W.H. Auden is one of my very favorite poets.  His poem, "As I Walked Out One Evening," is a meditation on the limits and transience of romantic love, written in the form of a ballad. It's a clever irony because ballads, of course, are love songs. But the part I love most in the poem is the two stanzas before the final one.

As I Walked Out One Evening

As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
'Love has no ending.

'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

'I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

'The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.'

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
'O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

'In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

'In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

'Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

'O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.

'The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

'Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

'O look, look in the mirror?
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

'O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.'

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

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"Life remains a blessing/Although you cannot bless." Read those two stanzas again. I think Auden is giving us a way to cope with despair, ennui, disappointment, loneliness, and grief. Life is a gift: at its essence, it's a blessing, even when we don't have the ability to give thanks or see beyond our own sadness.

The next stanza contains a restatement of Jesus' second commandment: "You shall love your crooked neighbour/With your crooked heart." We are all broken and imperfect people, but God intends for us to live in community with other broken and imperfect people. That's the kind of love that won't fade because someone's beauty fades or hair starts to gray. 

For your post, you can respond to the poem overall, my interpretation of the ending, the personification of Time, the cliches of romantic love, the imagery, or your interpretation of any aspect of the poem. You can also take any of the ideas of the poem as a springboard to talk about despair, love, community, or any other idea the poem provokes.