Famous Bewail Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Birdcage Walk

by D. H. Lawrence
 When the wind blows her veil
And uncovers her laughter
I cease, I turn pale.
When the wind blows her veil
From the woes I bewail
Of love and hereafter:
When the wind blows her veil
I cease, I turn pale....Read more of this...

The Death of the Queen

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Alas! our noble and generous Queen Victoria is dead,
And I hope her soul to Heaven has fled,
To sing and rejoice with saints above,
Where ah is joy, peace, and love. 

'Twas on January 22, 1901, in the evening she died at 6.30 o'clock,
Which to the civilised world has been a great shock;
She was surrounded by her children and grandchildren dear,
And...Read more of this...

To a Lady and Her Children

by Phillis Wheatley
 O'erwhelming sorrow now demands my song:
From death the overwhelming sorrow sprung.
What flowing tears? What hearts with grief opprest?
What sighs on sighs heave the fond parent's breast?
The brother weeps, the hapless sisters join
Th' increasing woe, and swell the crystal brine;
The poor, who once his gen'rous bounty fed,
Droop, and bewail their benefactor dead.
In death the friend, the kind companion lies,
And in...Read more of this...

Milton: The Sky is an Immortal Tent Built by the Sons of Los

by William Blake
 The sky is an immortal tent built by the Sons of Los: 
And every space that a man views around his dwelling-place
Standing on his own roof or in his garden on a mount
Of twenty-five cubits in height, such space is his universe:
And on its verge the sun rises and sets, the clouds bow
To meet the flat earth and the...Read more of this...

To Ladies Of A Certain Age

by John Trumbull
 Ye ancient Maids, who ne'er must prove
The early joys of youth and love,
Whose names grim Fate (to whom 'twas given,
When marriages were made in heaven)
Survey'd with unrelenting scowl,
And struck them from the muster-roll;
Or set you by, in dismal sort,
For wintry bachelors to court;
Or doom'd to lead your faded lives,
Heirs to the joys of former wives;
Attend! nor fear in state...Read more of this...

Iambicum Trimetrum

by Edmund Spenser
 Unhappy verse, the witness of my unhappy state,
Make thy self flutt'ring wings of thy fast flying
Thought, and fly forth unto my love, wheresoever she be:
Whether lying restless in heavy bed, or else
Sitting so cheerless at the cheerful board, or else
Playing alone careless on her heavenly virginals.
If in bed, tell her, that my eyes can take no rest:
If at board,...Read more of this...

Epitaph On the Lady Mary Villiers

by Thomas Carew
 THE Lady Mary Villiers lies 
Under this stone; with weeping eyes 
The parents that first gave her birth, 
And their sad friends, laid her in earth. 
If any of them, Reader, were 
Known unto thee, shed a tear; 
Or if thyself possess a gem 
As dear to thee, as this to them, 
Though a stranger to this place, 
Bewail...Read more of this...

The Pilot

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 From the Past and Unavailing 
Out of cloudland we are steering: 
After groping, after fearing, 
Into starlight we come trailing, 
And we find the stars are true.
Still, O comrade, what of you? 
You are gone, but we are sailing, 
And the old ways are all new. 

For the Lost and Unreturning 
We have drifted, we have waited;
Uncommanded and unrated,...Read more of this...

A Tale of Christmas Eve

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas Christmastide in Germany,
And in the year of 1850,
And in the city of Berlin, which is most beautiful to the eye;
A poor boy was heard calling out to passers-by. 
"Who'll buy my pretty figures," loudly he did cry,
Plaster of Paris figures, but no one inclined to buy;
His clothes were thin and he was nearly frozen with cold,
And wholly starving...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXIV

by Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 253] SONNET XXIV. Gli occhi di ch' io parlai sì caldamente. HIS LYRE IS NOW ATTUNED ONLY TO WOE.  The eyes, the face, the limbs of heavenly mould,So long the theme of my impassion'd lay,Charms which so stole me from myself away,That strange to other men the course...Read more of this...

312. Elegy on the late Miss Burnet of Monboddo

by Robert Burns
 LIFE ne’er exulted in so rich a prize,
As Burnet, lovely from her native skies;
Nor envious death so triumph’d in a blow,
As that which laid th’ accomplish’d Burnet low.


Thy form and mind, sweet maid, can I forget?
 In richest ore the brightest jewel set!
In thee, high Heaven above was truest shown,
 As by His noblest work the Godhead best is...Read more of this...

Priest At The Serapeum

by Constantine P Cavafy
 My dear old father,
who always loved me the same;
my dear old father I lament
who died the day before yesterday, just before dawn.

Jesus Christ, it is my daily effort
to observe the precepts
of Thy most holy church in all my acts,
in all words, in all thoughts.
And all those who renounce Thee
I shun.-- But now I lament;
I bewail, Christ, for my father
although...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...

The Grasshopper

by Richard Lovelace
 O thou that swing'st upon the waving ear
Of some well-filled oaten beard,
Drunk ev'ry night with a delicious tear
Dropped thee from heav'n, where now th' art reared,

The joys of earth and air are thine entire,
That with thy feet and wings dost hop and fly;
And, when the poppy works, thou dost retire
To thy carved acorn-bed to lie.

Up with the day, the...Read more of this...

Mothers Day Proclamation

by Julia Ward Howe
 Arise then...women of this day! 
Arise, all women who have hearts! 
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears! 
Say firmly: 
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies, 
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, 
For caresses and applause. 
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn 
All that we have...Read more of this...

In Absence

by Sidney Lanier
 I.

The storm that snapped our fate's one ship in twain
Hath blown my half o' the wreck from thine apart.
O Love! O Love! across the gray-waved main
To thee-ward strain my eyes, my arms, my heart.
I ask my God if e'en in His sweet place,
Where, by one waving of a wistful wing,
My soul could straightway tremble face to face
With thee, with...Read more of this...

Bitter-Sweet

by George Herbert
 Ah, my dear angry Lord,
Since thou dost love, yet strike;
Cast down, yet help afford;
Sure I will do the like.

I will complain, yet praise;
I will bewail, approve;
And all my sour-sweet days
I will lament and love....Read more of this...

The Nithsdale Widow and Her Son

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in the year of 1746, on a fine summer afternoon,
When trees and flowers were in full bloom,
That widow Riddel sat knitting stockings on a little rustic seat,
Which her only son had made for her, which was very neat. 

The cottage she lived in was in the wilds of Nithsdale,
Where many a poor soul had cause to bewail
The loss...Read more of this...

To Laura In Death

by Francesco Petrarch
The eyes, the face, the limbs of heavenly mold,
So long the theme of my impassioned lay,
Charms which so stole me from myself away,
That strange to other men the course I hold;
The crisped locks of pure and lucid gold,
The lightning of the angelic smile, whose ray
To earth could all of paradise convey,
A little dust are now -- to feeling cold.
And yet...Read more of this...

The Sky is an Immortal Tent Built by the Sons of Los (from

by William Blake
 The sky is an immortal tent built by the Sons of Los: 
And every space that a man views around his dwelling-place
Standing on his own roof or in his garden on a mount
Of twenty-five cubits in height, such space is his universe:
And on its verge the sun rises and sets, the clouds bow
To meet the flat earth and the...Read more of this...

The Bard

by Thomas Gray
 Pindaric Ode

"Ruin seize thee, ruthless King!
Confusion on thy banners wait!
Tho' fanned by Conquest's crimson wing,
They mock the air with idle state.
Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail,
Nor e'en thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!"
Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride
Of the first Edward scattered wild dismay,
As down the...Read more of this...

The Demon Drink

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Oh, thou demon Drink, thou fell destroyer;
Thou curse of society, and its greatest annoyer.
What hast thou done to society, let me think?
I answer thou hast caused the most of ills, thou demon Drink. 

Thou causeth the mother to neglect her child,
Also the father to act as he were wild,
So that he neglects his loving wife and family dear,
By spending...Read more of this...

The Rattling Boy from Dublin

by William Topaz McGonagall
 I'm a rattling boy from Dublin town,
I courted a girl called Biddy Brown,
Her eyes they were as black as sloes,
She had black hair and an aquiline nose. 

Chorus --

Whack fal de da, fal de darelido,
Whack fal de da, fal de darelay,
Whack fal de da, fal de darelido,
Whack fal de da, fal de darelay. 

One night I met her with...Read more of this...

Another (II)

by Anne Bradstreet
 As loving hind that (hartless) wants her deer, 
Scuds through the woods and fern with hark'ning ear, 
Perplext, in every bush and nook doth pry, 
Her dearest deer, might answer ear or eye; 
So doth my anxious soul, which now doth miss 
A dearer dear (far dearer heart) than this. 
Still wait with doubts, and hopes, and failing eye,...Read more of this...

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