Death poems
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The Last Toast
© Anna Akhmatova
I drink to home, that is lost,
To evil life of mine,
To loneness in which were both,
And to your future, fine, --
The Dream of Man
© William Watson
To the eye and the ear of the Dreamer
This Dream out of darkness flew,
Through the horn or the ivory portal,
But he wist not which of the two.
Sailing Home From Rapallo
© Robert Lowell
[February 1954]
Your nurse could only speak Italian,
but after twenty minutes I could imagine your final week,
and tears ran down my cheeks....
Sonnet XLII: Oh! Canst Thou Bear
© Mary Darby Robinson
Oh! can'st thou bear to see this faded frame,
Deform'd and mangled by the rocky deep?
Wilt thou remember, and forbear to weep,
My fatal fondness, and my peerless fame?
The Gallant Peter Clarke
© Anonymous
On Walden's Range at morning time
The sun shone brightly down;
It shone across the winding Page
Near Murrurundi town.
May, 1917
© John Jay Chapman
THE earth is damp: in everything
I taste the bitter breath of pallid spring.
Ode To Sleep
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
With a gray fleetness, moaning the dead day;
The wings of Silence overfolding space,
Droop with dusk grandeur from the heavenly steep,
And through the stillness gleams thy starry face,
Serenest Angel--Sleep!
A Passing Hail
© James Whitcomb Riley
Let us rest ourselves a bit!
Worry?- wave your hand to it -
Kiss your finger-tips and smile
It farewell a little while.
Sonnet II: High on a Rock
© Mary Darby Robinson
High on a rock, coaeval with the skies,
A Temple stands, rear'd by immortal pow'rs
To Chastity divine! ambrosial flow'rs
Twining round icicles, in columns rise,
Poor Marguerite
© Mary Darby Robinson
She felt the wintry blast of night,
And smil'd to see the morning light,
For then she cried, "I soon shall meet
"The plighted love of MARGUERITE."
Pastoral Stanzas
© Mary Darby Robinson
WHEN AURORA'S soft blushes o'erspread the blue hill,
And the mist dies away at the glances of morn;
When the birds join the music that floats on the rill,
And the beauties of spring the young woodlands adorn.
Ode to Valour
© Mary Darby Robinson
Inscribed to Colonel Banastre Tarleton]
TRANSCENDENT VALOUR! godlike Pow'r!
Lord of the dauntless breast, and stedfast mien!
Who, rob'd in majesty sublime,
Anactoria
© Algernon Charles Swinburne
MY LIFE is bitter with thy love; thine eyes
Blind me, thy tresses burn me, thy sharp sighs
Ode to the Moon
© Mary Darby Robinson
PALE GODDESS of the witching hour;
Blest Contemplation's placid friend;
Oft in my solitary bow'r,
I mark thy lucid beam
From thy crystal car descend,
Whitening the spangled heath, and limpid sapphire stream.
"Brave Schill! By Death Delivered"
© William Wordsworth
BRAVE Schill! by death delivered, take thy flight
From Prussia's timid region. Go, and rest
Ode to Meditation
© Mary Darby Robinson
SWEET CHILD OF REASON! maid serene;
With folded arms, and pensive mien,
Who wand'ring near yon thorny wild,
So oft, my length'ning hours beguil'd;
Ode to Health
© Mary Darby Robinson
O, mem'ry! busy barb'rous foe,
At thy fell touch I wake to woe:
Alas! the flatt'ring dream is o'er,
From thee the bright illusions fly,
Thou bidst the glitt'ring phantoms die,
And hope, and youth, and fancy, charm no more.
Ode to Envy
© Mary Darby Robinson
Deep in th' abyss where frantic horror bides,
In thickest mists of vapours fell,
Where wily Serpents hissing glare
And the dark Demon of Revenge resides,
Haunted
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
What are these nameless mysteries,
These subtleties of life and death,
That bring before our spirit eyes
The loved and lost; or, like a breath
Of lightest air, will touch the cheek,
And yet a wordless language speak?
