Death poems
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Fragmentary Scenes From The Road To Avernus
© Adam Lindsay Gordon
Scene I
"Discontent"
LAURENCE RABY.
The Friends Burial
© John Greenleaf Whittier
My thoughts are all in yonder town,
Where, wept by many tears,
To-day my mother's friend lays down
The burden of her years.
Elegy II
© Henry James Pye
Now the brown woods their leafy load resign
And rage the tempests with resistless force?
On The Descent Into Hell Of Ezzelino Di Napoli
© Walter Savage Landor
Rejoice, ye nations! one is dead
By whom ten thousand hearts have bled.
Widows and orphans, raise your voice . .
One voice, ye prostrate peoples, raise
To God; to God alone be praise!
All dwellers upon earth, rejoice:
The Lass in the Female Factory
© Anonymous
She got 'Death Recorded' in Newry town,
For stealing her mistress' watch and gown;
Her little boy Paddy can tell you the tale,
Her father was turnkey at Newry jail.
Meganom
© Osip Emilevich Mandelstam
1
Still far the asphodels,
grey-transparent Spring.
Meanwhile, the sand rustles,
Prayer for the Dead by Stuart Kestenbaum: American Life in Poetry #181 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureat
© Ted Kooser
Stuart Kestenbaum, the author of this week's poem, lost his brother Howard in the destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. We thought it appropriate to commemorate the events of September 11, 2001, by sharing this poem. The poet is the director of the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts on Deer Isle, Maine.
Prayer for the Dead
Death
© Paul Laurence Dunbar
Storm and strife and stress,
Lost in a wilderness,
Groping to find a way,
Forth to the haunts of day
If I To You But Sorry Bring
© Alfred Austin
If I to you but sorrow bring,
But aching hours and brackish tears,
Thou Dost Not Know
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
Thou dost not know it! but to hear
One word of praise from thee,
There is no pain I would not bear,
No task too great for me.
Metamorphoses: Book The Thirteenth
© Ovid
The End of the Thirteenth Book.
Translated into English verse under the direction of
Sir Samuel Garth by John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison,
William Congreve and other eminent hands
The House Of Dust: Part 02: 09:
© Conrad Aiken
The days, the nights, flow one by one above us,
The hours go silently over our lifted faces,
We are like dreamers who walk beneath a sea.
Beneath high walls we flow in the sun together.
We sleep, we wake, we laugh, we pursue, we flee.
Pharsalia - Book VI: The Fight Near Dyrhachium. Scaeva's Exploits. The Witch Of Thessalia.
© Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
Now that the chiefs with minds intent on fight
Had drawn their armies near upon the hills
Vision
© Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall
I have not walked on common ground,
Nor drunk of earthly streams;
A shining figure, mailed and crowned,
Moves softly through my dreams.
The Mantle Of St. John De Matha. A Legend Of "The Red, White, And Blue," A. D. 1154-1864
© John Greenleaf Whittier
A STRONG and mighty Angel,
Calm, terrible, and bright,
The cross in blended red and blue
Upon his mantle white!
Ode VII: To The Right Reverend Benjamin Lord Bishop Of Winchester
© Mark Akenside
I. 1.
For toils which patriots have endur'd,
Sonnets of the Empire: Nelson
© Archibald Thomas Strong
Thy name was lightning, and like lightning ay
Thine onset shivered, far and swift and fell:
Ever thy watchword holds us, and wheneer
The fierce Dawn breaks, and far along the sky
Roars the last battle, yet with us tis well
We keep the touch, thy hand and soul are there.
