Death poems
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Songs of the Spring Days
© George MacDonald
A gentle wind, of western birth
On some far summer sea,
Wakes daisies in the wintry earth,
Wakes hopes in wintry me.
The Annunciation
© Joyce Kilmer
(For Helen Parry Eden)"Hail Mary, full of grace," the Angel saith.
Our Lady bows her head, and is ashamed;
She has a Bridegroom Who may not be named,
Her mortal flesh bears Him Who conquers death.
The Visitation
© Joyce Kilmer
(For Louise Imogen Guiney)There is a wall of flesh before the eyes
Of John, who yet perceives and hails his King.
It is Our Lady's painful bliss to bring
Before mankind the Glory of the skies.
The White Ships and the Red
© Joyce Kilmer
(For Alden March)With drooping sail and pennant
That never a wind may reach,
They float in sunless waters
Beside a sunless beach.
The Big Top
© Joyce Kilmer
The boom and blare of the big brass band is cheering
to my heart
And I like the smell of the trampled grass and elephants and hay.
I take off my hat to the acrobat with his delicate, strong art,
Vision
© Joyce Kilmer
(For Aline)Homer, they tell us, was blind and could not see the beautiful
faces
Looking up into his own and reflecting the joy of his dream,
Yet did he seem
Memorial Day
© Joyce Kilmer
"Dulce et decorum est"The bugle echoes shrill and sweet,
But not of war it sings to-day.
The road is rhythmic with the feet
Of men-at-arms who come to pray.
The Twelve-Forty-Five
© Joyce Kilmer
(For Edward J. Wheeler)Within the Jersey City shed
The engine coughs and shakes its head,
The smoke, a plume of red and white,
Waves madly in the face of night.
Kings
© Joyce Kilmer
(For the Rev. James B. Dollard)The Kings of the earth are men of might,
And cities are burned for their delight,
And the skies rain death in the silent night,
And the hills belch death all day!
Queen Mab: Part VII.
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
'Even the murderer's cheek
Was blanched with horror, and his quivering lips
Scarce faintly uttered-"O almighty one,
I tremble and obey!"
Easter Week
© Joyce Kilmer
(In memory of Joseph Mary Plunkett)("Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.")William Butler Yeats."Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave."
Then, Yeats, what gave that Easter dawn
Nimium Fortunatus (The Good Life)
© Robert Seymour Bridges
I have lain in the sun
I have toil'd as I might,
I have thought as I would,
And now it is night.
The Voyage Of St. Brendan A.D. 545 - The Vocation
© Denis Florence MacCarthy
O Ita, mother of my heart and mind--
My nourisher, my fosterer, my friend,
Who taught me first to God's great will resigned,
Before his shining altar-steps to bend;
"We went out of our minds with the easy life"
© Osip Emilevich Mandelstam
We went out of our minds with the easy life,
Wine from morning on, hungover by evening,
How can I keep this idle gaiety,
Your blush, O drunken plague?
The Singing Girl
© Joyce Kilmer
(For the Rev. Edward F. Garesche, S. J.)There was a little maiden
In blue and silver drest,
She sang to God in Heaven
And God within her breast.
Natalias Resurrection: Sonnet XXVI
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Yet so it was. Adrian had hardly set
His lips to those cold lips where death had been,
His eyes those clammy eyelids scarce had wet
With his warm tears and poured his soul between,
Down In A Shaded Garden
© Robert Laurence Binyon
Down in a shaded garden
I laid upon earth my head:
The deep trees murmured, darkly fresh,
Over my bed;
Memorial Day For The War Dead
© Yehuda Amichai
Memorial day for the war dead. Add now
the grief of all your losses to their grief,
even of a woman that has left you. Mix
sorrow with sorrow, like time-saving history,
which stacks holiday and sacrifice and mourning
on one day for easy, convenient memory.
