Wystan Hugh Auden

At Last the Secret Is Out

At Last the Secret Is Out - meaning Summary

Secrets Beneath Ordinary Life

Auden’s poem observes that ordinary scenes and polite behaviour conceal private motives and scandals. Everyday images — tea cups, sports, convent song — are presented as fronts for hidden stories, with the refrain that "there is always" another reason. The tone is wry and inevitability is emphasized: secrets eventually surface. The poem links social appearances to underlying desire, suggesting human life is driven by concealed passions and explanations.

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At last the secret is out, as it always must come in the end, the delicious story is ripe to tell to tell to the intimate friend; over the tea-cups and into the square the tongues has its desire; still waters run deep, my dear, there's never smoke without fire. Behind the corpse in the reservoir, behind the ghost on the links, behind the lady who dances and the man who madly drinks, under the look of fatigue the attack of migraine and the sigh there is always another story, there is more than meets the eye. For the clear voice suddenly singing, high up in the convent wall, the scent of the elder bushes, the sporting prints in the hall, the croquet matches in summer, the handshake, the cough, the kiss, there is always a wicked secret, a private reason for this.

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