Textuality » 3A Interacting
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 in the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crêpe 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.
The title ( Funeral blues) comunicates us that the text will probably talk about a funeral, a bad event.
The poem is made up of four stanzas which are organized into four lines.
There are some rhymes like telephone and bone ( overhead and dead, wood and good...) and some assoance like drum and come ( one and sun) that create a low rythm.
In addition there are often Imperative ( stop, prevent, bring out..) which envolve the reader in the funeral too.
The text conveys the disperation and pain of the writer ,for the loss of his beloved, which is so big that affects everyone: all the people must go to the funeral ( bring out the coffin, let the mourners come) and prove that they are in mourning ( let the traffic policeman wear black cotton gloves).
In the end the autor is so full of pain that wants to destroy everything: the stars, the sun, the moon, the ocean and the wood. The final line embodies the exact mood of the writer who will be always unhappy.