#W.H. Woods

[fieldworklondon]

[apoemaday]

Funeral Blues (Stop All the Clocks)

by W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, 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 crepe 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.

[academic-vampire]

W.H. Auden,

“Funeral Blues”

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

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 crepe 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 forever: 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.

(This has always been one of my favorite poems.)

[sictransitgloriamvndi]

Stop All the Clocks Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, 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 crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear white 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. - W.H. Auden

[hymbeauxs]

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

-"Funeral Blues," W.H. Auden

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Thought, like memory, inhabits external things as much as the inner regions of the human brain. When the physical correspondents of thought disappear, then thought, or its possibility, is also lost. When woods and trees are destroyed - incidentally, deliberately - imagination and memory go with them. W.H. Auden knew this. 'A culture,' he wrote warningly in 1953, 'is no better than its woods.'

- Robert Macfarlane, The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot

[myreygn]

THANK YOU SO MUCH for 500 followers! i came up with a little event for you which i hope you'll all enjoy. the end products will be drabbles of ~ 500 words and requests for this can be sent in until september 15th, 12 pm cet.

The Flower Shop

❁✧✿✧❁

Welcome to the flower shop, we're so happy to see you here! Please pick up to three different flowers so we can arrange your bouquet for you!

Aloe (“Grief can be a burden, but also an anchor. You get used to the weight, how it holds you in place.” - Sarah Dessen)

Angelica (“There is no place for grief in a house which serves the Muse.” - Sappho)

Arborvitae (“Friendship is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself.” - C.S. Lewis)

Bittersweet (“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” - Oscar Wilde)

Butterfly Weed (“Everything and everyone that you hate is engraved upon your heart; if you want to let go of something, if you want to forget, you cannot hate.” - C. JoyBell C.)

Calla Lily (“Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.” - Anne Frank)

Columbine (“Foolishness is more than being stupid, that deadly combination of arrogance and ignorance.” - Paul David Tripp)

Gladiolus (“Once you hear the details of victory, it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat.” - Jean-Paul Sartre)

Heliotrope (“To live in the hearts we leave behind is to live forever.” - Carl Sagan)

Holly (“At the end of the day, it isn’t where I came from. Maybe home is somewhere I’m going and never have been before.” - Warsan Shire)

Marigold (“A lot of people get so hung up on what they can't have that they don't think for a second about whether they really want it.” - Lionel Shriver)

Morning Glory (“If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving one be me.” - W.H. Auden)

Parsley (“Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we'll die.” - Dave Matthews)

Rhododendron (“Oh, but you must travel through those woods again and again, said a shadow at the window, and you must be lucky to avoid the wolf every time. But the wolf... the wolf only needs enough luck to find you once.” - Emily Carroll)

Sage (“From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them, and that is eternity.” - Edvard Munch)

❁✧✿✧❁

Excellent choice! Now for the decoration - please pick up to two elements!

pink ribbons (fluff)

blue ribbons (angst)

green ribbons (hurt/comfort)

a wooden ladybug (platonic)

a wooden butterfly (romantic)

❁✧✿✧❁

Alright, very nice! And now, last but not least, please fill out these forms so we can deliver the bouquet as quickly as possible! For information on where and who we ship to, please read this list carefully!

address (fandom)

recipient (up to three characters, no x reader)

things the staff should please keep in mind when delivering the bouquet (anything you need to tell me that you couldn't fit in anywhere else)

[holmesillustrations]

Vote for your favourite, the top 9 will proceed in the bracket. Since theyre all different shapes and sizes, make sure to click into the full views!

Paget Eliminations / Other Artist Eliminations

Full captions and details for each illustration below the cut:

"He was crouching over a fire, and the room was like an oven." W.H. Hyde, Crooked Man (Harper’s Weekly) Characters: Henry Wood

"A mass of documents, which we went over together." FD Steele, Norwood Builder (Collier’s) Characters: John Hector McFarlane, Jonas Oldacre

"Daulat Ras." FD Steele, Three Students (Collier’s) Characters: Daulat Ras

[no caption, and i cant figure out what scene this is meant to be] FD Steele, Wisteria Lodge (Collier’s) Characters: ???

"He sprang forward with clenched hands towards my companion." Gilbert Holiday, Devil's Foot (The Strand) Characters: Holmes, Leon Sterndale

"The inspector was staring with a look of absolute amazement at a paper upon the table. It was the sheet upom which i had scrawled the enigmatic message." Frank Wiles, Valley of Fear (The Strand) Characters: Watson, Insp. MacDonald, Holmes

"Then, with a sudden shivering of glass, a bristle of glistening rifle-barrels broke through each window, whilst the curtains were torn from their hangings." Frank Wiles, Valley of Fear (The Strand) Characters: Scowrers, Douglas/McMurdo

"It took some violence to do that," said Holmes, gazing at the chip on the ledge. With his cane he struck." Alfred Gilbert, Thor Bridge (The Strand) Characters: Sgt Coventry, Watson, Holmes

"Holmes, with that quick curiosity which sprang from his eager mind, examined the collection of South American utensils. When he turned away his eyes were full of thoughts." WT Benda, Sussex Vampire (Hearst’s International) Characters: Robert Ferguson, Holmes

"His air of romance and mystery put the whole sex at his mercy." JR Flanagan, Illustrious Client (Collier’s) Characters: Baron Gruner

"Holmes flung open the door and dragged in a gaunt woman, whom he had seized by the shoulder." FD Steele, Three Gables (Liberty) Characters: Susan Stockdale, Holmes

"He tore up one of his wife's photographs in my presence. 'I never wish to see her damned face again!' he shrieked." FD Steele, Retired Colourman (Liberty) Characters: Josiah Amberley, Watson

[lyndwyrm0]

W.B Obbly's Obelisk Observer Society ( @gargoyle-doyle )

Timeline of the obelisk throughout the ages :-) get cozy this is a big long post :0

All of these are dated either by the original sources of the images or by us, through cunning cleverness and wild assumptions. Thanks for tolerating our inaccuracies and please feel free to point out anything you think is a mistake! I will site as many of the sources that I can track down in our files without losing my mind, if i left one out it's for your own safety (it was probably an accident). For the images that are really small I will include zoomed in/circled versions at the bottom of this post :-)

(this is not all of the images we have of the obelisk, just the ones that are relevant enough to give an idea of what it looked like/ where it was throughout the 1, 1/2 centuries it was on Southsea beach)

This drawing is dated 1729, and (I'm not sure if the quality is going to be butchered when I upload this) but there is a *tiny* little wooden post towards the left of the water which is listed in the written key as "6 Felton's Gibbet who stab'd the D of Buckingham". (scroll to bottom for zoomed in ver)

1765: listed as "10. Feltons Gibbet" and is the post of wood in the near centre of the image. (zoomed in version at bottom :3) one source says that this image (or one very similar) is from 1750 instead. Believe whichever one you want :))

The gibbet post was replaced with the obelisk sometime around 1782

(est) 1830's: we got this image from the Portsmouth Historic Environmental record on their facebook and they had it listed as around the 1830's. Our obelisk is (most likely) the one on the right.

Around the 1850's onward things become really confusing and, in our files, very disorganized.

Southsea esplanade was built around 1852, along with Clarence pier around 1860. We think that the obelisk was moved during this construction (not very far, just further inland) along with the other monuments along the beach.

According to this Hampshire Telegraph from 1884, W.H. says that it was sometime around 1850 that Frederick Fitzclarence added the inscription on the obelisk, commemorating the construction of the esplanade. Among the other things Fitzclarence was doing to 'make his mark' on Southsea beach, he added two monuments dedicated to the Duke of Wellington and Admiral Lord Nelson which also went missing - might be W.B. Obbly Society's next research task :))

Then there's This link: H. Percy Boulnois says that "Amongst other improvements which I carried out along the sea front was the re-arrangement of the various monuments" so potentially he had something to do with the obelisks obscurity during this time period. I'm not too sure but I think this is sometime in the mid 1880's seeing as he was elected borough engineer in 1883 (I recommend reading the History in Portsmouth page linked above because it's super interesting; he also built Canoe lake and was friends with Arthur Conan Doyle - although it seems like there were very few people who weren't friends with Arthur Conan Doyle during his time in Southsea)

Anyways, all of this ^ was just to say that we have a few drawings that I might make a separate post about (I will link it here if I do ;) but I'm not adding them to this timeline because we can't even be entirely sure that the obelisk is in them.

These two photos are the first photographs we have of the obelisk! Both are dated from 1854 and found on the royal collection trust site. The first one is titled "The fleet at anchor" and the second one is titled "The Neptune coming out of harbour" and also shows either the Wellington or the Nelson monument as well.

Even though I said I was going to make a separate post about this, I'm terribly unreliable and lie constantly so here's one of the drawings that confuses us from around the 1850's:

This is one of the many drawings we have with a wacko looking version of the obelisk, so wacko that we can't even really tell if that is the obelisk in the background. My current theory is that artists who drew Southsea beach hated drawing the obelisk so they just took as many creative liberties as possible to make it look completely unrecognizable. But given the placement in comparison to the 1854 photos where the obelisk is literally visible ??? still can't be too sure honestly lets just move on before I get upset

The only date that I can find for these two drawings is 1871, both from alamy images, the obelisk would be one of the structures near the 'street' in the bottom left. In the second image it looks like it has been removed for construction? (also clearly visible in the second image is the bases of the Wellington and Nelson statues on either side of the tramlines - which is interesting as neither of the actual statues themselves are there despite the fact that according to their memorial page the Wellington statue remained in place at least until 1874? This means one of these sources is wrong and I'm out to find out which one >:-( if anybody is even reading this and happens to know something pls tell me imbegging

In 1881 there is this newspaper extract (Hampshire Chronicle Feb 5th 1881) that claims the obelisk was removed for construction and found to be too decayed to be re-erected so instead it was replaced by a fa-simile. RIP to the original obelisk :(

Another article from 1881 says that the new obelisk was painted brown instead of white because people thought the original white looked moldy and gross (lol)

We still have photos from after the article where it still appears white, but honestly it's colour varies a lot so whatever

1892, obelisk is the white structure in the centre of this photo

1894, I think the obelisk is just barely visible in the shadows to the left of the pier

Between the 1890's and the 1930's we have a sad gap in our photo collection BUT there are plenty of newspaper extracts that mention the obelisk so we know it was definitely still there during this time period, I won't include all of them as I'm planning on making a separate post dedicated to the newspapers mentions. (acquired through our buddy David who gave us access to the online newspaper archive)

*we do have one photo estimated from 1900 which i've added at the very bottom of this post

The most notable newspaper entry from this time period is Feb 22nd 1902 and it says that the obelisk was blown down in a storm. (sorry its blurry)

We know that it was at least rebuilt by 1915 which is its next mention in the papers.

1930: This image is from the evening news March 13th, 1930. This is a photo that we would kill to find the original version of, as it is maybe our best bet of getting a good look at the inscription. I'll probably go into more detail on a separate post.

1934, from a newspaper article signed "W.G." that we think was written by William Gates based on the monuments and memorials website.

Skipping to this image dated "1930's" that I found randomly in one of my textbooks while I was doing my geography homework, which just happens to be one of the best images with have of the obelisk from this era. My best guess is that this is mid - late 1930's (based on absolutely nothing other than intuition and the cars in the photo) Thank you to my geography teacher for assigning local sea defense's as a research task as it led me to the Southsea coastal scheme booklet :)

1937, there are a lot of photos just like this one from old Southsea postcards with the obelisk far in the background but this is the only one I have with a specific date - thus making it timeline worthy

We have this image dated as 1939, making it the most recent photo we have of the obelisk so far. Portsmouth music scene website has a really similar image of the pier (scroll wayyy down on that link), with the sign advertising "Hugh Frossard and his broadcasting band", who performed at clarence pier in June 1939.

The zoomed in images ! sorry these are still kind of blurry

(this is a black and white version of the 1894 clarence pier pic because you can see the outline of the obelisk better)

Bonus images!! I dont have specific dates for these two but I really like them :-))

*This is the one estimated around 1900, but I can't remember where I found this image/where I got that date from which makes me suspicious

It's also super hard to see the obelisk in the background but here's the best close up I can get you

Bye!!

[mrmousetolliver]

Funeral Blues (Stop All The Clocks)

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, 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 crepe 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 forever: 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. W.H. Auden

[fieldworklondon]

[victusinveritas]

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, 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 crepe 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.

-W.H. Auden

[noelcollection]

Today, we bring you a pair of humble Wood Pigeons, a species found in abundance in the British Isles. 

William Jardine’s The Naturalist Library describes the Columba palumbus as a nuisance that is nevertheless beloved: 

“It is even blamed, and with some reason, for its depredations on the crops of the farmer, particularly turnips, to which the appearance of snow or frost invariably drives them … The love note or cooing is one of those harbingers of a change from the severity of winter, that is looked for and listened to by the resident in the country with feelings of delight.”

Image from:

Jardine, William. The naturalist’s library. Edinburgh: W.H. Lizars et al., 1843. Vol. 26. Catalog record: https://bit.ly/2Q98p8i

[buckieduckie2]

I wanna talk about a hyperfixation of mine: a little but of Queer History- W.H. Auden and gay poets

i would like to share with you a little bit of queer history, not super in depth but i want to share it with anyone whos not aware nonetheless (also i have no idea how many people know about this, so if this turns into a "oh everybody knows THAT"... hush. i dont care.

Okay, so a while ago I had to do a project on some poets asigned to me and write a short bio on them, talking about their life and career and things like that. So to get our information, our teacher had us looking in the archives and read a larger biography already written on them.... yeah.

So as I was reading this biography, i came across a part discussing his collaborators and one of the paragraphs mentioned W.H. Auden writing librettos with “Chester Kallman, an American poet and close friend who lived with him for more than 20 years," BITCH be so frrr 💀💀💀

So I read that like and immediately was like, hmm that sounds familiar 😐.... 🤨 but then I read farther into the biography and it said he had a wife and he was also super Christian so i was like... aw gUeSs hEs nOt gAy 😞

So yeah then I had to include a poem if his on the little infographic we were all making so i found one that I really, really liked called "Stop All The Clocks"

Stop All the Clocks

by W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, 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 crepe 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.

Wow that poem is reall beautiful and really, really heartbreaking.

Yeah so I read that poem and immediately noticed the use of He/Him pronouns and thought... thats gay Soooooooo what did I do? I looked up if he was gay or not! And you know what google said? Yeah! He was!

One google search told me more about this man than an official archive with professionals 😐

W.H. Audens lifelong partner was Chester Kallman, and they translated/wrote (?) librettos together <3

Didn't you say he was super Christian tho...

Yeah, I did, and yeah, he was. But guess what? Gay people can be Christians too, and this man managed to do it in the fucking 40s till his death in '73. Albeit this came with many struggles internally, he still lived with Kallman till his death. So yeah, gay people had happy endings back then, even the religious ones :)

He also had some pretty rocking views on religion. Auden, thoughout his younger life, hadn't ever been part of any faith until a trip to Spain... we could get into that but we won't. Anyways, his pretty rocking opinion on religion? Don't force it on children. It's dumb and it brainwashes them cause they can't make the decision themselves. He probably said it better but you get my point.

Also he had a lot of kick-ass political opinions too.

Wait but didn't you say he had a wife?

Yeah but like, what gay man in the last 1084308394 centuries didnt? I mean c'mon.

Anyways so heres where things really start kicking....

W.H. Auden's wife was Erika Mann. Erika Mann was an actress from Germany, and the only reason she married W.H. Auden was so she could get an American passport.

And GUESS WHAT??? She was a lesbian.

MUAHAHAHHAA anyways.

Erika Mann also had a lover named Therese Giehse, a German actress as well who was introduced to John Hampson, an English novelist, via Auden. Hampson and Giehse both married so they could to go to the United States.

Anyways so things got more fun when I found out that Erika's brother was also gay. :DDDDD

His name was Klaus Mann, and he was an openly gay man. I don't want to get into too much detail here though because his life was tragic and there's a hole burning into my stomach because it makes me sad :((((

ANYWAYYSYSYYYYYSSSSS

So yeah! That was my "brief" little dive into W.H. Auden and his mutuals :)))))) I was literally SO greatful that I was asigned W.H. Auden when I started researching him in a little bit more depth because the poets had been assigned at random, so yeah this was really perfect :)

and BRO I LITERALLY COULD NOT IT WAS SO HILARIOUS TO ME- THE MORE AND MORE RESEARCH I DID THE MORE PEOPLE ENDED UP BEING QUEER AND IT WAS JUST SO HILARIOUS IN THE BEST WAY 😭😭😭 i was reeling i was literally so happy

ANYWAYS hope yall enjoyed that <333 hopefully this wasnt all TOO commonly known stuff i hope i taught at least one person something but either way- if you got this far THANKS FOR LISTENING TO ME TALK ABOUT THIS I REALLY LOVE TALKING ABOUT THIS ITS TOTALLY A HYPERFIXATION OF MINE

and agh~ can we talk about the amount of queerplatonic and mlm wlw solididarity? i love.

also disclaimer if anyone wants to call me out on my bullshit: yeah Kallman ended his sexual relationship with Auden in 1941 cause of like... a problem with mutual fidelity. they still lived together till death tho and Auden described their relationship as a marriage so shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i dont wanna go in depth rn 😡

also anyone please tell me if i got something horribly wrong dont be afraid to burst my bubble with the sweet smell of truth

Below the cut: photos of W.H. Auden Chester Kallman

W.H. Auden

W.H. Auden with Chester Kallman

@l0v3c0r3e you better read this or istg 👹

[kiki-de-la-petite-flaque]

Funeral Blues Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, 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 crepe 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 forever: 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.

W.H. Auden

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Thought, like memory, inhabits external things as much as the inner regions of the human brain. When the physical correspondents of thought disappear, then thought, or its possibility, is also lost. When woods and trees are destroyed - incidentally, deliberately - imagination and memory go with them. W.H. Auden knew this. 'A culture,' he wrote warningly in 1953, 'is no better than its woods.’

Robert Macfarlane, The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot