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 wonder if any one else has noticed, but W. Auden had a *thing* about clocks and time.

I didn't know that! Have you read other things he written? guess I should first ask if he's written other things?

Yes. Another one is "The Two". Not posting all of the poems, but here's just an example.
p.s. it's probably just coincidence, but it's something I noticed. I guess we all think about "time" a lot.

The Two
W. H. Auden

You are the town and we are the clock.
We are the guardians of the gate in the rock.
The Two.
On your left and on your right
In the day and in the night,
We are watching you.

If I Could Tell You
W. H. Auden

Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

As I Walked Out One Evening
W. H. Auden

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

Oh, I love Auden.
5.30am here and I'm reading poetry??? lol

listen to this... sends shivers up my spine

"Certainty, fidelity
On the stroke of midnight pass
Like vibrations of a bell,
And fashionable madmen raise
Their pedantic boring cry:
Every farthing of the cost,
All the dreaded cards foretell,
Shall be paid, but from this night
Not a whisper, not a thought,
Not a kiss nor look be lost.

Beauty, midnight, vision dies:
Let the winds of dawn that blow
Softly round your dreaming head
Such a day of sweetness show
Eye and knocking heart may bless,
Find your mortal world enough;
Noons of dryness see you fed
By the involuntary powers,
Nights of insult let you pass
Watched by every human love.

~ The Lullaby

Here's a great poem for you if you like poetry. I guess it's about his father really but more about the cycle of life. You need to say this stuff out loud really. So... here's one to ponder

Follower
by Seamus Heaney

My father worked with a horse plough,
His shoulders globed like a full sail strung
Between the shafts and the furrow.
The horses strained at his clicking tongue.

An expert. He would set the wing
And fit the bright-pointed sock.
The sod rolled over without breaking.
At the headrig, with a single pluck

Of reins, the sweating team turned round
And back into the land. His eye
Narrowed and angled at the ground,
Mapping the furrow exactly.

I stumbled in his hobnailed wake,
Fell sometimes on the polished sod;
Sometimes he rode me on his back
Dipping and rising to his plod.

I wanted to grow up and plough,
To close one eye, stiffen my arm.
All I ever did was follow
In his broad shadow around the farm.

I was a nuisance, tripping, falling,
Yapping always. But today
It is my father who keeps stumbling
Behind me, and will not go away.

well, so sorry about the tangent.
Now I need a coffee

Oh I loved the poems Lara .....Mr.Alffe wondered if I was in here talking to myself because I was reading aloud. *grin

I am rereading Kay Jamisons book...Night Falls Fast and just read this .....

"Shortly before he killed himslef, D.C.Council Chairman John Wilson spoke to the Mental Health Association about suicide and mental illess in the black community. "Suicide," he said, "is the number one killer among young black people, but we call it gunfire....We don't even like to talk about it. We've got to change the way America feels about depression."

***************

And then I read what Elizabeth Jennings wrote about those left behind...

A Half-Stitched Scar

.....Time does not heal,
It makes a half-stitched scar
That can be broken and again you feel
Grief as total as in its first hour.

****************

That explains a lot of things including the fact that there is nothing unique about me.

So you and I have yet another thing in common....poetry!

I just saw this thread tonight. Thanks!

I enjoyed reading all of the poems.

I miss both Lara and Scrabble...