Elegy Poems

The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
...

Never until the mankind making
Bird beast and flower
Fathering and all humbling darkness
Tells with silence the last light breaking
...

As the Sun withdrew his rays from the garden, and the moon threw cushioned beams upon the flowers, I sat under the trees pondering upon the phenomena of the atmosphere, looking through the branches at the strewn stars which glittered like chips of silver upon a blue carpet; and I could hear from a distance the agitated murmur of the rivulet singing its way briskly into the valley.
...

Too proud to die; broken and blind he died
The darkest way, and did not turn away,
A cold kind man brave in his narrow pride
...

(My student, thrown by a horse)

I remember the neckcurls, limp and damp as tendrils;
And her quick look, a sidelong pickerel smile;
...

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would perish
in the embrace of his stronger existence.
...

In the thin classroom, where your face
was noble and your words were all things,
I find this boily creature in your place;
...

Spring


Come, my beloved; let us walk amidst the knolls,
...

From my cradle up to he breathes last
Being a shadow against the sun,
A brightening star from the dusk,
The real glorious at dawn
...

Hush, thrush! Hush, missen-thrush, I listen...
I heard the flush of footsteps through the loose leaves,
And a low whistle by the water's brim.
...

Your eyes are a thorn in my heart
Inflicting pain, yet I cherish that thorn
And shield it from the wind.
I sheathe it in my flesh, I sheathe it, protecting it from night and agony,
...

O trees of life, oh, what when winter comes?
We are not of one mind. Are not like birds
in unison migrating. And overtaken,
overdue, we thrust ourselves into the wind
...

That some day, emerging at last from the terrifying vision
I may burst into jubilant praise to assenting angels!
That of the clear-struck keys of the heart not one may fail
to sound because of a loose, doubtful or broken string!
...

Words,
mere words,
Mind’s birds.
Alpha to omega,
...

What beck'ning ghost, along the moon-light shade
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?
'Tis she!--but why that bleeding bosom gor'd,
Why dimly gleams the visionary sword?
...

Not one corner of a foreign field
But a span as wide as Europe;
An appearance of a titan's grave,
And the length thereof a thousand miles,
...

Come, madam, come, all rest my powers defy,
Until I labor, I in labor lie.
The foe oft-times having the foe in sight,
Is tired with standing though he never fight.
...

A poet is born
A poet dies
And all that lies between
is us
...

"His Grace! impossible! what, dead!
Of old age too, and in his bed!
And could that mighty warrior fall,
And so inglorious, after all?
...

By our first strange and fatal interview,
By all desires which thereof did ensue,
By our long starving hopes, by that remorse
Which my words' masculine persuasive force
...

In the quiet chamber of memory, a lament unfolds,
An elegy for the self, a tale to be told.
Once a child, heart beating fierce and wild,
Survival's anthem, the mantra of a spirited child.
...

These are my modern English translations of poems by the German poets Hermann Allmers, Hannah Arendt, Ingeborg Bachmann, Bertolt Brecht, Paul Celan, H. Distler, Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gunter Grass, Heinrich Heine, Hermann Hesse, Johann Georg Jacobi, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, Rainer Maria Rilke, Friedrich Schiller, Angelus Silesius and Georg Trakl.
...

Turbulent time, how you have ravaged me,
With your waves of sorrow and despair,
You brought me to my knees, made me beg and plea,
As I struggled to breathe in your heavy air.
...

Ovid Love Poems, Vietnamese Tales (Pamphlet no 204)

The Troot
Fin the troot lowpit
...

You put this blood
in my nerves and you
take my life from
the world before rising
...

Viewing the skyline with stars; seeing the ocean so blue.
Hearing the cute birds sing; witnessing a bud sprout, and new.
I will foster this majestic and winsome view until February,
This could be the elegy for me.
...

I had written a poem 'Artistic Mind Web Destinations'
then extended past thought into an extended vision
with the poem 'When An Artist Walks Between Worlds'
then left the poems discarded forgotten moved on;
...

Broken heart, dirge on repeat, pen on a mission,
Parched lines, painful tears, memories in oblivion.
half sonnets, partial octaves, pages in ruins,
How long will a smile beckon, are you that perfect friend too?
...

ONGOING ELEGY

The words you're about to read are part of an ongoing elegy that began in 1999
after 12 students and one teacher were killed in the halls of Columbine.
...

The green parrot flies
Around my garden,
Humming elegy
With sorrows filled in.
...