Death
It is not death, that sometime in a sigh
This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight;
That sometime these bright stars, that now reply
In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night;
That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite,
And all life's ruddy springs forget to flow;
That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal sprite
Be lapped in alien clay and laid below;
It is not death to know this,--but to know
That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves
In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go
So duly and so oft,--and when grass waves
Over the past-away, there may be then
No resurrection in the minds of men.
poem by Thomas Hood
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
Winter Heavens
Sharp is the night, but stars with frost alive
Leap off the rim of earth across the dome.
It is a night to make the heavens our home
More than the nest whereto apace we strive.
Lengths down our road each fir-tree seems a hive,
In swarms outrushing from the golden comb.
They waken waves of thoughts that burst to foam:
The living throb in me, the dead revive.
Yon mantle clothes us: there, past mortal breath,
Life glistens on the river of the death.
It folds us, flesh and dust; and have we knelt,
Or never knelt, or eyed as kine the springs
Of radiance, the radiance enrings:
And this is the soul's haven to have felt.
poem by George Meredith
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
All Things will Die
All Things will Die
Clearly the blue river chimes in its flowing
Under my eye;
Warmly and broadly the south winds are blowing
Over the sky.
One after another the white clouds are fleeting;
Every heart this May morning in joyance is beating
Full merrily;
Yet all things must die.
The stream will cease to flow;
The wind will cease to blow;
The clouds will cease to fleet;
The heart will cease to beat;
For all things must die.
All things must die.
Spring will come never more.
O, vanity!
Death waits at the door.
See! our friends are all forsaking
The wine and the merrymaking.
We are call’d–we must go.
Laid low, very low,
In the dark we must lie.
The merry glees are still;
The voice of the bird
Shall no more be heard,
Nor the wind on the hill.
O, misery!
Hark! death is calling
While I speak to ye,
The jaw is falling,
The red cheek paling,
The strong limbs failing;
Ice with the warm blood mixing;
The eyeballs fixing.
Nine times goes the passing bell:
Ye merry souls, farewell.
The old earth
Had a birth,
As all men know,
Long ago.
And the old earth must die.
So let the warm winds range,
And the blue wave beat the shore;
For even and morn
Ye will never see
Thro’ eternity.
All things were born.
Ye will come never more,
For all things must die.
poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Cease
cease our pain God
Cease our anger God
Cease the war God
Cease the dark days God
Cease the rain God
Cease the strong winds that are blowing everywhere God
Cease our hunger God
Cease our thirst God
poem by Aldo Kraas
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Psalm 89 last part
v.47ff
8,8,8,8,8,8
Life, death, and the resurrection.
Think, mighty God, on feeble man;
How few his hours! how short his span!
Short from the cradle to the grave
Who can secure his vital breath
Against the bold demands of death,
With skill to fly, or power to save?
Lord, shall it be for ever said,
"The race of man was only made
For sickness, sorrow, and the dust?"
Are not thy servants day by day
Sent to their graves, and turned to clay?
Lord, where's thy kindness to the just?
Hast thou not promised to thy Son
And all his seed a heav'nly crown?
But flesh and sense indulge despair:
For ever blessed be the Lord,
That faith can read his holy word,
And find a resurrection there.
For ever blessed be the Lord,
Who gives his saints a long reward
For all their toil, reproach, and pain:
Let all below and all above
Join to proclaim thy wondrous love,
And each repeat their loud Amen.
poem by Isaac Watts
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
His Last Breath! ! !
Have mercy Lord!
help me in unlearning thoughts,
weary, injured, bleeding thoughts!
I can't forget that painful time,
that horrid sight,
that silent, solemn, moonless night,
when mind was full of unknown fears,
shaky hopes, and wishful prayers...
Have mercy God!
can I forget
those passing moments
when he was counting his noble,
worthy, lively breaths-
those lively breaths
which were losing by and by
the warmth of life.
Then passed the time
and passed the night
there came at last his last breath…
with the birth of the day
a Sun was dying
to rise again
in a blind vale,
the valley of the pious souls…
since then O Lord,
my eyes are probing in the dark
to see him again
but all in vain…
Much time has passed
But still my mind
Is conscious
Of the ups and downs
Of treasured but his last breath
poem by Shahzia Batool
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
A Grave By The Sea
No white cloud sails the lonely sky,
Thro’ the gaunt trees no breezes sigh,
Thro’ the lush grass no fall of feet;
No song of bird in all the land,
But, floating faintly, dreamily,
The distant dirge of waves that beat
In discontent upon the sand.
Here, where all Nature seems aswoon,
Time, languid as a summer stream,
Drifts down the sweet soft afternoon;
And Death, discrowned of terror, brings
Surcease to souls that wake not soon,
And casts above Life’s fevered dream
Cool shadows of Immortal Wings.
Here, by the old graves overgrown,
A bare mound, without wreath or stone,
Marks where he sleeps ’mid grasses long,
Who sought not things that others seek,
Who fought in silence and alone,
Who in his weakness was so strong
And in his strength so weak.
The shining years shall glide and go,
The human tides shall ebb and flow,
And Love make sweet the days to be,
And Death make smooth the brow of pain,
But no such heart again shall glow,
And no such friend shall come to me
Thro’ all the cycles that remain.
Some pass and perish with their breath;
He liveth yet and quickeneth,
As scent of roses on the wind
Recalls the bygone summer’s day;
He leaves this side the seas of Death,
The fragrance of a noble mind:
He dies, but passes not away.
poem by George Essex Evans
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
At The Last.
The sky grows white with the moon,
And the sea yearns up to the night
As the soul to an unknown height,
Drawn thence by a starry rune.
Only a lost wind strays,
Like the breath of Passion blown
In the vault of the night unknown;
And the heart in me sobs and says:
'After a while we, too,
Shall rest as the stars above,
When we have no more to do
With the dream of life and love.'
O Time! thy feet that run
Over the hills and waves,
Over the cradles and graves,
From the first to the final sun!
Some day thou too shalt cease —
Some way there'll come to thee
Death's white tranquility,
The boon of an awful peace —
When the latest grief shall flow
With the surge that drifts away,
And the Night shall no more go
In her endless chase of Day.
Then shall the worn heart rest,
Then shall the sad Sea yearn
No more for the Moon's return,
Like a bird on its frozen nest
Dead, with her young ones dead
Under her breast on the bough,
Where nothing can wake them now —
Not the Dawn with its golden tread:
Where Death has been good to all,
Good to the mother and young,
And the dreams are beyond recall,
And the songs have all been sung.
So, at the last, to sleep!
So, at the last, to be
Still as the dead still sea!
Never to wake and weep,
Never to know Love's pain,
Never to yearn on for
What is gone for evermore;
To be as we were again
Ere we came o'er the bourne of birth,
Ere we knew of the fading flowers,
Of love and of life on Earth
And the hearts that were not ours!
poem by Robert Crawford
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Death
The journey of death, I think of dying as it were
a sleeping process which it brings our thoughts
the illusion of angel's, heaven, clouds and paradise,
we see ourselves in a utopia dream world,
that brings us peace and harmony. Death is a
sad word; a word that is continually present with
melancholy thoughts that haunts the mind. I always
dismiss it from my mind, but always comes back.
It's there always trying to torment me, maybe if death
wasn't so enigmatic and dreadful, our thoughts would
change. We wouldn't think about it at all. When I think
of the old age, is like thinking, death is near, it's the
nearest thing to old age. Death, death is like a cold
and lonely sigh, Death, it comes like thieves in the
night, it takes you and it wont give you a notice nor a
warning. A deep anguish takes over our feelings;
death is a sad word, An empty sensation and a huge
grief, that torture's the soul and mind. Death we can't
defeated, escape or make it null. A reminder each
day that time will eventually stop and become eternal.
Death the only sure thing we inherit from the second
we are born, death, death, I cannot comprehend the
purpose to all, we struggle in our journey in every way,
to at the end, become dust in the wind, and then after
time has past, not even a vestige of us.
poem by Elenushka Toledo
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
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
death death death death death death death death death death death
death death death death death death death death death death death
death death death death death death death death death death death
death death death death death death death death death death death
death death death death death death death death death death death
poem by Mark R Slaughter
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Bones of a Bad girl
Flesh to flesh
Thoughts to thoughts
Bad girl, bad thoughts
Bad girl wants to touch flesh
But bad man slaps hand away
Bad deeds, good thoughts
No flesh for bad girl
Girls do not touch, thoughts unwelcome
Boys touch flesh, no bad boys
Friends who hold hands, bad girls
Boys who touch girl, good thoughts, warm flesh
Girls crave flesh, bad bad girl
Flesh turns cold, bad thoughts
No way out, big trouble
Flesh is melted, distorted, explored
Thoughts revere, devilish girl
Boys do deeds, good thoughts
Girl slapped on the wrist, more bad
Boys given treats, deeds undone
Girls have bad thoughts, naught arms purple
Flesh dark circles, sketches, screams
Bad wirls with thoughts and deeds, girl want flesh
No flesh is for free, girls still scream
poem by Kelsey Wallace
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
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
Death death death death death death death death death death death
Death death death death death death death death death death death
Death death death death death death death death death death death
Death death death death death death death death death death death
Death death death death death death death death death death death
Death death death death death death death death death death death
poem by Mark R Slaughter
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Journey Into The Stars
Going to a day is like the very journey of Time,
One sits and waits, adores the other person, and fidgets;
A day may arise when that night with it is a flight,
Into the heavens and the universe.
It is a journey, it is a journey, of gravity,
When stars are seen, and planets are visited.
The cosmos is blended with infamous substances,
Full of canes and rods, delightful elements.
The flight to the infinite space is by night,
A day has lengthened on this quest of brilliance.
May this adventure never cease,
Just as death is the beholder of the next life.
poem by Naveed Akram
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Mower's Song
My Mind was once the true survey
Of all these Medows fresh and gay;
And in the greenness of the Grass
Did see its Hopes as in a Glass;
When Juliana came, and she
What I do to the Grass, does to my Thoughts and Me.
But these, while I with Sorrow pine,
Grew more luxuriant still and fine;
That not one Blade of Grass you spy'd,
But had a Flower on either side;
When Juliana came, and She
What I do to the Grass, does to my Thoughts and Me.
Unthankful Meadows, could you so
A fellowship so true forego,
And in your gawdy May-games meet,
While I lay trodden under feet?
When Juliana came , and She
What I do to the Grass, does to my Thoughts and Me.
But what you in Compassion ought,
Shall now by my Revenge be wrought:
And Flow'rs, and Grass, and I and all,
Will in one common Ruine fall.
For Juliana comes, and She
What I do to the Grass, does to my Thoughts and Me.
And thus, ye Meadows, which have been
Companions of my thoughts more green,
Shall now the Heraldry become
With which I shall adorn my Tomb;
For Juliana comes, and She
What I do to the Grass, does to my Thoughts and Me.
poem by Andrew Marvell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Song For 'Tasso
I.
I loved—alas! our life is love;
But when we cease to breathe and move
I do suppose love ceases too.
I thought, but not as now I do,
Keen thoughts and bright of linked lore,
Of all that men had thought before.
And all that Nature shows, and more.
II.
And still I love and still I think,
But strangely, for my heart can drink
The dregs of such despair, and live,
And love;...
And if I think, my thoughts come fast,
I mix the present with the past,
And each seems uglier than the last.
III.
Sometimes I see before me flee 15
A silver spirit’s form, like thee,
O Leonora, and I sit
...still watching it,
Till by the grated casement’s ledge
It fades, with such a sigh, as sedge
Breathes o’er the breezy streamlet’s edge.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Sigh on to you just lost the blow
Sigh on to you
Sigh on to you My friend
Fell thoughts of soul's descend
Final Thoughts
Sigh on to you My friend
Might be is this the end
The pain hurts the fear inside
Kill be the weak to ride
Countdown to fossil down
Show Me the cancerous meltdown
???, the architects of life
???
Final Thoughts
Sigh on to you My friend
Might be is this the end
Sigh on to you
Sigh on to you
Final Thoughts
song performed by by Obituary
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Hymn Sung At The Consecration Of Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, S.C.
Whose was the hand that painted thee, O Death!
In the false aspect of a ruthless foe,
Despair and sorrow waiting on thy breath --
O gentle Power! who could have wronged thee so?
Thou rather shouldst be crowned with fadeless flowers,
Of lasting fragrance and celestial hue;
Or be thy couch amid funereal bowers,
But let the stars and sunlight sparkle through.
So, with these thoughts before us, we have fixed
And beautified, O Death! thy mansion here,
Where gloom and gladness -- grave and garden -- mixed,
Make it a place to love, and not to fear.
Heaven! shed thy most propitious dews around!
Ye holy stars! look down with tender eyes,
And gild and guard and consecrate the ground
Where we may rest, and whence we pray to rise.
poem by Henry Timrod
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Hymn - Consecration of Magnolia Cemetery
Whose was the hand that painted thee, O Death!
In the false aspect of a ruthless foe,
Despair and sorrow waiting on thy breath --
O gentle Power! who could have wronged thee so?
Thou rather shouldst be crowned with fadeless flowers,
Of lasting fragrance and celestial hue;
Or be thy couch amid funereal bowers,
But let the stars and sunlight sparkle through.
So, with these thoughts before us, we have fixed
And beautified, O Death! thy mansion here,
Where gloom and gladness -- grave and garden -- mixed,
Make it a place to love, and not to fear.
Heaven! shed thy most propitious dews around!
Ye holy stars! look down with tender eyes,
And gild and guard and consecrate the ground
Where we may rest, and whence we pray to rise.
poem by Henry Timrod
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
In Memoriam
O FRIEND who passed away while flowers died,
Now that the land bursts into bloom again,
With vivid blossoms o'er the landscape wide,
Purple and white 'mongst, grasses golden-eyed,
In beauteous resurrection o'er the plain,—
My thoughts revert to thee, who liest still,
Under the pulsing, stirring, glowing earth;
Not rising with the lilac on the hill,
Not waking with the sunny daffodil,
Living and breathing with no second birth.
In these sweet days I dream I see thy grave,
A mockery of death, alive with flowers.
The delicate sprays and tender grasses wave,
Blue violets and the hardy crocus brave,
Wooed back to life by sunshine, dew, and showers.
I cannot deem that thou art lying there,
Asleep through all these fervent days of spring;
For I perceive thy spirit in the air,
Around me ever in my dream and prayer,
Enskied and hallowed by thy suffering.
When thou didst walk upon the earth before,
My trivial words and deeds alone were thine;
But now my holiest dreams are evermore
Blended with thoughts of thee, on that far shore,
Where thy pale, girlish face has grown divine.
Through the dark shadows thou must go alone;
And lo! thou hast a dauntless bravery,
A most majestic resignation shown;
A valiant patience, a faith not overthrown
By the dread terror of uncertainty.
The day had fled, from thee for evermore,
Thy soul was ebbing with the waning light,
And still thou asked, aweary and heartsore,
The same pathetic question o'er and o'er,—
'O, I am tired! will I go to-night?'
Aye, thou didst go,— and where? Thou knowest now.
Nature is innocent as well as fair;
Lillies, as well as amaranth, wreathe her brow.
She hath thy soul; because I cannot know
Where it may be, I feel it everywhere.
And thus the spring hath brought me flowers of worth.
O mourners, cease to weep o'er empty graves!
Open them all! no dead come trooping forth,
To fill with ghastly hosts the living earth;
Only the flowers bloom, the green grass waves.
Those ye laid low with solemn rites and tears,
Elude you; while ye weep, they all have flown.
And so I lay aside my doubts and fears;
My friend in day-dreams and at night appears,
And hovers near when I am most alone.
poem by Emma Lazarus
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Happy Thoughts, Happy Thoughts, Think Happy Thoughts
I have to keep reminding myself to forget you.
Forget you and me.
(Happy thoughts, happy thoughts, think happy thoughts.)
You wanted me to promise to never say it again
Those three words
(Happy thoughts, happy thoughts, think happy thoughts)
Which is laughably easy to do right now because
We are so far out of touch I couldn’t reach you if I tried
(Happy thoughts, happy thoughts, think happy thoughts)
So I plod through grey days and inky dark nights
Heavy laden with regret
(Happy thoughts, happy thoughts, think happy thoughts)
Tomorrow I will remind myself to forget you.
Forget you and me.
12-25-07
djlw
poem by Shannon Wright
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
I May Die
It's not strange, not queer,
not a matter to heave a sigh.
I'm very near, near,
near to death, I may die.
Tomorrow's sunlight,
I may not see,
nature's every sight,
won't be with me.
As death is nothing,
but, to cease at once,
stop of breathing,
any hour in trance,
or you may say,
a journey of life,
on a different way,
leaving earthly strife.
Nobody will remember,
except some kins,
I haven't been ever,
their words do that mean.
I'll want to touch,
my child, my loving ones,
whom I love so much.
I shall hear their moans.
The door between death,
and life, I'll knock,
and knock with that faith,
that I can unlock, the lock,
all my cry will be in vain.
I won't be able to tear,
the delicate curtain,
and no mortals will hear,
my body-less pain.
Soon, my soul will soar,
high, high, thru cloud, rain...
leaving everyday chore!
poem by Nilakshi Das
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!