Death poems
/ page 377 of 560 /
"I am cold. Transparent Spring dresses"
© Osip Emilevich Mandelstam
I
I am cold. Transparent Spring dresses
Petropolis in verdant down.
But like a medusa, the Neva's wave
Immortality
© John Liddell Kelly
Eternal life - a river gulphed in sands!
Undying fame - a rainbow lost in clouds!
What hope of immortality remains
But this: "Some soul that loves and understands
Shall save thee from the darkness that enshrouds";
And this: "Thy blood shall course in others' veins"?
Auri Sacra Fames
© George Essex Evans
Gone are the mists of old in the light of the larger day!
Gone is the foolish hope, the trust in a Power above!
Science has swept the heavens and brushed religion away!
What need we hope or fear? Warfare is clothed like Love!
Priestcraft is but a tradesouls can be bought and sold!
Why should we seek for a godnow that our god is Gold?
The Dead Beggar
© Charlotte Turner Smith
AN ELEGY.
Addressed to a Lady, who was affected at seeing the
Funeral of a nameless Pauper, buried at the ex-
pense of the Parish, in the Church-Yard at Bright-
Dickens
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
METHINKS the air
Throbs with the tolling of harmonious bells,
Rung by the bands of spirits; everywhere
We feel the presence of a soft despair
And thrill to voices of divine farewells.
What Had He Done?
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
I saw the farmer, when the day was done,
And the proud sun had sought his crimson bed,
And the mild stars came forward one by one-
I saw the sturdy farmer, and I said:
"What have you done to-day,
O farmer! say?"
Ungratefulnesse
© George Herbert
Lord, with what bountie and rare clemencie
Hast thou redeem'd us from the grave!
If hadst let us runne,
Gladly had man ador'd the sunne,
And thought his god most brave;
Where now we shall be better gods then he.
Absence
© James Russell Lowell
Sleep is Death's image,--poets tell us so;
But Absence is the bitter self of Death,
And, you away, Life's lips their red forego,
Parched in an air unfreshened by your breath.
Choriambics
© Algernon Charles Swinburne
What strange faces of dreams, voices that called, hands that were raised to wave,
Lured or led thee, alas, out of the sun, down to the sunless grave?
To Olinthus Gregory, On Hearing Of The Death Of His Eldest Son, Who Was Drowned As He Was Returning
© Letitia Elizabeth Landon
IS there a spot where Pity's foot,
Although unsandalled, fears to tread,
A silence where her voice is mute,
Where tears, and only tears, are shed?
The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part IV: Vita Nova: XCII
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
WRITTEN IN DISTRESS
We sometimes sit in darkness. I long while
Have sat there, in a shadow as of death.
My friends and comforters no longer smile,
The Gloomy Night Is Gath'ring Fast
© Robert Burns
The gloomy night is gath'ring fast,
Loud roars the wild inconstant blast;
The Ruler's Daughter Raised
© John Newton
Could the creatures help or ease us
Seldom should we think of prayer;
The Shepheardes Calender: Februarie
© Edmund Spenser
Februarie: Ægloga Secunda. CVDDIE & THENOT.
CVDDIE.
AH for pittie, wil ranke Winters rage,
These bitter blasts neuer ginne tasswage?
Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking
© Walt Whitman
Shine! shine! shine!
Pour down your warmth, great sun!
While we bask, we two together.
To an Old Oak
© Samuel Rogers
Trunk of a Giant now no more!
Once did thy limbs to heaven aspire;
Once, by a track untried before,
Strike as resolving to explore
Realms of infernal fire.
To The Honourable Charles Montague, Esq.
© Matthew Prior
Howe'er, 'tis well that, while mankind
Through fate's perverse meander errs,
He can imagined pleasures find
To combat against real cares.
The Hard Times In Elfland [A Story of Christmas Eve]
© Sidney Lanier
Strange that the termagant winds should scold
The Christmas Eve so bitterly!
But Wife, and Harry the four-year-old,
Big Charley, Nimblewits, and I,
The Masque of Queen Bersabe: A Miracle-Play
© Algernon Charles Swinburne
PRIMUS MILES.
Sir, note this that I will say;
That Lord who maketh corn with hay
And morrows each of yesterday,
He hath you in his hand.
