So the title's in French, the pronouns are separated from the antecedents, and some horse is scratching its butt...While Auden asks a lot of his readers, those that take the time to work through the poem often find it fascinating. Welcome to a reading, summary, and analysis of W.H. Auden's "Muese des Beaux Arts." 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; How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must be Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge of the wood: They never forgot That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse Scratches its innocent behind on a tree. In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leis