Any one know what this quote here means?

Question

" O dear white children casual as birds,
Playing among the ruined languages,
So small beside their language confusing words,
So gay against the greater silences
Of dreadful things you did..."
- from "Anthem for St. Ceilia's Day"
W.H. Auden

Answer 1

It talks about children that have been kept in captivity away from sun so they are pale, but yet free as birds because they know no boundaries. In the outside world they are small against others and don't understand the language. Among things that are bad and depressing, they are yet happy because they are finally free and don't even know of the dangers they face in a world of drugs, crime, and corruption. All they know, is that they are finally free, and they are happy.

Answer 2

This poem is about St. Ceilia. How pale children know not their tongue but talk in ruined language gaily unaware of what St. Ceilia has done.

Answer 3

I take from it, that the writer is speaking of the Caucasian race and its level of disregard to other races and peoples.

Whether it be the slavery and the subsequent Jim crow treatments, or the herding of the native Americans, the white races have mostly disregarded the feelings of anybody that has shown to be in its "way"

Answer 4

It skill that The Cat is having fowl for Dinner this night, little question approximately it. The Cat would be steadfast in his pursuit of that darn chicken and make that assertion actual. that's what it skill! Darn chicken, The Cat desires his elegance sleep! i'm going to tutor that cock!

Answer 5

It means (in my interpretation) that because white people are generally so protected and ignorant all they think about is nothing and all they do is invent really stupid ways to talk.

Answer 6

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymn_to_St._Cecilia

Hymn to St. Cecilia, Op. 27 is a choral piece by Benjamin Britten (1913-1976), on a text by W. H. Auden written between 1940 and 1942. Auden's original title was "Three Songs for St. Cecilia's Day", and he later published it as "Anthem for St. Cecilia’s Day (for Benjamin Britten)".

For a long time Britten wanted to write a piece dedicated to St. Cecilia for a number of reasons. Firstly, he was born on St. Cecilia's day, secondly, St. Cecilia is the patron saint of music, and finally, there is a long tradition in England of writing odes and songs to St. Cecilia. The most famous of these are by John Dryden ("A song for St. Cecilia's Day" 1687) and musical works by Henry Purcell, Hubert Parry, and George Frideric Handel. Another briefer work by Herbert Howells has the similar title Hymn for St. Cecilia, but was written later in 1960. The first extant reference to Britten's desire to write such a work is from 1935 when Britten wrote in his diary “I’m having great difficulty in finding Latin words for a proposed Hymn to St. Cecilia spend morning hunting.”

At this point, Britten had already worked with Auden on a number of large-scale works, including Paul Bunyan. Britten asked that Auden provide him a text for his ode to St. Cecilia, and Auden complied, sending the poem in sections throughout 1940, along with advice on how Britten could be a better artist. This was to be the last work they collaborated on. According to Britten's partner Peter Pears in 1980 "Ben was on a different track now, and he was no longer prepared to be dominated– bullied – by Wystan, whose musical feeling he was very well aware of. ...Perhaps he may have been said to have said goodbye to working with Wystan with his marvelous setting of the Hymn (Anthem) to St. Cecilia."

Britten began setting Hymn to St. Cecilia in late 1940 in the United States. In 1942 (the midst of World War II) Britten and Pears decided to return home to England. Unfortunately, the customs inspectors confiscated all of Britten's manuscripts, fearing they could be some type of code. Britten re-wrote the manuscript while aboard the M.S. Axel Johnson, and finished it April 2, 1942. It was written at the same time as A Ceremony of Carols, which shares the same affect.

The text itself follows in the tradition of odes, including an invocation to the muse: "Blessed Cecilia/Appear in visions to all musicians/Appear and inspire". Britten uses this as a refrain throughout piece, whereas it is the last portion of Auden's first section.

The piece is in three sections, plus three iterations of the refrain, with slight variations, following each section. The first section is very similar to the refrain, based around the E phrygian scale and with the same melody. The second section is a scherzo with a modified fugue form. The third section is more lyrical, with solos in each voice describing a different instrument, traditional in odes to St. Cecilia.

The TEXT and Interpretation:
http://www.spectrumsingers.org/archives/1999-00/may00_words.html

Hymn to St. Cecilia

Benjamin Britten
Words by W. H. Auden
I

In a garden shady this holy lady
With reverent cadence and subtle psalm,
Like a black swan as death came on
Poured forth her song in perfect calm:
And by ocean's margin this innocent virgin
Constructed an organ to enlarge her prayer,
And notes tremendous from her great engine
Thundered out on the Roman air.

Blonde Aphrodite rose up excited,
Moved to delight by the melody,
White as an orchid she rode quite naked
In an oyster shell on top of the sea;
At sounds so entrancing the angels dancing
Came out of their trance into time again,
And around the wicked in Hell's abysses
The huge flame flickered and eased their pain.

Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions
To all musicians, appear and inspire:
Translated Daughter, come down and startle
Composing mortals with immortal fire.
II

I cannot grow;
I have no shadow
To run away from,
I only play.

I cannot err;
There is no creature
Whom I belong to,
Whom I could wrong.

I am defeat
When it knows it
Can now do nothing
By suffering.

All you lived through,
Dancing because you
No longer need it
For any deed.

I shall never be
Different. Love me.

Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions
To all musicians, appear and inspire:
Translated Daughter, come down and startle
Composing mortals with immortal fire.
III

O ear whose creatures cannot wish to fall,
O calm of spaces unafraid of weight,
Where Sorrow is herself, forgetting all
The gaucheness of her adolescent state,
Where Hope within the altogether strange
From every outworn image is released,
And Dread born whole and normal like a beast
Into a world of truths that never change:
Restore our fallen day; O re-arrange.

O dear white children casual as birds,
Playing among the ruined languages,
So small beside their large confusing words,
So gay against the greater silences
Of dreadful things you did: O hang the head,
Impetuous child with the tremendous brain,
O weep, child, weep, O weep away the stain,
Lost innocence who wished your lover dead,
Weep for the lives your wishes never led.

O cry created as the bow of sin
Is drawn across our trembling violin.

O weep, child, weep, O weep away the stain.

O law drummed out by hearts against the still
Long winter of our intellectual will.

That what has been may never be again.

O flute that throbs with the thanksgiving breath
Of convalescents on the shores of death.

O bless the freedom that you never chose.

O trumpets that unguarded children blow
About the fortress of their inner foe.

O wear your tribulation like a rose.

Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions
To all musicians, appear and inspire:
Translated Daughter, come down and startle
Composing mortals with immortal fire.

Answer 7

i think this quote is racist, but im not sure

Answer 8

kids are happy!