The Drowned Alive
I was one so deeply drowned,
That when the drag my body found,
Twas void of motion, void of breath,
And to sensation dead as death.
In a languid summer mood
I had plunged into a flood,
That to the low sun’s slanting beams
Gleamed with only quiet gleams,
Each with a wide flicker sheeting
From its still floor, fast and fleeting,
E’en such a flood as, one would say,
Could never, or by night or day,
Have drenched a man’s warm life away.
But what are these down in its bed
That trail so long and look so red,
Moving as in conscious sport?
Are they weeds of curious sort?
But I’ll drive to them and see
Into all their mystery.
Down I dive. A plentious crop!
Some shall with me to the top,
For here there is too dim a light
To show their character aright.
I wind them in my arms, intent
To root them up in my ascent;
But they resist me, and again
I tug them with a stronger strain.
Full well, I trow, they hold their own,
Gripping fast each bedded stone
With their tuby roots, that go
Down through the stiff slime below.
Well at last I find that I
Must leave them.—But in vain I try!
Fierce as lightning on my brain
Smites the dread truth—I try in vain!
Yea, more and more, in coils and flakes
Like long blood-red watersnakes,
The deadly things around me clasp—
The more I tug the more they grasp!
My pent breath, growing hot and thin,
Explodes with a dull booming din;
While through my unclenched teeth the wave
Comes drenching! Is there none to save?
None near to see, to guess, to trace
Under the water s gleaming face
The dread extremity of one
Thus fastened down? Ah! Is there none?
Wild as vain my struggles grow—
Horror, horror, life must go!
Hope gives up her ghost, despair;
I am dying; round me here
The long weeds erst so deeply red,
Look, even where nearest, grey as lead,
As mid them, settling down, I sway
To and fro, and fast away
Life keeps bubbling—bubbling, aye
Through my cold lips wide agape,
White, and stiffening to that shape
They take at last when done with breath
In the rigid face of death.
And now, while sullen drummings make
My spirit through mine ears to ache,
Life-long memories interwrought
With all I ever felt or thought,
Sacred fancies hidden long
Lest the world should do them wrong,
Pent-back feelings that for years
Just below the source of tears
Folded close their glowing wings,
With a million other things,
All thick interthronging press
Through my drowning consciousness;
Then comes the thought of how my doom
Must wrap my mother in its gloom;
And give my sire to hold his breath
For anguish, hearing of my death,
And wound one fond heart to the core
In the wide world evermore.
All in the same instant so
Do these quick thoughts come and go,
Life within my failing brain
Full of pity, full of pain.
Lastly a drear stupor blent
With a comfortless content,
Into one mass of clammy clay
Kneads mind and body. Drenched away
With one faint shudder, one last throe,
Life stagnates and its shell lies low,
Swaying weed-bound to and fro,
Void of feeling and of breath,
How die we, if this be not death?
Ah! What thrilling, thrilling pain
Kindles through my heart and brain!
Ah! What horrors o’er me wave,
Shadowing forth as from the grave;
Ah! Those sudden gleams of light,
They fall like firebrands on my sight!
Ah! What vast and heavy world
Is all at once upon me hurled,
Massing into one immense
Oppression, every tortured sense.
. . . . .
Yes; I now remember well
How my sudden fate befell;
And are we, then, in death s grim thrall,
Thus consciousness of our funeral?
But where are they who most should mourn
When by bier is graveward borne?
With her whose face I yearn to see—
Where are they? And where is she?
Where the crape-trimm’d followers all?
Where the coffin and the pall?
Or do death and nature strive
Within me? Is the drowned alive?
poem by Charles Harpur
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Related quotes
Love, Dreaming of Death
I dreamt my little boys were dead
And I was sitting wild and lone;
On closed unmoving knees my head
Lay rigid as a stone.
And thus I sat without a tear,
And though I drew life’s painful breath,
All life to me seemed cold and drear,
And comfortless as death:
Sat on the earth as on a bier,
Where loss and ruin lived alone,
Without the comfort of a tear—
Without a passing groan.
And there was stillness everywhere,
Ensphering one wide sense of woe;
The stillness of a world’s despair,
Whose tides had ceased to flow.
Yea, so eternal seemed my grief,
Time moved out, neither slow nor fast,
Nor recked I whether periods brief
Or centuries had passed.
It was as if to marble cold
My loss had petrified the air,
And I was shut within its hold,
Made deathless by despair.
Made deathless in a world of death,
There ever sitting wild and lone,
With all but one pent painful breath
Transmutted into stone.
And more the gorgon horror crushed
With dry petrific pressure in,
Till forth my waking spirit rushed
With agonizing din!
And oh! What joy it was to wake—
To cast that haggard dream away,
And from its stony influence break
Into the living day!
I sought the objects of my care,
And felt, while I embraced the twain,
How much even from a dream’s despair
A father’s love may gain.
When this dream-record long ago
I penned, how little did I deem
That yet a distant coming woe
Was shadowed in its theme.
For ah! Of that beloved twain,
The lips of one, then warm with breath,
I since have kissed unkissed again,
For they were cold in death.
A swift wild death! And when I think
Of all that I have lost thereby,
My heart hath pangs that seem to drink
All Mara’s waters dry;
Yea, pangs that would my life destroy,
Did faith not whisper oft between:
“Peace! Sire of an immortal boy
Beyond this mortal scene.”
poem by Charles Harpur
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Life Or Death?
Every day we live, we always face death
We get closer to it, every time we take a breath
Life is special but death brings peace
Life brings reality and things you believe
Death is hard for everyone around
Death is quiet, no more bad sounds
Life is also hard, all the things we go through
Life can never be easy, no matter what you do
Death is sad, for those who cry
Death is meaningful, for those who die
Life is a work of art, it's nice to look
Life is full of teachings, like an open book
Death is the new life, might as well be dead
Death is a lot more, for what's up ahead
Life brings new things, always something new
Life brings surprises, something out the blue
Death is scary, nothing we want to see
Death is negative, a place we don't want to be
Life is full of love, with the ones close to you
Life is full of money, for those who sue
Death is empty, nothing compared to this
Death is a lot of things, too long of a list
But life is everything; don't wait till there's nothing left
Death can wait, so don't waste your last breath
So just pick your choice, which one? Life or death?
poem by Triauna Hall
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Since I Have Felt The Sense Of Death
Since I have felt the sense of death,
Since I have borne its dread, its fear—
Oh, how my life has grown more dear
Since I have felt the sense of death!
Sorrows are good, and cares are small,
Since I have known the loss of all.
Since I have felt the sense of death,
And death forever at my side—
Oh, how the world has opened wide
Since I have felt the sense of death!
My hours are jewels that I spend,
For I have seen the hours end.
Since I have felt the sense of death,
Since I have looked on that black night—
My inmost brain is fierce with light
Since I have felt the sense of death.
O dark, that made my eyes to see!
O death, that gave my life to me!
poem by Helen Hoyt
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One
[Track 13...9mins, 52sec.]
I can't remember anything
Can't tell if this is true or dream
Deep down inside I feel the scream
This terrible silence stops me
Now that the war is through with me
I'm waking up, I can not see
That there's not much left of me
Nothing's real but pain now
Hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh please God, wake me
Back in the womb it's much too real
In pumps life that I must feel
But can't look forward to reveal
Look to the time when I'll live
Fed through the tube that sticks in me
Just like a wartime novelty
Tied to machines that make me be
Cut this life off from me
Hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh please God, wake me
Now the world is gone I'm just one
Oh please help me
Hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh please God, help me
Darkness
Imprisoning me
All that I see
Absolute horror
I cannot live
I cannot die
Trapped in myself
Body my holding cell
(Get 'em up! Get 'em up!)
Landmine
Has taken my sight
Taken my speech
Taken my hearing
Taken my arms
Taken my legs
Taken my soul
Left me with a life in Hell
song performed by by Korn
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Scared to Death
I feel my heart beat as I lie there and breath every breath in.I feel as if im scared to death and nothing there to support me as i fall.I dream dreams that could not have an explination to them.I wake up breathing as hard as before as my feet touch the floor, I am scared to death.I love my life but there comes a time when you just have to admit everything that is wrong.As I breath so calmly and smooth just then i find out the truth.Im scared to death.I walk around with a smile and realize this life has so many 'un-discovered' facts and as we learn the facts i see that the worlds going to waist.Im scared to death.I look around wondering if anyone else knows or feels my pain, only because im scared to death.I wish i could tell someone I wish they would know, so i dont feel as if im in the world alone.Im scared to death.I wonder how i live this life with all the secrets i hold my behind my breath just to realize im scared to death!
poem by Melissa Ramey
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A Dream Of Resurrection
SO heavenly beautiful it lay,
It was less like a human corse
Than that fair shape in which perforce
A lost hope clothes itself alway.
The dream showed very plain: the bed
Where that known unknown face reposed,--
A woman's face with eyelids closed,
A something precious that was dead;
A something, lost on this side life,
By which the mourner came and stood,
And laid down, ne'er to be indued,
All flaunting robes of earthly strife;
Shred off, like votive locks of hair,
Youth's ornaments of pride and strength,
And cast them in their golden length
The silence of that bier to share.
No tears fell,--but with gazings long
Lorn memory tried to print that face
On the heart's ever-vacant place,
With a sun-finger, sharp and strong.--
Then kisses, dropping without sound,
And solemn arms wound round the dead,
And lifting from the natural bed
Into the coffin's strange new bound.
Yet still no farewell, or belief
In death, no more than one believes
In some dread truth that sudden weaves
The whole world in a shroud of grief.
And still unanswered kisses; still
Warm clingings to the image cold
With an incredulous faith's close fold,
Creative in its fierce 'I will.'
Hush,--hush! the marble eyelids move,
The kissed lips quiver into breath:
Avaunt, thou mockery of Death!
Avaunt!--we are conquerors, I and Love.
Corpse of dead Hope, awake, arise,
A living Hope that only slept
Until the tears thus overwept
Had washed the blindness from our eyes.
Come back into the upper day:
Pluck off these cerements. Patient shroud,
We'll wrap thee as a garment proud
Round the fair shape we thought was clay.
Clasp, arms; cling, soul; eyes, drink anew
The beauty that returns with breath:
Faith, that out-loved this trance-like death,
May see this resurrection too.
poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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Until Her Death
I.
UNTIL her death!' the words read strange yet real,
Like things afar off suddenly brought near:--
Will it be slow or speedy, full of fear,
Or calm as a spent day of peace ideal?
II.
Will her brown locks lie white on coffin pillow?
Will these her eyes, that sometime were called sweet,
Close, after years of dried-up tears, or meet
Death's dust in midst of weeping? And that billow,--
III.
Her restless heart,--will it be stopped, still heaving?
Or softly ebb 'neath age's placid breath?
Will it be lonely, this mysterious death,
Fit close unto her solitary living,--
IV.
A turning of her face to the wall, nought spoken,
Exchanging this world's light for heaven's;--or will
She part in pain, from warm love to the chill
Unknown, pursued with cries of hearts half-broken?
V.
With fond lips felt through the blind mists of dying,
And close arms clung to in the struggle vain;--
Or, these all past, will death to her be gain,
Unto her life's long question God's replying?
VI.
No more. Within his hand, divine as tender,
He holds the mystic measure of her days;
And be they few or many, His the praise,--
In life or death her Keeper and Defender.
VII.
Then, come He soon or late, she will not fear Him;
Be her end lone or loveful, she'll not grieve;
For He whom she believed in--doth believe--
Will call her from the dust, and she will hear Him.
poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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The Dead To The Living
Work while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
IN the childhood of April, while purple woods
With the young year's blood in them smiled,
I passed through the lanes and the wakened fields,
And stood by the grave of the child.
And the pain awoke that is never dead
Though it sometimes sleeps, and again
It set its teeth in this heart of mine,
And fastened its claws in my brain:
For it seemed so hard that the little hands
And the little well-loved head
Should be out of reach of my living lips,
And be side by side with the dead--
Not side by side with us who had loved,
But with these who had never seen
The grace of the smile, the gold of the hair,
And the eyes of my baby-queen.
Yet with trees about where the brown birds build,
And with long green grass above,
She lies in the cold sweet breast of earth
Beyond the reach of our love;
Whatever befalls in the coarse loud world,
We know she will never wake.
When I thought of the sorrow she might have known,
I was almost glad for her sake. . . .
Tears might have tired those kiss-closed eyes,
Grief hardened the mouth I kissed;
I was almost glad that my dear was dead
Because of the pain she had missed.
Oh, if I could but have died a child
With a white child-soul like hers,
As pure as the wind-flowers down in the copse,
Where the soul of the spring's self stirs;
Or if I had only done with it all,
And might lie by her side unmoved!
I envied the very clods of earth
Their place near the child I loved!
And my soul rose up in revolt at life,
As I stood dry-eyed by her grave,
When sudden the grass of the churchyard sod
Rolled back like a green smooth wave;
The brown earth looked like the brown sea rocks,
The tombstones were white like spray,
And white like surf were the curling folds
Of the shrouds where the dead men lay;
For each in his place with his quiet face
I saw the dead lie low,
Who had worked and suffered and found life sad,
So many sad years ago.
Unchanged by time I saw them lie
As when first they were laid to rest,
The tired eyes closed, the sad lips still,
And the work-worn hands on the breast.
There were some who had found the green world so grey,
They had left it before their time,
And some were little ones like my dear,
And some had died in their prime;
And some were old, they had had their fill
Of bitter unfruitful hours,
And knew that none of them, none, had known
A flower of a hope like ours!
Through their shut eyelids the dead looked up,
And without a voice they said:
'We lived without hope, without hope we died,
And hopeless we lie here dead;
And death is better than life that draws
Pain in, as it draws in breath,
If life never dreams of a coming day
When life shall not envy death.
Through the dark of our hours and our times we lived,
Uncheered by a single ray
Of such hope as lightens the lives of you
Who are finding life hard to-day;
With our little lanterns of human love
We lighted our dark warm night--
But you in the chill of the dawn are set
With your face to the eastern light.
Freedom is waiting with hands held out
Till you tear the veil from her face--
And when once men have seen the light of her eyes,
And felt her divine embrace,
The light of the world will be risen indeed,
And will shine in the eyes of men,
And those who come after will find life fair,
And their lives worth living then!
Will you strive to the light in your loud rough world,
That these things may come to pass,
Or lie in the shadow beside the child,
And strive to the sun through the grass?'
'My world while I may,' I cried; 'but you
Whose lives were as dark as your grave?'
'We too are a part of the coming light,'
They called through the smooth green wave.
Their white shrouds gleamed as the flood of green
Rolled over and hid them from me--
Hid all but the little hands and the hair,
And the face that I always see.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Death is when....
Death is when my loved ones must depart
Death is a sharp pain in my heart
Death is this feeling of permanent sadness and pain
Death is when my loved ones have gone away
Death is the call to heaven or hell
Death is an eternal mansion or cell
Death is the lesson i need to learn about
Death is a loss, without a doubt
Death is this unhappy feeling i have
Death is pleasant on my behalf
Death is the day i end my life
Death is when i give up the fight
Death is happiness to the world around me
Death started when i gained my life
Death can be helped along with this knife
Death is where i shall go
Death is close, i kno
Death willl come fast
Death is vast
Death is what i see
Death lives inside of me
Death is joy to me
Death has come for me
Death is gonna take me
Death will stop my misery
Death loves my company
Death ends the pain
Death takes me on that train
Death is near
Death is finally here
The Tryst
I raised the veil, I loosed the bands,
I took the dead thing from its place.
Like a warm stream in frozen lands
My lips went wandering on her face,
My hands burnt in her hands.
She could not stay me, being dead;
Her body here was mine to hold.
What if her lips had lost their red?
To me they always tasted cold
With the cold words she said.
Did my breath run along her hair,
And free the pulse, and fire the brain,
My wild blood wake her wild blood there?
Here eyelids lifted wide again
In a blue, sudden stare.
Beneath my fierce, profane caress
The whole white length of body moved;
The drowsy bosom seemed to press
As if against a breast beloved,
Then fail for weariness.
No, not that anguish! Christ forbid
That I should raise such dead! I rose,
Stifled the mouth with lilies, hid
Those eyes, And drew the long hair close,
And shut the coffin lid.
My cold brow on the cold wood laid,
Quiet and close to-night we lie.
No cruel words her lips have said.
I shall not take nor she deny.
The dead is with the dead.
poem by Muriel Stuart
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Life After Death
(ian hunter)
Is there life, is there life?
Is there life after death?
Do you believe? oh yeah!
Is there life, is there life?
Is there life after death?
Do you believe? oh yeah!
Do you stop take another roller coaster ride
Do I beg, steal, cheat or lie? oh my is there life after death?
Oh I wish Id never smoked so much
I wish Id never felt the devils touch
All that passes through my eyes so fast. oh my.
Is there life, is there life?
Is there life after death?
Do you believe? oh yeah!
Is there life, is there life?
Is there life after death?
Do you believe? oh yeah!
Its such a sad sad song
Mother nature aint never wrong
She always tells you when youre getting on
Oh my, is there life after death?
I can hardly wait to see my face
Will I still have one in a different place
Oh youll forgive me if I hesitate, but oh my
Is there life, is there life?
Is there life after death? do you believe? oh yeah!
Is there life, is there life?
Is there life after death? do you believe? oh yeah!
Is it any wonder, I feel just a little bit under
I hear choirs filled with fenders say return to sender
Jumping information, Ive got hyperventilation
Will it help me if I walk the streets
I gotta get down search around here dragged by my feet
Oh no I never knew those (? )
Im gonna shake it, shake it, shake it, is there life after death
I cant remember when I felt so sick and rough
And now theyre gonna legalise the stuff
It sure tells you when youve had enough, off the cuff
Is there life, is there life? is there life after death? do you believe? oh yeah!
Is there life, is there life? is there life after death? do you believe,
Ive run out of breath.
song performed by by Ian Hunter
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Died
Not by the death that kills the body. Nay,
By that which even Christ bade us to fear
Hath died my dead.
Ah, me! if on a bier
I could but see him lifeless stretched to-day,
I 'd bathe his face with tears of joy, and lay
My cheek to his in anguish which were near
To ecstasy, if I could hold him dear
In death as life. Mere separations weigh
As dust in balances of love. The death
That kills comes only by dishonor. Vain
To chide me! vain! And weaker to implore,
O thou once loved so well, loved now no more!
There is no resurrection for such slain,
No miracle of God could give thee breath!
poem by Helen Hunt Jackson
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Joy's Magic
Joy's is the magic sweet,
That makes Youth's pulses beat,
Puts music in young feet,
The old heart hears, the sad heart hears, that 's near it:
And Joy's the pleasant pain,
That holds us, heart and brain,
When Old Age, sound and sane,
With memories nears, long memories nears the spirit.
Joy's is the witchery rare,
That on the face of Care
Puts smiles; and rapture where
Love holds her breath, her heart's wild breath, to still her:
And Joy it is that plays
On Time's old lute of days
As Life goes on her ways
With thoughts of Death, gray thoughts of Death, that chill her.
poem by Madison Julius Cawein
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A Wish
I ask not that my bed of death
From bands of greedy heirs be free;
For these besiege the latest breath
Of fortune's favoured sons, not me.
I ask not each kind soul to keep
Tearless, when of my death he hears;
Let those who will, if any, weep!
There are worse plagues on earth than tears.
I ask but that my death may find
The freedom to my life denied;
Ask but the folly of mankind,
Then, at last, to quit my side.
Spare me the whispering, crowded room,
The friends who come, and gape, and go;
The ceremonious air of gloom -
All which makes death a hideous show!
Nor bring, to see me cease to live,
Some doctor full of phrase and fame,
To shake his sapient head and give
The ill he cannot cure a name.
Nor fetch, to take the accustomed toll
Of the poor sinner bound for death,
His brother doctor of the soul,
To canvass with official breath
The future and its viewless things -
That undiscovered mystery
Which one who feels death's winnowing wings
Must need read clearer, sure, than he!
Bring none of these; but let me be,
While all around in silence lies,
Moved to the window near, and see
Once more before my dying eyes
Bathed in the sacred dew of morn
The wide aerial landscape spread -
The world which was ere I was born,
The world which lasts when I am dead.
Which never was the friend of one,
Nor promised love it could not give,
But lit for all its generous sun,
And lived itself, and made us live.
There let me gaze, till I become
In soul with what I gaze on wed!
To feel the universe my home;
To have before my mind -instead
Of the sick-room, the mortal strife,
The turmoil for a little breath -
The pure eternal course of life,
Not human combatings with death.
Thus feeling, gazing, let me grow
Composed, refreshed, ennobled, clear;
Then willing let my spirit go
To work or wait elsewhere or here!
poem by Matthew Arnold (1867)
Submitted by anonym
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Life and Death, How Ironic
Life, it described my Mother
Life, she was the image
Life, she was healthy
Life, she loved every day
Life, you saw it in her eyes
Life, you heard it in her voice
Life, how ironic it could be
Death, the impossible
Death, too somber a thought for her
Death, she would live a long, long time before it would confront her
Death, sickness maybe, but there is always a cure
Death, not even a thought in the doctor’s mind
Death, it now replaced life
Life and death, my mother passed away with a look of peace on her face
She died knowing that she lived every moment to the fullest.
poem by Janice Karp
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Complaint of Lisa
There is no woman living who draws breath
So sad as I, though all things sadden her.
There is not one upon life's weariest way
Who is weary as I am weary of all but death.
Toward whom I look as looks the sunflower
All day with all his whole soul toward the sun;
While in the sun's sight I make moan all day,
And all night on my sleepless maiden bed.
Weep and call out on death, O Love, and thee,
That thou or he would take me to the dead.
And know not what thing evil I have done
That life should lay such heavy hand on me.
Alas! Love, what is this thou wouldst with me?
What honor shalt thou have to quench my breath,
Or what shall my heart broken profit thee?
O Love, O great god Love, what have I done,
That thou shouldst hunger so after my death?
My heart is harmless as my life's first day:
Seek out some false fair woman, and plague her
Till her tears even as my tears fill her bed:
I am the least flower in thy flowery way,
But till my time be come that I be dead,
Let me live out my flower-time in the sun,
Though my leaves shut before the sunflower.
O Love, Love, Love, the kingly sunflower!
Shall he the sun hath looked on look on me,
That live down here in shade, out of the sun,
Here living in the sorrow and shadow of death?
Shall he that feeds his heart full of the day
Care to give mine eyes light, or my lips breath?
Because she loves him, shall my lord love her
Who is as a worm in my lord's kingly way?
I shall not see him or know him alive or dead;
But thou, I know thee, O Love, and pray to thee
That in brief while my brief life-days be done,
And the worm quickly make my marriage-bed.
For underground there is no sleepless bed.
But here since I beheld my sunflower
These eyes have slept not, seeing all night and day
His sunlike eyes, and face fronting the sun.
Wherefore, if anywhere be any death,
I fain would find and fold him fast to me,
That I may sleep with the world's eldest dead,
With her that died seven centuries since, and her
That went last night down the night-wandering way.
For this is sleep indeed, when labor is done,
Without love, without dreams, and without breath,
And without thought, O name unnamed! of thee.
Ah! but, forgetting all things, shall I thee?
Wilt thou not be as now about my bed
There underground as here before the sun?
Shall not thy vision vex me alive and dead,
Thy moving vision without form or breath?
I read long since the bitter tale of her
Who read the tale of Launcelot on a day,
And died, and had no quiet after death,
But was moved ever along a weary way,
Lost with her love in the underworld; ah me,
O my king, O my lordly sunflower,
Would God to me, too, such a thing were done!
But if such sweet and bitter things be done,
Then, flying from life, I shall not fly from thee.
For in that living world without a sun
Thy vision will lay hold upon me dead,
And meet and mock me, and mar my peace in death.
Yet if being wroth, God had such pity on her,
Who was a sinner and foolish in her day,
That even in hell they twain should breathe one breath,
Why should he not in some wise pity me?
So if I sleep not in my soft strait bed,
I may look up and see my sunflower
As he the sun, in some divine strange way.
O poor my heart, well knowest thou in what way
This sore sweet evil unto us was done.
For on a holy and a heavy day
I was arisen out of my still small bed
To see the knights tilt, and one said to me
"The king;" and seeing him, somewhat stopped my breath;
And if the girl spake more, I heard her not,
For only I saw what I shall see when dead,
A kingly flower of knights, a sunflower,
That shone against the sunlight like the sun,
And like a fire, O heart, consuming thee,
The fire of love that lights the pyre of death.
Howbeit I shall not die an evil death
Who have loved in such a sad and sinless way,
That this my love, lord, was no shame to thee.
So when mine eyes are shut against the sun,
O my soul's sun, O the world's sunflower,
Thou nor no man will quite despise me dead.
And dying I pray with all my low last breath
That thy whole life may be as was that day,
That feast-day that made trothplight death and me,
Giving the world light of thy great deeds done;
And that fair face brightening thy bridal bed,
That God be good as God hath been to her.
That all things goodly and glad remain with her,
All things that make glad life and goodly death;
That as a bee sucks from a sunflower
Honey, when summer draws delighted breath,
Her soul may drink of thy soul in like way,
And love make life a fruitful marriage-bed
Where day may bring forth fruits of joy to day
And night to night till days and nights be dead.
And as she gives light of her love to thee,
Give thou to her the old glory of days long done;
And either give some heat of light to me,
To warm me where I sleep without the sun.
O sunflower make drunken with the sun,
O knight whose lady's heart draws thine to her,
Great king, glad lover, I have a word to thee.
There is a weed lives out of the sun's way,
Hid from the heat deep in the meadow's bed,
That swoons and whitens at the wind's least breath,
A flower star-shaped, that all a summer day
Will gaze her soul out on the sunflower
For very love till twilight finds her dead.
But the great sunflower heeds not her poor death,
Knows not when all her loving life is done;
And so much knows my lord the king of me.
Ay, all day long he has no eye for me;
With golden eye following the golden sun
From rose-colored to purple-pillowed bed,
From birthplace to the flame-lit place of death,
From eastern end to western of his way,
So mine eye follows thee, my sunflower,
So the white star-flower turns and yearns to thee,
The sick weak weed, not well alive or dead,
Trod under foot if any pass by her,
Pale, without color of summer or summer breath
In the shrunk shuddering petals, that have done
No work but love, and die before the day.
But thou, to-day, to-morrow, and every day,
Be glad and great, O love whose love slays me.
Thy fervent flower made fruitful from the sun
Shall drop its golden seed in the world's way,
That all men thereof nourished shall praise thee
For grain and flower and fruit of works well done;
Till thy shed seed, O shining sunflower,
Bring forth such growth of the world's garden-bed
As like the sun shall outlive age and death.
And yet I would thine heart had heed of her
Who loves thee alive; but not till she be dead.
Come, Love, then, quickly, and take her utmost breath.
Song, speak for me who am dumb as are the dead;
From my sad bed of tears I send forth thee,
To fly all day from sun's birth to sun's death
Down the sun's way after the flying sun,
For love of her that gave thee wings and breath
Ere day be done, to seek the sunflower.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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At The Last
Where are you--you whose loving breath
Alone can stay my soul from death?
The world's so wide, I seek it through,
Yet--dare I dream to win to you?
Perhaps your dear desired feet
Pass me in this grey muddy street.
Your face, it may be, has its shrine
In that dull house that's next to mine.
But I believe, O Life, O Fate,
That when I call on Death and wait
One moment at the unclosing gate
I shall turn back for one last gaze
Along the trampled, sordid ways,
And in the sunset see at last,
Just as the barred gate holds me fast,
Your face, your face, too late.
poem by Edith Nesbit
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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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
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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If?
If I should die this night, (as well might be,
So pain has on my weakness worked its will),
And they should come at morn and look on me
Lying more white than I am wont, and still
In the strong silence of unchanging sleep,
And feel upon my brow the deepening chill,
And know me gathered to His time-long keep,
The quiet watcher over all men's rest,
And weep as those around a death-bed weep --
There would no anguish throb my vacant breast,
No tear-drop trickle down my stony cheek,
No smile of long farewell say "Calm is best."
I should not answer aught that they should speak,
Nor look my meaning out of earnest eyes,
Nor press the reverent hands that mine should seek;
But, lying there in such an awful guise,
Like some strange presence from a world unknown
Unmoved by any human sympathies,
Seem strange to them, and dreadfully alone,
Vacant to love of theirs or agony,
Having no pulse in union with their own.
Gazing henceforth upon infinity
With a calm consciousness devoid of change,
Watching the current of the years pass by,
And watching the long cycles onward range,
With stronger vision of their perfect whole,
As one whom time and space from them estrange.
And they might mourn and say "The parted soul
"Is gone out of our love; we spend in vain
"A tenderness that cannot reach its goal."
Yet I might still perchance with them remain
In spirit, being free from laws of mould,
Still comprehending human joy and pain.
Ah me! but if I knew them as of old,
Clasping them in vain arms, they unaware,
And mourned to find my kisses leave them cold,
And sought still some part of their life to share
Still standing by them, hoping they might see,
And seemed to them but as the viewless air!
For so once came it in a dream to me,
And in my heart it seemed a pang too deep,
A shadow having human life to be.
For it at least would be long perfect sleep
Unknowing Being and all Past to lie,
Void of the growing Future, in God's keep:
But such a knowledge would be misery
Too great to be believed. Yet if the dead
In a diviner mood might still be nigh,
Their former life unto their death so wed
That they could watch their loved with heavenly eye,
That were a thing to joy in, not to dread.
poem by Augusta Davies Webster
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Breath of Death
Death is not death-
It is life without breath.
Life on earth is life that is blind-
Blinded by stress and the curse of time…
True life is life that remains untied,
Pure life is life that has honor and pride.
The cold breathe of death actually guilds-
It guilds to a place where darkness subsides…
Passed the shadow a secluded warmth is seen,
Benevolence and compassion becomes pristine.
Yes, this death is death indeed
A death of pain and an unheard plead.
However death is not death-
Only life without breath.
poem by Brad Lomeli
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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