Death poems
/ page 504 of 560 /
The Shroud of Color
© Countee Cullen
There was a lesson here, but still the clod
In me was sycophant unto the rod,
And cried, "Why mock me thus?Am I a god?"
The Loss of Love
© Countee Cullen
The old house crumbles bit by bit;
Each day I hear the ominous thud
That says another rent is there
For winds to pierce and storms to flood.
That Bright Chimeric Beast
© Countee Cullen
There only shall the swish
Be heard of the regal fish;
There like a golden knife
Dart the feet of the unicorn,
And there, death brought to life,
The dead bird be reborn.
Saturday's Child
© Countee Cullen
Some are teethed on a silver spoon,
With the stars strung for a rattle;
I cut my teeth as the black racoon--
For implements of battle.
A Brown Girl Dead
© Countee Cullen
With two white roses on her breasts,
White candles at head and feet,
Dark Madonna of the grave she rests;
Lord Death has found her sweet.
Rosalind and Helen: a Modern Eclogue
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
ROSALIND
Thou lead, my sweet,
And I will follow.
From "Adonais," 49-52
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
49Go thou to Rome,--at once the Paradise,
The grave, the city, and the wilderness;
And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise,
And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress
A Summer Evening Churchyard, Lechlade, Gloucestershire
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
THE wind has swept from the wide atmosphere
Each vapour that obscured the sunset's ray,
And pallid Evening twines its beaming hair
In duskier braids around the languid eyes of Day:
Silence and Twilight, unbeloved of men,
Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen.
Queen Mab: Part VI (excerpts)
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
"Throughout these infinite orbs of mingling light,
Of which yon earth is one, is wide diffus'd
A Spirit of activity and life,
That knows no term, cessation, or decay;
Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
I weep for Adonais--he is dead!
Oh, weep for Adonais! though our tears
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!
And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years
Night
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
SWIFTLY walk o'er the western wave,
Spirit of Night!
Out of the misty eastern cave,--
Where, all the long and lone daylight,
Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
I
The everlasting universe of things
Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
Now dark--now glittering--now reflecting gloom--
Hellas
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
THE world's great age begins anew,
The golden years return,
The earth doth like a snake renew
Her winter weeds outworn;
Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.
Hymn Of Pan
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
FROM the forests and highlands
We come, we come;
From the river-girt islands,
Where loud waves are dumb
Julian and Maddalo (excerpt)
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
As thus I spoke
Servants announc'd the gondola, and we
Through the fast-falling rain and high-wrought sea
Sail'd to the island where the madhouse stands.
Lines Written Among The Euganean Hills
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
Many a green isle needs must be
In the deep wide sea of Misery,
Or the mariner, worn and wan,
Never thus could voyage on -
Epipsychidion (excerpt)
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
Emily,
A ship is floating in the harbour now,
A wind is hovering o'er the mountain's brow;
There is a path on the sea's azure floor,
Alastor: or, the Spirit of Solitude
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
Earth, Ocean, Air, belovèd brotherhood!
If our great Mother has imbued my soul
With aught of natural piety to feel
Your love, and recompense the boon with mine;
The Witch Of Atlas
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
Before those cruel twins whom at one birth
Incestuous Change bore to her father Time,
Error and Truth, had hunted from the earth
All those bright natures which adorned its prime,
From the Arabic, an Imitation
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
MY faint spirit was sitting in the light
Of thy looks, my love;
It panted for thee like the hind at noon
For the brooks, my love.
