Death poems
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The Bitter Herb
© Jeanne Robert Foster
O bitter herb, Forgetfulness,
I search for you in vain;
You are the only growing thing
Can take away my pain.
"The Undying One" - Canto I
© Caroline Norton
"My parch'd lips strove for utterance--but no,
I could but listen still, with speechless woe:
I stretch'd my quivering arms--'Away! away!'
She cried, 'and let me humbly kneel, and pray
For pardon; if, indeed, such pardon be
For having dared to love--a thing like thee!'
Morn
© Helen Hunt Jackson
In what a strange bewilderment do we
Awake each morn from out the brief night's sleep.
Ballad Of Jesus Of Nazareth
© Edgar Lee Masters
It matters not what place he drew
At first life's mortal breath,
Some say it was in Bethlehem,
And some in Nazareth.
But shame and sorrow were his lot
And shameful was his death.
Swimming With A Hundred Year Old Snapping Turtle by Freya Manfred: American Life in Poetry #113 Ted
© Ted Kooser
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Reprinted by permission of Freya Manfred, whose most recent book is My Only Home, 2003, from Red Dragonfly Press. Poem copyright © 2006 by Freya Manfred. Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
The Shapes of Death
© Stephen Spender
Shapes of death haunt life,
Neurosis eclipsing each in special shadow:
Unrequited love not solving
Ones need to become anothers body
A Translation From Petrarch
© John Millington Synge
(He is Jealous of the Heavens and the Earth)
What a grudge I am bearing the earth that has its arms about her, and is holding that face away from me, where I was finding peace from great sadness.
The Feud: A Border Ballad
© Adam Lindsay Gordon
They sat by their wine in the tavern that night,
But not in good fellowship true:
The Rhenish was strong and the Burgundy bright,
And hotter the argument grew.
On An Unfortunate And Beautiful Woman
© William Lisle Bowles
Oh, Mary, when distress and anguish came,
And slow disease preyed on thy wasted frame;
The Power Of Words
© Letitia Elizabeth Landon
'Tis a strange mystery, the power of words!
Life is in them, and death. A word can send
The Record
© Letitia Elizabeth Landon
HE sleeps, his head upon his sword,
His soldier's cloak a shroud;
His church-yard is the open field,--
Three times it has been plough'd:
Jezebel Mort
© Arthur Symons
Now in the hospital grey, whose walls were built by no priest,
Where, a white glare shines in on one's very self in one's bed,
Drifting over one's skin, touching the hair on one's head;
Foolish Children
© George MacDonald
Waking in the night to pray,
Sleeping when the answer comes,
Foolish are we even at play-
Tearfully we beat our drums!
Cast the good dry bread away,
Weep, and gather up the crumbs!
Double Ballad Of Life And Death
© William Ernest Henley
Fools may pine, and sots may swill,
Cynics gibe, and prophets rail,
Body And Soul: A Metaphysical Argument
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Man openeth the case
Body, from the arrogance
Of the Soul thou seekest shield,
Makest prayer the old mis--chance
