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Famous Mortuary Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Mortuary poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous mortuary poems. These examples illustrate what a famous mortuary poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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by Service, Robert William
...th
 And ectasy of Spring.
But all the songs I sing today
 Take tediously the ear:
Novemberishly dark are they
 With mortuary fear.

For half a century has gone
 Since first I rang a rhyme;
And that is long to linger on
 The tolerance of Time.
This blue-veined hand with which I write
 Yet answers to my will;
Though four-score years I count to-night
 I am unsilent still.

"Senile old fool!" I hear you say;
 "Beside the dying fire
You huddle and stiff-fingered pl...Read more of this...



by Silva, Jose Asuncion
...ss that in your alcove
your cheeks and your temples and your adoréd hands possessed 
within the snowy whiteness 
of the mortuary sheets.
It was the coldness of the sepulcher, it was the ice of death, 
it was the coldness of oblivion.
And my shadow,
projected by the rays of the moon, 
walked alone, 
walked alone,
walked alone along the solitary plain;
and your shadow, svelte and agile,
fine and languid, 
as in that warm night of springtime death, 
as in that night full...Read more of this...

by McGonagall, William Topaz
...onlookers' hearts with pity and dread. 

One of the first rescued was a little baby,
Which was conveyed away to the mortuary;
And several were taken to the fitter's shed, and attended to there
By the firemen and several nurses with the greatest care. 

Meanwhile, heartrending scenes were taking place,
Whilst the tears ran down many a Mother and Father's face,
That had lost their children in the River Thames,
Which they will remember while life remains. 

Oh, Heave...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...now--
we are in the process of it.
The empty process of it.

I see two deaths,
and the two men plod toward the mortuary of my heart,
and though I willed one away in court today
and I whisper dreams and birthdays into the other,
they both die like waves breaking over me
and I am drowning a little,
but always swimming
among the pillows and stones of the breakwater.
And though your daisies are an unwanted death,
I wade through the smell of their cancer
and recognize...Read more of this...

by Verhaeren, Emile
...
Thus journeys the snow afar so fleet.
Into every cranny, on every trail;
Always the snow and its winding-sheet,
The mortuary snow so pale.
The snow, unfruitful and so pale.
In wild and vagabond tatters hurled
Through the limitless winter of the world.
...Read more of this...



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