Another Time
Another Time - meaning Summary
Living in the Present
Auden’s poem argues that human life exists only in the present, contrasting immediate being with people who seek identity in history, flags, and ownership. Those who refuse the present cannot truly say "I am" and attempt to hide in old certainties. That refusal produces grief and loneliness. The poem ends by insisting time will have other lives, so clinging to past belonging offers no real solace.
Read Complete AnalysesFor us like any other fugitive, Like the numberless flowers that cannot number And all the beasts that need not remember, It is today in which we live. So many try to say Not Now, So many have forgotten how To say I Am, and would be Lost, if they could, in history. Bowing, for instance, with such old-world grace To a proper flag in a proper place, Muttering like ancients as they stump upstairs Of Mine and His or Ours and Theirs. Just as if time were what they used to will When it was gifted with possession still, Just as if they were wrong In no more wishing to belong. No wonder then so many die of grief, So many are so lonely as they die; No one has yet believed or liked a lie, Another time has other lives to live.
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