A Crack in the Tea Cup Opens

"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.
"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."

-  W. H. Auden, As I Walked Out One Evening, 1937  


Time - Quotes and Poems

Ways of Walking