Death poems
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Love, Death, And Reputation
© Anne Kingsmill Finch
Reputation, Love, and Death,
(The Last all Bones, the First all Breath,
Sonnet II: But Only Three in All God's Universe
© Elizabeth Barrett Browning
But only three in all God's universe
Have heard this word thou has said,-Himself, beside
from Venus and Adonis
© William Shakespeare
Even as the sunne with purple-colourd face,
Had tane his last leaue of the weeping morne,
Rose-cheekt Adonis hied him to the chace,
Hunting he lou'd, but loue he laught to scorne,
Sick-thoughted Venus makes amaine vnto him,
And like a bold fac'd suter ginnes to woo him.
The Ballad of Nat Turner
© Robert Hayden
Then fled, O brethren, the wicked juba
and wandered wandered far
from curfew joys in the Dismal’s night.
Fool of St. Elmo’s fire
The Song of Songs
© King Solomon
The Song of songs, which is Solomon's.
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth:
for thy love is better than wine.
Because of the savor of thy good ointments
thy name is as ointment poured forth,
therefore do the virgins love thee.
Living: After A Death
© Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
Only to me, my love, only to me.
This cavern underneath the moaning sea;
This long, long life that I alone must tread,
To whom the living seem most like the dead,--
Thou wilt be safe out on the happy shore:
He who in God lives, liveth evermore.
For the Tattooed Man by Sharmila Voorakkara: American Life in Poetry #167 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laur
© Ted Kooser
and each pinned and martyred limb aches for more.
Her memory wraps you like a vise.
How simple the pain that trails and graces
the length of your body. How it fans, blazes,
writes itself over in the blood's tightening sighs,
bruises into wisdom you have no name for.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2005 by Sharmila Voorakkara, whose most recent book of poetry is âFire Wheel,â? Univ. of Akron Press, 2003. Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
September, 1819
© André Breton
Departing summer hath assumed
An aspect tenderly illumed,
The gentlest look of spring;
That calls from yonder leafy shade
Unfaded, yet prepared to fade,
A timely carolling.
To My Old Oak Table
© Robert Bloomfield
Friend of my peaceful days! substantial friend,
Whom wealth can never change, nor int'rest bend,
Hymn before Sun-rise, in the Vale of Chamouni
© Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Awake, my soul! not only passive praise
Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears,
Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake,
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!
Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my Hymn.
Little Nell
© Louisa May Alcott
GLEAMING through the silent church-yard,
Winter sunlight seemed to shed
Ave Atque Vale
© Algernon Charles Swinburne
In Memory of Charles Baudelaire
Nous devrions pourtant lui porter quelques fleurs;
Les morts, les pauvres morts, ont de grandes douleurs,
Et quand Octobre souffle, émondeur des vieux arbres,
Sonnet CXLVI: Poor Soul, the Centre of my Sinful Earth
© William Shakespeare
Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
[......] these rebel powers that thee array,
The Glories Of The Present
© Edgar Albert Guest
WHAT of the glories after death,
When this frail form gives up its breath?
The Portrait
© Dante Gabriel Rossetti
This is her picture as she was:
It seems a thing to wonder on,
Ballade Of Sleep
© Andrew Lang
Prince, ere the dark be shred
By golden shafts, ere now
And long the shadows creep:
Lord of the wand of lead,
Soft-footed as the snow,
Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep!
General William Booth Enters Into Heaven
© Roald Dahl
[BASS DRUM LOUDER]
Drabs and vixens in a flash made whole!
Gone was the weasel-head, the snout, the jowl!
Sages and sibyls now, and athletes clean,
Rulers of empires, and of forests green!
