[ { "title": "Death", "author": "Emily Bronte", "lines": [ "Death! that struck when I was most confiding", "In my certain faith of joy to be -", "Strike again, Time's withered branch dividing", "From the fresh root of Eternity!", "", "Leaves, upon Time's branch, were growing brightly,", "Full of sap, and full of silver dew;", "Birds beneath its shelter gathered nightly;", "Daily round its flowers the wild bees flew.", "", "Sorrow passed, and plucked the golden blossom;", "Guilt stripped off the foliage in its pride;", "But, within its parent's kindly bosom,", "Flowed for ever Life's restoring-tide.", "", "Little mourned I for the parted gladness,", "For the vacant nest and silent song -", "Hope was there, and laughed me out of sadness;", "Whispering, \" Winter will not linger long!\"", "", "And, behold! with tenfold increase blessing,", "Spring adorned the beauty-burdened spray;", "Wind and rain and fervent heat, caressing,", "Lavished glory on that second May!", "", "High it rose - no winged grief could sweep it;", "Sin was scared to distance with its shine;", "Love, and its own life, had power to keep it", "From all wrong - from every blight but thine!", "", "Cruel Death! The young leaves droop and languish;", "Evening's gentle air may still restore -", "No! the morning sunshine mocks my anguish -", "Time, for me, must never blossom more!", "", "Strike it down, that other boughs may flourish", "Where that perished sapling used to be;", "Thus, at least, its mouldering corpse will nourish", "That from which it sprung - Eternity." ], "linecount": "32" }, { "title": "Death", "author": "Helen Hunt Jackson", "lines": [ "My body, eh? Friend Death, how now?", "Why all this tedious pomp of writ?", "Thou hast reclaimed it sure and slow", "For half a century bit by bit.", "", "In faith thou knowest more to-day", "Than I do, where it can be found!", "This shrivelled lump of suffering clay,", "To which I am now chained and bound,", "", "Has not of kith or kin a trace", "To the good body once I bore;", "Look at this shrunken, ghastly face:", "Didst ever see that face before?", "", "Ah, well, friend Death, good friend thou art;", "Thy only fault thy lagging gait,", "Mistaken pity in thy heart", "For timorous ones that bid thee wait.", "", "Do quickly all thou hast to do,", "Nor I nor mine will hindrance make;", "I shall be free when thou art through;", "I grudge thee nought that thou must take!", "", "Stay! I have lied; I grudge thee one,", "Yes, two I grudge thee at this last,--", "Two members which have faithful done", "My will and bidding in the past.", "", "I grudge thee this right hand of mine;", "I grudge thee this quick-beating heart;", "They never gave me coward sign,", "Nor played me once the traitor's part.", "", "I see now why in olden days", "Men in barbaric love or hate", "Nailed enemies' hands at wild crossways,", "Shrined leaders' hearts in costly state:", "", "The symbol, sign and instrument", "Of each soul's purpose, passion, strife,", "Of fires in which are poured and spent", "Their all of love, their all of life.", "", "O feeble, mighty human hand!", "O fragile, dauntless human heart!", "The universe holds nothing planned", "With such sublime, transcendent art!", "", "Yes, Death, I own I grudge thee mine", "Poor little hand, so feeble now;", "Its wrinkled palm, its altered line,", "Its veins so pallid and so slow --", "", "Ah, well, friend Death, good friend thou art;", "I shall be free when thou art through.", "Take all there is -- take hand and heart;", "There must be somewhere work to do." ], "linecount": "48" }, { "title": "Death", "author": "James Henry Leigh Hunt", "lines": [ "Death is a road our dearest friends have gone;", "Why with such leaders, fear to say, \"Lead on?\"", "Its gate repels, lest it too soon be tried,", "But turns in balm on the immortal side.", "Mothers have passed it: fathers, children; men", "Whose like we look not to behold again;", "Women that smiled away their loving breath;", "Soft is the travelling on the road to death!", "But guilt has passed it? men not fit to die?", "O, hush -- for He that made us all is by!", "Human we're all -- all men, all born of mothers;", "All our own selves in the worn-out shape of others;", "Our used, and oh, be sure, not to be ill-used brothers!" ], "linecount": "13" }, { "title": "Death", "author": "John Clare", "lines": [ "The winds and waters are in his command,", "Held as a courser in the rider's hand.", "He lets them loose, they triumph at his will:", "He checks their course and all is calm and still.", "Life's hopes waste all to nothingness away", "As showers at night wash out the steps of day.", "", "The tyrant, in his lawless power deterred,", "Bows before death, tame as a broken sword.", "One dyeth in his strength and, torn from ease,", "Groans in death pangs like tempests in the trees.", "Another from the bitterness of clay", "Falls calm as storms drop on an autumn day,", "With noiseless speed as swift as summer light", "Death slays and keeps her weapons out of sight.", "", "The tyrants that do act the God in clay", "And for earth's glories throw the heavens away,", "Whose breath in power did like to thunder sear,", "When anger hurried on the heels of fear,", "Whose rage planned hosts of murders at a breath--", "Here in sound silence sheath their rage in death.", "", "Their feet, that crushed down freedom to its grave", "And felt the very earth they trod a slave,", "How quiet here they lie in death's cold arms", "Without the power to crush the feeble worms", "Who spite of all the dreadful fears they made", "Creep there to conquer and are not afraid." ], "linecount": "26" }, { "title": "Death", "author": "Thomas Hood", "lines": [ "It is not death, that sometime in a sigh", "This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight;", "That sometime these bright stars, that now reply", "In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night;", "That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite,", "And all life's ruddy springs forget to flow;", "That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal sprite", "Be lapped in alien clay and laid below;", "It is not death to know this,--but to know", "That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves", "In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go", "So duly and so oft,--and when grass waves", "Over the past-away, there may be then", "No resurrection in the minds of men." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Death", "author": "John Clare", "lines": [ "Why should man's high aspiring mind", "Burn in him with so proud a breath,", "When all his haughty views can find", " In this world yields to death?", "The fair, the brave, the vain, the wise,", "The rich, the poor, the great, and small,", "Are each but worm's anatomies", " To strew his quiet hall.", "", "Power may make many earthly gods,", "Where gold and bribery's guilt prevails,", "But death's unwelcome, honest odds", " Kick o'er the unequal scales.", "The flattered great may clamours raise", "Of power, and their own weakness hide,", "But death shall find unlooked-for ways", " To end the farce of pride,", "", "An arrow hurtled eer so high,", "From een a giant's sinewy strength,", "In Time's untraced eternity", " Goes but a pigmy length;", "Nay, whirring from the tortured string,", "With all its pomp of hurried flight,", "Tis by the skylark's little wing", " Outmeasured in its height.", "", "Just so man's boasted strength and power", "Shall fade before death's lightest stroke,", "Laid lower than the meanest flower,", " Whose pride oer-topt the oak;", "And he who, like a blighting blast,", "Dispeopled worlds with war's alarms", "Shall be himself destroyed at last", " By poor despised worms.", "", "Tyrants in vain their powers secure,", "And awe slaves' murmurs with a frown,", "For unawed death at last is sure", " To sap the babels down.", "A stone thrown upward to the sky", "Will quickly meet the ground agen;", "So men-gods of earth's vanity", " Shall drop at last to men;", "", "And Power and Pomp their all resign,", "Blood-purchased thrones and banquet halls.", "Fate waits to sack Ambition's shrine", " As bare as prison walls,", "Where the poor suffering wretch bows down", "To laws a lawless power hath passed;", "And pride, and power, and king, and clown", " Shall be Death's slaves at last.", "", "Time, the prime minister of Death!", "There's nought can bribe his honest will.", "He stops the richest tyrant's breath", " And lays his mischief still.", "Each wicked scheme for power all stops,", "With grandeurs false and mock display,", "As eve's shades from high mountain tops", " Fade with the rest away.", "", "Death levels all things in his march;", "Nought can resist his mighty strength;", "The palace proud, triumphal arch,", " Shall mete its shadow's length.", "The rich, the poor, one common bed", "Shall find in the unhonoured grave,", "Where weeds shall crown alike the head", " Of tyrant and of slave." ], "linecount": "64" }, { "title": "Death", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "They die--the dead return not--Misery", "Sits near an open grave and calls them over,", "A Youth with hoary hair and haggard eye--", "They are the names of kindred, friend and lover,", "Which he so feebly calls--they all are gone--", "Fond wretch, all dead! those vacant names alone,", "This most familiar scene, my pain--", "These tombs--alone remain.", "", "Misery, my sweetest friend--oh, weep no more!", "Thou wilt not be consoled--I wonder not!", "For I have seen thee from thy dwelling's door", "Watch the calm sunset with them, and this spot", "Was even as bright and calm, but transitory,", "And now thy hopes are gone, thy hair is hoary;", "This most familiar scene, my pain--", "These tombs--alone remain." ], "linecount": "16" }, { "title": "Death", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "Death is here and death is there,", "Death is busy everywhere,", "All around, within, beneath,", "Above is death--and we are death.", "", "Death has set his mark and seal", "On all we are and all we feel,", "On all we know and all we fear,", "", "...", "", "First our pleasures die--and then", "Our hopes, and then our fears--and when", "These are dead, the debt is due,", "Dust claims dust--and we die too.", "", "All things that we love and cherish,", "Like ourselves must fade and perish;", "Such is our rude mortal lot--", "Love itself would, did they not." ], "linecount": "16" } ]