W. H. Auden

August, 1968

The Ogre does what ogres can,
Deeds quite impossible for Man,
But one prize is beyond his reach,
The Ogre cannot master Speech:
About a subjugated plain,
Among its desperate and slain,
The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,
While drivel gushes from his lips.

— W. H. Auden, from Selected Poetry of W. H. Auden (Modern Library, 1970)

Understandably enough, my first thought on reading this poem this morning was George W. Bush. But August 21, 1968 was the date of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, so the Ogre is probably Leonid Brezhnev. Or perhaps it’s a personification of the Supreme Soviet. One does have to think of Nikita Khrushchev’s shoe. Though this poem was written after both Khrushchev and Stalin, their spirit lingers in it. But the type is always with us, which is why it suits Mr. Bush so well.