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The Suicide

Last was the wealth I carried in life's pack-
Youth, health, ambition, hope and trust but Time
And Fate, those robbers fit for any crime
Stole all, and left me but the empty sack.
Before me lay a long and lonely track
Of darkling hills and barren steeps to climb;
Behind me lay in shadows the sublime
Lost lands of Love's delight. Alack! Alack!

Unwearied, and with springing steps elate,
I had conveyed my wealth along the road.
The empty sack proved now a heavier load:
I was borne down beneath its worthless weight.
I stumbled on, and knocked at Death's dark gate.
There was no answer. Stung by sorrow's goad
I
forced
my way into that grim abode,
And laughed, and flung Life's empty sack to Fate

Unknown and uninvited I passed in
To that strange land that hangs between two goals,
Round which a dark and solemn river rolls-
More dread its silence than the loud earth's din.
And now, where was the peace I hoped to win?
Black-masted ships slid past me in great shoals,
Their bloody decks thronged with mistaken souls.
(God punishes mistakes sometimes like sin.)

Not rest and not oblivion I found.
My suffering self dwelt with me just the same;
But here no sleep was, and no sweet dreams came
To give me respite. Tyrant Death, uncrowned
By my own hand, still King of Terrors, frowned
Upon my shuddering soul, that shrank in shame
Before those eyes where sorrow blent with blame,
And those accusing lips that made no sound.

What gruesome shapes dawned on my startled sight!
What awful sighs broke on my listening ear!
The anguish of the earth, augmented here
A thousand-fold, made one continuous night.
The sack I flung away in impious spite
Hung yet upon me, filled. I saw in fear,
With tears that rained from earth's adjacent sphere,
And turned to stones in falling from that height.

And close about me pressed a grieving throng,
Each with his heavy sack, which bowed him so
His face was hidden. One of these mourned: 'Know
Who enters here but finds the way more long
To those fair realms where sounds the angels' song
There is no man-made exit out of woe;
Ye cannot dash the locked door down and go
To claim thy rightful joy through paths of wrong.'

He passed into the shadows dim and gray,
And left me to pursue my path alone.
With terror greater than I yet had known.
Hard on my soul the awful knowledge lay,
Death had not ended life nor found God's way;
But, with my same sad sorrows still my own,
Where by-roads led to by-roads, thistle-sown,
I had but wandered off and gone astray.

With earth still near enough to hear its sighs,
With heaven afar and hell but just below,
Still on and on my lonely soul must go
Until I earn the right to Paradise.
We cannot force our way into God's skies,
Nor rush into the rest we long to know;
But patiently, with bleeding steps and slow,
Toil on to where selfhood in Godhood dies.

poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Sack Full Of Stones

(Travis Tritt/Marty Stuart)
I used to be the kind of guy
I could laugh as well as cry
With a heart feather-soft and summer-warm
Since you've left me I've been faced
With emptiness that's been replaced
With a heart that's hard and heavy as a sack full of stones
I never thought I'd ever see
The man my mirror is showing me
Lord I must have aged ten years
Since you've been gone
The longest mile you'll ever crawl
Is the one after you fall
Draggin' around a heart that's heavy as a sack full of stones
With the world upon my shoulders
And my feelings on my sleeve
Every time I close my eyes at night
All I do is watch you leave
But by far the biggest curse of being left alone
Is draggin' around a heart that's heavy as a sack full of stones
Well I tried turning to a bottle
But the bottle turned on me
I've tried everything
But nothing sets your memory free
I'm serving life here in a prison
That we once called a home
With a heart that's cold and heavy as a sack full of stones
With the world upon my shoulders
And my feelings on my sleeve
Every time I close my eyes at night
All I do is watch you leave
But by far the biggest curse of being left alone
Is draggin' around a heart that's heavy as a sack full of stones
Yes by far the biggest curse of being left alone
Is draggin' around a heart that's heavy as a sack full of stones

song performed by by Travis Tritt
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Wind At Night

O SUDDEN blast, that through this silence black
Sweeps past my windows,
Coming and going with invisible track
As death or sin does,--

Why scare me, lying sick, and, save thy own,
Hearing no voices?
Why mingle with a helpless human moan
Thy mad rejoices?

Why not come gently, as good angels come
To souls departing,
Floating among the shadows of the room
With eyes light-darting,

Bringing faint airs of balm that seem to rouse
Thoughts of a Far Land,
Then binding softly upon weary brows
Death's poppy-garland?

O fearful blast, I shudder at thy sound,
Like heathen mortal
Who saw the Three that mark life's doomèd bound
Sit at his portal.

Thou mightst be laden with sad, shrieking souls,
Carried unwilling
From their known earth to the unknown stream that rolls
All anguish stilling.

Fierce wind, will the Death-angel come like thee,
Soon, soon to bear me
--Whither? what mysteries may unfold to me,
What terrors scare me?

Shall I go wand'ring on through empty space
As on earth, lonely?
Or seek through myriad spirit-ranks one face,
And miss that only?
Shall I not then drop down from sphere to sphere
Palsied and aimless?
Or will my being change so that both fear
And grief die nameless?

Rather I pray Him who Himself is Love,
Out of whose essence
We all do spring, and towards him tending, move
Back to His presence,

That even His brightness may not quite efface
The soul's earth-features,
That the dear human likeness each may trace
Glorified creatures;

That we may not cease loving, only taught
Holier desiring;
More faith, more patience; with more wisdom fraught,
Higher aspiring.

That we may do all work we left undone
Here--though unmeetness;
From height to height celestial passing on
Towards full completeness.

Then, strong Azrael, be thy supreme call
Soft as spring-breezes,
Or like this blast, whose loud fiend-festival
My heart's blood freezes.

I will not fear thee. If thou safely keep
My soul, God's giving,
And my soul's soul, I, wakening from death-sleep,
Shall first know living.

poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Little Nell

GLEAMING through the silent church-yard,
Winter sunlight seemed to shed
Golden shadows like soft blessings
O'er a quiet little bed,

Where a pale face lay unheeding
Tender tears that o'er it fell;
No sorrow now could touch the heart
Of gentle little Nell.

Ah, with what silent patient strength
The frail form lying there
Had borne its heavy load of grief,
Of loneliness and care.

Now, earthly burdens were laid down,
And on the meek young face
There shone a holier loveliness
Than childhood's simple grace.

Beset with sorrow, pain and fear,
Tempted by want and sin,
With none to guide or counsel her
But the brave child-heart within.

Strong in her fearless, faithful love,
Devoted to the last,
Unfaltering through gloom and gleam
The little wanderer passed.

Hand in hand they journeyed on
Through pathways strange and wild,
The gray-haired, feeble, sin-bowed man
Led by the noble child.

So through the world's dark ways she passed,
Till o'er the church-yard sod,
To the quiet spot where they found rest,
Those little feet had trod.

To that last resting-place on earth
Kind voices bid her come,
There her long wanderings found an end,
And weary Nell a home.

A home whose light and joy she was,
Though on her spirit lay
A solemn sense of coming change,
That deepened day by day.

There in the church-yard, tenderly,
Through quiet summer hours,
Above the poor neglected graves
She planted fragrant flowers.

The dim aisles of the ruined church
Echoed the child's light tread,
And flickering sunbeams thro' the leaves
Shone on her as she read.

And here where a holy silence dwelt,
And golden shadows fell,
When Death's mild face had looked on her,
They laid dear happy Nell.

Long had she wandered o'er the earth,
One hand to the old man given,
By the other angels led her on
Up a sunlit path to Heaven.

Oh! 'patient, loving, noble Nell,'
Like light from sunset skies,
The beauty of thy sinless life
Upon the dark world lies.

On thy sad story, gentle child,
Dim eyes will often dwell,
And loving hearts will cherish long
The memory of Nell.

poem by Louisa May Alcott
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Dead Man's Dump

The plunging limbers over the shattered track
Racketed with their rusty freight,
Stuck out like many crowns of thorns,
And the rusty stakes like sceptres old
To stay the flood of brutish men
Upon our brothers dear.

The wheels lurched over sprawled dead
But pained them not, though their bones crunched,
Their shut mouths made no moan.
They lie there huddled, friend and foeman,
Man born of man, and born of woman,
And shells go crying over them
From night till night and now.

Earth has waited for them,
All the time of their growth
Fretting for their decay:
Now she has them at last!
In the strength of their strength
Suspended--stopped and held.

What fierce imaginings their dark souls lit?
Earth! have they gone into you!
Somewhere they must have gone,
And flung on your hard back
Is their soul's sack
Emptied of God-ancestralled essences.
Who hurled them out? Who hurled?

None saw their spirits' shadow shake the grass,
Or stood aside for the half used life to pass
Out of those doomed nostrils and the doomed mouth,
When the swift iron burning bee
Drained the wild honey of their youth.

What of us who, flung on the shrieking pyre,
Walk, our usual thoughts untouched,
Our lucky limbs as on ichor fed,
Immortal seeming ever?
Perhaps when the flames beat loud on us,
A fear may choke in our veins
And the startled blood may stop.

The air is loud with death,
The dark air spurts with fire,
The explosions ceaseless are.
Timelessly now, some minutes past,
Those dead strode time with vigorous life,
Till the shrapnel called `An end!'
But not to all. In bleeding pangs
Some borne on stretchers dreamed of home,
Dear things, war-blotted from their hearts.

Maniac Earth! howling and flying, your bowel
Seared by the jagged fire, the iron love,
The impetuous storm of savage love.
Dark Earth! dark Heavens! swinging in chemic smoke,
What dead are born when you kiss each soundless soul
With lightning and thunder from your mined heart,
Which man's self dug, and his blind fingers loosed?

A man's brains splattered on
A stretcher-bearer's face;
His shook shoulders slipped their load,
But when they bent to look again
The drowning soul was sunk too deep
For human tenderness.

They left this dead with the older dead,
Stretched at the cross roads.

Burnt black by strange decay
Their sinister faces lie,
The lid over each eye,
The grass and coloured clay
More motion have than they,
Joined to the great sunk silences.

Here is one not long dead;
His dark hearing caught our far wheels,
And the choked soul stretched weak hands
To reach the living word the far wheels said,
The blood-dazed intelligence beating for light,
Crying through the suspense of the far torturing wheels
Swift for the end to break
Or the wheels to break,
Cried as the tide of the world broke over his sight.

Will they come? Will they ever come?
Even as the mixed hoofs of the mules,
The quivering-bellied mules,
And the rushing wheels all mixed
With his tortured upturned sight.
So we crashed round the bend,
We heard his weak scream,
We heard his very last sound,
And our wheels grazed his dead face.

poem by Isaac Rosenberg
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Lonely, ,

Lonely and alone I am
my soul's always lonesome
in a crowd of loneliness
it sounds sad and lonely
hiding loneliness alone
the lonely lone alone

Lonely is a single traveller
on a dark and winding road.
Lonely is the burden
of carrying a heavy load.

Lonely is a beautiful song
that no one's ever heard,
and lonely is the wait for death
by a broken winged bird.

Lonely is the emptiness
inside my hollow soul,
and lonely is the sound of the wind
blowing through its gaping hole.

Loneliness is second only
to the darkened void of death
and loneliness is taking
that 'Right' to Hell
when I should have made a 'Left'.

Lonely is the sound
of an infant
who sadly cries in vain,
and lonely is his addict mother
shooting poison in her veins.

Lonely is the boy
who will never become a man
and lonely is the brink of disaster
upon which I know I stand.

Lonely is the poem
which has gone on long enough
and lonely is the sympathizers
who say I've, 'had it rough'.

Lonely is my life
lived without family or friend
and lonely is the last word of this poem
because it's always at the...

End.

poem by Deep Dark Soul Poet
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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So Lonely Alone

So lonely alone am I
My soul's lonesome in the crowd of loneliness
It sounds sad and lonely
Hiding loneliness alone
The lonely lone alone

Lonely is a single traveller
On a dark and winding road.
Lonely is the burden
Of carrying a heavy load.

Lonely is a beautiful song
That no one's ever heard,
And lonely is the wait for death
For a broken winged bird.

Lonely is the emptiness
Inside my hollow soul,
And lonely is the sound of the wind
Blowing through its gaping hole.

Loneliness is second only
To the darkened void of death
And loneliness is taking
That 'Right' to Hell
When I should have made a 'Left'.

Lonely is the sound
Of a lonesome infant
Who sadly cries in vain,
And lonely is his addict mother
Shooting poison in her veins.

Lonely is the boy
Who will never become a man
And lonely is the brink of disaster
Upon which I know I stand.

Lonely is the poem
Which has gone on long enough
And lonely is the sympathisers
Who say I've, 'had it rough'.

Lonely is my life
Lived without family or friend
And lonely is the last word of this poem
Because it's always at the...
…End.

poem by Deep Dark Soul Poet
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Veils

Veils, everywhere float veils; veils long and black,
Framing white faces, oft-times young and fair,
But, like a rose touched by untimely frost,
Showing the blighting marks of sorrow's track.

Veils, veils, veils everywhere. They tell the cost
Of man-made war. They show the awful toll
Paid by the hearts of women for the crimes,
The age-old crimes by selfishness ill-named
'Justice' and 'Honour' and 'The call of Fate'-
High words men use to hide their low estate.
About the joy and beauty of this world
A long black veil is furled.
Even the face of Heaven itself seems lost
Behind a veil. It takes a fervent soul
In these tense times
To visualise a God so long defamed
By insolent lips, that send out prayers, and prate
Of God's collaboration in dark deeds,
So foul they put to shame the fiends of hell.

Yet One
does
dwell
In Secret Centres of the Universe-
The Mighty Maker; and He hears and heeds
The still small voice of soulful, selfless faith;
And He is lifting now the veil of death,
So long down-dropped between those worlds and earth.
Yea! He is giving faith a great new birth
By letting echoes from the hidden places
Where dwell our dead, fall on love's listening ear.
Hearken, and you shall hear
The messages which come from those star-spaces!
That is the reason why
God let so many die;
That the vast hordes of suffering hearts might wake
Mighty vibrations, and the silence break
Between the neighbouring worlds, and lift the veil
'Twixt life on earth, and life Beyond. All hail
To great Jehovah, Who has given life
Eternal, everlasting, after strife!

Veils, long black veils, you shall be bridal white.
Eyes, blind with tears, you shall receive your sight,
And see your dead alive in Worlds of Light.

poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Widower

She left him in death's egg,
the bone sack & the gunny sack,
the bag of down & feathers-all black . . .
Somehow he couldn't get back.

It was night,
a night of shark-faced jets
winking brighter than blue stars,
a night of poisoned cities
mushrooming beneath the eyes of jets,
a night of missile silos
sulking in the desert,
a night of babies howling in the alleys,
a night of cats.

She left a death so huge
his life got lost in it.
She left a bloodstained egg
he had to hatch.

poem by Erica Jong
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Blind Caravan

1 I am a slave, both dumb and blind,
2 Upon a journey dread;
3 The iron hills lie far behind,
4 The seas of mist ahead.

5 Amid a mighty caravan
6 I toil a sombre track,
7 The strangest road since time began,
8 Where no foot turneth back.

9 Here rosy youth at morning's prime
10 And weary man at noon
11 Are crooked shapes at eventime
12 Beneath the haggard moon.

13 Faint elfin songs from out the past
14 Of some lost sunset land
15 Haunt this grim pageant drifting, vast,
16 Across the trackless sand.

17 And often for some nightward wind
18 We stay a space and hark,
19 Then leave the sunset lands behind,
20 And plunge into the dark.

21 Somewhere, somewhere, far on in front,
22 There strides a lonely man
23 Who is all strength, who bears the brunt,
24 The battle and the ban.

25 I know not of his face or form,
26 His voice or battle-scars,
27 Or how he fronts the haunted storm
28 Beneath the wintry stars;

29 I know not of his wisdom great
30 That leads this sightless host
31 Beyond the barren hills of fate
32 Unto some kindlier coast.

33 But often 'mid the eerie black
34 Through this sad caravan
35 A strange, sweet thrill is whispered back,
36 Borne on from man to man.

37 A strange, glad joy that fills the night
38 Like some far marriage horn,
39 Till every heart is filled with light
40 Of some belated morn.

41 The way is long, and rough the road,
42 And bitter the night, and dread,
43 And each poor slave is but a goad
44 To lash the one ahead.

45 Evil the foes that lie in wait
46 To slay us in the pass,
47 Bloody the slaughter at the gate,
48 And bleak the wild morass;

49 And I am but a shriveled thing
50 Beneath the midnight sky;
51 A wasted, wan remembering
52 Of days long wandered by.

53 And yet I lift my sightless face
54 Toward the eerie light,
55 And tread the lonely way we trace
56 Across the haunted night.

poem by William Wilfred Campbell
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It Came Upon Midnight Clear (Babys In Black)

===============================
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
===============================
It came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth
To touch their harps of gold:
"Peace on the earth, good will to men,
From heaven's all-gracious King."
The world in solemn stillness lay
To hear the angels sing.
Still through the cloven skies they come
With peaceful wings unfurled,
And still their heavenly music floats
O'er all the weary world;
Above its sad and lowly plains
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever o'er its Babel-sounds
The blessed angels sing.
Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the heavenly strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The tidings which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing!
O ye, beneath life's crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow,
Look now! for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing;
O rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing!
For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophets seen of old,
When with the ever-circling years
Shall come the time foretold,
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world give back the song
Which now the angels sing.

song performed by by Beatles
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Death Is My Companion

(4/3/12)

Where do we go from here? When death is very near.
Is there another plateau we must climb
Before we reach the end of the line.

Death is just a resting place - a rest stop if you must!
You will not be afraid if in GOD you put your trust.
Death is my companion - he holds my hand
Death is my companion - he understands.

Known as the angel of death, the grim reaper
Of this temporary life he is the keeper.
In his clutches you'll be for a short spell
Till they decide if you're going to heaven or hell.

This is a rest stop where you take a break
Till they decide what is your fate.
So while I am on this plateau
There is no where that I will go.

Where do we go from here?
Your guess is as good as mine
As long as I'm not here until the ends of time.
This must be purgatory that I hear so much about
Maybe this is where we can turn our lives about.

Death! I know you're my companion
And we have walked hand in hand
But there is something I think you should understand
There are things on this earth that I must do
And until I finish them, my life on earth is not through.

I put my faith in GOD that he will show me the way
And from that road, I know I will not stray.

poem by Louis Rams
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Love-Laurel

Ah! that God once would touch my lips with song
To pierce, as prayer doth heaven, earth’s breast of iron,
So that with sweet mouth I might sing to thee,
O sweet dead singer buried by the sea,
A song, to woo thee, as a wooing siren,
Out of that silent sleep which seals too long
Thy mouth of melody.
For, if live lips might speak awhile to dead,
Or any speech could reach the sad world under
This world of ours, song surely should awake
Thee who didst dwell in shadow for song’s sake!
Alas! thou canst not hear the voice of thunder,
Nor low dirge over thy low-lying head
The winds of morning make.

Down through the clay there comes no sound of these;
Down in the grave there is no sign of Summer,
Nor any knowledge of the soft-eyed Spring;
But Death sits there, with outspread ebon wing,
Closing with dust the mouth of each new-comer
To that mute land, where never sound of seas
Is heard, and no birds sing.

Now thou hast found the end of all thy days
Hast thou found any heart a vigil keeping
For thee among the dead—some heart that heard
Thy singing when thou wert a brown, sweet bird
Gray Æons gone, in some old forest sleeping
Beneath the seas long since? in Death’s dim ways
Has thy heart any word?

For surely those in whom the deathless spark
Of song is kindled, sang from the beginning
If life were always? But the old desires—
Do they exist when sad-eyed Hope expires?
How live the dead? what crowns have they for winning?
Have they, to warm them in the dreamless dark,
For sun earth’s central fires?

Are the dead dead indeed whom we call dead?
Has God no life but this of ours for giving?—
When that they took thee by each well-known place,
Stark in thy coffin with a cold white face,
What thought, O Brother, hadst thou of the living?
What of the sun that round thee glory shed?
What of the fair day’s grace?

Is thy new life made up of memories
Or dreams that lull the dead, bright visions bringing
Of Spring above! Are thy days short or long?
Thou who wert master of our singing throng
Mayhap in death thou hast not lost thy singing,
But chauntst unheard, beside the moaning sea,
A solitary song.

The chance spade turns up skulls. God help the dead
And thee whose singing days have all passed over—
Thee, whom the gold-haired Spring shall seek in vain
When at the glad year’s doors she stands again,
Remembering the song-garlands thou hast wove her
In years gone by: but all these years have fled
With all their joy and pain.

My soul laughed out to hear my heart speak so,
And sprang forth skyward, as an eagle, hoping
To look upon thy soul with living eyes,
Until it came to where our dim life dies,
And dead suns darkly for a grave are groping
Through cycles of immeasurable woe,
Stone-blind in the blind skies.
The stars walk shuddering on that awful verge
From which my soul, with swift and fearless motion,
Clove the black depths, and sought for God and thee;
But God dwells where nor stars nor suns there be—
No shore there is to His Eternal Ocean;
A thousand systems are a fringe of surge
On that great starless sea.

And thou wert not. So that, with weary plumes,
My soul through the great void its way came winging
To earth again. “What hope for him who sings
Is there?” it sighed. “Death ends all sweetest things.”
When lo! there came a swell of mighty singing,
Flooding all space, and swift athwart the glooms
A flash of sudden wings.

Dreamer of dreams, thy songs and dreams are done.
Down where thou sleepest in earth’s secret bosom
There is no sorrow and no joy for thee,
Who canst not see what stars at eve there be,
Nor evermore at morn the green dawn blossom
Into the golden king-flower of the sun
Across the golden sea.
But haply there shall come in days to be
One who shall hear his own heart beating faster,
Plucking a rose sprung from thy heart beneath,
And from his soul, as sword from out its sheath,
Song shall leap forth where now, O silent master,
On thy lone grave beside the sounding sea,
I lay this laurel-wreath.

poem by Victor James Daley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Heaven and Hell are Real

Our faith in God must come right from our hearts;
No one can see the God of creation;
We know of God certainly through Nature;
The Bible speaks enough of God’s kingdom.

Infinite love of God for man is clear;
God cares for every creature made by Him;
God punishes to cleanse our soul sin-free;
The Maker is a loving, living God.

God may permit sorrows and grief for man;
He will not give him more than he can bear;
Our God is fair and just in everything;
He made heaven for man out of great love.

Through Nature’s furies, God warns all bad men;
By stern punishments, God reminds man’s wrongs;
The love of God made man so perfectly;
The love of God wants souls to stay in grace.

Our savior Christ had bled to death on cross;
He paid a bloody price for all men’s sins;
Even the worst sinner can now see God;
Repent to enter Kingdom of heaven.

Why blame the God of love for our own faults?
Why not believe in God, rather in science?
Man’s toil per se can’t do the greatest feats;
We need God’s help to subdue the devil.

Victory against the devil is real;
All men can win the war against Satan;
Our God made hell for angels-turned devils;
But evil men will get a similar fate.

Awake, O mind, heart, soul of man on earth!
Lord Jesus comes again in short a time;
He’ll take pure souls to heaven instantly;
Unrepentant sinners will land in hell!

poem by John Celes
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Verses To John Tupper

DEAR Jack
Alack!
A few days back
I bound myself by oath to smack
My lips o'er sloshy tea, and attack
White, brown, or black
Bread, and vile jokes to crack,
This night with brutes whose knack
Would squeeze a pun in Syriac.
And for to—morrow, alack!
I have a model on my track,
So that I may not pack.
Of course I writhe upon the rack:
Though as to NATURE, Jack,
(Poor dear old hack!)
Touching sky, sun, stone, stick, and stack,
I guess I'm half a quack;
For whom ten lines of Browning whack
The whole of the Zodiac.
Nevertheless, alack!
Seeing this time I must send back
To Prince and Baron, Stephens and Jack
(Spec—cadav Rex, hic hæc hoc hac),
And to the Maniac,
The sack.
This much from D.G.R. (in black,
I.e., with coal—ash cloth—of—sack.)

poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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At Dawn and Dusk

At Dawn and Dusk
Love-Laurel
IN MEMORY OF HENRY KENDALL

AH! that God once would touch my lips with song
To pierce, as prayer doth heaven, earth’s breast of iron,
So that with sweet mouth I might sing to thee,
O sweet dead singer buried by the sea,
A song, to woo thee, as a wooing siren,
Out of that silent sleep which seals too long
Thy mouth of melody.
For, if live lips might speak awhile to dead,
Or any speech could reach the sad world under
This world of ours, song surely should awake
Thee who didst dwell in shadow for song’s sake!
Alas! thou canst not hear the voice of thunder,
Nor low dirge over thy low-lying head
The winds of morning make.

. . . . .
My soul laughed out to hear my heart speak so,
And sprang forth skyward, as an eagle, hoping
To look upon thy soul with living eyes,
Until it came to where our dim life dies,
And dead suns darkly for a grave are groping
Through cycles of immeasurable woe,
Stone-blind in the blind skies.
The stars walk shuddering on that awful verge
From which my soul, with swift and fearless motion,
Clove the black depths, and sought for God and thee;
But God dwells where nor stars nor suns there be—
No shore there is to His Eternal Ocean;
A thousand systems are a fringe of surge
On that great starless sea.

. . . . .
Dreamer of dreams, thy songs and dreams are done.
Down where thou sleepest in earth’s secret bosom
There is no sorrow and no joy for thee,
Who canst not see what stars at eve there be,
Nor evermore at morn the green dawn blossom
Into the golden king-flower of the sun
Across the golden sea.
But haply there shall come in days to be
One who shall hear his own heart beating faster,
Plucking a rose sprung from thy heart beneath,
And from his soul, as sword from out its sheath,
Song shall leap forth where now, O silent master,
On thy lone grave beside the sounding sea,
I lay this laurel-wreath.

poem by Victor James Daley
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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 all things held in time's control
Seem there, perchance, ill dreams, not worth
A little soul.

The little feet that never trod
Earth, never strayed in field or street,
What hand leads upward back to God
The little feet?

A rose in June's most honied heat,
When life makes keen the kindling sod,
Was not so soft and warm and sweet.

Their pilgrimage's period
A few swift moons have seen complete
Since mother's hands first clasped and shod
The little feet.

The little hands that never sought
Earth's prizes, worthless all as sands,
What gift has death, God's servant, brought
The little hands?

We ask: but love's self silent stands,
Love, that lends eyes and wings to thought
To search where death's dim heaven expands.

Ere this, perchance, though love know nought,
Flowers fill them, grown in lovelier lands,
Where hands of guiding angels caught
The little hands.

The little eyes that never knew
Light other than of dawning skies,
What new life now lights up anew
The little eyes?

Who knows but on their sleep may rise
Such light as never heaven let through
To lighten earth from Paradise?

No storm, we know, may change the blue
Soft heaven that haply death descries
No tears, like these in ours, bedew
The little eyes.

Was life so strange, so sad the sky,
So strait the wide world's range,
He would not stay to wonder why
Was life so strange?

Was earth's fair house a joyless grange
Beside that house on high
Whence Time that bore him failed to estrange?

That here at once his soul put by
All gifts of time and change,
And left us heavier hearts to sigh
'Was life so strange?'

Angel by name love called him, seeing so fair
The sweet small frame;
Meet to be called, if ever man's child were,
Angel by name.

Rose-bright and warm from heaven's own heart he came,
And might not bear
The cloud that covers earth's wan face with shame.

His little light of life was all too rare
And soft a flame:
Heaven yearned for him till angels hailed him there
Angel by name.

The song that smiled upon his birthday here
Weeps on the grave that holds him undefiled
Whose loss makes bitterer than a soundless tear
The song that smiled.

His name crowned once the mightiest ever styled
Sovereign of arts, and angel: fate and fear
Knew then their master, and were reconciled.

But we saw born beneath some tenderer sphere
Michael, an angel and a little child,
Whose loss bows down to weep upon his bier
The song that smiled.

poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Unfortunate

Fold her hands upon her breast,
And let her sweetly sleep.
She has found a perfect rest,
Beneath her winding sheet.

Her weary limbs are now at rest,
And free from toil and pain;
Her weary soul from earth has left,
But in Heaven lives again.

Death has closed her mild blue eyes,
That once was full of mirth,
Her lovely form once full of life,
Will now return to earth.

Touch her gently, let her lie,
This forsaken girl forlorn;
Tears may fall from strangers' eyes,
O'er her silent form.

She was a poor erring girl,
A wanderer alone,
Friends she had none in this world,
Nor a place she could call home.

She's found a home bright and fair
In that world above,
Angels dwell together there,
In perfect peace and love,

Place her gently in her grave,
And let her sweetly sleep.
Judge her not; for he who gave
Her life, her soul will keep.

poem by Julia A Moore
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The Quest

I am looking for Love. Has he passed this way,
With eyes as blue as the skies of May,
And a face as fair as the summer dawn?--
You answer back, but I wander on,--
For you say: 'Oh, yes; but his eyes were gray,
And his face as dim as a rainy day.'

Good friends, I query, I search for Love;
His eyes are as blue as the skies above,
And his smile as bright as the midst of May
When the truce-bird pipes: Has he passed this way?
And one says: 'Ay; but his face, alack!
Frowned as he passed, and his eyes were black.'

O who will tell me of Love? I cry!
His eyes are as blue as the mid-May sky,
And his face as bright as the morning sun;
And you answer and mock me, every one,
That his eyes were dark, and his face was wan,
And he passed you frowning and wandered on.

But stout of heart will I onward fare,
Knowing _my_ Love is beyond--somewhere,--
The Love I seek, with the eyes of blue,
And the bright, sweet smile unknown of you;
And on from the hour his trail is found
I shall sing sonnets the whole year round.

poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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Twilight In The North

O THE long northern twilight between the day and the night,
When the heat and the weariness of the world are ended quite:
When the hills grow dim as dreams, and the crystal river seems
Like that River of Life from out the Throne where the blessèd walk in white.

O the weird northern twilight, which is neither night nor day,
When the amber wake of the long-set sun still marks his western way:
And but one great golden star in the deep blue east afar
Warns of sleep, and dark, and midnight--of oblivion and decay.

O the calm northern twilight, when labor is all done,
And the birds in drowsy twitter have dropped silent one by one:
And nothing stirs or sighs in mountains, waters, skies,--
Earth sleeps--but her heart waketh, till the rising of the sun.

O the sweet, sweet twilight, just before the time of rest,
When the black clouds are driven away, and the stormy winds suppressed:
And the dead day smiles so bright, filling earth and heaven with light,--
You would think 't was dawn come back again--but the light is in the west.

O the grand solemn twilight, spreading peace from pole to pole!--
Ere the rains sweep o'er the hillsides, and the waters rise and roll,
In the lull and the calm, come, O angel with the palm--
In the still norther twilight, Azrael, take my soul.

poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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Easter- The Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the death of Death!

Lord Jesus Christ has risen from his grave!
The tomb on third day was an empty cave;
The Savior of mankind has done the feat;
The Evil One Satan has got defeat.

The empty tomb of Jesus Christ is proof:
The tomb-stone rolled aside, away from roof;
Yes, Jesus resurrected as forecast;
The sting of death is now a thing of past.

The second Adam has won over death;
The fear of death needn’t haunt someone on earth;
Death is not end but henceforth beginning
Of Life eternal- mankind’s new meaning.

Jesus, the Light has dispelled all darkness,
That hinders men from Heaven’s happiness;
Jesus, the Way leads all souls to Heaven;
Our Road to Heaven has been made even.

The heart of love infinite won o’er death;
No more can death frighten a soul on earth;
The King of Love has conquered death ‘per se’;
This is the key message of Easter Day.

Our sinless Messiah is alive still,
After his death on cross upon the hill;
God’s only Son is Savior of mankind;
Confess your sins of body and of mind.

Jesus, the Truth has triumphed o’er Satan;
And Hope is born afresh that beckons man;
Children of Adam and of Eve are saved;
The road to Heaven’s glory, Jesus paved.

Denied is Satan of power of death-
Sigh of relief for all souls upon earth;
The gate of Heaven’s wide open to all;
We all can go to God, despite our fall.

Death entered earth through Adam and Eve’s sin;
Christ’s Resurrection is also our win;
The warrior of love has conquered death;
Jesus has brought about the death of Death!

The awesome death is now man’s friendly-foe!
Death puts an end to every strife and woe;
The cruel thief is welcome guest of man;
Man need not fear death in his whole life-span.

Death is the way to Eternity now;
Death is not dreadful as it was once, wow!
Man’s body got back sanctity once lost-
Rejuvenating truth to mankind, vast.

No tomb can hold a man’s body for long;
Death’s silence will be broken by life’s song;
The risen Christ has opened up all tombs-
Even for dead, unborn babies in wombs!

The future of all mankind lies in Christ;
‘Our faith in God’- the flag, we ought to hoist;
Follow the Cross and Heaven’s Gate is nigh,
When we are made too kings by One, most High.

Like Christ, all Christians too can resurrect;
Let’s keep our soul without sinful defect;
The rod for sins has also been absolved;
Redemption of mankind has been resolved.

The holy cross of Christ has paid the price
Of freedom of man’s every sin and vice;
Awaits the Lord with banquet feast for us;
Let us prepare our soul now for this Bliss.

‘Easter- Risen Christ and death of Death! ’