Famous Death Poems - Page 2

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashore;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Through they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

The day is ending,
The night is descending;
The marsh is frozen,
The river dead.

Through clouds like ashes
The red sun flashes
On village windows
That glimmer red.

The snow recommences;
The buried fences
Mark no longer
The road o'er the plain;

While through the meadows,
Like fearful shadows,
Slowly passes
A funeral train.

The bell is pealing,
And every feeling
Within me responds
To the dismal knell;

Shadows are trailing,
My heart is bewailing
And tolling within
Like a funeral bell.

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.

My joy leaps with your ecstasy,
    In sympathy divine;
The smiles that wreathe upon your lips,
    Find sentinels on mine:

Your lightest sigh I'm echoing,
    I tremble with your pain,
And all your tears are falling
    In my heart like bitter rain.

Father and I were gypsies.―
    We tried to lose our way
Among the woodland mystery,
    When we'd a holiday.

My hand about his finger,
    We followed brook and dell.
No need to voice our ecstasy―
    The robins told it well.

His love I took for granted,
    Owned every dear caress,
Nor dreame'd of how a little girl
    Would feel when fatherless.

Now I, poor lonely gypsey,
    Roam wood and hill and blue;
But no one loves them all with me
    As Father used to do.