Aunt Helen

Miss Helen Slingsby was my maiden aunt,
and lived in a small house near a fashionable square.
Cared for by servants to the number of four.
Now when she died there was a silence in heaven
And silence at the end of her street.
The shutters were drawn and the undertaker wiped his feet- He was aware that this sort of thing had occurred before.
The dogs were handsomely provided for,
But shortly afterwards the parrot died too.
The Dresden clock continued ticking on the mantelpiece,
And the footman sat upon the dining-table
Holding the second housemaid on his knees-
Who had always been so careful while her mistress lived.

I am not sure that T S Eliot would have welcomed being transmogrified into S T Eliot!

The poem can be, and usually is, enjoyed as no more than it seems, on the surface, to be - a bit of a joke in which the servants might have murdered the parrot and can't wait to have sex on the dining table. The postman only rings twice. Or, it's deeper: Aunt Helen has left no mark on the world, it seems, and only the dogs benefit from her death.

If you need more, work a bit harder, say what you think, and invite comment. OK?

Stephen

Seems to me that the silence in heaven and the silence at the end of the street suggest that she had left some form of mark on the world.

It also appears to me that both the Footman and the Second Housemaid benefit from her death, though perhaps not in a financial sense.

The death of the parrot (natural causes or murder?) suggests further impermanence but the ticking of the dresden clock indicates continuity.

Silence in heaven (for about a half an hour) is also from Revelation 8:

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