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;
Yet there’s no place for us, my dear, yet there’s no place for us.
Once we had a country and 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 can’t do that, my dear, old passports can’t do that.
The consul 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 a 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 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,
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 winds and a thousand doors;
Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.
Stood on a great plain in the snow;
Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:
Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.
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This poem holds faithfully reflects the truth of Jewish refugees suffering in Nazi regime in Germany. This poem was published in 1940 in volume entitle “Another Times” which exposed the state of Jews in Germany under Adolf Hitler’s rule just before the beginning of the World War II.