Death poems
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The Maid's Lament
© Walter Savage Landor
I loved him not; and yet, now he is gone,
I feel I am alone.
I check'd him while he spoke; yet, could he speak,
Alas! I would not check.
To Mr. John Bartlett
© James Russell Lowell
Fit for an Abbot of Theleme,
For the whole Cardinals' College, or
The Pope himself to see in dream
Before his lenten vision gleam.
He lies there, the sogdologer!
Acon and Rhodope
© Walter Savage Landor
Fathers have given life, but virgin heart
They never gave; and dare they then control
Or check it harshly? dare they break a bond
Girt round it by the holiest Power on high?
A Stone I died
© Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi
A stone I died and rose again a plant;
A plant I died and rose an animal;
I died an animal and was born a man.
Why should I fear? What have I lost by death?
A New Forest Ballad
© Charles Kingsley
Oh she tripped over Ocknell plain,
And down by Bradley Water;
And the fairest maid on the forest side
Was Jane, the keeper's daughter.
Jemmy Dawson
© William Shenstone
Come listen to my mournful tale,
Ye tender hearts and lovers dear!
Nor will you scorn to heave a sigh,
Nor need you blush to shed a tear.
Death Stands Above Me, Whispering Low
© Walter Savage Landor
Death stands above me, whispering low
I know not what into my ear:
Of his strange language all I know
Is, there is not a word of fear.
Remain!
© Walter Savage Landor
REMAIN, ah not in youth alone!
--Tho' youth, where you are, long will stay--
But when my summer days are gone,
And my autumnal haste away.
A Song in Time of Revolution. 1860
© Algernon Charles Swinburne
THE HEART of the rulers is sick, and the high-priest covers his head:
For this is the song of the quick that is heard in the ears of the dead.
On His Eightieth Birthday
© Walter Savage Landor
To my ninth decade I have tottered on,
And no soft arm bends now my steps to steady;
She, who once led me where she would, is gone,
So when he calls me, Death shall find me ready.
Altarwise By Owl-Light
© Dylan Thomas
Altarwise by owl-light in the half-way house
The gentleman lay graveward with his furies;
The Trio
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
We love but once. The great gold orb of light
From dawn to even-tide doth cast his ray;
But the full splendor of his perfect might
Is reached but once throughout the livelong day.
At His Grave
© Alfred Austin
LEAVE me a little while alone,
Here at his grave that still is strown
With crumbling flower and wreath;
The laughing rivulet leaps and falls,
The thrush exults, the cuckoo calls,
And he lies hushd beneath.
Dead
© Lionel Pigot Johnson
IN Merioneth, over the sad moor
Drives the rain, the cold wind blows:
Past the ruinous church door,
The poor procession without music goes.
A Bronte Legend
© Lesbia Harford
They say she was a creature of the moor,
A lover of the angels, silence bound.
She sought no friendships. She was too remote,
Her sister Charlotte found.
Just Whistle A Bit
© Paul Laurence Dunbar
Just whistle a bit, if the day be dark,
And the sky be overcast:
If mute be the voice of the piping lark,
Why, pipe your own small blast.
Religion.
© Robert Crawford
Priests indeed may prate
This side o' death, but 'yond the bourne
Their service fails.
The Initiate
© Charles Simic
St. John of the Cross wore dark glasses
As he passed me on the street.
St. Theresa of Avila, beautiful and grave,
Turned her back on me.
Ode to Melancholy
© Thomas Hood
Come, let us set our careful breasts,
Like Philomel, against the thorn,
To aggravate the inward grief,
That makes her accents so forlorn;
