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by
Robert Louis Stevenson
Away With Funeral Music
AWAY with funeral music - set
The pipe to powerful lips -
The cup of life's for him that drinks
And not for him that sips.
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by
Emily Dickinson
Upon Concluded Lives
Upon Concluded Lives
There's nothing cooler falls --
Than Life's sweet Calculations --
The mixing Bells and Palls --
Make Lacerating Tune --
To Ears the Dying Side --
'Tis Coronal -- and Funeral --
Saluting -- in the Road --
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by
Robert Herrick
TO LAURELS
A funeral stone
Or verse, I covet none;
But only crave
Of you that I may have
A sacred laurel springing from my grave:
Which being seen
Blest with perpetual green,
May grow to be
Not so much call'd a tree,
As the eternal monument of me.
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by
Philip Larkin
Take One Home For The Kiddies
On shallow straw, in shadeless glass,
Huddled by empty bowls, they sleep:
No dark, no dam, no earth, no grass -
Mam, get us one of them to keep.
Living toys are something novel,
But it soon wears off somehow.
Fetch the shoebox, fetch the shovel -
Mam, we're playing funerals now.
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by
Thomas Hardy
She At His Funeral
THEY bear him to his resting-place--
In slow procession sweeping by;
I follow at a stranger's space;
His kindred they, his sweetheart I.
Unchanged my gown of garish dye,
Though sable-sad is their attire;
But they stand round with griefless eye,
Whilst my regret consumes like fire!
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by
Anna Akhmatova
I Don't Like Flowers...
I don't like flowers - they do remind me often
Of funerals, of weddings and of balls;
Their presence on tables for a dinner calls.
But sub-eternal roses' ever simple charm
Which was my solace when I was a child,
Has stayed - my heritage - a set of years behind,
Like Mozart's ever-living music's hum.
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by
Emily Dickinson
'Tis good -- the looking back on Grief --
'Tis good -- the looking back on Grief --
To re-endure a Day --
We thought the Mighty Funeral --
Of All Conceived Joy --
To recollect how Busy Grass
Did meddle -- one by one --
Till all the Grief with Summer -- waved
And none could see the stone.
And though the Woe you have Today
Be larger -- As the Sea
Exceeds its Unremembered Drop --
They're Water -- equally --
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by
Elinor Wylie
Death and the Maiden
BARCAROLE ON THE STYX
Fair youth with the rose at your lips,
A riddle is hid in your eyes;
Discard conversational quips,
Give over elaborate disguise.
The rose's funeral breath
Confirms by intuitive fears;
To prove your devotion, Sir Death,
Avaunt for a dozen of years.
But do not forget to array
Your terror in juvenile charms;
I shall deeply regret my delay
If I sleep in a skeleton's arms.
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by
George Herbert
Grace
This air is flooded with her. I am a boy again, and my mother
and I lie on wet grass, laughing. She startles, turns to
marigolds at my side, saying beautiful, and I can see the red
there is in them.
When she would fall into her thoughts, we'd look for what
distracted her from us.
My mother's gone again as suddenly as ever and, seven months
after the funeral, I go dancing. I am becoming grateful.
Breathing, thinking, marigolds.
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by
Emily Dickinson
This is a Blossom of the Brain --
This is a Blossom of the Brain --
A small -- italic Seed
Lodged by Design or Happening
The Spirit fructified --
Shy as the Wind of his Chambers
Swift as a Freshet's Tongue
So of the Flower of the Soul
Its process is unknown.
When it is found, a few rejoice
The Wise convey it Home
Carefully cherishing the spot
If other Flower become.
When it is lost, that Day shall be
The Funeral of God,
Upon his Breast, a closing Soul
The Flower of our Lord.
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by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
AFTERNOON IN FEBRUARY
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.
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by
Sarojini Naidu
Indian Weavers
WEAVERS, weaving at break of day,
Why do you weave a garment so gay? . . .
Blue as the wing of a halcyon wild,
We weave the robes of a new-born child.
Weavers, weaving at fall of night,
Why do you weave a garment so bright? . . .
Like the plumes of a peacock, purple and green,
We weave the marriage-veils of a queen.
Weavers, weaving solemn and still,
What do you weave in the moonlight chill? . . .
White as a feather and white as a cloud,
We weave a dead man's funeral shroud.
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