437 Death poems

Death found strange beauty on that cherub brow, And dash’d it out. – There was a tint of rose O’er cheek and lip; – he touch’d the veins with ice, And the rose faded. – Forth from those blue eyes There spake a wistful tenderness, – a doubt Whether to grieve or sleep, which Innocence Alone can wear. – With ruthless haste he bound The silken fringes of their curtaining lids Forever. – There had been a murmuring sound With which the babe would claim its mother’s ear, Charming her even to tears. – The spoiler set His seal of silence. – But there beam’d a smile, So fix’d and holy from that marble brow, – Death gazed and left it there; – he dared not steal The signet-ring of Heaven.

Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step, She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage To meet him in the doorway with the news And put him on his guard. ‘Silas is back.’ She pushed him outward with her through the door And shut it after her. ‘Be kind,’ she said. She took the market things from Warren’s arms And set them on the porch, then drew him down To sit beside her on the wooden steps. ‘When was I ever anything but kind to him? But I’ll not have the fellow back,’ he said. ‘I told him so last haying, didn’t I? If he left then, I said, that ended it. What good is he? Who else will harbor him At his age for the little he can do? What help he is there’s no depending on. Off he goes always when I need him most. He thinks he ought to earn a little pay, Enough at least to buy tobacco with, So he won’t have to beg and be beholden. “All right,” I say, “I can’t afford to pay Any fixed wages, though I wish I could.” “Someone else can.” “Then someone else will have to.” I shouldn’t mind his bettering himself If that was what it was. You can be certain, When he begins like that, there’s someone at him Trying to coax him off with pocket-money,— In haying time, when any help is scarce. In winter he comes back to us. I’m done.’ ‘Sh! not so loud: he’ll hear you,’ Mary said. ‘I want him to: he’ll have to soon or late.’ ‘He’s worn out. He’s asleep beside the stove. When I came up from Rowe’s I found him here, Huddled against the barn-door fast asleep, A miserable sight, and frightening, too— You needn’t smile—I didn’t recognize him— I wasn’t looking for him—and he’s changed. Wait till you see.’ ‘Where did you say he’d been?’ ‘He didn’t say. I dragged him to the house, And gave him tea and tried to make him smoke. I tried to make him talk about his travels. Nothing would do: he just kept nodding off.’ ‘What did he say? Did he say anything?’ ‘But little.’ ‘Anything? Mary, confess He said he’d come to ditch the meadow for me.’ ‘Warren!’ ‘But did he? I just want to know.’ ‘Of course he did. What would you have him say? Surely you wouldn’t grudge the poor old man Some humble way to save his self-respect. He added, if you really care to know, He meant to clear the upper pasture, too. That sounds like something you have heard before? Warren, I wish you could have heard the way He jumbled everything. I stopped to look Two or three times—he made me feel so queer— To see if he was talking in his sleep. He ran on Harold Wilson—you remember— The boy you had in haying four years since. He’s finished school, and teaching in his college. Silas declares you’ll have to get him back. He says they two will make a team for work: Between them they will lay this farm as smooth! The way he mixed that in with other things. He thinks young Wilson a likely lad, though daft On education—you know how they fought All through July under the blazing sun, Silas up on the cart to build the load, Harold along beside to pitch it on.’ ‘Yes, I took care to keep well out of earshot.’ ‘Well, those days trouble Silas like a dream. You wouldn’t think they would. How some things linger! Harold’s young college boy’s assurance piqued him. After so many years he still keeps finding Good arguments he sees he might have used. I sympathize. I know just how it feels To think of the right thing to say too late. Harold’s associated in his mind with Latin. He asked me what I thought of Harold’s saying He studied Latin like the violin Because he liked it—that an argument! He said he couldn’t make the boy believe He could find water with a hazel prong— Which showed how much good school had ever done him. He wanted to go over that. But most of all He thinks if he could have another chance To teach him how to build a load of hay—’ ‘I know, that’s Silas’ one accomplishment. He bundles every forkful in its place, And tags and numbers it for future reference, So he can find and easily dislodge it In the unloading. Silas does that well. He takes it out in bunches like big birds’ nests. You never see him standing on the hay He’s trying to lift, straining to lift himself.’ ‘He thinks if he could teach him that, he’d be Some good perhaps to someone in the world. He hates to see a boy the fool of books. Poor Silas, so concerned for other folk, And nothing to look backward to with pride, And nothing to look forward to with hope, So now and never any different.’ Part of a moon was falling down the west, Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills. Its light poured softly in her lap. She saw it And spread her apron to it. She put out her hand Among the harp-like morning-glory strings, Taut with the dew from garden bed to eaves, As if she played unheard some tenderness That wrought on him beside her in the night. ‘Warren,’ she said, ‘he has come home to die: You needn’t be afraid he’ll leave you this time.’ ‘Home,’ he mocked gently. ‘Yes, what else but home? It all depends on what you mean by home. Of course he’s nothing to us, any more Than was the hound that came a stranger to us Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail.’ ‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in.’ ‘I should have called it Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.’ Warren leaned out and took a step or two, Picked up a little stick, and brought it back And broke it in his hand and tossed it by. ‘Silas has better claim on us you think Than on his brother? Thirteen little miles As the road winds would bring him to his door. Silas has walked that far no doubt today. Why didn’t he go there? His brother’s rich, A somebody—director in the bank.’ ‘He never told us that.’ ‘We know it though.’ ‘I think his brother ought to help, of course. I’ll see to that if there is need. He ought of right To take him in, and might be willing to— He may be better than appearances. But have some pity on Silas. Do you think If he’d had any pride in claiming kin Or anything he looked for from his brother, He’d keep so still about him all this time?’ ‘I wonder what’s between them.’ ‘I can tell you. Silas is what he is—we wouldn’t mind him— But just the kind that kinsfolk can’t abide. He never did a thing so very bad. He don’t know why he isn’t quite as good As anyone. Worthless though he is, He won’t be made ashamed to please his brother.’ ‘I can’t think Si ever hurt anyone.’ ‘No, but he hurt my heart the way he lay And rolled his old head on that sharp-edged chair-back. He wouldn’t let me put him on the lounge. You must go in and see what you can do. I made the bed up for him there tonight. You’ll be surprised at him—how much he’s broken. His working days are done; I'm sure of it.’ ‘I’d not be in a hurry to say that.’ ‘I haven’t been. Go, look, see for yourself. But, Warren, please remember how it is: He’s come to help you ditch the meadow. He has a plan. You mustn’t laugh at him. He may not speak of it, and then he may. I’ll sit and see if that small sailing cloud Will hit or miss the moon.’ It hit the moon. Then there were three there, making a dim row, The moon, the little silver cloud, and she. Warren returned—too soon, it seemed to her, Slipped to her side, caught up her hand and waited. ‘Warren,’ she questioned. ‘Dead,’ was all he answered.

The time is come, I must depart from thee, ah famous city; I never yet to rue my smart, did find that thou had’st pity. Wherefore small cause there is, that I should grieve from thee to go; But many women foolishly, like me, and other moe, Do such a fixèd fancy set, on those which least deserve, That long it is ere wit we get away from them to swerve. But time with pity oft will tell to those that will her try, Whether it best be more to mell, or utterly defy. And now hath time me put in mind of thy great cruelness, That never once a help would find, to ease me in distress. Thou never yet would’st credit give to board me for a year; Nor with apparel me relieve, except thou payèd were. No, no, thou never did’st me good, nor ever wilt, I know. Yet am I in no angry mood, but will, or ere I go, In perfect love and charity, my testament here write, And leave to thee such treasury, as I in it recite. Now stand aside and give me leave to write my latest will; And see that none you do deceive of that I leave them till.

Child of a day, thou knowest not The tears that overflow thy urn, The gushing eyes that read thy lot, Nor, if thou knewest, couldst return! And why the wish! the pure and blest Watch like thy mother o'er thy sleep. O peaceful night! O envied rest! Thou wilt not ever see her weep.

On the Gilfillan burial day, In the Hill o’ Balgay, It was a most solemn sight to see, Not fewer than thirty thousand people assembled in Dundee, All watching the funeral procession of Gilfillan that day, That death had suddenly taken away, And was going to be buried in the Hill o’ Balgay. There were about three thousand people in the procession alone, And many were shedding tears, and several did moan, And their bosoms heaved with pain, Because they knew they would never look upon his like again. There could not be fewer than fifty carriages in the procession that day, And gentlemen in some of them that had come from far away, And in whispers some of them did say, As the hearse bore the precious corpse away, Along the Nethergate that day. I’m sure he will be greatly missed by the poor, For he never turned them empty-handed away from his door; And to assist them in distress it didn’t give him pain, And I’m sure the poor will never look upon his like again. On the Gilfillan burial day, in the Hill o’ Balgay, There was a body of policemen marshalled in grand array, And marched in front of the procession all the way; Also the relatives and friends of the deceas’d, Whom I hope from all sorrows has been releas’d, And whose soul I hope to heaven has fled away, To sing with saints above for ever and aye. The Provost, Magistrates, and Town Council were in the procession that day; Also Mrs Gilfillan, who cried and sobbed all the way For her kind husband, that was always affable and gay, Which she will remember until her dying day. When the procession arrived in the Hill o’ Balgay, The people were almost as hush as death, and many of them did say— As long as we live we’ll remember the day That the great Gilfillan was buried in the Hill o’Balgay. When the body of the great Gilfillan was lowered into the grave, ’Twas then the people’s hearts with sorrow did heave; And with tearful eyes and bated breath, Mrs Gilfillan lamented her loving husband’s death. Then she dropped a ringlet of immortelles into his grave, Then took one last fond look, and in sorrow did leave; And all the people left with sad hearts that day, And that ended the Gilfillan burial in the Hill o’ Balgay.

Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge The dice of drowned men’s bones he saw bequeath An embassy. Their numbers as he watched, Beat on the dusty shore and were obscured. And wrecks passed without sound of bells, The calyx of death’s bounty giving back A scattered chapter, livid hieroglyph, The portent wound in corridors of shells. Then in the circuit calm of one vast coil, Its lashings charmed and malice reconciled, Frosted eyes there were that lifted altars; And silent answers crept across the stars. Compass, quadrant and sextant contrive No farther tides ... High in the azure steeps Monody shall not wake the mariner. This fabulous shadow only the sea keeps.

Something so light almost nothing Not a list of violences nor reports from beauty One person looks up & then another after another looking up in the same direction Who took this picture of Fight ghost town this is Palestine

you lie on your back arms close to your sides the body as a card run through the slit of the EFTPOS machine and stopped rubbed off on a coin or two a set of eyes lingering underneath when you move them you can feel the iris brush against the profile of Queen Elizabeth or a native bird it costs actual material money to change these symbols it costs actual material money to make actual material money valid and invalid what does a banker fall asleep thinking about? hand wrapped around notes stuffed between the mattress and the bed frame you’re lying next to that body and feel bad for thinking about ways to kill yourself and/or him who voted for this system of profit no one voted on the voting system you think about dragging his sleeping body to the balcony he sleeps like the dead so fat chance of him waking throw him from the second floor but you second-guess yourself not because you don’t think you could do it you’re not sure the drop would do it you take the gold from your lids place it on the bedside table

To stop the blood of flowers and to reverse harmony. To die in the river, to die in the river. To hear the heart of a rat. There is no difference between the silver of the moon and the silver of my tribe. To clear the field and to run to the edge of the earth. To bear a crystal in the chest: the word. Soap evaporates at the door, fire illuminates the day. To look back, to look back one more time. And to remove the robe. The poppy has bitten the sky. To walk empty roads and drink shadows. To feel the oak at the mouth of the well. To stop the blood of flowers, to stop the blood of flowers. Altars watch each other face to face. To lie down on a blue cabbage. Translated from the Slovenian

When the cow died by the green sapling, her limp udder splayed on the grass like something from the sea, we offered our words in their low calibrations— which was our fashion—then severed her horns with a pug-toothed blade and pounded them out to an amber transparency, two sheets that became, in their moth-wing haze, our parlor windows. They softened our guests with the gauze-light of the Scriptures, and rendered to us, on our merriest days, the sensation of gazing through the feet of a gander. In time we moved up to the status of glass—one pane, then two—each cupping in proof of its purity a dimple of fault, a form of distortion enhancing our image. We took the panes with us from cottage to cottage, moth-horn and glass, and wedged up the misfitted gaps with a poultice of gunny and wax. When woodsmoke darkened our bricks, we gave to the windowsills a lacquer of color—clear blue with a lattice of yellow: a primary entrance and exit for light. And often, walking home from the river and small cheese shop, we would squint their colors to a sapling green, and remember the hull of that early body, the slap of fear we suffered there, then the little wash of recovery that is our fashion—how we stroked to her bones a cadenced droning, and took back from her absence, our amber, half-literal method of sight.