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Auden wrote “Funeral Blues” in a meter than varies from line to line, but which most closely corresponds to iambic pentameter. (Recall that iambic pentameter is a line that consists of five iambs, which are metrical feet with a da-DUM rhythm, as in the word “to-day.”) Though the underlying metrical structure of the poem is clearly iambic pentameter, Auden introduces a great deal of variation. The variation relates in part to overall line length. Though most lines have five feet, there are several lines that have either four feet (i.e., tetrameter) or six feet (i.e., hexameter). Auden also makes ample use of metrical feet other than iambs. Both forms of variation are apparent in the opening quatrain, which nonetheless establishes iambic pentameter as the poem’s baseline meter (lines 1–4):

Stop all / the clocks, / cut off / the te- / le-phone,
Pre-vent / the dog / from bark- / ing with / a jui-/ cy bone,
Si-lence / the pia- / nos and / with muff- / led drum
Bring out / the coff- / in, let / the mourn- / ers come.

Lines 1, 3, and 4 each have five feet, most of which are iambs. The only non-iambic feet to be found in these lines are trochees, whose DUM-da pattern reverses iambic rhythm. Line 1 has two trochee substitutions (in feet 1 and 3), and line 3 opens with a trochee. Other than these minor substitutions, the only other noteworthy metrical feature here is line 2, which is in perfect iambic rhythm but has six feet rather than five.

As the poem continues, however, the shifting line lengths often combine with non-iambic rhythms to produce a metrical variability that communicates a sense of increasing instability. Consider the second quatrain (lines 5–8):

Let ae- / ro-planes cir- / cle moan- / ing o- / ver-head
Scribb-ling / on the sky / the mess- / age ‘He / is Dead.’
Put crepe / bows round / the white / necks of / the pub- / lic doves,
Let the traff- / ic po-li- / ce-men wear / black cott- / on gloves.

Once again, three of these lines have five feet, and just one—line 3—has six. However, in this quatrain Auden introduces a great deal of rhythmic variation. The first and fourth lines, for instance, contain anapests (unstressed–unstressed–stressed). The fourth line also features a spondee (stressed–stressed). Several trochees also appear. This metrical variability produces an overall feeling of instability. With the meter never settling into an easily discernible and regular pattern, the speaker’s language shifts uneasily, as if to communicate the destabilizing power of grief. Furthermore, using long hexameter lines and extra stressed syllables (as in the fourth line), Auden gives the poem the appropriately mournful quality of a dirge.

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