Saluting, lamenting and honoring the dead are the poet's primal tasts in all ages. Whether it be Ben Jonson pining for his son, Keats and Rilke envisaging their own demise, Wilfred Owen commemorating comrades in war, or Homer's Odysseus grieving over his dog--all give expression to the universal need for mourning. But mourning has many forms and moods, and this collection explores them all, from Tennyson's black grief to Whitman's radiant melancholy, from Hardy's despair to Rochester's humor, from Sassoon's anger to Christina Rossetti's tender resignation.