What then is tragedy? In the Elizabethan period it was assumed that a play ending in death was a tragedy, but in recent years we have come to understand that to live on is sometimes far more tragic than death.
quote by George P. Baker

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Related quotes
Open Book's Monologue Part 2: Perpetual
Perpetual
Eternal
Immutable
Irrevocable
Enduring
Etched in stone
Engraved with blood
The words of an open book remain
The book cannot write itself, but it is a series of stain after stain
Of ink and blood to paper writing a story that cannot be changed
Nor altered, nor made a happy, if tragedy destined to be
Tragedy it shall be, and tragedy for me
If love to be, it shall be, but this will not come
If death to be, it shall be, and shall always come, for all things under the sun
Will one day perish, wither, and die
One day decay will find this spine, and air make page fly
One day ink will fade
Destroying all that was so carefully made
But this is not the cruelty
The cruelty is that the story is immutable
The ending certain
The cruelty is a book is unalterable
The ending the book strives for- in vain
It is GIVEN an ending, with which it has no say
And to this end it SHALL come one day
poem by David Knox

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Tragedy is nothing new
I am still in love with you
Tragedy is nothing new.
I still don’t understand you
Tragedy is nothing new.
I still feel sad without you
Tragedy is nothing new.
I still can’t make love with you
Tragedy is nothing new.
poem by Asif Andalib

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Wilfully blind
A never ending tragedy.
The history of the human race.
Why is it that we cannot be content?
to live in peace with grace
Why must men seek to dominate,
tell other people what to do
Why can’t they just negotiate
There is no need to resort to
violence. As we always have
which earns us nothing but a grave
A lesson in futility
which as a race we cannot see
A never ending tragedy.
Man is his own worst enemy.
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg

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A tragedy need not have blood and death; it's enough that it all be filled with that majestic sadness that is the pleasure of tragedy.
quote by Jean Racine

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Funeral
I want to have my funeral
But first I need to die
But not an ordinary death
You see
I want one filled of surprise
One death that no one would expect
One that’ll beat the rest
Of the
Out of the ordinary deaths
A death that will show the pain I hide
One that will make people tremble inside
To see that a little girl could hide
So much trouble and hate inside her mind
One that’ll have me on a bed
With rose petals all around my head
My wrist all cut up at the vein
A death that’ll make me look insane
It’ll have them saying
“maybe she hit her head”
For the death expressed too much
And set a feeling of depressed
Maybe a death
That’ll have written on my chest
All the things that “you knew best”
All the things I failed to see
Because they never were facing me
A death is called a tragedy
But not when nobody can see
That the tragedy was meant to be
Like the sun is meant to set each day
And how the moon never seems to stay
poem by Jennifer Alejandra

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Tragedy occurs when a human soul awakes and seeks, in suffering and pain, to free itself from crime, violence, infamy, even at the cost of life. The struggle is the tragedy - not defeat or death.
quote by Whittaker Chambers

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Tragedy
(Emmylou Harris/Rodney Crowell)
Some say it's destiny
Whether triumph or tragedy
But I believe we cast our nets out on the sea
And nothing we gather
Comes for free
I would have paid down through the years
A price beyong rubies beyond tears
To keep you safe with me
But your suspicion and your fear
Your vow to let nobody near was your trinity
Such a tragedy
I drew the best hand you'd ever hold
Then cashed my winnings in long ago
Settled for silver how could I know
You were waiting with the gold
I could have caused your heart to yield
But I was only a disturbance in the field
Of your dreams
And I will never see you cry
You won't be with me when I die
A waste of you and me
A tragedy
We took the wrong train to
Kingdom come now
No more damage
Can be done baby
It's just what the world don't need
It's another stinkin tragedy
That's how the story goes
Our chapter's coming to a close
We are history
But I will always think of you
Every day until my days are through
You made me believe
In tragedy
song performed by by Emmylou Harris

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Death Of A Crow
Death Of A Crow
halloween night
in a city park
a dead crow
under an elm tree
I was there
standing alone
a flash light in hand
wet in autumn rain
looking
children in raincoat
passed by
a police car siren
wailed and faded
into distant darkness
no elegy
no dirge
no requiem
no tomb stone
a crow's death
is not tragic
and that is the tragedy
of the crow's death
Battered Suitcase, v 1, issue 3, oct 2008
poem by Suchoon Mo_

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It's Death Again
It's Death again - He's always there -
Watching, waiting - e'er the stare!
Every time I look behind
Or reach to pull the window blind,
I catch a glimpse of grubby hood -
A little clue to where he stood;
The glint of light that caught the scythe.
Perhaps if I could pay a tithe…
But O! no use, he'll never go.
The adamant phantom; don't you know
He will but wait until it's time
For me to hear His fateful chime? -
The toll that claims my destiny,
To Hail: 'You're next, it has to be…'
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2009
The Reign of Death
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poem by Mark R Slaughter

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Death Dies Again
It was death himself
at my swords tip
shocked at his predicament
unaccustomed as he was
to insouciance
and unfamiliar he was
with his own impending ending.
How do you tell Death that
his own death comes?
He said.
'How am I to meet
alls end this way
when I am the very symbol
of the terminus;
the end for all and the other many? '
'Tell me how I am come to this end;
the irony of my own dead death
now near? '
'Death must die' I said
as life itself begins'
'Its not so mysterious Death
to understand.
You are not the end but
my own beginning
and I am life's insistence at the beginning;
that coming to the fore
youth moving to sure
and steady borning.
'That is the cycle of all things, '
I said.
'You die death;
not a sad departing
but my own new beginning.
'How sad' Death said
'I understand your glib reckoning
but my death to me is personal
and while the Great Cycle
to you is mesmerizing
for me it is my fully sensed ending.
Endings are personal and while
loves I've known
have found new loves
it has not
and did not
obliterate
old love's ending.
And that is I.
Old loves die
and their death
is not erased
by new love's
beginning;
they fade
away amid the sad
sighings
we hear at night
when alone
in our beds
in the dark
crying.
poem by Lonnie Hicks

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The mark of a good marriage is partnership and continuing to feel inspired by your spouse. I had that with Tao. But the end is not necessarily the tragedy. Staying in a relationship that is no longer working is the tragedy. Living unhappily - that's the tragedy.
quote by Olivia Wilde

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Grandma, I Never Knew You
I never knew you
You are my grandmother.
I get mad at God
For not giving me a chance
To know you.
You died ten years
Before I was born.
It breaks my heart
Every time I think
That I will never get
The chance to know you.
I look at your picture that hangs
Almost everyday.
I wonder if I have your eyes.
I wonder if I have your laugh.
I wonder if I have your smile.
I wonder if I have your nose.
I wonder if I have anything of you.
I guess I will never know
I guess I will never get to see you.
Death is the most tragic thing in life
Death is hard on me now than I was younger.
Death is what I have inside
Thinking of everyone that I have lost.
Death is forever
Death is longer than an eternity
Death is permanent
Death is a scar that never goes away.
Death is what I feel everyday
Death is what has to be.
Death is what is happening everyday.
Death is what no one knows for sure.
Death is what everyone goes through.
Death is the reason why I am the way I am
Death is what I fear…
poem by Kimberly Santistevan

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Disingenuousness
Here lies another box for nature,
Carbon ready;
Black to eyes down here,
Where death is at its job.
Up there you’ll hear a rhythmic sob
Or two from living yet-to-dies –
A humming lacrimoso –
It all but cleans the eyes:
Forget it –
The dismal show of grief –
Life is only chemistry –
Our stay is only brief.
It’s we who hype it up!
Diaphragms jerk again;
The jet monotone of hearses
Feeds the disingenuousness
Of undertakers –
They seem to stare at something up ahead –
For them, it’s in the blood,
To taxi off the dead.
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2011
The March of Death
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poem by Mark R Slaughter

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Beautiful Tragedy
This beautiful tragedy is crashing into me
This dying destiny, take me away
This beautiful tragedy come crashing into me
This dying destiny
Will you be there by my grave
Or will you be the death of me
My beautiful tragedy
poem by Cindy Cueva

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The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.
quote by Joseph Stalin

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Every human being on this earth is born with a tragedy, and it isn't original sin. He's born with the tragedy that he has to grow up. That he has to leave the nest, the security, and go out to do battle. He has to lose everything that is lovely and fight for a new loveliness of his own making, and it's a tragedy. A lot of people don't have the courage to do it.
quote by Helen Hayes

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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In Shakespearean tragedy the main source of the convulsion which produces suffering and death is never good: good contributes to this convulsion only from its tragic implication with its opposite in one and the same character.
quote by Andrew Coyle Bradley

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Death and I
When death comes
I’ll need not love –
Consumed,
No wreath or dove
Could offer me salvation,
Not when I’m no more.
A weathered stone will bear my name –
Identity of once a being
Living out existence in
A world of risk, and never seeing
Sense of why we’re here.
My genes will die away thro’ child –
Hue of eyes and hair, the way of thought,
Will quickly dim with generation –
Bow to future dominance –
Memories of provenance
Resigned to curious few.
When death comes
I’ll need not grace
Below; no grieving face
Will call my resurrection,
Not when I’m at ground –
Death and I so bound.
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2011
D eath Crawl
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poem by Mark R Slaughter

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Death’s Too Near
Death, you’re standing rather near!
Don’t you understand the fear
You trigger deep within my soul–?
The terror sprung by such a ghoul
Of dark and hideous hue!
Now you’re rattling on my door!
I’m sure I threw you out before –
Methinks you really need to learn!
So leg it please and ne’er return
To haunt me ‘gain, now shoo!
Gain a sense of social pride, and
Keep your bearing far and wide –
Perform the deed when I am done –
Be free and loose to have your fun
When I’m too frail to turn and run,
But now I’ve living to do!
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2010
Death, death, nearing death, death, death nearing death
Death, death, nearing death, death, death nearing death
Death, death, nearing death, death, death nearing death
Death, death, nearing death, death
Death, death, nearing death
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Death, death
Death
Death, death
Death
poem by Mark R Slaughter

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Lovehatetragedy
Human behavior
Peculiar it seems
Some thrive on hate
Some love the dream
Everyone's got a purpose and wants to be loved
I think I found my purpose
I think I found love
Hidden inside myself
Tragedy
Strikes when you least expect it
Hate and destruction crashed down on our world
The stars and the stripes
The boys and the girls
It's sad it took war just to bring us together
I believe in love
I believe in forever
Hidden inside ourselves
You better run
You better run
For your life
For your life
Shed a tear
Shed a tear
Live in fear
Tragedy day
Tragedy day
Tragedy day
song performed by by Papa Roach from Lovehatetragedy

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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