The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #109281   Message #2283172
Posted By: number 6
08-Mar-08 - 04:44 PM
Thread Name: BS: Favorite Poem?
Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
Ah ... yes Dave O ... very good one.

"Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun"

Here's the whole poem, and I would have to say my my favourite work from Auden, if not for that one line.

Funeral Blues

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 crêpe 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.

biLL