Lyric Poem · Death & Loss
Death, To The Dead For Evermore
1DEATH, to the dead for evermore
2A King, a God, the last, the best of friends -
3Whene'er this mortal journey ends
4Death, like a host, comes smiling to the door;
5Smiling, he greets us, on that tranquil shore
6Where neither piping bird nor peeping dawn
7Disturbs the eternal sleep,
8But in the stillness far withdrawn
9Our dreamless rest for evermore we keep.
10For as from open windows forth we peep
11Upon the night-time star beset
12And with dews for ever wet;
13So from this garish life the spirit peers;
14And lo! as a sleeping city death outspread,
15Where breathe the sleepers evenly; and lo!
16After the loud wars, triumphs, trumpets, tears
17And clamour of man's passion, Death appears,
18And we must rise and go.
19Soon are eyes tired with sunshine; soon the ears
20Weary of utterance, seeing all is said;
21Soon, racked by hopes and fears,
22The all-pondering, all-contriving head,
23Weary with all things, wearies of the years;
24And our sad spirits turn toward the dead;
25And the tired child, the body, longs for bed.
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“Death, To The Dead For Evermore” by Robert Louis Stevenson — quilloak.com/poems/death-to-the-dead-for-evermore
Quick facts
- Poem
- Death, To The Dead For Evermore
- Poet
- Robert Louis Stevenson
- Length
- 25 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Death & Loss, Nature, Sad
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 25 lines · 3 stanzas of 7–9 lines
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Robert Louis Stevenson1850–1894
- Source record
- PoetryDBDeath, To The Dead For Evermore by robert-louis-stevenson, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 6e9db61496843159…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.