Last Words

Related poetry:

1. Sonnet XXI: Your Words, My Friend Your words, my friend, (right healthful caustics) blame My young mind marr’d, whom Love doth windlass so, That mine own writings like bad servants show My wits, quick in vain thoughts, in virtue lame; That Plato I read for nought, but if he tame Such doltish gyres; that to my birth I owe Nobler desires, […]...
2. Longevity Said Brown: ‘I can’t afford to die For I have bought annuity, And every day of living I Have money coming in to me: While others toil to make their bread I make mine by not being dead.’ Said Jones: ‘I can’t afford to die, For I have books and books to write. I do […]...
3. On No Work Of Words On no work of words now for three lean months in the bloody Belly of the rich year and the big purse of my body I bitterly take to task my poverty and craft: To take to give is all, return what is hungrily given Puffing the pounds of manna up through the dew to […]...
4. Words Out of us all That make rhymes Will you choose Sometimes – As the winds use A crack in a wall Or a drain, Their joy or their pain To whistle through – Choose me, You English words? I know you: You are light as dreams, Tough as oak, Precious as gold, As poppies and […]...
5. The Words Of Error Three errors there are, that forever are found On the lips of the good, on the lips of the best; But empty their meaning and hollow their sound And slight is the comfort they bring to the breast. The fruits of existence escape from the clasp Of the seeker who strives but those shadows to […]...
6. Ecclesiastes There is one sin: to call a green leaf gray, Whereat the sun in heaven shuddereth. There is one blasphemy: for death to pray, For God alone knoweth the praise of death. There is one creed: ”neath no world-terror’s wing Apples forget to grow on apple-trees. There is one thing is needful everything The rest […]...
7. THE BLISS OF SORROW NEVER dry, never dry, Tears that eternal love sheddeth! How dreary, how dead doth the world still appear, When only half-dried on the eye is the tear! Never dry, never dry, Tears that unhappy love sheddeth! 1789.*...
8. Mariana WITH BLACKEST moss the flower-plots Were thickly crusted, one and all: The rusted nails fell from the knots That held the pear to the gable-wall. The broken sheds look’d sad and strange: Unlifted was the clinking latch; Weeded and worn the ancient thatch Upon the lonely moated grange. She only said, “My life is dreary, […]...
9. Two Words ‘God’ is composed of letters three, But if you put an ‘l’ Before the last it seems to me A synonym for Hell. For all of envy, greed and hate The human heart can hold Respond unto the devil’s bait Of Gold. When God created Gold to be For our adorning fit, I little think […]...
10. Moving On In this war we’re always moving, Moving on; When we make a friend another friend has gone; Should a woman’s kindly face Make us welcome for a space, Then it’s boot and saddle, boys, we’re Moving on. In the hospitals they’re moving, Moving on; They’re here today, tomorrow they are gone; When the bravest and […]...
11. Birth And Death Birth and death, twin-sister and twin-brother, Night and day, on all things that draw breath, Reign, while time keeps friends with one another Birth and death. Each brow-bound with flowers diverse of wreath, Heaven they hail as father, earth as mother, Faithful found above them and beneath. Smiles may lighten tears, and tears may smother […]...
12. The Rainy Day The day is cold, and dark, and dreary It rains, and the wind is never weary; The vine still clings to the mouldering wall, But at every gust the dead leaves fall, And the day is dark and dreary. My life is cold, and dark, and dreary; It rains, and the wind is never weary; […]...
13. Last Words If the shoe fell from the other foot Who would hear? If the door Opened onto a pure darkness And it was no dream? If your life Ended the way a book ends With half a blank page and the survivors Gone off to Africa or madness? If my life ended in late spring Of […]...
14. The Orphan My father and mother are dead, Nor friend, nor relation I know; And now the cold earth is their bed, And daisies will over them grow. I cast my eyes into the tomb, The sight made me bitterly cry; I said, “And is this the dark room, Where my father and mother must lie?” I […]...
15. Be Still, My Soul, Be Still Be still, my soul, be still; the arms you bear are brittle, Earth and high heaven are fixt of old and founded strong. Think rather, call to thought, if now you grieve a little, The days when we had rest, O soul, for they were long. Men loved unkindness then, but lightless in the quarry […]...
16. Night Words after Juan Ramon A child wakens in a cold apartment. The windows are frosted. Outside he hears Words rising from the streets, words he cannot Understand, and then the semis gear down For the traffic light on Houston. He sleeps Again and dreams of another city On a high hill above a wide river Bathed […]...
17. The Maiden's Lament The clouds fast gather, The forest-oaks roar A maiden is sitting Beside the green shore, The billows are breaking with might, with might, And she sighs aloud in the darkling night, Her eyelid heavy with weeping. “My heart’s dead within me, The world is a void; To the wish it gives nothing, Each hope is […]...
18. Carol of Words 1 EARTH, round, rolling, compact-suns, moons, animals-all these are words to be said; Watery, vegetable, sauroid advances-beings, premonitions, lispings of the future, Behold! these are vast words to be said. Were you thinking that those were the words-those upright lines? those curves, angles, dots? No, those are not the words-the substantial words are in the […]...
19. A spring poem from bion One asketh: “Tell me, Myrson, tell me true: What’s the season pleaseth you? Is it summer suits you best, When from harvest toil we rest? Is it autumn with its glory Of all surfeited desires? Is it winter, when with story And with song we hug our fires? Or is spring most fair to you […]...
20. A Dead Friend I. Gone, O gentle heart and true, Friend of hopes foregone, Hopes and hopeful days with you Gone? Days of old that shone Saw what none shall see anew, When we gazed thereon. Soul as clear as sunlit dew, Why so soon pass on, Forth from all we loved and knew Gone? II. Friend of […]...
21. Edmonton, thy cemetery Edmonton, thy cemetery In which I love to tread Has roused in me a dreary thought For all the countless dead, Ah me, the countless dead. Yet I believe that one is one And shall for ever be, And while I hold to this belief I walk, oh cemetery, Thy footpaths happily. And I believe […]...
22. Words For A Trumpet Chorale Celebrating The Autumn “The trumpet is a brilliant instrument.” – Dietrich Buxtehude Come and come forth and come up from the cup of Your dumbness, stunned and numb, come with The statues and believed in, Thinking this is nothing, deceived. Come to the summer and sun, Come see upon that height, and that sum In the seedtime of […]...
23. Severed and Gone Severed and gone, so many years! And art thou still so dear to me, That throbbing heart and burning tears Can witness how I cling to thee? I know that in the narrow tomb The form I loved was buried deep, And left, in silence and in gloom, To slumber out its dreamless sleep. I […]...
24. Hellas 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. A brighter Hellas rears its mountains From waves serener far; A new Peneus rolls his fountains Against the morning star; Where […]...
25. All the Hills and Vales Along All the hills and vales along Earth is bursting into song, And the singers are the chaps Who are going to die perhaps. O sing, marching men, Till the valleys ring again. Give your gladness to earth’s keeping, So be glad, when you are sleeping. Cast away regret and rue, Think what you are marching […]...
26. THE LOVING ONE WRITES THE look that thy sweet eyes on mine impress The pledge thy lips to mine convey, the kiss, He who, like me, hath knowledge sure of this, Can he in aught beside find happiness? Removed from thee, friend-sever’d, in distress, These thoughts I vainly struggle to dismiss: They still return to that one hour of […]...
27. I see around me tombstones grey I see around me tombstones grey Stretching their shadows far away. Beneath the turf my footsteps tread Lie low and lone the silent dead – Beneath the turf – beneath the mould – Forever dark, forever cold – And my eyes cannot hold the tears That memory hoards from vanished years For Time and Death […]...
28. Mangroves These black bush-waters, heavy with crusted boughs Like plumes above dead captains, wake the mind…. Uncounted kissing, unremembered vows, Nights long forgotten, moons too dark to find, Or stars too cold…all quick things that have fled Whilst these old bubbles uprise in older stone, Return like pale dead faces of children dead, Staring unfelt through […]...
29. The Dying Words Of Stonewall Jackson “Order A. P. Hill to prepare for battle.” “Tell Major Hawks to advance the Commissary train.” “Let us cross the river and rest in the shade.” The stars of Night contain the glittering Day And rain his glory down with sweeter grace Upon the dark World’s grand, enchanted face All loth to turn away. And […]...
30. 27. The Death and Dying Words of Poor Mailie AS Mailie, an’ her lambs thegither, Was ae day nibbling on the tether, Upon her cloot she coost a hitch, An’ owre she warsl’d in the ditch: There, groaning, dying, she did lie, When Hughoc he cam doytin by. Wi’ glowrin een, and lifted han’s Poor Hughoc like a statue stan’s; He saw her days […]...
31. Impromptu, to Lady Winchelsea In vain you boast Poetic Names of yore, And cite those Sapho’s we admire no more: Fate doom’d the Fall of ev’ry Female Wit, But doom’d it then when first Ardelia writ. Of all Examples by the World confest, I knew Ardelia could not quote the best; Who, like her Mistress on Britannia’s Throne; Fights, […]...
32. A Curse For A Nation I heard an angel speak last night, And he said ‘Write! Write a Nation’s curse for me, And send it over the Western Sea.’ I faltered, taking up the word: ‘Not so, my lord! If curses must be, choose another To send thy curse against my brother. ‘For I am bound by gratitude, By love […]...
33. 28. Poor Mailie's Elegy LAMENT in rhyme, lament in prose, Wi’ saut tears trickling down your nose; Our bardie’s fate is at a close, Past a’ remead! The last, sad cape-stane o’ his woes; Poor Mailie’s dead! It’s no the loss o’ warl’s gear, That could sae bitter draw the tear, Or mak our bardie, dowie, wear The mourning […]...
34. Last Words To A Dumb Friend Pet was never mourned as you, Purrer of the spotless hue, Plumy tail, and wistful gaze While you humoured our queer ways, Or outshrilled your morning call Up the stairs and through the hall Foot suspended in its fall While, expectant, you would stand Arched, to meet the stroking hand; Till your way you chose […]...
35. Love's Gleaning Tide Draw not away thy hands, my love, With wind alone the branches move, And though the leaves be scant above The Autumn shall not shame us. Say; Let the world wax cold and drear, What is the worst of all the year But life, and what can hurt us, dear, Or death, and who shall […]...
36. My prayers must meet a brazen heaven My prayers must meet a brazen heaven And fail and scatter all away. Unclean and seeming unforgiven My prayers I scarcely call to pray. I cannot buoy my heart above; Above I cannot entrance win. I reckon precedents of love, But feel the long success of sin. My heaven is brass and iron my earth: […]...
37. The Wedding O marriage-bells, your clamor tells Two weddings in one breath. SHE marries whom her love compels: And I wed Goodman Death! My brain is blank, my tears are red; Listen, O God: “I will,” he said: And I would that I were dead. Come groomsman Grief and bridesmaid Pain Come and stand with a ghastly […]...
38. Hymn To Joy Joy, thou goddess, fair, immortal, Offspring of Elysium, Mad with rapture, to the portal Of thy holy fame we come! Fashion’s laws, indeed, may sever, But thy magic joins again; All mankind are brethren ever ‘Neath thy mild and gentle reign. CHORUS. Welcome, all ye myriad creatures! Brethren, take the kiss of love! Yes, the […]...
39. Amoretti LXXV: One Day I Wrote Her Name One day I wrote her name upon the strand, But came the waves and washed it away: Again I wrote it with a second hand, But came the tide, and made my pains his prey. “Vain man,” said she, “that dost in vain assay, A mortal thing so to immortalize; For I myself shall like […]...
40. When You See Millions Of The Mouthless Dead When you see millions of the mouthless dead Across your dreams in pale battalions go, Say not soft things as other men have said, That you’ll remember. For you need not so. Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know It is not curses heaped on each gashed head? Nor tears. Their blind […]...