some dark poetry

Sonnet LXXI

No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it, for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O! if,--I say you look upon this verse,
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;
But let your love even with my life decay;
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.
(Shakespeare)

In An Empty House

From the walls the paper's blue is vanished,
The daguerreotypes, the ikons banished.
Only there the deepened blue appears
Where these hid it, hanging through the years.

From the heart the memory is perished,
Perished all that long ago it cherished!
Those remain, of whom death hides the face,
Leaving their yet unforgotten trace.
(Ivan Bunin, (1870–1953))

Memory

When, for the mortal one, is stilled the noisy day,
and, on the silent city’s buildings,
the easy shadow of night is softly laid,
and sleep--the prize for daily grindings,
then in the silent air they painfully drag on--
my hours, sleepless ones and endless:
bites of the remorse-snake, in my heart, stronger burn
in night’s unquestionable blankness.
My fancies boil. My mind, under a pine,
is overfilled with meditations;
remembrance silently, before sad eyes of mine,
unrolls its scroll in lines’ successions.
And reading with despite the life, I had before,
I curse the world, and tremble, breathless,
and bitterly complain, and shed my tears sore,
but…
I don’t obliterate
the awful
lines of sadness.
(A. Pushkin, (1799–1837))

"Now Dry Thy Eyes"

Now dry thy eyes, and shed no tears.
In heaven's straw-pale meadows veers
Aquarius, and earthward peers,
His emptied vessel overturning.
No storming snows, no clouds that creep
Across the sheer pure emerald steep,
Whence, thinly-drawn, a ray darts deep
As a keen lance with edges burning.
(Mikhail Kuzmin, (1872–1936))

Love's Reason Why

For beauty love me not!
Nor love for gold!
For beauty—love the Day—
For wealth—love coinage cold!

Nor love me for my youth!
For Youth—love spring!
But love—because to you
With constant love I cling.
(Konstantin Romanov (aka K.R.) (1858–1915))