W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden was born in York on 21 February 1907. He studied at Gresgam's school, Holt and Christ Church, Oxford, after which he lived for a year in a Berlin slum. In the early Thirties he taught at Helensburgh, in Scotland, and then at the Downs school, near Malvern. In the later Thirties he worked as a freelance writer and wrote three plays for the Group Theatre. In 1939 he left England for the USA. In America he lived in New York until 1941, then taught at Michigan and Swarthmore. In 1945 he served in Germany with the US Strategic Bombing Survey and when he returned, again, took an apartment in New York before becoming a US citizen in 1946. From 1948 to 1972 he spent his winters in America and his summers in Europe. During this period he wrote four opera libretti with Chester Kallman. From 1956 to 1960 he spent a few monthss of each year in Oxford as the elected professor of poetry. In 1972 he left his winter home in New York to return to Oxford. He died in Vienna on 29 September 1973.
W. H. Auden - 1947
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 the airplanes circle moaning overhead,
Scribbling on the sky the message "he is dead",
Put great bows around the necks of the public doves,
Let traffic policeman 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, Iwas 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.
April 1936
W. H. Auden - 1966