This Living Hand

John Wilde

In the Hand

This Living Hand

This living hand, now warm and capable

Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold

And in the icy silence of the tomb,

So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights

That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood

So in my veins red life might stream again,

And thou be conscience-calm'd—see here it is—
I hold it towards you.

~ John Keats ~

Look Down, Fair Moon

Paul Nash

The Ypres Salient at Night

Look Down, Fair Moon

Look down, fair moon, and bathe this scene;

Pour softly down night's nimbus floods, on faces ghastly, swollen, purple;

On the dead, on their backs, with their arms toss'd wide,

Pour down your unstinted nimbus, sacred moon.

~ Walt Whitman ~

Reconciliation

Felix Labisse

The Last Way

Reconciliation

Word over all, beautiful as the sky,

Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost,

That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soiled world;

For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead,

I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin - I draw near,

Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.

~ Walt Whitman ~

White Night

Montserrat Gudiol

Soldier

White Night

I did not lock the door
I didn’t light the candles.
You don’t know how, tired as I was,
I didn’t dare go to sleep.

To watch the streaks of light dying
in the twilight dark of the pines.
I am getting drunk on the sound
of a voice like yours echoing in the hall.

And to know that everything is lost,
that life – is a cursed hell.
O, I was so certain
you would come back.

~ Anna Akhmatova ~

Death is nothing at all

Paul DeLaroche

The Execution of Lady Jane Grey

Death is nothing at all

Death is nothing at all.

I have only slipped away into the next room.

I am I and you are you,

Whatever we were to each other, that we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name,

Speak to me in the easy way which you always used.

Put no difference in your tone,

wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow,

laugh as we always laughed

at the little jokes we enjoyed together.

Pray smile, think of me, pray for me.

Let my name be ever the household word

that it always was.

Let it be spoken without effort,

without the trace of a shadow in it.

Life means all that it ever meant,

it is the same as it ever was.

There is unbroken continuity,

why should I be out of mind

because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you

somewhere very near

just around the corner.

All is well

~ Henry Scott Holland ~

Canon of St Paul's Cathedral

The Ballad of the Reading Gaol

Odd Nerdrum

Iron Law

The Ballad of the Reading Gaol

He did not wear his scarlet coat,

For blood and wine are red,

And blood and wine were on his hands

When they found him with the dead,

The poor dead woman whom he loved,

And murdered in her bed.

He walked amongst the Trial Men

In a suit of shabby grey;

A cricket cap was on his head,

And his step seemed light and gay;

But I never saw a man who looked

So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked

With such a wistful eye

Upon that little tent of blue

Which prisoners call the sky,

And at every drifting cloud that went

With sails of silver by.

I walked, with other souls in pain,

Within another ring,

And was wondering if the man had done

A great or little thing,

When a voice behind me whispered low,

"That fellow's got to swing."

Dear Christ! the very prison walls

Suddenly seemed to reel,

And the sky above my head became

Like a casque of scorching steel;

And, though I was a soul in pain,

My pain I could not feel.

I only knew what hunted thought

Quickened his step, and why

He looked upon the garish day

With such a wistful eye;

The man had killed the thing he loved

And so he had to die.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves

By each let this be heard,

Some do it with a bitter look,

Some with a flattering word,

The coward does it with a kiss,

The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,

And some when they are old;

Some strangle with the hands of Lust,

Some with the hands of Gold:

The kindest use a knife,

because The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,

Some sell, and others buy;

Some do the deed with many tears,

And some without a sigh:

For each man kills the thing he loves,

Yet each man does not die.

He does not die a death of shame

On a day of dark disgrace,

Nor have a noose about his neck,

Nor a cloth upon his face,

Nor drop feet foremost through the floor

Into an empty place

He does not sit with silent men

Who watch him night and day;

Who watch him when he tries to weep,

And when he tries to pray;

Who watch him lest himself should rob

The prison of its prey.

He does not wake at dawn to see

Dread figures throng his room,

The shivering Chaplain robed in white,

The Sheriff stern with gloom,

And the Governor all in shiny black,

With the yellow face of Doom.

He does not rise in piteous haste

To put on convict-clothes,

While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats,

and notes Each new and nerve-twitched pose,

Fingering a watch whose little ticks

Are like horrible hammer-blows.

He does not know that sickening thirst

That sands one's throat, before

The hangman with his gardener's gloves

Slips through the padded door,

And binds one with three leathern thongs,

That the throat may thirst no more.

He does not bend his head to hear

The Burial Office read,

Nor, while the terror of his soul

Tells him he is not dead,

Cross his own coffin, as he moves

Into the hideous shed.

He does not stare upon the air

Through a little roof of glass;

He does not pray with lips of clay

For his agony to pass;

Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek

The kiss of Caiaphas.

~ Oscar Wilde ~

We Never Know

Wolf Volstell

Miss America

We Never Know

He danced with tall grass

for a moment, like he was swaying

with a woman. Our gun barrels

glowed white-hot.

When I got to him,

a blue halo

of flies had already claimed him.

I pulled the crumbed photograph

from his fingers.

There's no other way

to say this: I fell in love.

The morning cleared again,

except for a distant mortar

& somewhere choppers taking off.

I slid the wallet into his pocket

& turned him over, so he wouldn't be

kissing the ground.

~ Yusef Komunyakaa ~

When I have fears that I may cease to be

Egon Schiele

Portrait of Dr. Hugo Koller

When I have fears that I may cease to be

When I have fears that I may cease to be

Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,

Before high-piled books, in charactery,

Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;

When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,

Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,

And think that I may never live to trace

Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;

And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,

That I shall never look upon thee more,

Never have relish in the faery power

Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think

Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

~ John Keats ~

Clouds

Caspar David Friedrich

Wreck in the Moonlight

Clouds

Down the blue night the unending columns press

In noiseless tumult, break and wave and flow,

Now tread the far South, or lift rounds of snow

Up to the white moon's hidden loveliness.

Some pause in their grave wandering comradeless,

And turn with profound gesture vague and slow,

As who would pray good for the world, but know

Their benediction empty as they bless.

They say that the Dead die not, but remain

Near to the rich heirs of their grief and mirth.

I think they ride the calm mid-heaven, as these,

In wise majestic melancholy train,

And watch the moon, and the still-raging seas,

And men, coming and going on the earth.

~ Rupert Brooke ~

The Three Sisters

Tsuguharu Foujitu

Children and Doll

The Three Sisters

Gone are the three, those sisters rare
With wonder-lips and eyes ashine.
One was wise and one was fair,
And one was mine.

Ye mourners, weave for the sleeping hair
Of only two, your ivy vine.
For one was wise and one was fair,
But one was mine.

~ Arthur Davison Ficke ~

The Three Sisters

Tsuguharu Foujitu

Children and Doll

The Three Sisters

Gone are the three, those sisters rare
With wonder-lips and eyes ashine.
One was wise and one was fair,
And one was mine.

Ye mourners, weave for the sleeping hair
Of only two, your ivy vine.
For one was wise and one was fair,
But one was mine.

~ Arthur Davison Ficke ~

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Benjamin West

The Death of General Wolfe

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day;

The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea;

The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,

And all the air a solemn stillness holds,

Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,

And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tower,

The moping owl does to the moon complain

Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,

Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade

Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,

Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,

The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,

The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,

No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,

Or busy housewife ply her evening care;

No children run to lisp their sire's return,

Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield;

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;

How jocund did they drive their team afield!

How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;

Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile

The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,

Awaits alike the inevitable hour:

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,

If memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,

Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault

The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn or animated bust

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?

Can honour's voice provoke the silent dust,

Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;

Hands that the rod of empire might have sway'd,

Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:

But knowledge to their eyes her ample page,

Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;

Chill penury repressed their noble rage,

And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast

The little tyrant of his fields withstood,

Some mute inglorious Milton, here may rest,

Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood.

Th' applause of listening senates to command,

The threats of pain and ruin to despise,

To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,

And read their history in a nation's eyes,

Their lot forbade: nor circumscribed alone

Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;

Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,

And shut the gates of mercy on mankind;

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,

To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,

Or heap the shrine of luxury and pride

With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife

Their sober wishes never learned to stray;

Along the cool sequestered vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet ev'n these bones, from insult to protect,

Some frail memorial still erected nigh,

With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked,

Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered Muse,

The place of fame and elegy supply;

And many a holy text around she strews,

That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,

This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned,

Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,

Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,

Some pious drops the closing eye requires;

Ev'n from the tomb the voice of nature cries,

Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who, mindful of the unhonoured dead,

Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;

If chance, by lonely contemplation led,

Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say:

"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn

Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,

To meet the sun upon the upland lawn;

"There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech

That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,

His listless length at noontide would he stretch,

And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,

Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove;

Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn,

Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love.

"One morn I missed him on the accustomed hill,

Along the heath, and near his favourite tree.

Another came; nor yet beside the rill,

Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood, was he.

"The next with dirges due, in sad array,

Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne,

Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay

Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."

THE EPITAPH

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth,

A youth to fortune and to fame unknown;

Fair science frowned not on his humble birth,

And melancholy marked him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere;

Heaven did a recompense as largely send:

He gave to misery (all he had) a tear,

He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wished) a friend.

No further seek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,

(There they alike in trembling hope repose,)

The bosom of his Father and his God.

~ Thomas Gray ~

We Are Seven

William Wallace Gilchrist, Jr.

The Gilchrist Family Breakfast

We Are Seven

—A simple Child,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?

I met a little cottage Girl:
She was eight years old, she said;
Her hair was thick with many a curl
That clustered round her head.

She had a rustic, woodland air,
And she was wildly clad:
Her eyes were fair, and very fair;
—Her beauty made me glad.

“Sisters and brothers, little Maid,
How many may you be?”
“How many? Seven in all,” she said,
And wondering looked at me.

“And where are they? I pray you tell.”
She answered, “Seven are we;
And two of us at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea.

“Two of us in the church-yard lie,
My sister and my brother;
And, in the church-yard cottage, I
Dwell near them with my mother.”

“You say that two at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea,
Yet ye are seven!—I pray you tell,
Sweet Maid, how this may be.”

Then did the little Maid reply,
“Seven boys and girls are we;
Two of us in the church-yard lie,
Beneath the church-yard tree.”

“You run about, my little Maid,
Your limbs they are alive;
If two are in the church-yard laid,
Then ye are only five.”

“Their graves are green, they may be seen,”
The little Maid replied,
“Twelve steps or more from my mother’s door,
And they are side by side.

“My stockings there I often knit,
My kerchief there I hem;
And there upon the ground I sit,
And sing a song to them.

“And often after sunset, Sir,
When it is light and fair,
I take my little porringer,
And eat my supper there.

“The first that died was sister Jane;
In bed she moaning lay,
Till God released her of her pain;
And then she went away.

“So in the church-yard she was laid;
And, when the grass was dry,
Together round her grave we played,
My brother John and I.

“And when the ground was white with snow,
And I could run and slide,
My brother John was forced to go,
And he lies by her side.”

“How many are you, then,” said I,
“If they two are in heaven?”
Quick was the little Maid’s reply,
“O Master! we are seven.”

“But they are dead; those two are dead!
Their spirits are in heaven!”
’Twas throwing words away; for still
The little Maid would have her will,
And said, “Nay, we are seven!”

~ William Wordsworth ~

from Birds Of Passage -- Delia

George Tooker

Meadow II

from Birds Of Passage
Delia

Sweet as the tender fragrance that survives,

When martyred flowers breathe out their little lives,

Sweet as a song that once consoled our pain,

But never will be sung to us again,

Is thy remembrance.

Now the hour of restHath come to thee.

Sleep, darling; it is best.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ~

Death of an Infant

Milton Avery

The Baby

Death of an Infant

Death found strange beauty on that cherub brow,

And dash'd it out. There was a tint of rose

On cheek and lip;--he touch'd the veins with ice,

And the rose faded.--Forth from those blue eyes

There spoke a wishful tenderness,--a doubt

Whether to grieve or sleep, which Innocence

Alone can wear. With ruthless haste he bound

The silken fringes of the curtaining lids

For ever. There had been a murmuring sound

With which the babe would claim its mother's ear,

Charming her even to tears. The spoiler set

His seal of silence. But there beam'd a smile

So fix'd and holy from that marble brow,--

Death gazed and left it there;--he dared not steal

The signet-ring of Heaven.

~ Lydia Huntley Sigourney ~

He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead

Lucian Freud

Hotel Bedroom

He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead

Were you but lying cold and dead,
And lights were paling out of the West,
You would come hither, and bend your head,
And I would lay my head on your breast;
And you would murmur tender words,
Forgiving me, because you were dead:
Nor would you rise and hasten away,
Though you have the will of wild birds,
But know your hair was bound and wound
About the stars and moon and sun:
O would, beloved, that you lay
Under the dock-leaves in the ground,
While lights were paling one by one.

~ William Butler Yeats ~

In Memoriam A. H. H., Section 5

Rockwell Kent

Burial of a Young

In Memoriam A. H. H., Section 5

I sometimes hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.

But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
A use in measured language lies;
The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.

In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,
Like coarsest clothes against the cold;
But that large grief which these enfold
Is given outline and no more.

~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson ~

Planting a Sequoia

Milton Avery

Trees

Planting a Sequoia

All afternoon my brothers and I have worked in the orchard,
Digging this hole, laying you into it, carefully packing the soil.
Rain blackened the horizon, but cold winds kept it over the Pacific,
And the sky above us stayed the dull gray
Of an old year coming to an end.

In Sicily a father plants a tree to celebrate his first son's birth-
An olive or a fig tree-a sign that the earth has one more life to bear.
I would have done the same, proudly laying new stock into my father's orchard,
A green sapling rising among the twisted apple boughs,
A promise of new fruit in other autumns.

But today we kneel in the cold planting you, our native giant,
Defying the practical custom of our fathers,
Wrapping in your roots a lock of hair, a piece of an infant's birth cord,
All that remains above earth of a first-born son,
A few stray atoms brought back to the elements.

We will give you what we can-our labor and our soil,
Water drawn from the earth when the skies fail,
Nights scented with the ocean fog, days softened by the circuit of bees.
We plant you in the corner of the grove, bathed in western light,
A slender shoot against the sunset.

And when our family is no more, all of his unborn brothers dead,
Every niece and nephew scattered, the house torn down,
His mother's beauty ashes in the air,
I want you to stand among strangers, all young and ephemeral to you,
Silently keeping the secret of your birth.

~ Dana Gioia ~