A collection of famous poems from renowned poets that cover the topic of death. Death is a subject matter that is still difficult to comprehend today. None of us truly knows what follows it.
- "Home Burial" by Robert Frost
Frost's poem contains the lines: "You could sit there with the stains on your shoes Of the fresh earth from your own baby’s grave"
- "If I Should Die" by Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson's poem begins with the lines:"If I should die
And you should live
And time should gurgle on"
- "Warning and Reply" by Emily Bronte
Bronte's poem beings with the line: "In the earth—the earth—thou shalt be laid, A grey stone standing over thee;"
- "Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat" by Thomas Gray
Gray's poem contains the lines: "Her conscious tail her joy declared; The fair round face, the snowy beard, The velvet of her paws,"
- "First Death in Nova Scotia" by Elizabeth Bishop
Bishop's poem contains the lines: "Since Uncle Arthur fired a bullet into him, he hadn't said a word."
- "The Conqueror Worm" by Edgar Allan Poe
Poe's poem contains the lines: "And much of Madness, and more of Sin, And Horror the soul of the plot. "
- "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" by Thomas Gray
Gray's poem contains the lines: "For thee, who mindful of th' unhonour'd Dead Dost in these lines their artless tale relate; If chance, by lonely contemplation led, Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, "
- "Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud" by John Donne
Donne's death poem contains the lines: "And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well "
- "O Captain! My Captain!" by Walt Whitman
Whitman's famous poem contains the lines: " O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead."
- "O Death, Rock Me Asleep" by Anne Boleyn
Boleyn's death poem contains the lines: "Ring out my doleful knell; Let thy sound my death tell. Death doth draw nigh; There is no remedy."
- "The Death of the Hired Man" by Robert Frost
Frost's poem contains the lines:"When I came up from Rowe’s I found him here, Huddled against the barn-door fast asleep, A miserable sight, and frightening, too—"
- "Crossing the Bar" by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Tennyson's poem contains the lines: "Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark;"
- "Sonnet 71" by William Shakespeare
Shakespeare's poem begins:"No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Then 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:"
- "Thanatopsis" by William Cullen Bryant
Bryant's poem contains the lines: "Of the great tomb of man! The golden sun, The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, Are shining on the sad abodes of death,"
