For Poetry Monday:
“
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,” W.H. Auden
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.
Sometimes known as “Funeral Blues,” this started as a satirical blues song for the play
The Ascent of F6 (1936) by Auden and Christopher Isherwood, with music by Benjamin Britten. During its initial run it was sung by Hedli Anderson plus a chorus, and at her request Auden rewrote the lyrics into a solo cabaret song that she performed (with revised music by Britten) until she retired from the stage. Auden published this revision as an independent poem dated April 1936, and he continued tweaking it throughout his life—this is his final version from the posthumous
Collected Poems, where it is part IX of “Twelve Songs.” Some of you may know it as a funeral reading in
Four Weddings and a Funeral.
---L.
Subject quote from God, Tori Amos. ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
