Famous Long Quietus Poems

The Ship of Death

 I 

Now it is autumn and the falling fruit 
and the long journey towards oblivion. 

The apples falling like great drops of dew 
to bruise themselves an exit from themselves. 

And it is time to go, to bid farewell 
to one's own self, and find an exit 
from the fallen self. 

II 

Have you built your ship of death, O have you? 
O build your ship of death, for you will need it. 

The grim frost is at hand, when the apples will fall 
thick, almost thundrous, on the hardened earth. 

And death is on the air like a smell of ashes! 
Ah! can't you smell it? 
And in the bruised body, the frightened soul 
finds itself shrinking, wincing from the cold 
that blows upon it through the orifices. 

III 

And can a man his own quietus make 
with a bare bodkin? 

With daggers, bodkins, bullets, man can make 
a bruise or break of exit for his life; 
but is that a quietus, O tell me, is it quietus? 

Surely not so! for how could murder, even self-murder 
ever a quietus make? 

IV 

O let us talk of quiet that we know, 
that we can know, the deep and...
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