Saluting, lamenting and honoring the dead are the poet's primal tasts in all ages. Whether it be Ben Jonson pining for his son, Keats and Rilke envisaging their own demise, Wilfred Owen commemorating comrades in war, or Homer's Odysseus grieving over his dogall give expression to the universal need for mourning. But mourning has many forms and moods, and this collection explores them all, from Tennyson's black grief to Whitman's radiant melancholy, from Hardy's despair to Rochester's humor, from Sassoon's anger to Christina Rossetti's tender resignation.

Washington, Peter

Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers

Random House, Incorporated

Random House AudioBooks

Everyman's Library

United States, United States of America

First Edition, 1998-09-14

First Edition, PS, 1998

New York [u.a.], 1998

Includes index.

Includes index
Poems over the ages lamenting the dead. In Elegy for Himself, written in the London Tower before his execution, Chidiock Tichborne wrote: "My tale was heard, and yet it was not told; / My fruit is fall'n, and yet my leaves are green; / My youth is spent, and yet I am not old; / I saw the world and yet I was not seen."
Gurney, Ivor. The songs I had -- Housman, A.E. Into my heart an air that kills -- Alfred, Lord Tennyson. In memoriam (XI) -- Rilke, Rainer Maria. What survives -- Keats, John. When I have fears -- Dickinson, Emily. Because that you are going -- Webster, John. A dirge, from the White Divel -- Alfred, Lord Tennyson. In memoriam (II) -- Owen, Wilfred. Futility -- Dickinson, Emily. I heard a fly buzz -- Wilbur, Richard. Then -- Stevens, Wallace. Farewell without a guitar -- Shakespeare, William. Dirge for Fidele -- Hopkins, Gerard Manley. Spring and fall -- Annensky, Innokenty. Anaphora -- Dickinson, Emily. That it will never come again -- Ewart, Gavin. For whom the bell tolls -- De La Mare, Walter. The ghost -- Hardy, Thomas. The glimpse -- Rilke, Rainer Maria. Roman sarcophagi -- Tyutchev, Fyodor. Last love -- Housman, A.E. From far, from eve and morning -- Horace. Odes III, 30 -- Dickinson, Emily. All but death, can be adjusted -- Rossetti, Christina. Remember -- Douglas, Keith. Simplify me when I'm dead -- Harrison, Tony. Aqua mortis -- Sassoon, Siegfried. Died of wounds -- Dibdin, Charles. Poor Tom -- Shelley, Percy Bysshe. Music -- Dickinson, Emily. Because I could not stop for death -- Auden, W.H. An island cemetary -- Frost, Robert. In a disused graveyard -- Villon, François. Ballade of the ladies of time past -- Robinson, Edward Arlington. For a dead lady -- Rossetti, Christina. One of the dead -- Mandelstam, Osip. To praise a dead woman -- Heredia, José-Maria de. A young dead woman -- Levi, Primo. Epitaph -- Hardy, Thomas. Rain on a grave -- Alfred, Lord Tennyson. In memoriam (VII) -- Wordsworth, William. She dwelt among the untrodden ways -- Al-Ma'arri, Abu Al-ala. The soul driven from the body -- Herrick, Robert. from Horace, Odes II, 14 -- Flatman, Thomas. Song -- Al-Ma'arri, Abu Al-ala. Needles have stitched a death shroud -- Wilmot, John, Earl of Rochester. Seneca's troas, Act II -- Chia Tao. Weeping for the zen master Po-Yen -- Housman, A.E. With rue my heart is laden -- Attar, Farid Ud-din. The Sufi who thought he had left the world -- Bishop, Elizabeth. One art -- Ewart, Gavin. Writing the poems of loss -- Buonarroti, Michelangelo. To Luigi del Riccio after the death of Cechhino Bracci -- MacNeice, Louis. Selva oscura -- Tichborne, Chidiock. Elegy for himself -- Villon, François. A ballade to end with -- Norris, John. The meditation -- Nashe, Thomas. Adieu! farewell earth's bliss! -- Elliot, Jean. The flowers of the forest -- Hardy, Thomas. During wind and rain -- Gray, Thomas. Elegy written in a country churchyard -- Larkin, Philip. An Arundel tomb -- Dyer, Lady Catherine. My dearest dust -- Carew, Thomas. Maria Wentworth -- Vaughan, Henry. from Ovid, Tristia III, # -- Milton, John. Methought I saw my late espousèd saint -- Milosz, Czeslaw. On parting with my wife, Janina -- Kipling, Rudyard. The widower -- Hardy, Thomas. Over the coffin -- Thomas, Dylan. A refusal to mourn the death, by fire, of a child in London -- Muir, Edwin. The child dying -- Jonson, Ben. On my first son -- Herrick, Robert. Epitaph upon a child that died -- Beaumont, Sir John. To my dear son, Gervase Beaumont -- Harrison, Tony. Flood -- Thomas, Dylan. Do not go gentle into that good night -- Herrick, Robert. To his dying brother, Master William Herrick -- Milosz, Czeslaw. With her -- Robinson, Edward Arlington. Uncle Ananias -- Roethke, Theodore. Elegy -- Hardy, Thomas. By her aunt's grave -- Bishop, Elizabeth. Cootchie -- Hopkins, Gerard Manley. Felix Randal -- Rilke, Rainer Maria. Requiem -- Brodsky, Joseph. To a friend: in memoriam -- Yeats, W.B. In memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz -- Whitman, Walt. When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd -- Rilke, Rainer Maria. The poet's death -- Hardy, Thomas. The choirmaster's burial -- Crane, Hart. At Melville's tomb -- Auden, W.H. At the grave of Henry James -- Meng Chiao. Lament for Lu Yin -- Milton, John. Lycidas -- Oldham, John. A quiet soul -- Dryden, John. To the memory of Mr. Oldham -- Mallarmé, Stéphane. At Gautier's grave -- Dunbar, William. Lament for the Makaris -- Wordsworth, William. I travelled among unknown men -- Rodgers, W.R. Field day -- Quarles, Francis. David's epitaph on Jonathan -- Gurney, Ivor. To his love -- Fletcher, John. Fletcher's lament for his friend -- Roethke, Theodore. She -- Hardy, Thomas. The voice -- Harrison, Tony. Long distance -- Wordsworth, William. A slumber did my spirit seal -- Campion, Thomas. Propertius, Elegies II, 28 -- Hardy, Thomas. To Lizbie Browne -- Verlaine, Paul. An exchange of feelings -- Swinburne, A.C. from Anactoria -- Hardy, Thomas. The old gown -- Auden, W.H. Funeral blues -- Sassoon, Siegfried. To his dead body -- Gurney, Ivor. The silent one -- Owen, Wilfred. Anthem for doomed youth -- Sassoon, Siegfried. The tombstone-maker -- Alfred, Lord Tennyson. In memoriam (LXVII) -- Rossetti, Christina. After death -- Levi, Primo. The survivor -- Wilbur, Richard. The pardon -- Swinburne, A.C. At a dog's grave -- Maccaig, Norman. Praise of a collie -- Chapman, George. from The odyssey of Homer, Book XVII -- Gray, Thomas. Ode on the death of a favourite cat, drowned in a tub of gold fishes -- Heyrick, Thomas. On the death of a monkey -- Agathias. Partridge -- Anon. Epitaph on a dormouse, really written by a little boy -- Catullus. Carmen II -- Cowper, William. Epitaph on a hare -- Johnson, Samuel. An epitaph upon the celebrated Claudy Phillips, musician, who died very poor -- Cotton, Charles. An epitaph on M.H. -- Sassoon, Siegfried. Memorial tablet -- Shepherd, Fleetwood. Epitaph on the Duke of Grafton -- Anon. Epitaph on a tomb near Rome -- Buonarotti, Michelangelo. Dear to me is sleep -- Wilde, Robert. An epitaph for a Godly man's tomb -- Dickinson, Emily. 'Twas my one glory -- Rilke, Rainer Maria. R.M.R

2023-06-28