The Death-Bed

Related poetry:

1. A Refusal To Mourn The Death, By Fire, Of A Child In London Never until the mankind making Bird beast and flower Fathering and all humbling darkness Tells with silence the last light breaking And the still hour Is come of the sea tumbling in harness And I must enter again the round Zion of the water bead And the synagogue of the ear of corn Shall I […]...
2. The House Of Dust: Part 03: 13: The half-shut doors through which we heard that music The half-shut doors through which we heard that music Are softly closed. Horns mutter down to silence. The stars whirl out, the night grows deep. Darkness settles upon us. A vague refrain Drowsily teases at the drowsy brain. In numberless rooms we stretch ourselves and sleep. Where have we been? What savage chaos of music […]...
3. Elegy Before Death There will be rose and rhododendron When you are dead and under ground; Still will be heard from white syringas Heavy with bees, a sunny sound; Still will the tamaracks be raining After the rain has ceased, and still Will there be robins in the stubble, Brown sheep upon the warm green hill. Spring will […]...
4. Faure's Second Piano Quartet On a day like this the rain comes Down in fat and random drops among The ailanthus leaves -“the tree Of Heaven” – the leaves that on moon- Lit nights shimmer black and blade- Shaped at this third-floor window. And there are bunches of small green Knobs, buds, crowded together. The Rapid music fills in […]...
5. When Death Comes When death comes Like the hungry bear in autumn; When death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse To buy me, and snaps the purse shut; When death comes Like the measle-pox When death comes Like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, I want to step through the door full of curiosity, […]...
6. A Death – Scene “O day! he cannot die When thou so fair art shining! O Sun, in such a glorious sky, So tranquilly declining; He cannot leave thee now, While fresh west winds are blowing, And all around his youthful brow Thy cheerful light is glowing! Edward, awake, awake – The golden evening gleams Warm and bright on […]...
7. The House Of Dust: Part 02: 10: Sudden Death ‘Number four-the girl who died on the table- The girl with golden hair-‘ The purpling body lies on the polished marble. We open the throat, and lay the thyroid bare. . . One, who held the ether-cone, remembers Her dark blue frightened eyes. He heard the sharp breath quiver, and saw her breast More hurriedly […]...
8. The Beauty of Death XIV Part One – The Calling Let me sleep, for my soul is intoxicated with love and Let me rest, for my spirit has had its bounty of days and nights; Light the candles and burn the incense around my bed, and Scatter leaves of jasmine and roses over my body; Embalm my hair with frankincense […]...
9. Words For Departure Nothing was remembered, nothing forgotten. When we awoke, wagons were passing on the warm summer pavements, The window-sills were wet from rain in the night, Birds scattered and settled over chimneypots As among grotesque trees. Nothing was accepted, nothing looked beyond. Slight-voiced bells separated hour from hour, The afternoon sifted coolness And people drew together […]...
10. Death Snips Proud Men 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 […]...
11. Death in the Family They call it stroke. Two we loved were stunned By that same blow of cudgel Or axe to the brow. Lost on the earth They left our circle Broken. One spent five months Falling from our grasp Mute, her grace, wit, Beauty erased. Her green eyes gazed at us As if asking, as if aware, […]...
12. Nothing But Death There are cemeteries that are lonely, Graves full of bones that do not make a sound, The heart moving through a tunnel, In it darkness, darkness, darkness, Like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves, As though we were drowning inside our hearts, As though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul. […]...
13. The house where I was born (10) And then life; and once again A house where I was born. Around us The granary above what once had been a church, The gentle play of shadow from the dawn clouds, And in us that smell of the dry straw That had seemed to be waiting for us From the moment the last sack, […]...
14. The House Of Dust: Part 04: 05: The Bitter Love-Song No, I shall not say why it is that I love you- Why do you ask me, save for vanity? Surely you would not have me, like a mirror, Say ‘yes,-your hair curls darkly back from the temples, Your mouth has a humorous, tremulous, half-shy sweetness, Your eyes are April grey. . . .with jonquils […]...
15. Death XXVII Then Almitra spoke, saying, “We would ask now of Death.” And he said: You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life? The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light. If you would indeed […]...
16. I Have A Rendezvous With Death I have a rendezvous with Death At some disputed barricade, When Spring comes back with rustling shade And apple-blossoms fill the air – I have a rendezvous with Death When Spring brings back blue days and fair. It may be he shall take my hand And lead me into his dark land And close my […]...
17. Holy Sonnet X: Death Be Not Proud Death, be not proud, though some have callèd thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which yet thy pictures be, Much pleasure, then from thee much more, must low And soonest […]...
18. The Death Of Kwasind Far and wide among the nations Spread the name and fame of Kwasind; No man dared to strive with Kwasind, No man could compete with Kwasind. But the mischievous Puk-Wudjies, They the envious Little People, They the fairies and the pygmies, Plotted and conspired against him. “If this hateful Kwasind,” said they, “If this great, […]...
19. On Death The pale, the cold, and the moony smile Which the meteor beam of a starless night Sheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle, Ere the dawning of morn’s undoubted light, Is the flame of life so fickle and wan That flits round our steps till their strength is gone. O man! hold thee on in […]...
20. 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 […]...
21. Blue The earth again like a ship steams out of the dark sea over The edge of the blue, and the sun stands up to see us glide Slowly into another day; slowly the rover Vessel of darkness takes the rising tide. I, on the deck, am startled by this dawn confronting Me who am issued […]...
22. The End It is time for me to go, mother; I am going. When in the paling darkness of the lonely dawn you stretch out Your arms for your baby in the bed, I shall say, “Baby is not Here!”-mother, I am going. I shall become a delicate draught of air and caress you and I shall […]...
23. A Baby's Death A little soul scarce fledged for earth Takes wing with heaven again for goal Even while we hailed as fresh from birth A little soul. Our thoughts ring sad as bells that toll, Not knowing beyond this blind world’s girth What things are writ in heaven’s full scroll. Our fruitfulness is there but dearth, And […]...
24. Death And Birth Death and birth should dwell not near together: Wealth keeps house not, even for shame, with dearth: Fate doth ill to link in one brief tether Death and birth. Harsh the yoke that binds them, strange the girth Seems that girds them each with each: yet whether Death be best, who knows, or life on […]...
25. Gacela of the Dark Death I want to sleep the dream of the apples, To withdraw from the tumult of cemetries. I want to sleep the dream of that child Who wanted to cut his heart on the high seas. I don’t want to hear again that the dead do not lose their blood, That the putrid mouth goes on […]...
26. Death In The Arctic I I took the clock down from the shelf; “At eight,” said I, “I shoot myself.” It lacked a minute of the hour, And as I waited all a-cower, A skinful of black, boding pain, Bits of my life came back again. . . . “Mother, there’s nothing more to eat Why don’t you go […]...
27. Death It is not death, that sometime in a sigh This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight; That sometime these bright stars, that now reply In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night; That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite, And all life’s ruddy springs forget to flow; That thoughts shall cease, and […]...
28. Clock-O'-Clay In the cowslip pips I lie, Hidden from the buzzing fly, While green grass beneath me lies, Pearled with dew like fishes’ eyes, Here I lie, a clock-o’-clay, Waiting for the time o’ day. While the forest quakes surprise, And the wild wind sobs and sighs, My home rocks as like to fall, On its […]...
29. The Death Baby 1. DREAMS I was an ice baby. I turned to sky blue. My tears became two glass beads. My mouth stiffened into a dumb howl. They say it was a dream But I remember that hardening. My sister at six Dreamt nightly of my death: “The baby turned to ice. Someone put her in the […]...
30. April Rise If ever I saw blessing in the air I see it now in this still early day Where lemon-green the vaporous morning drips Wet sunlight on the powder of my eye. Blown bubble-film of blue, the sky wraps round Weeds of warm light whose every root and rod Splutters with soapy green, and all the […]...
31. The Death King I hired a carpenter To build my coffin And last night I lay in it, Braced by a pillow, Sniffing the wood, Letting the old king Breathe on me, Thinking of my poor murdered body, Murdered by time, Waiting to turn stiff as a field marshal, Letting the silence dishonor me, Remembering that I’ll never […]...
32. Nocturne Of Remembered Spring I. Moonlight silvers the tops of trees, Moonlight whitens the lilac shadowed wall And through the evening fall, Clearly, as if through enchanted seas, Footsteps passing, an infinite distance away, In another world and another day. Moonlight turns the purple lilacs blue, Moonlight leaves the fountain hoar and old, And the boughs of elms grow […]...
33. The Death Of Richard Wagner Mourning on earth, as when dark hours descend, Wide-winged with plagues, from heaven; when hope and mirth Wane, and no lips rebuke or reprehend Mourning on earth. The soul wherein her songs of death and birth, Darkness and light, were wont to sound and blend, Now silent, leaves the whole world less in worth. Winds […]...
34. Whispers of Heavenly Death WHISPERS of heavenly death, murmur’d I hear; Labial gossip of night-sibilant chorals; Footsteps gently ascending-mystical breezes, wafted soft and low; Ripples of unseen rivers-tides of a current, flowing, forever flowing; (Or is it the plashing of tears? the measureless waters of human tears?) I see, just see, skyward, great cloud-masses; Mournfully, slowly they roll, silently […]...
35. 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 […]...
36. The Deaf and Blind Do we reach the sea with clocks In our pockets, with the noise of the sea In the sea, or are we the carriers Of a purer and more silent water? The water rubbing against our hands sharpens knives. The warriors have found their weapons in the waves And the sound of their blows is […]...
37. Wanting The Moon Not the moon. A flower On the other side of the water. The water sweeps past in flood, Dragging a whole tree by the hair, A barn, a bridge. The flower Sings on the far bank. Not a flower, a bird calling Hidden among the darkest trees, music Over the water, making a silence Out […]...
38. Winter Song Rain and wind, and wind and rain. Will the Summer come again? Rain on houses, on the street, Wetting all the people’s feet, Though they run with might and main. Rain and wind, and wind and rain. Snow and sleet, and sleet and snow. Will the Winter never go? What do beggar children do With […]...
39. The West Wind IT’S a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds’ cries; I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes. For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills. And April’s in the west wind, and daffodils. It’s a fine land, the west land, for hearts as tired as mine, […]...
40. THE GARDEN OF DEATH Weak but alive Dying yet still alive Huge eyes Round like golf balls White as bones Bony framed Fleshless Pus in orifices Worms Teeth, white teeth Skull and bones. Am sorry for life Oh this pain deeper than Only death can save My friend, I am sorry That you pain When you sleep, wake Pain, […]...