Twisting two stanzas of W.H. Auden's "The More Loving One" around my feelings today about Christmas is a thoroughgoing perversion in which I engage without appropriate remorse:

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.


How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.



------------------ W.H. Auden ( 1957 )

Note, however, that I credit the author, rather than attempting to steal his work in a perversion of "fair use." in the name of everyone's fun.

It's Auden's work.

Not everyone's.

Not mine.

Giving due credit is a matter of ordinary honor and commonplace integrity, no matter how difficult it may somehow seem.

Nor what excuse barbarians give afterward for their failure to meet the standards of civilized behavior by doing so.