Death poems
/ page 469 of 560 /
We Are The Choice Of The Will
© William Ernest Henley
We tracked the winds of the world to the steps of their very
thrones;
The secret parts of the world were salted with our bones;
The Wanderer: A Vision: Canto I
© Richard Savage
The solar fires now faint and wat'ry burn,
Just where with ice Aquarius frets his urn!
If thaw'd, forth issue, from its mouth severe,
Raw clouds, that sadden all th' inverted year.
Hudibras: Part 2 - Canto III
© Samuel Butler
Doubtless the pleasure is as great
Of being cheated as to cheat;
As lookers-on feel most delight,
That least perceive a jugler's slight;
And still the less they understand,
The more th' admire his slight of hand.
Behind The Gates Of The Wealthy
© Du Fu
Behind the gates of the wealthy
food lies rotting from waste
Outside it's the poor
who lie frozen to death
Night Is On The Downland
© John Masefield
Night is on the downland, on the lonely moorland,
On the hills where the wind goes over sheep-bitten turf,
Where the bent grass beats upon the unplowed poorland
And the pine-woods roar like the surf.
The Sea-Child
© Eliza Cook
HE crawls to the cliff and plays on a brink
Where every eye but his own would shrink;
No music he hears but the billows noise,
And shells and weeds are his only toys.
The Quiet Eye
© Eliza Cook
THE ORB I like is not the one
That dazzles with its lightning gleam;
That dares to look upon the sun,
As though it challenged brighter beam.
Visions for the Entertainment and Instruction of Younger Minds: Happiness
© Nathaniel Cotton
Ye ductile youths, whose rising sun
Hath many circles still to run;
December 27, 1879
© George MacDonald
Every time would have its song
If the heart were right,
Seeing Love all tender-strong
Fills the day and night.
The Ambush
© Nimah Nawwab
He watched the old movie unfold,
The head-covered man bashing his van into a building,
Nodding his head: Yes another one, they are terrorists,
The calm way he uttered those words
The look in his young eyes,
Made me ache.
"Cease smilng, Dear! a little while be sad "
© Ernest Christopher Dowson
Cease smiling, Dear! a little while be sad,
Here in the silence, under the wan moon;
Sweet are thine eyes, but how can I be glad,
Knowing they change so soon?
On The Death Of President Garfield
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
I SEE the Nation, as in antique ages,
Crouched with rent robes, and ashes on her head:
Her mournful eyes are deep with dark presages,
Her soul is haunted by a formless dread!
The Voices
© John Greenleaf Whittier
"WHY urge the long, unequal fight,
Since Truth has fallen in the street,
Or lift anew the trampled light,
Quenched by the heedless million's feet?
December 14
© David Lehman
This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere,
The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
That never touch with inarticulate pang
With Tenure
© David Lehman
If Ezra Pound were alive today
(and he is)
he'd be teaching
at a small college in the Pacific Northwest
Shake The Superflux!
© David Lehman
I like walking on streets as black and wet as this one
now, at two in the solemnly musical morning, when everyone else
in this town emptied of Lestrygonians and Lotus-eaters
is asleep or trying or worrying why
The Body of Divinity Versifyed
© Cotton Mather
A God there is, a God of boundless Might,
In Wisdom, Justice, Goodness, Infinite.
Will
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,
Can circumvent or hinder or control
The firm resolve of a determined soul.
Gifts count for nothing; will alone is great;
Book Sixth [Cambridge and the Alps]
© William Wordsworth
A passing word erewhile did lightly touch
On wanderings of my own, that now embraced
With livelier hope a region wider far.
Fifth Amendment
© David Lehman
The fear of perjuring herself turned into a tacit
Admission of her guilt. Yet she had the skill
And the luck to elude her implacable pursuers.
God was everywhere like a faceless guard in a gallery.
