From Twelve Songs

Wystan Hugh Auden

From Twelve Songs

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffed drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhed
Scibbling on the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crèpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffig plicemen 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 thougth 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 weep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.