There is always a wicked secret...

At last the secret is out, as it always must come in the end,
The delicious story is ripe to tell to the intimate friend;
Over the tea-cups and in the square the tongue has its desire;
Still waters run deep, my dear, there's never smoke without
fire.

Behind the corpse in the reservoir, behind the ghost on the
links,
Behind the lady who dances and the man who madly drinks,
Under the look of fatigue, the attack of migraine and the sigh
There is always another story, there is more than meets the
eye.

For the clear voice suddenly singing, high up in the convent
wall,
The scent of the elder bushes, the sporting prints in the hall,
The croquet matches in summer, the handshake, the cough,
the kiss,
There is always a wicked secret, a private reason for this.

- W. H. Auden, April 1936 -