Wednesday, November 12, 2025

WH Auden on grief

In Four Weddings and a Funeral, what a lovely, lovely poem on grief. By WH Auden. Can't believe I have never read this beauty before. 

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 wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Link for explanation: https://allpoetry.com/funeral-blues


The poem is called Funeral Blues, but i think it sums up grief and the sense of nothing making sense any more in the most beautiful yet precise way possible. 

"Nothing now can ever come to any good." 

Indeed. 


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