Ghosts In England
At East Lulworth the dead were friendly and pitiful, I saw them
peek from their ancient earthworks on the coast hills
At the camps of the living men in the valley, the army-mechanics'
barracks, the roads where they try the tanks
And the armored cars: 'We also,' they say, 'trembled in our
time. We felt the world change in the rain,
Our people like yours were falling under the wheel. Great
past and declining present are a pitiful burden
For living men; but failure is not the worm that worries
the dead, you will not weep when you come,'
Said the soft mournful shadows on the Dorset shore. And those
on the Rollright ridge by the time-eaten stone-circle
Said nothing and had no wish in the world, having blessedly aged
out of humanity, stared with great eyes
White as the hollowed limestone, not caring but seeing, inhuman
as the wind.
But the other ghosts were not good,
But like a moon of jackals around a sick stag.
At Zennor in the tumbled granite chaos, at Marazion and the
angel's Mount, from the hoar tide-lines:
'Be patient, dead men, the tides of their day have turned,' from
the stone rings of the dead huts on Dartmoor,
The prison town like a stain of dirt on the distant hill: 'We not
the last,' they said, 'shall be hopeless,
We not alone hunger in the rain.' From Avebury in the high
heart of England, in the ancient temple,
When all the cottages darkened themselves to sleep: 'Send it
along the ridge-ways and say it on the hilltops
That the bone is broken and the meat will fall.'
There was also a
ghost of a king, his cheeks hollow as the brows
Of an old horse, was paddling his hands in the reeds of Dozmare
Pool, in the shallow, in the rainy twilight,
Feeling for the hilt of a ruinous and rusted sword. But they said
'Be patient a little, you king of shadows,
But only wait, they will waste like snow.' Then Arthur left
hunting for the lost sword, he grinned and stood up
Gaunt as a wolf; but soon resumed the old labor, shaking the
reeds with his hands.
Northeastward to Wantage
On the chalk downs the Saxon Alfred
Witlessly walks with his hands lamenting. 'Who are the people
and who are the enemy?' He says bewildered,
'Who are the living, who are the dead?' The more ancient dead
Watch him from the wide earthworks on White Horse Hill,
peer from the Ridgeway barrows, goggle from the broken
Mound and the scattered stones in the oval wood above Ashbury.
They whisper and exult.
In the north also
I saw them, from the Picts' houses in the black Caithness heather
to the bleak stones on Culloden Moor,
The rags of lost races and beaten clans, nudging each other, the
blue lips cracking with joy, the fleshless
Anticipatory fingers jabbing at the south. And on the Welsh
borders
Were dead men skipping and fleering behind all the hedges. An
island of ghosts. They seemed merry, and to feel
No pity for the great pillar of empire settling to a fall, the pride
and the power slowly dissolving.
poem by Robinson Jeffers
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
Dead And Broken
Too many things I've never spoken
I'm not feeling fine
I never told you what to do
I never made you a promise that you could hold me to
That'll be the day you see me crying
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
How many different faces can you show me?
How many times can you be right?
Another world of fantasy
Another reason for dramatizing everything
Taking it all in just one more time
I'm dying
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
Sorry to see that you're underestimated lately
I'd rather be dead and broken than living in your grace
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
song performed by by Godsmack
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Dead & Broken
Too many things Ive never spoken
Im not feeling fine
I never told you what to do
I never made you a promise that you could hold me to
Thatll be the day you see me crying
Everyday, I still say youre dead and broken
Everyday, I still say youre dead and broken
Youre dead and broken
How many faces can you show me?
How many times can you be right?
Another world of fantasy
Another reason for dramatizing everything
Taking it all in just one more time
Im dying
Everyday, I still say youre dead and broken
Everyday, I still say youre dead and broken
Youre dead and broken
Sorry to see that youre underestimated lately
Id rather be dead and broken than living in your grace
Everyday, I still say youre dead and broken
Everyday, I still say youre dead and broken
Youre dead and broken
Youre dead and broken
Youre dead and broken
Youre dead and broken
Youre dead and broken
Youre dead and broken
Youre dead and broken
song performed by by Godsmack
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Dead In The Wombs
those same children
who died in the waters
that swallowed Atlantis....
those same children,
starving 'neath Africa's sun....
dead from the bombings
in Iraq, Afghanistan, and soon Iran....
their bodies thrown into dumpsters
here in the United States....
dead on the borders,
dead in the oil filled waters,
dead on the cocaine streets,
dead in the prisons...
dead in the colleges,
dead in the unemployment lines....
dead on the picket lines,
dead, handcuffed, and beaten....
dying, and dead, world crazy spinning...
as the 'light of the world'
sputters, and goes out....
dead in the wombs of the
homeless, hopeless, and forgotten...
dead by our hands!
poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Challenge. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The Third)
I have a vague remembrance
Of a story, that is told
In some ancient Spanish legend
Or chronicle of old.
It was when brave King Sanchez
Was before Zamora slain,
And his great besieging army
Lay encamped upon the plain.
Don Diego de Ordonez
Sallied forth in front of all,
And shouted loud his challenge
To the warders on the wall.
All the people of Zamora,
Both the born and the unborn,
As traitors did he challenge
With taunting words of scorn.
The living, in their houses,
And in their graves, the dead!
And the waters of their rivers,
And their wine, and oil, and bread!
There is a greater army,
That besets us round with strife,
A starving, numberless army,
At all the gates of life.
The poverty-stricken millions
Who challenge our wine and bread,
And impeach us all as traitors,
Both the living and the dead.
And whenever I sit at the banquet,
Where the feast and song are high,
Amid the mirth and the music
I can hear that fearful cry.
And hollow and haggard faces
Look into the lighted hall,
And wasted hands are extended
To catch the crumbs that fall.
For within there is light and plenty,
And odors fill the air;
But without there is cold and darkness,
And hunger and despair.
And there in the camp of famine,
In wind and cold and rain,
Christ, the great Lord of the army,
Lies dead upon the plain!
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Hyaenas
After the burial-parties leave
And the baffled kites have fled;
The wise hyaenas come out at eve
To take account of our dead.
How he died and why he died
Troubles them not a whit.
They snout the bushes and stones aside
And dig till they come to it.
They are only resolute they shall eat
That they and their mates may thrive,
And they know that the dead are safer meat
Than the weakest thing alive.
(For a goat may butt, and a worm may sting,
And a child will sometimes stand;
But a poor dead soldier of the King
Can never lift a hand.)
They whoop and halloo and scatter the dirt
Until their tushes white
Take good hold in the army shirt,
And tug the corpse to light,
And the pitiful face is shewn again
For an instant ere they close;
But it is not discovered to living men --
Only to God and to those
Who, being soulless, are free from shame,
Whatever meat they may find.
Nor do they defile the dead man's name --
That is reserved for his kind.
poem by Rudyard Kipling
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Memorial Day For The War Dead
Memorial day for the war dead. Add now
the grief of all your losses to their grief,
even of a woman that has left you. Mix
sorrow with sorrow, like time-saving history,
which stacks holiday and sacrifice and mourning
on one day for easy, convenient memory.
Oh, sweet world soaked, like bread,
in sweet milk for the terrible toothless God.
"Behind all this some great happiness is hiding."
No use to weep inside and to scream outside.
Behind all this perhaps some great happiness is hiding.
Memorial day. Bitter salt is dressed up
as a little girl with flowers.
The streets are cordoned off with ropes,
for the marching together of the living and the dead.
Children with a grief not their own march slowly,
like stepping over broken glass.
The flautist's mouth will stay like that for many days.
A dead soldier swims above little heads
with the swimming movements of the dead,
with the ancient error the dead have
about the place of the living water.
A flag loses contact with reality and flies off.
A shopwindow is decorated with
dresses of beautiful women, in blue and white.
And everything in three languages:
Hebrew, Arabic, and Death.
A great and royal animal is dying
all through the night under the jasmine
tree with a constant stare at the world.
A man whose son died in the war walks in the street
like a woman with a dead embryo in her womb.
"Behind all this some great happiness is hiding."
poem by Yehuda Amichai
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Dead Soldier
Where the sword has opened the way the man will follow
'Look! they came, the triumphant army!
Over yon hill see their weapons peeping!'
Still I spoke not but my wheel sent turning,
I closed my eyes for my heart was weeping,
My heart was weeping for a dead soldier.
Who is he who looks towards me?
''Tis no man but a gay flag flying.'
Red was his mouth and his white brow thoughtful,
Blue his eyes—how my soul is crying,
My soul is crying for a dead soldier.
'Kneel ye down, lest your eyes should dare them,
Kneel ye down and your beads be saying.'
'Lord, on their heads Thy wrath deliver,'
This is the prayer that my lips are praying,
My heart is praying for a dead soldier.
'Best cheer the path of the men victorious,
For he is dead and his blade lies broken,
His march is far where no aid can follow,
And for his people he left no token,
He left no token, the dead soldier.'
The way of the sword a man can follow,
See the young child with his gold hair gleaming.
When falls the oak must the acorn perish?
He lifts the blade and his eyes are dreaming,
He dreams the dream of the dead soldier.
poem by Dora Sigerson Shorter
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Having Lost My Sons, I Confront the Wreckage of the Moon: Christmas, 1960
After dark
Near the South Dakota border,
The moon is out hunting, everywhere,
Delivering fire,
And walking down hallways
Of a diamond.
Behind a tree,
It ights on the ruins
Of a white city
Frost, frost.
Where are they gone
Who lived there?
Bundled away under wings
And dark faces.
I am sick
Of it, and I go on
Living, alone, alone,
Past the charred silos, past the hidden graves
Of Chippewas and Norwegians.
This cold winter
Moon spills the inhuman fire
Of jewels
Into my hands.
Dead riches, dead hands, the moon
Darkens,
And I am lost in the beautiful white ruins
Of America.
poem by James Arlington Wright
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
I Stood With the Dead
I Stood with the Dead, so forsaken and still:
When dawn was grey I stood with the Dead.
And my slow heart said, 'You must kill, you must kill:
'Soldier, soldier, morning is red'.
On the shapes of the slain in their crumpled disgrace
I stared for a while through the thin cold rain...
'O lad that I loved, there is rain on your face,
'And your eyes are blurred and sick like the plain.'
I stood with the Dead ... They were dead; they were dead;
My heart and my head beat a march of dismay:
And gusts of the wind came dulled by the guns.
'Fall in!' I shouted; 'Fall in for your pay!'
poem by Siegfried Sassoon
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Ghost Dance
12 hours pass, flash by again twice
toll for the dead to awake again
the 8 o'clock rising still and eiry
as we follow suit of the sun dance
on hour goes by so quick so fast
and we blend to the pacing crowd
the beast struck nine and the dead join the living
hand in hand we dance the ghost dance
and look down into anothers distant eyes
hollow, gone and forboding us
what awaits beyond fleshy worlds
lust, gluteny, blasphamy and sloth
join in hands with thy brothers
vanity, gluteny and greed
the beast struck nine and the dead join the living
hand in hand we dance the ghost dance
throw back our heavy heads again
and scream to darken the clouds
let the rain fall let it wash us
pure as we now dirty and alive
distance apart us one key and two
unlock the secrets of time
the beast struck nine and the dead join the living
hand in hand we dance the ghost dance
loincloth needed to cover mine shame
as we're told as we are is imperfect
we cover and cower and hide
our shame merely shame to them
red, salty tears sting our black eyes
as again we cry for their loss
the beast srtuck nine and the dead join the living
hand in hand we dance the ghost dance
and the beast be the sun dance
as time claims us all in the end
hand in hand with our brothers
we trace regrets as our ghosts
and dance in circles around their heads
red right hand of the devil baptise me
the beast struck nine and the dead join the living
hand in hand we dance the ghost dance
poem by Sabrina Burton
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
West End Girls
(....forever)
Sometimes youre better off dead
Theres gun in your hand and its pointing at your head
You think youre mad, too unstable
Kicking in chairs and knocking down tables
In a restaurant in a west end town
Call the police, theres a madman around
Running down underground to a dive bar
In a west end town
In a west end town, a dead end world
The east end boys and west end girls
In a west end town, a dead end world
The east end boys and west end girls
West end girls
Too many shadows, whispering voices
Faces on posters, too many choices
If, when, why, what?
How much have you got?
Have you got it, do you get it, if so, how often?
And which do you choose, a hard or soft option?
(how much do you need? )
In a west end town, a dead end world
The east end boys and west end girls
In a west end town, a dead end world
The east end boys and west end girls
West end girls
West end girls
(how much do you need? )
In a west end town, a dead end world
The east end boys and west end girls
Oooh west end town, a dead end world
East end boys, west end girls
West end girls
Youve got a heart of glass or a heart of stone
Just you wait till I get you home
Weve got no future, weve got no past
Here today, built to last
In every city, in every nation
From lake geneva to the finland station
(how far have you been? )
In a west end town, a dead end world
The east end boys and west end girls
A west end town, a dead end world
East end boys, west end girls
West end girls
West end girls
West end girls
(how far have you been? )
Girls
East end boys
And west end girls
And west end girls
And west end girls
East end boys
The west end girls
The west end boys
And west end girls
The west end girls
The west end boys
The west end girls
song performed by by Pet Shop Boys
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
New World Order
Broken down, feeling naked
Leaving me unfulfilled
Promising compromise
Championing mediocrity
Time and time again
What you said ain't what you mean
Even if all my bones are broken
I will drag myself back from the edge to
Kill the King, The King is dead, Long live the King
Kill the King, The King is dead, Long live the
King,
I am the King, God save the King
Kill the King, The King is dead
I am the King, Long live the King
Kill the King, The King is dead
I am the King, Long live the King
I reveal a deceiver
In the highest seat in the land
His idle hands the Devil's workshop
Generate more smoke than heat
Time and time again
What you said ain't what you mean
Even if all my bones are broken
I will drag myself back from the edge to
Kill the King, The King is dead, Long live the King
Kill the King, The King is dead, Long live the
King,
I am the King, God save the King
Kill the King, The King is dead
I am the King, Long live the King
Kill the King, The King is dead
I am the King, Long live the King
A new precedent in pain, a new precedent in pain
Mankind is blown to dust, mankind is blown to dust
An explosion of the Brain, an explosion of the
Brain
Spontaneously combust, spontaneously combust
Kill the King, The King is dead, Long live the
King,
I am the King
Kill the King, I, The King is dead, I am, Long live
the King,
I am the King
Kill the King, I, The King is dead, I am, Long live
the King,
I am the King
Kill the King, I, The King is dead, I am, Long live
the King,
I am the King
song performed by by Megadeth
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Rain
Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
Remembering again that I shall die
And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
For washing me cleaner than I have been
Since I was born into this solitude.
Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
But here I pray that none whom once I loved
Is dying to-night or lying still awake
Solitary, listening to the rain,
Either in pain or thus in sympathy
Helpless among the living and the dead,
Like a cold water among broken reeds,
Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
Like me who have no love which this wild rain
Has not dissolved except the love of death,
If love it be towards what is perfect and
Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.
poem by Edward Thomas
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
In a Disused Graveyard
The living come with grassy tread
To read the gravestones on the hill;
The graveyard draws the living still,
But never anymore the dead.
The verses in it say and say:
"The ones who living come today
To read the stones and go away
Tomorrow dead will come to stay."
So sure of death the marbles rhyme,
Yet can't help marking all the time
How no one dead will seem to come.
What is it men are shrinking from?
It would be easy to be clever
And tell the stones: Men hate to die
And have stopped dying now forever.
I think they would believe the lie.
poem by Robert Frost
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Avalanche-the White Death
The land is white
The name of the land brings you
to the land of nothing
The name is white
The white is dead
Sun shines pale, the land shades full of pain
Avalea doesn't bloom and fall in this drain
I'm going back alive again
But no one's crying for the dead
The land is still white
Ice and snow are still the same as yesterday
But the wind is stronger in the sorrow
The land is white
The white is dead
They weep wherever they blow
Forever love, cursed land
Forever goodbye, my lovely land
No more tears falling in this land
Even the sand doesn't know
why he doesn't round to anywhere
The land has frozen like stone
The air is blowed dead
The land is white
The name is white
The land called white is dead
poem by Maria Sudibyo
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Dead End Street
Theres a crack up in the ceiling,
And the kitchen sink is leaking.
Out of work and got no money,
A sunday joint of bread and honey.
What are we living for?
Two-roomed apartment on the second floor.
No money coming in,
The rent collectors knocking, trying to get in.
We are strictly second class,
We dont understand,
(dead end!)
Why we should be on dead end street.
(dead end!)
People are living on dead end street.
(dead end!)
Gonna die on dead end street.
Dead end street (yeah)
Dead end street (yeah)
On a cold and frosty morning,
Wipe my eyes and stop me yawning.
And my feet are nearly frozen,
Boil the tea and put some toast on.
What are we living for?
Two-roomed apartment on the second floor.
No chance to emigrate,
Im deep in debt and now its much too late.
We both want to work so hard,
We cant get the chance,
(dead end!)
People live on dead end street.
(dead end!)
People are dying on dead end street.
(dead end!)
Gonna die on dead end street.
Dead end street (yeah)
Dead end street (yeah)
(dead end!)
People live on dead end street.
(dead end!)
People are dying on dead end street.
(dead end!)
Gonna die on dead end street.
Dead end street (yeah)
Dead end street (yeah)
Dead end street (yeah)
Head to my feet (yeah)
Dead end street (yeah)
Dead end street (yeah)
Dead end street (yeah)
Hows it feel? (yeah)
Hows it feel? (yeah)
Dead end street (yeah)
Dead end street (yeah)
song performed by by Kinks
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Eye OF Venus
Green is the eye of Venus, though now tightly shut.
Ancient music drums,
Trees viridian-hued.
The night has settled, dark as fear.
I rode a stallion-
Jet-black he was,
Against an array of foliage,
Emerald green,
Into the dead of night,
He rode.
Sleeping, I am?
Or am I living within some land of the surreal?
Lost within a valley,
I lie amongst tall reeds.
Water showers down upon me.
Skies turn mauve, purplish-
No calm before this storm.
Struck by lightening,
Branches are fallen by the wind.
Upon awakening,
As day breaks,
The ancient music’s melody is arrested.
A sibilant voice whispers to me:
“Sleep amongst the dead,
And depart from the living.”
As I nonchalantly gaze at the rising sun,
I wave “goodbye” to Venus,
And as she falls behind the horizon,
She waves back at me, and winks at me,
While ancient music begins drumming again…
poem by Claudia Krizay
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Shooting Season
IN THE NORTH OF SCOTLAND
The whole countryside deployed on the hills of heather, an army
with banners,
The beaters whoop the grouse to the butts.
Three gentlemen fling up their guns and the frightened covey is
a few wings fewer;
Then grooms approach with the panniered horses.
The gray old moorland silence has closed like water and covered
the gunshots.
Wave on wave goes the moor to the great
Circle of the sky; the cairn on the slope names an old battle and
beyond are
Broad gray rocks the grave-marks of clans.
Blond Celtic warriors lair in the sky-line barrows, down toward
the sea
Stand the tall stones of the Danish captains.
We dead that handled weapons and hunted in earnest, we old
dead have watched
Three little living gentlemen yonder
With a bitter flavor in the grin of amusement, uneasily remembering
our own
Old sports and delights. It is better to be dust.
poem by Robinson Jeffers
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Dead Cow Farm
An ancient saga tells us how
In the beginning the First Cow
(For nothing living yet had birth
But Elemental Cow on earth)
Began to lick cold stones and mud:
Under her warm tongue flesh and blood
Blossomed, a miracle to believe:
And so was Adam born, and Eve.
Here now is chaos once again,
Primeval mud, cold stones and rain.
Here flesh decays and blood drips red,
And the Cow’s dead, the old Cow’s dead.
poem by Robert Graves
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Dead Coach
At night when sick folk wakeful lie,
I heard the dead coach passing by,
And heard it passing wild and fleet,
And knew my time was come not yet.
Click-clack, click-clack, the hoofs went past,
Who takes the dead coach travels fast,
On and away through the wild night,
The dead must rest ere morning light.
If one might follow on its track
The coach and horses, midnight black,
Within should sit a shape of doom
That beckons one and all to come.
God pity them to-night who wait
To hear the dead coach at their gate,
And him who hears, though sense be dim,
The mournful dead coach stop for him.
He shall go down with a still face,
And mount the steps and take his place,
The door be shut, the order said!
How fast the pace is with the dead!
Click-clack, click-clack, the hour is chill,
The dead coach climbs the distant hill.
Now, God, the Father of us all,
Wipe Thou the widow’s tears that fall!
poem by Katharine Tynan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!