Death and Mourning

Seek out—less often sought than found— A soldier’s grave, for thee the best; Then look around, and choose thy ground, And take thy rest.

The Pilgrim of Eternity [Lord Byron], whose fame Over his living head like heaven is bent, An early but enduring monument, Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song In sorrow.

What troops Of generous boys in happiness thus bred— Saturnians through life’s Tempe led, Went from the North and came from the South, With golden mottoes in the mouth, To lie down midway on a bloody bed.

The soul of Adonais, like a star, Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door.

Felix Randal the farrier, O he is dead then? My duty all ended, Who have watched his mold of man, big-boned and hardy-handsome, Pining, pining.

Nor for you, for one alone, Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring, For fresh as the morning, thus would I chant a song for you O sane and sacred death.

Dying! To be afraid of thee One must to thine Artillery Have left exposed a Friend— Than thine old Arrow is a Shot Delivered straighter to the Heart The leaving Love behind.

It was not Death, for I stood up, And all the Dead, lie down—

Young man I think I know you—I think this face is the face of the Christ himself, Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies.

What are we first? First, animals; and next Intelligences at a leap; on whom Pale lies the distant shadow of the tomb.

“Fair and foul are near of kin, And fair needs foul,” I cried. “My friends are gone, but that’s a truth Nor grave nor bed denied.”

Love—is anterior to Life— Posterior—to Death— Initial of Creation, and The Exponent of Earth.

Earth, receive an honored guest; William Yeats is laid to rest. Let the Irish vessel lie Emptied of its poetry.

“Who saw him die?” “I,” said the fly, “With my little eye, I saw him die.”

Death devours all lovely things; Lesbia with her sparrow Shares the darkness—presently Every bed is narrow.

Patrick Maguire, the old peasant, can neither be damned nor glorified: The graveyard in which he will lie will be just a deep-drilled potato-field Where the seed gets no chance to come through To the fun of the sun. The tongue in his mouth is the root of a yew.

Susanna’s music touched the bawdy strings Of those white elders; but, escaping, Left only Death’s ironic scraping. Now, in its immortality, it plays On the clear viol of her memory, And makes a constant sacrament of praise.

I think we are in rats’ alley Where the dead men lost their bones.

But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,

Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,

We are the hollow men.