As I Walked Out One Evening

As I Walked Out One Evening by W. H. Auden

W. H. Auden's (1907-1973) "As I Walked Out One Evening" was first published under the title "Song" in the New Statesman and Nation magazine in 1938. It was later republished in Auden's poetry collection Another Time in 1940. Auden wrote the poem in 1937, a time when economic depressions and political tension hung heavy on people's minds, an ever-present reminder of mortality.

Auden was born in England at the beginning of the 20th century, but he spent much of the 1930s traveling to different parts of Europe, China, and the United States. In 1937, he traveled to Spain to witness the Spanish Civil War, planning to support the International Brigades. His time in Spain drastically affected his views on war and politics, leading him to write the famous poem "Spain" (1937).

When Auden wrote "As I Walked Out One Evening" in 1937, political tensions were mounting across Europe. World War II hadn't broken out yet, but Hitler had come to power in 1933 and the Nazi Party had already dismantled many democratic institutions in Germany. Auden was deeply critical of the Nazi Party and, although he supported socialism, he rebuffed radical fascism and communism.

The setting of the poem is Bristol Street, with which Auden was intimately familiar. Bristol Street is in Birmingham, UK, an industrial city in the heart of England, where Auden spent much of his childhood. The setting is an important cornerstone of his youth, in itself a personal reminder of the passage of time for the adult Auden. The city also shows the intersection of the industrialized and the natural world, reinforcing the major themes of the poem (namely that time is unbounded and indiscriminate).

Fig. 1 - The setting of the poem is Bristol Street in Birmingham, the industrial city where Auden grew up.

As I Walked Out One Evening Poem Excerpt

The middle of the poem presents the major action, tension, and themes. It creates the juxtaposition between the lover's sentiment on unending love and the clock's insistence on the supremacy of time and ultimate death.

As I Walked Out One Evening Summary

The speaker walks down Bristol Street in the evening, heading towards the river. The streets are crowded and he hears a lover singing beneath a bridge. The lover tells his beloved that he will love her forever. He says he will love her until the ocean dries up, stars squawk like geese, and the rivers and mountains meet. He takes it a step further and tells her that their love will outlast time. At this, the clocks in the city take offense. They retort that the humans will never be able to outrun time. Eventually their youth and their love will give way to death. When the clocks are done with their speech, the lovers have disappeared into the night.

As I Walked Out One Evening Rhyme Scheme

"As I Walked Out One Evening" follows a very strict rhyme scheme, regardless of who the narrator is. The rhyme scheme is ABCB for the speaker, the lover, and the clocks. This mimics the ultimate control that time has over every sentient thing. Even the lover, who uses fantastical language and otherworldly depictions of love, is bound by the same rhyme scheme as the tightly-wound clocks and the unbiased speaker.

The rhyme scheme also creates a rhythm within the poem that mimics the steady river which flows throughout the poem. Although the river is a background character, it is actually the most consistent image in the poem. The second stanza begins with the idea of the river and the last stanza ends with it. Like the rhyme scheme, it is the only constant and, arguably, the most powerful force in "As I Walked Out One Evening."

As I Walked Out One Evening Analysis

The most prominent literary devices in the poem are personification, hyperbole, metaphor and allusion. They work to create the juxtaposition between the lover's insistence that his feelings are timeless and the clock's rebuttal that the lovers and their love will succumb to time.

Personification and juxtaposition

The main use of personification is to depict the clocks (and Time itself) as a physical antagonist, a direct obstacle that works against the human lovers. The clocks take control of the dialogue in the latter half of the poem, criticizing the lovers for their foolishness:

The clocks also personifies other abstract ideas in their speech by capitalizing the words Time, Justice, and Nightmare and making them capable of human actions:

Personification, by making the clocks into sentient beings, creates the juxtaposition and the tension in the poem. In complete opposition to the clocks, the lover himself also uses personification to show the fantastical powers of love. Because love is so powerful, it alone can create supernatural occurrences and given human qualities to animals and inanimate objects:

Personification creates tension between two powerful forces: on one hand, the lover argues that his love can overcome and outlast any obstacle. On the other, the clocks (personified objects themselves) argue that Time will never submit to love and the ridiculous notion that love can outlast time. Ultimately, it isn't completely clear who Auden sides with. The clocks get the last word, but the lovers have already walked off into the night, unbothered by the clocks' prophesy of death.

Fig. 2 - The lover personifies sea-bound salmon as being able to walk and sing in the streets.

Metaphor

The poem is also full of metaphors conveying life but also—ultimately—death. The threat of death is subtly implied from the first stanza when the speaker says,

Comparing the human crowds to wheat shows how lifelike and fertile they are now at this stage in life. Harvest wheat contains the seeds that give life to the next generation and sustain entire populations. But at the same time, wheat ready for harvest is near the end of its life. Wheat was traditionally harvested with a scythe, calling to mind images of the grim reaper who leads souls to the afterlife. These people might be milling about in crowds with one another now, but like the wheat, the threat of death hangs heavy in the air.

Later, the clocks use metaphors to more blatantly predict the mortal lovers' death. They say,

The metaphors compare typical human items to omens of death, loss, and nothingness. Take the glacier, for example: glaciers are enormous hunks of ice where nothing can exist. Plants don't grow there, animals don't live there, and humans tend to stay far away to avoid freezing to death. Glaciers are also known for moving incredibly slowly, mimicking the eternal passage of time which will outlast the lovers.

Fig. 3 - The clocks compare death to a glacier: both are frigid and devoid of life.

The desert, like the glacier, is personified, occupies a typically human place (the bed), and is devoid of life. Deserts are, of course, the opposite extreme of glaciers being that their dryness and heat, yet are also hostile towards human life. The fact that it occupies the bed is also important since for centuries many people were born and died in beds.

Finally, the crack in the teacup which leads straight to death is a metaphor for life slipping away. A cracked teacup cannot function, slowly leaking its contents out. Similarly, life leaks away until there is nothing left, giving way to death.

Imagery

Imagery is really effective in creating the fantastical impressions of love for the lovers and the depictions of death, barrenness, and loss for the clocks, as depicted above. It is also used to create a sense of despair that the clocks believe the lovers will experience with age:

The passage of time isn't just something that will take the lovers quietly and gently. The clocks believe that time will torment the young lovers by showing them how susceptible they are to death. Although imagery doesn't reveal to the readers exactly what aging and death look like, it reveals what it does to humans emotionally. The scalding tears and the hopelessness is arguably more terrifying than gray hair and wrinkles.

Hyperbole

The primary use of hyperbole in the poem is to depict how much power the lover believes love has:

None of these things will feasibly happen, but the hyperbole shows how boundless the lover believes love to be. It is also to his use of hyperbole that the clocks take offense because they are adamant that love cannot overcome time, even hyperbolically.

Allusion

The allusions in the poem reimagine classic fairy tales, manipulating them so that they are no longer tales for children. The manipulation takes away the youthful quality of fairy tales and turns them into harsh reminders of aging that eventually leads to death:

Children are taught the same fairytales year after year, where the heroes are invariably young and heroic. In Auden's version, the heroes are older and have changed drastically.

Simile

The lover uses simile to subtly compare love to lively, active things:

The lover asserts that he will love his beloved until the stars squawk in the sky. This fantastical image contributes to love's power. The next line, which states that love can make the years pass as quickly as rabbits running, depicts love's perseverance and timelessness. It's important to note that geese and rabbits are living things capable of producing more life. As opposed to time, which is associated with death, love is inextricably connected to life and vitality.

Alliteration

The poem is a ballad, which makes it sound song-like and naturally gives it a childlike quality. This is, of course, in direct contrast to the content of the second half of the poem, when the clocks prophesy inevitable death and decay. Alliteration also lends itself to the song-like quality of the poem, making it sound whimsical and childlike even as the content itself is dark. Consider the "L" in line 30: "life leaks," the "B" in line 36: "brilliant bow," and the "L" in line 44: "lane to the land." They sound lyrical and nice even as they speak to mortality and death.

Alliteration also adds to the whimsical, fantastical promises of the lover to his beloved. Consider the repetition of the "B" sound in line 5: "by the brimming," the "S" in lines 12 and 15: "salmon sing in the street" and "seven stars go squawking," and the "R" in line 17: "run like rabbits."

Themes in As I Walked Out One Evening

The major themes in the poem are the inescapable passage of time and death, the power of love, and the inseparability of man and nature. The themes can be found primarily in the juxtaposition between the lover's song and the clocks' rebuttal.

The inescapable passage of time and death

Obviously the clocks spend a long time talking about the passage of time and how it inevitably leads to death. They talk for 9 stanzas, prophesying death through metaphor, personification, and allusion. At the end of their speech, the clocks tell the lovers to look in the basin, mirror, and window and watch as their youth slips away while they can do nothing to stop it:

The clocks want the lovers to see their reflections and witness the physical effects time has on the body as it ages. They can ignore the clocks' warning all they want, but they won't be able to deny their physical demise. The clocks, too, are not immune to time's effect. Though they chime loudly in the city, one day they will rust or rot and stop working entirely. Just like the lovers, their bodies will not be able to evade the passage of time and death.

The power of love

On the other hand, love is presented as the only force that has a fighting chance against death. Perhaps the clocks are so cynical about love because they know they will not be saved by it. The lover presents love as fantastical and powerful, using hyperbole, personification, and simile. Using all of those literary devices makes love see completely other. It is so strong because it is not a human emotion but a force in itself. If love can make "the river jum(p) over the mountain" (11), then perhaps it is the force controlling the "deep river r(unning) on" (60) at the end of the poem as well. The river outlasts even the clocks, showing that it is perhaps the only thing able to outlast time.

The inseparability of man and nature

The natural imagery interposed with life, love, and death also shows how man is inextricably linked to nature. Consider the fields of harvest wheat at the beginning of the poem, the snow covering the green valley in the middle of the poem, and the desert and glacier at the end of the poem. They all convey that death is a natural part of being alive and that time has the power to change everything. By implicitly comparing humans to these things, Auden argues that every living thing is bound by the same rules of nature.

Although humankind attempts to distance itself from the natural world and even dominate it, death is an equalizer, reminding man that no matter what he achieves he will be bound by the same limits as the rest of the natural world. The only thing that humans have that nature might not is the powerful force of love.

As I Walked Out One Evening Meaning

"As I Walked Out One Evening" position love and time in opposition to one another. On one hand, the lover argues that love is capable of outlasting time. And on the other hand, clocks (or time itself) argue that no living thing is outside of time's domain and free from its effects. The meaning of the poem is that although love might be passionate and powerful, it cannot outlast time and eventually it will give way to death.

Ultimately, Auden gives the lover only three stanzas to argue his side, while the clocks have nine stanzas (three times as many!) to present the power of time. The lovers never even have time to refute the clocks, as at the end of the poem they have disappeared into the night.

So who has won the argument? Auden seems to be leaving this open to interpretation. Consider the last line of the poem: "And the deep river ran on" (60). Even after the clocks have ceased their timing and the lovers have disappeared, there is an eternal current rushing on. This could either be representative of time's endless pace or of love's easy, self-assured flow. In the end, the river outlasts the physical lovers and the clocks. Whoever it sides with, which is ambiguous, is ultimately the winner.