Death poems
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The Spirit Of The Snow
© Denis Florence MacCarthy
The night brings forth the morn-
Of the cloud is lightning born;
From out the darkest earth the brightest roses grow.
Bright sparks from black flints fly,
And from out a leaden sky
Comes the silvery-footed Spirit of the Snow.
To a Gentleman and Lady on the Death of the Lady's Brother and Sister, and a Child of the Name Avis, Aged One Year
© Phillis Wheatley
But, Madam, let your grief be laid aside,
And let the fountain of your tears be dry'd,
In vain they flow to wet the dusty plain,
Your sighs are wafted to the skies in vain,
Your pains they witness, but they can no more,
While Death reigns tyrant o'er this mortal shore.
To the Angel Spirit of the Most Excellent Sir Philip Sidney
© Mary Sidney Herbert
(Variant printed in Samuel Daniel’s 1623 Works)
To thee, pure spirit, to thee alone addressed
The Forest Boy
© Charlotte Turner Smith
THE trees have now hid at the edge of the hurst
The spot where the ruins decay
Of the cottage, where Will of the Woodland was nursed,
And lived so beloved, till the moment accursed
Verses On Rome
© Frances Anne Kemble
O Rome, tremendous! who, beholding thee,
Shall not forget the bitterest private grief
Troop Train
© Ishmael Reed
It stops the town we come through. Workers raise
Their oily arms in good salute and grin.
To Oliver Wendell Holmes
© John Greenleaf Whittier
Among the thousands who with hail and cheer
Will welcome thy new year,
How few of all have passed, as thou and I,
So many milestones by!
Death
© Bill Knott
Going to sleep, I cross my hands on my chest.
They will place my hands like this.
It will look as though I am flying into myself.
The House of Life: 72. The Choice, II
© Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Though screen'd and hid, shall walk the daylight here.
And dost thou prate of all that man shall do?
Canst thou, who hast but plagues, presume to be
Glad in his gladness that comes after thee?
Will his strength slay thy worm in Hell? Go to:
Cover thy countenance, and watch, and fear.
Pauline, A Fragment of a Question
© Robert Browning
And I can love nothing-and this dull truth
Has come the last: but sense supplies a love
Encircling me and mingling with my life.
The Camp Of Souls
© Isabella Valancy Crawford
My white canoe, like the silvery air
O'er the River of Death that darkly rolls
When the moons of the world are round and fair,
I paddle back from the "Camp of Souls."
In The Orchard
© Algernon Charles Swinburne
LEAVE go my hands, let me catch breath and see;
Let the dew-fall drench either side of me;
Clear apple-leaves are soft upon that moon
Seen sidelong like a blossom in the tree;
Ah God, ah God, that day should be so soon.
Little Gray Songs from St. Josephs
© Grace Fallow Norton
I
WITH cassock black, baret and book,
Father Saran goes by;
I think he goes to say a prayer
For one who has to die.
Totem
© Eamon Grennan
All Souls’ over, the roast seeds eaten, I set
on a backporch post our sculpted pumpkin
Mrs. Hill
© Boris Pasternak
I am so young that I am still in love
with Battle Creek, Michigan: decoder rings,
submarines powered by baking soda,
whistles that only dogs can hear. Actually,
not even them. Nobody can hear them.
The Healer
© John Greenleaf Whittier
So stood of old the holy Christ
Amidst the suffering throng;
With whom His lightest touch sufficed
To make the weakest strong.
For Una
© Robinson Jeffers
I built her a tower when I was young—
Sometime she will die—
I built it with my hands, I hung
Stones in the sky.
The Book of Phillip Sparrow
© Alice Walker
It was so prety a fole,
It wold syt on a stole,
And lerned after my scole
For to kepe his cut,
With, "Phyllyp, kepe your cut!"
