Death poems
/ page 416 of 560 /
Saturday Night in the Parthenon
© Kenneth Patchen
Tiny green birds skate over the surface of the room.
A naked girl prepares a basin with steaming water,
Dream Song 39: Goodbye, sir, & fare well. You're in the clear
© John Berryman
Goodbye, sir, & fare well. You're in the clear.
'Nobody' (Mark says you said) 'is ever found out.'
I figure you were right,
having as Henry got away with murder
for long. Some jarred clock tell me it's late,
not for you who went straight
Roan Stallion
© Robinson Jeffers
She rose at length, she unknotted the halter; she walked and led
the stallion; two figures, woman and stallion,
Came down the silent emptiness of the dome of the hill, under
the cataract of the moonlight.
The Legend of King Arthur
© Thomas Percy
Of Brutus' blood, in Brittaine borne,
King Arthur I am to name;
Through Christendome and Heathynesse
Well knowne is my worthy fame.
The Call Of The Christian
© John Greenleaf Whittier
Not always as the whirlwind's rush
On Horeb's mount of fear,
Genesis BK XIII
© Caedmon
The sleep of death and fiends' seduction; death and hell and
exile and damnation - these were the fatal fruit whereon they
feasted. And when the apple worked within him and touched his
heart, then laughed aloud the evilhearted fiend, capered about,
and gave thanks to his lord for both:
The Cloud's Swan-Song
© Francis Thompson
There is a parable in the pathless cloud,
There's prophecy in heaven,--they did not lie,
The Chaldee shepherds; seal-ed from the proud,
To cheer the weighted heart that mates the seeing eye.
At the Top of My voice
© Vladimir Mayakovsky
Professor,
take off your bicycle glasses!
I myself will expound
those times
and myself.
Poemes Saturniens - Prologue
© Paul Verlaine
The Sages of old time, well worth our own,
Believed--and it has been disproved by none--
To All and Everything
© Vladimir Mayakovsky
Above the capitals madness
I raised my face,
stern as the faces of ancient icons.
Sorrow-rent,
on your body as on a death-bed, its days
my heart ended.
Remords Posthume (Posthumous Remorse)
© Charles Baudelaire
Lorsque tu dormiras, ma belle ténébreuse,
Au fond d'un monument construit en marbre noir,
Et lorsque tu n'auras pour alcôve et manoir
Qu'un caveau pluvieux et qu'une fosse creuse;
One Of The Signers
© John Greenleaf Whittier
O storied vale of Merrimac
Rejoice through all thy shade and shine,
And from his century's sleep call back
A brave and honored son of thine.
The Bride of Frankenstein
© Edward Field
The Baron has decided to mate the monster,
to breed him perhaps,
in the interests of pure science, his only god.
Curse of the Cat Woman
© Edward Field
It sometimes happens
that the woman you meet and fall in love with
is of that strange Transylvanian people
with an affinity for cats.
Frankenstein
© Edward Field
The monster has escaped from the dungeon
where he was kept by the Baron,
who made him with knobs sticking out from each side of his neck
where the head was attached to the body
and stitching all over
where parts of cadavers were sewed together.
Forest Quiet
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
SO deep this sylvan silence, strange and sweet,
Its dryad-guardian, virginal Peace, can hear
The pulses of her own pure bosom beat;
Place for a Third
© Robert Frost
She gave it through the screen door closed between them:
"No, not with John. There wouldn't be no sense.
Eliza's had too many other men."
To Two Sisters - On The Death Of A Younger Sister
© Samuel Rogers
Well may you sit within, and, fond of grief,
Look in each other's face, and melt in tears;
Well may you shun all counsel, all relief -
Oh she was great in mind, tho' young in years!
On My Right
© Paul Celan
The Wandering-Sickles in extra-
heavenly Place
mime themselves grey-white
Moon-Swallows, together,
Star-Swifts,
II. The Pauper Witch of Grafton
© Robert Frost
Now that they've got it settled whose I be,
I'm going to tell them something they won't like:
They've got it settled wrong, and I can prove it.
Flattered I must be to have two towns fighting
