Thursday, February 2

A Bloggers (Silent) Poetry Reading

Funeral Blues

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



from grace’s poppies, followed the trail from here.

7 Comments:

Blogger strangelittlemama said...

one of my favorites.

5:45 PM  
Blogger maryse said...

that's from 3 weddings and a funeral. when i just read it i could hear the character's scottish brogue.

so sad.

6:37 PM  
Blogger Melissa said...

Ah...reminds me of Four Weddings and a Funeral. I love that poem.

6:38 PM  
Blogger Marie said...

yes, that's the most fantastic poem there is.

11:51 PM  
Anonymous Donna said...

Thank you for posting this.

6:44 AM  
Blogger Cathi said...

Ditto to what everyone else said.

10:54 AM  
Blogger Theresa said...

Hi - folllowed the link from Laura at Affiknitty, and was so pleased to see this poem (which, of course, preceded Four Weddings. by a lot.). Auden so perfectly conveys the way the world doesn't stop when suffer a loss. Isn't language powerful?

10:42 AM  

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