Famous Elegies Poems by Famous Poets

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A Curse Against Elegies

 Oh, love, why do we argue like this?
I am tired of all your pious talk.
Also, I am tired of all the dead.
They refuse to listen,
so leave them alone.
Take your foot out of the graveyard,
they are busy being dead.

Everyone was always to blame:
the last empty fifth of booze,
the rusty nails and chicken feathers
that stuck in the mud on the back...Read more of this...

Original Preface

 I feel no small reluctance in venturing to give to the public a 
work of the character of that indicated by the title-page to the 
present volume; for, difficult as it must always be to render satisfactorily 
into one's own tongue the writings of the bards of other lands, 
the responsibility assumed by the translator is immeasurably increased 
when...Read more of this...

Sacrifices

 All winter the fire devoured everything --
tear-stained elegies, old letters, diaries, dead flowers.
When April finally arrived,
I opened the woodstove one last time
and shoveled the remains of those long cold nights
into a bucket, ash rising
through shafts of sunlight,
as swirling in bright, angelic eddies.
I shoveled out the charred end of an oak log,
black and pointed like a pencil;
half-burnt pages
sacrificed
in the making...Read more of this...

On The Yong Baronett Portman Dying Of An Impostume Ins Head

 Is Death so cunning now that all her blowe
Aymes at the heade? Doth now her wary Bowe
Make surer worke than heertofore? The steele
Slew warlike heroes onely in the heele.
New found out slights, when men themselves begin
To be theyr proper Fates by new found sinne.
Tis cowardize to make a wound so sure;
No Art in killing where no Art can cure.
Was...Read more of this...

Duino Elegies: The First Elegy

 Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would perish
in the embrace of his stronger existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure and are awed
because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Each single angel is terrifying.
And so...Read more of this...

Sonnet LIV: Yet Read at Last

 Yet read at last the story of my woe, 
The dreary abstracts of my endless cares, 
With my life's sorrow interlined so, 
Smok'd with my sighs and blotted with my tears, 
The sad memorials of my miseries, 
Penn'd in the grief of mine afflicted ghost, 
My life's complaint in doleful elegies, 
With so pure love as Time could never...Read more of this...

Memorial To D.C

 (Vassar College, 1918)

O, loveliest throat of all sweet throats,
Where now no more the music is,
With hands that wrote you little notes
I write you little elegies!...Read more of this...

Preface

 This book is not about heroes. English Poetry is not yet fit to speak
 of them. Nor is it about deeds or lands, nor anything about glory, honour,
 dominion or power,
 except War.
Above all, this book is not concerned with Poetry.
The subject of it is War, and the pity of War.
The Poetry is in the pity.
Yet these elegies are...Read more of this...

Duino Elegies: The Tenth Elegy

 That some day, emerging at last from the terrifying vision
I may burst into jubilant praise to assenting angels!
That of the clear-struck keys of the heart not one may fail
to sound because of a loose, doubtful or broken string!
That my streaming countenance may make me more resplendent
That my humble weeping change into blossoms.
Oh, how will you then, nights of suffering,...Read more of this...

Duino Elegies: The Fourth Elegy

 O trees of life, oh, what when winter comes?
We are not of one mind. Are not like birds
in unison migrating. And overtaken,
overdue, we thrust ourselves into the wind
and fall to earth into indifferent ponds.
Blossoming and withering we comprehend as one.
And somewhere lions roam, quite unaware,
in their magnificence, of any weaknesss.

But we, while wholly concentrating on one thing,
already feel the...Read more of this...

Mohenjodaro Reviisited

I. You are not dead

Why do they call you 
Mohen-jo-daro,
“ Mounds-of-the-Dead”?
You are not dead!
You have never been dead
Or buried
Or cremated
By the scorching banks of the Sindhu;

Historians have conspired against you

A thousand and one tales 
Have besmirched your name
Misguided fools have imagined 
Your obituary to be true;
Sentimental fools have sung elegies
By their own graves
Garlanded their own biers,
Cursed the stars and howled...Read more of this...

Duino Elegies

The First Elegy


Who if I cried out would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them pressed me 
suddenly against his heart: I would be consumed
I that overwhelming existence. For beauty is nothing
but the beginning of terror which we still are just able to endure
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains
to annihilate us. Every angel...Read more of this...

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