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death poems
Classic, Contemporary, Witty, Serious, Tear-Jerking, Wise, Profound, Angry, Funny, Spiritual, Atheistic, Uncertain, Personal, Political, Mythic, Earthy, and Only Occasionally Morbid
By Russ Kick Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC
Copyright © 2013 Russ Kick
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-938875-04-5
CHAPTER 1
the nature of death
In which the poets reflect on what death is, meditate on why it happens, and pontificate on what it means to us
From "Song of Myself"
WALT WHITMAN
I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men
and women, And the hints about old men and mothers, and the
offspring taken soon out of their laps.
What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?
They are alive and well somewhere,
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end
to arrest it,
And ceas'd the moment life appear'd.
All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
* * *
Death the Leveller
JAMES SHIRLEY
The glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against fate;
Death lays his icy hand on kings:
Sceptre and Crown
Must tumble down,
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crookèd scythe and spade.
Some men with swords may reap the field,
And plant fresh laurels where they kill:
But their strong nerves at last must yield;
They tame but one another still:
Early or late
They stoop to fate,
And must give up their murmuring breath,
When they, pale captives, creep to death.
The garlands wither on your brow;
Then boast no more your mighty deeds;
Upon Death's purple altar now
See, where the victor-victim bleeds:
Your heads must come
To the cold tomb;
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet, and blossom in their dust.
* * *
Dirge
ALFRED KREYMBORG
Death alone
has sympathy for weariness:
understanding
of the ways
of mathematics:
of the struggle
against giving up what was given:
the plus one minus one
of nitrogen for oxygen:
and the unequal odds,
you a cell
against the universe,
a breath or two
against all time:
Death alone
takes what is left
without protest, criticism
or a demand for more
than one can give
who can give
no more than was given:
doesn't even ask,
but accepts it as it is,
without examination,
valuation,
or comparison.
* * *
Poets Have Chanted Mortality
JOHN CROWE RANSOM
It had better been hidden
But the Poets inform:
We are chattel and liege
Of an undying Worm.
Were you, Will, disheartened,
When all Stratford's gentry
Left their Queen and took service
In his low-lying country?
How many white cities
And grey fleets on the storm
Have proud-builded, hard-battled,
For this undying Worm?
Was a sweet chaste lady
Would none of her lover.
Nay, here comes the Lewd One,
Creeps under her cover!
Have ye said there's no deathless
Of face, fashion, form,
Forgetting to honor
The extent of the Worm?
O ye laughers and light-lipped,
Ye faithless, infirm,
I can tell you who's constant,
'Tis the Eminent Worm.
Ye shall trip on no limits,
Neither time ye your term,
In the realms of His Absolute
Highness the Worm.
* * *
Death Is a Fisherman
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (ATTRIBUTED)
Death is a fisherman, the world we see
His fish-pond is, and we the fishes be;
His net some general sickness; howe'er he
Is not so kind as other fishers be;
For if they take one of the smaller fry,
They throw him in again, he shall not die:
But death is sure to kill all he can get,
And all is fish with him that comes to net.
* * *
Death Snips Proud Men
CARL SANDBURG
Death is stronger than all the governments because the governments are men and men die and then death laughs: Now you see 'em, now you don't.
Death is stronger than all proud men and so death snips proud men on the nose, throws a pair of dice and says: Read 'em and weep.
Death sends a radiogram every day: When I want you I'll drop in—and then one day he comes with a master-key and lets himself in and says: We'll go now.
Death is a nurse mother with big arms: 'Twon't hurt you at all; it's your time now; just need a long sleep, child; what have you had anyhow better than sleep?
* * *
On Death, Without Exaggeration
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA
It can't take a joke,
find a star, make a bridge.
It knows nothing about weaving, mining, farming,
building ships, or baking cakes.
In our planning for tomorrow,
it has the final word,
which is always beside the point.
It can't even get the things done
that are part of its trade:
dig a grave,
make a coffin,
clean up after itself.
Preoccupied with killing,
it does the job awkwardly,
without system or skill.
As though each of us were its first kill.
Oh, it has its triumphs,
but look at its countless defeats,
missed blows,
and repeat attempts!
Sometimes it isn't strong enough
to swat a fly from the air.
Many are the caterpillars
that have outcrawled it.
All those bulbs, pods,
tentacles, fins, tracheae,
nuptial plumage, and winter fur
show that it has fallen behind
with its halfhearted work.
Ill will won't help
and even our lending a hand with wars and coups d'état
is so far not enough.
Hearts beat inside eggs.
Babies' skeletons grow.
Seeds, hard at work, sprout their first tiny pair of leaves
and sometimes even tall trees fall away.
Whoever claims that it's omnipotent
is himself living proof
that it's not.
There's no life
that couldn't be immortal
if only for a moment.
Death
always arrives by that very moment too late.
In vain it tugs at the knob
of the invisible door.
As far as you've come
can't be undone.
Translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baraczak and Clare Cavanagh
* * *
That Morning
STANLEY MOSS
I got up a little after daybreak:
I saw a Luna Moth had fallen
between the window and a torn screen.
I lifted the window, the wings broke
on the floor, became green and silver powder.
My eyes followed green, as if all green
was a single web, past the Lombardy poplars,
and the lilac hedge leading to the back road.
I can believe the world
might have been the color of hide or driftwood,
but there was—and is—the gift of green,
and a second gift we can perceive the green,
although we are often blind to miracles.
There was no resurrection of green and silver wings.
They became a blue stain on an oak floor.
I wish I had done something ordinary,
performed an unknown, unseen miracle,
raised the window the night before,
let the chill November air come in.
I cannot help remembering
e.e. cummings' wife said, hearing him
choking to death in the next room,
she thought she heard moths on the window screen
attracted to the nightlight in his study.
Reader, my head is not a gravestone.
It's just that a dead poet and a Luna Moth
alighted. Mr. Death, you're not a stone wall.
You're more like a chain-link fence
I can see through to the other side. There's the rub:
You are a democracy, the land of opportunity,
the Patria. Some say you are a picnic.
Are there any gate-crashers beside the barbecue?
I'm afraid every living and once-living thing
will be asked to leave again.
The first death is just playtime.
There is a DEAD END beyond darkness
where everyone and every thing tries to turn around.
Every thing that ever lived sounds its horn.
And you, Mr. Death, are just a traffic cop.
* * *
"Death is a dialogue between"
EMILY DICKINSON
Death is a dialogue between
The spirit and the dust.
"Dissolve," says Death. The Spirit, "Sir,
I have another trust."
Death doubts it, argues from the ground.
The Spirit turns away,
Just laying off, for evidence,
An overcoat of clay.
* * *
Death
GEORGE PELLEW
Calm Death, God of crossed hands and passionless eyes,
Thou God that never heedest gift nor prayer,
Men blindly call thee cruel, unaware
That everything is dearer since it dies.
Worn by the chain of years, without surprise,
The wise man welcomes thee, and leaves the glare
Of noisy sunshine gladly, and his share
He chose not in mad life and windy skies.
Passions and dreams of love, the fever and fret
Of toil, seem vain and petty when we gaze
On the imperious Lords who have no breath:
Atoms or worlds—we call them lifeless, yet
In thy unending peaceful day of days
They are divine, all-comprehending Death.
* * *
Faded Love
BARRY GIFFORD
I am surrounded by death
it happens to everyone
all the time
Some people try not to notice
not me I've always known this
and paid attention
Nobody forces me to go on
I know what this means
one day I won't pay attention
and nobody will notice
* * *
From Queen Mab
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
How wonderful is Death,
Death, and his brother Sleep!
One, pale as yonder waning moon
With lips of lurid blue;
The other, rosy as the morn
When throned on ocean's wave
It blushes o'er the world;
Yet both so passing wonderful!
* * *
Morphine
HEINRICH HEINE
Great is the similarity between
These two fair figures, although one appears
Much paler than the other, far more calm;
Fairer and nobler even, I might say,
Than his companion, in whose arms
I lay so warmly. How divine and soft
Were all his smiles, and what a look was his!
It must have been the poppy-wreath he wore
About his brows that touched my throbbing head
And with its magic perfume soothed all pain
And sorrow in my soul ... But such sweet balm
Lasts but a little while; I can be cured
Completely only when the other one,
The grave and paler brother, drops his torch.
For Sleep is good, but Death is better still—
The best is never to be born at all.
Translated from the German by Louis Untermeyer
* * *
On Death
JOHN KEATS
Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream,
And scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by?
The transient pleasures as a vision seem,
And yet we think the greatest pain's to die.
How strange it is that man on earth should roam,
And lead a life of woe, but not forsake
His rugged path; nor dare he view alone
His future doom which is but to awake.
* * *
Sleep and His Brother Death
WILLIAM HAMILTON HAYNE
Just ere the darkness is withdrawn,
In seasons of cold or heat,
Close to the boundary line of Dawn
These mystical brothers meet.
They clasp their weird and shadowy hands,
As they listen each to each,
But never a mortal understands
Their strange immortal speech.
* * *
From The Faerie Queene
EDMUND SPENSER
For all that lives, is subject to that law:
All things decay in time, and to their end do draw.
* * *
"Were I a King"
EDWARD VERE, EARL OF OXFORD
Were I a King, I might command content;
Were I obscure, unknown should be my cares;
And were I dead, no thoughts should me torment,—
Nor words, nor wrongs, nor love, nor hate, nor fears!
A doubtful choice for me, of three things, one to crave:
A Kingdom, or a Cottage, or a Grave!
* * *
Death the Consecrator
CAROLINE SPENCER
O Death, the Consecrator!
Nothing so sanctifies a name
As to be written—Dead.
Nothing so wins a life from blame,
So covers it from wrath and shame,
As doth the burial-bed.
O Death, the revelator!
Our deepest passions never move
Till thou hast bid them wake;
We know not half how much we love
Till all below and all above
Is shrouded for our sake.
O Death, the great peacemaker!
If enmity hath come between
There's naught like death to heal it;
And if we love, O priceless pain,
O bitter-sweet, when love is vain!
There's naught like death to seal it.
* * *
"O Death the Healer"
AESCHYLUS
O Death the Healer, scorn thou not, I pray,
To come to me: of cureless ills thou art
The one physician. Pain lays not its touch
Upon a corpse.
Translated from the Greek by E.H. Plumptre
* * *
From "Mortality"
WILLIAM KNOX
O why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a fast-flitting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
He passes from life to his rest in the grave.
The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
Be scattered around, and together be laid;
And the young and the old, and the low and the high,
Shall moulder to dust, and together shall lie.
The child that a mother attended and loved,
The mother that infant's affection that proved;
The husband that mother and infant that blessed,
Each, all, are away to their dwelling of rest.
The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,
Shone beauty and pleasure,—her triumphs are by;
And the memory of those that beloved her and praised
Are alike from the minds of the living erased.
The hand of the king that the scepter hath borne,
The brow of the priest that the miter hath worn,
The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave,
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.
The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap,
The herdsman who climbed with his goats to the steep,
The beggar that wandered in search of his bread,
Have faded away like the grass that we tread.
The saint that enjoyed the communion of heaven,
The sinner that dared to remain unforgiven,
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,
Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.
So the multitude goes, like the flower and the weed
That wither away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes, even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that hath often been told.
* * *
"A Very Ancient Ode" (from Japanese Literature)
ANONYMOUS
Mountains and ocean-waves
Around me lie;
Forever the mountain-chains
Tower to the sky;
Fixed is the ocean
Immutably:—
Man is a thing of nought,
Born but to die!
Translated from the Japanese by Epiphanius Wilson
* * *
From "Thanatopsis"
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix for ever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings,
The powerful of the earth—the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,—the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods—rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste,—
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from death poems by Russ Kick. Copyright © 2013 Russ Kick. Excerpted by permission of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.
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