Death poems
/ page 292 of 560 /
Chomei at Toyama
© Ted Hughes
Swirl sleeping in the waterfall!
On motionless pools scum appearing
disappearing!
Mary Shelley in Brigantine
© Stephen Dunn
Because the ostracized experience the world
in ways peculiar to themselves, often seeing it
clearly yet with such anger and longing
that they sometimes enlarge what they see,
she at first saw Brigantine as a paradise for gulls.
She must be a horseshoe crab washed ashore.
Father and Son
© Delmore Schwartz
FRANZ KAFKA
Father:
On these occasions, the feelings surprise,
Spontaneous as rain, and they compel
Explicitness, embarrassed eyes——
Sonnet XXX: When to the Sessions of Sweet Silent Thought
© William Shakespeare
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College
© Thomas Gray
Ye distant spires, ye antique tow'rs,
That crown the wat'ry glade,
St. Agnes' Eve
© Kenneth Fearing
The dramatis personae include a fly-specked Monday evening,
A cigar store with stagnant windows,
A Prospect of Heaven Makes Death Easy
© Isaac Watts
There is a land of pure delight
Where saints immortal reign;
Infinite day excludes the night,
And pleasures banish pain.
Workshop
© Billy Collins
I might as well begin by saying how much I like the title.
It gets me right away because I’m in a workshop now
so immediately the poem has my attention,
like the Ancient Mariner grabbing me by the sleeve.
Noah’s Wife
© Michael Rosen
is doing her usual for comic relief.
She doesn’t
see why she should get on the boat, etc.,
Phases
© Edwin Muir
I.
There’s a little square in Paris,
Waiting until we pass.
They sit idly there,
They sip the glass.
To J. S.
© Alfred Tennyson
The wind, that beats the mountain, blows
More softly round the open wold,
And gently comes the world to those
That are cast in gentle mould.
In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 82
© Alfred Tennyson
I wage not any feud with Death
For changes wrought on form and face;
No lower life that earth's embrace
May breed with him, can fright my faith.
The Anniversary
© John Donne
All Kings, and all their favourites,
All glory of honours, beauties, wits,
Song of the Open Road
© Walt Whitman
1
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
Writ on the Steps of Puerto Rican Harlem
© Gregory Corso
I learned life were no dream
I learned truth deceived
Man is not God
Life is a century
Death an instant
from Totem Poem [Abandoned in a field near Yass]
© Luke Davies
Abandoned in a field near Yass a cobwebbed car once kept us warm
and when it rained, though we shivered with sickness,
Grandeur of Ghosts
© Siegfried Sassoon
When I have heard small talk about great men
I climb to bed; light my two candles; then
Consider what was said; and put aside
What Such-a-one remarked and Someone-else replied.
