like ancients as they stump upstairs <br />Of Mine and His or Ours and Theirs. <br /> <br />Just as if time were what they used to will <br />When it was gifted with possession still, <br />Just as if they were wrong <br />In no more wishing to belong. <br /> <br />No wonder then so many die of grief, <br />So many are so lonely as they die; <br />No one has yet believed or liked a lie, <br />Another time has other lives to live.<br /><br />WH Auden<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/another-time-2/
