Poetry of th Lung- of the Vital and Failing Breath
| Name of Poem and Poet | Comment / Interpretation |
| When I have fears that I may cease to be
by John Keats |
Keats, who was a medical student and died of tuberculosis (a lung disease), wrote this poem confronting his own mortality. It’s a profound expression of the fear that sickness will cut his breath short, ending his life before he can achieve his goals. The poem is saturated with the anxiety of running out of time and breathing.
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| I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –
by Emily Dickinson |
This poem captures the precise moment of death—the cessation of breath. The room is still, the mourners have “wrung… dry” their tears, and the speaker is signing away their last worldly possessions. The final act of breathing fails, and the “windows” (eyes) close, marking the body’s final sickness and failure.
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| Song of Myself,
by Walt Whitman |
This is a celebration of the “vital spirit” of breath. Whitman revels in the simple, physical act of breathing, writing, “My respiration and inspiration… the passing of blood and air through my lungs.” For him, the “common air” is a democratic, divine force that connects him to all of nature and humanity.
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| Full Fathom Five Thy Father Lies
by William Shakespeare |
This song from The Tempest is a magical interpretation of drowning. It transforms the physical horror of drowning (lungs filling with water, the end of breath) into a mystical, sea-change. The body doesn’t decay from sickness but is remade into something “rich and strange,” with coral bones and pearl eyes.
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| Annabel Lee
by Edgar Allan Poe |
This poem frames a fatal sickness as a supernatural event. The narrator blames a “wind” (a cold, malign breath of air) for “chilling / And killing” his love. This “chilling” evokes the real-world symptoms of pneumonia or tuberculosis, which were often attributed to “bad air” or a “chill.”
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| Death, be not proud
by John Donne |
This poem is a direct challenge to “Death,” the ultimate consequence of sickness. Donne argues that “poison, war, and sickness” are just death’s servants and that the final “sleep” is not an end. It’s a defiant stand against the power of fatal illnesses that take our breath away.
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