Famous Cheerless Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Cheerless poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous cheerless poems. These examples illustrate what a famous cheerless poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
William Lisle Bowles
AS slowly wanders thy forsaken stream,
Wenbeck! the mossy-scatter'd rocks among,
In fancy's ear still making plaintive song
To the dark woods above: ah! sure I seem
To meet some friendly Genius in the gloom,
And in each breeze a pitying voice I hear
Like sorrow's sighs upon misfortune's tomb.
Ah! soothing are your quiet scenes -- the tear...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Edward Brown
To-night I saw three maidens on the beach,
Dark-robed descending to the sea,
So slow, so silent of all speech,
And visible to me
Only by that strange drift-light, dim, forlorn,
Of the sun's wreck and clashing surges born.
Each after other went,
And they were gathered to his breast--
It seemed to me a sacrament
Of some stern creed unblest:
As when to rocks, that cheerless girt the...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
CHILD, when they say that others
Have been or are like you,
Babes fit to be your brothers,
Sweet human drops of dew,
Bright fruit of mortal mothers,
What should one say or do?
We know the thought is treason,
We feel the dream absurd;
A claim rebuked of reason,
That withers at a word:
For never shone the season
That bore so blithe a bird.
Some smiles may seem as...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
Kind Christians, pray list to me,
And I'll relate a sad story,
Concerning a little blind girl, only nine years of age,
Who lived with her father in a lonely cottage.
Poor girl, she had never seen the blessed light of day,
Nor the beautiful fields of corn and hay,
Nor the sparrows, that lifted their heads at early morn
To bright Sol that does...Read more of this...
by
Alan Seeger
Not that I always struck the proper mean
Of what mankind must give for what they gain,
But, when I think of those whom dull routine
And the pursuit of cheerless toil enchain,
Who from their desk-chairs seeing a summer cloud
Race through blue heaven on its joyful course
Sigh sometimes for a life less cramped and bowed,
I...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Oui, le bonheur bien vite a passé.")
{Bk. V. ii., February, 1821.}
Yes, Happiness hath left me soon behind!
Alas! we all pursue its steps! and when
We've sunk to rest within its arms entwined,
Like the Phoenician virgin, wake, and find
Ourselves alone again.
Then, through the distant future's...Read more of this...
by
William Lisle Bowles
O POVERTY! though from thy haggard eye,
Thy cheerless mein, of every charm bereft,
Thy brow, that hope's last traces long have left,
Vain Fortune's feeble sons with terror fly;
Thy rugged paths with pleasure I attend; --
For Fancy, that with fairest dreams can bless;
And Patience, in the Pall of Wretchedness,
Sad-smiling, as the ruthless storms descend;...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
Out in the grey cheerless chill of the morning light,
Out on the track where the night shades still lurk,
ere the first gleam of the sungod's returning light
Round come the racehorses early at work.
Reefing and pulling and racing so readily,
Close sit the jockey-boys holding them hard,
"Steady the stallion there -- canter him steadily,
Don't...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
You bid me hold my peace
And dry my fruitless tears,
Forgetting that I bear
A pain beyond my years.
You say that I should smile
And drive the gloom away;
I would, but sun and smiles
[Pg 287]Have left my life's dark day.
All time seems cold and void,
And naught but tears remain;
Life's music beats for me
A melancholy strain.
I used at first to hope,
But hope...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
RAVING winds around her blowing,
Yellow leaves the woodlands strowing,
By a river hoarsely roaring,
Isabella stray’d deploring—
“Farewell, hours that late did measure
Sunshine days of joy and pleasure;
Hail, thou gloomy night of sorrow,
Cheerless night that knows no morrow!
“O’er the past too fondly wandering,
On the hopeless future pondering;
Chilly grief my life-blood freezes,
Fell despair my fancy seizes.
“Life, thou soul of every blessing,
Load to misery...Read more of this...
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 every vale sounds to the pipe of...Read more of this...
by
George (Lord) Byron
I would I were a careless child,
Still dwelling in my highland cave,
Or roaming through the dusky wild,
Or bounding o'er the dark blue wave;
The cumbrous pomp of Saxon pride
Accords not with the freeborn soul,
Which loves the mountain's craggy side,
And seeks the rocks where billows roll.
Fortune! take back these cultured lands,
Take back this...Read more of this...
by
Anne Bronte
Why should such gloomy silence reign;
And why is all the house so drear,
When neither danger, sickness, pain,
Nor death, nor want have entered here?
We are as many as we were
That other night, when all were gay,
And full of hope, and free from care;
Yet, is there something gone away.
The moon without as pure and calm
Is shining as that night she...Read more of this...
by
Claude McKay
The Dawn! The Dawn! The crimson-tinted, comes
Out of the low still skies, over the hills,
Manhattan's roofs and spires and cheerless domes!
The Dawn! My spirit to its spirit thrills.
Almost the mighty city is asleep,
No pushing crowd, no tramping, tramping feet.
But here and there a few cars groaning creep
Along, above, and underneath the street,...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
OLD Winter, with his frosty beard,
Thus once to Jove his prayer preferred:
“What have I done of all the year,
To bear this hated doom severe?
My cheerless suns no pleasure know;
Night’s horrid car drags, dreary slow;
My dismal months no joys are crowning,
But spleeny English hanging, drowning.
“Now Jove, for once be mighty civil.
To counterbalance all this evil;
Give me, and I’ve no more...Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
The rain set early in tonight,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake:
I listened with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
SLEEP’ST thou, or wak’st thou, fairest creature?
Rosy morn now lifts his eye,
Numbering ilka bud which Nature
Waters wi’ the tears o’ joy.
Now, to the streaming fountain,
Or up the heathy mountain,
The hart, hind, and roe, freely, wildly-wanton stray;
In twining hazel bowers,
Its lay the linnet pours,
The laverock to the sky
Ascends, wi’ sangs o’ joy,
While...Read more of this...
by
John Greenleaf Whittier
The sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming less than threat,
It sank from sight before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein,...Read more of this...
by
William Lisle Bowles
O, Poverty! though from thy haggard eye,
Thy cheerless mien, of every charm bereft,
Thy brow that Hope's last traces long have left,
Vain Fortune's feeble sons with terror fly;
I love thy solitary haunts to seek.
For Pity, reckless of her own distress;
And Patience, in her pall of wretchedness,
That turns to the bleak storm her faded cheek;
And Piety, that never told her wrong;
And...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LII. Sente l' aura mia antica, e i dolci colli. HE REVISITS VAUCLUSE. I feel the well-known gale; the hills I spySo pleasant, whence my fair her being drew,Which made these eyes, while Heaven was willing, shewWishful, and gay; now sad, and never dry.[Pg 275]O feeble hopes!...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXVII. Lasciato hai, Morte, senza sole il mondo. HER TRUE WORTH WAS KNOWN ONLY TO HIM AND TO HEAVEN. Death, thou the world, since that dire arrow sped,Sunless and cold hast left; Love weak and blind;Beauty and grace their brilliance have resign'd,And from my heavy heart all joy is fled;Honour...Read more of this...
by
Claude McKay
At first you'll joy to see the playful snow,
Like white moths trembling on the tropic air,
Or waters of the hills that softly flow
Gracefully falling down a shining stair.
And when the fields and streets are covered white
And the wind-worried void is chilly, raw,
Or underneath a spell of heat and light
The cheerless frozen spots...Read more of this...
by
Anne Bronte
Severed and gone, so many years!
And art thou still so dear to me,
That throbbing heart and burning tears
Can witness how I cling to thee?
I know that in the narrow tomb
The form I loved was buried deep,
And left, in silence and in gloom,
To slumber out its dreamless sleep.
I know the corner where it lies,
Is but a dreary place...Read more of this...
by
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Strike, churl; hurl, cheerless wind, then; heltering hail
May’s beauty massacre and wisp?d wild clouds grow
Out on the giant air; tell Summer No,
Bid joy back, have at the harvest, keep Hope pale....Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
AGAIN rejoicing Nature sees
Her robe assume its vernal hues:
Her leafy locks wave in the breeze,
All freshly steep’d in morning dews.
Chorus.—And maun I still on Menie doat,
And bear the scorn that’s in her e’e?
For it’s jet, jet black, an’ it’s like a hawk,
An’ it winna let a body be.
In vain to me the cowslips...Read more of this...
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