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    After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes

    Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

    After great pain, a formal feeling comes –
    The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –
    The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’
    And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?

    The Feet, mechanical, go round –
    A Wooden way
    Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –
    Regardless grown,
    A Quartz contentment, like a stone –

    This is the Hour of Lead –
    Remembered, if outlived,
    As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –
    First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –

    Death

    George Herbert (1593-1633)

    Death, thou wast once an uncouth hideous thing,
    Nothing but bones,
    The sad effect of sadder groans:
    Thy mouth was open, but thou couldst not sing.

    For we considered thee as at some six
    Or ten years hence,
    After the loss of life and sense,
    Flesh being turned to dust, and bones to sticks.

    We looked on this side of thee, shooting short;
    Where we did find
    The shells of fledge souls left behind,
    Dry dust, which sheds no tears, but may extort.

    But since our Savior’s death did put some blood
    Into thy face,
    Thou art grown fair and full of grace,
    Much in request, much sought for as a good.

    For we do now behold thee gay and glad,
    As at Doomsday;
    When souls shall wear their new array,
    And all thy bones with beauty shall be clad.

    Therefore we can go die as sleep, and trust
    Half that we have
    Unto an honest faithful grave;
    Making our pillows either down, or dust.

    From 'An essay on man'

    Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

    Look round our world; behold the chain of love
    Combining all below and all above.
    See plastic nature working to this end,
    The single atoms each to other tend,
    Attract, attracted to, the next in place
    Form’d and impell’d its neighbour to embrace.
    See matter next, with various life endu’d,
    Press to one centre still, the general good.
    See dying vegetables life sustain,
    See life dissolving vegetate again:
    All forms that perish other forms supply,
    (By turns we catch the vital breath, and die),
    Like bubbles on the sea of matter born,
    They rise, they break, and to that sea return.

    This World a Hunting is

    William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585-1649)

    This world a hunting is,
    The prey poor man, the Nimrod fierce is death.
    His speedy Greyhounds are
    Lust, Sickness, Envy, Care,
    Strife that ne'er falls amiss,
    With all those ills which haunt us while we breathe.
    Now if (by chance) we fly
    Of these the eager Chase,
    Old age with stealing Pace
    Casts up his nets, and there we panting die.

    The Fall

    Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004)

    The death of a man is like the fall of a mighty nation
    That had valiant armies, captains, and prophets,
    And wealthy ports and ships over all the seas,
    But now it will not relieve any besieged city,
    It will not enter into any alliance,
    Because its cities are empty, its population dispersed,
    Its land once bringing harvest is overgrown with thistles,
    Its mission forgotten, its language lost,
    The dialect of a village high upon inaccessible mountains.

    The Midnight Skaters

    Edmund Blunden (1896-1974)

    The hop-poles stand in cones,
    The icy pond lurks under,
    The pole-tops steeple to the thrones
    Of stars, sound gulfs of wonder;
    But not the tallest there, ’tis said,
    Could fathom to this pond’s black bed.

    Then is not Death at watch
    Within those secret waters?
    What wants he but to catch
    Earth’s heedless sons and daughters?
    With but a crystal parapet
    Between, he has his engines set.

    Then on, blood shouts, on, on,
    Twirl, wheel and whip above him,
    Dance on this ball-floor thin and wan,
    Use him as though you love him;
    Court him, elude him, reel and pass,
    And let him hate you through the glass.

    Lights Out

    Edward Thomas (1878-1917)

    I have come to the borders of sleep,
    The unfathomable deep
    Forest where all must lose
    Their way, however straight,
    Or winding, soon or late;
    They cannot choose.

    Many a road and track
    That, since the dawn’s first crack,
    Up to the forest brink,
    Deceived the travellers,
    Suddenly now blurs,
    And in they sink.

    Here love ends,
    Despair, ambition ends;
    All pleasure and all trouble,
    Although most sweet or bitter,
    Here ends in sleep that is sweeter
    Than tasks most noble.

    There is not any book
    Or face of dearest look
    That I would not turn from now
    To go into the unknown
    I must enter, and leave, alone,
    I know not how.

    The tall forest towers;
    Its cloudy foliage lowers
    Ahead, shelf above shelf;
    Its silence I hear and obey
    That I may lose my way
    And myself.

    I Heard a Fly Buzz

    Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

    I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -
    The Stillness in the Room
    Was like the Stillness in the Air -
    Between the Heaves of Storm -

    The Eyes around - had wrung them dry -
    And Breaths were gathering firm
    For that last Onset - when the King
    Be witnessed - in the Room -

    I willed my Keepsakes - Signed away
    What portion of me be
    Assignable - and then it was
    There interposed a Fly -

    With Blue - uncertain stumbling Buzz -
    Between the light - and me -
    And then the Windows failed - and then
    I could not see to see –

    If I Die

    Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936)

    If I die,
    leave the balcony open.

    The little boy is eating oranges.
    (From my balcony I can see him.)

    The reaper is harvesting the wheat.
    (From my balcony I can hear him.)

    If I die,
    leave the balcony open!

    The Cuckoo

    Edward Thomas (1878-1917)

    That's the cuckoo, you say. I cannot hear it.
    When last I heard it I cannot recall; but I know
    Too well the year when first I failed to hear it –
    It was drowned by my man groaning out to his sheep 'Ho! Ho!'

    Ten times with an angry voice he shouted
    'Ho! Ho!' but not in anger, for that was his way.
    He died that Summer, and that is how I remember
    The cuckoo calling, the children listening, and me saying 'Nay'.

    And now, as you said, 'There it is', I was hearing
    Not the cuckoo at all, but my man's 'Ho! Ho!' instead.
    And I think that even if I could lose my deafness
    The cuckoo's note would be drowned by the voice of my dead.

    Sorrow

    D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930)

    Why does the thin grey strand
    Floating up from the forgotten
    Cigarette between my fingers,
    Why does it trouble me?

    Ah, you will understand;
    When I carried my mother downstairs,
    A few times only, at the beginning
    Of her soft-foot malady,

    I should find, for a reprimand
    To my gaiety, a few long grey hairs
    On the breast of my coat; and one by one
    I let them float up the dark chimney.

    Every Day

    Norman MacCaig (1910-1996)

    What’s that cart that nobody sees
    grinding along the shore road?

    Whose is the horse that pulls it, the white horse
    that bares its yellow teeth to the wind?

    They turn, unnoticed by anyone,
    into the field of slanted stones.

    My friends meet me. They lift me from the cart and,
    the greetings over, we go smiling underground.

    From 'The Exequy'

    Henry King (1592-1669)

    Accept, thou shrine of my dead saint,
    Instead of dirges, this complaint;
    And for sweet flowers to crown thy hearse,
    Receive a strew1 of weeping verse
    From thy grieved friend, whom thou might’st see
    Quite melted into tears for thee.

    Dear loss! since thy untimely fate
    My task hath been to meditate
    On thee, on thee; thou art the book,
    The library whereon I look,
    Though almost blind. For thee, loved clay,
    I languish out, not live, the day,
    Using no other exercise
    But what I practice with mine eyes;
    By which wet glasses I find out
    How lazily time creeps about
    To one that mourns: this, only this,
    My exercise and business is. . .

    Sleep on, my love, in thy cold bed,
    Never to be disquieted!
    My last good-night! Thou wilt not wake
    Till I thy fate shall overtake;
    Till age, or grief, or sickness must
    Marry my body to that dust
    It so much loves; and fill the room
    My heart keeps empty in thy tomb.
    Stay for me there; I will not fail
    To meet thee in that hollow vale.
    And think not much of my delay;
    I am already on the way,
    And follow thee with all the speed
    Desire can make, or sorrows breed. . .

    ’Tis true, with shame and grief I yield,
    Thou like the van first took’st the field,
    And gotten hast the victory
    In thus adventuring to die
    Before me, whose more years might crave
    A just prece`dence in the grave.
    But hark! my pulse like a soft drum
    Beats my approach, tells thee I come;
    And slow howe’er my marches be,
    I shall at last sit down by thee.

    Afterwards

    Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

    When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay,
    And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,
    Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say,
    ‘He was a man who used to notice such things’?

    If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid's soundless blink,
    The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight
    Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, a gazer may think,
    ‘To him this must have been a familiar sight.’

    If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm,
    When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn,
    One may say, ‘He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm,
    But he could do little for them; and now he is gone.’

    If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door,
    Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees,
    Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more,
    ‘He was one who had an eye for such mysteries’?

    And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom,
    And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings,
    Till they rise again, as they were a new bell's boom,
    ‘He hears it not now, but used to notice such things’?

    Epitaph for a Darling Lady

    Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)

    All her hours were yellow sands,
    Blown in foolish whorls and tassels;
    Slipping warmly through her hands;
    Patted into little castles.

    Shiny day on shiny day
    Tumbled in a rainbow clutter,
    As she flipped them all away,
    Sent them spinning down the gutter.

    Leave for her a red young rose,
    Go your way, and save your pity;
    She is happy, for she knows
    That her dust is very pretty.

    Lament

    Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)

    Listen, children:
    Your father is dead.
    From his old coats
    I'll make you little jackets:
    I'll make you little trousers
    From his old pants.
    There'll be in his pockets
    Things he used to put there,
    Keys and pennies
    Covered with tobacco;
    Dan shall have the pennies
    To save in his bank;
    Anne shall have the keys
    To make a pretty noise with.
    Life must go on,
    And the dead be forgotten.
    Life Must Go On,
    Though good men die;
    Anne, eat your breakfast.
    Dan, take your medicine;
    Life must go on;
    I forget just why.

    Let me Die a Young Man's Death

    Roger McGough (1937- )

    Let me die a young man's death
    not a clean and in-between-
    the-sheets holy-water 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 me a short back and insides

    Or when I'm 104
    and banned from the Cavern
    may my mistress
    catching me in bed with her daughter
    and fearing for her son
    cut me up into little pieces
    and throw away every piece but one

    Let me die a youngman's death
    not a free from sin tiptoe in
    candle wax and waning death
    not a curtains drawn by angels borne
    'what a nice way to go' death.

    Mother Goose's Garland

    Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982)

    Around, around the sun we go:
    The moon goes round the earth.
    We do not die of death:
    We die of vertigo.

    No Escape

    Lilith Lorraine (1894-1967)

    If it so happens
    that when I die
    I shall discover
    that this whole terrestial madhouse
    has been a horror story
    invented by me,
    to escape the boredom
    of my older playthings,
    shot through with not too subtle
    implications
    that I, too, was invented
    to relieve the boredom
    of Someone Else....
    It will be no more than I expected.

    On Himself

    Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

    Lost to the world; lost to myself; alone
    Here now I rest under this marble stone:
    In depth of silence, heard and seen of none.

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