An aubade is a poem or piece of music appropriate to the dawn or early morning. By the 1930’s it was clear that the war that was supposed to end all wars was not going to. MacNeice wrote this in 1934 and it well expresses a sense of impending doom. Not the dawn of a bright new era of hope and fresh starts but one of foreboding and the closing in of sallow grey news of war.
Aubade
Having bitten on life like a sharp apple
Or, playing it like a fish, been happy,
Having felt with fingers that the sky is blue
what have we after that to look forward to?
Not the twilight of the gods but a precise dawn
of sallow and grey bricks, and newsboys crying war.
by Louis MacNeice
Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson (1889–1946)
William Conor (1881–1968) 19
William Patrick Roberts (1895–1980) 1941
Featured image: Clive Branson Selling the ‘Daily Worker’ outside Projectile Engineering Works 1937
