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.

In lines 1–4, the speaker opens the poem with a series of commands. The speaker wants to ensure silence so there will be an appropriately solemn atmosphere for the loved one’s funeral. The speaker mentions several sources of noise here, but especially important to note are the clocks and the telephone. The desire to “stop all the clocks” speaks to a desire for time to stop. The speaker wants the world to take a time-out and properly honor the deceased loved one. However, the fact that the world won’t stop underscores the isolating effect of grief. The speaker is left alone in sadness as the world moves on. This point about isolation also arises with the speaker’s command to “cut off the telephone.” The telephone is an important symbol of communication, which allows people to connect with each other despite the distances that separate them. It would seem that the speaker wants the telephone to be cut off to avoid disturbances while grieving, or perhaps so that no incoming calls will interrupt the funeral. However, by cutting off the telephone, the speaker also effectively cuts himself or herself off from others.

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.

In the first two stanzas, the speaker makes various demands to get others to recognize the death of his or her loved one and show solidarity in mourning. By contrast, in the third stanza (lines 9–12), the speaker stops speaking in the imperative mood and instead reflects on the magnitude of the loss. Using the figure of metaphor, the speaker likens the loved one to the cardinal directions, the days of the week, and the times of the day. Taken together, these spatial and temporal references imply that the speaker’s loved one meant everything to him or her. Without him, the whole world seems to have collapsed for the speaker. This feeling of collapse leads the speaker to a particularly devastating insight: that love cannot last forever. At this point in the poem, the speaker has reached the absolute pit of despair.

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.

In the final stanza (lines 13–16), the speaker returns to the previous use of the imperative mood. Carried along on a new wave of grief, the speaker implicitly confirms what was previously suggested about feeling like the loss of this loved one was tantamount to the end of the world. Here, the speaker literally calls for the heavens and the earth to be dismantled and packed away. Because “nothing now can ever come to any good,” there’s no need for the universe to exist at all—or so the speaker claims. This is obviously an overstatement. However, it does powerfully reflect the overwhelming reality of the speaker’s emotional experience. More specifically, it’s worth noting how the speaker spends two lines calling for the stars, the moon, and the sun to be put out. Taken together, these celestial bodies are important traditional symbols for hopes, dreams, and ideas about destiny and fate. The speaker invokes all these symbolic meanings by calling for the dismantling of the heavens. Since the speaker’s world has collapsed in the wake of this loss, he or she has no need for the celestial bodies that would organize days and reflect aspirations.

Take a Study Break