Death poems
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No Coward's Song
© Flecker James Elroy
I am afraid to think about my death,When it shall be, and whether in great painI shall rise up and fight the air for breathOr calmly wait the bursting of my brain.
Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
© Edward Fitzgerald
IHas flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight: And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caughtThe Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.
The Puff-adder
© Fairbridge Kingsley
Here where the grey rhenoster clothes the hill, Drowsing beside a boulder in the sun,Slumbrous-inert, so gloomy and so still, On the warm steep where aimless sheep-paths run,A short thick length of chevron-pattern's skin, A wide flat head so lazy on the sand,Unblinking eyes that warn of power within, Lies he, -- the limbless terror of the land
Magwere, Who Waits Wondering
© Fairbridge Kingsley
INear the edge of the big swamp where cane rats live,Grew Magwere the mealie.
Written with a Pencil in Darfield Churchyard
© Ebenezer Elliott
Man draws his fleeting breathIn doubt and fear,Though life for ever blooms,And smiling ev'n on tombs,Bids beauty say to death,"What dost thou here?"
Song
© Ebenezer Elliott
Child, is thy father dead? Father is gone!Why did they tax his bread? God's will be done!Mother has sold her bed;Better to die than wed!Where shall she lay her head? Home we have none!
Written on a Wall at Woodstock
© Elizabeth I
Oh Fortune, thy wresting wavering stateHath fraught with cares my troubled wit,Whose witness this present prison lateCould bear, where once was joy's loan quit
The Young Captive
© Toru Dutt
The budding shoot ripens unharmed by the scythe,Without fear of the press, on vine branches lithe, Through spring-tide the green clusters bloom
Ten Precepts from Dhammapada
© Romesh Chunder Dutt
Return Love for Hatred.1.2 Hatred lives and mortal strife;1.3Love return for bitter hatred,1.4 Hatred dies, and sweet is life! (5)
The Hind and the Panther: Part I
© John Dryden
A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchang'd,Fed on the lawns, and in the forest rang'd;Without unspotted, innocent within,She fear'd no danger, for she knew no sin
Song: Phoebus Arise
© William Drummond (of Hawthornden)
Phœbus, arise,And paint the sable skiesWith azure, white, and red;Rouse Memnon's mother from her Tithon's bedThat she thy career may with roses spread;The nightingales thy coming each where sing;Make an eternal spring;Give life to this dark world which lieth dead
Endimion and Phoebe
© Michael Drayton
In Ionia whence sprang old poets' fame,From whom that sea did first derive her name,The blessed bed whereon the Muses lay,Beauty of Greece, the pride of Asia,Whence Archelaus, whom times historify,First unto Athens brought philosophy:In this fair region on a goodly plain,Stretching her bounds unto the bord'ring main,The mountain Latmus overlooks the sea,Smiling to see the ocean billows play:Latmus, where young Endymion used to keepHis fairest flock of silver-fleeced sheep,To whom Silvanus often would resort,At barley-brake to see the Satyrs sport;And when rude Pan his tabret list to sound,To see the fair Nymphs foot it in a round,Under the trees which on this mountain grew,As yet the like Arabia never knew;For all the pleasures Nature could deviseWithin this plot she did imparadise;And great Diana of her special graceWith vestal rites had hallowed all the place
To Ennui
© Joseph Rodman Drake
Avaunt! arch enemy of fun, Grim nightmare of the mind;Which way great Momus! shall I run, A refuge safe to find?My puppy's dead -- Miss Rumor's breath Is stopt for lack of news,And Fitz is almost hyp'd to death, And Lang has got the blues
To the Countess of Bedford [To have written then, when you writ, seem'd to me ...]
© John Donne
To have written then, when you writ, seem'd to meWorst of spiritual vices, simony ;And not to have written then seems little lessThan worst of civil vices, thanklessness
The Perfume
© John Donne
Once, and but once found in thy company,All thy suppos'd escapes are laid on me;And as a thief at bar is question'd thereBy all the men that have been robb'd that year,So am I, (by this traitorous means surpriz'd)By thy hydroptic father catechiz'd
Jealousy
© John Donne
Fond woman, which wouldst have thy husband die,And yet complain'st of his great jealousy;If, swollen with poison, he lay in his last bed,His body with a sere bark covered,Drawing his breath as thick and short as canThe nimblest crocheting musician,Ready with loathsome vomiting to spewHis soul out of one hell into a new,Made deaf with his poor kindred's howling cries,Begging with few feign'd tears great legacies,Thou wouldst not weep, but jolly, and frolic be,As a slave, which to-morrow should be free
The Fever
© John Donne
Oh do not die, for I shall hate All women so, when thou art gone,That thee I shall not celebrate, When I remember thou was one.
