Poets have always turned to death, sometimes with fear and often with surprising calm. This collection gathers classic poems about death, grief, and remembrance from the Poetry Catalog public domain archive, from Emily Dickinson’s carriage ride with Death to Whitman’s great elegy for Lincoln.
Some are well suited to a funeral or memorial reading: Shakespeare’s “No longer mourn for me when I am dead,” Whitman’s “Joy, Shipmate, Joy!”, and Chesterton’s “To Them That Mourn.” Every title links to the full poem, free to read, grouped by poet.
For more by any of these writers, visit our Public Domain Poetry page, which links to each poet’s complete collection.
Poems About Death by Emily Dickinson
- The Chariot (Because I Could Not Stop for Death) – Death, a polite gentleman caller, drives the speaker slowly toward eternity.
- I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died – A deathbed scene interrupted by a fly.
- The Bustle in a House – The quiet work of “the morning after death”: sweeping up the heart and putting love away.
- I Died for Beauty, But Was Scarce – Two people in neighboring tombs, one who died for beauty and one for truth, talk through the wall.
- Death Is a Dialogue Between – Eight lines: the spirit and the dust argue, and the spirit walks away.
- Let Down the Bars, O Death! – Death as a gentle shepherd letting the tired flocks in for the night.
More: All Emily Dickinson poems
Poems About Death by Walt Whitman
- When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d – Whitman’s long elegy for Lincoln, with the lilac, the star, and the singing thrush.
- Joy, Shipmate, Joy! – Seven lines that greet death as a ship setting free. A fine funeral reading.
- Darest Thou Now O Soul – An invitation to walk out “toward the unknown region.”
- Good-Bye My Fancy! – The old poet’s farewell to his own imagination.
More: All Walt Whitman poems
Poems About Death by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 71: No Longer Mourn for Me When I Am Dead – He asks his love to forget him rather than grieve.
- Sonnet 146: Poor Soul, the Centre of My Sinful Earth – Ends with “And Death once dead, there’s no more dying then.”
More: All William Shakespeare poems
Poems About Death by John Keats
- When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be – A young poet’s fear of dying before his work is done.
- Ode to a Nightingale – The nightingale’s song, and a mind “half in love with easeful Death.”
More: All John Keats poems
Poems About Death by Edgar Allan Poe
- Annabel Lee – A beloved wife taken by a chilling wind, and a love that outlasts the grave.
- Lenore – A lament for a young woman who died too soon.
- Spirits of the Dead – Alone by a grey tombstone, the soul finds the dead gathered around it.
More: All Edgar Allan Poe poems
Poems About Death by Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Adonais – Shelley’s elegy for John Keats: “He has outsoared the shadow of our night.”
- On Death – The flame of life is as fickle and pale as moonlight on a lonely isle.
More: All Percy Bysshe Shelley poems
Poems About Death by William Wordsworth
- We Are Seven – A little girl insists she is one of seven children, even though two lie in the churchyard.
- A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal – Eight lines, “rolled round in earth’s diurnal course.”
- Surprised by Joy – Wordsworth turns to share a happy moment with his daughter, then remembers she has died.
More: All William Wordsworth poems
Poems About Death by G.K. Chesterton
- To Them That Mourn – “Lift up your heads”: comfort for those left behind.
More: All G.K. Chesterton poems
Poems About Death by William Blake
- Dedication of the Designs to Blair’s Grave – “The door of Death is made of gold.”
More: All William Blake poems
Poems About Death by Robert Burns
- Highland Mary – A young love taken by “Death’s untimely frost,” and still remembered.
- Man Was Made to Mourn: A Dirge – On a November evening, an old man tells a young stranger “That man was made to mourn.”
- A Bard’s Epitaph – An epitaph for a poet of “rustic song,” ending “self-control / Is wisdom’s root.”
- To Mary in Heaven – A morning star brings back the day Mary was lost: “O Mary! dear departed shade! / Where is thy place of blissful rest?”
- Elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson – Burns calls on the hills, the birds and the seasons to mourn a friend: “The ae best fellow e’er was born!”
- A Mother’s Lament – A mother mourns her son, like the linnet that “Bewails her ravish’d young,” and asks death to lay her “With him I love, at rest!”
- Sonnet on the Death of Robert Riddell – Burns grieves for his friend and turns away from the joys of spring: “Ye blow upon the sod that wraps my friend!”
More: All Robert Burns poems
Poems About Death by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
- Crossing the Bar – Death as a quiet tide carrying the poet out to sea, with “no sadness of farewell”: “I hope to see my Pilot face to face / When I have crossed the bar.” A fine funeral reading.
- Break, Break, Break – Grief beside the “cold gray stones” of the sea, longing “for the touch of a vanish’d hand, / And the sound of a voice that is still!”
- Dark House – Grief at the door of a house he once hurried to, missing “A hand that can be clasped no more”: “He is not here; but far away / The noise of life begins again.”
More: All Alfred, Lord Tennyson poems
Poems About Death by John Milton
- Lycidas – Milton’s great pastoral elegy for a young friend lost at sea: “For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime.”
- Methought I Saw My Late Espoused Saint – A dream of his dead wife, “Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave,” that ends in heartbreak: “I wak’d, she fled, and day brought back my night.”
- On the Late Massacre in Piemont – A cry for justice for the murdered faithful: “Avenge O lord thy slaughter’d Saints, whose bones / Lie scatter’d on the Alpine mountains cold,” slain by those who rolled “Mother with Infant down the Rocks.”
More: All John Milton poems
Poems About Death by John McCrae
- In Flanders Fields – The fallen speak from among the poppies and the crosses: “We are the Dead. Short days ago / We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,” and they warn, “If ye break faith with us who die / We shall not sleep.”
See also: Halloween Poems, Veterans Day and War Poems, Love Poems, Short Famous Poems