Death poems
/ page 306 of 560 /
Forest And Field
© Madison Julius Cawein
I
GREEN, watery jets of light let through
The rippling foliage drenched with dew;
And golden glimmers, warm and dim,
The Wound-Dresser
© Walt Whitman
But in silence, in dreams’ projections,
While the world of gain and appearance and mirth goes on,
So soon what is over forgotten, and waves wash the imprints off the sand,
With hinged knees returning I enter the doors, (while for you up there,
Whoever you are, follow without noise and be of strong heart.)
The Heart Courageous
© Virna Sheard
Who hath a heart courageous
Will fight with right good cheer;
For well may he his foes out-face
Who owns no foe called Fear!
Dean Stanley
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
DEAD! dead! in sooth his marbled brow is cold,
And prostrate lies that brave, majestic head;
True! his stilled features own death's arctic mould,
Yet, by Christ's blood, I know he is not dead!
The Silver Swan
© Pierre Reverdy
The silver swan, who living had no note,
When death approached, unlocked her silent throat;
Leaning her breast against the reedy shore,
Thus sung her first and last, and sung no more:
“Farewell, all joys; Oh death, come close mine eyes;
More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise.”
Address to Venus
© Lucretius
Delight of Human kind, and Gods above;
Parent of Rome; Propitious Queen of Love;
Acon and Rhodope; or, Inconstancy
© Heather Fuller
First of those
Who visited upon this solemn day
The Hamadryad’s oak, were Rhodope
And Acon; of one age, one hope, one trust.
Graceful was she as was the nymph whose fate
She sorrowed for: he slender, pale, and first
A Broken Prayer
© George MacDonald
I am a denseness 'twixt me and the light;
1 cannot round myself; my purest thought,
Ere it is thought, hath caught the taint of earth,
And mocked me with hard thoughts beyond my will.
An Elegy upon the Death of the Dean of Paul's, Dr. John Donne
© Thomas Carew
Can we not force from widow'd poetry,
Now thou art dead (great Donne) one elegy
The Woman In The Temple
© George MacDonald
A still dark joy! A sudden face!
Cold daylight, footsteps, cries!
The temple's naked, shining space,
Aglare with judging eyes!
The Visible Creation
© James Montgomery
The God of nature and of grace
In all His works appears;
His goodness through the earth we trace,
His grandeur in the spheres.
Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward
© John Donne
Let mans Soule be a Spheare, and then, in this,
The intelligence that moves, devotion is,
Youth
© Robert Laurence Binyon
When life begins anew,
And Youth, from gathering flowers,
From vague delights, rapt musings, twilight hours,
Turns restless, seeking some great deed to do,
The Triumph of Time
© Algernon Charles Swinburne
Before our lives divide for ever,
While time is with us and hands are free,
Ned Connor
© Charles Harpur
TWAS nightand where a watery sound
Came moaning up the Flat,
Six rude and bearded stockmen round
Their blazing hut-fire sat,
And laughed as on some starting hound
The cracking fuel spat.
The Goddess In The Wood
© Rupert Brooke
Till a swift terror broke the abrupt hour.
The gold waves purled amidst the green above her;
And a bird sang. With one sharp-taken breath,
By sunlit branches and unshaken flower,
The immortal limbs flashed to the human lover,
And the immortal eyes to look on death.
Vita Nova
© Louise Gluck
I remember sounds like that from my childhood,
laughter for no cause, simply because the world is beautiful,
something like that.
