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 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 wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
W.H. Auden
Tense: the Author wrote this poem in both past and future tenses. Past tense was used to describe how much her husband (?) meant to her, using the tense to show how this has changed. Future tense is used for the instruction-like exclamations (eg. stop all clocks). These exclamations are not literal, and are instead used as a hyperbole- device.
First person: the poem is written in first person, as evident by phrases such as "my" and "I".
Personification is used in the poem in the "let the aeroplanes circle" paragraph. Moaning/ scribbling are human characteristics, applied to the aeroplane. This was used to personify the character's grief in inanimate objects, so they can relate to their emotions.
Metaphors: are used in the poem in phrases such as " My working week and my Sunday rest" and the rest of that paragraph. Metaphors were used in the poem to portray how much the person who passed away meant to the character. This consequently meant that the characters grief seemed so much more hopeless.
Hyperbole: is used in phrases such as " pack up the moon" and "dismantle the sun" which is obviously impossible. This is used to show the desperation and intensity of the character's grief. The hyperbole used (eg. dismantle the sun) all had a common theme of impossible destruction. This shows us how the character's world has been destroyed with the death of a loved one, and how is feels like everything can be taken away.
