Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
silence the pianos, and with ruffled drum
bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moarning 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 the room and dismantle the sun,
pour away the ocean and sweep the woods;
for nothing now can ever come to any good.

Wysten Hugh Auden