The overall effect is like slogging through sucking mud -- there is a depressive inertia in the poem, as if one does not want to go on but must. 2) What does he mean by "blind skyscrapers"? What does this mean symbolically? The line before this one comments on the "neutral air" in New York (this is before they entered WWII), making the blind skyscrapers perhaps "blind" in the sense that they aren't taking sides; blind like Justice is blind. They are also blind to the evils being committed in Europe where war has been going on for awhile. All of this is symbolic; it is also possible that Auden is alluding to tall buildings of a bygone era, where towers and lighthouses -- the tallest building -- were built specifically to see.

3) in the seventh stanza... what is the "ethical life" of which he speaks in the first line? What is he alluding to? The ethical life Auden mentions in the first line is the day-to-day affairs of the people and the government; the mundane and orderly-appearing life of correct behavior....

He alludes to first the fact that in the "conservative dark" their lives aren't really as ethical as they pretend, and also perhaps to the "ethics" of the business of war.
4) First, what is Auden's charge to himself? Second, what does this say about the role of the poet post World War I? It is difficult to tell for certain what Auden means here; he compares himself to the stars, saying they are both made of "Eros and dust," and wants to show an "affirming flame." Given the rest of the poem, this could be Auden firming up his resolve for war, which he sees as just and necessary in this instance. This could mean that the role of the poet, which has traditionally been seen has having moved to pointing out the horrors of war after WWI, is really more about proclaiming truth and justice -- of the evils of war, yes, but also of its unfortunate necessity at times.