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AUDEN,WYSTAN HUGH.Autograph Poem Signed,“W.H.Auden,” fair copy of
his “Elegy for J.F.K.,” 4 stanzas of three lines each, beginning “Why they? Why there? /
Why thus, we cry, did he die? / The heavens are silent. . . .” 1 page, 8vo, “Whytes [Hotel]”
stationery; his Australia address in holograph on verso. (TFC)
[London], circa 1964
[1,000/2,000]
Soon after the assassination of President Kennedy, Igor Stravinsky asked Auden to write a poem that
he could set to music. Stravinsky performed his elegy with Auden’s text in New York on the first
anniversary of JFK’s death.