Along with Yeats and Eliot, W. H. Auden is one of the most influential English-language poets of the twentieth century. His best work artfully potrays the complexity and profundity of the human condition. In 1928, Auden published his first book of verse, and his collection Poems, published in 1930, established him as the leading voice of a new generation. Ever since, he has been admired for his unsurpassed technical virtuosity and an ability to write poems in nearly every imaginable verse form; the incorporation in his work of popular culture, current events, and vernacular speech; and also for the vast range of his intellect, which drew easily from the an extraordinary variety of literatures, art forms, social and political theories, and scientific and technical information.

These poems, taken from Random House Audio's" Voice of the Poet" series, demostrate Auden's remarkable wit. His poetry frequently recounts, literally or metaphorically, a journey or quest, and his travels provided rich material for his verse.