THE TWO You are the town and we are the clock. We are the guardians of the gate in the rock. The Two. On your left and on your right In the day and in the night, We are watching you. Wiser not to ask just what has occurred To them who disobeyed our word; To those We were the whirlpool, we were the reef, We were the formal nightmare, grief And the unlucky rose. Climb up the crane, learn the sailor's words When the ships from the islands laden with birds Come in. Tell your stories of fishing and other men's wives: The expansive moments of constricted lives In the lighted inn. But do not imagine we do not know Nor that what you hide with such care won't show At a glance. Nothing is done, nothing is said, But don't make the mistake of believing us dead: I shouldn't dance. We're afraid in that case you'll have a fall. We've been watching you over the garden wall For hours. The sky is darkening like a stain, Something is going to fall like rain And it won't be flowers. When the green field comes off like a lid Revealing what was much better hid: Unpleasant. And look, behind you without a sound The woods have come up and are standing round In deadly crescent. The bolt is sliding in its groove, Outside the window is the black remov- ers' van. And now with sudden swift emergence Come the woman in dark glasses and humpbacked surgeons And the scissors man. This might happen any day So be careful what you say Or do. Be clean, be tidy, oil the lock, Trim the garden, wind the clock, Remember the Two. Back to Auden