Death poems
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Auguries Of Innocence
© William Blake
To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
The Chimney-Sweeper (Experience)
© William Blake
A little black thing among the snow:
Crying weep, weep, in notes of woe!
Where are thy father & mother? say?
They are both gone up to the church to pray.
Yarner
© Graham Burchell
Many divert to watch me. Threatened,
they pause, cut short their song, stop
feeding, mating, working the cycle
of dispersion, growth and decay.
Someone Is Harshly Coughing As Before
© Delmore Schwartz
But it is God, who has caught cold again,
Wandering helplessly in the world once more,
Now he is phthisic, and he is, poor Keats
(Pardon, O Father, unknowable Dear, this word,
Only the cartoon is lucid, only the curse is heard),
Longing for Eden, afraid of the coming war.
Saint, Revolutionist
© Delmore Schwartz
Saint, revolutionist,
God and sage know well,
That there is a place
Where that much-rung bell,
Words For A Trumpet Chorale Celebrating The Autumn
© Delmore Schwartz
Come and come forth and come up from the cup of
Your dumbness, stunned and numb, come with
The statues and believed in,
Thinking this is nothing, deceived.
Socrates Ghost Must Haunt Me Now
© Delmore Schwartz
Socrates ghost must haunt me now,
Notorious death has let him go,
He comes to me with a clumsy bow,
Saying in his disused voice,
Prothalamion
© Delmore Schwartz
"little soul, little flirting,
little perverse one
where are you off to now?
little wan one, firm one
little exposed one...
and never make fun of me again."
Sonnet: O City, City
© Delmore Schwartz
Whence, if ever, shall come the actuality
Of a voice speaking the mind's knowing,
The sunlight bright on the green windowshade,
And the self articulate, affectionate, and flowing,
Ease, warmth, light, the utter showing,
When in the white bed all things are made.
He Knows All There Is To Know. Now He Is Acquainted With The Day And Night
© Delmore Schwartz
Whose wood this is I think I know:
He made it sacred long ago:
He will expect me, far or near
To watch that wood immense with snow.
This Is A Poem I Wrote At Night, Before The Dawn
© Delmore Schwartz
This is a poem I wrote before I died and was reborn:
- After the years of the apples ripening and the eagles
soaring,
After the festival here the small flowers gleamed like the
Tired And Unhappy, You Think Of Houses
© Delmore Schwartz
Tired and unhappy, you think of houses
Soft-carpeted and warm in the December evening,
While snow's white pieces fall past the window,
And the orange firelight leaps.
Apollo Musagete, Poetry, And The Leader Of The Muses
© Delmore Schwartz
O the endless fecundity of poetry is equaled
By its endless inexhaustible freshness, as in the discovery
of America and of poetry.
Sonnet On Famous And Familiar Sonnets And Experiences
© Delmore Schwartz
When I but think of how her years are spent
Deadening that one talent which -- for woman is --
Death or paralysis, denied: nature's intent
That each girl be a mother -- whether or not she is
Or has become a lawful wife or bride
-- 0 Alma Magna Mater, deathless the living death of pride.
Phoenix Lyrics
© Delmore Schwartz
Purple black cloud at sunset: it is late August
and the light begins to look cold, and as we look,
listen and look, we hear the first drums of autumn.
To Helen
© Delmore Schwartz
O Sea! ... 'Tis I, risen from death once more
To hear the waves' harmonious roar
And see the galleys, sharp, in dawn's great awe
Raised from the dark by the rising and gold oar.
The Poet
© Delmore Schwartz
The riches of the poet are equal to his poetry
His power is his left hand
It is idle weak and precious
His poverty is his wealth, a wealth which may destroy him
All Night, All Night
© Delmore Schwartz
Looked out at the night, unable to distinguish
Lights in the towns of passage from the yellow lights
Numb on the ceiling. And the bird flew parallel and still
As the train shot forth the straight line of its whistle,
Forward on the taut tracks, piercing empty, familiar --
A Dream Of Whitman Paraphrased, Recognized And Made More Vivid By Renoir
© Delmore Schwartz
Twenty-eight naked young women bathed by the shore
Or near the bank of a woodland lake
Twenty-eight girls and all of them comely
Worthy of Mack Sennett's camera and Florenz Ziegfield's
Foolish Follies.
