“You shall love your crooked neighbour / With your crooked heart.”
英语
“你应当以你那歪斜的心/去爱你那歪斜的邻人。”
“He was my North, my South, my East and West, / My working week and my Sunday rest, / My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; / I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.”
英语
“他是我的北方、南方、东方和西方，/我工作日和安息日，/我的正午、午夜、我的话语、我的歌；/我以为爱会永恒：我错了。”
“About suffering they were never wrong, / The old Masters: how well they understood / Its human position: how it takes place / While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along.”
英语
“关于苦难，古代大师们从未错过，/他们多么理解/苦难的人间位置：它如何发生/在别人正吃饭或开窗或只是无聊地走过的时候。”
“Poetry makes nothing happen: it survives / In the valley of its making where executives / Would never want to tamper.”
英语
“诗歌不使任何事情发生：它在/自身被创造的山谷中幸存，/行政人员永远不会想要去篡改那里。”
“We must love one another or die.”
英语
“我们必须彼此相爱，否则就会死去。”
奥登后来将此句改为"我们必须彼此相爱然后死去"，认为原句在逻辑上站不住脚，最终否认了整首诗。