Funeral Blues

...Lost in thoughts...

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.

…

…

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.

- W.H. Auden

My first encounter with Stop all the clocks was in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral. While watching the recitation, I got into tears. I wished all the clocks stopped for a while so that I could live in the moment. I wanted to touch the grief, feel the pain and sense the despair that the poet has got his inspiration from!

The words of the poetry and the climax of the film chased me for days. It struck me so much that I wanted to preserve every word of it in my heart. I tried to imagine a huge pain in my life and see if I can describe it in words. I couldn’t do anything close to my expectations. To write something poetic, one must have a very delicate balance of a sensitive heart – to feel the pain, a very sharp mind – to minutely observe the environment, and of course, an extraordinary ability to choose beautiful and suitable words. Anything in less or more will make a hollow text.

I couldn’t reprint the entire poetry due to copyright issues. I didn’t know about it much until now. I learned the basics and will share in my next post.

By the way, if you want to read the complete text and about W. H. Auden, do visit the links.