The Sorrow Gondola

Although a good Swede of course should quote Tranströmer on a day like this (and drink to the reawoken old Swedish custom of awarding ourselves), today is a day of lost man love.  At 4pm IFK Göteborg will announce that they have poached our goalie Alvbåge.  The day he came back in 2008  is the day we started looking up the table, the day our team started to be mentioned with respect again, not with impertinence or pity. So Tranströmer gets the header, Auden the main text:

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.