All out of doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.
What kept him from remembering the need
That brought him to that creaking room was age.
He stood with barrels round him—at a loss.
And having scared the cellar under him
In clomping there, he scared it once again
In clomping off;—and scared the outer night,
Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar
Of trees and crack of branches, common things,
But nothing so like beating on a box.
A light he was to no one but himself
Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,
A quiet light, and then not even that.
He consigned to the moon, such as she was,
So late-arising, to the broken moon
As better than the sun in any case
For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
His icicles along the wall to keep;
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.
One aged man—one man—can’t fill a house,
A farm, a countryside, or if he can,
It’s thus he does it of a winter night.
ROBERT FROST
AMERICAN (1874-1963)
The Descent
The descent beckons
as the ascent beckoned.
Memory is a kind
of accomplishment,
a sort of renewal
even
an initiation, since the spaces it opens are new places
inhabited by hordes
heretofore unrealized,
of new kinds—
since their movements
are toward new objectives
(even though formerly they were abandoned).
No defeat is made up entirely of defeat—since
the world it opens is always a place
formerly
unsuspected. A
world lost,
a world unsuspected,
beckons to new places
and no whiteness (lost) is so white as the memory
of whiteness .
With evening, love wakens
though its shadows
which are alive by reason
of the sun shining—
grow sleepy now and drop away
from desire .
Love without shadows stirs now
beginning to awaken
as night
advances.
The descent
made up of despairs
and without accomplishment
realizes a new awakening:
which is a reversal
of despair.
For what we cannot accomplish, what
is denied to love,
what we have lost in the anticipation—
a descent follows,
endless and indestructible .
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
AMERICAN (1883-1963)
The Plain Sense of Things
After the leaves have fallen, we return
To a plain sense of things. It is as if
We had come to an end of the imagination,
Inanimate in an inert savoir.
It is difficult even to choose the adjective
For this blank cold, this sadness without cause.
The great structure has become a minor house.
No turban walks across the lessened floors.
The greenhouse never so badly needed paint.
The chimney is fifty years old and slants to one side.
A fantastic effort has failed, a repetition
In a repetitiousness of men and flies.
Yet the absence of the imagination had
Itself to be imagined. The great pond,
The plain sense of it, without reflections, leaves,
Mud, water like dirty glass, expressing silence
Of a sort, silence of a rat come out to see,
The great pond and its waste of the lilies, all this
Had to be imagined as an inevitable knowledge,
Required, as a necessity requires.
WALLACE STEVENS
AMERICAN (1879-1955)
Hail and Farewell
Waiting to cross the avenue,
I saw a man who had been in school with me:
we had been friendly
and now knew each other at once.
“Hot, isn’t it,” I said,
as if we had met only yesterday. “It hit ninety-five.”
“O no,” he answered. “I’m not ninety-five yet!”
Then he smiled a little sadly and said,
“You know I’m so tired
I thought for a moment you were talking about my age.”
We walked on together and he asked me what I was doing.
But, of course, he did not care.
Then, politely, I asked him about himself
and he, too, answered briefly.
At the stairs down to the subway station he said,
“I know I ought to be ashamed of myself
but I have forgotten your name.”
“Don’t be ashamed,” I answered,
“I’ve forgotten yours, too.”
With that we both smiled wryly,
gave our names and parted.
CHARLES REZNIKOFF
AMERICAN (1894-1976)
Do not go gentle into that good night
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
DYLAN THOMAS
WELSH (1914-1953)
The Street
Like slag
the face,
old,
one who knows he has been banished,
knows his place,
expects no sympathy or interest.
At seeing me
the face
lit up at once
and smiled,
expecting a smile:
You’re one of us!
CARL RAKOSI
AMERICAN (B. 1903)
The Language
The fear of dying soon now, the worse fear
of growing old first, yet the need to cling,
though Man seem formed in vain, to the still dear
voices, the hope to see and breathe next Spring—
these crowd in, stifling, clouding, deafening . . .
until fear clears to awe, and one is near
the level sill of silence, listening
tuned by music—by men, divine—to hear
thrilling below thresholds of whispers, low as
a sigh of spider-silk at dawn (new and
still
balancing spaced dew between caught flowers),
the language of the intertwining winds
on high among themselves—all vowels—
Holy Holy Holy—the names with no ends—
JONATHAN GRIFFIN
ENGLISH (1906-1990)
Now
I never wanted to kill
myself, never wanted
to die; but now, looking
ahead, thinking of thought
some day going awry
and trickling to a stop,
leaving a smelly shell
high on a dry beach
I think—
almost
I think—
but
No. Not yet.
MARY BARNARD
AMERICAN (1909-2000)
Forgetfulness
The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never
even heard of,
as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.
Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses good-bye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.
Whatever it is you are struggling to remember
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.
It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a
bicycle.
No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.
BILLY COLLINS
AMERICAN (B. 1941)
DEATH AND MORTALITY
What has this bugbear death to frighten man
From On the Nature of Things
What has this bugbear death to frighten man,
If souls can die, as well as bodies can?
For, as before our birth we felt no pain
When Punic arms infested land and main,
When heav’n and earth were in confusion hurled
For the debated empire of the world,
Which awed with dreadful expectation lay,
Sure to be slaves, uncertain who should sway:
So, when our mortal frame shall be disjoined,
The lifeless lump, uncoupled from the mind,
From sense of grief and pain we shall be free;
We shall not feel, because we shall not be.
LUCRETIUS
LATIN (C. 100 TO 90-C. 55 TO 53 B.C.)
TRANSLATED BY JOHN DRYDEN
Hadrian’s Address to His Soul When Dying
Ah! gentle, fleeting, wav’ring sprite,
Friend and associate of this clay!
To what unknown region borne,
Wilt thou now wing thy distant flight?
No more with wonted humour gay,
But pallid, cheerless, and forlorn.
THE EMPEROR HADRIAN
LATIN (76-138)
TRANSLATED BY GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON
Out of the dark
Out of the dark,
Into a dark path
I now must enter:
Shine on me from afar,
Moon of the mountain fringe!
IZUMI SHIKIBU
JAPANESE (974?-1034?)
TRANSLATED BY ARTHUR WALEY
That it is a road
That it is a road
Which some day we all travel
I had heard before,
Yet I never expected
To take it so soon myself.
ARIWARA NO NARIHARA
JAPANESE (825-880)
TRANSLATED BY RICHARD LANE
Death Song
In the great night my heart will go out.
Toward me the darkness comes rattling,
In the great night my heart will go out.
FRANCES DENSMORE (FROM THE PAPAGO)
AMERICAN (1867-1957)
The silver swan, who living had no note
The silver swan, who living had no note,
When death approached, unlocked her silent throat,
Leaning her breast against the reedy shore,
Thus sung her first and last, and sung no more:
Farewell all joys! O death, come close mine eyes;
More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise.
ANONYMOUS
ENGLISH (16TH CENTURY)
Adieu! Farewell Earth’s Bliss!
Adieu! farewell earth’s bliss!
This world uncertain is:
Fond are life’s lustful joys,
Death proves them all but toys.
None from his darts can fly:
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Rich men, trust not in wealth!
Gold cannot buy you health;
Physic himself must fade;
All things to end are made;
The plague full swift goes by:
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Beauty is but a flower
Which wrinkles will devour:
Brightness falls from the air;
Queens have died young and fair;
Dust hath closed Helen’s eye:
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Strength stoops unto the grave:
Worms feed on Hector brave;
Earth still holds ope her gate;
Come! come! the bells do cry.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Wit with his wantonness
Tasteth death’s bitterness:
Hell’s executioner
Hath no ears for to hear
What vain art can reply:
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Haste, therefore, each degree
To welcome destiny:
Heaven is our heritage,
Earth but a player’s stage:
Mount we unto the sky.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
THOMAS NASHE
ENGLISH (1567-1601?)
Elegy for Himself, Written in the Tower Before His Execution
My prime of youth is but a frost of cares;
My feast of joy is but a dish of pain;
My crop of corn is but a field of tares;
And all my good is but vain hope of gain:
The day is past, and yet I saw no sun;
And now I live, and now my life is done.
My tale was heard, and yet it was not told;
My fruit is fall’n, and yet my leaves are green;
My youth is spent, and yet I am not old;
I saw the world, and yet I was not seen:
My thread is cut, and yet it is not spun;
And now I live, and now my life is done.
I sought my death, and found it in my womb;
I looked for life, and saw it was a shade;
I trod the earth, and knew it was my tomb;
And now I die, and now I was but made:
My glass is full, and now my glass is run;
And now I live, and now my lif
e is done.
CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE
ENGLISH (C. 1558-1586)
The Passionate Man’s Pilgrimage
Give me my scallop-shell of quiet,
My staff of faith to walk upon,
My scrip of joy, immortal diet,
My bottle of salvation,
My gown of glory, hope’s true gage,
And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage.
Blood must be my body’s balmer,
No other balm will there be given,
Whilst my soul like a white palmer
Travels to the land of heaven,
Over the silver mountains,
Where spring the nectar fountains;
And there I’ll kiss
The bowl of bliss,
And drink my eternal fill
On every milken hill.
My soul will be a-dry before,
But after it will ne’er thirst more.
And by the happy blissful way
More peaceful pilgrims I shall see,
That have shook off their gowns of clay
And go apparelled fresh like me.
I’ll bring them first
To slake their thirst,
And then to taste those nectar suckets,
At the clear wells
Where sweetness dwells,
Drawn up by saints in crystal buckets.
And when our bottles and all we
Are filled with immortality,
Then the holy paths we’ll travel,
Strewed with rubies thick as gravel,
Ceilings of diamonds, sapphire floors,
High walls of coral and pearl bowers.
From thence to heaven’s bribeless hall
Where no corrupted voices brawl,
No conscience molten into gold,
Nor forged accusers bought and sold,
No cause deferred, nor vain-spent journey,
For there Christ is the King’s Attorney,
Who pleads for all without degrees,
And he hath angels, but no fees.
When the grand twelve million jury
Of our sins with sinful fury
’Gainst our souls black verdicts give,
Christ pleads his death, and then we live.
Be thou my speaker, taintless pleader,
Unblotted lawyer, true proceeder;
Thou movest salvation even for alms,
Not with a bribed lawyer’s palms.
And this is my eternal plea
To him that made heaven, earth and sea:
Seeing my flesh must die so soon,
And want a head to dine next noon,
Just at the stroke when my veins start and spread,
Set on my soul an everlasting head.
Then am I ready, like a palmer fit,