Pack up the Moon

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, reprinted in All the poems you need to say goodbye edited by Don Paterson (London, 2004) 

"The Moon Over Water" by edbadle is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

Perhaps I have a poor sense of humour, but because I read this as a poem about a breakup, it makes me laugh. The poor deprived dog! The skywriting! The no-doubt bewildered public doves! (What a world, that has public doves and traffic cops in mourning gloves.) And then there is the fact that the opening of the fourth stanza packs a genuine emotional punch, as well as being a delightful play on words.

I wonder if this--or any other Auden poems--have been set to music. I can hear the entire third stanza and those lovely lines, 'The stars are not wanted now, put out every one / pack up the moon and dismantle the sun' as a song.