Poems about Death: Whitman, Wilcox, Millay

Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

To One Shortly to Die

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From all the rest I single out you, having a message for you,
You are to die –– let others tell you what they please, I cannot prevaricate,
I am exact and merciless, but I love you –– there is no escape for you.

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Softly I lay my right hand upon you, you must feel it,
I do not argue, I bend my head close and half envelop it,
I sit quietly by, I remain faithful,
I am more than nurse, more than parent or neighbour,
I absolve you from all except yourself spiritual bodily, that is
eternal, you yourself will surely escape,
The corpse you will leave will be but excrementitious.

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The sun bursts through in unlooked-for directions,
Strong thoughts fill you and confidence, you smile,
You forget you are sick, as I forget you are sick,
You do not see the medicines, you do not mind the weeping friends,
I am with you,
I exclude others from you, there is nothing to be commiserated,
I do not commiserate, I congratulate you.

. . .

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919)

My Grave

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If, when I die, I must be buried, let
No cemetery engulf me – no lone grot,
Where the great palpitating world comes not,
Save when, with heart bowed down and eyelids wet,
It pays its last sad melancholy debt
To some outjourneying pilgrim. May my lot
Be rather to lie in some much-used spot,
Where human life, with all its noise and fret,
Throbs about me. Let the roll of wheels,
With all earth’s sounds of pleasure, commerce, love,
And rush of hurrying feet surge o’er my head.
Even in my grave I shall be one who feels
Close kinship with the pulsing world above;
And too deep silence would distress me, dead.

. . .

Edna St.Vincent Millay (1892-1950)

The Shroud

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Death, I say, my heart is bowed
Unto thine – O mother!
This red gown will make a shroud
Good as any other!

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(I, that would not wait to wear
My own bridal things,
In a dress dark as my hair
Made my answerings.

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I, tonight, that till he came
Could not, could not wait,
In a gown as bright as flame
Held for them the gate.)

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Death, I say, my heart is bowed
Unto thine – O mother!
This red gown will make a shroud
Good as any other!

. . .

Edna St.Vincent Millay

Lament

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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.

. . . . .