Mugwump's Fish World

It is #Verseday and we have a heavy heart. Children are being killed in our schools and our nation seems incapable of focusing on a common sense response. In the end, let us not forget those who have perished and the families and friends whose lives will be forever shattered.

In our grief, poetry can help channel our brewing emotions into more tangible thought. So today we have chosen a poem from W. H. Auden to remember the young lives lost.

"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 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 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.