Graveyard Poetry for Halloween

 Victorian Hearse

Requiem

Under the wide and starry sky

Dig the grave and let me lie:

Glad did I live and gladly die,

     And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:

Here he lies where he long'd to be;

Home is the sailor, home from sea,

     And the hunter home from the hill.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson ~

An Epitaph upon a Young Married Couple, Dead and Buried Together

To these, whom Death again did wed,

This grave's their second marriage-bed.

For though the hand of fate could force

'Twixt soul and body a divorce,

It could not sunder man and wife,

'Cause they both lived but one life.

Peace, good Reader. Do not weep.

Peace, the lovers are asleep.

They, sweet turtles, folded lie

In the last knot love could tie;

And though they lie as they were dead,

Their pillow stone, their sheets of lead,

(Pillow hard, and sheets not warm)

Love made the bed; they'll take no harm.

Let them sleep: let them sleep on,

Till this stormy night be gone,

Till the eternal morrow dawn;

Then the curtains will be drawn

And they wake into a light

Whose day shall never die in night.

~ Richard Crashaw ~

The Grave

Oft in the lone church-yard at night I've seen

By glimpse of moon-shine, chequering thro' the trees,

The schoolboy with his satchel in his hand,

Whistling aloud to bear his courage up,

And lightly tripping o'er the long flat stones

(With nettles skirted, and with moss o'ergrown),

That tell in homely phrase who lie below;

Sudden! he starts, and hears, or thinks he hears

The sound of something purring at his heels:

Full fast he flies, and dares not look behind him,

Till out of breath he overtakes his fellows;

Who gather round, and wonder at the tale

Of horrid Apparition, tall and ghastly,

That walks at dead of night, or takes his stand

O'er some new-opened Grave; and, strange to tell!

Evanishes at crowing of the cock.

~ Robert Blair ~

Twelve Minutes

The hearse comes up the road

With its funeral load

Sharp on the stroke of twelve.

I greet it myself,

Good-morning the head man

Who's brought the dead man.

I say we're four only.

Still, he won't be lonely.

Being next of kin

I'm the first one in

Behind the bearers,

The black mourning wearers.

(A quick thought appals:

What if one trips and falls?)

They lay him safely down,

The coffin a light brown.

Prayers begin. I sit

And let my mind admit

That screwed-down speechless thing

And how another spring

His spouse was carried here.

Now they're remarried here

And may be happier even

In the clean church of heaven.

We say the last amen.

A button's pressed and then

To canned funeral strains

His dear dead remains,

Eighty-four years gone by,

Sink with a whirring sigh.

I tip and say good-bye.

~ J.C. Hall ~

Joyce by Herself and Her Friends

If I should go before the rest of you

Break not a flower nor inscribe a stone,

Nor when I'm gone speak in a Sunday voice

But be the usual selves that I have known.

     Weep if you must,

     Parting is hell,

     But life goes on,

     So sing as well.

~ Joyce Grenfell ~

Song

When I am dead, my dearest,

     Sing no sad songs for me;

Plant thou no roses at my head,

     Nor shady cypress tree:

Be the green grass above me

     With showers and dewdrops wet;

And if thou wilt, remember,

     And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,

     I shall not feel the rain;

I shall not hear the nightingale

     Sing on, as if in pain;

And dreaming through the twilight

     That doth not rise nor set,

Haply I may remember,

     And haply may forget.

~ Christina Rossetti ~

The Unquiet Grave

'The wind doth blow today, my love,

     And a few small drops of rain;

I never had but one true love,

     In cold grave she was lain.

I'll do as much for my true love

     As any young man may;

I'll sit and mourn all at her grave

     For a twelvemonth and a day.'

The twelvemonth and a day being up,

     The dead began to speak,

'Oh who sits weeping on my grave,

     And will not let me sleep?'

''Tis I, my love, sits on your grave

     And will not let you sleep,

For I crave one kiss of your clay-cold lips

     And that is all I seek.'

'You crave one kiss of my clay-cold lips,

     But my breath smells earthy strong;

If you have one kiss of my clay-cold lips

     Your time will not be long:

'Tis down in yonder garden green,

     Love, where we used to walk,

The finest flower that ere was seen

     Is withered to a stalk.

The stalk is withered dry, my love,

     So will our hearts decay;

So make yourself content, my love,

     Till God calls you away.'

~ Anonymous ~

Untitled

With courage seek the kingdom of the dead;

The path before you lies,

It is not hard to find, nor tread;

No rocks to climb, no lanes to thread;

But broad, and straight, and even still,

And ever gently slopes downhill;

You cannot miss it, though you shut your eyes.

~ Leonidas of Tarentum ~

All Souls Day

Be careful, then, and be gentle about death.

For it is hard to die, it is difficult to go through

the door, even when it opens.

And the poor dead, when they have left the walled

and silvery city of the now hopeless body

where are they to go, Oh where are they to go?

They linger in the shadow of the earth.

The earth's long conical shadow is full of souls

that cannot find the way across the sea of change.

Be kind, Oh be kind to your dead

and give them a little encouragement

and help them to build their little ship of death.

For the soul has a long, long journey after death

to the sweet home of pure oblivion.

Each needs a little ship, a little ship

and the proper store of meal for the longest journey.

Oh, from out of your heart

provide for your dead once more, equip them

like departing mariners, lovingly.

~ D.H. Lawrence ~

I Know the Truth

The wind is level now, the earth is wet with dew,

the storm of stars in the sky will turn to quiet,

And soon all of us will sleep under the earth, we

who never let each other sleep above it.

~ Marina Tsvetayeva ~

Troades

After death nothing is, and nothing, death:

The utmost limit of a gasp of breath.

Let the ambitious zealot lay aside

His hopes of heaven, whose faith is but his pride;

     Let slavish souls lay by their fear,

     Nor be concerned which way nor where

     After this life they shall be hurled.

Dead, we become the lumber of the world,

And to that mass of matter shall be swept

Where things destroyed with things unborn are kept.

     Devouring time swallows us whole;

Impartial death confounds body and soul.

     For Hell and the foul fiend that rules

     God's everlasting fiery jails

     (Devised by rogues, dreaded by fools),

With his grim, grisly dog that keeps the door,

     Are senseless stories, idle tales,

        Dreams, whimseys, and no more.

~ Seneca ~

Halloween, All Souls Day, All Saints Day, and the Day of the Dead ARE holidays for the dead and the dead ones we love and keep in our hearts forever.