Vox Populi
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W. H. Auden: Stop all the clocks
April 1936
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
~~~~
Public Domain
Ed. Note: “Funeral Blues“, or “Stop all the clocks” by W. H. Auden first appeared in the 1936 play The Ascent of F6. Auden substantially rewrote the poem several years later as a cabaret song for the singer Hedli Anderson. Both versions were set to music by the composer Benjamin Britten. The second version was first published in 1938 and was titled “Funeral Blues” in Auden’s 1940 Another Time. The poem experienced renewed popularity after being read in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), which also led to increased attention to Auden’s other work. It has since been cited as one of the most popular modern poems in the United Kingdom. [adapted from Wiki]
Wystan Hugh Auden (1907 – 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden’s poetry is noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form, and content.
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A beautiful elegy indeed.
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I had missed this one, also— the bane of a science major with one English class ( oh I loved my Shakespeare class) in college. And now I love the pleasure in age I was denied in youth.
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I sit at my screen in awe of the poem, one I had missed till now. I love the comments
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I have loved this poem and Auden for a long time now. What a welcome surprise to open my computer and read it again. Thank you, Michael.
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Thank YOU, Rose Mary.
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Its a great poem from a great poet! Among the greatest. I’m very glad to see this again, so strange to be reading Robert Cording’s “The Unwalled City,” as eloquent and full of loss. Let there be no haste in this.
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Let us take our waking slow.
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It seems to me, Iambs and rhyme have their own soothing power; the words, their meaning, open to an individuals interpretation, at times, not so much. Long live rhythm and rhyme!
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Yes, long live.
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It DOES go beyond the personal, doesn’t it — you’re right, Michael. What an extraordinary poem this is. I read it often, so grateful that it says so well what I have felt so often. When I hear people say “I have no words to express….” I always feel like replying: go read Poetry!
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Yes, go read poetry.
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One of the great poems of the 20c by one of the greatest poets who has ever written in English. It is an elegy for a lover who has died, but it goes beyond the personal to speak of our greater sense of loss….
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