Death poems
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The Grandmother
© Alfred Tennyson
And Willy, my eldest-born, is gone, you say, little Anne?
Ruddy and white, and strong on his legs, he looks like a man.
And Willy's wife has written: she never was over-wise,
Never the wife for Willy: he would n't take my advice.
San Miniato
© Oscar Wilde
. SEE, I have climbed the mountain side
Up to this holy house of God,
Where once that Angel-Painter trod
Who saw the heavens opened wide,
Extreme Unction
© Ernest Christopher Dowson
Upon the eyes, the lips, the feet,
On all the passages of sense,
The atoning oil is spread with sweet
Renewal of lost innocence.
The Shadows On The Wall
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
WHAT mournful influence chills my soul to-night?
I watch the expiring flames that fade and fall,
From which outleap vague shafts of arrowy light,
Pursued by spectral shadows on the wall.
Fort Wagner
© William Gilmore Simms
I.Glory unto the gallant boys who stood
At Wagner, and, unflinching, sought the van;
Beauergards Appeal
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
YEA! since the need is bitter,
Take down those sacred bells,
Whose music speaks of hallowed joys,
And passionate farewells!
Ode On The Death Of A Lady, Who Lived One Hundred Years, And Died On Her Birthday, 1728 (Translation
© William Cowper
Ancient dame, how wide and vast
To a race like ours appears,
Rounded to an orb at last,
All thy multitude of years!
The Eve Of Election
© John Greenleaf Whittier
FROM gold to gray
Our mild sweet day
Of Indian Summer fades too soon;
But tenderly
A Song Of Derivations
© Alice Meynell
I come from nothing; but from where
Come the undying thoughts I bear?
Down, through the long links of death and birth,
From the past poets of the earth,
My immortality is there.
The Vain King
© Henry Van Dyke
And still, along the reaches of the stream,
The vain King-fisher flits, an azure gleam, --
You see his ruby crest, you hear his jealous scream.
Astrophel And Stella-Third Song
© Sir Philip Sidney
If Orpheus' voice had force to breathe such music's love
Through pores of senseless trees, as it could make them move;
If stones good measure danc'd, the Theban walls to build,
To cadence of the tunes, which Amphion's lyre did yield,
More cause a like effect at leastwise bringeth:
Oh stones, oh trees, learning hearing; Stella singeth.
The Broken Drouth
© Madison Julius Cawein
It seemed the listening forest held its breath
Before some vague and unapparent form
Of fear, approaching with the wings of death,
On the impending storm.
How The Women Went From Dover
© John Greenleaf Whittier
THE tossing spray of Cocheco's fall
Hardened to ice on its rocky wall,
As through Dover town in the chill, gray dawn,
Three women passed, at the cart-tail drawn!
Eight Sonnets
© Edna St. Vincent Millay
I shall remember only of this hour--
And weep somewhat, as now you see me weep--
The pathos of your love, that, like a flower,
Fearful of death yet amorous of sleep,
Droops for a moment and beholds, dismayed,
The wind whereon its petals shall be laid.
Sweet Marie
© Dora Sigerson Shorter
You were very fair to meet once, Marie,
With your eyes like some blue hiding flower,
The Cathedral
© James Russell Lowell
Far through the memory shines a happy day,
Cloudless of care, down-shod to every sense,
Back To School
© Edgar Albert Guest
It ain' the ringing of the bell
which calls me back to skule once more;
A Man Young And Old: IV. The Death Of The Hare
© William Butler Yeats
I have pointed out the yelling pack,
The hare leap to the wood,
And when I pass a compliment
Rejoice as lover should
At the drooping of an eye,
At the mantling of the blood.
