We must love one another and die

Auden's enduring legacy in times of turmoil

At 4:30am on September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland, setting off the chain of events that would become the Second World War. Just over a month later, on October 18, W. H. Auden published what would become one of his best-known poems, “September 1, 1939”—a reflection on the turmoil he was witnessing from across the sea and on what he feared it would b…