His Vision Of Death

I had a vision in my sleep last night between sleeping and waking. A figure standing beside me, thin, miserable, sad and sorrowful; the shadow of night upon his face, the tracks of the tears down his cheeks. His ribs were bending like the bottom of a riddle; his nose thin that it would go through a cambric needle; his shoulders hard and sharp that they would cut tobacco; his head dark and bushy like the top of a hill; and there is nothing I can liken his fingers to. His poor bones without any kind of covering; a withered rod in his hand, and he looking in my face....

Death is a robber who heaps together kings, high princes and country lords; he brings with him the great, the young, and the wise, gripping them by the throat before all the people. Look at him who was yesterday swift & strong, who would leap stone wall, ditch and gap. Who was in the evening walking the street, and is going under the clay on the morrow.

It is a pity for him that is tempted with the temptations of the world; and the store that will go with him is so weak, and his lease of life no better if he were to live for a thousand years than just as if he had slipped over on a visit and back again.

When you are going to lie down don't be dumb. Bare your knee and bruise the ground. Think of all the deeds that you put by you, and that you are travelling towards the meadow of the dead.

Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory

Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory

Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory was an Irish dramatist, folklorist, and theatre manager. She co-founded the Irish Literary Theatre and the Abbey Theatre and wrote numerous short works for both companies. She was a central figure in the Irish Literary Revival and notably a mentor and friend to prominent Irish writers such as W. B. Yeats. Her collected writings include plays, folklore collections, and many translations of Irish language dramas. Her works remain significant in the context of early 20th-century Irish literature.

Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Death And The Dying.

[1]

Death never taketh by surprise
The well-prepared, to wit, the wise -
They knowing of themselves the time
To meditate the final change of clime.
That time, alas! embraces all
Which into hours and minutes we divide;
There is no part, however small,
That from this tribute one can hide.
The very moment, oft, which bids
The heirs of empire see the light
Is that which shuts their fringèd lids
In everlasting night.
Defend yourself by rank and wealth,
Plead beauty, virtue, youth, and health, -
Unblushing Death will ravish all;
The world itself shall pass beneath his pall.
No truth is better known; but, truth to say,
No truth is oftener thrown away.

A man, well in his second century,
Complain'd that Death had call'd him su...

Jean de La Fontaine

A Dream Of Death

I Dreamed that one had died in a strange place
Near no accustomed hand,
And they had nailed the boards above her face,
The peasants of that land,
Wondering to lay her in that solitude,
And raised above her mound
A cross they had made out of two bits of wood,
And planted cypress round;
And left her to the indifferent stars above
Until I carved these words:
I(She was more beautiful than thy first love,)
I(But now lies under boards.)

William Butler Yeats

Intercession

Ave Caesar Imperator, moriturum te saluto.

1

O Death, a little more, and then the worm;
A little longer, O Death, a little yet,
Before the grave gape and the grave-worm fret;
Before the sanguine-spotted hand infirm
Be rottenness, and that foul brain, the germ
Of all ill things and thoughts, be stopped and set;
A little while, O Death, ere he forget,
A small space more of life, a little term;
A little longer ere he and thou be met,
Ere in that hand that fed thee to thy mind
The poison-cup of life be overset;
A little respite of disastrous breath,
Till the soul lift up her lost eyes, and find
Nor God nor help nor hope, but thee, O Death.


2

Shall a man die before his dying day,
Death? and for him though the utter day...

Algernon Charles Swinburne

On Death.

THERE IS NO WORK, NOR DEVICE, NOR KNOWLEDGE, NOR WISDOM, IN THE GRAVE, WHITHER THOU GOEST. - Ecclesiastes.

The pale, the cold, and the moony smile
Which the meteor beam of a starless night
Sheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle,
Ere the dawning of morn's undoubted light,
Is the flame of life so fickle and wan
That flits round our steps till their strength is gone.

O man! hold thee on in courage of soul
Through the stormy shades of thy worldly way,
And the billows of cloud that around thee roll
Shall sleep in the light of a wondrous day,
Where Hell and Heaven shall leave thee free
To the universe of destiny.

This world is the nurse of all we know,
This world is the mother of all we feel,
And the coming of death is a fearful blow
To a brain unenco...

Percy Bysshe Shelley

The Vision Of Life.

    Death and I,
    On a hill so high,
Stood side by side:
    And we saw below,
    Running to and fro,
All things that be in the world so wide.

    Ten thousand cries
    From the gulf did rise,
With a wild discordant sound;
    Laughter and wailing,
    Prayer and railing,
As the ball spun round and round.

    And over all
    Hung a floating pall
Of dark and gory veils:
    'Tis the blood of years,
    And the sighs and tears,
Which this noisome marsh exhales.

    All this did seem
    Like a fearful dream,
Till Death cried with a joyful cry:
    "Look down! look down!
    It is all mine own,
Here comes life's pageant by!"

Like to a masque in ancient revelries,
With mingling sound of tho...

Frances Anne Kemble

Death

When I am dead a few poor souls shall grieve
As I grieved for my brother long ago.
Scarce did my eyes grow dim,
I had forgotten him;
I was far-off hearing the spring winds blow,
And many summers burned
When, though still reeling with my eyes aflame,
I heard that faded name
Whispered one Spring amid the hurrying world
From which, years gone, he turned.

I looked up at my windows and I saw
The trees, thin spectres sucked forth by the moon.
The air was very still
Above a distant hill;
It was the hour of night's full silver moon.
'O are thou there my brother?' my soul cried;
And all the pale stars down bright rivers wept,
As my heart sadly crept
About the empty hills, bathed in that light
That lapped him when he died.

Ah! it was cold...

W.J. Turner