"Stop All the Clocks..."

"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 for ever: I was wrong."

- Excerpt from W.H. Auden's "Stop all the clocks, Turn off the telephones" 

          The first heartache is always the worst. I believe that Auden speaks of a torn relationship in this poem. He begins by going through a series of demands that seem quite odd, almost as if someone has died and in some senses this can be argued by the end of the poem. In the second stanza Auden paints a grim picture depicting scenes common of that during a funeral and in the following stanzas we realize the cause of such lamenting. The above excerpt is the third stanza of Auden's poem in which he admits his love for his lover. Auden loves this person so much that he becomes consumed with him and sees nothing else. Love, in its early stages, is much like this. We become consumed and wrapped up with that person and a life without him or her seems nearly inconceivable, it was no different for Auden. In the last stanza his pain is clear and he seems hopeless at the loss of his love. While I think that perhaps Auden was too intense in his relationship with this person, I can relate on some level. While reading his poem I reminded of the first boy I ever loved, who I ended up being with for six years. I absolutely loved this boy and I wouldn't have hesitated to basically sell my soul to please him; though, as it is in many "first love" situations we were broken apart by time and differences. I can easily sympathize with Auden when reading this poem and I believe others can as well, which is what makes this poem so accessible to audiences.