I need to find a poem relating to the inevitability of death.?

Question

I'm working on a novel project and I have to make a poetry connection. My theme is the inevitability of death and I need to find a published poem by an accomplished author (sorry no Chicken Soup books or random online writers). I know Emily Dickinson wrote alot about death, but I sometimes have a tough time deciphering what she is saying. Anyway, if someone could help me locate a poem (Dickinson or not), I would greatly appreciate it!

Answer 1

"Death, Be Not Proud"
by: John Donne

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, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Answer 2

[All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated]...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....

"No man is an island, entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less,
as well as if promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were.
Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind;
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

-John Donne, Meditation XVII from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions

the section of the above in the [ ] brackets makes its own good quotaion. I have long loved Donne's "No man is an island...

Note: a promontory is a cliff, especially one on and ocean of sea front which in time is eroded by wind and/or the water

Answer 3

"I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died" Emily Dickinson
LOL! That's the first that came to mind.

"Ode to a Grecian Urn" John Keats

Answer 4

Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost, could help