John Donne: Death Be Not Proud

Jacek Malczewski: Śmierć (1917)

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and souls deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more, death thou shalt die!

Death Be Not Proud,

poem by John Donne
Holy Sonnets, X

Se også:

Sophus Claussen: Se, jeg mødte paa en Gade

Intet menneske er en ø? Jo

William-Adolphe Bouguereau: Høstpigen

Luk øjnene og vær salig

But the roses have wilted, the violets are dead

photo by Style StreetStalker

Roses and violets, in memory of Inara Masters

Roses are red, violets are blue,
sugar is sweet and perhaps so are you.
But the roses have wilted, the violets are dead,
the sugar bowl's empty, your wrists are stained red.

The sun isn't shining, the sky isn't clear;
there's no silver lining cause you're no longer here.
Rain keeps on pouring, there's no end in sight,
you're laying there frozen, so far from the light.

Your beauty's unreal, your smile is the sun,
but time can't be turned nor your actions undone.
The words that you wrote are the only I read,
"I love you so much; please don't cry when I'm dead."

A bond that we formed, a love that ran deep,
a pain that we shared; a friend I could keep.
I wanted to hold you, wipe the tears from your eyes;
been there the moment you said your goodbye.

I want to forget but most times I don't,
I want to let go, but I know that I won't.
Tears on my face, memories burned in my head;
the roses have wilted, the violets are dead.

by PandorasMistake (Malissa Lynn)

Se også:

L:Ron:Harald - Tåren på min kind

Sebastian: Men Rose sir ikke et ord

Eric Clapton: Tears in Heaven

The Savage Rose: A Girl I Knew

Rumi: When I die

When I die
when my coffin
is being taken out
you must never think
i am missing this world

don't shed any tears
don't lament or
feel sorry
i'm not falling
into a monster's abyss

when you see
my corpse is being carried
don't cry for my leaving
i'm not leaving
i'm arriving at eternal love

when you leave me
in the grave
don't say goodbye
remember a grave is
only a curtain
for the paradise behind

you'll only see me
descending into a grave
now watch me rise
how can there be an end
when the sun sets or
the moon goes down

it looks like the end
it seems like a sunset
but in reality it is a dawn
when the grave locks you up
that is when your soul is freed

have you ever seen
a seed fallen to earth
not rise with a new life
why should you doubt the rise
of a seed named human

have you ever seen
a bucket lowered into a well
coming back empty
why lament for a soul
when it can come back
like Joseph from the well

when for the last time
you close your mouth
your words and soul
will belong to the world of
no place no time

Rumi, ghazal 911

Whirling Dervish

Se også:

Christina Rossetti: When I am dead, my dearest

Græd ikke ved min grav

Dan Turèll: Begrav mig i en æblehave

Og kærligheden er en ørkenplante

Brændt kærlighed

what love looks like (when you can’t keep the fire burning)
Visual poetry by Anatol Knotek

Se også:

I have a crush on you!

Den lille pyroman

Farlig bog fyrværkeri selvmord

Flammens sommerfugle-hjerte

Sorgens trekant og skat

Sorg er som en trekant,
som drejer rundt i hjertet
med spidser som ridser.
Det gør ondt, forfærdelig ondt
til trekantens spidser er slidt af,
og der bare er en kugle igen,
som glider rundt uden smerte.

Sorg er en proces
som tager tid, men den slutter.
Hvor lang processen er
beror på hvad vi har mistet,
hvilke ressourcer vi selv har,
og hvilken støtte,
vi modtager fra omgivelserne.

Men når glæden over
det, du har haft,
overskygger savnet af
det, du har mistet,
når du ved, at du aldrig
ville have undværet,
det, du har mistet,
selv om du var klar over,
at du måske engang
måtte give slip på det,
da er trekantens spidser slidt af,
og kuglen bliver
en skat i dit hjerte.

Sorrow is like a triangle
that revolves around the heart
with sharp edges that scratches.
It hurts terribly
until the triangle's points are towed,
and there’s only one ball left,
sliding around without pain.

Sorrow is a process
that takes time, but it has an end.
How long the process
is dependent on who we have lost,
what resources we have,
and what support
we receive from our surroundings.

But when the joy of what you had,
overpoweres the longing
for what you have lost,
when you know
you never would have done without
it you have lost,
even if you were aware
that you once may need to let go of it,
then the triangles points are towed,
and the ball becomes
a treasure in your heart.

Se også:

Sorg, udtrykt af Anna Ancher

Ludvig Bødtcher - Ved et Tab

Søren Ulrik Thomsen: Hvert år på den dato

Eric Clapton: Tears in Heaven

There are no beautiful suicides

"when i was 16, i had serious plans to kill myself. then i took a poetry class, & one day the teacher read us a poem he’d written. these lines, & the way he said it, looking at me -
IT SAVED MY LIFE"

fuck the poets of the past, my friends.
there are no beautiful suicides
just cold corpses with shit in their pants
& the end of the gifts.

Et gammelt anonymt postkort til PostSecret, om at der ingen smukke selvmord er - kun kolde lig med lort i bukserne. Det lyder til at det budskab afholdt indsenderen fra at forsøge selvmord. Der er jo ellers ingen mangel på digte, og andet, der har det budskab at selvmord nærmest er noget smukt, men det er noget af en romantisering. Et lig er sjældent noget smukt.

Se også:

PostSecret - Offentlige dybe hemmeligheder

Long before he killed himself

Evelyn McHale nedenfor Empire State Building

Hvorfor selvmord?

Lærdommens og livets bog

David Kracov - Book of Life

(Rabbi Raichik Memorial Award)

The pages of this Book are filled with poems, excerpts of diaries, and songs, written by children who died at Auschwitz, with the main poem being “The Butterfly”, by Pavel Friedmann, who was 13 years old when he wrote the poem:

The Butterfly

The last, the very last,
So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow
Perhaps if the sun’s tears would sing
against a white stone...

Such, such a yellow
Is carried lightly ‘way up high.
It went away I’m sure because it wished to
kiss the world goodbye.

For seven weeks I’ve lived in here,
Penned up inside this ghetto
But I have found my people here.
The dandelions call to me
And the white chestnut candles in the court.
Only I never saw another butterfly.

That butterfly was the last one.
Butterflies don’t live in here,
In the ghetto.

Se også:

Bogens vinger

Fra en åben bog

På eventyrets vinger

Død og liv med Ex Libris

Christina Rossetti: When I am dead, my dearest

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.

YouTube: Christina Rossetti: When I am dead, my dearest

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, 1862

Ecce Ancilla Domini by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1850)
Model: Christina Rossetti

Se også:

Græd ikke ved min grav

Grethe Risbjerg Thomsen: Måske en Martsnat

Benny Andersen: Mæt af dage

Dan Turèll: Begrav mig i en æblehave

Hvem ringer klokkerne for?

Der Tod als Freund - Death as Friend
Alfred Rethel (1816-1859)

In the Belfry

Toll! Is it night, or daylight yet?
Somewhere the birds seem singing still,
Though surely now the sun has set.

Toll! But who tolls the Bell once more?
He must have climbed the parapet.
Did I not bar the belfry door?

Who can it be?—the Bernardine,
That wont to pray with me of yore?
No, - for the monk was not so lean.

This must be He who, legend saith,
Comes sometimes with a kindlier mien
And tolls a knell. - This shape is Death!

Good-bye, old Bell! So let it be.
How strangely now I draw my breath!
What is this haze of light I see? ...

IN MANUS TUAS, DOMINE!

Austin Dobson (1840-1921)

Se også:

Thomas Hood: Death's Ramble

Victorianske romantiske kvinde-selvmord i London

Vanitas Vanitatum, Omnia Vanitas

I'd be a butterfly - Thomas Haynes Bayly

Thomas Hood: Death's Ramble

Death's Ramble by Thomas Hood

(Illustrations by Edward Hull)

One day the dreary old King of Death
    Inclined for some sport with the carnal,
So he tied a pack of darts on his back,
    And quietly stole from his charnel.

His head was bald of flesh and of hair,
    His body was lean and lank,
His joints at each stir made a crack, and the cur
    Took a gnaw, by the way, at his shank.

And what did he do with his deadly darts,
    This goblin of grisly bone?
He dabbled and spill'd man's blood, and he kill'd
    Like a butcher that kills his own.

The first he slaughter'd, it made him laugh,
    (For the man was a coffin-maker,)
To think how the mutes, and men in black suits,
    Would mourn for an undertaker.

Death saw two Quakers sitting at church,
    Quoth he, "We shall not differ."
And he let them alone, like figures of stone,
    For he could not make them stiffer.

He saw two duellists going to fight,
    In fear they could not smother;
And he shot one through at once—for he knew
    They never would shoot each other.

He saw a watchman fast in his box,
    And he gave a snore infernal;
Said Death, "He may keep his breath, for his sleep
    Can never be more eternal."

He met a coachman driving his coach
    So slow, that his fare grew sick;
But he let him stray on his tedious way,
    For Death only wars on the quick.

Death saw a toll-man taking a toll,
    In the spirit of his fraternity;
But he knew that sort of man would extort,
    Though summon'd to all eternity.

He found an author writing his life,
    But he let him write no further;
For Death, who strikes whenever he likes,
    Is jealous of all self-murther!

Death saw a patient that pull'd out his purse,
    And a doctor that took the sum;
But he let them be—for he knew that the "fee"
    Was a prelude to "faw" and "fum."

He met a dustman ringing a bell,
    And he gave him a mortal thrust;
For himself, by law, since Adam's flaw,
    Is contractor for all our dust.

He saw a sailor mixing his grog,
    And he marked him out for slaughter;
For on water he scarcely had cared for Death,
    And never on rum-and-water.

Death saw two players playing at cards,
    But the game wasn't worth a dump,
For he quickly laid them flat with a spade,
    To wait for the final trump!

Se også:

Victorianske romantiske kvinde-selvmord i London

Vanitas Vanitatum, Omnia Vanitas

Ada Lovelace, drømmeløs søvn efter åreladning

I'd be a butterfly - Thomas Haynes Bayly