Death poems
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The Assassination of Indira Gandhi
© Clarke George Elliott
In Kitchener, Hallowe'en frost chokes roses,The spruce gangrene, and haystacks flame in fieldsWhere Mennonites preach black, scorched-earth gospels
/harsher sentences
© Christakos Margaret
Why parts of her seem missing (body, memory)but alsocolour shape fragance accent
The Triumph of Love
© Govinda Krishna Chettur
Dearest, and yet more dear than I can tell In these poor halting rhymes, when, word by word, You spell the passion that your beauty stirredSwiftly to flame, and holds me as a spell,You will not think he writeth "ill" or "well", Nor question make of the fond truths averred, But Love, of that, by Love's self charactered, A perfect understanding shall impel
Elegy over a Tomb
© Edward Herbert
Must I then see, alas, eternal night Sitting upon those fairest eyes,And closing all those beams, which once did rise So radiant and brightThat light and heat in them to us did prove Knowledge and love?
Oh, if you did delight no more to stay Upon this low and earthly stage,But rather chose an endless heritage, Tell us at least, we pray,Where all the beauties that those ashes ow'd Are now bestow'd
The Firing Party
© Caudwell Christopher
I shall not see them sweating at that task:It was too much of any man to ask;The death that gets you certain, soon or late;Meanwhile the mess, the mud, the noise, the hate
Nature's Epitaph
© William Herbert Carruth
Who knows where the graveyard is Where the fox and the eagle lie?Who has seen the obsequies Of the red deer when they die?
An Elegy upon the Death of the Dean of St. Paul's, Dr. John Donne
© Thomas Carew
Can we not force from widow'd poetry,Now thou art dead (great Donne) one elegyTo crown thy hearse? Why yet dare we not trust,Though with unkneaded dough-bak'd prose, thy dust,Such as th' unscissor'd churchman from the flowerOf fading rhetoric, short-liv'd as his hour,Dry as the sand that measures it, should layUpon thy ashes, on the funeral day?Have we no voice, no tune? Didst thou dispenseThrough all our language, both the words and sense?'Tis a sad truth
Manfred: Incantation
© George Gordon Byron
When the moon is on the wave, And the glow-worm in the grass,And the meteor on the grave, And the wisp on the morass;When the falling stars are shooting,And the answer'd owls are hooting,And the silent leaves are stillIn the shadow of the hill,Shall my soul be upon thine,With a power and with a sign
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: Canto the Third
© George Gordon Byron
I Ada! sole daughter of my house and heart? When last I saw thy young blue eyes they smil'd, And then we parted--not as now we part, But with a hope
And Thou art Dead, as Young and Fair
© George Gordon Byron
And thou art dead, as young and fair As aught of mortal birth;And form so soft, and charms so rare, Too soon return'd to Earth!Though Earth receiv'd them in her bed,And o'er the spot the crowd may tread In carelessness or mirth,There is an eye which could not brookA moment on that grave to look
Geert
© Buckton Alice Mary
They brought him in at midnight, Across the saddle-bow --Geert of the ripe and chestnut hair, Geert of the sunny brow!
The Bishop Orders his Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church Rome, 15--
© Robert Browning
Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?Nephews--sons mine
Sonnets from the Portuguese: XXXIX
© Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Because thou hast the power and own'st the graceTo look through and behind this mask of me(Against which, years have beat thus blanchinglyWith their rains,) and behold my soul's true face,The dim and weary witness of life's race,-Because thou hast the faith and love to see,Through that same soul's distracting lethargy,The patient angel waiting for a placeIn the new Heavens,-because nor sin nor woe,Nor God's infliction, nor death's neighbourhood,Nor all which others viewing, turn to go,Nor all which makes me tired of all, self-viewed,-Nothing repels thee,
Sonnets from the Portuguese: XXVII
© Elizabeth Barrett Browning
My own Belovèd, who hast lifted meFrom this drear flat of earth where I was thrown,And, in betwixt the languid ringlets, blownA life-breath, till the forehead hopefullyShines out again, as all the angels see,Before thy saving kiss! My own, my own,Who camest to me when the world was gone,And I who looked for only God, found thee!I find thee; I am safe, and strong, and glad
Sonnets from the Portuguese: XXIII
© Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead,Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine?And would the sun for thee more coldly shineBecause of grave-damps falling round my head?I marvelled, my Belovèd, when I readThy thought so in the letter
Sonnets from the Portuguese: XXII
© Elizabeth Barrett Browning
When our two souls stand up erect and strong,Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,Until the lengthening wings break into fireAt either curvèd point,-what bitter wrongCan the earth do to us, that we should not longBe here contented? Think! In mounting higher,The angels would press on us and aspireTo drop some golden orb of perfect songInto our deep, dear silence
Sonnets from the Portuguese: XLIII
© Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways
