Volume 10 145

mourners come. The speaker then orders the lis-
teners to have “moaning” airplanes fly overhead,
writing “He Is Dead,” with unavoidable finality.
The processional path must be appropriately deco-
rated with “crepe bows round the white necks of
the public doves” and black gloves must be worn
by policemen.

In the third stanza, the speaker reveals the
sense of order he/she experienced prior to the death
of the loved one. The first three lines describe the
completeness of their relationship in images of dis-
tance and time. The ninth line, “He was my North,
my South, my East and West,” suggests that he
gave the speaker direction and a sense of constancy.
The next line and a half, “my working week and
my Sunday rest, / My noon, my midnight” de-
scribes him as an integral part of every moment of
the speaker’s daily life. He influenced the speaker’s
communication (“my talk”) and mood (“my song”).
These lines suggest that he was, in fact, the
speaker’s life. The final line of this stanza expresses
the genuine sorrow the speaker experiences over
his/her loss and points to a growing sense of disil-
lusionment. The speaker had previously believed
“that love would last for ever” but now admits, “I
was wrong.” Auden reinforces this sense of disil-
lusionment with a caesura in the middle of this line,
separating the speaker’s previous romantic illu-
sions from the harsh reality of the present.

The speaker’s efforts to create order from
chaos cannot alleviate the sense of disillusionment
coupled with feelings of bitterness expressed in the
poem’s final stanza. The ceremony so carefully
constructed by the speaker in the first two stanzas
does not seem to be enough to express or reflect
his/her intense grief. As a result, the speaker turns
from the everyday objects (the telephones, clocks,
and piano) to cosmic ones (stars, moon, sun), tra-
ditional subjects for ballads, and expresses a desire
to alter the universe. Auden employs a caesura (a
pause that breaks rhythm) in the middle of the thir-
teenth line to show the effects of the speaker’s sor-
row and his/her desire to recreate the universe in
order to objectify that sorrow. The beauty of na-
ture cannot be appreciated anymore. Since the stars
“are not wanted now,” the landscape must change.
The speaker’s “star” (the loved one) has been ef-
fectively “put out” and so the moon, the sun, the
ocean, and the woods must be packed up, disman-
tled, poured away and swept up since they can no
longer offer comfort. As in stanza two, the speaker
here calls for all to recognize and echo his suffer-
ing. The world has changed after the death of his
love, and as a result “nothing now can ever come

to any good.” There is no romantic sense in the fi-

nality of that statement of the transcendence of love

or the possibility of regaining that love after death.

Ultimately then, the speaker’s efforts to restore or-

der fail. The speaker’s world has been shattered by

a death that cannot be explained or resolved.

Hayden Carruth, in his article in The Hudson

Review,commented on Auden’s revision process:

“And always his revisions were in the direction of

simplicity and clarity, suppressing whatever was in

the least inflated or mushy or unearned. For hon-

esty he threw away the products of his rhetorical

genius without a qualm.” Auden’s revision of “Fu-

neral Blues” removes the burlesque elements of the

early version in its clear and honest presentation of

an individual’s desperate attempt to cope with a

devastating loss. The final version of the poem

becomes a moving and powerful portrait of the

effects that death can have on those who remain

behind.

Funeral Blues

What

Do I Read

Next?

• Margaret Atwood wrote “Death of a Young Son
  by Drowning” in 1970. This poem, published in
  1990 in her Selected Poems,focuses on the
  speaker’s response to the death of her son.


• “Musee des Beaux Arts,” written in 1938 and
  published in 1940 with “Funeral Blues” in his
  Another Time,is one of Auden’s most famous
  poems. It presents a different type of statement
  on suffering.


• “Tonight I Can Write” by Pablo Neruda is an-
  other heartfelt expression of grief over the loss
  of a loved one. This poem was published along
  with other fine love poems in a collection of
  Neruda’s poetry, Twenty Love Poems and a
  Song of Despair(1969).


• “The Weary Blues” by Langston Hughes was
  written in 1925 and can be found in The Selected
  Poems of Langston Hughes.“The Weary Blues”
  like “Funeral Blues” contains the specialized
  syncopated rhythm of a blues song.