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'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 forever: 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 woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.'
W.H Auden, Funeral Blues
Those of you who have seen the amazingly funny four weddings and a funeral will know this poem, and will no doubt understand its quiet, unassuming passion and power to move. i cannot read or hear this poem without tears coming to my eyes, every line, every word is dripping with the kind of emotion that auden was so able to capture in his poetry. I did a post on his poem 'lay your sleeping head my love' very early on in the archive, but i think i will do it again soon. it is simply beautiful. Auden is a great poet.
There are some simply heart-stopping lines in this poem. the first is undoubtably 'stop all the clocks', which has that sense of time coming to a complete stand-still when someone close to you dies. Another of these lines is 'i thought love would last forever: i was wrong.' There is nothing i can add to that sentiment, worded with perfection by auden.
I hope you love it as much as i do. it is one of my favourite poems of all time, and my affection for it grows with every new reading.
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ps. this is a scheduled post while i'm away... hopefully all goes to plan! but then i didn't realise that you could right mouse click on a mac by pressing the control key first, for 2 years... so there is a chance that i have gotten this all wrong! if not, then see you on wednesday!
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