Say This City Has Ten Million Souls -- W. H. Auden

 Say This City Has Ten Million Souls – W. H. Auden

 

Say this city has ten million souls,

 Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes[mp1] ;

Yet there’s no place for us, my dear, yet there’s no place for us.

 

Once we had a country [mp2] and we thought it fair,

Look in the atlas and you’ll find it there; 

We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.

 

In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,

Every spring it blossoms anew;

Old passports [mp3] can’t do that, my dear, old passports can’t do that.

 

The consul[mp4]  banged the table and said:

‘if you’ve got no passport you’re officially dead’; 

But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive,

 

Went to committee; they offered me a chair;

Asked me politely to return next year:

But where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go to-day?

 

Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said:

‘if we let them in, they will steal our daily bread’;

He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.

 

Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;

It was Hitler over Europe, saying: ‘They must die’;

O we were in his mind, my dear, O we were in his mind.

 

Saw a poodle[mp5]  in a jacket fastened with a pin,

Saw a door opened and a cat let in:

But they weren’t German Jews, my dear, but they weren’t German Jews.

 

Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay[mp6] ,

Saw the fish swimming as if they were free;

Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.

 

Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;

They had no politicians and sang at their ease;

They weren’t the human race, my dear, they weren’t the human race.

 

Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,

A thousand windows and a thousand doors;

Not one of them was our, my dear, not one of them was ours.

 

Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;

Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro;

Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me. 

 

                              ----

 

 

 

 

---

 [mp1]A small ill-ventilated spaces which almost not suitable for human dwelling   

 [mp2]i.e. Israel, country for Jews, which was then occupied by the Palestinians when all Jews were living as refugees in different countries.  

 [mp3]Jews Passports are not renewed time to time under Hitler’s regime. 

 [mp4]The German consul residing in the city ostensibly to take care of the German citizens.

 [mp5]A medium-sized and curly-haired dog

 [mp6](pron. ke) a wharf usually built of concrete or stone with facilities for loading and unloading of ships.