Funeral Blues read the poem in memory of Denholm Reynholm, before he is interrupted by the return of Reynholm's son, Douglas. Funeral Blues "Funeral Blues" or "Stop all the clocks" is a poem by W. H. Auden. An early version was published in 1936, but the poem in its final, familiar form was first published in "The Year's Poetry" (London, 1938). The first, and less widely known, version of the poem, written and published in 1936, has five stanzas; the 1938 final version has four. Only the first two stanzas are the same in both versions. The 1936 version was a satiric
Funeral Blues for the correct reading "wood"; this error does not occur in any other edition. In Auden's "Collected Poetry" (1945) "Funeral Blues" is poem XXX in the section "Songs and Other Musical Pieces". In his "Collected Shorter Poems 1927–1957" (1966), it is poem IX in the section "Twelve Songs" in Part II, "1933–1938"; the same numbering appears in his posthumous "Collected Poems" (1976, 1991, 2007). Britten wrote a setting of the poem for chorus and instrumental group as part of his incidental music for the first production of "The Ascent of F6" in 1937, and later arranged it for solo voice