Tom Hiddleston reading Funeral Blues - Stop All the Clocks by W. H. Auden. The poet had an interesting history with this poem. He first wrote it as a satirical piece for his play The Ascent of F6 (1936). However, after going through some personal heartbreak in 1937, Auden seems to have reconsidered his powerful verse: he included it as a sincere lament in his anthology, The Year's Poetry (1938), and again in a later collection, Another Time (1940). Subsequent readings have followed Auden's later, more mournful direction, notably by John Hannah in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) and in this recitation by Tom Hiddleston.
Funeral Blues
Stop All the Clocks
W. H. Auden (April 1936)
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 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 sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
Source: W. H. Auden, Selected Poems, 2nd expanded edition, ed. Edward Mindelson (Vintage Books, 2007): 48-49.
Read by Tom Hiddleston
© Tom Hiddleston
Video © 2020 David Bannon
Music
Almost in F - Tranquillity by Kevin MacLeod
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (creativecommons.org/licenses/...)
Source: incompetech.com/music/royalty-...
Artist: incompetech.com/
13 май 2020
