Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
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.
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.
As well as conveying a lover’s loss these lines can be interpreted as a rejection of the Christian religion. or the ‘utter annihilation of creation’ (J.M. Pressley). The speaker therefore questions God’s existence. 
 Note also that stars, moon and sun are sources of light and their destruction signifies the end of the world and the end of hope. This, in Pressley’s view in “Auden, Across the Decades”, is appropriate given the imminent outbreak of the Second World War. 
 Pressley, J.M. “Auden Across the Decades.
Funeral Blues Stop all the clocks