H. Auden’s poem “As I Walked Out One Evening” contains some lovely examples of the rhetorical device called adynaton, which are impossible things, including: I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you / Till China and Africa meet, / And the river jumps over the mountain / And the salmon sing in the street. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “W.H. Auden’s “As I Walked Out One Evening””
You know, getting back to our conversation about expressions that describe an impossible event,
like when hell freezes over, there’s actually a great example of this in a poem by W. H. Auden.
The poem, As I Walked Out One Evening, has this little passage in it that goes,
I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you till China and Africa meet.
And the river jumps over the mountain, and the salmon sing in the street.
I’ll love you till the ocean is folded and hung up to dry,
and the seven stars go squawking like geese about the sky.
How great is that?
That’s fantastic.
That’s love.
He’s going to love his sweetie till impossible things happen, which basically is forever.
That’s very nice.
