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Browse Hymns, Songs, Poems, Readings, Imagery and Literature

    Long Distance

    Tony Harrison (1937 - )

    Though my mother was already two years dead
    Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
    put hot water bottles her side of the bed
    and still went to renew her transport pass.

    You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone.
    He'd put you off an hour to give him time
    to clear away her things and look alone
    as though his still raw love were such a crime.

    He couldn't risk my blight of disbelief
    though sure that very soon he'd hear her key
    scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.
    He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea.

    I believe life ends with death, and that is all.
    You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,
    in my new black leather phone book, there's your name
    and the disconnected number I still call.

    Requiem

    Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

    Under the wide and starry sky
    Dig the grave and let me lie.
    Glad did I live and gladly die,
    And I laid me down with a will.

    This be the verse you grave for me;
    ‘Here he lies where he longed to be,
    Home is the sailor, home from sea,
    And the hunter home from the hill.’

    Sic Vita

    Henry King (1592-1669)

    Like to the falling of a star,
    Or as the flights of eagles are,
    Or like the fresh spring’s gaudy hue,
    Or silver drops of morning dew,
    Or like a wind that chafes the flood,
    Or bubbles which on water stood:
    Even such is man, whose borrowed light
    Is straight called in, and paid to night.

    The wind blows out, the bubble dies,
    The spring entombed in autumn lies,
    The dew dries up, the star is shot,
    The flight is past, and man forgot.

    When I am Dead My Dearest

    Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

    When I am dead, my dearest,
    Sing no sad songs for me:
    Plant thou no roses at my head,
    Nor shady cypress tree:
    Be the green grass above me
    With showers and dewdrops wet;
    And if thou wilt, remember,
    And if thou wilt, forget.

    I shall not see the shadows,
    I shall not feel the rain;
    I shall not hear the nightingale
    Sing on, as if in pain;
    And dreaming through the twilight
    That doth not rise nor set,
    Haply I may remember,
    And haply may forget.

    Uphill

    Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

    Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
    Yes, to the very end.
    Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
    From morn to night, my friend.

    But is there for the night a resting-place?
    A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
    May not the darkness hide it from my face?
    You cannot miss that inn.

    Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
    Those who have gone before.
    Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
    They will not keep you standing at that door.

    Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
    Of labour you shall find the sum.
    Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
    Yea, beds for all who come.

    From 'The Phoenix and the Turtle'

    William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

    Beauty, truth, and rarity,
    Grace in all simplicity,
    Here enclos'd, in cinders lie.

    Death is now the Phoenix' nest,
    And the Turtle's loyal breast
    To eternity doth rest,

    Leaving no posterity:
    'Twas not their infirmity,
    It was married chastity.

    Truth may seem but cannot be;
    Beauty brag but 'tis not she;
    Truth and beauty buried be.

    To this urn let those repair
    That are either true or fair;
    For these dead birds sigh a prayer.

    On the Countess Dowager of Pembroke

    William Browne (1590-1645)

    Underneath this sable hearse
    Lies the subject of all verse:
    Sidney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother;
    Death, ere thou hast killed another,
    Fair, and learn’d, and good as she,
    Time shall throw a dart at thee.

    Marble piles let no man raise
    To her name, for after days;
    Some kind woman born as she,
    Reading this (like Niobe)
    Shall turn marble, and become
    Both her mourner and her tomb.

    Epitaph on the Lady Mary Villers

    Thomas Carew (1595-1640)

    The Lady Mary Villiers lies
    Under this stone; with weeping eyes
    The parents that first gave her birth,
    And their sad friends, laid her in earth.
    If any of them, Reader, were
    Known unto thee, shed a tear;
    Or if thyself possess a gem
    As dear to thee, as this to them,
    Though a stranger to this place,
    Bewail in theirs, thine own hard case:
    For thou, perhaps, at thy return
    Mayst find thy darling in an urn.

    And Death Shall Have no Dominion

    Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)

    And death shall have no dominion.
    Dead man 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;
    Though they go mad they shall be sane,
    Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
    Though lovers be lost love shall not;
    And death shall have no dominion.

    And death shall have no dominion.
    Under the windings of the sea
    They lying long shall not die windily;
    Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
    Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
    Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
    And the unicorn evils run them through;
    Split all ends up they shan't crack;
    And death shall have no dominion.

    And death shall have no dominion.
    No more may gulls cry at their ears
    Or waves break loud on the seashores;
    Where blew a flower may a flower no more
    Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
    Though they be mad and dead as nails,
    Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
    Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
    And death shall have no dominion.

    Because I Could not Stop for Death

    Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

    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 Civility –

    We passed the School, where Children strove
    At Recess – in the Ring –
    We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –
    We passed the Setting Sun –

    Or rather – He passed Us –
    The Dews drew quivering and Chill –
    For only Gossamer, my Gown –
    My Tippet – only Tulle –

    We paused before a House that seemed
    A Swelling of the Ground –
    The Roof was scarcely visible –
    The Cornice – in the Ground –

    Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet
    Feels shorter than the Day
    I first surmised the Horses' Heads
    Were toward Eternity –

    The Glories of Our Blood and State

    James Shirley (1596-1666)

    The glories of our blood and state
    Are shadows, not substantial things;
    There is no armour against Fate;
    Death lays his icy hand on kings:
    Sceptre and Crown
    Must tumble down,
    And in the dust be equal made
    With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

    Some men with swords may reap the field,
    And plant fresh laurels where they kill:
    But their strong nerves at last must yield;
    They tame but one another still:
    Early or late
    They stoop to fate,
    And must give up their murmuring breath
    When they, pale captives, creep to death.

    The garlands wither on your brow;
    Then boast no more your mighty deeds!
    Upon Death's purple altar now
    See where the victor-victim bleeds.
    Your heads must come
    To the cold tomb:
    Only the actions of the just
    Smell sweet and blossom in their dust.

    Rain

    Edward Thomas (1878-1917)

    Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
    On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
    Remembering again that I shall die
    And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
    For washing me cleaner than I have been
    Since I was born into solitude.
    Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
    But here I pray that none whom once I loved
    Is dying tonight or lying still awake
    Solitary, listening to the rain,
    Either in pain or thus in sympathy
    Helpless among the living and the dead,
    Like a cold water among broken reeds,
    Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
    Like me who have no love which this wild rain
    Has not dissolved except the love of death,
    If love it be towards what is perfect and
    Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.

    Sonnet 71

    William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

    No longer mourn for me when I am dead
    Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
    Give warning to the world that I am fled
    From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell;
    Nay, if you read this line, remember not
    The hand that writ it, for I love you so
    That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
    If thinking on me then you should make you woe.
    O if (I say) you look upon this verse,
    When I, perhaps, compounded am with clay,
    Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
    But let your love even with my life decay;
    Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
    And mock you with me after I am go

    Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth

    Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861)

    Say not the struggle nought availeth,
    The labor and the wounds are vain,
    The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
    And as things have been, things remain.

    If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
    It may be, in yon smoke concealed,
    Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
    And, but for you possess the field.

    For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
    Seem here no painful inch to gain
    Far back through creeks and inlets making
    Came, silent, flooding in, the main,

    And not by eastern windows only,
    When daylight comes, comes in the light,
    In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
    But westward, look, the land is bright.

    When I Watch the Living Meet

    A.E. Housman (1859-1936)

    When I watch the living meet,
    And the moving pageant file
    Warm and breathing through the street
    Where I lodge a little while,

    If the heats of hate and lust
    In the house of flesh are strong,
    Let me mind the house of dust
    Where my sojourn shall be long.

    In the nation that is not
    Nothing stands that stood before;
    There revenges are forgot,
    And the hater hates no more;

    Lovers lying two and two
    Ask not whom they sleep beside,
    And the bridegroom all night through
    Never turns him to the bride.

    Farewell Sweet Dust

    Elinor Wylie (1885-1928)

    Now I have lost you, I must scatter
    All of you on the air henceforth;
    Not that to me it can ever matter
    Buy it's only fair to the rest of the earth.

    Now especially, when it is winter
    And the sun's not half so bright as he was,
    Who wouldn't be glad to find a splinter
    That once was you in the frozen grass?

    Snowflakes, too, will be softer feathered,
    Clouds, perhaps, will be whiter plumed;
    Rain, whose brilliance you caught and gathered,
    Purer silver have reassumed.

    Farewell, sweet dust; I never was a miser:
    Once, for a minute, I made you mine:
    Now you are gone, I am none the wiser
    But the leaves of the willow are as bright as wine.

    We'll Go No More a'roving

    Lord Byron (1788-1824)

    So, we'll go no more a-roving
    So late into the night,
    Though the heart be still as loving,
    And the moon be still as bright.

    For the sword outwears its sheath,
    And the soul wears out the breast,
    And the heart must pause to breathe,
    And Love itself have rest.

    Though the night was made for loving,
    And the day returns too soon,
    Yet we'll go no more a-roving
    By the light of the moon.

    Break, Break, Break

    Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

    Break, break, break,
    On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
    And I would that my tongue could utter
    The thoughts that arise in me.

    O, well for the fisherman's boy,
    That he shouts with his sister at play!
    O, well for the sailor lad,
    That he sings in his boat on the bay!

    And the stately ships go on
    To their haven under the hill;
    But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
    And the sound of a voice that is still!

    Break, break, break
    At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
    But the tender grace of a day that is dead
    Will never come back to me.

    From 'Cymbeline'

    William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

    Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
    Nor the furious winter’s rages;
    Thou thy worldly task hast done,
    Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages:
    Golden lads and girls all must,
    As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

    Fear no more the frown o’ the great;
    Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke;
    Care no more to clothe and eat;
    To thee the reed is as the oak:
    The scepter, learning, physic, must
    All follow this, and come to dust.

    Fear no more the lightning flash,
    Nor the all-dreaded thunder stone;
    Fear not slander, censure rash;
    Thou hast finished joy and moan:
    All lovers young, all lovers must
    Consign to thee, and come to dust.

    No exorciser harm thee!
    Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
    Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
    Nothing ill come near thee!
    Quiet consummation have;
    And renownèd be thy grave!

    Tichborne’s Elegy, written with his own hand in the Tower before his execution

    Chidiock Tichborne (1558-1586)

    My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,
    My feast of joy is but a dish of pain,
    My crop of corn is but a field of tares,
    And al my good is but vain hope of gain.
    The day is past, and yet I saw no sun,
    And now I live, and now my life is done.

    My tale was heard, and yet it was not told,
    My fruite is falne, and yet my leaves are green:
    My youth is spent, and yet I am not old,
    I saw the world, and yet I was not seen.
    My thread is cut, and yet it is not spun,
    And now I live, and now my life is done.

    I sought my death, and found it in my womb,
    I looked for life, and saw it was a shade:
    I trod the earth, and knew it was my tomb,
    And now I die, and now I was but made.
    My glass is full, and now my glass is run,
    And now I live, and now my life is done.

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