death poems

David L. Weatherford
SLOW DANCE

Have you ever watched kids
On a merry-go-round?
Or listened to the rain
Slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
You'd better slow down.
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.

Do you run through each day
On the fly?
When you ask "How are you?"
Do you hear the reply?
When the day is done
Do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores
Running through your head?
You'd better slow down
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.

Ever told your child,
We'll do it tomorrow?
And in your haste,
Not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die
Cause you never had time
To call and say "Hi"?
You'd better slow down.
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift....
Thrown away.
Life is not a race.
Do take it slower
Hear the music
Before the song is over.

"Is There Any Truth in Man?"

The academics or wise men of the Aztecs were known as the Tlamatinime (The Men with Words). They were both poets and philosophers. The Tlarnatinime taught the people through poetry, asking the cosmic question "Is There Any Truth in Man?"

 
Does Man Possess Any Truth?

Does man possess any truth?
if not, our song is no longer true.
Is anything stable and lasting?
What reaches its aim?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One Day We Must Go

One day we must go,
one night we will descend into the region of mystery.
Here, we only come to know ourselves;
only in passing are we here on earth.
In peace and pleasure lot us spend our lives;
come, let us enjoy ourselves.
Let not the angry do so; the earth is vast indeed!
Would that one lived forever;
Would that one were not to die!

For whom the bell tolls
(No man is an island) by John Donne


No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

All Things will Die
by Lord Alfred Tennyson



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.

The Burial Of Love
by Lord Alfred Tennyson


His eyes in eclipse,
Pale-cold his lips,
The light of his hopes unfed,
Mute his tongue,
His bow unstrung
With the tears he hath shed,
Backward drooping his graceful head,
Love is dead:
His last arrow is sped;
He hath not another dart;
Go-carry him to his dark deathbed;
Bury him in the cold, cold heart-
Love is dead.


O truest love! art thou forlorn,
And unrevenged? thy pleasant wiles
Forgotten, and thine innocent joy?
Shall hollow-hearted apathy,
The cruellest form of perfect scorn,
With languor of most hateful smiles,
For ever write,
In the withered light
Of the tearless eye,
And epitaph that all may spy?
No! sooner she herself shall die.


For her the showers shall not fall,
Nor the round sun shine that shineth to all;
Her light shall into darkness change;
For her the green grass shall not spring,
Nor the rivers flow, nor the sweet birds sing,
Till Love have his full revenge.


Come not, when I am dead
by Lord Alfred Tennyson


Come not, when I am dead,
  To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave,
To trample round my fallen head,
  And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst not save.
There let the wind sweep and the plover cry;
         But thou, go by.


Child, if it were thine error or thy crime
  I care no longer, being all unblest:
Wed whom thou wilt, but I am sick of Time,
  And I desire to rest.
Pass on, weak heart, and leave me where I lie:
         Go by, go by.



Song: A spirit haunts…
by Lord Alfred Tennyson



I.
A spirit haunts the year's last hours
Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers.
   To himself he talks.
For at eventide, listening earnestly,
At his work you may hear him sob and sigh
   In the walks;
Earthward he bowseth the heavy stalks
Of the moldering flowers.


   Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
        Over its grave i' the earth so chilly;
   Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
        Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.


II.
The air is damp, and hush'd, and close
   As a sick man's room when he taketh repose
        An hour before death;
   My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves
   Ath the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves,
        And the breath
   Of the fading edges of box beneath,
   And the year's last rose.


        Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
             Over its grave i' the earth so chilly;
        Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
             Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.

Keith Morrison

RODRIGO GARCIA LOPES
(Brasil)


RITO


 
Alertas, trapaças, cobranças, compromissos:


Quantas ilhas sem edição, vidas sem viço,


A morte visita sem aviso?


E, afinal, pra que mesmo tudo isso?


 


O que deu nesse mundo, caduco,


O que ficou do tempo em que viver


Era mais que só mudar de assunto


Era rito, um estado de espírito?


 


Ou quando olhar era uma reza,


Pensar que revelava a leveza,


Música vindo de dentro


(Precisa de centro?)


 


Uma revolução do sentir nos fez ateus:


Quisemos então ver a face de Deus.


 


E você a meu lado, lembra


De quando bastava uma fagulha


Pra explodir uma Bastilha?


 


 

The Funeral, Edouard Manet (French 1832-1883)

In memory of JoanneDorel 10/7/05


Death Of A Friend


My friend was dead ___ he whom I loved so well,
    And I had come to say some magic word,
That might appease the sorrow for a spell,
    Some simple thing no other ear had heard.
 
Prostrate o'er his still form the loving wife,
    Begged, pleaded and implored those lips of clay,
To speak again, to give one sign of life,
    And lift the awful load from her away.
 
I took her trembling hand in mine and tried
    To speak the tender word I wished to say,
My tongue was dumb ___ my flowing tears had dried,
    I pressed her hand again and turned away.

__Ed. Blair.

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 long'd to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

Robert Louis Stevenson. 1850-1894

Goethe

THE DANCE OF DEATH.


THE warder looks down at the mid hour of night,

On the tombs that lie scatter'd below:
The moon fills the place with her silvery light,

And the churchyard like day seems to glow.
When see! first one grave, then another open wide,
And women and men stepping forth are descried,

In cerements snow-white and trailing.

In haste for the sport soon their ankles they twitch,

And whirl round in dances so gay;
The young and the old, and the poor, and the rich,

But the cerements stand in their way;
And as modesty cannot avail them aught here,
They shake themselves all, and the shrouds soon appear

Scatter'd over the tombs in confusion.

Now waggles the leg, and now wriggles the thigh,

As the troop with strange gestures advance,
And a rattle and clatter anon rises high,

As of one beating time to the dance.
The sight to the warder seems wondrously queer,
When the villainous Tempter speaks thus in his ear:

"Seize one of the shrouds that lie yonder!"

Quick as thought it was done! and for safety he fled

Behind the church-door with all speed;
The moon still continues her clear light to shed

On the dance that they fearfully lead.
But the dancers at length disappear one by one,
And their shrouds, ere they vanish, they carefully don,

And under the turf all is quiet.

But one of them stumbles and shuffles there still,

And gropes at the graves in despair;
Yet 'tis by no comrade he's treated so ill

The shroud he soon scents in the air.
So he rattles the door--for the warder 'tis well
That 'tis bless'd, and so able the foe to repel,

All cover'd with crosses in metal.

The shroud he must have, and no rest will allow,

There remains for reflection no time;
On the ornaments Gothic the wight seizes now,

And from point on to point hastes to climb.
Alas for the warder! his doom is decreed!
Like a long-legged spider, with ne'er-changing speed,

Advances the dreaded pursuer.

The warder he quakes, and the warder turns pale,

The shroud to restore fain had sought;
When the end,--now can nothing to save him avail,--

In a tooth formed of iron is caught.
With vanishing lustre the moon's race is run,
When the bell thunders loudly a powerful One,

And the skeleton fails, crush'd to atoms.

                                1813.

William Blake
The Garden of Love

I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.


And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And `Thou shalt not' writ over the door;
So I turn'd to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore,


And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be:
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.

A few verses from the greatest poem ever written.
Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th'inevitable hour,
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Can storied urn, or animated bust,
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death?

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear,
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

One of my favorite poems which never fails to give me a feeling of eternity.

excerpts from the Garden of Proserpine

by Algernon Charles Swinburne


Here, where the world is quiet,

Here, where all trouble seems

Dead winds' and spent waves riot

In doubtful dream of dreams;

I watch the green field growing

for reaping folk and sowing,

For harvest time and mowing,

A sleepy world of streams.



I am tired of tears and laughter,

and men that laugh and weep,

Of what may come hereafter

for men that sow to reap;

I am weary of days and hours,

Blown buds of barren flowers,

Desires and dreams and powers

And everything but sleep



From too much love of living,

From hope and fear set free,

We thank with brief thanksgiving

Whatever gods may be

That no life lives forever;

That dead men rise up never;

That even the weariest river

Winds somewhere safe to sea.

Hi guys, i adore poems......this thread looks very interesting....

I would love to share a poem I wrote for my father the day after he was buried. I hope that i am in the appropriate thread.....

THIS MAN


There was this man, this wonderful man,
Who suddenly left this world.
He was a man, that when he spoke,
His words were worth much more that gold.

Everyday, he would go to work,
So we can have a better life.
He was a man, who never gave up,
Never hesitated himself to sacrifice.

He always laughed, never cried,
He never showed disrespect.
He was a man, that warmed people souls,
With him, you'd never know what to expect.

This man, he was my father,
A husband, grandfather and a son.
This man, my dad, became a legend,
To each, and everyone.

Thank you Dad, for everything,
For unselfishly giving what you can give.
Because of you, I am a better person, B
ecause of you, I learned to live.

Adele Natasha Mohammed

Copyright ©2005 Adele Natasha Mohammed

I just love that poem. When my dad died, my only source of comfort was through poems, about death, cause i felt taht i belonged there at that moment with the peots who wrote them, cause they knew how I felt. I have it written down.....

Oh I just love this poem. I am going to add it to my collection, I dedicated to my father....

your poem is deep,
strong,
has a kind of cruelness.
Maybe reallity's and life's ESPRESSION of the
unscapable TRUTH.

When I Die I'll fulfill the mission,
path of our unequal and unexplained life,
kind of subreal,
but still mine.

Why does time kill me silently,
whith experiences linked to love,
infinite emotions of faith,
doom beside my eyes and soul.

I don' ta want to be a story,
told by a number,
a unsignificant thought,
I want to be an Eternal drain.

Why do moments condemn me,
to be their slaves ,
in certain ways hungry of flesh,
in others just of understanding.

I want the totality of life
to understand my ingenuity,
for it to chat with time and give me a break,
let some desires come true.

I come along with claims,
claims of heart , some of unacceptance,
attached to my soul like glue ,
but always meaning I'm loving the moment.