The Penguin Book of Elegy Poems of Memory, Mourning and Consolation
, by Motion, Andrew; Regan, Stephen; Motion, Andrew; Regan, Stephen
- ISBN: 9780241269626 | 0241269628
- Cover: Paperback
- Copyright: 4/1/2025
The comprehensive guide to a deeply human tradition of memory, mourning, and consolation through poetry
A Penguin Classic
Elegy is among the world's oldest forms of literature. Born in Ancient Greece, practiced by the Romans, revitalized by the poets of the Renaissance, and continuing down to the present day, it speaks eloquently and affectingly of the experience of loss and the yearning for consolation. It gives shape and meaning to memories too painful to contemplate, and answers our desire to fix in words what would otherwise slip our grasp. In The Penguin Book of Elegy, Andrew Motion and Stephen Regan trace the history of this tradition, from its Classical roots in the work of Theocritus, Virgil, and Ovid down to modern compositions exploring personal tragedy and collective grief by such celebrated voices of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bishop, Terrance Hayes and Alice Oswald. The only comprehensive anthology of its kind in the English language, The Penguin Book of Elegy is a profound and moving compendium of the fundamentally human urges to remember and honor the dead, and to give comfort to those who survive them.
A Penguin Classic
Elegy is among the world's oldest forms of literature. Born in Ancient Greece, practiced by the Romans, revitalized by the poets of the Renaissance, and continuing down to the present day, it speaks eloquently and affectingly of the experience of loss and the yearning for consolation. It gives shape and meaning to memories too painful to contemplate, and answers our desire to fix in words what would otherwise slip our grasp. In The Penguin Book of Elegy, Andrew Motion and Stephen Regan trace the history of this tradition, from its Classical roots in the work of Theocritus, Virgil, and Ovid down to modern compositions exploring personal tragedy and collective grief by such celebrated voices of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bishop, Terrance Hayes and Alice Oswald. The only comprehensive anthology of its kind in the English language, The Penguin Book of Elegy is a profound and moving compendium of the fundamentally human urges to remember and honor the dead, and to give comfort to those who survive them.
Stephen Regan's (Editor) books include Irish Writing: An Anthology of Irish Literature in English 1789-1939 (2004) and The Sonnet (2019). He has taught at Ruskin College, Oxford; Royal Holloway, University of London; and Durham University, where he is Professor Emeritus. He is currently a Research Associate at the University of Melbourne. Andrew Motion's (Editor) most recent collection is New and Selected Poems 1977-2022 (2023). He was UK Poet Laureate from 1999 to 2009, is co-founder of The Poetry Archive and Poetry by Heart, and since 2015 has lived in Baltimore, where he is Homewood Professor of the Arts at Johns Hopkins University.
Contents
Introduction
A Note on the Text
Anonymous
Cock Robin
The Corpus Christi Carol
The Three Ravens
Sir Patrick Spens
The Wife of Usher’s Well
from Pearl
Dahn the Plug’ole
Raymond Antrobus (1986–)
Sound Machine
Matthew Arnold (1822–1892)
Memorial Verses
W. H. Auden (1907–1973)
In Memory of W. B. Yeats
William Barnes (1801–1886)
The Music o’ the Dead
The Wife a-Lost
Woak Hill
Paul Batchelor (1977–)
Pit Ponies
Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953)
Matilda
Gwendolyn Bennett (1902–1981)
Epitaph
John Berryman (1914–1972)
Dream Song 155
The King James Bible (1611)
2 Samuel 1
Ecclesiastes 3
Laurence Binyon (1869–1943)
For the Fallen
Bion (c . 120– 57 BCE)
Lament for Adonis
Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979)
North Haven
William Blake (1757–1827)
Nurse’s Song (Songs of Innocence)
Nurse’s Song (Songs of Experience)
The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Innocence)
The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Experience)
Ma lika Booker (1970–)
Death of an Overseer
Elizabeth Boyd (c . 1710–1745)
On the Death of an Infant of Five Days Old
Anne Bradstreet (1612–1672)
In Memory of My Dear Grandchild, Elizabeth Bradstreet
Ka mau Brathwaite (1930–2020)
Elegy for Rosita
Robert Bridges (1844–1930)
On a Dead Child
Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855)
On the Death of Emily Jane Brontë
Emily Brontë (1818–1848)
Remembrance
Rupert Brooke (1887–1915)
The Soldier
Jericho Brown (1976–)
The Tradition
William Browne (c. 1590–1645)
On the Countess Dowager of Pembroke
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)
Felicia Hemans
L. E. L.’s Last Question
Mother and Poet
Basil Bunting (1900–1985)
from Briggflatts
Robert Burns (1759–1796)
Epitaph for James Smith
Lament for James, Earl of Glencairn
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824)
Stanzas for Music
‘Remember thee! Remember thee!’
On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year
Elegy on Thyrza
Christian Campbell (1979–)
Rudical (Derek Bennett, killed by the police)
Thomas Campion (1567–1620)
O Come Quickly!
Thomas Carew (c . 1595–1640)
An Elegy upon the Death of the Dean of Paul’s, Dr John Donne
Epitaph for Maria Wentworth
Ciaran Carson (1948–2019)
In Memory
Elizabeth Carter (1717–1806)
On the Death of Mrs Rowe
Catullus (c . 84– 54 BCE)
Elegy on the Sparrow
Catullus 101
Charles Causley (1917–2003)
Eden Rock
C. P. Cavafy (1863–1933)
For Ammonis, Who Died Aged 29 in 610
Jane Cave (1754–1812)
An Elegy on a Maiden Name
Paul Celan (1920–1970)
Deathfugue
Amy Clampitt (1920–1994)
A Procession at Candlemas
John Clare (1793–1864)
The Lament of Swordy Well
I Am
Lucille Clifton (1936–2010)
the lost baby poem
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
Epitaph
Tony Connor (1930–)
Elegy for Alfred Hubbard
Abraham Cowley (1618–1667)
On the Death of Mr William Hervey
William Cowper (1731–1800)
Epitaph on a Hare
The Poplar Field
Hart Crane (1899–1932)
At Melville’s Tomb
Richard Crashaw (1613–1649)
A Hymn to the Name and Honour of the Admirable Saint Teresa
An Epitaph upon Husband and Wife
Countee Cullen (1903–1946)
Colored Blues Singer
Threnody for a Brown Girl
Walter de la Mare (1873–1956)
Fare Well
Toi Derricotte (1941–)
Elegy for My Husband
Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)
‘Because I could not stop for Death’
‘Safe in their Alabaster Chambers’
‘I felt a Funeral, in my Brain’
Maura Dooley (1957–)
I’ve Been Thinking a Lot About Heaven
John Donne (1572–1631)
A Funeral Elegy
Lord Alfred Douglas (1870–1945)
The Dead Poet
Keith Douglas (1920–1944)
Simplify Me When I’m Dead
Vergissmeinnicht
John Dryden (1631–1700)
Upon the Death of the Lord Hastings
To the Memory of Mr Oldham
Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872–1906)
A Death Song
William Dunbar (1459–1520)
Lament for the Makaris
Douglas Dunn (1942–)
The Kaleidoscope
Lady Katherine Dyer (c . 1585–1654)
‘My dearest dust could not thy hasty day’
T. S. Eliot (1888–1965)
from The Waste Land (Death by Water)
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
from Threnody
Vicki Feaver (1943–)
Gorilla
Caleb Femi (1990–)
The Story of Damilola Taylor
James Fenton (1949–)
At the Kerb
Sarah Louisa Forten (1814–1883)
The Grave of the Slave
Robert Frost (1874–1963)
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Robert Garioch (1909–1981)
Elegy
John Gay (1685–1732)
My Own Epitaph
Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997)
from Kaddish
Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774)
Retaliation
Lorna Goodison (1947–)
For My Mother (May I Inherit Half Her Strength)
Barnabe Googe (1540–1594)
An Epytaphe of the Death of Nicolas Grimoald
W. S. Graham (1918–1986)
Lines on Roger Hilton’s Watch
Robert Graves (1895–1985)
The Untidy Man
Thomas Gray (1716–1771)
On the Death of Richard West
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes
Thom Gunn (1929–2004)
Lament
Ivor Gurney (1890–1937)
To His Love
Song
Cotswold Ways
Strange Hells
Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
Drummer Hodge
Thoughts of Phena
A Singer Asleep
The Going
The Voice
At Castle Boterel
After a Journey
During Wind and Rain
Lying Awake
Tony Harrison (1937–)
Book Ends
Terrance Hayes (1971–)
American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin
Seamus Heaney (1939–2013)
The Strand at Lough Beg
Felicia Hemans (1793–1835)
The Grave of a Poetess
Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1587–1648)
Elegy Over a Tomb
George Herbert (1593–1633)
Virtue
Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke (1561–1621)
If Ever Hapless Woman Had a Cause
Robert Herrick (1591–1674)
Upon Himself
Geoffrey Hill (1932–2016)
September Song
Michael Hofmann (1957–)
For Gert Hofmann, died 1 July 1993
Thomas Hood (1799–1845)
I Remember, I Remember
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)
Binsey Poplars
Spring and Fall
Felix Randal
Horace (67–8 BCE)
Odes 3.30
A. E. Housman (1859–1936)
To an Athlete Dying Young
‘Is my team ploughing’
‘Far in a western brookland’
Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries
‘Crossing alone the nighted ferry’
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517–1547)
An Excellent Epitaph of Sir Thomas Wyatt
‘Norfolk sprung thee, Lambeth holds thee dead’
Langston Hughes (1902–1967)
Silhouette
Ted Hughes (1930–1998)
Sheep
Leigh Hunt (1784–1859)
On the Death of His Son Vincent
Mick Imlah (1956–2008)
Stephen Boyd (1957–95)
Major Jackson (1968–)
Ferguson
LINTON Kwesi Johnson (1952–)
Reggae fi Dada
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
An Epitaph on Claudy Phillips, a Musician
On the Death of Dr Robert Levet
Ebenezer Jones (1820–1860)
The Poet’s Death
Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
Epitaphs
To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author Mr William Shakespeare
Jackie Kay (1961–)
Burying My African Father
John Keats (1795–1821)
When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be
Henry King (1592–1669)
Exequy on His Wife
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)
The Appeal
Yusef Komunyakaa (1947–)
Elegy for Thelonious
Charles Lamb (1775–1834)
The Old Familiar Faces
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838)
Stanzas on the Death of Mrs Hemans
Felicia Hemans
WALTER SAVAGE Landor (1775–1864)
Rose Aylmer
Philip Larkin (1922–1985)
The Explosion
Francis Ledwidge (1887–1917)
Thomas MacDonagh
Amy Levy (1861–1889)
Epitaph
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)
The Cross of Snow
Michael Longley (1939–)
Wounds
Robert Lowell (1917–1977)
Sailing Home from Rapallo
Lucretius (c . 99–55 BCE)
from On the Nature of Things
Louis MacNeice (1907–1963)
The Suicide
Derek Mahon (1941–2020)
A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford
Andrew Marvell (1621–1678)
from A Poem upon the Death of His Late Highness the Lord Protector
Paula Meehan (1955–)
Child Burial
Herman Melville (1819–1891)
Monody
Charlotte Mew (1896–1928)
The Farmer’s Bride
Edna St Vincent Millay (1892–1950)
Burial
John Milton (1608–1674)
Lycidas
‘When I consider how my light is spent’
‘Methought I saw my late espousèd saint’
Marianne Moore (1887–1972)
W. S. Landor
Moschus (fl. 150 BCE)
Lament for Bion
Andrew Motion (1952–)
Serenade
Paul Muldoon (1951–)
Incantata
Les Murray (1938–2019)
Midsummer Ice
Thomas Nashe (c . 1567–1601)
Adieu, Farewell, Earth’s Bliss
Bernard O’Donoghue (1945–)
The Day I Outlived My Father
Frank O’ Hara (1926–1966)
The Day Lady Died
Sharon Olds (1942–)
The Exact Moment of His Death
Alice Oswald (1966–)
from Memorial
Ovid (c. 43 BCE–18 CE)
Tristia 3.3
Wilfred Owen (1893–1918)
Anthem for Doomed Youth
‘I saw his round mouth’s crimson’
Futility
Katherine Philips (1632–1664)
On the Death of My First and Dearest Child, Hector Philips
’Tis True, Our Life is But a Long Disease
Tom Pickard (1946–)
Spring Tide
Sylvia Plath (1932–1963)
Electra on Azalea Path
Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady
Three Epitaphs on John Hewet and Sarah Drew
Epitaph on Sir Isaac Newton, in Westminster Abbey
Peter Porter (1929–2010)
An Exequy
Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
from Hugh Selwyn Mauberley
Propertius (c . 50– 15 BCE)
from The Elegies (2.28)
Sir Walter Raleigh (c . 1554–1618)
‘Even such is time’
Henrietta Cordelia Ray (1852–1916)
Toussaint L’Ouverture
Gareth Reeves (1947–)
The Great Fire
Christopher Reid (1949–)
A Scattering
Denise Riley (1948–)
A Part Song
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926)
The Ninth Elegy
Edward Arlington Robinson (1869–1935)
Reuben Bright
Christina Rossetti (1830–1894)
Song
Remember
Rest
Elizabeth Rowe (1674–1737)
Upon the Death of Her Husband
Tadeusz Ró Żewicz (1921–2014)
The Survivor
Sonia Sanchez (1934–)
for our lady
Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967)
Suicide in the Trenches
Anna Seward (1742–1809)
An Old Cat’s Dying Soliloquy
Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
The Truth the Dead Know
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
Sonnet 71
Sonnet 73
‘When that I was’
‘Fear no more the heat o’ the sun’
‘Full fathom five’
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
To Wordsworth
from Adonais
James Shirley (1596–1666)
Epitaph on the Duke of Buckingham
John Skelton (1463–1529)
from Phillip Sparrow
Stevie Smith (1902–1971)
Scorpion
Tracy K. Smith (1972–)
Wade in the Water
Layli Long Soldier (1976–)
38
Charles Hamilton Sorley (1895–1915)
‘When you see millions of the mouthless dead’
Edmund Spenser (1552–1599)
Astrophel
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
The Emperor of Ice-Cream
Anne Stevenson (1933–2020)
Orcop
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)
A Martial Elegy for Some Lead Soldiers
Requiem
Hannah Sullivan (1979–)
from The Sandpit After Rain
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General
from Verses on the Death of Dr Swift
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909)
from Ave atque Vale
A Forsaken Garden
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)
from In Memoriam
5: I sometimes hold it half a sin . . .
7: Dark house by which once more I stand . . .
11: Calm is the morn without a sound . . .
19: The Danube to the Severn gave . . .
50: Be near me when my light is low . . .
70: I cannot see the features right . . .
91: When rosy plumelets tuft the larch . . .
100: I climb the hill: from end to end . . .
115: Now fades the last long streak of snow . . .
Crossing the Bar
William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863)
The Sorrows of Werther
Theocritus (c . 310– 250 BCE)
Idyll 1 (Lament for Daphnis)
Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London
‘Do not go gentle into that good night’
Edward Thomas (1878–1917)
Tears
In Memoriam (Easter, 1915)
Rain
As the Team’s Head-Brass
Chidiock Tichborne (1562–1586)
Elegy for Himself
Tomas Tranströmer (1931–2015)
After Someone’s Death
Frederick Goddard Tuckerman (1821–1873)
‘An upper chamber in a darkened house’
Henry Vaughan (1621–1695)
They Are all Gone into the World of Light!
Virgil (70–19 BCE)
from Eclogue 5 (The Death of Daphnis)
from Georgics Book 4 (Orpheus and Eurydice)
from The Aeneid, Book 2 (The Death of Priam)
Derek Walcott (1930–2017)
Sea Canes
Margaret Walker (1915–1998)
For Malcolm X
Phillis Wheatley (1753–1784)
On the Death of the Rev. Mr George Whitefield
James Monroe Whitfield (1822–1871)
Lines on the Death of John Quincy Adams
Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
O Captain! My Captain!
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
Requiescat
Helen Maria Williams (1761–1827)
Elegy on a Young Thrush
William Carlos Williams (1883–1963)
The Last Words of My English Grandmother
Charles Wolfe (1791–1823)
The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna
William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
Remembrance of Collins
Old Man Travelling
We Are Seven
There was a Boy
The Two April Mornings
‘A slumber did my spirit seal’
‘She dwelt among the untrodden ways’
‘I travelled among unknown men’
Elegiac Stanzas
Elegiac Verses in Memory of My Brother, John Wordsworth
Sir Henry Wotton (1568–1639)
Upon the Death of Sir Albert Morton’s Wife
Kit Wright (1944–)
The Boys Bump-starting the Hearse
W. B. Yeats (1865–1939)
September 1913
To a Shade
The Wild Swans at Coole
In Memory of Major Robert Gregory
Easter 1916
In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz
Beautiful Lofty Things
Andrew Young (1885–1971)
A Dead Mole
Notes
Acknowledgements
Index of First Lines
Index of Titles
Introduction
A Note on the Text
Anonymous
Cock Robin
The Corpus Christi Carol
The Three Ravens
Sir Patrick Spens
The Wife of Usher’s Well
from Pearl
Dahn the Plug’ole
Raymond Antrobus (1986–)
Sound Machine
Matthew Arnold (1822–1892)
Memorial Verses
W. H. Auden (1907–1973)
In Memory of W. B. Yeats
William Barnes (1801–1886)
The Music o’ the Dead
The Wife a-Lost
Woak Hill
Paul Batchelor (1977–)
Pit Ponies
Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953)
Matilda
Gwendolyn Bennett (1902–1981)
Epitaph
John Berryman (1914–1972)
Dream Song 155
The King James Bible (1611)
2 Samuel 1
Ecclesiastes 3
Laurence Binyon (1869–1943)
For the Fallen
Bion (c . 120– 57 BCE)
Lament for Adonis
Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979)
North Haven
William Blake (1757–1827)
Nurse’s Song (Songs of Innocence)
Nurse’s Song (Songs of Experience)
The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Innocence)
The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Experience)
Ma lika Booker (1970–)
Death of an Overseer
Elizabeth Boyd (c . 1710–1745)
On the Death of an Infant of Five Days Old
Anne Bradstreet (1612–1672)
In Memory of My Dear Grandchild, Elizabeth Bradstreet
Ka mau Brathwaite (1930–2020)
Elegy for Rosita
Robert Bridges (1844–1930)
On a Dead Child
Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855)
On the Death of Emily Jane Brontë
Emily Brontë (1818–1848)
Remembrance
Rupert Brooke (1887–1915)
The Soldier
Jericho Brown (1976–)
The Tradition
William Browne (c. 1590–1645)
On the Countess Dowager of Pembroke
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)
Felicia Hemans
L. E. L.’s Last Question
Mother and Poet
Basil Bunting (1900–1985)
from Briggflatts
Robert Burns (1759–1796)
Epitaph for James Smith
Lament for James, Earl of Glencairn
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824)
Stanzas for Music
‘Remember thee! Remember thee!’
On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year
Elegy on Thyrza
Christian Campbell (1979–)
Rudical (Derek Bennett, killed by the police)
Thomas Campion (1567–1620)
O Come Quickly!
Thomas Carew (c . 1595–1640)
An Elegy upon the Death of the Dean of Paul’s, Dr John Donne
Epitaph for Maria Wentworth
Ciaran Carson (1948–2019)
In Memory
Elizabeth Carter (1717–1806)
On the Death of Mrs Rowe
Catullus (c . 84– 54 BCE)
Elegy on the Sparrow
Catullus 101
Charles Causley (1917–2003)
Eden Rock
C. P. Cavafy (1863–1933)
For Ammonis, Who Died Aged 29 in 610
Jane Cave (1754–1812)
An Elegy on a Maiden Name
Paul Celan (1920–1970)
Deathfugue
Amy Clampitt (1920–1994)
A Procession at Candlemas
John Clare (1793–1864)
The Lament of Swordy Well
I Am
Lucille Clifton (1936–2010)
the lost baby poem
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
Epitaph
Tony Connor (1930–)
Elegy for Alfred Hubbard
Abraham Cowley (1618–1667)
On the Death of Mr William Hervey
William Cowper (1731–1800)
Epitaph on a Hare
The Poplar Field
Hart Crane (1899–1932)
At Melville’s Tomb
Richard Crashaw (1613–1649)
A Hymn to the Name and Honour of the Admirable Saint Teresa
An Epitaph upon Husband and Wife
Countee Cullen (1903–1946)
Colored Blues Singer
Threnody for a Brown Girl
Walter de la Mare (1873–1956)
Fare Well
Toi Derricotte (1941–)
Elegy for My Husband
Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)
‘Because I could not stop for Death’
‘Safe in their Alabaster Chambers’
‘I felt a Funeral, in my Brain’
Maura Dooley (1957–)
I’ve Been Thinking a Lot About Heaven
John Donne (1572–1631)
A Funeral Elegy
Lord Alfred Douglas (1870–1945)
The Dead Poet
Keith Douglas (1920–1944)
Simplify Me When I’m Dead
Vergissmeinnicht
John Dryden (1631–1700)
Upon the Death of the Lord Hastings
To the Memory of Mr Oldham
Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872–1906)
A Death Song
William Dunbar (1459–1520)
Lament for the Makaris
Douglas Dunn (1942–)
The Kaleidoscope
Lady Katherine Dyer (c . 1585–1654)
‘My dearest dust could not thy hasty day’
T. S. Eliot (1888–1965)
from The Waste Land (Death by Water)
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
from Threnody
Vicki Feaver (1943–)
Gorilla
Caleb Femi (1990–)
The Story of Damilola Taylor
James Fenton (1949–)
At the Kerb
Sarah Louisa Forten (1814–1883)
The Grave of the Slave
Robert Frost (1874–1963)
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Robert Garioch (1909–1981)
Elegy
John Gay (1685–1732)
My Own Epitaph
Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997)
from Kaddish
Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774)
Retaliation
Lorna Goodison (1947–)
For My Mother (May I Inherit Half Her Strength)
Barnabe Googe (1540–1594)
An Epytaphe of the Death of Nicolas Grimoald
W. S. Graham (1918–1986)
Lines on Roger Hilton’s Watch
Robert Graves (1895–1985)
The Untidy Man
Thomas Gray (1716–1771)
On the Death of Richard West
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes
Thom Gunn (1929–2004)
Lament
Ivor Gurney (1890–1937)
To His Love
Song
Cotswold Ways
Strange Hells
Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
Drummer Hodge
Thoughts of Phena
A Singer Asleep
The Going
The Voice
At Castle Boterel
After a Journey
During Wind and Rain
Lying Awake
Tony Harrison (1937–)
Book Ends
Terrance Hayes (1971–)
American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin
Seamus Heaney (1939–2013)
The Strand at Lough Beg
Felicia Hemans (1793–1835)
The Grave of a Poetess
Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1587–1648)
Elegy Over a Tomb
George Herbert (1593–1633)
Virtue
Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke (1561–1621)
If Ever Hapless Woman Had a Cause
Robert Herrick (1591–1674)
Upon Himself
Geoffrey Hill (1932–2016)
September Song
Michael Hofmann (1957–)
For Gert Hofmann, died 1 July 1993
Thomas Hood (1799–1845)
I Remember, I Remember
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)
Binsey Poplars
Spring and Fall
Felix Randal
Horace (67–8 BCE)
Odes 3.30
A. E. Housman (1859–1936)
To an Athlete Dying Young
‘Is my team ploughing’
‘Far in a western brookland’
Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries
‘Crossing alone the nighted ferry’
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517–1547)
An Excellent Epitaph of Sir Thomas Wyatt
‘Norfolk sprung thee, Lambeth holds thee dead’
Langston Hughes (1902–1967)
Silhouette
Ted Hughes (1930–1998)
Sheep
Leigh Hunt (1784–1859)
On the Death of His Son Vincent
Mick Imlah (1956–2008)
Stephen Boyd (1957–95)
Major Jackson (1968–)
Ferguson
LINTON Kwesi Johnson (1952–)
Reggae fi Dada
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
An Epitaph on Claudy Phillips, a Musician
On the Death of Dr Robert Levet
Ebenezer Jones (1820–1860)
The Poet’s Death
Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
Epitaphs
To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author Mr William Shakespeare
Jackie Kay (1961–)
Burying My African Father
John Keats (1795–1821)
When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be
Henry King (1592–1669)
Exequy on His Wife
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)
The Appeal
Yusef Komunyakaa (1947–)
Elegy for Thelonious
Charles Lamb (1775–1834)
The Old Familiar Faces
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838)
Stanzas on the Death of Mrs Hemans
Felicia Hemans
WALTER SAVAGE Landor (1775–1864)
Rose Aylmer
Philip Larkin (1922–1985)
The Explosion
Francis Ledwidge (1887–1917)
Thomas MacDonagh
Amy Levy (1861–1889)
Epitaph
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)
The Cross of Snow
Michael Longley (1939–)
Wounds
Robert Lowell (1917–1977)
Sailing Home from Rapallo
Lucretius (c . 99–55 BCE)
from On the Nature of Things
Louis MacNeice (1907–1963)
The Suicide
Derek Mahon (1941–2020)
A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford
Andrew Marvell (1621–1678)
from A Poem upon the Death of His Late Highness the Lord Protector
Paula Meehan (1955–)
Child Burial
Herman Melville (1819–1891)
Monody
Charlotte Mew (1896–1928)
The Farmer’s Bride
Edna St Vincent Millay (1892–1950)
Burial
John Milton (1608–1674)
Lycidas
‘When I consider how my light is spent’
‘Methought I saw my late espousèd saint’
Marianne Moore (1887–1972)
W. S. Landor
Moschus (fl. 150 BCE)
Lament for Bion
Andrew Motion (1952–)
Serenade
Paul Muldoon (1951–)
Incantata
Les Murray (1938–2019)
Midsummer Ice
Thomas Nashe (c . 1567–1601)
Adieu, Farewell, Earth’s Bliss
Bernard O’Donoghue (1945–)
The Day I Outlived My Father
Frank O’ Hara (1926–1966)
The Day Lady Died
Sharon Olds (1942–)
The Exact Moment of His Death
Alice Oswald (1966–)
from Memorial
Ovid (c. 43 BCE–18 CE)
Tristia 3.3
Wilfred Owen (1893–1918)
Anthem for Doomed Youth
‘I saw his round mouth’s crimson’
Futility
Katherine Philips (1632–1664)
On the Death of My First and Dearest Child, Hector Philips
’Tis True, Our Life is But a Long Disease
Tom Pickard (1946–)
Spring Tide
Sylvia Plath (1932–1963)
Electra on Azalea Path
Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady
Three Epitaphs on John Hewet and Sarah Drew
Epitaph on Sir Isaac Newton, in Westminster Abbey
Peter Porter (1929–2010)
An Exequy
Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
from Hugh Selwyn Mauberley
Propertius (c . 50– 15 BCE)
from The Elegies (2.28)
Sir Walter Raleigh (c . 1554–1618)
‘Even such is time’
Henrietta Cordelia Ray (1852–1916)
Toussaint L’Ouverture
Gareth Reeves (1947–)
The Great Fire
Christopher Reid (1949–)
A Scattering
Denise Riley (1948–)
A Part Song
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926)
The Ninth Elegy
Edward Arlington Robinson (1869–1935)
Reuben Bright
Christina Rossetti (1830–1894)
Song
Remember
Rest
Elizabeth Rowe (1674–1737)
Upon the Death of Her Husband
Tadeusz Ró Żewicz (1921–2014)
The Survivor
Sonia Sanchez (1934–)
for our lady
Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967)
Suicide in the Trenches
Anna Seward (1742–1809)
An Old Cat’s Dying Soliloquy
Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
The Truth the Dead Know
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
Sonnet 71
Sonnet 73
‘When that I was’
‘Fear no more the heat o’ the sun’
‘Full fathom five’
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
To Wordsworth
from Adonais
James Shirley (1596–1666)
Epitaph on the Duke of Buckingham
John Skelton (1463–1529)
from Phillip Sparrow
Stevie Smith (1902–1971)
Scorpion
Tracy K. Smith (1972–)
Wade in the Water
Layli Long Soldier (1976–)
38
Charles Hamilton Sorley (1895–1915)
‘When you see millions of the mouthless dead’
Edmund Spenser (1552–1599)
Astrophel
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
The Emperor of Ice-Cream
Anne Stevenson (1933–2020)
Orcop
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)
A Martial Elegy for Some Lead Soldiers
Requiem
Hannah Sullivan (1979–)
from The Sandpit After Rain
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General
from Verses on the Death of Dr Swift
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909)
from Ave atque Vale
A Forsaken Garden
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)
from In Memoriam
5: I sometimes hold it half a sin . . .
7: Dark house by which once more I stand . . .
11: Calm is the morn without a sound . . .
19: The Danube to the Severn gave . . .
50: Be near me when my light is low . . .
70: I cannot see the features right . . .
91: When rosy plumelets tuft the larch . . .
100: I climb the hill: from end to end . . .
115: Now fades the last long streak of snow . . .
Crossing the Bar
William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863)
The Sorrows of Werther
Theocritus (c . 310– 250 BCE)
Idyll 1 (Lament for Daphnis)
Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London
‘Do not go gentle into that good night’
Edward Thomas (1878–1917)
Tears
In Memoriam (Easter, 1915)
Rain
As the Team’s Head-Brass
Chidiock Tichborne (1562–1586)
Elegy for Himself
Tomas Tranströmer (1931–2015)
After Someone’s Death
Frederick Goddard Tuckerman (1821–1873)
‘An upper chamber in a darkened house’
Henry Vaughan (1621–1695)
They Are all Gone into the World of Light!
Virgil (70–19 BCE)
from Eclogue 5 (The Death of Daphnis)
from Georgics Book 4 (Orpheus and Eurydice)
from The Aeneid, Book 2 (The Death of Priam)
Derek Walcott (1930–2017)
Sea Canes
Margaret Walker (1915–1998)
For Malcolm X
Phillis Wheatley (1753–1784)
On the Death of the Rev. Mr George Whitefield
James Monroe Whitfield (1822–1871)
Lines on the Death of John Quincy Adams
Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
O Captain! My Captain!
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
Requiescat
Helen Maria Williams (1761–1827)
Elegy on a Young Thrush
William Carlos Williams (1883–1963)
The Last Words of My English Grandmother
Charles Wolfe (1791–1823)
The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna
William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
Remembrance of Collins
Old Man Travelling
We Are Seven
There was a Boy
The Two April Mornings
‘A slumber did my spirit seal’
‘She dwelt among the untrodden ways’
‘I travelled among unknown men’
Elegiac Stanzas
Elegiac Verses in Memory of My Brother, John Wordsworth
Sir Henry Wotton (1568–1639)
Upon the Death of Sir Albert Morton’s Wife
Kit Wright (1944–)
The Boys Bump-starting the Hearse
W. B. Yeats (1865–1939)
September 1913
To a Shade
The Wild Swans at Coole
In Memory of Major Robert Gregory
Easter 1916
In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz
Beautiful Lofty Things
Andrew Young (1885–1971)
A Dead Mole
Notes
Acknowledgements
Index of First Lines
Index of Titles
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