Death poems
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The Berg (A Dream)
© Herman Melville
I saw a ship of martial build(Her standards set, her brave apparel on)Directed as by madness mereAgainst a stolid iceberg steer,Nor budge it, though the infatuate ship went down
The Death of the Ox
© McLachlan Alexander
And thou art gone, my poor dumb friend! thy troubles all are past;A faithful friend thou wert indeed, e'en to the very last!And thou wert the prop of my house, my children's pride and pet,--Who now will help to free me from this weary load of debt?
Here, single-handed, in the bush I battled on for years,My heart sometimes buoyed up with hope, sometimes bowed down with fears
The Burial of the Rev. George Gilfillan
© William Topaz McGonagall
On the Gilfillan burial day,In the Hill o' Balgay,It was a most solemn sight to see,Not fewer than thirty thousand people assembled in Dundee,All watching the funeral procession of Gilfillan that day,That death had suddenly taken away,And was going to be buried in the Hill o' Balgay
There Is No Death
© McCreery John Luckey
There is no death! The stars go down To rise upon some other shore,And bright in heaven's jeweled crown They shine for evermore.
Waste
© John Masefield
No rose but fades: no glory but must pass:No hue but dims: no precious silk but frets.Her beauty must go underneath the grass,Under the long roots of the violets.
Vagabond
© John Masefield
Dunno a heap about the what an' why, Can't say's I ever knowed.Heaven to me's a fair blue stretch of sky, Earth's jest a dusty road.
[There is no God, as I was taught in youth...]
© John Masefield
There is no God, as I was taught in youth,Though each, according to his stature, buildsSome covered shrine for what he thinks the truth,Which day by day his reddest heart-blood gilds
The River
© John Masefield
All other waters have their time of peace.Calm, or the turn of tide or summer drought;But on these bars the tumults never cease,In violent death this river passes out.
[Let that which is to come be as it may...]
© John Masefield
Let that which is to come be as it may,Darkness, extinction, justice, life intenseThe flies are happy in the summer day,Flies will be happy many summers hence
Romeo and Juliet
© Marquis Donald Robert Perry
Pop Montague's old brain was wried Through all its convolutionsWith constant thoughts of Homicide And kindred institutions.
Protest of a Young Intellectual
© Marquis Donald Robert Perry
God never plucks me by the sleeve And begs for my advice,And since He doesn't all His works Leave me cold as ice.
Breath
© Marquis Donald Robert Perry
We are the shaken slaves of Breath:For logic leaves the race unstirred;But cadence, and the vibrant word,Are lords of life, are lords of death.
The Island
© Macpherson Jay
No man alone an island: weStand circled with a lapping sea.I break the ring and let you go:Above my head the waters flow.
Upton Wood
© MacDonald Wilson Pugsley
They hanged three men In Upton Wood:Three months on air Their feet have stood.
The Yellow Bittern
© MacDonagh Thomas
The yellow bittern that never broke out In a drinking bout, might as well have drunk;His bones are thrown on a naked stone Where he lived alone like a hermit monk
