W.H. Auden's "Funeral Blues" is one of my favorite poems. One reason why I like it so much is because it vividly deals with grief and loss.

In "Funeral Blues," it could be said the Auden does not try to tiptoe or whitewash the pain and sorrow of death. Rather, Auden seems to reinforce how sharp and piercing the pain and sorrow can be.

Right away, the reader should feel the power of death. In the first line, Auden writes: "Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone." The line speaks to how death can seem to freeze time and cut people off from the world. When a beloved dies, a person might feel stagnant, like time isn't moving. They might also feel completely isolated from the rest of the world, like they can't communicate to anyone.

In the third stanza, Auden illustrates how when someone loves a person that person can become their entire world. They can become their direction or the days of their week. Everything in their life can become organized around their beloved. As the speaker says: "He was my North, my South, my East and West / My working week and my Sunday rest."

Auden also demonstrates how love can trick people into thinking that their love will somehow be the one love that will last forever. "I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong," writes Auden's speaker.

In the final stanza, Auden shows how loss and grief has a tendency to make people not care about anything. When a beloved dies, it can seem like all of the wonders and good things about the world die with them. The stars, the moon, the sun, and even the ocean can all go away because "nothing now can ever come to any good."