7.24.2026 – fire burns beyond the

fire burns beyond the
vaporous sun delivered
from the gloom of night

Far into the vast the mist grows dim,
A deep and holy silence broods around,
Fire burns beyond the vaporous rim,
And crystal-like the dew bestrews the ground.

The last laggard star has fled the glowing sky,
Comes a quiet stirring and a gentle light,
A vast pulsating music, throbbing harmony,
Beyond the Sun delivered from the gloom of night!

Dawn by W. H Auden as published in Juvenilia: Poems, 1922-1928 by W. H Auden (Princeton University Press: Princeton, N.J., 2003).

According to Wikipedia, Wystan Hugh Auden 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973 was a British-American poet. Auden’s poetry is noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form, and content.

Public recognition of Auden’s work sharply increased after his “Funeral Blues” (“Stop all the clocks”) was read aloud in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994); subsequently, a pamphlet edition of ten of his poems, Tell Me the Truth About Love, sold more than 275,000 copies. An excerpt from his poem “As I walked out one evening” was recited in the film Before Sunrise (1995). After the 11 September 2001 attacks, his 1939 poem “September 1, 1939” was widely circulated and frequently broadcast. Public readings and broadcast tributes in the UK and US in 2007 marked his centenary year.

I remember that poem from Four Weddings and a Funeral …

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, 
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, 
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum 
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. 

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead 
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead, 
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, 
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. 

He was my North, my South, my East and West, 
My working week and my Sunday rest, 
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; 
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong. 

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; 
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; 
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; 
For nothing now can ever come to any good. 

I would be lying if I said I was any more familiar with the Mr. Auden.

What sticks in my mind is a single quote from a commencement address at the University of Michigan back in 1986 by Dr. Charles G. Adams, Pastor of Hartford Memorial Baptist Church in Detroit.

Not sure why but I was listening to WUOM radio that day and the broadcast what went down in history as one of the best commencement speeches ever given at Michigan.

It was titled, Hope vs. Fatalism and in his address, Dr. Adams challenged the new graduates TO DO SOMETHING.

Dr. Adams said, “The hope that you represent is both within you and beyond you. As W. H. Auden observed, “Nothing but a miracle can save us.”

Dr. Adams then painted a dark dark picture of the world at large, and quotes a recent Newspaper editorial that stated, “There is no answer to the human dilemma, no deliverance from the human predicament, no formula for world peace, no means of achieving racial harmony and ethnic mutuality and congeniality. Life is a lie, a meaning less aimless hoax.”

So we find ourselves suspended on a see-saw between an optimism that fails us and a fatalism that does not try to help us.

Optimism says, “There is no sickness.

Fatalism says, “There is no cure.”

Optimism says, “There is no death.

Fatalism says, “There is no victory over death.

Optimism says, “God is in his heaven; all’s right with the world.”

Fatalism says,
“Life is but walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage.
And then is heard no more;
it is a tale told by an idiot,
full of sound-and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Is there no way out of this vicious, manic-depressive cycle of optimism and fatalism? I make bold to suggest that you who have been educated at Michigan can be open doors of hope into a system that is deemed closed, final and fatal. It is up to you to break the vicious cycle of nihilism and transform cyclical futility and fatality into linear progress and destiny.

You have been trained here to go into all the world and stand and serve as living alternatives to ignorant optimism that blinds one to real difficulties and also to crippling fatalism and cynicism that freeze human initiative and paralyze human effort.

You are graduating from Michigan to inherit the whole world with all of its problems. Go into all the world and take the power of your mentality, the energy of your integrity, the efficiency of your technology and the fire of your spirit.

Inherit the whole world with all of its problems.

Go into all the world and take the power of your mentality,

the energy of your integrity,

the efficiency of your technology

and the fire of your spirit.

Dr. Adams, speaking in the manner of a revialist preacher had the crowd roaring and he closed with:

If you have a hard way to go, walk it by faith.
If you face a mean problem, work with it until you work through it.
If you have a misunderstanding, settle it.
If you have a grudge, drop it.
If you have hatred or resentment, shake it off.
If you have a high mountain, move it by faith or climb it by work.
If .you have a battle, fight it.
If you have a handicap, rise above it.
If you have race prejudice, overcome it.
If you have temptation, conquer it.
If you have evil, destroy it.
If you have a challenge, face it.
If you have trouble, take it.
If you have a cross, bear it.
If they knock you down, get up.
If they push you against the ropes, come out swinging.
If they laugh at you, keep smiling at them.
If they talk about you, keep praying for them.
If they hate you, keep loving them and
If they kill you, just rise again–

Don’t let anything paralyze your mind, tie your hands or defeat your spirit.

You are the hope of the world, a light to the nations, a blessing to humanity.

We-shall overcome!

As an after thought, it seems like years later I happen to catch an announcement that WUOM radio that the address was going to rebroadcast (and I mean years later) and the announcer, Fred Hindley, added … this is most requested rebroadcast recording of anything we have. I will add this was also the official radio station of Michigan football.

ANYWAY so where am I.

Not sure really but the sunrise and finding the Auden poem and the Auden reference that brought this speech were all a very welcome part of my day.

Some things I needed to be reminded of.

BTW – Click here for a PDF of the typescript of the address – Sadly 1986 is before the YouTube era,