Dear though the night is gone Poem Summary by w h auden?

Answer 1

This poem, surely a serious one with complications, is undoubtedly very tough for the readers with some single interpretation to carry on. One can say it draws a picture of prostitution; someone can figure it out as the love story of the poet which was a failure. Moreover, some new interpretations may come into play too.

However, to summarize the poem as a whole with some definite idea is difficult. Still, if you read the poem carefully, you will come through the ideas of faith, revelation, illusion, disillusion etc. too. The poet describes of a night spent with someone in a place where there are other couples too. (It might lead a mind to think of some brothel.) Moreover, other couples have hostile eyes for this couple which poet forms with his beloved/partner. The poet and his beloved/partner are making love and the other couples are sad, inactive, though in each others arms. This situation might take us back to the 'wasteland' of Eliot where 'exploring hands encounter no defence.'

The situation in the poem is dense and sad. Love has been not at all a pleasure.

The last part/stanza of the poem is very significant and most complicated. It's true that I am also unable to find something definite in that. However, we must make some ideas about the lines. So, the poet seems (to me) making a question to himself. Was he trying to taste the depth of love? Was he not ready to indulge in physical contact? 'That you then, unabashed, did what I never wished,' this line raises questions of dispute in the poem. Whom is he addressing to? To himself, or to his beloved/partner?

One idea arises and that veers the other idea.

Or it was some truth that the poet finds through the course of the night and falls aside of the conventional way?