Famous Bitter Sweet Poems by Famous Poets

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Sonnet CXLII

by Francesco Petrarch

SONNET CXLII. Quando mi vene innanzi il tempo e 'l loco. RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY LOVE.  The time and scene where I a slave becameWhen I remember, and the knot so dearWhich Love's own hand so firmly fasten'd here,Which made my bitter sweet, my grief a game;My heart, with fuel stored, is,...Read more of this...

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Disguises

by Thomas Edward Brown

 High stretched upon the swinging yard, 
I gather in the sheet; 
But it is hard 
And stiff, and one cries haste. 
Then He that is most dear in my regard 
Of all the crew gives aidance meet; 
But from His hands, and from His feet, 
A glory spreads wherewith the night is starred: 
Moreover of a cup most bitter-sweet...Read more of this...

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Her Vision In The Wood

by William Butler Yeats

 Dry timber under that rich foliage,
At wine-dark midnight in the sacred wood,
Too old for a man's love I stood in rage
Imagining men. Imagining that I could
A greater with a lesser pang assuage
Or but to find if withered vein ran blood,
I tore my body that its wine might cover
Whatever could rccall the lip of lover.

And after that I held my...Read more of this...

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English Flavors

by Laure-Anne Bosselaar

  I love to lick English the way I licked the hard 
round licorice sticks the Belgian nuns gave me for six
good conduct points on Sundays after mass. 

 Love it when ‘plethora’, ‘indolence’, ‘damask’, 
or my new word: ‘lasciviousness,’ stain my tongue, 
thicken my saliva, sweet as those sticks — black

 and slick with every lick it took...Read more of this...

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On - On - Poet

by Aleister Crowley

 I to the open road,
You to the hunchbacked street -
Which of us two
Shall the earlier rue
That day we chanced to meet?


I with a heart that's sound,
You with sick fancies of pain -
Which of us two
Would the earlier rue
If we chanced to meet again?

I jingle homely lore,
While you rhyme is with kiss -
Which of us two
Will the earlier rue
The love...Read more of this...

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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...

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The Winter Scene

by Bliss Carman

 I
The rutted roads are all like iron; skies
Are keen and brilliant; only the oak-leaves cling
In the bare woods, or the hardy bitter-sweet;
Drivers have put their sheepskin jackets on;
And all the ponds are sealed with sheeted ice
That rings with stroke of skate and hockey-stick,
Or in the twilight cracks with running whoop.
Bring in the logs of oak and hickory,
And make an...Read more of this...

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Absence

by Amy Lowell

 My cup is empty to-night,
Cold and dry are its sides,
Chilled by the wind from the open window.
Empty and void, it sparkles white in the moonlight.
The room is filled with the strange scent
Of wistaria blossoms.
They sway in the moon's radiance
And tap against the wall.
But the cup of my heart is still,
And cold, and empty.
When you come, it brims
Red and trembling...Read more of this...

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Echo

by Christina Rossetti

 Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.

O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;
Where thirsting...Read more of this...

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Written Before Re-Reading King Lear

by John Keats

 O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute!
Fair plumed Syren! Queen of far away!
Leave melodizing on this wintry day,
Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute.
Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute
Betwixt damnation and impassioned clay
Must I burn through; once more humbly assay
The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit.
Chief Poet! and ye clouds of Albion,
Begetters of our deep eternal theme,
When through the...Read more of this...

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Canzone XVII

by Francesco Petrarch

CANZONE XVII. Di pensier in pensier, di monte in monte. DISTANCE AND SOLITUDE.  From hill to hill I roam, from thought to thought,With Love my guide; the beaten path I fly,For there in vain the tranquil life is sought:If 'mid the waste well forth a lonely rill,Or deep embosom'd a low...Read more of this...

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Sonnet: I said I splendidly loved you; its not true

by Rupert Brooke

 I said I splendidly loved you; it's not true.
Such long swift tides stir not a land-locked sea.
On gods or fools the high risk falls -- on you --
The clean clear bitter-sweet that's not for me.
Love soars from earth to ecstasies unwist.
Love is flung Lucifer-like from Heaven to Hell.
But -- there are wanderers in the middle mist,
Who cry for shadows,...Read more of this...

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To a Childless Woman

by Siegfried Sassoon

 You think I cannot understand. Ah, but I do... 
I have been wrung with anger and compassion for you. 
I wonder if you’d loathe my pity, if you knew. 

But you shall know. I’ve carried in my heart too long 
This secret burden. Has not silence wrought your wrong— 
Brought you to dumb and wintry middle-age, with grey 
Unfruitful...Read more of this...

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Elegy IV: The Perfume

by John Donne

 Once, and but once found in thy company,
All thy supposed escapes are laid on me;
And as a thief at bar is questioned there
By all the men that have been robed that year,
So am I (by this traiterous means surprized)
By thy hydroptic father catechized.
Though he had wont to search with glazed eyes,
As though he came to kill a cockatrice,
Though he...Read more of this...

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On Sitting Down To Read King Lear Once Again

by John Keats

 O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute!
 Fair plumed Syren! Queen of far away!
 Leave melodizing on this wintry day,
Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute:
Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute,
 Betwixt damnation and impassion'd clay
 Must I burn through; once more humbly assay
The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit.
Chief Poet! and ye clouds of Albion,
 Begetters of our...Read more of this...

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Sonnet CXL

by Francesco Petrarch

SONNET CXL. Mirando 'l sol de' begli occhi sereno. THE SWEETS AND BITTERS OF LOVE.  Marking of those bright eyes the sun sereneWhere reigneth Love, who mine obscures and grieves,My hopeless heart the weary spirit leavesOnce more to gain its paradise terrene;Then, finding full of bitter-sweet the scene,And in the...Read more of this...

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Sonnet LI

by Francesco Petrarch

[Pg 274] SONNET LI. I dì miei più leggier che nessun cervo. HIS PASSION FINDS ITS ONLY CONSOLATION IN CONTEMPLATING HER IN HEAVEN.  My days more swiftly than the forest hindHave fled like shadows, and no pleasure seenSave for a moment, and few hours serene,Whose bitter-sweet I treasure in...Read more of this...

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Sonnet LXXXIV

by Francesco Petrarch

SONNET LXXXIV. Morte ha spento quel Sol ch' abbagliar suolmi. WEARY OF LIFE, NOW THAT SHE IS NO LONGER WITH HIM, HE DEVOTES HIMSELF TO GOD.  Death has the bright sun quench'd which wont to burn;Her pure and constant eyes his dark realms hold:[Pg 314]She now is dust, who dealt...Read more of this...

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Ode To Silence

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

 Aye, but she?
Your other sister and my other soul
Grave Silence, lovelier
Than the three loveliest maidens, what of her?
Clio, not you,
Not you, Calliope,
Nor all your wanton line,
Not Beauty's perfect self shall comfort me
For Silence once departed,
For her the cool-tongued, her the tranquil-hearted,
Whom evermore I follow wistfully,
Wandering Heaven and Earth and Hell and the four seasons through;
Thalia, not you,
Not you, Melpomene,
Not...Read more of this...

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