HELAS BY OSCAR WILDE

HELAS BY OSCAR WILDE

To drift with every passion till my soul

Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play,

Is it for this that I have given away

Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control?

Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll

Scrawled over on some boyish holiday

With idle songs for pipe and virelay,

Which do but mar the secret of the whole.

Surely there was a time I might have trod

The sunlit heights, and from life's dissonance

Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God:

Is that time dead? lo! with a little rod

I did but touch the honey of romance —

And must I lose a soul's inheritance?

   

FUNERAL BLUES BY W.H. AUDEN

FUNERAL BLUES BY W.H. AUDEN 

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'.

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

A TOTAL STRANGER ONE BLACK DAY BY E E CUMMINGS

A TOTAL STRANGER ONE BLACK DAY BY E E CUMMINGS 

a total stranger one black day 

knocked living the hell out of me - 

who found forgiveness hard because 

my (as it happened) self he was 

-but now that fiend and i are such 

immortal friends the other's each

   

DREAMS BY JAMES MERCER LANGSTON HUGHES

DREAMS BY JAMES MERCER LANGSTON HUGHES

Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow.

 

DO NOT STAND AT MY GRAVE AND WEEP BY MARY ELIZABETH FRYE