Death poems
/ page 501 of 560 /
The Gardener LXI: Peace, My Heart
© Rabindranath Tagore
Peace, my heart, let the time for
the parting be sweet.
Let it not be a death but completeness.
Let love melt into memory and pain
The Beginning
© Rabindranath Tagore
"Where have I come from, where did you pick me up?" the baby asked
its mother.
She answered, half crying, half laughing, and clasping the
baby to her breast-
Stream Of Life
© Rabindranath Tagore
It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.
Seashore
© Rabindranath Tagore
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.
The infinite sky is motionless overhead
and the restless water is boisterous.
On the seashore of endless worlds
the children meet with shouts and dances.
On the Seashore
© Rabindranath Tagore
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.
The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances.
They build their houses with sand, and they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float them on the vast deep. Children have their play on the seashore of worlds.
They know not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets. Pearl-fishers dive for pearls, merchants sail in their ships, while children gather pebbles and scatter them again. They seek not for hidden treasures, they know not how to cast nets.
The sea surges up with laughter, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach. Death-dealing waves sing meaningless ballads to the children, even like a mother while rocking her baby's cradle. The sea plays with children, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach.
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in the pathless sky, ships are wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad and children play. On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meeting of children.
Old And New
© Rabindranath Tagore
Thou hast made me known to friends whom I knew not.
Thou hast given me seats in homes not my own.
Thou hast brought the distant near and made a brother of the stranger.
Ocean of Forms
© Rabindranath Tagore
Into the audience hall by the fathomless abyss
where swells up the music of toneless strings
I shall take this harp of my life.
My Song
© Rabindranath Tagore
This song of mine will wind its music around you, my child, like
the fond arms of love.
This song of mine will touch your forehead like a kiss of
blessing.
Lover's Gifts XLIV: Where Is Heaven
© Rabindranath Tagore
Where is heaven? you ask me, my child,-the sages tell us it is
beyond the limits of birth and death, unswayed by the rhythm of day
and night; it is not of the earth.
But your poet knows that its eternal hunger is for time and
Lover's Gifts XLIII: Dying, You Have Left Behind
© Rabindranath Tagore
Dying, you have left behind you the great sadness of the Eternal
in my life. You have painted my thought's horizon with the sunset
colours of your departure, leaving a track of tears across the
earth to love's heaven. Clasped in your dear arms, life and death
Lover's Gifts XLII: Are You a Mere Picture
© Rabindranath Tagore
Are you a mere picture, and not as true as those stars, true as
this dust? They throb with the pulse of things, but you are
immensely aloof in your stillness, painted form.
The day was when you walked with me, your breath warm, your
Lover's Gifts XL: A Message Came
© Rabindranath Tagore
A message came from my youth of vanished days, saying, " I wait for
you among the quivering of unborn May, where smiles ripen for tears
and hours ache with songs unsung."
It says, "Come to me across the worn-out track of age, through
Lover's Gifts LIV: In the Beginning of Time
© Rabindranath Tagore
In the beginning of time, there rose from the churning of God's
dream two women. One is the dancer at the court of paradise, the
desired of men, she who laughs and plucks the minds of the wise
from their cold meditations and of fools from their emptiness; and
Lover's Gifts LII: Tired of Waiting
© Rabindranath Tagore
Tired of waiting, you burst your bonds, impatient flowers, before
the winter had gone. Glimpses of the unseen comer reached your
wayside watch, and you rushed out running and panting, impulsive
jasmines, troops of riotous roses.
Last Curtain
© Rabindranath Tagore
I know that the day will come
when my sight of this earth shall be lost,
and life will take its leave in silence,
drawing the last curtain over my eyes.
To Silvia
© Giacomo Leopardi
Silvia, do you remember
the moments, in your mortal life,
when beauty still shone
in your sidelong, laughing eyes,
To Himself
© Giacomo Leopardi
Now will you rest forever,
My tired heart. Dead is the last
deception,
That I thought eternal. Dead. Well I
Quarantine
© Eavan Boland
In the worst hour of the worst season
of the worst year of a whole people
a man set out from the workhouse with his wife.
He was walking-they were both walking-north.
When Death to Either shall come
© Robert Seymour Bridges
When Death to either shall come,
I pray it be first to me,
Be happy as ever at home,
If so, as I wish, it be.
The Growth of Love
© Robert Seymour Bridges
So in despite of sorrow lately learn'd
I still hold true to truth since thou art true,
Nor wail the woe which thou to joy hast turn'd
Nor come the heavenly sun and bathing blue
To my life's need more splendid and unearn'd
Than hath thy gift outmatch'd desire and due.
