Death poems
/ page 313 of 560 /
On the Seashore
© Anselm Hollo
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.
The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances.
They build their houses with sand, and they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float them on the vast deep. Children have their play on the seashore of worlds.
They know not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets. Pearl-fishers dive for pearls, merchants sail in their ships, while children gather pebbles and scatter them again. They seek not for hidden treasures, they know not how to cast nets.
The sea surges up with laughter, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach. Death-dealing waves sing meaningless ballads to the children, even like a mother while rocking her baby's cradle. The sea plays with children, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach.
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in the pathless sky, ships are wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad and children play. On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meeting of children.
J. D. R.
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
THE friends that are, and friends that were,
What shallow waves divide!
I miss the form for many a year
Still seated at my side.
Nocturne
© Li-Young Lee
That scraping of iron on iron when the wind
rises, what is it? Something the wind won’t
To a Lady on the Death of Her Husband
© Phillis Wheatley
To join for ever on the hills of light:
To thine embrace this joyful spirit moves
To thee, the partner of his earthly loves;
He welcomes thee to pleasures more refin'd,
And better suited to th' immortal mind.
Walking Parker Home
© Bob Kaufman
Sweet beats of jazz impaled on slivers of wind
Kansas Black Morning/ First Horn Eyes/
Song for Dead Children
© Katha Pollitt
We set great wreaths of brightness on the graves of the passionate
who required tribute of hot July flowers—
for you, O brittle-hearted, we bring offering
remembering how your wrists were thin and your delicate bones
not yet braced for conquering.
Hour-Glass And Bible
© William Lisle Bowles
Look, Christian, on thy Bible, and that glass
That sheds its sand through minutes, hours, and days,
A Rhapsody of a Southern Winter Night
© Henry Timrod
Oh! dost thou flatter falsely, Hope?
The day hath scarcely passed that saw thy birth,
On the Death of Richard West
© Thomas Gray
In vain to me the smiling Mornings shine,
And reddening Phbus lifts his golden fire;
Christmas,1870
© Alfred Austin
Heaven strews the earth with snow,
That neither friend nor foe
May break the sleep of the fast-dying year;
A world arrayed in white,
Late dawns, and shrouded light,
Attest to us once more that Christmas-tide is here.
An Epistle Containing the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician
© Robert Browning
Karshish, the picker-up of learning's crumbs,
The not-incurious in God's handiwork
Trapped Dingo
© Judith Wright
So here, twisted in steel, and spoiled with red
your sunlight hide, smelling of death and fear,
A Letter From A Stupid Woman
© Nizar Qabbani
Don't become annoyed, my dear Master,
If I revealed to you my feelings
For the Eastern man
Is not concerned with poetry or feelings
The Eastern man - and forgive my insolence - does not understand women
but over the sheets.
Original Sin
© Robinson Jeffers
Meanwhile the intense color and nobility of sunrise,
Rose and gold and amber, flowed up the sky. Wet rocks were shining, a little wind
Stirred the leaves of the forest and the marsh flag-flowers; the soft valley between the low hills
Became as beautiful as the sky; while in its midst, hour after hour, the happy hunters
Roasted their living meat slowly to death.
Tales Of A Wayside Inn : Part 3. The Musician's Tale; The Mother's Ghost
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Svend Dyring he rideth adown the glade;
I myself was young!
Songs Set To Music: 25.
© Matthew Prior
Since, Moggy, I mun bid adieu,
How can I help despairing?
Let cruel Fate us still pursue,
There's nought more worth my caring.
America Politica Historia, in Spontaneity
© Gregory Corso
O this political air so heavy with the bells
and motors of a slow night, and no place to rest
Paradise Lost: Book IV
© Patrick Kavanagh
"Which of those rebel Spirits adjudg'd to Hell
Com'st thou, escap'd thy prison? and, transform'd,
Why satt'st thou like an enemy in wait,
Here watching at the head of these that sleep?"
