The Unconquered Dead

Related poetry:

1. Gacela of the Dead Child Each afternoon in Granada, Each afternoon, a child dies. Each afternoon the water sits down And chats with its companions. The dead wear mossy wings. The cloudy wind and the clear wind Are two pheasants in flight through the towers, And the day is a wounded boy. Not a flicker of lark was left in […]...
2. In Flanders Field In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie, In […]...
3. The Dead Master Amid earth’s vagrant noises, he caught the note sublime: To-day around him surges from the silences of Time A flood of nobler music, like a river deep and broad, Fit song for heroes gathered in the banquet-hall of God....
4. I'm sorry for the Dead Today I’m sorry for the Dead Today It’s such congenial times Old Neighbors have at fences It’s time o’ year for Hay. And Broad Sunburned Acquaintance Discourse between the Toil And laugh, a homely species That makes the Fences smile It seems so straight to lie away From all of the noise of Fields The Busy […]...
5. I worked for chaff and earning Wheat I worked for chaff and earning Wheat Was haughty and betrayed. What right had Fields to arbitrate In matters ratified? I tasted Wheat and hated Chaff And thanked the ample friend Wisdom is more becoming viewed At distance than at hand....
6. Oh, Ye Dead! Oh, ye Dead! oh, ye Dead! whom we know by the light you give From your cold gleaming eyes, though you move like men who live, Why leave you thus your graves, In far off fields and waves, Where the worm and the sea-bird only know your bed, To haunt this spot where all Those […]...
7. Come not when I am dead Come not, when I am dead, To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave, To trample round my fallen head, And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst not save. There let the wind sweep and the plover cry; But thou, go by. Child, if it were thine error or thy crime I care no longer, […]...
8. Adlestrop Yes, I remember Adlestrop The name, because one afternoon Of heat the express-train drew up there Unwontedly. It was late June. The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat. No one left and no one came On the bare platform. What I saw Was Adlestrop only the name And willows, willow-herb, and grass, And meadowsweet, and […]...
9. The Dead Village Here there is death. But even here, they say, Here where the dull sun shines this afternoon As desolate as ever the dead moon Did glimmer on dead Sardis, men were gay; And there were little children here to play, With small soft hands that once did keep in tune The strings that stretch from […]...
10. Beginning The moon drops one or two feathers into the fiels. The dark wheat listens. Be still. Now. There they are, the moon’s young, trying Their wings. Between trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow Of her face, and now she steps into the air, now she is gone Wholly, into the air. I […]...
11. 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 […]...
12. North and South O sweet are tropic lands for waking dreams! There time and life move lazily along. There by the banks of blue-and-silver streams Grass-sheltered crickets chirp incessant song, Gay-colored lizards loll all through the day, Their tongues outstretched for careless little flies, And swarthy children in the fields at play, Look upward laughing at the smiling […]...
13. Dead thoughts of corpses The symbols that we use are T shirts of the dead Thoughts of corpses without heads, a rictus Without sound – open-mouthed, empty, unbound. And if you ever write those clichés which incite My approbation, fuck you, I am not amused. And if I ever do, then fuck me too. I battle with the icons […]...
14. The House Of Dust: Part 03: 06: Portrait Of One Dead This is the house. On one side there is darkness, On one side there is light. Into the darkness you may lift your lanterns- O, any number-it will still be night. And here are echoing stairs to lead you downward To long sonorous halls. And here is spring forever at these windows, With roses on […]...
15. Bad for ears the song wasn’t up to the task Of getting through the double-glazing Into the ears pressed on the outside pane The rest of their bodies had faded away but The ears were straining still towards the music In order to know the good times being had in the room Night fell the cold grew and […]...
16. Dead Boy The little cousin is dead, by foul subtraction, A green bough from Virginia’s aged tree, And none of the county kin like the transaction, Nor some of the world of outer dark, like me. A boy not beautiful, nor good, nor clever, A black cloud full of storms too hot for keeping, A sword beneath […]...
17. A Dead Rose O Rose! who dares to name thee? No longer roseate now, nor soft, nor sweet; But pale, and hard, and dry, as stubble-wheat, – Kept seven years in a drawer – thy titles shame thee. The breeze that used to blow thee Between the hedgerow thorns, and take away An odour up the lane to […]...
18. The Dead Drummer I They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest Uncoffined just as found: His landmark is a kopje-crest That breaks the veldt around; And foreign constellations west Each night above his mound. II Young Hodge the Drummer never knew – Fresh from his Wessex home – The meaning of the broad Karoo, The Bush, the dusty […]...
19. To His Dead Body When roaring gloom surged inward and you cried, Groping for friendly hands, and clutched, and died, Like racing smoke, swift from your lolling head Phantoms of thought and memory thinned and fled. Yet, though my dreams that throng the darkened stair Can bring me no report of how you fare, Safe quit of wars, I […]...
20. Pensive on Her Dead Gazing, I Heard the Mother of All PENSIVE, on her dead gazing, I heard the Mother of All, Desperate, on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battle-fields gazing; (As the last gun ceased-but the scent of the powder-smoke linger’d;) As she call’d to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk’d: Absorb them well, O my earth, she cried-I charge […]...
21. For a Dead Lady No more with overflowing light Shall fill the eyes that now are faded, Nor shall another’s fringe with night Their woman-hidden world as they did. No more shall quiver down the days The flowing wonder of her ways, Whereof no language may requite The shifting and the many-shaded. The grace, divine, definitive, Clings only as […]...
22. God lay dead in heaven God lay dead in heaven; Angels sang the hymn of the end; Purple winds went moaning, Their wings drip-dripping With blood That fell upon the earth. It, groaning thing, Turned black and sank. Then from the far caverns Of dead sins Came monsters, livid with desire. They fought, Wrangled over the world, A morsel. But […]...
23. The Speed Of Light So gradual in those summers was the going of the age it seemed that the long days setting out When the stars faded over the mountains were not leaving us even as the birds woke in full song and the dew Glittered in the webs it appeared then that the clear morning opening into the […]...
24. Nightclub You are so beautiful and I am a fool To be in love with you Is a theme that keeps coming up In songs and poems. There seems to be no room for variation. I have never heard anyone sing I am so beautiful And you are a fool to be in love with me, […]...
25. Our lives are Swiss Our lives are Swiss So still so Cool Till some odd afternoon The Alps neglect their Curtains And we look farther on! Italy stands the other side! While like a guard between The solemn Alps The siren Alps Forever intervene!...
26. The Harvest Sun on the mountain, Shade in the valley, Ripple and lightness Leaping along the world, Sun, like a gold sword Plucked from the scabbard, Striking the wheat-fields, Splendid and lusty, Close-standing, full-headed, Toppling with plenty; Shade, like a buckler Kindly and ample, Sweeping the wheat-fields Darkening and tossing; There on the world-rim Winds break and […]...
27. Harvest Song I am a reaper whose muscles set at sundown. All my oats are cradled. But I am too chilled, and too fatigued to bind them. And I hunger. I crack a grain between my teeth. I do not taste it. I have been in the fields all day. My throat is dry. I hunger. My […]...
28. O Me! O Life! O ME! O life!… of the questions of these recurring; Of the endless trains of the faithless-of cities fill’d with the foolish; Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?) Of eyes that vainly crave the light-of the objects mean-of the struggle ever renew’d; Of the poor results […]...
29. If the foolish, call them "flowers&quot If the foolish, call them “flowers” Need the wiser, tell? If the Savants “Classify” them It is just as well! Those who read the “Revelations” Must not criticize Those who read the same Edition With beclouded Eyes! Could we stand with that Old “Moses” “Canaan” denied Scan like him, the stately landscape On the other […]...
30. Death, To The Dead For Evermore DEATH, to the dead for evermore A King, a God, the last, the best of friends – Whene’er this mortal journey ends Death, like a host, comes smiling to the door; Smiling, he greets us, on that tranquil shore Where neither piping bird nor peeping dawn Disturbs the eternal sleep, But in the stillness far […]...
31. Poppies on the Wheat Along Ancona’s hills the shimmering heat, A tropic tide of air with ebb and flow Bathes all the fields of wheat until they glow Like flashing seas of green, which toss and beat Around the vines. The poppies lithe and fleet Seem running, fiery torchmen, to and fro To mark the shore. The farmer does […]...
32. My Dead Dream HAVE YOU found me, at last, O my Dream? Seven eons ago You died and I buried you deep under forests of snow. Why have you come hither? Who bade you awake from your sleep And track me beyond the cerulean foam of the deep? Would you tear from my lintels these sacred green garlands […]...
33. THE CONVERT As at sunset I was straying Silently the wood along, Damon on his flute was playing, And the rocks gave back the song, So la, Ia! &c. Softly tow’rds him then he drew me; Sweet each kiss he gave me then! And I said, “Play once more to me!” And he kindly play’d again, So […]...
34. Good Bye 1/ Remember the old drunk at your church Who elbowed me on the ribs And muttered something I undestood not? You said he meant he wanted to talk to God I returned his with mine and said “Me too…” 2/ You slipped away through the exit, Slowed down your gait and threw a faint smile. […]...
35. Dead Men's Love There was a damned successful Poet; There was a Woman like the Sun. And they were dead. They did not know it. They did not know their time was done. They did not know his hymns Were silence; and her limbs, That had served Love so well, Dust, and a filthy smell. And so one […]...
36. Dead March Under the bunker, where the reek of kerosene Prepared the marriage rite, leader and whore, Imperfect kindling even in this wind, burn on. Someone in uniform hums Brahms. Servants prepare Eyewitness stories as the night comes down, as smoking coals await Boots on the stone, the occupying troops. Howl ministers. Deep in Kyffhauser Mountain’s underground, […]...
37. The Blind And The Dead She lay like a saint on her copper couch; Like an angel asleep she lay, In the stare of the ghoulish folks that slouch Past the Dead and sneak away. Then came old Jules of the sightless gaze, Who begged in the streets for bread. Each day he had come for a year of days, […]...
38. Visiting a Dead Man on a Summer Day In flat America, in Chicago, Graceland cemetery on the German North Side. Forty feet of Corinthian candle Celebrate Pullman embedded Lonely raisin in a cake of concrete. The Potter Palmers float In an island parthenon. Barons of hogfat, railroads and wheat Are postmarked with angels and lambs. But the Getty tomb: white, snow patterned In […]...
39. Dead man's clothes Growing up, I propose, Is like wearing a dead man’s clothes. Death has a way of levelling the ground. I have found the closer your relationship The closer the fit; The unsettling bit is the fear Of not fitting the role, or where Your forbear made a name or leashed A reputation, which by imputation […]...
40. The Lake The yard half a yard, Half a lake blue as a corpse. The lake will tell things you long to hear: Get away from here. Three o’clock. Dry leaves rat-tat like maracas. Whisky-colored grass Breaks at every step and trees Are slowly realizing they are nude. How long will you stay? For the lake asks […]...