Death

When suddenly, at midnight, you hear an invisible procession going by with exquisite music, voices, don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now, work gone wrong, your plans all proving deceptive—don’t mourn them useles …

Because I could not stop for Death — He kindly stopped for me — The Carriage held but just Ourselves — And Immortality. We slowly drove — He knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For His …

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, ra …

This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless, Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done, Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best, Night, sle …

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no l …

excerpt from chapter 3- The Hunger of Immortality It is impossible for us, in effect, to conceive of ourselves as not existing, and no effort is capable of enabling consciousness to realize absolute unconsciousness, i …

(For Rossana Sironi) Dear one, you should not have ripped out your image, taken from us, from the world, a portion of beauty. What can we do, we enemies of death, bent to your feet of rose, your breast of viole …

And death shall have no dominion. Dead men naked they shall be one With the man in the wind and the west moon; When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone, They shall have stars at elbow and foot; …

Lament for the Death of Ignacio Sánchez Mejías Up the bleachers goes Ignacio with death on his shoulders. He looks for dawn and it isn’t dawn. He looks for his sensible profile and sleep confuses him. He looks f …

There will be rose and rhododendron When you are dead and under ground; Still will be heard from white syringas Heavy with bees, a sunny sound; Still will the tamaracks be raining After the rain has ceased, and stil …

Each poem a bird fleeing the place marked out by the plague. Each poem a garment of death through flooded streets and squares, drenched in the lethal wax of the defeated. Each poem a step toward death, a counterf …

The woman is perfected. Her dead Body wears the smile of accomplishment, The illusion of a Greek necessity Flows in the scrolls of her toga, Her bare Feet seem to be saying: We have come so far, it is over. Each de …

The day I've died, my pall is moving on – But do not think my heart is still on earth! Don't weep and pity me: "Oh woe, how awful! You fall in devil's snare –" woe, that is awful! Don't cry "Woe, parted!" at my bur …