What is the relationship between truth-telling and the "Romantic lie" in the early poetry of W. H. Auden, like "As I Walked Out One Evening"?W. H....

In W. H. Auden's "As I Walked Out One Evening," there is
truth-telling and the Romantic lie.

There is a great deal
of the Romantic lie at the start of the poem, when the lover sings that love will go on
forever. The idealistic tone is that love will never
end.

'Love
has no ending.

'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,

The pivot change of
the poem begins with the mention of Time. With this, reality steps in and Time rolls
ever forward, spelling out doom to those who are not paying
attention.

But
all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
'O let not Time
deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.
/.../
'In headaches
and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his
fancy
To-morrow or
to-day.

The sense of the poem
is that Time, literally, stops for no one. Minute by minute, Time marches on. The
Romantic lie at the beginning showed how wonderful life is and will be—always. With wave
after wave of impossible feats, the speaker describes how long he will love this woman,
until the screeching halt of Time stops us in our tracks. The Romantic lie is that all
will be wonderful, but the reality is that one need only look to one's watch to see the
truth of the moment.