Question

Where the beggars raffle the banknotes, and the Giant is enchanting to Jack, and the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer, and Jill goes down on her back.

Explain the meaning of the above poem.

Answer 1

The above lines are from W. H. Auden's poem "As I Walked Out One Evening", lines 45-48, with the speaker talking about what time is capable of.

Step-by-step explanation:

The poem "As I Walked Out One Evening" by W. H. Auden is a poem with 15 fur-line stanzas with the rhyme scheme ABAB. It depicts the speaker's observations on his evening stroll, not a nature stroll but rather in pavements and crowds of people in an urban English street.

The above lines are taken from line 45-48. The speaker says that time have the ability to change everything, with the voice of Time invoking images from the famous tales like "Jack and Jill" and "Jack and the Beanstalk".

But in a rather shift of characterization, unlike the innocent images that they are, here these characters are a bit more per erse with the giant looking enchanting to Jack and Jill, seduced, 'goes down on her back", and beggars will be raffling money. This is what time is capable of doing.