STOP ALL THE CLOCKS...

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 hte 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.

 Poem written  by W. H. AUDEN.  One of the leading literary figures of the 20th century. He is known for writing poetry that says something truthful about life.  He was a leading voice of a new generation, with a remarkable intellect who could mimick the style of Dickinson, Yeats and others.
He was raised in England and he was influenced by mythology, folklore and an Anglican perspective.  Most of his poetry deals with moral issues, and he was inspired by Marx and Freud in his youth. His poetry has an intense and dramatic tone and established his reputation as a left-wing political poet. He became uncomfortable in this role and later in the 30s he moved to the US and became an American citizen. In 1948 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for The Age of Anxiety.
 His late poems explored religious and ethical themes in a less dramatic manner.  Apart from poetry, he also wrote essays, and reviews on political, literary, psychological subjects. After his death some of his poems, like this one we are reading now  became widely known through films and the media.


After reading the poem try to answer the following questions:
1. What is the poem about?
2. Could you think of a possible title?
3. Try to label the rhyme scheme
4. In the poem there are several words related to different semantic fields. For example sadness and  sounds. Try to find them.
5. Do you think the poem could be an example of an elegy? why?
6. What are the main poetic devices we can find in the poem? Examples.