Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden
Stumbled upon this poem, and fell in love with it again. I was moved by its honesty, by the resonance of its metaphors for loss. I wonder what kind of grief – its dimension and depth – that provoked the creation of this work. Indulge.
Funeral Blues
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.
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I first heard this poem in the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral. Hindi mo siguro napanood yon kasi bata ka pa noon. Ang tanda ko na talaga… Eniwi, eto yung link, panoorin mo, I guarantee magugustuhan mo, or your money back.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcAYsJo3-uM
The original five-stanza version of this poem titled “Funeral blues” was a sort of parody of a poem of mourning for a political leader written for the verse play The Ascent of F6.
This is the four stanza version made famous by the movie “Four weddings and a Funeral”
I love it too.
@roy: haha, i am not that young. i’ve seen the movie, too, but i fell in love with the poem even before i’ve seen the movie.
@damyantig: thanks for the clarification. It’s quite revealing. When i first read the poem, i was told that it was for a lover who suddenly died. I made a bit of investigation after reading your comment, it turns out that the poem originated from a play as a satirical piece on a politician’s death. then Auden re-wrote it for a cabaret song, retaining the first two stanzas and replacing the rest, making it about the death of a lover.
the other thing that i discovered is that it wasn’t written for Chester Kallman, Auden’s lover. Auden died two years before Kallman!
Thanks for instigating this attempt to learn more about the poem. These new stories about it have not altered how i feel about it, i must add. and here, to celebrate auden’s poetry, is another of his poem that i like:
The Dream
W.H. Auden
Dear, though the night is gone,
Its dream still haunts to-day,
That brought us to a room
Cavernous, lofty as
A railway terminus,
And crowded in that gloom
Were beds, and we in one
In a far corner lay.
Our whisper woke no clocks,
We kissed and I was glad
At everything you did,
Indifferent to those
Who sat with hostile eyes
In pairs on every bed,
Arms round each other’s necks,
Inert and vaguely sad.
What hidden worm of guilt
Or what malignant doubt
Am I the victim of,
That you, then, unabashed,
Did what I never wished,
Confessed another love;
And I, submissive, felt
Unwanted and went out.
I absolutely love this poem it has such emotion that its unbelievable! I haven’t actually seen the movie Four weddings so i guess that’s going to be on my to do list:D