Wystan Hugh Auden

Calypso

Calypso - meaning Summary

Journey Toward Personal Love

A narrator urges a fast train to New York to find the person she loves, imagining meeting them in Grand Central and fearing tears if he is absent. The poem mixes everyday travel detail with playful portraits—trees paired, a lonely banker with only a cigar—and concludes by insisting private love outranks public offices. Its tone is earnest and slightly comic, asserting personal affection as more vital than priests or politicians.

Read Complete Analyses

Driver drive faster and make a good run Down the Springfield Line under the shining sun. Fly like an aeroplane, don't pull up short Till you brake for Grand Central Station, New York. For there in the middle of the waiting-hall Should be standing the one that I love best of all. If he's not there to meet me when I get to town I'll stand on the side-walk with tears rolling down. For he is the one that I love to look on, The acme of kindness and perfection. He presses my hand and he says he loves me, Which I find a admirable peculiarity. The woods are bright green on both sides of the line, The trees have their loves though they're different from mine. But the poor fat old banker in the sun-parlour car Has no one to love him except his cigar. If I were the Head of the Church or the State, I'd powder my nose and just tell them to wait. For love's more important and powerful than Ever a priest or a politician.

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