Saluting, lamenting and honouring the dead are the poet’s primal tasks in all ages. Whether it be Homer’s Odysseus grieving over his dog, Ben Jonson pining for his son, Keats and Rilke envisaging their own demise or Wilfred Owen commemorating comrades in war – 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 humour, from Sassoon’s anger to Christina Rossetti’s resignation.