Famous Affliction Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Affliction poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous affliction poems. These examples illustrate what a famous affliction poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Emily Dickinson
Severer Service of myself
I -- hastened to demand
To fill the awful Vacuum
Your life had left behind --
I worried Nature with my Wheels
When Hers had ceased to run --
When she had put away Her Work
My own had just begun.
I strove to weary Brain and Bone --
To harass to fatigue
The glittering Retinue of nerves --
Vitality to clog
To some dull comfort Those...Read more of this...
by
Matthew Prior
On his death-bed poor Lubin lies:
His spouse is in despair:
With frequent sobs, and mutual cries,
They both express their care.
A different cause, says Parson Sly,
The same effect may give:
Poor Lubin fears that he may die;
His wife, that he may live....Read more of this...
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
In those days the Evil Spirits,
All the Manitos of mischief,
Fearing Hiawatha's wisdom,
And his love for Chibiabos,
Jealous of their faithful friendship,
And their noble words and actions,
Made at length a league against them,
To molest them and destroy them.
Hiawatha, wise and wary,
Often said to Chibiabos,
"O my brother! do not leave me,
Lest the Evil Spirits harm you!"
Chibiabos, young and heedless,
Laughing shook his coal-black...Read more of this...
by
William Cowper
'Tis my happiness below
Not to live without the cross,
But the Saviour's power to know,
Sanctifying every loss;
Trials must and will befall;
But with humble faith to see
Love inscribed upon them all,
This is happiness to me.
God in Israel sows the seeds
Of affliction, pain, and toil;
These spring up and choke the weeds
Which would else o'erspread the soil:
Trials make the promise sweet,
Trials give new...Read more of this...
by
George Herbert
When thou didst entice to thee my heart,
I thought the service brave:
So many joys I writ down for my part,
Besides what I might have
Out of my stock of natural delights,
Augmented with thy gracious benefits.
I looked on thy furniture so fine,
And made it fine to me:
Thy glorious household-stuff did me entwine,
And 'tice me...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
I
"O Time, whence comes the Mother's moody look amid her labours,
As of one who all unwittingly has wounded where she loves?
Why weaves she not her world-webs to according lutes and tabors,
With nevermore this too remorseful air upon her face,
As of angel fallen from grace?"
II
- "Her look is but her...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
A nearness to Tremendousness --
An Agony procures --
Affliction ranges Boundlessness --
Vicinity to Laws
Contentment's quiet Suburb --
Affliction cannot stay
In Acres -- Its Location
Is Illocality --...Read more of this...
by
Lisel Mueller
Doctor, you say there are no haloes
around the streetlights in Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction.
I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don't see,
to learn that the line I called the...Read more of this...
by
William Cowper
Oh happy shades--to me unblest!
Friendly to peace, but not to me!
How ill the scene that offers rest,
And heart that cannot rest, agree!
This glassy stream, that spreading pine,
Those alders quiv'ring to the breeze,
Might sooth a soul less hurt than mine,
And please, if any thing could please.
But fix'd unalterable care
Foregoes not what she feels within,
Shows the same sadness ev'rywhere,
And slights the...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons --
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes --
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us --
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are --
None may teach it -- Any --
'Tis the Seal Despair --
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air --
When it comes, the Landscape listens --
Shadows -- hold their breath --
When it...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
THE MAIDEN.
I'VE seen him before me!
What rapture steals o'er me!
Oh heavenly sight!
He's coming to meet me;
Perplex'd, I retreat me,
With shame take to flight.
My mind seems to wander!
Ye rocks and trees yonder,
Conceal ye my rapture.
Conceal my delight!
THE YOUTH.
'Tis here I must find her,
'Twas here she enshrined her,
Here vanish'd from sight.
She came, as to meet me,
Then fearing to greet me,
With shame...Read more of this...
by
Edmund Spenser
An Elegy
SHE fell away in her first ages spring,
Whil'st yet her leafe was greene, and fresh her rinde,
And whil'st her braunch faire blossomes foorth did bring,
She fell away against all course of kinde.
For age to dye is right, but youth is wrong; 5
She fel away like fruit blowne downe with winde.
Weepe, Shepheard! weepe, to...Read more of this...
by
George (Lord) Byron
I
Our life is twofold; Sleep hath its own world,
A boundary between the things misnamed
Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world,
And a wide realm of wild reality,
And dreams in their development have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They take a weight from off waking toils,
They do divide our being;...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
Ere the seamer bore him Eastward, Sleary was engaged to marry
An attractive girl at Tunbridge, whom he called "my little Carrie."
Sleary's pay was very modest; Sleary was the other way.
Who can cook a two-plate dinner on eight poor rupees a day?
Long he pondered o'er the question in his scantly furnished quarters --
Then proposed to Minnie Boffkin, eldest of Judge...Read more of this...
by
George Herbert
Kill me not ev'ry day,
Thou Lord of life, since thy one death for me
Is more than all my deaths can be,
Though I in broken pay
Die over each hour of Methusalem's stay.
If all men's tears were let
Into one common sewer, sea, and brine;
What were they all, compar'd to thine?
Wherein if they were set,
They would discolour...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
He who has made the foundations of the world, the
wheel of the heavens, how He has crucified the heart of
man with affliction! How many ruby-colored lips has He
buried in this little globe of earth! How many locks of
hair perfumed with musk has He hidden in the bosom of
the dust!...Read more of this...
by
George Herbert
My heart did heave, and there came forth, 'O God'!
By that I knew that thou wast in the grief,
To guide and govern it to my relief,
Making a sceptre of the rod:
Hadst thou not had thy part,
Sure the unruly sigh had broke my heart.
But since thy breath gave me both life and shape,
Thou know'st...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
YE Irish lords, ye knights an’ squires,
Wha represent our brughs an’ shires,
An’ doucely manage our affairs
In parliament,
To you a simple poet’s pray’rs
Are humbly sent.
Alas! my roupit Muse is hearse!
Your Honours’ hearts wi’ grief ’twad pierce,
To see her sittin on her ****
Low i’ the dust,
And scriechinh out prosaic verse,
An like to brust!
Tell them wha hae the...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
So gay a Flower
Bereaves the Mind
As if it were a Woe --
Is Beauty an Affliction -- then?
Tradition ought to know --...Read more of this...
by
George Herbert
Broken in pieces all asunder,
Lord, hunt me not,
A thing forgot,
Once a poor creature, now a wonder,
A wonder tortur'd in the space
Betwixt this world and that of grace.
My thoughts are all a case of knives,
Wounding my heart
With scatter'd smart,
As wat'ring pots give flowers their lives.
Nothing their fury can control,
While they do wound and...Read more of this...
by
Michael Drayton
Eternal and all-working God, which wast
Before the world, whose frame by Thee was cast,
And beautified with beamful lamps above,
By thy great wisdom set how they should move
To guide the seasons, equally to all,
Which come and go as they do rise and fall.
My mighty Maker, O do thou infuse
Such life and spirit into my labouring Muse,
That I may sing (what...Read more of this...
by
Katherine Philips
My dear Antenor now give o're,
For my sake talk of Graves no more;
Death is not in our power to gain,
And is both wish'd and fear'd in vain
Let's be as angry as wee will,
Grief sooner may distract then kill,
And the unhappy often prove
Death is as coy a thing as Love.
Those whose own sword their death did give,
Afraid were or asham'd...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXXI. Piangete, donne, e con voi pianga Amore. ON THE DEATH OF CINO DA PISTOIA. Weep, beauteous damsels, and let Cupid weep,Of every region weep, ye lover train;He, who so skilfully attuned his strainTo your fond cause, is sunk in death's cold sleep!Such limits let not my affliction keep,As...Read more of this...
by
Richard Wilbur
It's not the case, though some might wish it so
Who from a window watch the blizzard blow
White riot through their branches vague and stark,
That they keep snug beneath their pelted bark.
They take affliction in until it jells
To crystal ice between their frozen cells,
And each of them is inwardly a vault
Of jewels rigorous and free of fault,
Unglimpsed until in May...Read more of this...
by
Edmund Spenser
SHE fell away in her first ages spring,
Whil'st yet her leafe was greene, and fresh her rinde,
And whil'st her braunch faire blossomes foorth did bring,
She fell away against all course of kinde.
For age to dye is right, but youth is wrong;
She fel away like fruit blowne downe with winde.
Weepe, Shepheard! weepe, to make...Read more of this...
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