About suffering they were never wrong

The many surprises of the human heart

Photo by Anjali Mehta on Unsplash

I’ve told you before of a co-worker, with whom I shared an office, some twenty-five years ago. She was lean and strong, her patience short. She came from Zurich, where she’d been classically educated. She had a soft heart.

One day, I passed her desk. She was reading a book – a poetry collection. She looked up as I walked by, and said “Dear, dear Auden”. She murmured it, really, mostly to herself.

I’d read Auden’s poetry before, but never stopped to notice it. That day, I did.

*

Here for you today is his stunning “Musée des Beaux Arts”.

It’s about the human response to the suffering of others. It appears to be a bleak description of the human heart, and its propensity to look away from other people’s misery. But it’s actually a masterclass in empathy.

The poem’s title refers to a Belgian museum, where Auden reflected on a painting depicting the mythological figure of Icarus, the boy who flew too close to the sun and fell into the sea. Auden shows how the death of Icarus matters little to the other people in the painting. They notice him disappear into the water, then carry on with their lives. Auden compares this to the crucifixion of Christ -- how even then, life went on.

This all sounds quite depressing but, as I’ll describe after you read the poem, there’s a deep vein of love woven throughout.

I hope you love it as much as I do.

Photo by Nguyen Minh on Unsplash

Musée des Beaux Arts, by W.H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

​In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

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I love many things about this poem, but especially the empathy masked by Auden’s clear-eyed gaze — and how this suggests that, beneath our own indifference, we have these same wells.

Empathy for the aged, so close to death that the arrival of a (great)-grandchild is a passionately awaited miracle. Empathy for the older children, threatened, as they’ve always been, by the arrival of the new baby. Empathy for Icarus, falling from the sky. Empathy for the human condition itself.

What did you think of this poem - did you love it as much as I do?

And, some more questions for you:

• We all sometimes look away from others’ pain - we couldn’t manage life without doing this. When have you noticed yourself looking away, and what made you turn back—or not?

• Do you think indifference and empathy can coexist in the same heart?

• What does “Dear, dear Auden” mean to you, now that you’ve read his words?

  

Please do share your thoughts - your comments and reflections are often the best part of these Kindred Letters!

PS This is an adapted version of a Kindred Letter I sent you some years ago.