Auden's poem "[Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone]" is .
perhaps one of the best poems that describes a person's love for .
his or her spouse. The emotions evoked in the poem are emotions .
that people have felt at least once in a lifetime. It is these .
emotions that lead the reader towards the central theme of .
mourning the death of a loved one and wanting the people of the .
world to stop what they are doing in order to help mourn the .
passing. By using different aspects of interpretation, mainly the .
use of language and prosody, a complete understanding of the .
sadness and pain suggested in the poem can be observed through the .
usage of different combinations of words.
Throughout the .
entire poem Auden uses imagery to express the pain and sorrow the .
narrator expresses upon losing a loved one. Auden takes common .
situations of little importance in everyday life and makes them .
noticeable in the face of death. For example, the narrator wants .
to "[p]revent the dog from barking with a juicy bone" in line 2. .
The image of an owner giving a dog a bone is one of many natural .
responses taken in order to calm or quiet a dog. In terms of the .
poem, the bone is given to the dog to create a silence that would .
not have been able to exist if the dog had been barking. The .
request for silence is continued into the next line when the .
speaker wants to "[s]ilence the pianos" (line 3). It can be .
difficult to stop all the pianos in the world from playing, so in .
making this request, the narrator is pleading with the world to .
remain as quiet as it can. Additionally, the narrator wants to .