2 "In Due Season" "Natural Linguistics"

W.H. Auden
In Due Season

   Springtime, Summer and Fall: days to behold a world
   Antecedent to our knowing, where flowers think
   Theirs concretely in scent-colors and beasts, the same
   Age all over, pursue dumb horizontal lives.
   On one level of conduct and so cannot be
   Secretary to man's plot to become divine.

   Lodged in all is a set metronome: thus, in May
   Bird-babes, still in the egg, click to each other "Hatch!";
   June-struck cuckoos go off pitch when obese July
   Turns earth's heating up; unknotting their poisoned ropes.
   Vipers move into play; warmed by October's nip,
   Younger leaves to the old give the releasing draught.

   Winter, though, has the right tense for a look indoors
   At ourselves and with First Names to sit face to face,
   Time for reading of thoughts, time for trying out
   Of new meters and new recipes, proper time
   To reflect on events noted in warmer months
   Till, transmuted, they take part in a human tale.

   There, responding to our cry for intelligence,
   Nature's mask is relaxed into a mobile grin,
   Stones, old shoes, come alive, born sacramental signs,
   Nod to us in the First Person of mysteries.
   They know nothing about, bearing a mess from
   The invisible sole Source of specific things.