[Newspoetry] The unmentionable odour of death offends the September night

[John]

September 1, 1939
by W. H. Auden
 
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
 
Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence