Death poems
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My Papa's Waltz
© Theodore Roethke
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
To a Lady
© William Dunbar
SWEET rois of vertew and of gentilness,
Delytsum lily of everie lustynes,
Richest in bontie and in bewtie clear,
And everie vertew that is wenit dear,
Except onlie that ye are mercyless
Lament for the Makers
© William Dunbar
I THAT in heill was and gladness
Am trublit now with great sickness
And feblit with infirmitie:--
Timor Mortis conturbat me.
The Czar's Last Christmas Letter: A Barn in the Urals
© Norman Dubie
You were never told, Mother, how old Illyawas drunk
That last holiday, for five days and nightsHe stumbled through Petersburg forming
A choir of mutes, he dressed them in pink ascension gownsAnd, then, sold Father's Tirietz stallion so to rent
A hall for his Christmas recital: the audienceWas rowdy but Illya in his black robes turned on them
Keep Telling Me
© Desi Di Nardo
Its 12:34
And I hear them
Battering me with a foul message
The maddening interpretations
To Fr. Armando
© Regina Derieva
Everyone, after all, was killed:
he who was crucified,
he who died without skin,
he who died without a head,
From The Last Island: To Lady Elisabeth Verreet
© Regina Derieva
Oval mirror of the sea,
age-warped isle waved and cloudy,
each angle crystalline and salty.
my lens into reality.
The River Of Bees
© William Stanley Merwin
In a dream I returned to the river of bees
Five orange trees by the bridge and
Beside two mills my house
Into whose courtyard a blind man followed
The goats and stood singing
Of what was older
For The Anniversary Of My Death
© William Stanley Merwin
Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveller
Like the beam of a lightless star
Winter Heavens
© George Meredith
Sharp is the night, but stars with frost alive
Leap off the rim of earth across the dome.
It is a night to make the heavens our home
More than the nest whereto apace we strive.
Modern Love XLIII: Mark Where the Pressing Wind
© George Meredith
Mark where the pressing wind shoots javelin-like,
Its skeleton shadow on the broad-backed wave!
Here is a fitting spot to dig Love's grave;
Here where the ponderous breakers plunge and strike,
Modern Love XLII: I Am to Follow Her
© George Meredith
I am to follow her. There is much grace
In woman when thus bent on martyrdom.
They think that dignity of soul may come,
Perchance, with dignity of body. Base!
Modern Love XI: Out in the Yellow Meadows
© George Meredith
Out in the yellow meadows, where the bee
Hums by us with the honey of the Spring,
And showers of sweet notes from the larks on wing,
Are dropping like a noon-dew, wander we.
Modern Love VIII: Yet It Was Plain She Struggled
© George Meredith
Yet it was plain she struggled, and that salt
Of righteous feeling made her pitiful.
Poor twisting worm, so queenly beautiful!
Where came the cleft between us? whose the fault?
Meditation under Stars
© George Meredith
What links are ours with orbs that are
So resolutely far:
The solitary asks, and they
Give radiance as from a shield:
Love's Grave
© George Meredith
MARK where the pressing wind shoots javelin-like,
Its skeleton shadow on the broad-back'd wave!
Here is a fitting spot to dig Love's grave;
Here where the ponderous breakers plunge and strike,
Love in the Valley
© George Meredith
Under yonder beech-tree single on the green-sward,
Couched with her arms behind her golden head,
Knees and tresses folded to slip and ripple idly,
Lies my young love sleeping in the shade.
Upon the Book and Picture of the Seraphical Saint Teresa
© Richard Crashaw
O THOU undaunted daughter of desires!
By all thy dower of lights and fires;
By all the eagle in thee, all the dove;
By all thy lives and deaths of love;
A Hymn to the Name and Honour of the Admirable Saint Teresa
© Richard Crashaw
Farewell then, all the world, adieu!
Teresa is no more for you.
Farewell all pleasures, sports, and joys,
Never till now esteemed toys!
The Recommendation
© Richard Crashaw
These houres, and that which hovers ore my End,
Into thy hands, and hart, lord, I commend.Take Both to Thine Account, that I and mine
In that Hour, and in these, may be all thine.That as I dedicate my devoutest Breath
To make a kind of Life for my lords Death,So from his living, and life-giving Death,
