To tread those blest paths which before I writ.
SIR WALTER RALEGH
ENGLISH (1552?-1618)
What is our life? A play of passion
What is our life? A play of passion,
Our mirth the music of division.
Our mothers’ wombs the tiring-houses be,
Where we are dressed for this short comedy.
Heaven the judicious sharp spectator is,
That sits and marks still who doth act amiss.
Our graves that hide us from the searching sun
Are like drawn curtains when the play is done.
Thus march we, playing, to our latest rest.
Only we die in earnest, that’s no jest.
SIR WALTER RALEGH
ENGLISH (1552?-1618)
Never weather-beaten sail more willing bent to shore
Never weather-beaten sail more willing bent to shore,
Never tired pilgrim’s limbs affected slumber more,
Than my weary sprite now longs to fly out of my troubled
breast.
Oh, come quickly, sweetest Lord, and take my soul to rest!
Ever blooming are the joys of heaven’s high paradise,
Cold age deafs not there our ears nor vapour dims our eyes:
Glory there the sun outshines, whose beams the blessëd only
see.
Oh, come quickly, glorious Lord, and raise my sprite to thee!
THOMAS CAMPION
ENGLISH (1567-1620)
Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay
Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?
Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste;
I run to death, and death meets me as fast,
And all my pleasures are like yesterday.
I dare not move my dim eyes any way;
Despair behind, and death before doth cast
Such terror, and my feebled flesh doth waste
By sin in it, which it towards hell doth weigh.
Only thou art above, and when towards thee
By thy leave I can look, I rise again;
But our old subtle foe so tempteth me
That not one hour I can myself sustain.
Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art,
And thou like adamant draw mine iron heart.
JOHN DONNE
ENGLISH (1572-1631)
Death, be not proud though some have called thee
Death, be not proud though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so,
For those, whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones and soul’s delivery.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
JOHN DONNE
ENGLISH (1572-1631)
The Dying Christian to His Soul
Vital spark of heavenly flame!
Quit, oh quit this mortal frame:
Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying,
Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life.
Hark! they whisper; Angels say,
Sister Spirit, come away.
What is this absorbs me quite?
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?
Tell me, my Soul, can this be Death?
The world recedes; it disappears!
Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring:
Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
O Grave! where is thy Victory?
O Death! where is thy Sting?
ALEXANDER POPE
ENGLISH (1688-1744)
Like to the falling of a star
Like to the falling of a star,
Or as the flights of eagles are,
Or like the fresh spring’s gaudy hue,
Or silver drops of morning dew,
Or like a wind that chafes the flood,
Or bubbles which on water stood:
Even such is man, whose borrowed light
Is straight called in, and paid to night.
The wind blows out, the bubble dies;
The spring entombed in autumn lies;
The dew dries up, the star is shot;
The flight is past: and man forgot.
HENRY KING
ENGLISH (1592-1669)
I’m wearin’ awa’, John
Like snaw-wreaths in thaw, John,
I’m wearin’ awa’
To the land o’ the leal.
There ’s nae sorrow there, John
There ’s neither cauld nor care, John,
The day is aye fair
In the land o’ the leal.
Our bonnie bairn ’s there, John,
She was baith gude and fair, John;
And O! we grudged her sair
To the land o’ the leal.
But sorrow’s sel’ wears past, John,
And joy ’s a-coming fast, John,
The joy that ’s aye to last
In the land o’ the leal.
Sae dear ’s the joy was bought, John,
Sae free the battle fought, John,
That sinfu’ man e’er brought
To the land o’ the leal.
O, dry your glistening e’e, John!
My saul langs to be free, John,
And angels beckon me
To the land o’ the leal.
O, haud ye leal and true, John!
Your day it ’s wearin’ through, John,
And I’ll welcome you
To the land o’ the leal.
Now fare-ye-weel, my ain John,
This warld’s cares are vain, John,
We’ll meet, and we’ll be fain,
In the land o’ the leal.
LADY CAROLINA NAIRNE
SCOTTISH (1766-1845)
I’ve seen a Dying Eye
I’ve seen a Dying Eye
Run round and round a Room —
In search of Something—as it seemed —
Then Cloudier become —
And then—obscure with Fog —
And then—be soldered down
Without disclosing what it be
’Twere blessed to have seen —
EMILY DICKINSON
AMERICAN (1830-1886)
Because I could not stop for death
Because I could not stop for Death —
He kindly stopped for me —
The Carriage held but just Ourselves —
And Immortality.
We slowly drove—He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility —
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess—in the Ring —
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain —
We passed the Setting Sun —
Or rather—He passed Us —
The Dews drew quivering and chill —
For only Gossamer, my Gown —
My Tippet—only Tulle —
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground —
The Roof was scarcely visible —
The Cornice—in the Ground —
Since then—’tis Centuries—and yet
Feels shorte
r than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity —
EMILY DICKINSON
AMERICAN (1830-1886)
Crossing the Bar
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
ENGLISH (1809-1892)
I strove with none, for none was worth my strife
I strove with none, for none was worth my strife:
Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art:
I warmed both hands before the fire of Life;
It sinks; and I am ready to depart.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
ENGLISH (1775-1864)
Death stands above me
Death stands above me, whispering low
I know not what into my ear:
Of his strange language all I know
Is, there is not a word of fear.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
ENGLISH (1775-1864)
Requiem
Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
SCOTTISH (1850-1894)
The Lonely Death
In the cold I will rise, I will bathe
In waters of ice; myself
Will shiver, and shrive myself,
Alone in the dawn, and anoint
Forehead and feet and hands;
I will shutter the windows from light,
I will place in their sockets the four
Tall candles and set them a-flame
In the grey of the dawn; and myself
Will lay myself straight in my bed,
And draw the sheet under my chin.
ADELAIDE CRAPSEY
AMERICAN (1878-1914)
Dirge Without Music
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.
The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love, —
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
AMERICAN (1892-1950)
Bavarian Gentians
Not every man has gentians in his house
in soft September, at slow, sad Michaelmas.
Bavarian gentians, big and dark, only dark
darkening of the day-time torch-like with the smoking blueness of Pluto’s gloom,
ribbed and torch-like, with their blaze of darkness spread blue
down flattening into points, flattened under the sweep of white day
torch-flower of the blue-smoking darkness, Pluto’s dark-blue daze,
black lamps from the halls of Dis, burning dark blue,
giving off darkness, blue darkness, as Demeter’s pale lamps give off light,
lead me then, lead me the way.
Reach me a gentian, give me a torch
let me guide myself with the blue, forked torch of this flower
down the darker and darker stairs, where blue is darkened on blueness,
even where Persephone goes, just now, from the frosted September
to the sightless realm where darkness is awake upon the dark
and Persephone herself is but a voice
or a darkness invisible enfolded in the deeper dark
of the arms Plutonic, and pierced with the passion of dense gloom,
among the splendour of torches of darkness, shedding darkness on the lost bride and her groom.
D. H. LAWRENCE
ENGLISH (1885-1930)
The Bed by the Window
I chose the bed down-stairs by the sea-window for a good
death-bed
When we built the house; it is ready waiting,
Unused unless by some guest in a twelvemonth, who hardly
suspects
Its latter purpose. I often regard it,
With neither dislike nor desire: rather with both, so equalled
That they kill each other and a crystalline interest
Remains alone. We are safe to finish what we have to finish;
And then it will sound rather like music
When the patient daemon behind the screen of sea-rock and
sky
Thumps with his staff, and calls thrice: “Come, Jeffers.”
ROBINSON JEFFERS
AMERICAN (1887-1962)
Lemon Elegy
So intensely you had been waiting for lemon.
In the sad, white, light deathbed
you took that one lemon from my hand
and bit it sharply with your bright teeth.
A fragrance rose the color of topaz.
Those heavenly drops of juice
flashed you back to sanity.
Your eyes, blue and transparent, slightly smiled.
You grasped my hand, how vigorous you were.
There was a storm in your throat
but just at the end
Chieko found Chieko again,
all life’s love into one moment fallen.
And then once
as once you did on a mountaintop, you let out a great sigh
and with it your engine stopped.
By the cherry blossoms in front of your photograph
today, too, I will put a cool fresh lemon.
TAKAMURA KO?248-175?TARO?248-175?
JAPANESE (1883-1956)
TRANSLATED BY HIROAKI SATO
Question
Body my house
my horse my hound
what will I do
when you are fallen
Where will I sleep
How will I ride
What will I hunt
Where can I go
without my mount
all eager and quick
How will I know
in thicket ahead
is danger or treasure
when Body my good
bright dog is dead
How will it be
to lie in the sky
without roof or door
and wind for an eye
With cloud for shift
how will I hide?
MAY SWENSON
AMERICAN (1913-19
89)
GRIEF AND MOURNING
To Stella
Thou wert the morning star among the living,
Ere thy fair light had fled; —
Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving
New splendor to the dead.
PLATO
GREEK (427?-347 B.C.)
TRANSLATED BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
In the days when my wife lived
In the days when my wife lived,
We went out to the embankment near by —
We two, hand in hand —
To view the elm trees standing there
With their outspreading branches
Thick with spring leaves. Abundant as their greenery
Was my love. On her leaned my soul.
But who evades mortality?
One morning she was gone, flown like an early bird,
Clad in a heavenly scarf of white,
To the wide fields where the shimmering kagero?248-175? rises
She went and vanished like the setting sun.
The little babe—the keepsake
My wife has left me —
Cries and clamors.
I have nothing to give; I pick up the child
And clasp it in my arms.
In our chamber, where our two pillows lie,
Where we two used to sleep together,
Days I spend alone, broken-hearted:
Nights I pass, sighing until dawn.
Though I grieve, there is no help;
Vainly I long to see her.
Men tell me that my wife is
In the mountains of Hagai —
Thither I go,
Toiling along the stony path;
But it avails me not,
For of my wife, as she lived in this world,
I find not the faintest shadow.
. . . . . . . . .
Tonight the autumn moon shines —
The moon that shone a year ago,
But my wife and I who watched it then together
Are divided by ever widening wastes of time.
When leaving my love behind
In the Hikite mountains —
Leaving her there in her grave,
I walk down the mountain path,
I feel like one not living.
KAKINOMOTO NO HITOMARO
JAPANESE (D. C. 708)
TRANSLATED BY RALPH HODGSON AND OTHERS
On the Death of a New Born Child
The flowers in bud on the trees
Are pure like this dead child.
The East wind will not let them last.
It will blow them into blossom,
And at last into the earth.
It is the same with this beautiful life
Which was so dear to me.