Famous Die Out Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Die Out 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 out poems. These examples illustrate what a famous die out poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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How many schemes may die

by Emily Dickinson
 How many schemes may die
In one short Afternoon
Entirely unknown
To those they most concern --
The man that was not lost
Because by accident
He varied by a Ribbon's width
From his accustomed route --
The Love that would not try
Because beside the Door
It must be competitions
Some unsuspecting Horse was tied
Surveying his Despair...Read more of this...

I Want To Die In My Own Bed

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...

I could die -- to know --

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...

The Night I Was Going To Die

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...

Unable are the Loved to die

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...

How to Die

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...

Music When Soft Voices Die

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...

We wear our sober Dresses when we die

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...

The Right To Die

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...

To die -- takes just a little while

by Emily Dickinson
 To die -- takes just a little while --
They say it doesn't hurt --
It's only fainter -- by degrees --
And then -- it's out of sight --

A darker Ribbon -- for a Day --
A Crape upon the Hat --
And then the pretty sunshine comes --
And helps us to forget --

The absent -- mystic -- creature --
That but for love...Read more of this...

The more I die to self, I live the more,

by Omar Khayyam
The more I die to self, I live the more,
The more abase myself, the higher soar;
And, strange! the more I drink of Being's wine,
More sane I grow and sober than before....Read more of this...

Dream Song 36: The high ones die die. They die

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...

Too scanty twas to die for you

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...

So proud she was to die

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...

I Live I Die I Burn I Drown

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...

Wanting To Die

by Anne Sexton
 Since you ask, most days I cannot remember.
I walk in my clothing, unmarked by that voyage.
Then the most unnameable lust returns.

Even then I have nothing against life.
I know well the grass blades you mention
the furniture you have placed under the sun.

But suicides have a special language.
Like carpenters they want to know which tools.
They never ask why build.

Twice I have...Read more of this...

We are born at sunset and we die ere morn,

by Fernando Pessoa
We are born at sunset and we die ere morn,

And the whole darkness of the world we know,

How can we guess its truth, to darkness born,

The obscure consequence of absent glow?

Only the stars do teach us light. We grasp

Their scattered smallnesses with thoughts that stray,

And, though their eyes look through night's complete mask,

Yet they speak not the features of the...Read more of this...

Beauty crowds me till I die

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...

In Praise of Songs that Die

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...

I Live I Die I Burn I Drown

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...

If We Must Die

by Claude McKay
 If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursèd lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though...Read more of this...

Not all die early dying young --

by Emily Dickinson
 Not all die early, dying young --
Maturity of Fate
Is consummated equally
In Ages, or a Night --

A Hoary Boy, I've known to drop
Whole statured -- by the side
Of Junior of Fourscore -- 'twas Act
Not Period -- that died....Read more of this...

Since we must die, why do we live? Why agonize to

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...

To die -- without the Dying

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...

Do Not Die

by W S Merwin
In each world they may put us
Farther apart
Do not die
As this world is made I might
Live forever...Read more of this...

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