Stop All the Clocks... by W.H. Auden

You might remember this poem from “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” and I have to warn you: it’s a sad one. If you’re in a good mood today (like I am), it should provide a little verklempt moment. If you’re down, it might doom you to a night of Jeff Buckley and Ben & Jerry’s. Anyway, I think it’s well worth knowing. And next week’s will be happier, I promise.



Stop All the Clocks...
by 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.



W.H. Auden was born in York, England, in 1907. As a young man he was influenced by the poetry of Thomas Hardy and Robert Frost, as well as William Blake, Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Old English verse. In 1939, he moved to the United States, where he met his lover, Chester Kallman, and became an American citizen. He is considered a virtuoso of formal (metrical and rhyming) verse. He died in Vienna in 1973.