This paper revolves around the relevance of pragmatics for practicing translators. It consists of two main sections. Section 2 analyses an original poem by W.H. Auden- O Where are you going?- from a pragmatic standpoint. Section 3 shows that this pragmatic perspective has repercussions upon the translation of the poem. Furthermore, it compares pragmatics-oriented and non-pragmatics-oriented translations. It also reveals that when a group of conscious readers were asked to choose from amongst a variety of target texts, they opted for the pragmatics-oriented product. This suggests that pragmatics is a useful tool to produce successful translations.