Death poems
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The First Part: Sonnet 2 - I know that all beneath the moon decays
© William Henry Drummond
I know that all beneath the moon decays
And what by mortals in this world is brought,
The Second Hymn Of Callimachus. To Apollo
© Matthew Prior
Hah! how the laurel, great Apollo's tree,
And all the cavern shakes! Far off, far off,
Time's Defeat
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
Time has made conquest of so many things
That once were mine. Swift-footed, eager youth
That ran to meet the years; bold brigand health,
That broke all laws of reason unafraid,
And laughed at talk of punishment. Close ties
This Morning
© Raymond Carver
This morning was something. A little snow
lay on the ground. The sun floated in a clear
Moses On The Nile
© Victor Marie Hugo
"Sisters! the wave is freshest in the ray
Of the young morning; the reapers are asleep;
The One Certain Thing by Peter Cooley : American Life in Poetry #268 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate
© Ted Kooser
If writers are both skilled and lucky, they may write something that will carry their words into the future, past the hour of their own deaths. I’d guess all writers hope for this, and the following poem by Peter Cooley, who lives in New Orleans and teaches creative writing at Tulane, beautifully expresses his hope, and theirs.
The One Certain Thing
A day will come I’ll watch you reading this.
Moore
© Denis Florence MacCarthy
He sings the heroic tales of old
When Ireland yet was free,
Of many a fight and foray bold,
And raid beyond the sea.
The Pole Of Death. In Memory Of Sidney Lanier.
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
HOW solemnly on mournful eyes
The mystic warning rose,
While o'er the Singer's forehead lies
A twilight of repose.
A Lost Chord
© Adelaide Anne Procter
SEATED one day at the Organ,
I was weary and ill at ease,
And my fingers wandered idly
Over the noisy keys.
On The Medusa Of Leonardo da Vinci In The Florentine Gallery
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
I.
It lieth, gazing on the midnight sky,
Upon the cloudy mountain-peak supine;
Below, far lands are seen tremblingly;
War And PeaceA Poem
© Felicia Dorothea Hemans
Thou, whose lov'd presence and benignant smile
Has beam'd effulgence on this favour'd isle;
Thou! the fair seraph, in immortal state,
Thron'd on the rainbow, heaven's emblazon'd gate;
Thou! whose mild whispers in the summer-breeze
Control the storm, and undulate the seas;
January
© Hilaire Belloc
The undefeated enemy, the chill
That shall benumb the voiceful earth at last,
Is master of our moment, and has bound
The viewless wind it-self. There is no sound.
It freezes. Every friendly stream is fast.
It freezes; and the graven twigs are still.
The Wrongs Of Africa: Part The Second
© William Roscoe
FAIR is this fertile spot, which God assign'd
As man's terrestrial home; where every charm
The Hunting Of The Dragon
© Gilbert Keith Chesterton
When we went hunting the Dragon
In the days when we were young,
The Bell-Founder Part I - Labour And Hope
© Denis Florence MacCarthy
In that land where the heaven-tinted pencil giveth shape to the
splendour of dreams,
Near Florence, the fairest of cities, and Arno, the sweetest of streams,
'Neath those hills whence the race of the Geraldine wandered in ages
The Haunted Room
© Madison Julius Cawein
Its casements' diamond disks of glass
Stare myriad on a terrace old,
Doom Of Exiles
© Sylvia Plath
Now we, returning from the vaulted domes
Of our colossal sleep, come home to find
A tall metropolis of catacombs
Erected down the gangways of our mind.
