Get Your Premium Membership

Best Famous Pyre Poems

Here is a collection of the all-time best famous Pyre poems. This is a select list of the best famous Pyre poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Pyre poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of pyre poems.

Search and read the best famous Pyre poems, articles about Pyre poems, poetry blogs, or anything else Pyre poem related using the PoetrySoup search engine at the top of the page.

See Also:
Written by Duncan Campbell Scott | Create an image from this poem

The Harvest

 Sun on the mountain,
Shade in the valley,
Ripple and lightness
Leaping along the world,
Sun, like a gold sword
Plucked from the scabbard,
Striking the wheat-fields,
Splendid and lusty,
Close-standing, full-headed,
Toppling with plenty;
Shade, like a buckler
Kindly and ample,
Sweeping the wheat-fields
Darkening and tossing;
There on the world-rim
Winds break and gather
Heaping the mist
For the pyre of the sunset;
And still as a shadow,
In the dim westward,
A cloud sloop of amethyst
Moored to the world
With cables of rain.

Acres of gold wheat
Stir in the sunshine,
Rounding the hill-top,
Crested with plenty,
Filling the valley,
Brimmed with abundance,
Wind in the wheat-field
Eddying and settling,
Swaying it, sweeping it,
Lifting the rich heads,
Tossing them soothingly
Twinkle and shimmer
The lights and the shadowings,
Nimble as moonlight
Astir in the mere.
Laden with odors
Of peace and of plenty,
Soft comes the wind
From the ranks of the wheat-field,
Bearing a promise 
Of harvest and sickle-time,
Opulent threshing-floors
Dusty and dim 
With the whirl of the flail,
And wagons of bread,
Sown-laden and lumbering
Through the gateways of cities.

When will the reapers 
Strike in their sickles,
Bending and grasping,
Shearing and spreading;
When will the gleaners
Searching the stubble
Take the last wheat-heads
Home in their arms ?

Ask not the question! -
Something tremendous
Moves to the answer.

Hunger and poverty
Heaped like the ocean
Welters and mutters,
Hold back the sickles!

Millions of children
Born to their mothers' womb,
Starved at the nipple, cry,--
Ours is the harvest!
Millions of women 
Learned in the tragical
Secrets of poverty,
Sweated and beaten, cry,--
Hold back the sickles!

Millions of men
With a vestige of manhood,
Wild-eyed and gaunt-throated,
Shout with a leonine
Accent of anger,
Leaves us the wheat-fields!

When will the reapers 
Strike in their sickles?
Ask not the question;
Something tremendous
Moves to the answer.

Long have they sharpened
Their fiery, impetuous
Sickles of carnage,
Welded them aeons
Ago in the mountains
Of suffering and anguish;
Hearts were their hammers 
Blood was their fire,
Sorrow their anvil,
(Trusty the sickle
Tempered with tears;)
Time they had plenty-
Harvests and harvests
Passed them in agony,
Only a half-filled
Ear for their lot;
Man that has taken
God for a master
Made him a law,
Mocked him and cursed him,
Set up this hunger,
Called it necessity,
Put in the blameless mouth
Juda's language:
The poor ye have with you
Always, unending.
But up from the impotent
Anguish of children,
Up from the labor
Fruitless, unmeaning,
Of millions of mothers,
Hugely necessitous,
Grew by a just law
Stern and implacable,
Art born of poverty,
The making of sickles
Meet for the harvest.

And now to the wheat-fields
Come the weird reapers
Armed with their sickles,
Whipping them keenly
In the fresh-air fields,
Wild with the joy of them,
Finding them trusty,
Hilted with teen.
Swarming like ants,
The Idea for captain,
No banners, no bugles,
Only a terrible
Ground-bass of gathering
Tempest and fury,
Only a tossing
Of arms and of garments;
Sexless and featureless,
(Only the children
Different among them,
Crawling between their feet,
Borne on their shoulders;)
Rolling their shaggy heads
Wild with the unheard-of
Drug of the sunshine;
Tears that had eaten
The half of their eyelids
Dry on their cheeks;
Blood in their stiffened hair
Clouted and darkened;
Down in their cavern hearts
Hunger the tiger,
Leaping, exulting;
Sighs that had choked them
Burst into triumphing;
On they come, Victory!
Up to the wheat-fields,
Dreamed of in visions
Bred by the hunger,
Seen for the first time
Splendid and golden;
On they come fluctuant,
Seething and breaking,
Weltering like fire
In the pit of the earthquake,
Bursting in heaps
With the sudden intractable
Lust of the hunger:
Then when they see them-
The miles of the harvest
White in the sunshine,
Rushing and stumbling,
With the mighty and clamorous
Cry of a people
Starved from creation,
Hurl themselves onward,
Deep in the wheat-fields,
Weeping like children,
After ages and ages,
Back at the mother the earth.
Night in the valley,
Gloom on the mountain,
Wind in the wheat,
Far to the southward
The flutter of lightning,
The shudder of thunder;
But high at the zenith,
A cluster of stars
Glimmers and throbs
In the gasp of the midnight,
Steady and absolute,
Ancient and sure


Written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | Create an image from this poem

The Bride Of Corinth

 [First published in Schiller's Horen, in connection 
with a
friendly contest in the art of ballad-writing between the two
great poets, to which many of their finest works are owing.]

ONCE a stranger youth to Corinth came,

Who in Athens lived, but hoped that he
From a certain townsman there might claim,

As his father's friend, kind courtesy.

Son and daughter, they

Had been wont to say

Should thereafter bride and bridegroom be.

But can he that boon so highly prized,

Save tis dearly bought, now hope to get?
They are Christians and have been baptized,

He and all of his are heathens yet.

For a newborn creed,

Like some loathsome weed,

Love and truth to root out oft will threat.

Father, daughter, all had gone to rest,

And the mother only watches late;
She receives with courtesy the guest,

And conducts him to the room of state.

Wine and food are brought,

Ere by him besought;

Bidding him good night. she leaves him straight.

But he feels no relish now, in truth,

For the dainties so profusely spread;
Meat and drink forgets the wearied youth,

And, still dress'd, he lays him on the bed.

Scarce are closed his eyes,

When a form in-hies

Through the open door with silent tread.

By his glimmering lamp discerns he now

How, in veil and garment white array'd,
With a black and gold band round her brow,

Glides into the room a bashful maid.

But she, at his sight,

Lifts her hand so white,

And appears as though full sore afraid.

"Am I," cries she, "such a stranger here,

That the guest's approach they could not name?
Ah, they keep me in my cloister drear,

Well nigh feel I vanquish'd by my shame.

On thy soft couch now

Slumber calmly thou!

I'll return as swiftly as I came."

"Stay, thou fairest maiden!" cries the boy,

Starting from his couch with eager haste:
"Here are Ceres', Bacchus' gifts of joy;

Amor bringest thou, with beauty grac'd!

Thou art pale with fear!

Loved one let us here

Prove the raptures the Immortals taste."

"Draw not nigh, O Youth! afar remain!

Rapture now can never smile on me;
For the fatal step, alas! is ta'en,

Through my mother's sick-bed phantasy.

Cured, she made this oath:

'Youth and nature both

Shall henceforth to Heav'n devoted be.'


"From the house, so silent now, are driven

All the gods who reign'd supreme of yore;
One Invisible now rules in heaven,

On the cross a Saviour they adore.

Victims slay they here,

Neither lamb nor steer,
But the altars reek with human gore."

And he lists, and ev'ry word he weighs,

While his eager soul drinks in each sound:
"Can it be that now before my gaze

Stands my loved one on this silent ground?

Pledge to me thy troth!

Through our father's oath:

With Heav'ns blessing will our love be crown'd."

"Kindly youth, I never can be thine!

'Tis my sister they intend for thee.
When I in the silent cloister pine,

Ah, within her arms remember me!

Thee alone I love,

While love's pangs I prove;

Soon the earth will veil my misery."

"No! for by this glowing flame I swear,

Hymen hath himself propitious shown:
Let us to my fathers house repair,

And thoult find that joy is not yet flown,

Sweetest, here then stay,

And without delay

Hold we now our wedding feast alone!"

Then exchange they tokens of their truth;

She gives him a golden chain to wear,
And a silver chalice would the youth

Give her in return of beauty rare.

"That is not for me;

Yet I beg of thee,
One lock only give me of thy hair."

Now the ghostly hour of midnight knell'd,

And she seem'd right joyous at the sign;
To her pallid lips the cup she held,

But she drank of nought but blood-red wine.

For to taste the bread

There before them spread,

Nought he spoke could make the maid incline.

To the youth the goblet then she brought,--

He too quaff'd with eager joy the bowl.
Love to crown the silent feast he sought,

Ah! full love-sick was the stripling's soul.

From his prayer she shrinks,

Till at length he sinks

On the bed and weeps without control.

And she comes, and lays her near the boy:

"How I grieve to see thee sorrowing so!
If thou think'st to clasp my form with joy,

Thou must learn this secret sad to know;

Yes! the maid, whom thou

Call'st thy loved one now,

Is as cold as ice, though white as snow."

Then he clasps her madly in his arm,

While love's youthful might pervades his frame:
"Thou might'st hope, when with me, to grow warm,

E'en if from the grave thy spirit came!

Breath for breath, and kiss!

Overflow of bliss!

Dost not thou, like me, feel passion's flame?"

Love still closer rivets now their lips,

Tears they mingle with their rapture blest,
From his mouth the flame she wildly sips,

Each is with the other's thought possess'd.

His hot ardour's flood

Warms her chilly blood,

But no heart is beating in her breast.

In her care to see that nought went wrong,

Now the mother happen'd to draw near;
At the door long hearkens she, full long,

Wond'ring at the sounds that greet her ear.

Tones of joy and sadness,

And love's blissful madness,

As of bride and bridegroom they appear,

From the door she will not now remove

'Till she gains full certainty of this;
And with anger hears she vows of love,

Soft caressing words of mutual bliss.

"Hush! the cock's loud strain!

But thoult come again,

When the night returns!"--then kiss on kiss.

Then her wrath the mother cannot hold,

But unfastens straight the lock with ease
"In this house are girls become so bold,

As to seek e'en strangers' lusts to please?"

By her lamp's clear glow

Looks she in,--and oh!

Sight of horror!--'tis her child she sees.

Fain the youth would, in his first alarm,

With the veil that o'er her had been spread,
With the carpet, shield his love from harm;

But she casts them from her, void of dread,

And with spirit's strength,

In its spectre length,

Lifts her figure slowly from the bed.

"Mother! mother!"--Thus her wan lips say:

"May not I one night of rapture share?
From the warm couch am I chased away?

Do I waken only to despair?

It contents not thee

To have driven me

An untimely shroud of death to wear?

"But from out my coffin's prison-bounds

By a wond'rous fate I'm forced to rove,
While the blessings and the chaunting sounds

That your priests delight in, useless prove.

Water, salt, are vain

Fervent youth to chain,

Ah, e'en Earth can never cool down love!

"When that infant vow of love was spoken,

Venus' radiant temple smiled on both.
Mother! thou that promise since hast broken,

Fetter'd by a strange, deceitful oath.

Gods, though, hearken ne'er,

Should a mother swear

To deny her daughter's plighted troth.

From my grave to wander I am forc'd,

Still to seek The Good's long-sever'd link,
Still to love the bridegroom I have lost,

And the life-blood of his heart to drink;

When his race is run,

I must hasten on,

And the young must 'neath my vengeance sink,

"Beauteous youth! no longer mayst thou live;

Here must shrivel up thy form so fair;
Did not I to thee a token give,

Taking in return this lock of hair?

View it to thy sorrow!

Grey thoult be to-morrow,

Only to grow brown again when there.

"Mother, to this final prayer give ear!

Let a funeral pile be straightway dress'd;
Open then my cell so sad and drear,

That the flames may give the lovers rest!

When ascends the fire

From the glowing pyre,

To the gods of old we'll hasten, blest."

1797.
Written by Sylvia Plath | Create an image from this poem

Aftermath

 Compelled by calamity's magnet
They loiter and stare as if the house
Burnt-out were theirs, or as if they thought
Some scandal might any minute ooze
From a smoke-choked closet into light;
No deaths, no prodigious injuries
Glut these hunters after an old meat,
Blood-spoor of the austere tragedies.

Mother Medea in a green smock
Moves humbly as any housewife through
Her ruined apartments, taking stock
Of charred shoes, the sodden upholstery:
Cheated of the pyre and the rack,
The crowd sucks her last tear and turns away.
Written by Algernon Charles Swinburne | Create an image from this poem

Ave atque Vale (In memory of Charles Baudelaire)

 SHALL I strew on thee rose or rue or laurel, 
 Brother, on this that was the veil of thee? 
 Or quiet sea-flower moulded by the sea, 
Or simplest growth of meadow-sweet or sorrel, 
 Such as the summer-sleepy Dryads weave, 
 Waked up by snow-soft sudden rains at eve? 
Or wilt thou rather, as on earth before, 
 Half-faded fiery blossoms, pale with heat 
 And full of bitter summer, but more sweet 
To thee than gleanings of a northern shore 
 Trod by no tropic feet? 

For always thee the fervid languid glories 
 Allured of heavier suns in mightier skies; 
 Thine ears knew all the wandering watery sighs 
Where the sea sobs round Lesbian promontories, 
 The barren kiss of piteous wave to wave 
 That knows not where is that Leucadian grave 
Which hides too deep the supreme head of song. 
 Ah, salt and sterile as her kisses were, 
 The wild sea winds her and the green gulfs bear 
Hither and thither, and vex and work her wrong, 
 Blind gods that cannot spare. 

Thou sawest, in thine old singing season, brother, 
 Secrets and sorrows unbeheld of us: 
 Fierce loves, and lovely leaf-buds poisonous, 
Bare to thy subtler eye, but for none other 
 Blowing by night in some unbreathed-in clime; 
 The hidden harvest of luxurious time, 
Sin without shape, and pleasure without speech; 
 And where strange dreams in a tumultuous sleep 
 Make the shut eyes of stricken spirits weep; 
And with each face thou sawest the shadow on each, 
 Seeing as men sow men reap. 

O sleepless heart and sombre soul unsleeping, 
 That were athirst for sleep and no more life 
 And no more love, for peace and no more strife! 
Now the dim gods of death have in their keeping 
 Spirit and body and all the springs of song, 
 Is it well now where love can do no wrong, 
Where stingless pleasure has no foam or fang 
 Behind the unopening closure of her lips? 
 Is it not well where soul from body slips 
And flesh from bone divides without a pang 
 As dew from flower-bell drips? 

It is enough; the end and the beginning 
 Are one thing to thee, who art past the end. 
 O hand unclasp'd of unbeholden friend, 
For thee no fruits to pluck, no palms for winning, 
 No triumph and no labour and no lust, 
 Only dead yew-leaves and a little dust. 
O quiet eyes wherein the light saith naught, 
 Whereto the day is dumb, nor any night 
 With obscure finger silences your sight, 
Nor in your speech the sudden soul speaks thought, 
 Sleep, and have sleep for light. 

Now all strange hours and all strange loves are over, 
 Dreams and desires and sombre songs and sweet, 
 Hast thou found place at the great knees and feet 
Of some pale Titan-woman like a lover, 
 Such as thy vision here solicited, 
 Under the shadow of her fair vast head, 
The deep division of prodigious breasts, 
 The solemn slope of mighty limbs asleep, 
 The weight of awful tresses that still keep 
The savour and shade of old-world pine-forests 
 Where the wet hill-winds weep? 

Hast thou found any likeness for thy vision? 
 O gardener of strange flowers, what bud, what bloom, 
 Hast thou found sown, what gather'd in the gloom? 
What of despair, of rapture, of derision, 
 What of life is there, what of ill or good? 
 Are the fruits gray like dust or bright like blood? 
Does the dim ground grow any seed of ours, 
 The faint fields quicken any terrene root, 
 In low lands where the sun and moon are mute 
And all the stars keep silence? Are there flowers 
 At all, or any fruit? 

Alas, but though my flying song flies after, 
 O sweet strange elder singer, thy more fleet 
 Singing, and footprints of thy fleeter feet, 
Some dim derision of mysterious laughter 
 From the blind tongueless warders of the dead, 
 Some gainless glimpse of Proserpine's veil'd head, 
Some little sound of unregarded tears 
 Wept by effaced unprofitable eyes, 
 And from pale mouths some cadence of dead sighs-- 
These only, these the hearkening spirit hears, 
 Sees only such things rise. 

Thou art far too far for wings of words to follow, 
 Far too far off for thought or any prayer. 
 What ails us with thee, who art wind and air? 
What ails us gazing where all seen is hollow? 
 Yet with some fancy, yet with some desire, 
 Dreams pursue death as winds a flying fire, 
Our dreams pursue our dead and do not find. 
 Still, and more swift than they, the thin flame flies, 
 The low light fails us in elusive skies, 
Still the foil'd earnest ear is deaf, and blind 
 Are still the eluded eyes. 

Not thee, O never thee, in all time's changes, 
 Not thee, but this the sound of thy sad soul, 
 The shadow of thy swift spirit, this shut scroll 
I lay my hand on, and not death estranges 
 My spirit from communion of thy song-- 
 These memories and these melodies that throng 
Veil'd porches of a Muse funereal-- 
 These I salute, these touch, these clasp and fold 
 As though a hand were in my hand to hold, 
Or through mine ears a mourning musical 
 Of many mourners roll'd. 

I among these, I also, in such station 
 As when the pyre was charr'd, and piled the sods. 
 And offering to the dead made, and their gods, 
The old mourners had, standing to make libation, 
 I stand, and to the Gods and to the dead 
 Do reverence without prayer or praise, and shed 
Offering to these unknown, the gods of gloom, 
 And what of honey and spice my seed-lands bear, 
 And what I may of fruits in this chill'd air, 
And lay, Orestes-like, across the tomb 
 A curl of sever'd hair. 

But by no hand nor any treason stricken, 
 Not like the low-lying head of Him, the King, 
 The flame that made of Troy a ruinous thing, 
Thou liest and on this dust no tears could quicken. 
 There fall no tears like theirs that all men hear 
 Fall tear by sweet imperishable tear 
Down the opening leaves of holy poets' pages. 
 Thee not Orestes, not Electra mourns; 
 But bending us-ward with memorial urns 
The most high Muses that fulfil all ages 
 Weep, and our God's heart yearns. 

For, sparing of his sacred strength, not often 
 Among us darkling here the lord of light 
 Makes manifest his music and his might 
In hearts that open and in lips that soften 
 With the soft flame and heat of songs that shine. 
 Thy lips indeed he touch'd with bitter wine, 
And nourish'd them indeed with bitter bread; 
 Yet surely from his hand thy soul's food came, 
 The fire that scarr'd thy spirit at his flame 
Was lighted, and thine hungering heart he fed 
 Who feeds our hearts with fame. 

Therefore he too now at thy soul's sunsetting, 
 God of all suns and songs, he too bends down 
 To mix his laurel with thy cypress crown, 
And save thy dust from blame and from forgetting. 
 Therefore he too, seeing all thou wert and art, 
 Compassionate, with sad and sacred heart, 
Mourns thee of many his children the last dead, 
 And hollows with strange tears and alien sighs 
 Thine unmelodious mouth and sunless eyes, 
And over thine irrevocable head 
 Sheds light from the under skies. 

And one weeps with him in the ways Lethean, 
 And stains with tears her changing bosom chill; 
 That obscure Venus of the hollow hill, 
That thing transform'd which was the Cytherean, 
 With lips that lost their Grecian laugh divine 
 Long since, and face no more call'd Erycine-- 
A ghost, a bitter and luxurious god. 
 Thee also with fair flesh and singing spell 
 Did she, a sad and second prey, compel 
Into the footless places once more trod, 
 And shadows hot from hell. 

And now no sacred staff shall break in blossom, 
 No choral salutation lure to light 
 A spirit sick with perfume and sweet night 
And love's tired eyes and hands and barren bosom. 
 There is no help for these things; none to mend, 
 And none to mar; not all our songs, O friend, 
Will make death clear or make life durable. 
 Howbeit with rose and ivy and wild vine 
 And with wild notes about this dust of thine 
At least I fill the place where white dreams dwell 
 And wreathe an unseen shrine. 

Sleep; and if life was bitter to thee, pardon, 
 If sweet, give thanks; thou hast no more to live; 
 And to give thanks is good, and to forgive. 
Out of the mystic and the mournful garden 
 Where all day through thine hands in barren braid 
 Wove the sick flowers of secrecy and shade, 
Green buds of sorrow and sin, and remnants gray, 
 Sweet-smelling, pale with poison, sanguine-hearted, 
 Passions that sprang from sleep and thoughts that started, 
Shall death not bring us all as thee one day 
 Among the days departed? 

For thee, O now a silent soul, my brother, 
 Take at my hands this garland, and farewell. 
 Thin is the leaf, and chill the wintry smell, 
And chill the solemn earth, a fatal mother, 
 With sadder than the Niobean womb, 
 And in the hollow of her breasts a tomb. 
Content thee, howsoe'er, whose days are done; 
 There lies not any troublous thing before, 
 Nor sight nor sound to war against thee more, 
For whom all winds are quiet as the sun, 
 All waters as the shore.
Written by Charles Baudelaire | Create an image from this poem

Benediction

 When, by decree of the supreme power,
The Poet appears in this annoyed world,
His mother, blasphemous out of horror
At God's pity, cries out with fists curled:

"Ah! I'd rather You'd will me a snake's skin
Than to keep feeding this monstrous slur!
I curse that night's ephemera are sins
To make my womb atone for pleasure.

"Since You have chosen me from all the brides
To bear the disgust of my dolorous groom
And since I can't throw back into the fires
Like an old love letter this gaunt buffoon

"I'll replace Your hate that overwhelms me
On the instrument of Your wicked gloom
And torture so well this miserable tree
Its pestiferous buds will never bloom!"

She chokes down the eucharist of venom,
Not comprehending eternal designs,
She prepares a Gehenna of her own,
And consecrates a pyre of maternal crimes.

Yet, watched by an invisible seraph,
The disinherited child is drunk on the sun
And in all he devours and in all he quaffs
Receives ambrosia, nectar and honey.

He plays with the wind, chats with the vapors,
Deliriously sings the stations of the cross;
And the Spirit who follows him in his capers
Cries at his joy like a bird in the forest.

Those whom he longs to love look with disdain
And dread, strengthened by his tranquillity,
They seek to make him complain of his pain
So they may try out their ferocity.

In the bread and wine destined for his lips,
They mix in cinders and spit with their wrath,
And throw out all he touches as he grasps it,
And accuse him of putting his feet in their path.

His wife cries out so that everyone hears:
"Since he finds me good enough to adore
I'll weave as the idols of ancient years
A corona of gold as a cover.

"I'll get drunk on nard, incense and myrrh,
Get down on bent knee with meats and wines
To see if in a heart that admires,
My smile denies deference to the divine.

"And, when I tire of these impious farces,
I'll arrange for him my frail and hard nails
Sharpened just like the claws of a harpy
That out of his heart will carve a trail.

"Like a baby bird trembling in the nest
I'll dig out his heart all red from my breast
To slake the thirst of my favorite pet,
And will throw it on the ground with contempt!"

Toward the sky, where he sees a great host,
The poet, serene, lifts his pious arms high
And the vast lightning of his lucid ghost
Blinds him to the furious people nearby:

"Glory to God, who leaves us to suffer
To cure us of all our impurities
And like the best, most rarefied buffer
Prepares the strong for a saint's ecstasies!

"I know that You hold a place for the Poet
In the ranks of the blessed and the saint's legions,
That You invite him to an eternal fete
Of thrones, of virtues, of dominations.

"I know only sorrow is unequaled,
It cannot be encroached on from Hell or Earth
And if I am to braid my mystic wreath,
May I impose it on the universe.

"But the ancient jewels of lost Palmyra,
The unknown metals, pearls from the ocean
By Your hand mounted, they do not suffice,
They cannot dazzle as clearly as this crown

"For it will not be made except from halos
Drawn of pure light in a holy portal
Whose entire splendor, in the eyes of mortals
Is only a mirror, obscure and mournful."


Written by Sarojini Naidu | Create an image from this poem

In The Forest

 HERE, O my heart, let us burn the dear dreams that are dead, 
Here in this wood let us fashion a funeral pyre 
Of fallen white petals and leaves that are mellow and red, 
Here let us burn them in noon's flaming torches of fire. 


We are weary, my heart, we are weary, so long we have borne 
The heavy loved burden of dreams that are dead, let us rest, 
Let us scatter their ashes away, for a while let us mourn; 
We will rest, O my heart, till the shadows are gray in the west. 

But soon we must rise, O my heart, we must wander again 
Into the war of the world and the strife of the throng; 
Let us rise, O my heart, let us gather the dreams that remain, 
We will conquer the sorrow of life with the sorrow of song.
Written by Sir Walter Raleigh | Create an image from this poem

My Last Will

 When I am safely laid away, 
Out of work and out of play, 
Sheltered by the kindly ground 
From the world of sight and sound, 
One or two of those I leave 
Will remember me and grieve, 
Thinking how I made them gay 
By the things I used to say; 
-- But the crown of their distress 
Will be my untidiness. 

What a nuisance then will be 
All that shall remain of me! 
Shelves of books I never read, 
Piles of bills, undocketed, 
Shaving-brushes, razors, strops, 
Bottles that have lost their tops, 
Boxes full of odds and ends, 
Letters from departed friends, 
Faded ties and broken braces 
Tucked away in secret places, 
Baggy trousers, ragged coats, 
Stacks of ancient lecture-notes, 
And that ghostliest of shows, 
Boots and shoes in horrid rows. 
Though they are of cheerful mind, 
My lovers, whom I leave behind, 
When they find these in my stead, 
Will be sorry I am dead. 

They will grieve; but you, my dear, 
Who have never tasted fear, 
Brave companion of my youth, 
Free as air and true as truth, 
Do not let these weary things 
Rob you of your junketings. 

Burn the papers; sell the books; 
Clear out all the pestered nooks; 
Make a mighty funeral pyre 
For the corpse of old desire, 
Till there shall remain of it 
Naught but ashes in a pit: 
And when you have done away 
All that is of yesterday, 
If you feel a thrill of pain, 
Master it, and start again. 

This, at least, you have never done 
Since you first beheld the sun: 
If you came upon your own 
Blind to light and deaf to tone, 
Basking in the great release 
Of unconsciousness and peace, 
You would never, while you live, 
Shatter what you cannot give; 
-- Faithful to the watch you keep, 
You would never break their sleep. 

Clouds will sail and winds will blow 
As they did an age ago 
O'er us who lived in little towns 
Underneath the Berkshire downs. 
When at heart you shall be sad, 
Pondering the joys we had, 
Listen and keep very still. 
If the lowing from the hill 
Or the tolling of a bell 
Do not serve to break the spell, 
Listen; you may be allowed 
To hear my laughter from a cloud. 

Take the good that life can give 
For the time you have to live. 
Friends of yours and friends of mine 
Surely will not let you pine. 
Sons and daughters will not spare 
More than friendly love and care. 
If the Fates are kind to you, 
Some will stay to see you through; 
And the time will not be long 
Till the silence ends the song. 

Sleep is God's own gift; and man, 
Snatching all the joys he can, 
Would not dare to give his voice 
To reverse his Maker's choice. 
Brief delight, eternal quiet, 
How change these for endless riot 
Broken by a single rest? 
Well you know that sleep is best. 

We that have been heart to heart 
Fall asleep, and drift apart. 
Will that overwhelming tide 
Reunite us, or divide? 
Whence we come and whither go 
None can tell us, but I know 
Passion's self is often marred 
By a kind of self-regard, 
And the torture of the cry 
"You are you, and I am I." 
While we live, the waking sense 
Feeds upon our difference, 
In our passion and our pride 
Not united, but allied. 

We are severed by the sun, 
And by darkness are made one.
Written by Isaac Rosenberg | Create an image from this poem

Dead Mans Dump

 The plunging limbers over the shattered track
Racketed with their rusty freight,
Stuck out like many crowns of thorns,
And the rusty stakes like sceptres old
To stay the flood of brutish men
Upon our brothers dear.

The wheels lurched over sprawled dead
But pained them not, though their bones crunched;
Their shut mouths made no moan,
They lie there huddled, friend and foeman,
Man born of man, and born of woman,
And shells go crying over them
From night till night and now.

Earth has waited for them,
All the time of their growth
Fretting for their decay:
Now she has them at last!
In the strength of her strength
Suspended—stopped and held.

What fierce imaginings their dark souls lit
Earth! Have they gone into you?
Somewhere they must have gone,
And flung on your hard back
Is their souls' sack,
Emptied of God-ancestralled essences.
Who hurled them out? Who hurled?

None saw their spirits' shadow shake the grass,
Or stood aside for the half-used life to pass
Out of those doomed nostrils and the doomed mouth,
When the swift iron burning bee
Drained the wild honey of their youth.

What of us, who flung on the shrieking pyre,
Walk, our usual thoughts untouched,
Our lucky limbs as on ichor fed,
Immortal seeming ever?
Perhaps when the flames beat loud on us,
A fear may choke in our veins
And the startled blood may stop.

The air is loud with death,
The dark air spurts with fire,
The explosions ceaseless are.
Timelessly now, some minutes past,
These dead strode time with vigorous life,
Till the shrapnel called "an end!"
But not to all. In bleeding pangs
Some borne on stretchers dreamed of home,
Dear things, war-blotted from their hearts.

A man's brains splattered on
A stretcher-bearer's face;
His shook shoulders slipped their load,
But when they bent to look again
The drowning soul was sunk too deep
For human tenderness.

They left this dead with the older dead,
Stretched at the cross roads.
Burnt black by strange decay,
Their sinister faces lie
The lid over each eye,
The grass and coloured clay
More motion have than they,
Joined to the great sunk silences.

Here is one not long dead;
His dark hearing caught our far wheels,
And the choked soul stretched weak hands
To reach the living word the far wheels said,
The blood-dazed intelligence beating for light,
Crying through the suspense of the far torturing wheels
Swift for the end to break,
Or the wheels to break,
Cried as the tide of the world broke over his sight.

Will they come? Will they ever come?
Even as the mixed hoofs of the mules,
The quivering-bellied mules,
And the rushing wheels all mixed
With his tortured upturned sight.
So we crashed round the bend,
We heard his weak scream,
We heard his very last sound,
And our wheels grazed his dead face.
Written by James Henry Leigh Hunt | Create an image from this poem

Death

 Come thou, thou last one, whom I recognize,
unbearable pain throughout this body's fabric:
as I in my spirit burned, see, I now burn in thee:
the wood that long resisted the advancing flames
which thou kept flaring, I now am nourishinig
and burn in thee.

My gentle and mild being through thy ruthless fury
has turned into a raging hell that is not from here.
Quite pure, quite free of future planning, I mounted
the tangled funeral pyre built for my suffering,
so sure of nothing more to buy for future needs,
while in my heart the stored reserves kept silent.

Is it still I, who there past all recognition burn?
Memories I do not seize and bring inside.
O life! O living! O to be outside!
And I in flames. And no one here who knows me. 



[Written in December 1926, this poem was the last
entry in Rilke's notebook, less than two weeks before his
death at age 51.]
Written by Algernon Charles Swinburne | Create an image from this poem

A Ballad of Burdens

 The burden of fair women. Vain delight,
And love self-slain in some sweet shameful way,
And sorrowful old age that comes by night
As a thief comes that has no heart by day,
And change that finds fair cheeks and leaves them grey,
And weariness that keeps awake for hire,
And grief that says what pleasure used to say;
This is the end of every man's desire. 

The burden of bought kisses. This is sore,
A burden without fruit in childbearing;
Between the nightfall and the dawn threescore,
Threescore between the dawn and evening.
The shuddering in thy lips, the shuddering
In thy sad eyelids tremulous like fire,
Makes love seem shameful and a wretched thing.
This is the end of every man's desire. 

The burden of sweet speeches. Nay, kneel down,
Cover thy head, and weep; for verily
These market-men that buy thy white and brown
In the last days shall take no thought for thee.
In the last days like earth thy face shall be,
Yea, like sea-marsh made thick with brine and mire,
Sad with sick leavings of the sterile sea.
This is the end of every man's desire. 

The burden of long living. Thou shalt fear
Waking, and sleeping mourn upon thy bed;
And say at night "Would God the day were here,"
And say at dawn "Would God the day were dead."
With weary days thou shalt be clothed and fed,
And wear remorse of heart for thine attire,
Pain for thy girdle and sorrow upon thine head;
This is the end of every man's desire. 

The burden of bright colours. Thou shalt see
Gold tarnished, and the grey above the green;
And as the thing thou seest thy face shall be,
And no more as the thing beforetime seen.
And thou shalt say of mercy "It hath been,"
And living, watch the old lips and loves expire,
And talking, tears shall take thy breath between;
This is the end of every man's desire. 

The burden of sad sayings. In that day
Thou shalt tell all thy days and hours, and tell
Thy times and ways and words of love, and say
How one was dear and one desirable,
And sweet was life to hear and sweet to smell,
But now with lights reverse the old hours retire
And the last hour is shod with fire from hell;
This is the end of every man's desire. 

The burden of four seasons. Rain in spring,
White rain and wind among the tender trees;
A summer of green sorrows gathering,
Rank autumn in a mist of miseries,
With sad face set towards the year, that sees
The charred ash drop out of the dropping pyre,
And winter wan with many maladies;
This is the end of every man's desire. 

The burden of dead faces. Out of sight
And out of love, beyond the reach of hands,
Changed in the changing of the dark and light,
They walk and weep about the barren lands
Where no seed is nor any garner stands,
Where in short breaths the doubtful days respire,
And time's turned glass lets through the sighing sands;
This is the end of every man's desire. 

The burden of much gladness. Life and lust
Forsake thee, and the face of thy delight;
And underfoot the heavy hour strews dust,
And overhead strange weathers burn and bite;
And where the red was, lo the bloodless white,
And where the truth was, the likeness of a liar,
And where the day was, the likeness of the night;
This is the end of every man's desire. 

L'ENVOY 

Princes, and ye whom pleasure quickeneth,
Heed well this rhyme before your pleasure tire;
For life is sweet, but after life is death.
This is the end of every man's desire.

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry