Ladies and gentlemen, you have made most remarkable
Progress, and progress, I agree, is a boon;
You have built more automobiles than are parkable,
Crashed the sound-barrier, and may very soon
Be setting up cafes on the Moon:
But I beg to remind you that, despite all that,
I, Death, still am and will always be Cosmocrat.
Still I sport with the young and daring; at my whim,assign a nasty cough and fever
With others I wait until they are older
Before assigning, according to my humor,
To one a coronary, to one a tumor.
Liberal my views upon religion and race;
Tax-posture, credit-rating, social ambition
Cut no ice with me.
We shall meet face to face
Despite the drugs and lies of your physician,
The costly euphenisms of the mortician:
Glasgow Busker and London Banker
Both shall dance with me when I rattle my drum.”
WH Auden
Progress, and progress, I agree, is a boon;
You have built more automobiles than are parkable,
Crashed the sound-barrier, and may very soon
Be setting up cafes on the Moon:
But I beg to remind you that, despite all that,
I, Death, still am and will always be Cosmocrat.
Still I sport with the young and daring; at my whim,assign a nasty cough and fever
With others I wait until they are older
Before assigning, according to my humor,
To one a coronary, to one a tumor.
Liberal my views upon religion and race;
Tax-posture, credit-rating, social ambition
Cut no ice with me.
We shall meet face to face
Despite the drugs and lies of your physician,
The costly euphenisms of the mortician:
Glasgow Busker and London Banker
Both shall dance with me when I rattle my drum.”
WH Auden
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