"Stop All The Clocks"

"Stop All The Clocks",by W.H. Auden is a poem with silence. As the reader, a feeling of complete sadness occurs throughout the poem. In the first stanza, quietness is what the writer wants you experience. Time needs to stand still and there is to be no communication with the outside world. "Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone"(l. 1). All the reader should hear is the muffled tone of silence. Going on the the second stanza, the reader learns that someone has passed away. It goes on to explain that this person that passed away was everything to the speaker. "He was my North, my South, my East, my West"(l. 9). The last stanza still goes on to say how important this person was but now the imagery is bigger. "The stars are not wanted now:put out every one;/Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;" (l. 13-14). From the first stanza of listing things a person could actually do to listing things that a person can only imagine shows how the grieving process is different for everybody. The death of his/her lover became the death of everything around him/her.