#imagine a breather chapter with that part about how the stars dim when they're near the brilliant moon

[macksting]

Some suggestions which may be obvious because my poetry knowledge is frankly shallow

Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea! And never a saint took pity on My soul in agony. The many men, so beautiful! And they all dead did lie: And a thousand thousand slimy things Lived on; and so did I. (honestly, lots of stuff in Rime Of The Ancient Mariner is good for this.) At risk of cribbing from Bradbury, there's always Sara Teasdale's And There Will Come Soft Rains: And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn, Would scarcely know that we were gone. It might be a bit much, but Wilfred Owen's Dulce Et Decorum Est is another classic choice: In all my dreams before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. (Again, lots of material, depending on what you want.) And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? (Second Coming, Yeats) He only looked upon the sun, And drank the morning air. (again, depending on what you're looking for, The Ballad Of Reading Gaol may have something useful. This seems like a good line about someone who continues despite having no hope remaining in the land of the dead. It's not as rife with them as the Mariner's tale, of course, with all its dead men who work the ropes and its great powers gambling and its stark, supernatural imagery. But the Ballad has a few along those lines too.) But hurriedly they took him out, And hid him in a hole. (Or, given zombie horror's preoccupation with post-apocalyptic humanity being cruel to humanity,) But this I know, that every Law That men have made for Man, Since first Man took his brother's life, And the sad world began, But straws the wheat and saves the chaff With a most evil fan.

Robert W. Service's The Cremation of Sam McGee has a fun tone for this, but no obvious banger lines; just potentially fun ones especially if your story isn't very serious. Or if your character is hauling a corpse around. “Do I deserve this? I suppose I must. I wouldn’t be here otherwise. Was there a moment when I actually chose this?" (Crusoe In England, Elizabeth Bishop, doubly fun source if your fanfic is very gay, and shouldn't it be?)

and if i am happy, it is because i have lost so much good, yet still remain human enough to know (if i am happy, Jules Rylan, from the collection gravecleaner)

putting my english literature degree to good use by, uh, pulling lines of gutwrenching poetry to title a zombie fic