Forever
THOSE we love truly never die,
Though year by year the sad memorial wreath,
A ring and flowers, types of life and death,
Are laid upon their graves.
For death the pure life saves,
And life all pure is love; and love can reach
From heaven to earth, and nobler lessons teach
Than those by mortals read.
Well blest is he who has a dear one dead:
A friend he has whose face will never change—
A dear communion that will not grow strange;
The anchor of a love is death.
The blessed sweetness of a loving breath
Will reach our cheek all fresh through weary years.
For her who died long since, ah! waste not tears,
She's thine unto the end.
Thank God for one dead friend,
With face still radiant with the light of truth,
Whose love comes laden with the scent of youth,
Through twenty years of death.
poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
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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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To An Old Friend In England
WAS it for nothing in the years gone by,
O my love, O my friend,
You thrilled me with your noble words of faith? —
Hope beyond life, and love, love beyond death!
Yet now I shudder, and yet you did not die,
O my friend, O my love!
Was it for nothing in the dear dead years,
O my love, O my friend,
I kissed you when you wrung my heart from me,
And gave my stubborn hand where trust might be?
Yet then I smiled, and see, these bitter tears,
O my friend, O my love!
No bitter words to say to you have I,
O my love, O my friend!
That faith, that hope, that love was mine, not yours!
And yet that kiss, that clasp endures, endures.
I have no bitter words to say. Good-bye,
O my friend, O my love!
poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
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By the end of this...
By the end of this poem you will love death
because death is a figure of speech
as heaven and hell
to all that believe
they will be deceived
By the end of this stanza you will love death
you don't see death
he sees you
and who am I to say he?
he, she I don't know
My the end of this line you will love death
Death is your friend
when you are tired and sad
you can summon him
with the flick of a knife
by the end of this word you will love death
death is beautiful
don't deal with the pain
don't deny the beauty
don't sacrifice your life to living
something so insignificant
your ego will kill your pride
Now comes the truth
it was coming all along
Now at the end of this poem
...You love death
poem by Lady Viola Of The Grave
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Why Did Death Take You Away?
This year marked the anniversary of your death.
When you first died I couldn't take a breath.
I can't believe you've been gone so long.
It's sad you died at twenty-nine, you were wronged.
I know death is part of life's grand design.
We mourned your death for oh so long, we still morn to this day, but we're resigned.
Death is part of lives great design.
Many think death is divine or of God's design.
So, even though death took you away.
Our love for you is always here to stay.
I still ask; Why did death take you away?
Maybe the answer to that question will never go away.
*This poem is a tribute to my little sister, Tchinina. She died on May 2,2003 at the age of 29.
poem by Nichole Kaci McKnight
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Death and I
When death comes
I’ll need not love –
Consumed,
No wreath or dove
Could offer me salvation,
Not when I’m no more.
A weathered stone will bear my name –
Identity of once a being
Living out existence in
A world of risk, and never seeing
Sense of why we’re here.
My genes will die away thro’ child –
Hue of eyes and hair, the way of thought,
Will quickly dim with generation –
Bow to future dominance –
Memories of provenance
Resigned to curious few.
When death comes
I’ll need not grace
Below; no grieving face
Will call my resurrection,
Not when I’m at ground –
Death and I so bound.
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2011
D eath Crawl
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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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To H.a.b. On My Forty-seventh Birthday
WHEN one is forty years and seven,
Is seven and forty sad years old,
He looks not onward for his Heaven,
The future is too blank and cold,
Its pale flowers smell of graveyard mould;
He looks back to his lifeful past;
If age is silver, youth is gold:-
Could youth but last, could youth but last!
He turns back toward his youthful past
A-throb with life and love and hope,
Whose long-dead joys in memory last,
Whose shining days had ample scope;
He turns and lingers on the slope
Whose dusk leads down to sightless death:-
The sun once crowned that darkening cope,
And song once thrilled this weary breath.
Ali, he plods wearily to death,
Adown the gloaming into night,
But other lives breathe joyous breath
In morning's boundless golden light;
Their feet are swift, their eyes are bright,
Their hearts beat rhythms of hope and love,
Their being is a pure delight
In earth below and heaven above.
And you have hope and joy and love,
And you have youth's abounding life,
Whose crystal currents flow above
The stones and sands of care and strife.
May all your years with joys be rifc,
May you grow calmly to your prime,
A maiden sweet, a cherished wife,
A happy mother in due time.
All good you wish me, past my prime,
I wish with better hope to you,
And richer blessings than old Time
And Fate or Fortune found my due:
For you are kind and good and true,
And so when you are forty-seven
May spouse and children in your view
Make Home the happiest life-long Heaven.
poem by James Thomson
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Penance
My lover died a century ago,
Her dear heart stricken by my sland'rous breath,
Wherefore the Gods forbade that I should know
The peace of death.
Men pass my grave, and say, "'Twere well to sleep,
Like such an one, amid the uncaring dead!"
How should they know the vigils that I keep,
The tears I shed?
Upon the grave, I count with lifeless breath,
Each night, each year, the flowers that bloom and die,
Deeming the leaves, that fall to dreamless death,
More blest than I.
'Twas just last year -- I heard two lovers pass
So near, I caught the tender words he said:
To-night the rain-drenched breezes sway the grass
Above his head.
That night full envious of his life was I,
That youth and love should stand at his behest;
To-night, I envy him, that he should lie
At utter rest.
poem by John McCrae
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Love Is Hope
If we lose someone close to us,
We feel a sting in our Loving Heart
They are love
They Are Tender
They are Care
Love is hope
Love is Family
Love is Friends
Love is Heaven
Love Is Desire
Love is Hope
Love in Death is impossible,
Love in life is sweet
losing those you love is saddening
Resulting a hole in that heart
Forever, life and Death
Love is always there
Family, Live or dead
still love you
From Beyond the netherworld.
Love is hope
In My Opinion
Love Is Dear
Love is true
love is there
But most importantly
LOVE Is Hope
everywhere, Even The Lord
God Loves you
His love eternal everlasting
His Love, his Son
Love is hope.
poem by Ashleigh Leona Mellon
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The River of Life
The more we live, more brief appear
Our life's succeeding stages;
A day to childhood seems a year,
And years like passing ages.
The gladsome current of our youth,
Ere passion yet disorders,
Steals lingering like a river smooth
Along its grassy borders.
But as the careworn cheek grows wan,
And sorrow's shafts fly thicker,
Ye stars, that measure life to man,
Why seem your courses quicker?
When joys have lost their bloom and breath,
And life itself is vapid,
Why, as we reach the Falls of Death
Feel we its tide more rapid?
It may be strange—yet who would change
Time's course to slower speeding,
When one by one our friends have gone,
And left our bosoms bleeding?
Heaven gives our years of fading strength
Indemnifying fleetness;
And those of youth, a seeming length,
Proportion'd to their sweetness.
poem by Thomas Campbell
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River of Life, The
The more we live, more brief appear
Our life's succeeding stages;
A day to childhood seems a year,
And years like passing ages.
The gladsome current of our youth,
Ere passion yet disorders,
Steals lingering like a river smooth
Along its grassy borders.
But as the careworn cheek grows wan,
And sorrow's shafts fly thicker,
Ye stars, that measure life to man,
Why seem your courses quicker?
When joys have lost their bloom and breath,
And life itself is vapid,
Why, as we reach the Falls of Death
Feel we its tide more rapid?
It may be strange—yet who would change
Time's course to slower speeding,
When one by one our friends have gone,
And left our bosoms bleeding?
Heaven gives our years of fading strength
Indemnifying fleetness;
And those of youth, a seeming length,
Proportion'd to their sweetness.
poem by Thomas Campbell
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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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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,
The Floor is cover with clouds of gold,
An eternal joy that never grows old,
They wait for you to come alive,
Trumpets waiting for you to arrive,
Sitting there is the humble Lord,
Guarding the gates with his shield and sword,
All your loved ones and all you've known,
How can this love even be shown,
Reach out your heart and give him your hand,
There is nothing to fear so please understand,
He knows you believe but now you must try,
You must understand that to live you must die,
Yes, this death is death indeed,
A death of pain and an unheard plead.,
However this death is truly not death,
Only new life that lives without breath.
poem by Bradley Lomeli
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It's Death Again
It's Death again - He's always there -
Watching, waiting - e'er the stare!
Every time I look behind
Or reach to pull the window blind,
I catch a glimpse of grubby hood -
A little clue to where he stood;
The glint of light that caught the scythe.
Perhaps if I could pay a tithe…
But O! no use, he'll never go.
The adamant phantom; don't you know
He will but wait until it's time
For me to hear His fateful chime? -
The toll that claims my destiny,
To Hail: 'You're next, it has to be…'
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2009
The Reign of Death
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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Lovers Return
And so you have come back to me
And say the old loves growing yet
Youve tried through all these weary years
Youve tried so vainly to forget
Chrous:
Oh no, I cannot take your hand
God never gives is back our youth
The loving heart you slighted then
Was yours, my friend, in perfect truth
Come close and let me see your face
Your raven hair is tinged with snow
Oh, yes, it is the same dear face
I loved so many years ago
Repeat chorus
Farewell, I think I love you yet
As friend to friend, God bless you dear
And guide you through these weary years
To where the skies are always clears
Repeat chorus
song performed by by Dolly Parton
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Change Is Manifest In Mortal Life
change is manifest in mortal life
soul lessons learned in toil strife
future years teach bit morals sold
eternity heaven faith witness told
billions live upon this lesson earth
at death died bitter lesson is truth
wages sin received sentence death
breath experiences teach seal truth
poem by Terence George Craddock
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Quieta Ne Movete II
IF one should wake one's frozen faith
In sunlight of her radiant eyes,
Bid it forget its dream of death,
In this new dream of Paradise,
Bid it forget the long, slow pain,
The agony when, all in vain,
It fought for life, and how one swore,
Once cold, it should not waken more;
If hope one buried long ago
Should thrill beneath those smiles of hers,
Should in one's sere life stir and grow,
As in brown woods the young spring stirs;
If, breaking icy bonds of grief,
One's soul should start to bud and leaf,
It might forget in that springtide
How last year's leaves fell off and died.
If from warm faith and hope set high
A lovely living child was born,
With lips more pure than starlit sky,
And eyes as clear as summer morn,
Child-love might grow till one forgot
Old love, that was and now is not--
Forgot that far-off time of tears,
And all these desolated years.
And yet of faith, hope, love, one knows
So well what end the years will make,
If one should dig beneath Time's snows
And wake them now for her sweet sake.
New life may mean new joy; but then,
What lives again may die again,
And to that second death there may
Be no new resurrection-day.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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When I Depart
My body now’s only a shell, where my spirit used to dwell,
No longer in this earthly tent, up to Heaven I’ve been sent,
Though on earth I have died, I’m now by my Savior’s side,
No longer in this body friend, to begin life that has no end.
Indeed on earth, I have died, but, now my body’s glorified,
I’ve risen as my Savior said, alive in Heaven far from dead,
While lifeless my body may be, I’ve passed to life eternally,
Now from earth I’ve departed, life with God has just started.
When on this earth I see death, I shall receive eternal breath,
Entering in that heavenly portal, I’ll receive a body immortal,
A new body to begin eternal life, with my Lord, Jesus Christ,
As I enter in that Eternal Door, to be with Christ forevermore.
Death again will see me never, as I will live with God forever,
In a mansion prepared for me, that I now can touch and see,
A place surpassing all my hope, a paradise of eternal scope,
A home granted to me by grace, to sit with God face to face.
Death was just to say goodbye, to meet with God up on high,
Where one day I’ll see you there, in a paradise, without a care,
For one day soon we will reunite, to be forever in God’s Light,
As death won’t stop us friend, from life with God, with no end.
(Copyright ©11/2010)
Disingenuousness
Here lies another box for nature,
Carbon ready;
Black to eyes down here,
Where death is at its job.
Up there you’ll hear a rhythmic sob
Or two from living yet-to-dies –
A humming lacrimoso –
It all but cleans the eyes:
Forget it –
The dismal show of grief –
Life is only chemistry –
Our stay is only brief.
It’s we who hype it up!
Diaphragms jerk again;
The jet monotone of hearses
Feeds the disingenuousness
Of undertakers –
They seem to stare at something up ahead –
For them, it’s in the blood,
To taxi off the dead.
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2011
The March of Death
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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Unto This Last
They brought my fair love out upon a bier—
Out from the dwelling that her smile made sweet,
Out from the life that her life made complete,
Into the glitter of the garish street—
And no man wept, save I, for that dead dear.
And then the dark procession wound along,
Like a black serpent with a snow-white bird
Held in its fangs. I think God said a word
To death, as He in His chill heaven heard
Her voice so sweeter than His seraph’s song.
And so Death took away her flower-sweet breath
One darkest day of days in a dark year,
And brought to that strong God who had no fear
My own dear love. Ah, closed eyes without peer!
Ah, red lips pressed on the blue lips of Death!
poem by Victor James Daley
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A Fresh Endeavour
So now I've taken leave of life,
I thought you'd like to know, I still
Possess a mind in love, oh wife;
A soulful eye to catch a show of
Silent beauty – ever yours;
An ear to pick the metaphors
Of tonal dance in words you say,
Grasp a thought in verse you pray
Inside your head, bemused of mind,
Softly mournful, intertwined with
Understanding tears.
I'll drift a whisper o'er to you
To tell that I am quietly calm;
Keeping time till your adieu
To flesh, upon the carol of a
Psalm of consummation. Now!
A fresh endeavour – we're forever
One together, resting yonder,
Cross our open plane of blue.
Copyright Mark R Slaughter 2009
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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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