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 crépe 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.

W.H. Auden’s Funeral Blues focuses on loss, and the all encompassing feeling when you lose someone you love. Auden writes of the feelings of despair after losing someone, how nothing seems worthwhile anymore, “Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood./For nothing now can ever come to any good.”

For the speaker, the person who’s died was their world – “He was my North, my South, my East, my West,/My working week and my Sunday rest.”

Auden also writes of the realization that love isn’t eternal, “I thought hat love would last forever: I was wrong.”

Like Auden, Bradbury writes of the hopelessness felt by someone who has felt loss. She writes how day to day tasks now seem hard – “how do you find the strength to put one foot in front of the other”.

Bradbury also criticises the way modern society almost trivalises death “News readers read of fighting and such/they glibly speak over the pictures of war/I scream in my head that its someone’s mother/father, sister, baby or brother.”

She hopes for a peaceful world, without war “when living in harmony is seconds way/they just need to sit and draw lines in the sand/respecting each other and then close their hands/in prayer on a deal to live side by side”:

Loss

Loss seeps into your soul and hides there waiting
loss seeps into your heart and gnaws there bleeding
how can you bear the loss of the departed with such equanimity
how do you find the strength to put one foot in front of the other
where does the body hide the pain
who cares one fig for those who lie slain?
News readers read of fighting and such
they glibly speak over the pictures of war
I scream in my head that its someone’s mother
father, sister, baby or brother
I know they can’t break down for fear of their jobs
but someone, somehow must relentlessly show it
the emotion, the futile, the meaningless guts
spilled with ancient lusts for a small piece of land
when living in harmony is seconds away
they just need to sit and draw lines in the sand
respecting each other and then close their hands
in prayer on a deal to live side by side
then roll with it, live with it, watch sunset and tides
flowing around them like rocks in a stream
then war will be passed by as if in a dream
that’s how Hollywood has it, its easy for them
just roll the tape and we’ll shoot that again.

Down in the dyke of the ancient folk,
Hard by the rampart crowned with oak,
My foot sank deep in the drift of years,
Of buried battles and hates and fears,
And fights none reckons who lost or won
Long won, long lost in the time that’s done.

Deep in the dyke of the ancient folk,
Something stirred in its sleep and woke,
Something rose to the light of day,
Something followed me all the way,
Something dogged me that came not nigh,
Loitered and hastened and stopped as I.

Out of the dyke I cam at last,
Where the drift lay high of the ages past,
From the following thing that lingered there
To the sun and the sky and the lark in air,
And the wind in the bents that, strong and fleet,
Ran like flame on its unseen feet . . .

Deep in the dyke of the ancient men
Something turned to its rest again.

Smith writes of her visit to Offa’s Dyke. She talks of its history, ‘of buried battles and hates and fears’. She feels that she’s being followed by a being from the dyke’s history ‘Deep in the dyke of the ancient folk,/Something stirred in its sleep and woke,/Something rose to the light of day,/Something followed me all the way.’

Smith leaves the dyke, leaving the being behind, but its clear that Smith feels the history of battles at the dyke still have a presence there in the current day.

Denny Bradbury also wonders about previous battles on her visit to the dyke. She asks a tree there about the past. ‘What mighty larch, how see you?/What might tree is your view.’

She talks of how the tree is there permanently despite the battles, almost looking over them, like an all-seeing being. ‘You’ve seen all the battles and fights,/the comings and goings at night,/you stand with your leaves ever knowing,/make no judgment although it’s your right.’

Bradbury looks at the importance of the tree in our world filled with a history of violence and destruction. ‘do you know how we value and need you,/as we dance with decay and renew.’

Mighty Larch

What mighty larch, how see you?
What mighty tree is your view?
The world turns as ever it did,
is there ever anything new?

You’ve seen all the battles and fights,
the comings and goings at night,
you stand with your leaves ever knowing,
make no judgement although its your right.

What mighty larch with such wisdom,
do you stand there determined and still;
seeing the world as your kingdom
on this wonderful, whispering hill.

The darkness beneath your fine branches
hides creatures and memories galore;
with such wondrous arms are the tranches
of history sown in death’s awesome fall.

Each sunrise shows how you are standing
so quiet, so proud with your view;
do you know how we value and need you,
as we dance with decay and renew.