Famous Die Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Die poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous die poems. These examples illustrate what a famous die poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Walt Whitman
1
FROM all the rest I single out you, having a message for you:
You are to die—Let others tell you what they please, I cannot prevaricate,
I am exact and merciless, but I love you—There is no escape for you.
Softly I lay my right hand upon you—you just feel it,
I do not argue—I bend my head close,...Read more of this...
by
Delmira Agustini
I live, I die, I burn, I drown
I endure at once chill and cold
Life is at once too soft and too hard
I have sore troubles mingled with joys
Suddenly I laugh and at the same time cry
And in pleasure many a grief endure
My happiness wanes and yet it lasts unchanged
All at once I dry up and grow green
Thus I suffer...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
The high ones die, die. They die. You look up and who's there?
-”Easy, easy, Mr Bones. I is on your side.
I smell your grief.
-”I sent my grief away. I cannot care
forever. With them all align & again I died
and cried, and I have to live.
-”Now there you exaggerate, Sah. We hafta die.
That is our 'pointed task. Love & die.
-”Yes;...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
So proud she was to die
It made us all ashamed
That what we cherished, so unknown
To her desire seemed --
So satisfied to go
Where none of us should be
Immediately -- that Anguish stooped
Almost to Jealousy --...Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
AFTER HAVING READ A GREAT DEAL OF GOOD CURRENT POETRY IN THE MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS
Ah, they are passing, passing by,
Wonderful songs, but born to die!
Cries from the infinite human seas,
Waves thrice-winged with harmonies.
Here I stand on a pier in the foam
Seeing the songs to the beach go home,
Dying in sand while the tide flows back,
As it flowed of old...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
All things decay with time: The forest sees
The growth and down-fall of her aged trees;
That timber tall, which three-score lustres stood
The proud dictator of the state-like wood,
I mean the sovereign of all plants, the oak,
Droops, dies, and falls without the cleaver's stroke....Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
MUSIC when soft voices die
Vibrates in the memory;
Odours when sweet violets sicken
Live within the sense they quicken;
Rose leaves when the rose is dead 5
Are heap'd for the beloved's bed:
And so thy thoughts when thou art gone
Love itself shall slumber on. ...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
If I should die,
And you should live --
And time should gurgle on --
And morn should beam --
And noon should burn --
As it has usual done --
If Birds should build as early
And Bees as bustling go --
One might depart at option
From enterprise below!
'Tis sweet to know that stocks will stand
When we with Daisies lie --
That Commerce will continue --
And Trades...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
We wear our sober Dresses when we die,
But Summer, frilled as for a Holiday
Adjourns her sigh --...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
I could die -- to know --
'Tis a trifling knowledge --
News-Boys salute the Door --
Carts -- joggle by --
Morning's bold face -- stares in the window --
Were but mine -- the Charter of the least Fly --
Houses hunch the House
With their Brick Shoulders --
Coals -- from a Rolling Load -- rattle -- how -- near --
To the very Square...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Since we must die, why do we live? Why agonize to
reach a problematic bliss? Since, for some unknown
cause, we may not here remain, why not concern ourselves
about the future pilgrimage? Why disregard our
fate?...Read more of this...
by
Roger McGough
Let me die a youngman's death
not a clean and inbetween
the sheets holywater death
not a famous-last-words
peaceful out of breath death
When I'm 73
and in constant good tumour
may I be mown down at dawn
by a bright red sports car
on my way home
from an allnight party
Or when I'm 91
with silver hair
and sitting in a barber's chair
may rival gangsters
with hamfisted tommyguns burst in
and give...Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
Dark clouds are smouldering into red
While down the craters morning burns.
The dying soldier shifts his head
To watch the glory that returns;
He lifts his fingers toward the skies
Where holy brightness breaks in flame;
Radiance reflected in his eyes,
And on his lips a whispered name.
You’d think, to hear some people talk,
That lads go...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
You'll find -- it when you try to die --
The Easier to let go --
For recollecting such as went --
You could not spare -- you know.
And though their places somewhat filled --
As did their Marble names
With Moss -- they never grew so full --
You chose the newer names --
And when this World -- sets further back --
As Dying --...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Jewry hath seen a thousand prophets die,
Sinai a thousand Musas mount the sky;
How many Cæsars Rome's proud forum crossed!
'Neath Kasra's dome how many monarchs lie!...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Fame's Boys and Girls, who never die
And are too seldom born --...Read more of this...
by
Charles Bukowski
the night I was going to die
I was sweating on the bed
and I could hear the crickets
and there was a cat fight outside
and I could feel my soul dropping down through the
mattress
and just before it hit the floor I jumped up
I was almost too weak to walk
but I walked around and turned on all the lights
and then...Read more of this...
by
Louise Labe
I live, I die, I burn, I drown
I endure at once chill and cold
Life is at once too soft and too hard
I have sore troubles mingled with joys
Suddenly I laugh and at the same time cry
And in pleasure many a grief endure
My happiness wanes and yet it lasts unchanged
All at once I dry up and grow green
Thus I suffer...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Alphonso Rex who died in Rome
Was quite a fistful as a kid;
For when I visited his home,
That gorgeous palace in Madrid,
The grinning guide-chap showed me where
He rode his bronco up the stair.
That stairway grand of marbled might,
The most majestic in the land,
In statured splendour, flight on flight,
He urged his steed with whip in hand.
No lackey could restrain him for
He...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Unable are the Loved to die
For Love is Immortality,
Nay, it is Deity --
Unable they that love -- to die
For Love reforms Vitality
Into Divinity....Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Beauty crowds me till I die
Beauty mercy have on me
But if I expire today
Let it be in sight of thee --...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
I have no fancy for that ancient cant
That makes us masters of our destinies,
And not our lives, to hold or give them up
As will directs; I cannot, will not think
That men, the subtle worms, who plot and plan
And scheme and calculate with such shrewd wit,
Are such great blund'ring fools as not to know
When they have lived enough. Men court not...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
To die -- without the Dying
And live -- without the Life
This is the hardest Miracle
Propounded to Belief....Read more of this...
by
Yehuda Amichai
All night the army came up from Gilgal
To get to the killing field, and that's all.
In the ground, warf and woof, lay the dead.
I want to die in My own bed.
Like slits in a tank, their eyes were uncanny,
I'm always the few and they are the many.
I must answer. They can interrogate My head.
But I want to die in...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Too scanty 'twas to die for you,
The merest Greek could that.
The living, Sweet, is costlier --
I offer even that --
The Dying, is a trifle, past,
But living, this include
The dying multifold -- without
The Respite to be dead....Read more of this...
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