Questions

What is the secret of your life, browsing ox,
Ox the sweet grass eating?
Who strung the mighty sinews in your flesh?
Who set that great heart beating?

What is the secret of your death, soulless ox,
Ox so patiently waiting?
Why hath pain wove her net for your brains anguish
If for you Death will gain no lifes creating?

Dora Sigerson Shorter

Dora Sigerson Shorter was an Irish poet and sculptor born in Dublin in 1866. She was one of the leading figures of the Irish Literary Revival, a movement that aimed to promote Irish literature and culture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She was also a close friend of W.B. Yeats and married the writer and journalist Clement King Shorter. Dora's work often dealt with themes of Irish nationalism and folklore, and she published several volumes of poetry before her untimely death in 1918.

Dora Sigerson Shorter

All Souls Eve

Dora Sigerson Shorter, Simple Poetry

A Vagrant Heart

Dora Sigerson Shorter, Simple Poetry

The Priests Brother

Dora Sigerson Shorter, Simple Poetry

Distant Voices

Dora Sigerson Shorter, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

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

The Suicides Grave

This is the scene of a mans despair, and a souls release
From the difficult traits of the flesh; so, it seeking peace,
A shot rang out in the night; deaths doors were wide;
And you stood alone, a stranger, and saw inside.

Coward flesh, brave soul, which was it?    One feared the world,
The pity of men, or their scorn; yet carelessly hurled
All on the balance of Chance for a state unknown;
Fled the laughter of men for the anger of God-alone.

Perhaps when the hot blood streamed on the daisied sod,
Poor soul, you were likened to Cain, and you fled from God;
Men say you fought hard for your life, when the deed was done;
But your body would rise no more neath this worlds sun.

Id choose-should I do the act-such a night as this,
When the sea throws up white ...

Dora Sigerson Shorter

The Question

Beside us in our seeking after pleasures,
    Through all our restless striving after fame,
Through all our search for worldly gains and treasures,
    There walketh one whom no man likes to name.
Silent he follows, veiled of form and feature,
    Indifferent if we sorrow or rejoice,
Yet that day comes when every living creature
    Must look upon his face and hear his voice.

When that day comes to you, and Death, unmasking,
    Shall bar your path, and say, "Behold the end,"
What are the questions that he will be asking
    About your past? Have you considered, friend?
I think he will not chide you for your sinning,
    Nor for your creeds or dogmas will he care;
He will but ask, "From your life's first beginning
    How many burdens have you helped to be...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Question
Beside us in our seeking after pleasures,
Through all our restless striving after fame,
Through all our search for worldly gains and treasures,
There walketh one whom no man likes to name.
Silent he follows, veiled of form and feature,
Indifferent if we sorrow or rejoice,
Yet that day comes when every living creature
Must look upon his face and hear his voice.

When that day comes to you, and Death, unmasking,
Shall bar your path, and say, "Behold the end,"
What are the questions that he will be asking
About your past? Have you considered, friend?
I think he will not chide you for your sinning,
Nor for your creeds or dogmas will he care;
He will but ask, "From your life's first beginning
How many burdens have you helped to be...
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Death.
If days should pass without a written word
To tell me of thy welfare, and if days
Should lengthen out to weeks, until the maze
Of questioning fears confused me, and I heard.
Life-sounds as echoes; and one came and said
After these weeks of waiting: "He is dead!"

Though the quick sword had found the vital part,
And the life-blood must mingle with the tears,
I think that, as the dying soldier hears
The cries of victory, and feels his heart
Surge with his country's triumph-hour, I could
Hope bravely on, and feel that God was good.

I could take up my thread of life again
And weave my pattern though the colors were
Faded forever. Though I might not dare
Dream often of thee, I should know that when
Death came t...
Sophie M. (Almon) Hensley

Anima Anceps
Till death have broken
Sweet lifes love-token,
Till all be spoken
That shall be said,
What dost thou praying,
O soul, and playing
With song and saying,
Things flown and fled?
For this we know not
That fresh springs flow not
And fresh griefs grow not
When men are dead;
When strange years cover
Lover and lover,
And joys are over
And tears are shed.

If one days sorrow
Mar the days morrow
If mans life borrow
And mans death pay
If souls once taken,
If lives once shaken,
Arise, awaken,
By night, by day
Why with strong crying
And years of sighing,
Living and dying,
Fast ye and pray?
For all your weeping,
Waking and sleeping,
Death comes to reaping
And takes away.

Though t...
Algernon Charles Swinburne

The Kine Of My Father
The kine of my rather, they are straying from my keeping;
The young goats at mischief, but little can I do:
For all through the night did I hear the Banshee keening;
O youth of my loving, and is it well with you?

All through the night sat my mother with my sorrow;
Whisht, it is the wind, O one childeen of my heart!
My hair with the wind, and my two hands clasped in anguish;
Black head of my darling! too long are we apart.

Were your grave at my feet, I would think it half a blessing;
I could herd then the cattle, and drive the goats away;
Many a Paternoster I would say for your safe keeping;
I could sleep above your heart, until the dawn of day.

I see you on the prairie, hot with thirst and faint with hunger;
Dora Sigerson Shorter