Death poems
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The Bad Monk
© Charles Baudelaire
On the great walls of ancient cloisters were nailed
Murals displaying Truth the saint,
Whose effect, reheating the pious entrails
Brought to an austere chill a warming paint.
Beauty
© Charles Baudelaire
I AM as lovely as a dream in stone,
And this my heart where each finds death in turn,
Inspires the poet with a love as lone
As clay eternal and as taciturn.
The Window
© Henry Van Dyke
Oh, what do you see in the dark, little window, and why do you fear?
"I see that the garden is crowded with creeping forms of fear:
Little white ghosts in the locust-tree, that wave in the night-wind's breath,
And low in the leafy laurels the larking shadow of death."
The White Bees
© Henry Van Dyke
Long ago Apollo called to Aristæus,
youngest of the shepherds,
Saying, "I will make you keeper of my bees."
Golden were the hives, and golden was the honey;
golden, too, the music,
Where the honey-makers hummed among the trees.
New Year's Eve
© Henry Van Dyke
I The other night I had a dream, most clear
And comforting, complete
In every line, a crystal sphere,
And full of intimate and secret cheer.
Lights Out
© Henry Van Dyke
"Lights out" along the land,
"Lights out" upon the sea.
The night must put her hiding hand
O'er peaceful towns where children sleep,
And peaceful ships that darkly creep
Across the waves, as if they were not free.
Keats
© Henry Van Dyke
Yet thou hast won the gift Tithonus missed:
Never to feel the pain of growing old,
Nor lose the blissful sight of beauty's truth,
But with the ardent lips that music kissed
To breathe thy song, and, ere thy heart grew cold,
Become the Poet of Immortal Youth.
Francis Makemie
© Henry Van Dyke
Oh, who can tell how much we owe to thee,
Makemie, and to labour such as thine,
For all that makes America the shrine
Of faith untrammeled and of conscience free?
Stand here, grey stone, and consecrate the sod
Where rests this brave Scotch-Irish man of God!
Ionicus
© Sir Henry Newbolt
With failing feet and shoulders bowed
Beneath the weight of happier days,
He lagged among the heedless crowd,
Or crept along suburban ways.
Vita? Lampada
© Sir Henry Newbolt
There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night --
Ten to make and the match to win --
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play and the last man in.
Drake's Drum
© Sir Henry Newbolt
Drake he's in his hammock an' a thousand miles away,
(Capten, art tha sleepin' there below?)
Slung atween the round shot in Nombre Dios Bay,
An' dreamin' arl the time O' Plymouth Hoe.
Theoden's Fall
© John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
We heard of the horns in the hills ringing,
The swords shining in the South-kingdom.
Steeds went striding to the stoning land
As wind in the morning. War was kindled.
Earendil
© John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Beneath the Moon and under star
he wandered far from northern strands,
bewildered on enchanted ways
beyond the days of mortal lands.
Athelas
© John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
When the black breath blows,
And death's shadow grows,
Come Athelas! Come Athelas!
Life to the dying,
In the king's hand lying!
He Sendeth Sun, He Sendeth Shower
© Sarah Flower Adams
He sendeth sun, he sendeth shower,
Alike they're needful for the flower:
And joys and tears alike are sent
To give the soul fit nourishment.
Every Death Is Magic from the Enemy to Be Avenged
© Brooks Haxton
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Psalm 22When fever burned the last light out of my daughters eyes,
I swore to find and kill the ones to blame. Men
must mount the long boat in the dark with spears.
The New Helen
© Oscar Wilde
Where hast thou been since round the walls of Troy
The sons of God fought in that great emprise?
Why dost thou walk our common earth again?
Hast thou forgotten that impassioned boy,
Athanasia
© Oscar Wilde
To that gaunt House of Art which lacks for naught
Of all the great things men have saved from Time,
The withered body of a girl was brought
Dead ere the world's glad youth had touched its prime,
And seen by lonely Arabs lying hid
In the dim womb of some black pyramid.
Humanitad
© Oscar Wilde
It is full winter now: the trees are bare,
Save where the cattle huddle from the cold
Beneath the pine, for it doth never wear
The autumn's gaudy livery whose gold
Her jealous brother pilfers, but is true
To the green doublet; bitter is the wind, as though it blew
The Sphinx
© Oscar Wilde
In a dim corner of my room for longer than
my fancy thinks
A beautiful and silent Sphinx has watched me
through the shifting gloom.
