Auden wanted to steer the art away from truth-claims and toward something more flexuous and subtle—a mode, not a message.

Low, decumbent, somewhat woody, diffusely branched, puberulent; branches slender, flexuous; leaves narrow; flowers few, small; capsules pubescent, about equalling the pedicel.

Leaves.—Few; linear-lanceolate; the radical one or two much larger than those of the flexuous or erect stem.