The man shall love the work ; the woman shall
receive him as the divine representative ; the child shall be born as the sign
of the trust ; the friend shall laugh at the joke apparently obscure. The boy and the girl shall not play together
; they shall wait for power ; the old shall wait in the garden, happy for
death. The leader shall be a
fear ; he shall protect from panic ; the people shall reverence the carved stone under the oak
tree. The muscular shall lounge in bars ;
the puny shall keep diaries in classical Greek. The soldier shall say ‘It is a
fine day for hurting’ ; the doctor shall speak of death as of a favorite
dog. The glutton shall love
with his mouth ; to the burglar love
shall mean ‘Destroy when read’ ; to the rich and poor the sign for ‘our money’
; the sick shall say of love ‘It’s only a phase’ ; the psychologist ‘That’s
easy’ ; ‘Be fair’. The censor shall
dream of knickers, a nasty beast. The
murderer shall be wreathed with flowers ; he shall die for the
people.
Text: W.H.
Auden, The Orators, London, Faber & Faber,
1966.
Images by Dame Elisabeth
Frink: Upper, Fighting Cocks, Pencil and watercolor, 1987; Lower, Fighting Cocks, Bronze sculpture, 1987.
