Famous And Sad Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous And Sad poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous and sad poems. These examples illustrate what a famous and sad poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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With going to and fro in this sad vale

by Omar Khayyam
With going to and fro in this sad vale
Thou art grown double, and thy credit stale,
Thy nails are thickened like a horse's hoof,
Thy beard is ragged as an ass's tail....Read more of this...

The Sad Day

by Thomas Flatman
 O THE sad day!
When friends shall shake their heads, and say
Of miserable me--
'Hark, how he groans!
Look, how he pants for breath!
See how he struggles with the pangs of death!'
When they shall say of these dear eyes--
'How hollow, O how dim they be!
Mark how his breast doth rise and swell
Against his potent enemy!'
When some old friend shall step to my...Read more of this...

Sad-Eyed and Soft and Grey

by William Morris
 Sad-Eyed and soft and grey thou art, o morn!
Across the long grass of the marshy plain
Thy west wind whispers of the coming rain,
Thy lark forgets that May is grown forlorn
Above the lush blades of the springing corn,
Thy thrush within the high elms strives in vain
To store up tales of spring for summer's pain -
Vain day, why wert thou from...Read more of this...

The Sad Mother

by Gabriela Mistral
 Sleep, sleep, my beloved,
without worry, without fear,
although my soul does not sleep,
although I do not rest.

Sleep, sleep, and in the night
may your whispers be softer
than a leaf of grass,
or the silken fleece of lambs.

May my flesh slumber in you,
my worry, my trembling.
In you, may my eyes close
and my heart sleep....Read more of this...

My Sad Captains

by Thom Gunn
 One by one they appear in
the darkness: a few friends, and
a few with historical 
names. How late they start to shine!
but before they fade they stand
perfectly embodied, all

the past lapping them like a 
cloak of chaos. They were men
who, I thought, lived only to
renew the wasteful force they
spent with each hot convulsion.
They remind me, distant now.

True, they are not...Read more of this...

Quoth fish to duck, Twill be a sad affair,

by Omar Khayyam
Quoth fish to duck, «Twill be a sad affair,
If this brook leaves its channel dry and bare»;
To whom the duck, «When I am dead and roasted
The brook may run with wine for aught I care.»...Read more of this...

Sonnet III: With how sad steps

by Sir Philip Sidney
 With how sad steps, O moon, thou climb'st the skies!
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What! may it be that even in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case:
I read it in thy looks; thy languished grace
To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then,...Read more of this...

I should not dare to be so sad

by Emily Dickinson
 I should not dare to be so sad
So many Years again --
A Load is first impossible
When we have put it down --

The Superhuman then withdraws
And we who never saw
The Giant at the other side
Begin to perish now....Read more of this...

The Sad Message

by Russell Edson
 The Captain becomes moody at sea. He's
afraid of water; such bully amounts that prove the
seas. . . 

 A glass of water is one thing. A man easily downs
it, capturing its menace in his bladder; pissing it
away. A few drops of rain do little harm, save to
remind of how grief looks upon the cheek. 

 One day the water...Read more of this...

In Memoriam A. H. H.: 121. Sad Hesper oer the buried sun

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Sad Hesper o'er the buried sun
And ready, thou, to die with him,
Thou watchest all things ever dim
And dimmer, and a glory done:
The team is loosen'd from the wain,
The boat is drawn upon the shore;
Thou listenest to the closing door,
And life is darken'd in the brain.
Bright Phosphor, fresher for the night,
By thee the world's great work is heard
Beginning, and the...Read more of this...

Mi Musa Triste (My Sad Muse)

by Delmira Agustini
SpanishVagos preludios. En la noche espléndidaSu voz de perlas una fuente calla,Cuelgan las brisas sus celestes pifanosEn el follaje. Las cabezas pardasDe los búhos acechan.Las flores se abren más, como asombradas.Los cisnes de marfil tienden los cuellosEn las lagunas pálidas.Selene mira del azul. Las frondasTiemblan… y todo! hasta el silencio, calla…Es que ella pasa con su boca tristeY el gran...Read more of this...

And ask ye why these sad tears stream?

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 ‘Te somnia nostra reducunt.’
OVID.

And ask ye why these sad tears stream?
Why these wan eyes are dim with weeping?
I had a dream–a lovely dream,
Of her that in the grave is sleeping.

I saw her as ’twas yesterday,
The bloom upon her cheek still glowing;
And round her play’d a golden ray,
And on her brows were gay flowers blowing.

With angel-hand she swept a lyre,
A...Read more of this...

To The Sad Moon

by Sir Philip Sidney
 With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies!
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What! May it be that even in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case:
I read it in thy looks; thy languished grace
To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then,...Read more of this...

The Sad Shepherd

by William Butler Yeats
 There was a man whom Sorrow named his Friend,
And he, of his high comrade Sorrow dreaming,
Went walking with slow steps along the gleaming
And humming Sands, where windy surges wend:
And he called loudly to the stars to bend
From their pale thrones and comfort him, but they
Among themselves laugh on and sing alway:
And then the man whom Sorrow named his friend
Cried...Read more of this...

A Sad Child

by Margaret Atwood
 You're sad because you're sad.
It's psychic. It's the age. It's chemical.
Go see a shrink or take a pill,
or hug your sadness like an eyeless doll
you need to sleep.

Well, all children are sad
but some get over it.
Count your blessings. Better than that,
buy a hat. Buy a coat or pet.
Take up dancing to forget.

Forget what?
Your sadness, your shadow,
whatever it was that...Read more of this...

The Lacking Sense Scene.--A sad-coloured landscape Waddon Vale

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...

Good. I have done. My heart weighs. I am sad

by Fernando Pessoa
Good. I have done. My heart weighs. I am sad.

The outer day, void statue of lit blue,

Is altogether outward, other, glad

At mere being not-I (so my aches construe).

I, that have failed in everything, bewail

Nothing this hour but that I have bewailed,

For in the general fate what is't to fail?

Why, fate being past for Fate, 'tis but to have failed.

Whatever hap-or...Read more of this...

Languid And Sad And Slow From Day To Day

by William Lisle Bowles
 Languid, and sad, and slow, from day to day 
I journey on, yet pensive turn to view 
(Where the rich landscape gleams with softer hue) 
The streams and vales, and hills, that steal away. 
So fares it with the children of the earth: 
For when life's goodly prospect opens round, 
Their spirits beat to tread that fairy ground, 
Where...Read more of this...

Home Is So Sad

by Philip Larkin
 Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped in the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft.

And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how...Read more of this...

A Sad State Of Freedom

by Nazim Hikmet
 You waste the attention of your eyes, 
the glittering labour of your hands, 
and knead the dough enough for dozens of loaves 
of which you'll taste not a morsel; 
you are free to slave for others-- 
you are free to make the rich richer. 

The moment you're born 
they plant around you 
mills that grind lies 
lies to last...Read more of this...

For A Sad Lady

by Dorothy Parker
 And let her loves, when she is dead,
Write this above her bones:
"No more she lives to give us bread
Who asked her only stones."...Read more of this...

Phantasmagoria CANTO VII ( Sad Souvenaunce )

by Lewis Carroll
 "WHAT'S this?" I pondered. "Have I slept? 
Or can I have been drinking?" 
But soon a gentler feeling crept 
Upon me, and I sat and wept 
An hour or so, like winking. 

"No need for Bones to hurry so!" 
I sobbed. "In fact, I doubt 
If it was worth his while to go - 
And who is Tibbs, I'd...Read more of this...

In My Own Shire If I Was Sad

by A E Housman
 In my own shire, if I was sad, 
Homely comforters I had: 
The earth, because my heart was sore, 
Sorrowed for the son she bore; 
And standing hills, long to remain, 
Shared their short-lived comrade's pain. 
And bound for the same bourn as I, 
On every road I wandered by, 
Trod beside me, close and dear, 
The beautiful and...Read more of this...

A Fairly Sad Tale

by Dorothy Parker
 I think that I shall never know
Why I am thus, and I am so.
Around me, other girls inspire
In men the rush and roar of fire,
The sweet transparency of glass,
The tenderness of April grass,
The durability of granite;
But me- I don't know how to plan it.
The lads I've met in Cupid's deadlock
Were- shall we say?- born out of wedlock.
They broke my...Read more of this...

O heart! since this world makes you sad, since souls

by Omar Khayyam
O heart! since this world makes you sad, since souls
so pure must leave the tenement of clay, go, sit upon
the verdure of the field sometimes, ere verdure springs
in turn from your own dust.
297...Read more of this...

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