Moon Landing

It's natural the Boys should whoop it up for
so huge a phallic triumph, an adventure
it would not have occurred to women
to think worth while, made possible only

because we like huddling in gangs and knowing
the exact time: yes, our sex may in fairness
hurrah the deed, although the motives
that primed it were somewhat less than menschlich.

A grand gesture. But what does it period?
What does it osse? We were always adroiter
with objects than lives, and more facile
at courage than kindness: from the moment

the first flint was flaked this landing was merely
a matter of time. But our selves, like Adam's,
still don't fit us exactly, modern
only in this---our lack of decorum.

Homer's heroes were certainly no braver
than our Trio, but more fortunate: Hector
was excused the insult of having
his valor covered by television.

Worth going to see? I can well believe it.
Worth seeing? Mneh! I once rode through a desert
and was not charmed: give me a watered
lively garden, remote from blatherers

about the New, the von Brauns and their ilk, where
on August mornings I can count the morning
glories where to die has a meaning,
and no engine can shift my perspective.

Unsmudged, thank God, my Moon still queens the Heavens
as She ebbs and fulls, a Presence to glop at,
Her Old Man, made of grit not protein,
still visits my Austrian several

with His old detachment, and the old warnings
still have power to scare me: Hybris comes to
an ugly finish, Irreverence
is a greater oaf than Superstition.

Our apparatniks will continue making
the usual squalid mess called History:
all we can pray for is that artists,
chefs and saints may still appear to blithe it.

Analysis (ai): The poem critiques masculine pride in technological achievement, framing the moon landing as a phallic spectacle driven by competitive, mechanized values historically associated with men. Women are positioned as outsiders to this pursuit, not through incapacity but disinterest, suggesting a quiet moral superiority. The speaker distances himself from nationalistic celebration, highlighting how such feats emerge from socially conditioned behaviors like timetabling and tribalism.
Ethical and Historical Context: Auden contrasts modern heroism with Homeric models, implying contemporary achievements lack dignity due to media exposure and instrumental motives. Unlike ancient warriors granted private glory, modern astronauts are reduced to televised figures, their valor diluted by spectacle. The reference to von Braun underscores complicity of scientific minds with militarized progress, a recurring concern in Auden’s later work.
Form and Tone: Written in loose iambic lines with irregular rhyme and caesura, the verse mirrors conversational skepticism, rejecting grandiloquence. The tone is wry, dismissive yet reflective, aligning with Auden’s postwar turn toward moral caution and religious awareness. Colloquial interjections like "Mneh!" puncture pomposity, a stylistic trait present in his later poems.
Place in Auden’s Oeuvre: Less anthologized than his 1930s political works, this poem reflects his mature preoccupation with sin, hubris, and the limits of progress. It continues his skepticism toward technological utopianism seen in poems like “The Unknown Citizen” but with a more resigned, pastoral counterpoint. The garden image echoes his retreat into private, ritualized spaces as resistance to historical chaos.
Engagement with Modernity: Rejecting the era’s space-age enthusiasm, the poem resists mid-century techno-optimism dominant in 1969. It questions not the science but the cultural narratives surrounding it, anticipating later critiques of technocracy. The call for artists, chefs, and saints to “blithe” the mess of history introduces an anti-heroic ideal rooted in care, craft, and sanctity—alternatives to power-driven innovation. (hide)