Death poems
/ page 454 of 560 /
The Sign-Post
© Edward Thomas
The dim sea glints chill. The white sun is shy,
And the skeleton weeds and the never-dry,
Rough, long grasses keep white with frost
At the hill-top by the finger-post;
L. e. l.
© Christina Georgina Rossetti
'Whose heart was breaking for a little love.'
Downstairs I laugh, I sport and jest with all;
Sonnet XXXV. Life And Death. 7.
© Christopher Pearse Cranch
THE wish behind the thought is the soul's star
Of faith, and out of earth we build our heaven.
Life to each unschooled child of time has given
A fairy wand with which he thinks to unbar
Rain
© Edward Thomas
Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
Remembering again that I shall die
And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
Toys
© Margaret Widdemer
SHE loves the flowers, the wind that bends the fir;
When the Spring comes she dances; and her mirth
On Himself
© John Donne
My fortune and my choice this custom break,
When we are speechless grown to make stones speak.
Italy : 8. The Brothers
© Samuel Rogers
In the same hour the breath of life receiving,
They came together and were beautiful;
But, as they slumbered in their mother's lap,
How mournful was their beauty! She would sit,
The Swamp Angel
© Anonymous
Angels of good and ill are every where;
They haunt the city and the cottage lone;
Their seen or unseen presence fills the air,
And feels the stir of every laugh and moan.
William Street
© Kenneth Slessor
The red globe of light, the liquor green,
the pulsing arrows and the running fire
spilt on the stones, go deeper than a stream;
You find this ugly, I find it lovely
On Hearing Of A Death
© Rainer Maria Rilke
We lack all knowledge of this parting. Death
does not deal with us. We have no reason
to show death admiration, love or hate;
his mask of feigned tragic lament gives us
North Country
© Kenneth Slessor
North Country, filled with gesturing wood,
With trees that fence, like archers' volleys,
The flanks of hidden valleys
Where nothing's left to hide
Five Bells
© Kenneth Slessor
Deep and dissolving verticals of light
Ferry the falls of moonshine down. Five bells
Coldly rung out in a machine's voice. Night and water
Pour to one rip of darkness, the Harbour floats
In the air, the Cross hangs upside-down in water.
Wallace Ferguson
© Edgar Lee Masters
There at Geneva where Mt. Blanc floated above
The wine-hued lake like a cloud, when a breeze was blown
Out of an empty sky of blue, and the roaring Rhone
Hurried under the bridge through chasms of rock;
Brock: Valiant Leader
© John Daniel Logan
Lo, on the looming crown of that ascent
Where thy life ceased, a loyal host hath reared
To theewhose patriot heart was pure, nor feared,
A high commemorative monument!
Still is thy memory green who fell to save,
Still, Brock, art thou the bravest of our brave!
On Fayrford Windowes
© William Strode
I know no paynt of poetry
Can mend such colourd Imag'ry
In sullen inke: yet Fayrford, I
May relish thy fayre memory.
Ralph Rhodes
© Edgar Lee Masters
All they said was true:
I wrecked my father's bank with my loans
To dabble in wheat; but this was true --
I was buying wheat for him as well,
Elegy XX. He Compares His Humble Fortune With the Distress of Others
© William Shenstone
Why droops this heart with fancied woes forlorn?
Why sinks my soul beneath this wintry sky?
What pensive crowds, by ceaseless labours worn,
What myriads, wish to be as blessed as I!
Integrity
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
Immortal life is something to be earned,
By slow, self-conquest, comradeship with pain,
Ballad of Reading Gaol II
© Oscar Wilde
He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
And murdered in her bed.
