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If I Could Tell You by W H Auden - Famous poems, famous poets. - All Poetry. If I Could Tell You. Time will say nothing but I told you so, Time only knows the price we have to pay; If I could tell you I would let you know. If we should weep when clowns put on their show, If we should stumble when musicians play,
- Stanza One
- Stanza Two
- Stanza Three
- Stanza Four
- Stanza Five
- Stanza Six
In the first stanza of ‘If I Could Tell You’ the speaker begins by making a series of statements about time. He describes what is does and does not do as well as how human beings experience and interpret it. First, the speaker states that the only thing time is going to do is “say…I told you so”. Time, which Auden is personifying, knows, before any...
Auden’s speaker goes on, providing the reader and intended listener with a few examples of what might happen in life. “We,” meaning the speaker and the person he is speaking to, might cry “when clowns put on their show” and “stumble when musicians play”. But at this point in their lives, there’s no way to actually know this. The last line is a pred...
The speaker knows that humans, and all those bound by the blessing and curse that is mortality, know nothing of the future. They cannot tell the fortunes of others or their own. But, the speaker says, if he could tell the future, he would let the listener know what it is. In this stanza, it is also revealed that there is some kind of personal relat...
The next stanzas contain some of the speaker’s contemplative thoughts about the world and why it works the way it does. He knows that the “winds must come from somewhere”. There but be a starting point, and, therefore, an endpoint, to everything. But this piece of information, as well as “why the leaves decay,” is beyond him. “Time,” the refrain ad...
In the last tercet of ‘If I Could Tell You’ the speaker continues these thoughts about the world and its inner workings. He thinks that maybe “the roses really want to grow”. Then, also, that maybe “The vision seriously intends to stay”. The speaker is imbuing life and agency onto forces that are not usually considered this way. This is all in an e...
The last stanza is made up of four lines. He proposes a situation in which everything humanity thinks it knows about the world falls apart. The “lions get up and go” and the rivers and soldiers “run away”. Everything, in this scenario, is fleeing, abandoning its previous way of life or post. This is a very drastic turn of events and he considers wh...
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- October 9, 1995
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If I Could Tell You Lyrics. Time will say nothing but I told you so, Time only knows the price we have to pay; If I could tell you I would let you know. If we should...
If I Could Tell You" is a poem by W. H. Auden. Written in 1940, it is in villanelle form and is one of the best-known and most effective examples of this form. Form. The poem is written in the villanelle or villanesque form of poetry, which contains nineteen lines. These lines consist of five tercets and a quatrain at the end.
W. H. Auden. If I Could Tell You. Time will say nothing but I told you so, Time only knows the price we have to pay; If I could tell you I would let you know. If we should weep when clowns put on their show, If we should stumble when musicians play, Time will say nothing but I told you so. There are no fortunes to be told, although,
9 mag 2020 · The very title says as much: ‘If I Could Tell You’. ‘If I could tell you I would let you know.’ Unlike the modernists, he wants to communicate to use in a direct and clear, accessible way; but he can’t. Something eludes even his understanding or comprehension. So what is ‘If I Could Tell You’ about? What does the poem mean?
If I Could Tell You. W. H. Auden. 17 pages • 34 minutes read. W. H. Auden. If I Could Tell You. Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1940. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. Download PDF.
