Author Topic: UV Intro Auden poem  (Read 4456 times)

slaneman

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UV Intro Auden poem
« on: November 29, 2009, 09:47:31 PM »
In keeping with the lyric's section tradition of posts that few will ever read, and fewer care about...

Towards the end of the 2nd leg (Fedex and Charlottesville I've heard) the computerized voice before UV reads a snippet of a famous poem titled, "Funeral Blues", by the poet W. H. Auden.
Read about Auden here.

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/120

There were actually 2 versions of this poem which you can read about here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funeral_Blues

It took me a while to track down the first but here it is:


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 crêpe bows round the white necks of the public
    doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

Hold up your umbrellas to keep off the rain
From Doctor Williams while he opens a vein;
Life, he pronounces, it is finally extinct.
Sergeant, arrest that man who said he winked!

Shawcross will say a few words sad and kind
To the weeping crowds about the Master-mind,
While Lamp with a powerful microscope
Searches their faces for a sign of hope.

And Gunn, of course, will drive a motor-hearse:
None could drive it better, most would drive it worse.
He’ll open up the throttle to its fullest power
And drive him to the grave at ninety miles an hour.

Here is the 2nd version with the U2 snippet in bold:

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 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 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.

Brad

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Re: UV Intro Auden poem
« Reply #1 on: November 30, 2009, 08:14:47 PM »
Cool.

Thanks for that.