Poem for August: Stop all the clocks.

Stop All the Clocks
WH 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 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 woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

All these weddings I’ve been to this year had me thinking about the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral. Which got me to thinking about this poem.

You can see that scene (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_a-eXIoyYA) if you want to hear a good Irish Accented version. John Hannah blows my version away.

This was simple to memorize, which was partially why I chose it for August, a month where I spent the majority not going to work and thus missing my prime memorizing time of the walk to the train and back.

2 thoughts on “Poem for August: Stop all the clocks.”

  1. I love this poem. That movie was my first exposure to it, and John Hannah does do a fantastic reading of it!

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