[Max Goodman]

I've stumbled on Harold Bloom's Till I End My Song: A Gathering of Last Poems. An imaginative basis for a gathering. "Some," Bloom tells us, "are literally the final poems these women and men composed. Others were intended to mark the end, though the poet survived a while longer and continued to work. A third group consists of poems that seem to me an imaginative conclusion to a poetic career."

I'm shocked not to find in the table of contents my favorite poem, one which qualifies on the third basis, possibly qualifies on the second, and doesn't fall far short of the first.

What poem(s) would you put into such a collection?

(The book was published 10 years ago, but we don't need to limit our discussion to poems that would have qualified at that time.)

[Orwn Acra]

Max, you can't not mention the poem you were shocked to not find!

[Max Goodman]

"Aubade" by Philip Larkin.

[Edmund Conti]

Time for that old chestnut:

"Have you read my last poem?"

"I hope so."

[Orwn Acra]

Opus Posthumous dates "Of Mere Being" to 1955, the year of Steven's death, and is likely the last complete poem he wrote. It is also one of his best, a perfect distillation of the themes that so intrigued him.

Of Mere Being

The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze decor,

A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.

You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.

The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down.

[Roger Slater]

Then, of course, The Tempest seems to be Shakespeare's valedictory "poem":

Our revels now are ended: These our actors—,
As I foretold you—, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind: we are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

And of course his final speech, where he turns to the audience and breaks down that fourth wall. I was in the front row of Shakespeare in the Park when Patrick Stewart did Prospero. He stood maybe ten feet in front of me and I believe he seemed to be addressing me directly as he said these words:

Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
And what strength I have's mine own,
Which is most faint: now, 'tis true,
I must be here confined by you,
Or sent to Naples. Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got
And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell
In this bare island by your spell;
But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands:
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
Let your indulgence set me free.

[Chris O'Carroll]

The Last Poet of the Village, Anton Yakovlev’s volume of Sergei Yesenin translations concludes with “Goodbye, my friend, goodbye”, which the poet is said to have written in his own blood shortly before hanging himself. That’s what I call some serious last poem cred.

https://ruverses.com/sergey-esenin/farewell/4389/

[Ann Drysdale]

Derek Jarman's Garden was the last book DJ wrote. Among a collection of diary entries and breathtaking photographs of him and his beloved garden is a fistful of poems that explain where he stood as he faced the end of his life. This is one of them:

Here at the sea’s edge
I have planted my dragon-toothed garden
to defend the porch,
steadfast warriors
against those who protest their impropriety
even to the end of the world.
A fathomless lethargy has swallowed me,
great waves of doubt broken me,
all my thoughts washed away.
The storms have blown salt tears,
burning my garden,
Gethsmane and Eden

[Jayne Osborn]

Oh, I have to mention one of my all-time favourites:

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

I've always loved Christina Rossetti's poem and have written a pastiche of it, to be read at my funeral... and which I read during my eulogy at John Whitworth's funeral... but I can't post that here on a GT thread, obviously.

And Philip Larkin's Aubade is just unutterably wonderful in this context, Max. Thank you for reminding me of it, as I haven't read it in a while.

Without being morbid about it, I think about my own mortality at some time every single day. (Well, there's no getting away from it, is there? )

Jayne

[Cally Conan-Davies]

All wonderful! Thank you.

I've been thinking about her a lot since the new huge biography. When she wrote this, her death was imminent. She wrote 'Edge' at the same time, which is equally great. Everything she could do, she did in 'Balloons'.

Balloons

Since Christmas they have lived with us,
Guileless and clear,
Oval soul-animals,
Taking up half the space,
Moving and rubbing on the silk

Invisible air drifts,
Giving a shriek and pop
When attacked, then scooting to rest, barely trembling.
Yellow cathead, blue fish —-
Such queer moons we live with

Instead of dead furniture!
Straw mats, white walls
And these traveling
Globes of thin air, red, green,
Delighting

The heart like wishes or free
Peacocks blessing
Old ground with a feather
Beaten in starry metals.
Your small

Brother is making
His balloon squeak like a cat.
Seeming to see
A funny pink world he might eat on the other side of it,
He bites,

Then sits
Back, fat jug
Contemplating a world clear as water.
A red
Shred in his little fist.

Sylvia Plath