Writers Beware! WH Auden’s 'Minor Devils'

I am reading and enjoying a whole range of 20^th century and earlier poetry as a very pleasurable part of my research for my new novel: Lifespan - A World for Alice. I am perpetually surprised, even stunned, by the prescience of poets who hold the future, the present and the past in their synoptic gaze. Great examples of this are the witty, ironic,  Roman poet Ovid, the inimitable, deceptively down to earth, Ted Hughes,  and the all-seeing WH Auden. 

For example:

Extract from Cattivo Tempo written in 1949  by WH Auden

‘Sirocco brings the minor devils:

A slamming of doors

At four in the morning

Announces they are back,

Grown insolent and fat

On cheesy literature

And corny dramas,

Nibbar, demon

Of gaga and bêtise

Tubervillus, demon

Of gossip and spite.

Nibbar to the writing room

Plausibly to whisper

The nearly fine,

The almost true;

Beware of him, poet

Lest, reading over

Your shoulder, he find

What makes him glad,

The manner arch,

The meaning blurred,

 The poem bad.

Tubervillus to the dining room

Intently to listen,

Waiting for his cue; 

Beware of him, friends,

Lest the lest the talk

at his prompting  

Take a wrong turning,

The unbated tongue

In mischief blurt

the half-home-truth

The fun turn ugly,

The jokes hurt.

….’