Death poems
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The Mockery of Life
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
God! What a mockery is this life of ours!Cast forth in blood and pain from our mother's womb,Most like an excrement, and weeping showersOf senseless tears: unreasoning, naked, dumb,The symbol of all weakness and the sum:Our very life a sufferance
Dead Reckoning
© Blodgett E. D.
Now that death has entered you, sooner than I think it willarrive in me, I fear to look into your eyes and see the sungrowing dimmer there
Europe: A Prophecy
© William Blake
The nameless shadowy female rose from out the breast of Orc,Her snaky hair brandishing in the winds of Enitharmon;And thus her voice arose:
America: A Prophecy
© William Blake
The shadowy Daughter of Urthona stood before red Orc,When fourteen suns had faintly journey'd o'er his dark abode:His food she brought in iron baskets, his drink in cups of iron:Crown'd with a helmet and dark hair the nameless female stood;A quiver with its burning stores, a bow like that of night,When pestilence is shot from heaven: no other arms she need!Invulnerable though naked, save where clouds roll round her loinsTheir awful folds in the dark air: silent she stood as night;For never from her iron tongue could voice or sound arise,But dumb till that dread day when Orc assay'd his fierce embrace
The Reformer
© Binyon Heward Laurence
August from a vault of hollow brassSteep upon the sullen city glares.Yellower burns the sick and parching grass,Shivering in the breath of furnace airs.
For the Fallen
© Binyon Heward Laurence
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,England mourns for her dead across the sea.Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,Fallen in the cause of the free.
On a Sleeping Friend
© Hilaire Belloc
Lady, when your lovely headDroops to sink among the Dead,And the quiet places keepYou that so divinely sleep;Then the dead shall blessèd beWith a new solemnity,For such Beauty, so descending,Pledges them that Death is ending
Bede's Death Song
© Bede The Venerable
Fore there neidfaerae naenig uuiurthitthoncsnotturra than him tharf sieto ymbhycggannae aer his hiniongaehuaet his gastae godaes aeththa yflaesaefter deothdaege doemid uueorthae.
A Thought on Death: November, 1814
© Anna Lætitia Barbauld
When life as opening buds is sweet,And golden hopes the fancy greet,And Youth prepares his joys to meet,--Alas! how hard it is to die!
The Caterpillar
© Anna Lætitia Barbauld
No, helpless thing, I cannot harm thee now;Depart in peace, thy little life is safe,For I have scanned thy form with curious eye,Noted the silver line that streaks thy back,The azure and the orange that divideThy velvet sides; thee, houseless wanderer,My garment has enfolded, and my armFelt the light pressure of thy hairy feet;Thou hast curled round my finger; from its tip,Precipitous descent! with stretched out neck,Bending thy head in airy vacancy,This way and that, inquiring, thou hast seemedTo ask protection; now, I cannot kill thee
Heart Test with an Echo Chamber
© Margaret Atwood
Wired up at the ankles and one wrist,a wet probe rolling over my skin,I see my heart on a screenlike a rubber bulb or a soft fig, but larger,
Will He No Come Back Again?
© Anonymous
Royal Charlie's now awa, Safely owre the friendly main;Mony a heart will break in twa, Should he ne'er come back again
Waly, Waly
© Anonymous
O Waly, waly, up the bank, O wary, waly, doun the brae,And waly, waly, yon burn-side, Where I and my love wer wont to gae!I lean'd my back unto an aik, I thocht it was a trustie tree,But first it bow'd and syne it brak',-- Sae my true love did lichtlie me
Stay with Me, God
© Anonymous
Stay with me, God. The night is dark,The night is cold: my little sparkOf courage dies. The night is long;Be with me, God, and make me strong.
A Sonnet upon the Pitiful Burning of the Globe Playhouse in London
© Anonymous
Now sitt thee downe, Melpomene,Wrapt in a sea-coal robe,And tell the dolefull tragedie,That late was playd at Globe;For noe man that can singe and sayeBut was scard on St
The Seafarer
© Anonymous
Mæg ic be me sylfum soðgied wrecan, [I can utter a true tale about myself,]siþas secgan, hu ic geswincdagum [tell of my travels, how in laboursome days]earfoðhwile oft þrowade, [a time of hardship I often suffered,]bitre breostceare gebiden hæbbe, [how bitter sorrow in my breast I have borne,]gecunnad in ceole cearselda fela, [made trial on shipboard of many sorrowful abodes; ]atol yþa gewealc, þær mec oft bigeat [dread was the rolling of the waves; there my task was often]nearo nihtwaco æt nacan stefnan, [the hard night-watch at the boat's prow,]þonne he be clifum cnossað
O Death, O Death, Rock Me Asleep
© Anonymous
O Death, O Death, rock me asleep,Bring me to quiet rest;Let pass my weary guiltless ghostOut of my careful breast
The Masque of B-ll--l
© Anonymous
First come I. My name is J-W-TT.There's no knowledge but I know it.I am Master of this College,What I don't know isn't knowledge.
Mary Hamilton
© Anonymous
Word 's gane to the kitchen, And word 's gane to the ha,That Marie Hamilton gangs wi bairn To the hichest Stewart of a'.
