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Elegy Quotes

Browse 50 quotes about Elegy.

Elegy Quotes

“I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, And Mourners to and fro Kept treading – treading – till it seemed That Sense was breaking through – And when they all were seated, A Service, like a Drum – Kept beating – beating – till I thought My Mind was going numb – And then I heard them lift a Box And creak across my Soul With those same Boots of Lead, again, Then Space – began to toll, As all the Heavens were a Bell, And Being, but an Ear, And I, and Silence, some strange Race Wrecked, solitary, here – And then a Plank in Reason, broke, And I dropped down, and down – And hit a World, at every plunge, And Finished knowing – then –”

PainBrainDepressionFuneralElegyEmily Dickinson
Book:The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
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“I am not a finished poem, and I am not the song you’ve turned me into. I am a detached human being, making my way in a world that is constantly trying to push me aside, and you who send me letters and emails and beautiful gifts wouldn’t even recognise me if you saw me walking down the street where I live tomorrow for I am not a poem. I am tired and worn out and the eyes you would see would not be painted or inspired but empty and weary from drinking too much at all times and I am not the life of your party who sings and has glorious words to speak for I don’t speak much at all and my voice is raspy and unsteady from unhealthy living and not much sleep and I only use it when I sing and I always sing too much or not at all and never when people are around because they expect poems and symphonies and I am not a poem but an elegy at my best but unedited and uncut and not a lot of people want to work with me because there’s only so much you can do with an audio take, with the plug-ins and EQs and I was born distorted, disordered, and I’m pretty fine with that, but others are not.”

PeopleWorldLifeBeautifulPoetryArtistSongSpeakVoicePartyGrowing UpLearningFineTomorrowPoemLivingSingingHumanEmptyLettersTiredDrinkingInspiredWordsGloriousProseDisorderEyesWearyUnhealthyDetachedWorn OutAudioRecognizeStreetElegyDistortedSendEqPaintedUnsteadyDisorderedPush Aside
Book:Another Vagabond Lost To Love: Berlin Stories on Leaving & Arriving
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“A Krakovian Conversion by Stewart Stafford Stone columns on my grave; Gravity no longer tethers me, Procession for a fallen saviour, Our charmed lives split apart. A cuckoo among darkest eagles, Faustian profiteer's bloody deal, Became a phoenix dove in flight, On the road home to my new form. An unbroken cypher laid to rest, A muttered debate behind prayers; Faux Messiah, who saved himself? Ransoms paid by a bankrupt sage? © Stewart Stafford, 2024. All rights reserved.”

HistoryRedemptionWorld War IiHolocaustTrue StoryMetamorphosisElegySchindlerSchindler S ListOskar Schindler
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“We pass and leave you lying. No need for rhetoric, for funeral music, for melancholy bugle-calls. No need for tears now, no need for regret. We took our risk with you; you died and we live. We take your noble gift, salute for the last time those lines of pitiable crosses, those solitary mounds, those unknown graves, and turn to live our lives out as we may. Which of us were fortunate--who can tell? For you there is silence and cold twilight drooping in awful desolation over those motionless lands. For us sunlight and the sound of women's voices, song and hope and laughter, despair, gaiety, love--life. Lost terrible silent comrades, we, who might have died, salute you.”

WarElegy
Book:Roads to Glory
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“Bury me standing, bury me Three times. No one really drops dead from seeing Your gaunt, flitting shape in the mirror. Not mirror but grace. Forgive me for covering My eyes, for cowering under the blanket, for swatting At you when I passed a flower garden, When I shut my windows & chased you From park benches & fruit trees. I didn’t know There are people I’m not willing to ever let go, & I won’t. I haven’t.”

DeathPoetryFamilyMourningElegy
Book:If This Is the Age We End Discovery
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“The Fading Game by Stewart Stafford Though your life was stolen from me, I greedily wanted—and want—more. Death made us necessary strangers, And you, hostage to a timepiece fog. Pain’s screams in the kettle’s whistle— The brittle choreography of survivor’s guilt, Self-loathing: I had let you flee my memory, Your voice relapsed to white noise in life’s static. Assuming my agitated reaction made you recoil, As you faded as soon as you had arrived, The desire to connect was overridden by mutual bartering for a wary ceasefire. © 2026, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”

DeathLossGriefMemoryContemporary PoetryElegySurvivors GuiltPsychological PoetryFuneral PoemSuburban Gothic
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“The Mortal Tempest by Stewart Stafford In the tranquil, shaded crypt, Life's storms batter no more, Historia, the isolated remnant, Of an interior remembrance. The howling gale, a mourner's cry, Icy tendrils reaching to exert, The only possible pressure, On a shell in heedless slumber. A post-mortem death wish, Phantom projection of the morbid, To vacate an urn and soar, Swirling ash in the mortal tempest. © 2021, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”

DeathPoetryLossGriefMourningExistentialismMortalityDark PoetryElegyDeath Poems
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“Teardrop Swarm by Stewart Stafford Entombed by verdant prison bars, On land where I once held sway, Drowned in Death's tearful surf, In which we all get swept away. Weep at a rock bearing my name, A vacant space once familiar there, Lost and lingered in limbo longing, Planted in pastures, green and fair. Arch headstones are defiant cliffs, For Reaper's wrath to crash upon, A foundling rage's pristine triumph, In foam white light, multitudes gone. © Stewart Stafford, 2024. All rights reserved.”

NatureTransformationMourningGrief And LossDeath And DyingReflectiveElegyDeath PoemsLiminalityDeath Poem
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“The Yearning Steeple by Stewart Stafford God hesitates to take the kindest; The recycled tradeoff ending life, Heaven's thundering, fiery stage, Echoes Calvary's conflicted strife. Undeserved things appear guided, To the apex altruists of all people, Finding beacons in cast down flame, That guide us to our final steeple. A world masquerades as meritocracy, In its numbing gales, forge aesthetics, "Leaders" tease our carrot cravings, "Rewards" crack mirrors of core ethics. Random flip of the Reaper's coin? Tidal fades of the mirage of youth, The story routinely ends the same. We slake our thirst with unclean fruit. © 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”

PhilosophySpiritualDeathFaithGriefFateSocietyExistentialRhymeElegy
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“Stuck In One's Craw by Stewart Stafford Nobody's beeswax,' still, you nosily ask: 'Is it the last supper to eat that fast?' Try blackened potato skin's bitter taste, A heritage of hunger's grim, gaunt waste. From Celtic mist, this heir apparent, My grandparent's grandparent(s), Survived Ireland's holocaust famine, As a local catch, not New World salmon. Crop blight drove their starving plea, With lots cast bleak to die or flee Genetic appetite fed the strongest, Those who eat fastest live longest. © 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”

Social JusticeTraumaDark HumorCultural IdentityElegyIrish HistoryIrish LiteraturePotato FamineHistorical PoetryIrish Famine
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“The Inevitable Tide by Stewart Stafford The inevitable tide comes, To claim every one of us, Whether sufficient breath of life, Is inhaled deep or forsaken. Then let them bend and screech, Their hearsay and homilies, To rake the ashes of earthly remains, In our final resting place. The person no longer lingers, Gone to Paradise or Hell, Purgatory or mere rotting decay, A ghostly rose bled white on binding soil. © Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.”

DeathRoseFuneralDeath And DyingGraveElegyDeath PoemsDeath PoemTide Of LifeTides Of Time
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“The Procession by Stewart Stafford Let the lighthouse of past lives, With all of the blinding pinnacles, Guide us through death's brief mists. Let the homing dirge of the piper, Move us as sleep climbs upon us, Spear of Selene cresting the horizon. Let the dawn chorus sing in tribute, To winter's carpeted, unspoiled dawn, Setting forth with a crunching mission. Let the cavalcade commence, With all that are smiling and dearest, Assembling within the celestial glare. © Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.”

HeavenLife And DeathFuneralEulogyNear Death ExperiencePast LivesFuneralsSpirit WorldElegyThe Afterlife
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“Writing is alchemy. Dross becomes gold. Experience is transformed. Pain is changed. Suffering may become song. The ordinary or horrible is pushed by the will of the writer into grace or redemption, a prophetic wail, a screed for justice, an elegy of sadness or sorrow. ... There is always a tension between experience and the thing that finally carries it forward, bears its weight, holds it in. Without that tension, one might as well write a shopping list.”

WritingWellsMayMightPainSufferingSongJusticeGraceSadnessChangedBearsSorrowOrdinaryGoldWeightListsHorribleRedemptionTensionCarrieShoppingTransformedAlchemyPropheticDrossElegy
Author:Andrea Dworkin
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“Wheresoe'er I turn my view, All is strange, yet nothing new: Endless labor all along, Endless labor to be wrong: Phrase that Time has flung away; Uncouth words in disarray, Trick'd in antique ruff and bonnet, Ode, and elegy, and sonnet.”

PoetryTurnsViewsStrangeLaborTricksEndlessPhrasesSonnetAntiquesNothing NewBonnetsElegyOdesUncouthDisarray
Book:The Poetical Works of Doctors Smollett, Johnson, and Goldsmith
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“The nobility of Teresa Leo's poems is that they are not disposed to hide from the dark-rather, they display a mind that tends toward obsession and brooding, that works against fatality like fingers at a knot. The firm, attentive mind on display and the lucid unfolding of the poems are the life instinct seeking and finding its way through again and again. Love and beauty are the argument, but they don't win easily. Bloom in Reverse works through elegy toward survival with moving persistence, both driven and compelling.”

WayMindMovingWinningDarkFindingsSurvivalArgumentInstinctFingersSeekingDrivenObsessionPersistenceFirmDisplayCompellingAgain And AgainReverseNobilityUnfoldingKnotsBroodingTeresaFatalityElegy
Author:Tony Hoagland
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