"When will we hear once more the pure voice of elation
raised in the nightwood of known symbol and allusion?
Oh, far from Mother, in the unmarried city,
you contemplate a new ode to Euphrosyne,
goddess of banquets; and in the darkest hours
of holocaust and apocalypse, cheap music and singles bars,
you remind us of what the examined life involves –
for what you teach is the courage to be ourselves,
however ridiculous; and if you were often silly
or too “prone to hold forth," you prescribe a cure
for our civilization and its discontents
based upon agapé, Baroque opera, common sense
and the creative impulse that brought us here,
sustaining us now as we face a more boring future."
"Auden on St. Marks Place," Derek Mahon
[Above Lee Street east of Damen Avenue]
