Remember this bit in History of the World?I'm sure Julian Barnes is right, but I always thought it was the other way round, that Auden originally wrote, "We must love one another and die", and then changed it to "We must love one another or die" because that's more conventional. There's a strange comfort in "We must love one another and die" - well yes of course everyone dies (there's a scene in one of the Pratchetts, isn't there, where someone asks the History Monks if they've ever seen a dying man and there's a short pause and then they say, umm yes isn't everyone?) - but the necessity of death is matched by the necessity of love - at least we do have to love one another as well. And because Auden once wrote "We must love one another and die" he can command me.
“’We must love one another or die,’ wrote W.H. Auden, bringing from E.M. Forster the declaration: ‘Because he once wrote “We must love one another or die,” he can command me to follow him’. Auden, however, was dissatisfied with this famous line from ‘September 1, 1939’. That’s a damned lie!” he commented. ‘We must die anyway.’ So when reprinting the poem he altered the line to the more logical ‘We must love one another and die.’ Later he suppressed it altogether.
[I don't know if I should link the original blog entry - guess I'll leave it as is? if you know Julian, and you probably do, then you know the link.]