Death poems
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The Sphinx
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
Through a thousand voices
Spoke the universal dame
"Who telleth one of my meanings
Is master of all I am."
The Bell
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
I love thy music, mellow bell,
I love thine iron chime,
To life or death, to heaven or hell,
Which calls the sons of Time.
Dreaming of Li Po
© Tu Fu
After the separation of death one can eventually swallow back one's grief, but
the separation of the living is an endless, unappeasable anxiety. From
pestilent Chiang-nan no news arrives of the poor exile. That my old friend
should come into my dream shows how constantly he is in my thoughts. I fear
The Room
© Mark Strand
It is an old story, the way it happens
sometimes in winter, sometimes not.
The listener falls to sleep,
the doors to the closets of his unhappiness open
The Story Of Our Lives
© Mark Strand
1
We are reading the story of our lives
which takes place in a room.
The room looks out on a street.
The New Poetry Handbook
© Mark Strand
21 If a man finishes a poem,
he shall bathe in the blank wake of his passion
and be kissed by white paper.
The Two Devines
© Andrew Barton Paterson
'Twas a wether flock that had come to hand,
Great struggling brutes, that shearers shirk,
For the fleece was filled with the grass and sand,
And seventy sheep was a big day's work.
"At a pound a hundred it's dashed hard lines
To shear such sheep," said the two Devines.
The Hypnotist
© Andrew Barton Paterson
With dragging footsteps and downcast head
The hypnotiser went home to bed,
And since that very successful test
He has given the magic art a rest;
Had he tried the ladies, and worked it right,
What curious tales might have come to light!
On Kiley's Run
© Andrew Barton Paterson
The roving breezes come and go
On Kiley's Run,
The sleepy river murmurs low,
And far away one dimly sees
By the Grey Gulf-water
© Andrew Barton Paterson
Far to the Northward there lies a land,
A wonderful land that the winds blow over,
And none may fathom or understand
The charm it holds for the restless rover;
Saltbush Bill's Second Flight
© Andrew Barton Paterson
'Twas Saltbush Bill, and his travelling sheep were wending their weary way
On the Main Stock Route, through the Hard Times Run, on their six-mile stage a day;
And he strayed a mile from the Main Stock Route, and started to feed along,
And when Stingy Smith came up Bill said that the Route was surveyed wrong;
And he tried to prove that the sheep had rushed and strayed from their camp at night,
But the fighting man he kicked Bill's dog, and of course that meant a fight.
Rio Grande
© Andrew Barton Paterson
I dreamt last night I rode this race
That I today must ride,
And cantering down to take my place
I saw full many an old friends face
Come stealing to my side.
Rio Grande's Last Race
© Andrew Barton Paterson
Now this was what Macpherson told
While waiting in the stand;
A reckless rider, over-bold,
The only man with hands to hold
The rushing Rio Grande.
Hay and Hell and Booligal
© Andrew Barton Paterson
"No doubt it suits 'em very well
To say its worse than Hay or Hell,
But don't you heed their talk at all;
Of course, there's heat -- no one denies --
And sand and dust and stacks of flies,
And rabbits, too, at Booligal.
Song of the Future
© Andrew Barton Paterson
"I care for nothing, good nor bad,
My hopes are gone, my pleasures fled,
I am but sifting sand," he said:
What wonder Gordon's songs were sad!
How Gilbert Died
© Andrew Barton Paterson
They had taken toll of the country round,
And the troopers came behind
With a black who tracked like a human hound
In the scrub and the ranges blind:
He could run the trail where a white man's eye
No sign of track could find.
Hawker, the Standard Bearer
© Andrew Barton Paterson
"And the flag was a Jack with stars displayed,
A flag that is new to me;
For it does not ply in the Northern trade,
But it drove through the storm-wrack unafraid,
Now, what is that flag?" said he.
The Amateur Rider
© Andrew Barton Paterson
Yessir! the 'orse is all ready -- I wish you'd have rode him before;
Nothing like knowing your 'orse, sir, and this chap's a terror to bore;
Battleaxe always could pull, and he rushes his fences like fun --
Stands off his jump twenty feet, and then springs like a shot from a gun.
The Boss of the Admiral Lynch
© Andrew Barton Paterson
Did you ever hear tell of Chili? I was readin' the other day
Of President Balmaceda and of how he was sent away.
It seems that he didn't suit 'em -- they thought that they'd like a change,
So they started an insurrection and chased him across the range.
Buffalo Country
© Andrew Barton Paterson
Out where the grey streams glide,
Sullen and deep and slow,
And the alligators slide
From the mud to the depths below
