Death poems
/ page 539 of 560 /
Cast Those Tares Away
© Gary R. Ferris
His servants saw something that caught their eye.
*****
They asked the Master, did You not plant wheat?
Night Tremors
© Gary R. Ferris
Satisfied with the thought, I did my best.
*****
Knowing that now, rest will soon come,
The Summit Redwood
© Robinson Jeffers
Only stand high a long enough time your lightning
will come; that is what blunts the peaks of
redwoods;
But this old tower of life on the hilltop has taken
Meditation On Saviors
© Robinson Jeffers
I
When I considered it too closely, when I wore it like an element
and smelt it like water,
Life is become less lovely, the net nearer than the skin, a
little troublesome, a little terrible.
To A Young Artist
© Robinson Jeffers
It is good for strength not to be merciful
To its own weakness, good for the deep urn to run
over, good to explore
The peaks and the deeps, who can endure it,
The Silent Shepherds
© Robinson Jeffers
What's the best life for a man?
--Never to have been born, sings the choros, and the next best
Is to die young. I saw the Sybil at Cumae
Hung in her cage over the public street--
Birth-Dues
© Robinson Jeffers
Joy is a trick in the air; pleasure is merely
contemptible, the dangled
Carrot the ass follows to market or precipice;
But limitary pain -- the rock under the tower
The Bed By The Window
© Robinson Jeffers
I chose the bed downstairs by the sea-window for a good death-bed
When we built the house, it is ready waiting,
Unused unless by some guest in a twelvemonth, who hardly suspects
Its latter purpose. I often regard it,
The Broken Balance
© Robinson Jeffers
I heard yesterday
So shrill and mournful a trumpet-blast,
It was hard to be wise.... You must eat change and endure; not be much troubled
For the people; they will have their happiness.
When the republic grows too heavy to endure, then Caesar will carry It;
When life grows hateful, there's power ...
Wise Men In Their Bad Hours
© Robinson Jeffers
Wise men in their bad hours have envied
The little people making merry like grasshoppers
In spots of sunlight, hardly thinking
Backward but never forward, and if they somehow
Contemplation Of The Sword
© Robinson Jeffers
Reason will not decide at last; the sword will decide.
The sword: an obsolete instrument of bronze or steel,
formerly used to kill men, but here
In the sense of a symbol. The sword: that is: the storms
Rock And Hawk
© Robinson Jeffers
Here is a symbol in which
Many high tragic thoughts
Watch their own eyes.
Vulture
© Robinson Jeffers
I had walked since dawn and lay down to rest on a bare hillside
Above the ocean. I saw through half-shut eyelids a vulture wheeling
high up in heaven,
And presently it passed again, but lower and nearer, its orbit
Suicide's Stone
© Robinson Jeffers
Peace is the heir of dead desire,
Whether abundance killed the cormorant
In a happy hour, or sleep or death
Drowned him deep in dreamy waters,
Peace is the ashes of that fire,
The heir of that king, the inn of that journey.
The Deer Lay Down Their Bones
© Robinson Jeffers
I followed the narrow cliffside trail half way up the mountain
Above the deep river-canyon. There was a little cataract crossed the path,
flinging itself
Over tree roots and rocks, shaking the jeweled fern-fronds, bright bubbling
The Purse-Seine
© Robinson Jeffers
Our sardine fishermen work at night in the dark
of the moon; daylight or moonlight
They could not tell where to spread the net,
unable to see the phosphorescence of the
Shiva
© Robinson Jeffers
There is a hawk that is picking the birds out of our sky,
She killed the pigeons of peace and security,
She has taken honesty and confidence from nations and men,
She is hunting the lonely heron of liberty.
Hurt Hawks
© Robinson Jeffers
No more to use the sky forever but live with famine
And pain a few days: cat nor coyote
Will shorten the week of waiting for death, there is game without talons.
Psalm XXXVI: High in the Heav'ns
© Isaac Watts
High in the heav'ns, eternal God,
Thy goodness in full glory shines;
Thy truth shall break through ev'ry cloud
That veils and darkens thy designs.
