Sestina 10

Hearing of harvests rotting in the valleys,

Seeing at end of street the barren mountains,

Round corners coming suddenly on water,

Knowing them shipwrecked who were launched for islands,

We honour founders of these starving cities

Whose honour is the image of our sorrow,Which cannot see its likeness in their sorrow

That brought them desperate to the brink of valleys;

Dreaming of evening walks through learned cities

They reined their violent horses on the mountains,

Those fields like ships to castaways on islands,

Visions of green to them who craved for water. They built by rivers and at night the water

Running past windows comforted their sorrow;

Each in his little bed conceived of islands

Where every day was dancing in the valleys

And all the green trees blossomed on the mountains

Where love was innocent, being far from cities. But dawn came back and they were still in cities;

No marvellous creature rose up from the water;

There was still gold and silver in the mountains

But hunger was a more immediate sorrow,

Although to moping villagers in valleys

Some waving pilgrims were describing islands … "The gods," they promised, "visit us from

islands,

Are stalking, head-up, lovely, through our cities;

Now is the time to leave your wretched valleys

And sail with them across the lime-green water,

Sitting at their white sides, forget your sorrow,

The shadow cast across your lives by mountains." So many, doubtful, perished in the mountains,

Climbing up crags to get a view of islands,

So many, fearful, took with them their sorrow

Which stayed them when they reached unhappy cities,

So many, careless, dived and drowned in water,

So many, wretched, would not leave their valleys. It is our sorrow. Shall it melt? Ah, water

Would gush, flush, green these mountains and these valleys,

And we rebuild our cities, not dream of islands.

By W.H. Auden