W.H. Auden – “A Shock”

Housman was perfectly right.
Our world rapidly worsens:
nothing now is so horrid
or silly it can’t occur.
Still, I’m stumped by what happened
to upper-middle-class me,
born in ‘07, that is,
the same time as Elektra,
gun-shy myopic grandchild
of Anglican clergymen,
suspicious of all passion,
including passionate love,
day-dreaming of leafy dells
that shelter carefree shepherds,
averse to violent weather,
pained by the predator beasts,
shocked by boxing and blood-sports,
when I, I, I, if you please,
at Schwechat Flughafen was
frisked by a cop for weapons.