The Old Man's Funeral
Ye sigh not when the sun, his course fulfilled,
His glorious course, rejoicing earth and sky,
In the soft evening, when the winds are stilled,
Sinks where his islands of departure spread
O'er the warm-colored heaven and ruddy mountain head.
Why weep ye then for him, who, having won
The bound of man's appointed years, at last.
Life's blessings all enjoyed, life's labors done,
Serenely to his final rest has passed;
While the soft memory of his virtues yet
Lingers like twilight hues, when the bright sun is set?
poem by William Cullen Bryant
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Related quotes
Pussy Willows, Cat Tails
Pussywillows, cat-tails, soft winds and roses
Rainbows in the woodland, water to my knees
Shivering, quivering, the warm breath of spring
Pussywillows, cat-tails, soft winds and roses
Catbirds and cornfields, daydreams together
Riding on the roadside the dust gets in your eyes
Reveling, disheveling, the summer nights can bring
Pussywillows, cat-tails, soft winds and roses
Slanted rays and colored days, stark blue horizons
Naked limbs and wheatbins, hazy afternoons
Voicing, rejoicing, the wine cups do bring
Pussywillows, cat-tails, soft winds and roses
Harsh nights and candlelights, woodfires a-blazin
Soft lips and fingertips resting in my soul
Treasuring, remembering, the promise of spring
Pussywillows, cat-tails, soft winds and roses
song performed by by Gordon Lightfoot
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The battle had passed from the height
The battle has passed from the height,
And still did evening fall;
While heaven with its restful night
Gloriously canopied all.
The dead around were sleeping
On heath and granite grey,
And the dying their last watch were keeping
In the closing of the day.
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How golden bright from earth and heaven
The summer day declines!
How gloriously o'er land and sea
The parting sunbeam shines!
There is a voice in the wind that waves
Those bright rejoicing trees.
Not a vapour had stained the breezeless blue,
Not a cloud had dimmed the sun,
From the time of morning's earliest dew
Till the summer day was done.
And all as pure and all as bright
The sun of evening died,
And purer still its parting light
Shone on Lake Elnor's tide.
Waveless and calm lies that silent deep
In its wilderness of moors,
Solemn and soft the moonbeams sleep
Upon its heathy shores.
The deer are gathered to their rest,
The wild sheep seek the fold.
Only some spires of bright green grass
Transparently in sunshine quivering.
The sun has set, and the long grass now
Waves dreamily in the evening wind;
And the wild bird has flown from that old grey stone,
In some warm nook a couc hto find.
In all the lonely landscape round
I see no light and hear no sound,
Except the wind that far away
Comes sighing o'er the healthy sea.
Lady, in thy palace hall,
Once perchance thy face was seen;
Can no memory now recall
Thought again to what has been?
poem by Emily Brontë from The Complete Poems of Emily Brontë (1908)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Death Of Winter
The death of winter when
The cold is blown away
By soft spring breezes
That have come to say
"Be gone, be gone.
You've stilled the world too long.
I am here now
And I bring the birds and song.
I bring fragrant blossoms
to fill the air.
I shall repair the tree limbs
that are too bare.
And you will wrestle with drabness
and finally sleep.
And all of your icicles
will lose their weep."
Oh what glorious days
now that I am here.
Oh what magnificent colors
will now appear.
Give me the chance to warm the earth.
Give me my time to sigh
and exhale the sweetness
of spring,
before it's my time to die
poem by Edwina Reizer
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Beauty and Beauty
When Beauty and Beauty meet
All naked, fair to fair,
The earth is crying-sweet,
And scattering-bright the air,
Eddying, dizzying, closing round,
With soft and drunken laughter;
Veiling all that may befall
After - after -
Where Beauty and Beauty met,
Earth's still a-tremble there,
And winds are scented yet,
And memory-soft the air,
Bosoming, folding glints of light,
And shreds of shadowy laughter;
Not the tears that fill the years
After - after -
poem by Rupert Brooke (1913)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Mezzo Cammin
Half of my life is gone, and I have let
The years slip from me and have not fulfilled
The aspiration of my youth, to build
Some tower of song with lofty parapet.
Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret
Of restless passions chat would not be stilled,
But sorrow, and a care that almost killed,
Kept me from what I may accomplish yet;
Though, half way up the hill, I see the Past
Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,--
A city in the twilight dim and vast,
With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights.--
And hear above me on the autumnal blast
The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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The Fugitive
The air is perfumed with the morning's fresh breeze,
From the bush peer the sunbeams all purple and bright,
While they gleam through the clefts of the dark-waving trees,
And the cloud-crested mountains are golden with light.
With joyful, melodious, ravishing, strain,
The lark, as he wakens, salutes the glad sun,
Who glows in the arms of Aurora again,
And blissfully smiling, his race 'gins to run.
All hail, light of day!
Thy sweet gushing ray
Pours down its soft warmth over pasture and field;
With hues silver-tinged
The meadows are fringed,
And numberless suns in the dewdrop revealed.
Young Nature invades
The whispering shades,
Displaying each ravishing charm;
The soft zephyr blows,
And kisses the rose,
The plain is sweet-scented with balm.
How high from yon city the smoke-clouds ascend!
Their neighing, and snorting, and bellowing blend
The horses and cattle;
The chariot-wheels rattle,
As down to the valley they take their mad way;
And even the forest where life seems to move,
The eagle, and falcon, and hawk soar above,
And flutter their pinions, in heaven's bright ray.
In search of repose
From my heart-rending woes,
Oh, where shall my sad spirit flee?
The earth's smiling face,
With its sweet youthful grace,
A tomb must, alas, be for me!
Arise, then, thou sunlight of morning, and fling
O'er plain and o'er forest thy purple-dyed beams!
Thou twilight of evening, all noiselessly sing
In melody soft to the world as it dreams!
Ah, sunlight of morning, to me thou but flingest
Thy purple-dyed beams o'er the grave of the past!
Ah, twilight of evening, thy strains thou but singest
To one whose deep slumbers forever must last!
poem by Friedrich Schiller
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Moorish Bridal Song
The citron groves their fruit and flowers were strewing
Around a Moorish palace, while the sigh
Of low sweet summer-winds, the branches wooing,
With music through their shadowy bowers went by;
Music and voices, from the marble halls,
Through the leaves gleaming, and the fountain-falls.
A song of joy, a bridal song came swelling,
To blend with fragrance in those southern shades,
And told of feasts within the stately dwelling,
Bright lamps, and dancing steps, and gem-crown'd maids;
And thus it flow'd;-yet something in the lay
Belong'd to sadness, as it died away.
'The bride comes forth! her tears no more are falling
To leave the chamber of her infant years;
Kind voices from distant home are calling;
She comes like day-spring-she hath done with tears;
Now must her dark eye shine on other flowers,
Her soft smile gladden other hearts than ours!
-Pour the rich odours round!
'We haste! the chosen and the lovely bringing;
Love still goes with her from her place of birth;
Deep silent joy within her soul is springing,
Though in her glance the light no more is mirth!
Her beauty leaves us in its rosy years;
Her sisters weep-but she hath done with tears!
-Now may the timbrel sound!'
Know'st thou for whom they sang the bridal numbers?
-One, whose rich tresses were to wave no more!
One, whose pale cheek soft winds, nor gentle slumbers,
Nor Love's own sigh, to rose-tints might restore!
Her graceful ringlets o'er a bier were spread.-
-Weep for the young, the beautiful,-the dead!
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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Yellow Butterfly.
Gently flapping it's thin wings,
A butterfly lands upon my fingers,
And upon a soft breeze it leaves,
Yet it's delicate presence lingers.
Sunny yellow rimmed it's wings.
With dark daffodil yellow rings,
Pure coal black traced it's veins,
It's image - in my mind - remains.
Such a soft and delicate brush,
Of a butterflies wings, so plush,
The softest touch of it's tiny legs,
Lifted my spirits - well, the dregs.
That butterfly, that passed me by,
The messenger between land and sky,
Has stayed lodged in my mind,
I'll never meet another of it's kind,
A single butterfly, while I was alone,
Came to me and my world was thrown,
But I'll never forget that yellow butterfly,
That left me when I let out a soft sigh,
A soft sigh that came from me,
Swept my butterfly, set it free,
This is my butterfly that I'll remember,
My butterfly from last September.
poem by Rayne Goddard
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The sum of all his days
Lord, is this what life is really all about?
We get to You all wrinkled and so worn out
Is life what we have become on our last day?
All weakened and plagued by senile decay
My child, this is not so, I'm pleased to tell you
That I don't see your loved one the way you do
His life before me in panorama displays
And I see him as the sum of all his days
From his final sigh right back to his first breath
All is seen by me when he passed through death
I see the babe giving his parents delight
And the small boy growing up so fair and bright
The young lad entering his turbulent teens
Coming to terms with his inherited genes
All through his adulthood I see him going
Forming new friendships and life overflowing
You see the aging process making him old
But before me I see his whole life unfold
Each second and each moment of the years
I can see his exuberant joys and tears
Then on that final day as in death he lay
I see one who has walked with me all the way
The sum of all his days is what I can see
In your loved one who is standing before Me
And now with Me as his new life he begins
One that is not marred by the effect of sins
Sicknesses and sorrows shall no longer be
For he is now living in heaven with Me
He Goes On
Pretty soon youll be able to remember him
Lying in the garden singing
Right where hell always be
The door is always open
This is the place that I loved him
And these are the friends that he had
Long may the mountain ring
To the sounds of his laughter
And he goes on and on
In his soft wind I will whisper
In his warm sun I will glisten
Will we see him once again
In a world without end
We owe it all to frank sinatra
The song was playing as he walked into the room
After the long weekend
They were a lifetime together
Appearing in the eyes of children
In the clear blue mountain view
The colouring in the sky
And painting ladders to heaven
And he goes on and on
In his soft wind I will whisper
In his warm sun I will glisten
Till we see him once again
In a world without end
In his soft wind I will whisper
In his warm sun I will glisten
And I always will remember
In a world without end
He goes on
He goes on
song performed by by Belinda Carlisle
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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On the Death of a Young Lady
Cousin to the Author, and very dear to him.
Hush'd are the winds, and still the evening gloom,
Not e'en a zephyr wanders through the grove,
Whilst I return, to view my Margaret's tomb,
And scatter flowers on the dust I love.
Within this narrow cell reclines her clay,
That clay, where once such animation beam'd;
The King of Terrors seized her as his prey,
Not worth nor beauty have her life redeem'd.
Oh! could that King of Terrors pity feel,
Or Heaven reverse the dread decree of fate,
Not here, the mourner would his grief reveal,
Not her the muse her virtues would relate.
But wherefore weep? Her matchless spirit soars
Beyond where splendid shines the orb of day;
And weeping angels lead her to those bowers
Where endless pleasures virtuous deeds repay.
And shall presumptuous mortals Heaven arraign,
And, madly, godlike Providence accuse?
Ah! no, far fly from me attempts so vain;--
I'll ne'er submission to my God refuse.
Yet is remembrance of those virtues dear,
Yet fresh the memory of that beauteous face;
Still they call forth my warm affection's tear,
Still in my heart retain their wonted place.
poem by Byron (1802)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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She Goes On
Pretty soon youll be able to remember her
Lying in the garden singing
Right where shell always be
The door is always open
This is the place that I loved her
And these are the friends that she had
Long may the mountain ring
To the sound of her laughter
And she goes on and on
In her soft wind I will whisper
In her warm sun I will glisten
till we see her once again
In a world without end
We owe it all to frank sinatra
The song was playing a she walked into the room
After the long weekend
They were a lifetime together
Appearing in the eyes of children
In the clear blue mountain view
The colouring in the sky
And painting ladders to heaven
And she goes on
In her soft wind I will whisper
In her warm sun I will glisten
till we see her once again
In a world without end
In her soft wind I will whisper
In her warm sun I will glisten
And I always will remember
In a world without end
She goes on
She goes on
She goes on
song performed by by Crowded House
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Stanzas Written in Dejection, Near Naples
I.
The sun is warm, the sky is clear,
The waves are dancing fast and bright,
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear
The purple noon's transparent might,
The breath of the moist earth is light,
Around its unexpanded buds;
Like many a voice of one delight
The winds, the birds, the ocean floods,
The city's voice itself, is soft like Solitude's.
II.
I see the deep's untrampled floor
With green and purple seaweeds strown;
I see the waves upon the shore,
Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown:
I sit upon the sands alone,--
The lightning of the noontide ocean
Is flashing round me, and a tone
Arises from its measured motion,
How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.
III.
Alas! I have nor hope nor health,
Nor peace within nor calm around,
Nor that content surpassing wealth
The sage in meditation found,
And walked with inward glory crowned--
Nor fame nor power, nor love, nor leisure,
Others I see whom these surround--
Smiling they live, and call life pleasure;--
To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.
IV.
Yet now despair itself is mild,
Even as the winds and waters are;
I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care
Which I have born and yet must bear,
Till death like sleep might steal on me,
And I might feel in the warm air
My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea
Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.
V.
Some might lament that I were cold,
As I, when this sweet day is gone,
Which my lost heart, too soon grown old,
Insults with this untimely moan;
They might lament -- for I am one
Whom men love not,-- and yet regret,
Unlike this day, which, when the sun
Shall on its stainless glory set,
Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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I'll Carry You with Me!
I'll carry you with me here in my heart
From now 'til forever, we never will part,
Though all that we hoped for is now in the past,
Your memory lingers -the mold has been cast;
I'll carry you with me each day from now on
Though miles lie between us and you may be gone,
You inhabit my dreams as you always have done,
Your memory lingers as bright as the sun;
I'll carry you with me in each precious thought
Remembering your smile and the joy that you brought,
My life has been touched by each gift that you gave
Your memory lingers from here to the grave;
I'll carry you with me wherever I go
Your love still surrounds me and grounds me I know,
And I can be happy just knowing you care -
Your memory lives in my soul everywhere.
10/25/2008
After Death
IF we must part, this parting is the best:
How would you bear to lay
Your head on some warm pillow far away--
Your head, so used to lying on my breast?
But now your pillow is cold;
Your hands have flowers, and not my hands, to hold;
Upon our bed the worn bride-linen lies.
I have put the death-money upon your eyes,
So that you should not wake up in the night.
I have bound your face with white;
I have washed you, yes, with water and not with tears,--
Those arms wherein I have slept so many years,
Those feet that hastened when they came to me,
And all your body that belonged to me.
I have smoothed your dear dull hair,
And there is nothing left to say for you
And nothing left to fear or pray for you;
And I have got the rest of life to bear:
Thank God it is you, not I, who are lying there.
If I had died
And you had stood beside
This still white bed
Where the white, scented, horrible flowers are spread,--
I know the thing it is,
And I thank God that He has spared you this.
If one must bear it, thank God it was I
Who had to live and bear to see you die,
Who have to live, and bear to see you dead.
You will have nothing of it all to bear:
You will not even know that in your bed
You lie alone. You will not miss my head
Beside you on the pillow: you will rest
So soft in the grave you will not miss my breast.
But I--but I--Your pillow and your place--
And only the darkness laid against my face,
And only my anguish pressed against my side--
Thank God, thank God, that it was you who died!
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Sometimes you slept
Sometimes you slept with your head
right on my chest,
with your soft hairs
spread like a patch of grass
or auburn flowers
and I could see
your tender nostrils shivering
and felt your heart beating
while you clasped
my right hand
on your breast
against a big
half aroused nipple
and the whiteness of your skin,
the soft perplexity of it
the warm patch of your womanhood,
the frailty of you against me
made me feel
as if I could shelter you
against the thundering
waves of life
that was knocking against us.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Between The Rapids
The point is turned; the twilight shadow fills
The wheeling stream, the soft receding shore,
And on our ears from deep among the hills
Breaks now the rapid's sudden quickening roar.
Ah yet the same, or have they changed their face,
The fair green fields, and can it still be seen,
The white log cottage near the mountain's base,
So bright and quiet, so home-like and serene?
Ah, well I question, for as five years go,
How many blessings fall, and how much woe.
Aye there they are, nor have they changed their cheer,
The fields, the hut, the leafy mountain brows;
Across the lonely dusk again I hear
The loitering bells, the lowing of the cows,
The bleat of many sheep, the stilly rush
Of the low whispering river, and through all,
Soft human tongues that break the deepening hush
With faint-heard song or desultory call:
Oh comrades hold; the longest reach is past;
The stream runs swift, and we are flying fast.
The shore, the fields, the cottage just the same,
But how with them whose memory makes them sweet?
Oh if I called them, hailing name by name,
Would the same lifts the same old shouts repeat?
Have the rough years, so big with death and ill,
Gone lightly by and left them smiling yet?
Wild black-eyed Jeanne whose tongue was never still,
Old wrinkled Picaud, Pierre and pale Lisette,
The homely hearts that never cared to range,
While life's wide fields were filled with rush and change.
And where is Jacques, and where is Verginie?
I cannot tell; the fields are all a blur.
The lowing cows whose shapes I scarcely see,
Oh do they wait and do they call for her?
And is she changed, or is her heart still clear
As wind or morning, light as river foam?
Or have life's changes borne her far from here,
And far from rest, and far from help and home?
Ah comrades, soft, and let us rest awhile,
For arms grow tired with paddling many a mile.
The woods grow wild, and from the rising shore
The cool wind creeps, the faint wood odours steal;
Like ghosts down the rivers blackening floor
The misty fumes begin to creep and reel.
Once more I leave you, wandering toward the night,
Sweet home, sweet heart, that would have held me in;
Whither I go I know not, and the light
Is faint before, and rest is hard to win.
Ah sweet ye were and near to heaven's gate;
But youth is blind and wisdom comes too late.
Blacker and loftier grow the woods, and hark!
The freshening roar! The chute is near us now,
And dim the canyon grows, and inky dark
The water whispering from the birchen prow.
One long last look, and many a sad adieu,
While eyes can see and heart can feel you yet,
I leave sweet home and sweeter hearts to you,
A prayer for Picaud, one for pale Lisette,
A kiss for Pierre, my little Jacques, and thee,
A sigh for Jeanne, a sob for Verginie.
Oh, does she still remember? Is the dream
Now dead, or has she found another mate?
So near, so dear; and ah, so swift the stream;
Even now perhaps it were not yet too late.
But oh, what matter; for before the night
Has reached its middle, we have far to go:
Bend to your paddles, comrades; see, the light
Ebbs off apace; we must not linger so.
Aye thus it is! Heaven gleams and then is gone
Once, twice, it smiles, and still we wander on.
poem by Archibald Lampman
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Dirge
PLACE this bunch of mignonette
In her cold, dead hand;
When the golden sun is set,
Where the poplars stand,
Bury her from sun and day,
Lay my little love away
From my sight.
She was like a modest flower
Blown in sunny June,
Warm as sun at noon's high hour,
Chaster than the moon.
Ah, her day was brief and bright,
Earth has lost a star of light;
She is dead.
Softly breathe her name to me,—
Ah, I loved her so.
Gentle let your tribute be;
None may better know
Her true worth than I who weep
O'er her as she lies asleep —
Soft asleep.
Lay these lilies on her breast,
They are not more white
Than the soul of her, at rest
'Neath their petals bright.
Chant your aves soft and low,
Solemn be your tread and slow, —
She is dead.
Lay her here beneath the grass,
Cool and green and sweet,
Where the gentle brook may pass
Crooning at her feet.
Nature's bards shall come and sing,
And the fairest flowers shall spring
Where she lies.
Safe above the water's swirl,
She has crossed the bar;
Earth has lost a precious pearl,
Heaven has gained a star,
That shall ever sing and shine,
Till it quells this grief of mine
For my love.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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An Orange Painting! ! !
An orange photograph
painted on the sky
a canvas far and high
my thought then flies
as wind it blows
to a day many years ago
I was a boy, a child
dreams were big and wild
it was a usual evening
I lied on the grass daydreaming
I saw the sky was empty
no twilight I perceived
Then I raised my hand
to the sky my fingers went
I drew a line on the sky
so lengthy and so high
I depicted conscientiously
the twilight I'd like to see
As my point finger moved
an orange color bloomed
An orange twilight was formed,
an empty sky was gone.
Long from that day I age already
older today I might have been
It's been nine years passed
I don't even recall where it was
Years have passed from that day,
many things change too,
If many have changed,
I might have changed too.
But when today I see the twilight,
a familiar thought flashes bright
and a question appears to me,
so warmly and so vividly
'Is the orange color in the sky today,
is the same twilight I've drawn that day? '
poem by Kite Remedy
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A Journey Beyond Death
Pranab k c
08/2011
So nervous were my eyes
when I saw my body lied in sleep
A sweet and soft moonlight everywhere
from ocean to mountain
from meadows to graveyard
walls, roof and floor are out of existence
a light soft and sweet flowing everywhere
So nervous was my memory
can't recollect the finest tune of life
I heard so long ago before my death
can't recollect
Yet alive I was but just out of me
the body in deep sleep and I
flying without feather everywhere
from ditch to dense
from narrow to wide
no heaven, no hell
only sweet and soft light white
everywhere, in every inch of all the imagery...
poem by Pranab K. Chakraborty
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