My Days
My days are but the tombs of buried hours ;
Which tombs are hidden in the piled years ;
But from the mounds there spring up many flowers,
Whose beauty well repays their cost of tears.
Time, like a sexton, pileth mould on mould,
Minutes on minutes till the tombs are high ;
But from the dust there fall some grains of gold,
And the dead corpse leaves what will never die-
It may be but a thought, the nursling seed
Of many thoughts, of many a high desire ;
Some little act that stirs a noble deed,
Like breath rekindling a smouldering fire :
They only live who have not lived in vain,
For in their works their life returns again.
poem by Isaac Rosenberg
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Cool Tombs
When Abraham Lincoln was shoveled into the tombs he forgot
the copperheads and the assassin . . . in the dust, in the
cool tombs.
And Ulysses Grant lost all thought of con men and Wall Street,
cash and collateral turned ashes . . . in the dust, in the
cool tombs.
Pocahontas' body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw in
November or a pawpaw in May, did she wonder? does she
remember? . . . in the dust, in the cool tombs?
Take any streetful of people buying clothes and groceries,
cheering a hero or throwing confetti and blowing tin
horns . . . tell me if the lovers are losers . . . tell me if any
get more than the lovers . . . in the dust . . . in the cool
tombs.
poem by Carl Sandburg
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Lonely Tombs
(e) I was strollin one day, in a lonely graveyard,
When a voice from the tomb, seemed to (b7) say,
I once (e) lived as you live, walked and talked as you talk,
But from earth I was (b7) soon called a- (e) way.
Chorus
(e) oh, those tombs, (oh those tombs),
Lonely tombs, (lonely tombs ),
Seemed to say in a low gentle (b7) tone,
Oh how (e) sweet, (oh how sweet),
Is the rest, (is the rest),
In our beautiful, (b7) heavenly (e) home.
Every voice from the tomb, seemed to whisper and say,
Livin man you must soon follow me,
And I thought as I gazed, on that cold marble slab,
What a sad lonesome place that must be.
Repeat chorus
I then came to the place, where my mother did lay,
And her voice, soft and low, from the tomb,
It said, son Im at rest, with the savior above,
I am safe in my heavenly home.
Repeat chorus
song performed by by Hank Williams
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The House of Life: 71. The Choice, I
Eat thou and drink; to-morrow thou shalt die.
Surely the earth, that's wise being very old,
Needs not our help. Then loose me, love, and hold
Thy sultry hair up from my face; that I
May pour for thee this golden wine, brim-high,
Till round the glass thy fingers glow like gold.
We'll drown all hours: thy song, while hours are toll'd,
Shall leap, as fountains veil the changing sky.
Now kiss, and think that there are really those,
My own high-bosom'd beauty, who increase
Vain gold, vain lore, and yet might choose our way!
Through many years they toil; then on a day
They die not,--for their life was death,--but cease;
And round their narrow lips the mould falls close.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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LXXI The Choice, I
Eat thou and drink; to-morrow thou shalt die.
Surely the earth, that's wise being very old,
Needs not our help. Then loose me, love, and hold
Thy sultry hair up from my face; that I
May pour for thee this golden wine, brim-high,
Till round the glass thy fingers glow like gold.
We'll drown all hours: thy song, while hours are toll'd,
Shall leap, as fountains veil the changing sky.
Now kiss, and think that there are really those,
My own high-bosom'd beauty, who increase
Vain gold, vain lore, and yet might choose our way!
Through many years they toil; then on a day
They die not,--for their life was death,--but cease;
And round their narrow lips the mould falls close.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Windsor Poetics : Lines Composed On The Occasion Of His Royal Highness The Prince Regent Being Seen Standing Between The Coffins Of Henry VIII And Charles I, In The Royal Vault At Windsor
Famed for contemptuous breach of sacred ties,
By headless Charles see heartless Henry lies;
Between them stands another sceptred thing--
It moves, it reigns--in all but name, a king:
Charles to his people, Henry to his wife,
- In him the double tyrant starts to life:
Justice and death have mix'd their dust in vain,
Each royal vampire wakes to life again.
Ah, what can tombs avail!--since these disgorge
The blood and dust of both--to mould a George.
Lament Of The Winds
We in sorrow coldly witting,
In the bleak world sitting, sitting,
By the forest, near the mould,
Heard the summer calling, calling,
Through the dead leaves falling, falling,
That her life grew faint and old.
And we took her up, and bore her,
With the leaves that moaned before her,
To the holy forest bowers,
Where the trees were dense and serried,
And her corpse we buried, buried,
In the graveyard of the flowers.
Now the leaves, as death grows vaster,
Yellowing deeper, dropping faster,
All the grave wherein she lies
With their bodies cover, cover,
With their hearts that love her, love her,
For they live not when she dies:
And we left her so, but stay not
Of our tears, and yet we may not,
Though they coldly thickly fall,
Give the dead leaves any, any,
For they lie so many, many,
That we cannot weep for all.
poem by Archibald Lampman
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Anacreontic
Born I was to be old,
And for to die here;
After that, in the mould
Long for to lie here.
But before that day comes,
Still I be bousing;
For I know, in the tombs
There's no carousing.
poem by Robert Herrick
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Sirphan
The shadow,
Your muse,
Your love;
To be born from many wombs and to use various combs,
But the bombs came falling on us!
And most of us are now buried in the tombs.
A shadow,
Your works,
Your words;
Wombs, combs, bombs, tombs! !
The forum,
The temples,
The colossus,
The catacombs;
But the baths were made for your use,
So, make yourselves clean before the laws! !
And like the muse of Sirphan my friend.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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Be Very Patient
Be very patient,
The potter's clay;
Be very wise,
The writer's pen;
Be very useful,
Of the muse of life with a living hope;
Let your yes be yes and your no be no.
Life is like the patience of Iyyob,
So abstain from fleshly lust;
Like the days of our visitations on this earth.
Sarah obeyed Abraham,
Like the sea and the seashore;
So established are the two witnesses.
Oh womb, womb, womb!
Oh bomb, bomb, bpomb! !
Oh tomb, tomb, tomb! ! !
Be very patient in this life.
Womb. bomb, tomb;
The womb is opened.
Womb, bomb, tomb;
The earth is defiled.
Womb, bomb, tomb;
The time of trouble on this earth with our muses.
Our bombs will shake the heavens,
And our sins will led us to our tombs;
As it is written in the Book Of Life like,
A child born today from the womb.
We came out of the womb and,
Many of us will be killed by the bombs! !
Which will finally send us into the tombs.
Read about the facts,
Learn about the truth,
Our days of darkness from the womb!
We came out of the womb and,
Are destroying the world with our bombs;
Soon, we will be buried in the tombs!
Womb, bomb, tomb;
Be very patient on this earth without hatred.
Lets be each others keeper,
Lets learn for the truth of all things;
Our days on this earth is still very short.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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Strange Fragrance of Withered Flowers!
Hibiscus syriacus is the national flower of South Korea!
Dear Kim, I try to bring you that flower?
Summer breeze dragged me to a Korean burial grounds here
And it's really a living Paradise on Earth!
The beautiful tombs greeted me with a familiar smile.
The flowery characteristic letters on tombs I cannot read
That resembles the Japanese Hiragana?
I was very anxious to see at least a Korean relative lives here
Who could talk with me politely?
I walked further and all of a sudden found a tomb
Letters written in English and he must be a Korean-English scholar
Comitted suicide at his young age?
This was written;
'Hey! My stranger friend did you bring flowers and candles?
If not never mind leisurely we could have a chat.'
I was ashamed and looked around, all are dead souls
Except me only the breathing Corpse?
I took my pencil stub from the hidden pocket and scribbled this;
'When I come here next time I'll fulfill your humble expectations Brother! '
I hear my talkative wallet murmurs;
'Master why did you give broken promises? '
'Hey! My friend Man is a broken soul
And you cannot expect solid gold? '
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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Etesia Absent
Love, the world's life! What a sad death
Thy absence is to lose our breath
At once and die, is but to live
Enlarged, without the scant reprieve
Of pulse and air: whose dull returns
And narrow circles the soul mourns.
But to be dead alive, and still
To wish, but never have our will:
To be possessed, and yet to miss;
To wed a true but absent bliss:
Are lingering tortures, and their smart
Dissects and racks and grinds the heart!
As soul and body in that state
Which unto us seems separate,
Cannot be said to live, until
Reunion; which days fulfil
And slow-paced seasons: so in vain
Through hours and minutes (Time's long train,)
I look for thee, and from thy sight,
As from my soul, for life and light.
For till thine eyes shine so on me,
Mine are fast-closed and will not see.
poem by Henry Vaughan
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Timely Matters
I count my days
By the breaths I take
For in those breaths
Come a hope of better tomorrow
For secounds turn to minutes
Minutes into hours
Hours into to days
They will go on after
I am gone
So with each breath I am blessed
To see all the Lords provided
This miracle called life
Which time is only a play thing
poem by David Kush
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Count-time
Everybody to sleep the guard symbolizes
on his late night tour of the tombs.
When he leaves, after counting still bodies
wrapped in white sheets, when he goes,
the bodies slowly move, in solitary ritual,
counting lost days, mounting memories,
numbering like sand grains
the winds drag over high mountains
to their lonely deaths; like elephants
they go bury themselves
under dreamlike waterfalls,
in the silence.
poem by Jimmy Santiago Baca
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When Simply Given
a broken shard of glass
embedded deep,
cutting from within....
fingers burnt by the fire....
the wail of darkness
swelling through the tombs
of the soul...
walking the razor's edge,
and the stink of human flesh.
nothing more immortal,
more infinite, more redeeming...
not even falling stars....
the moment of human life,
in minutes or years;
that only the courage
of revealing oneself can unwrap....
the moment becoming eternity
when simply given!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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The Maid's Lament
I loved him not; and yet, now he is gone,
I feel I am alone.
I check'd him while he spoke; yet, could he speak,
Alas! I would not check.
For reasons not to love him once I sought,
And wearied all my thought
To vex myself and him: I now would give
My love could he but live
Who lately lived for me, and, when he found
'Twas vain, in holy ground
He hid his face amid the shades of death!
I waste for him my breath
Who wasted his for me! but mine returns,
And this torn bosom burns
With stifling heat, heaving it up in sleep,
And waking me to weep
Tears that had melted his soft heart: for years
Wept he as bitter tears!
Merciful God! such was his latest prayer,
These may she never share.
Quieter is his breath, his breast more cold,
Than daisies in the mould,
Where children spell, athwart the churchyard gate,
His name and life's brief date.
Pray for him, gentle souls, whoe'er you be,
And oh! pray too for me!
poem by Walter Savage Landor
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Sonnets LLXXI:LXXII:LXXIII: The Choice
I
Eat thou and drink; to-morrow thou shalt die.
Surely the earth, that's wise being very old,
Needs not our help. Then loose me, love, and hold
Thy sultry hair up from my face; that I
May pour for thee this golden wine, brim-high,
Till round the glass thy fingers glow like gold.
We'll drown all hours: thy song, while hours are toll'd,
Shall leap, as fountains veil the changing sky.
Now kiss, and think that there are really those,
My own high-bosomed beauty, who increase
Vain gold, vain lore, and yet might choose our way!
Through many years they toil; then on a day
They die not,—for their life was death,—but cease;
And round their narrow lips the mould falls close.
II
Watch thou and fear; to-morrow thou shalt die.
Or art thou sure thou shalt have time for death?
Is not the day which God's word promiseth
To come man knows not when? In yonder sky,
Now while we speak, the sun speeds forth: can I
Or thou assure him of his goal? God's breath
Even at this moment haply quickeneth
The air to a flame; till spirits, always nigh
Though screened and hid, shall walk the daylight here.
And dost thou prate of all that man shall do?
Canst thou, who hast but plagues, presume to be
Glad in his gladness that comes after thee?
Will his strength slay thy worm in Hell? Go to:
Cover thy countenance, and watch, and fear.
III
Think thou and act; to-morrow thou shalt die.
Outstretched in the sun's warmth upon the shore,
Thou say'st: “Man's measured path is all gone o'er:
Up all his years, steeply, with strain and sigh,
Man clomb until he touched the truth; and I,
Even I, am he whom it was destined for.”
How should this be? Art thou then so much more
Than they who sowed, that thou shouldst reap thereby?
Nay, come up hither. From this wave-washed mound
Unto the furthest flood-brim look with me;
Then reach on with thy thought till it be drown'd.
Miles and miles distant though the last line be,
And though thy soul sail leagues and leagues beyond,—
Still, leagues beyond those leagues, there is more sea.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Dead Alive
Mourned to be the one -
To wake -
To live -
To see -
To walk -
Alive but dead -
Days by day, my oasis lives by the colour of night -
Energies of the living, absorbed -
To live in the between of dead -
Peace to be found, the yard where we spade the graves -
Where tombs act the way of stones -
The dead of the flowers, vase the portrait of a future to be -
Flesh to earth, invested to be inverted -
Still born -
Aged we pass to birth -
To be boned -
To die in death
poem by Unic Cjonr
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Hymn 153
The distemper, folly, and madness of sin
Sin, like a venomous disease,
Infects our vital blood;
The only balm is sovereign grace,
And the physician, God.
Our beauty and our strength are fled,
And we draw near to death;
But Christ the Lord recalls the dead
With his almighty breath.
Madness by nature reigns within,
The passions burn and rage,
Till God's own Son, with skill divine,
The inward fire assuage.
[We lick the dust, we grasp the wind,
And solid good despise;
Such is the folly of the mind,
Till Jesus makes us wise.
We give our souls the wounds they feel,
We drink the pois'nous gall,
And rush with fury down to hell;
But Heav'n prevents the fall.]
[The man possessed among the tombs
Cuts his own flesh, and cries;
He foams and raves, till Jesus comes,
And the foul spirit flies.]
poem by Isaac Watts
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Webster
"When I and all those that hear me shall have gone to our last home, and when the mould may have gathered on our memories, as it will on our tombs:" -- Webster's Speech in the Senate, July, 1850.
The mould upon thy memory! -- No,
Not while one note is rung,
Of those divine, immortal songs
Milton and Shakespeare sung; --
Not till the night of years enshrouds
The Anglo-Saxon tongue.
No! let the flood of Time roll on,
And men and empires die; --
Genius enthroned on lofty heights
Can its dread course defy,
And here on earth, can claim the gift
Of immortality:
Can save from that Lethean tide
That sweeps so dark along,
A people's name; -- a people's fame
To future time prolong,
As Troy still lives and only lives
In Homer's deathless song.
What though to buried Nineveh
The traveller may come,
And roll away the stone that hides
That long forgotten tomb; --
He questions its mute past in vain,
Its oracles are dumb.
What though he stand where Balbec stood
Gigantic in its pride;
No voice comes o'er that silent waste,
Lone, desolate and wide; --
They had no bard, no orator,
No statesman, -- and they died.
They lived their little span of life,
They lived and died in vain; --
They sank ingloriously beneath
Oblivion's silent reign,
As sank beneath the Dead Sea wave
The Cities of the Plain.
But for those famed, immortal lands,
Greece and imperial Rome,
Where Genius left its shining mark,
And found its chosen home,
All eloquent with mind they speak,
Wood, wave and crumbling dome.
The honeyed words of Plato still
Float on the echoing air,
The thunders of Demosthenes
AEgean waters bear,
And the pilgrim to the Forum hears
The voice of Tully there.
And thus thy memory shall live,
And thus thy fame resound,
While far-off future ages roll
Their solemn cycles round,
And make this wide, this fair New World
An ancient, classic ground.
Then with our Country's glorious name
Thine own shall be entwined;
Within the Senate's pillared hall
Thine image shall be shrined;
And on the nation's Law shall gleam
Light from thy giant mind.
Our proudest monuments no more
May rise to meet the sky,
The stately Capitol o'erthrown,
Low in the dust may lie;
But mind, sublime above the wreck,
Immortal -- cannot die.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Cycles
When Dave Priest died grave sexton told
to toll bell well for corpse stone cold -
from epiderm to earthworm’s feast
star studded sports sporadic yeast.
The moral reads: reeds brave, deeds bold,
berth bends to end which breaks birth's mould.
Mould broken, mould returned, at least
is he released from life once leased.
Though pitter-pat or thud, thud, thud,
warm blood turns into tainted mud,
must musty dust depart, heart ceased,
Time’s gavel knocks down man and beast.
As cycles spin, out's in's template,
who sees the light before dark fate?
© Jonathan Robin – Sonnet robi3_0968 written 1 November 2005 revised 17 October 2008 - for previous version see below
When Dave died grave sexton was told
to toll the bell for one grown old, -
now he is young again, released
from epiderm to earthworm’s feast.
The moral is, however bold,
all bend to end which breaks the mould.
Mould broken, mould returned, as least
is he who highest life once leased.
So whether bid or oversold
warm blood soon rudderless and cold
must musty dust turn heart beat ceased,
Time’s gavel sells off man and beast.
Though cycles swift accelerate,
who sees the light before dark fate?
poem by Jonathan Robin
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