Marginalia – Selection of, Auden

The palm extended in welcome:
Look! for you 
I have unclenched my fist.

Everyone thinks:
“I am the most important
Person at present.”
The sane remember to add:
“important, I mean, to me.”

True Love enjoys
twenty-twenty vision,
but talks like a myopic.

Once having shat
in his new apartment,
he began to feel at home.

When Chiefs of State
prefer to work at night,
let the citizens beware.

Marginalia
1965 – 1968
Collected Poems
W.H. Auden