Death poems
/ page 321 of 560 /
Despairing Cries
© Walt Whitman
DESPAIRING cries float ceaselessly toward me, day and night,
The sad voice of Death-the call of my nearest lover, putting forth,
alarmed, uncertain,
This sea I am quickly to sail, come tell me,
Come tell me where I am speeding-tell me my destination.
Effort at Speech Between Two People
© Katha Pollitt
: Speak to me. Take my hand. What are you now?
I will tell you all. I will conceal nothing.
When I was three, a little child read a story about a rabbit
who died, in the story, and I crawled under a chair :
a pink rabbit : it was my birthday, and a candle
burnt a sore spot on my finger, and I was told to be happy.
To Women
© Robert Laurence Binyon
Your hearts are lifted up, your hearts
That have foreknown the utter price.
Your hearts burn upward like a flame
Of splendour and of sacrifice.
Morte d'Arthur
© Alfred Tennyson
To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere:
"It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus,
Aidless, alone, and smitten thro' the helm.
A little thing may harm a wounded man.
Yet I thy hest will all perform at full,
Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word."
The Ghost
© Richard Harris Barham
There stands a City,- neither large nor small,
Its air and situation sweet and pretty;
Upon Wedlock, and Death of Children
© Edward Taylor
A Curious Knot God made in Paradise,
And drew it out inamled neatly Fresh.
It was the True-Love Knot, more sweet than spice
And set with all the flowres of Graces dress.
Its Weddens Knot, that ne're can be unti'de.
No Alexanders Sword can it divide.
The Gardener 38
© Anselm Hollo
My love, once upon a time your poet launched a great epic in his mind.
The Black Destrier. A Ballad Of The Third Crusade
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
FIRST 'mid the lion Richard's host,
Sir Aymer fought in Holy Land;
And they loved him well for his honest heart,
And they feared, for his stalwart hand.
Caliban upon Setebos
© Robert Browning
'Thinketh He made it, with the sun to match,
But not the stars; the stars came otherwise;
Only made clouds, winds, meteors, such as that:
Also this isle, what lives and grows thereon,
And snaky sea which rounds and ends the same.
Essay on Psychiatrists
© Robert Pinsky
It's crazy to think one could describe them—
Calling on reason, fantasy, memory, eyes and ears—
As though they were all alike any more
Stella's Birthday March 13, 1727
© Jonathan Swift
Although we now can form no more
Long schemes of life, as heretofore;
Yet you, while time is running fast,
Can look with joy on what is past.
Song: If you refuse me once, and think again
© Sir John Suckling
If you refuse me once, and think again,
I will complain.
You are deceiv’d, love is no work of art,
It must be got and born,
Not made and worn,
By every one that hath a heart.
Since the Cities are the Cities
© Henry Lawson
FOOLS can parrot-cry the prophet when the proof is close at hand,
And the blind can see the danger when the foe is in the land!
Truth was never cynicism, death or ruins not a joke,
Told-you-so is not a warningPatriotism not a croak.
The Wealth of the Destitute
© Denise Levertov
How gray and hard the brown feet of the wretched of the earth.
How confidently the crippled from birth
On the Death of Dr. Robert Levet
© Henry James Pye
Condemned to Hope’s delusive mine,
As on we toil from day to day,
By sudden blasts, or slow decline,
Our social comforts drop away.
Methought I saw my late espousèd saint
© Patrick Kavanagh
Methought I saw my late espousèd saint
Brought to me like Alcestus from the grave,
The Princess (part 4)
© Alfred Tennyson
But when we planted level feet, and dipt
Beneath the satin dome and entered in,
There leaning deep in broidered down we sank
Our elbows: on a tripod in the midst
A fragrant flame rose, and before us glowed
Fruit, blossom, viand, amber wine, and gold.
