Poems About Endings

Table of Contents

All's well that ends well.

– William Shakespeare
All's Well That Ends Well

“

1. Ending

   by Emily Dickinson

   That is solemn we have ended, —
   Be it but a play,
   Or a glee among the garrets,
   Or a holiday,
   

   Or a leaving home; or later,
   Parting with a world
   We have understood, for better
   Still it be unfurled.
   

2. The Day is Done

   by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

   
   

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   The day is done, and the darkness
   Falls from the wings of Night,
   As a feather is wafted downward
   From an eagle in his flight.
   

   I see the lights of the village
   Gleam through the rain and the mist,
   And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
   That my soul cannot resist:
   

   A feeling of sadness and longing,
   That is not akin to pain,
   And resembles sorrow only
   As the mist resembles the rain.
   

   Come, read to me some poem,
   Some simple and heartfelt lay,
   That shall soothe this restless feeling,
   And banish the thoughts of day.
   

   Not from the grand old masters,
   Not from the bards sublime,
   Whose distant footsteps echo
   Through the corridors of Time.
   

   For, like strains of martial music,
   Their mighty thoughts suggest
   Life's endless toil and endeavor;
   And to-night I long for rest.
   

   Read from some humbler poet,
   Whose songs gushed from his heart,
   As showers from the clouds of summer,
   Or tears from the eyelids start;
   

   Who, through long days of labor,
   And nights devoid of ease,
   Still heard in his soul the music
   Of wonderful melodies.
   

   Such songs have power to quiet
   The restless pulse of care,
   And come like the benediction
   That follows after prayer.
   

   Then read from the treasured volume
   The poem of thy choice,
   And lend to the rhyme of the poet
   The beauty of thy voice.
   

   And the night shall be filled with music,
   And the cares, that infest the day,
   Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
   And as silently steal away.
   

3. The Old Mill by the River

   by Isaac McLellan

   
   

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   Here in the years when life was bright
   With dewy mornings and sunset light,
   In the pleasant season of leafy June,
   In each idle, holiday afternoon
   I lov'd to wander with willow wand—
   I lov'd on the river border to stand
   And take the trout or the yellow bream
   That leap'd, that glanc'd athwart the stream.
   

   With broken window, with hingeless door,
   Thro' which the slanting sunbeams pour;
   With leaning gable, and settling wall,
   O'er which the draperied ivies fall;
   With rafter moldy, worm-eaten beam,
   O'er which the silken cobwebs stream,
   Fast by the river-banks serene
   The old forsaken mill is seen.
   Its roof shows many a chasm and rent,
   Its creaking vane is crack'd and bent,
   In and out the swallows fly
   Under the eaves their dwellings lie.
   The leather-wing'd bats, when day is dim,
   Thro' vacant rooms and granaries skim;
   Its shingles that ages ago were new,
   Splendid with painters' lavish hue,
   Are faded now and swing in the gale,
   Scarce held by the loosen'd rusty nail;
   The clapboards rattle and clank amain
   In gusts of the snow-fall and the rain,
   For the dust of many a lapsing year
   Hath writ its wasteful chronicle here.
   The dam o'er which the waters pour
   Is settling and crumbling by the shore;
   The slippery logs and mossy stone
   Yield to the current one by one;
   And swift thro' many a rent abyss
   The spouting rivulets foam and hiss,
   And soon must the crazy fabric decay,
   And the torrent sweep uncheck'd away.
   The water-wheel so black and vast,
   With beam like a battle-vessel's mast
   That once would churn with mighty sweep
   The boiling waters so dark and deep,
   Lies now a wreck in humbled pride,
   Trembling with each assault of the tide.
   Under the crumbling, blacken'd wheel
   The crystal bubbles circle and reel;
   Over and under the eddies boil
   Round molder'd timber and rotting post;
   In many a circling ripple they coil
   In sudden plunge, in wild turmoil,
   Now seen an instant, then quickly lost.
   

4. The Deserted Cabin

   by Ruby Archer

   Lone, it lingers on the mountain
   With no sign or sound of life;
   No sweet, happy, household cadence,
   Laugh of child or song of wife.
   How it stares adown the valley
   With those hard and hollow eyes,
   As if waiting, empty-hearted,
   Hopeless, for some sweet surprise.
   All the doors have broken hinges,
   Rails have fallen from the fence;
   High the dove-cote leans, abandoned,
   Lonely birds have wandered hence.
   Mosses creep through every crevice,
   Sunshine bars the vacant floor,
   And a yellow ox-eyed daisy
   Peeps in wonder through the door.
   Yonder windmill turning, turning,
   In the old accustomed way,
   Feels a sympathy in moving
   With the winds that sigh alway:
   "We have lost the waving tresses
   Of a little golden head.
   We can find no touch responsive.—
   All but memory is dead."
   

5. The Passing of the Cabin

   by Horace Dumont Herr

   
   

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   The little log cabin
   In the edge of the wood
   Stands lone and forsaken
   Thro' sunshine and flood.
   

   The oaks throw their shadows,
   And the cottonwoods too,
   Upon the old roof-boards,
   And rains filter through.
   

   The fox-squirrel climbs o'er it,
   And he gnaws there his nut;
   There oft the quail perches,
   And whistles his note.
   

   There saucy woodpeckers
   With their hammers o£t beat
   On logs old and wormy,
   Then crow and retreat.
   

   The window is boarded,
   And the chinking drops out;
   Nailed up is the fireplace,
   And weeds grow about.
   

   The door with its latch-string
   From its wood-hinge is torn,
   On hinges of metal
   Another is borne.
   

   Near by is a railway,
   And behind is a road;
   But fronts to the forest
   This hut of the wood.
   

   The cabin is haunted.
   But be free of your fears,
   'Tis haunted with visions
   Of brave pioneers.
   

   Draw near this log temple,
   Open softly its door;
   Hang wasp-nests above you,
   Old traps crowd the floor.
   

   A shell that's left stranded
   By an outgoing tide,
   Stands mutely the cabin
   The clearing beside.
   

   Without and within it
   Are the marks of decay;
   The hut, like its master,
   Is passing away.
   

   The rays of the morning
   The woods veil away,
   But sunset glows o'er it
   At close of the day.
   

6. The Abandoned Farm

   by Charles A. Heath

   
   

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   There is somebody's home which is vacant today,
   All abandoned and lonely it stood,
   Over back on" the road at the head of the bay,
   Where a farm was cut out in the wood.
   

   There was hope in some heart and a gleam in some eye,
   As he chopped and he built and he cleared;
   Then the cut-over land soon was waving with rye,
   And abundant ripe harvests appeared.
   

   From his labor's award he erected his barns
   And a home where was plenty to eat,
   While his wife knit the wool from the softest of yarns
   And their lot was there truly complete.
   

   There I passed but today and the place was all bare.
   Not a lad nor a lassie was seen.
   The abandoned old home was a home of despair,
   And the weeds hid the porch with a screen.
   

   There I listened the while as a story was told
   By the shuttered old windows and shed,
   That there came from the city the lure of its gold,
   And the hopes on a farm all had fled.
   

7. Afternoon in February

   by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

   
   

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   The day is ending,
   The night is descending;
   The marsh is frozen,
   The river dead.
   

   Through clouds like ashes
   The red sun flashes
   On village windows
   That glimmer red.
   

   The snow recommences;
   The buried fences
   Mark no longer
   The road o'er the plain;
   

   While through the meadows,
   Like fearful shadows,
   Slowly passes
   A funeral train.
   

   The bell is pealing,
   And every feeling
   Within me responds
   To the dismal knell;
   

   Shadows are trailing,
   My heart is bewailing
   And tolling within
   Like a funeral bell.
   

8. Victory Bells

   by Grace Hazard Conkling

   (November 11, 1918)

   I heard the bells across the trees,
   I heard them ride the plunging breeze
   Above the roofs from tower and spire.
   And they were leaping like a fire,
   And they were shining like a stream
   With sun to make its music gleam.
   Deep tones as though the thunder tolled,
   Cool voices thin as tinkling gold,
   They shook the spangled autumn down
   From out the tree-tops of the town;
   They left great furrows in the air
   And made a clangor everywhere
   As of metallic wings. They flew
   Aloft in spirals to the blue
   Tall tent of heaven and disappeared.
   And others, swift as though they feared
   The people might not heed their cry
   Went shouting VICTORY up the sky.
   They did not say that war is done,
   Only that glory has begun
   Like sunrise, and the coming day
   Will burn the clouds of war away.
   There will be time for dreams again,
   And home-coming for weary men.

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