Untitled (Having read Spenser who could stop the Thames)

Having read Spenser who could stop the Thames
To hear his Prothalamion - and no wonder!
I fell back defeated from the miracle
The Freudian river clinical
Is grey with silt
To high romance inimical - 
Grey Liffey run less sadly with my guilt.

We know the motives that drive sexual love
Marriage is a sordid bargain made
For reasons that could never inspire a song
Something is exausted [sic] in the soul
All the cards are dealt,
The horizon is a prison wall - 
Grey Liffey run less greyly with my guilt.

Auden knows all the answers, and the question
Is where can we find a question to ask
We ring all the changes on the emotions
Reweave and reweave the shoddy
Vary the tilt
Of the dead body - 
Grey Liffey run less drearily with my guilt.