Famous Comfortless Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Bluebeard

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 This door you might not open, and you did; 
 So enter now, and see for what slight thing 
You are betrayed... Here is no treasure hid, 
 No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring 
The sought-for truth, no heads of women slain 
 For greed like yours, no writhings of distress, 
But only what you see... Look yet again—
...Read more of this...

Full little knowest thou

by Mary Shelley
Full little knowest thou, that hast not tried,
What hell it is——
To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares,
To eat thy heart through comfortless despairs;
To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undone....Read more of this...

The Retired Cat

by William Cowper
 A poet's cat, sedate and grave
As poet well could wish to have,
Was much addicted to inquire
For nooks to which she might retire,
And where, secure as mouse in chink,
She might repose, or sit and think.
I know not where she caught the trick--
Nature perhaps herself had cast her
In such a mould [lang f]philosophique[lang e],
Or else she learn'd it of her master.
Sometimes...Read more of this...

Sonnet CLXXVIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CLXXVIII. S' una fede amorosa, un cor non finto. THE MISERY OF HIS LOVE.  If faith most true, a heart that cannot feign,If Love's sweet languishment and chasten'd thought,And wishes pure by nobler feelings taught,If in a labyrinth wanderings long and vain,If on the brow each pang pourtray'd to bear,Read more of this...

Now Returned Home

by Robinson Jeffers
 Beyond the narrows of the Inner Hebrides
We sailed the cold angry sea toward Barra, where Heaval mountain
Lifts like a mast. There were few people on the steamer, it was late in the
 year; I noticed most an old shepherd,
Two wise-eyed dogs wove anxious circles around his feet, and a thin-armed
 girl 
Who cherished what seemed a doll, wrapping it...Read more of this...

A Daughter of Eve

by Christina Rossetti
A fool I was to sleep at noon,
  And wake when night is chilly
Beneath the comfortless cold moon;
A fool to pluck my rose too soon,
  A fool to snap my lily.

My garden-plot I have not kept;
  Faded and all-forsaken,
I weep as I have never wept:
Oh it was summer when I slept,
  It's winter now I waken.

Talk...Read more of this...

Ode to Health

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Come, bright-eyed maid, 
Pure offspring of the tranquil mind,
Haste, my fev'rish temples bind
With olive wreaths of em'rald hue
Steep'd in morn's ethereal dew, 
Where in mild HELVETIA's shade, 
Blushing summer round her flings
Warm gales and sunny show'rs that hang upon her wings. 

I'll seek thee in ITALIA's bow'rs, 
Where supine on beds of flow'rs
Melody's soul-touching throng
Strike the soft lute or...Read more of this...

Beachcomber

by Robert William Service
 When I have come with happy heart to sixty years and ten,
I'll buy a boat and sail away upon a summer sea;
And in a little lonely isle that's far and far from men,
In peace and praise I'll spend the days the Gods allow to me.
For I am weary of a strife so pitiless and vain;
And in a far and...Read more of this...

My Own Heart Let Me Have More Have Pity On; Let

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 My own heart let me have more have pity on; let
Me live to my sad self hereafter kind,
Charitable; not live this tormented mind
With this tormented mind tormenting yet.
 I cast for comfort I can no more get
By groping round my comfortless, than blind
Eyes in their dark can day or thirst can find
Thirst 's all-in-all in all a world of...Read more of this...

Let Evening Come

by Jane Kenyon
 Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles 
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to...Read more of this...

The Future Peace and Glory of the Church

by William Cowper
 (Isaiah, ix. 15-20)

Hear what God the Lord hath spoken,
"O my people, faint and few,
Comfortless, afflicted, broken,
Fair abodes I build for you.
Thorns of heartfelt tribulation
Shall no more perplex your ways;
You shall name your walls, Salvation,
And your gates shall all be Praise.

"There, like streams that feed the garden,
Pleasures without end shall flow,
For the Lord, your faith rewarding,
All His bounty shall bestow;
Still...Read more of this...

Sleep In The Mojave Desert

by Sylvia Plath
 Out here there are no hearthstones,
Hot grains, simply. It is dry, dry.
And the air dangerous. Noonday acts queerly
On the mind's eye erecting a line
Of poplars in the middle distance, the only
Object beside the mad, straight road
One can remember men and houses by.
A cool wind should inhabit these leaves
And a dew collect on them, dearer than money,
In the blue hour...Read more of this...

104. The Lament

by Robert Burns
 O THOU pale orb that silent shines
 While care-untroubled mortals sleep!
Thou seest a wretch who inly pines.
 And wanders here to wail and weep!
 With woe I nightly vigils keep,
Beneath thy wan, unwarming beam;
 And mourn, in lamentation deep,
How life and love are all a dream!


I joyless view thy rays adorn
 The faintly-marked, distant hill;
I joyless view thy trembling...Read more of this...

I said, ‘Thou knowest, O all-knowing Friend

by Hafez
I said, ‘Thou knowest, O all-knowing Friend,
My trouble for thee’. He said ‘Speak not so:
Thy sorrow came; thy sorrow too shall go.’

I said, ‘O light of Truth, when wilt thou spend
Thy radiance?’ Answer heard I, ‘It may be
This will not alway be denied to thee.’

I said, ‘O Merciful, when wilt to me
Show mercy?’ He replied ‘Till that time is
Endure thou...Read more of this...

Sonnet 06: Bluebeard

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 This door you might not open, and you did;
 So enter now, and see for what slight thing
You are betrayed.... Here is no treasure hid
 No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring
The sought-for truth, no heads of women slain
 For greed like yours, no writhings of distress
But only what you see.... Look yet again—
 An empty room, cobwebbed and comfortless
Yet...Read more of this...

Sonnet 02

by Robert Southey
 Think Valentine, as speeding on thy way
Homeward thou hastest light of heart along,
If heavily creep on one little day
The medley crew of travellers among,
Think on thine absent friend: reflect that here
On Life's sad journey comfortless he roves,
Remote from every scene his heart holds dear,
From him he values, and from her he loves.
And when disgusted with the vain and dull
Whom...Read more of this...

At Home

by Christina Rossetti
 When I was dead, my spirit turned
To seek the much-frequented house:
I passed the door, and saw my friends
Feasting beneath green orange boughs;
From hand to hand they pushed the wine,
They sucked the pulp of plum and peach;
They sang, they jested, and they laughed,
For each was loved of each.

I listened to thier honest chat:
Said one: "To-morrow we shall be
Plod plod along...Read more of this...

They May Rail at this Life

by Thomas Moore
 They may rail at this life -- from the hour I began it 
I found it a life full of kindness and bliss; 
And, until they can show me some happier planet, 
More social and bright, I'll content me with this. 
As long as the world has such lips and such eyes 
As before me this moment enraptured I...Read more of this...

Mirage

by Christina Rossetti
 The hope I dreamed of was a dream,
Was but a dream; and now I wake,
Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old,
For a dream's sake.

I hang my harp upon a tree,
A weeping willow in a lake;
I hang my silent harp there, wrung and snapped
For a dream's sake.

Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart;
My silent heart, lie still and break:
Life, and the...Read more of this...

Ode On A Distant Prospect Of Eton College

by Thomas Gray
 Ye distant spires, ye antique towers,
That crown the watery glade,
Where grateful Science still adores
Her Henry's holy shade;
And ye, that from the stately brow
Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below
Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,
Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among
Wanders the hoary Thames along
His silver-winding way.

Ah happy hills, ah pleasing shade,
Ah fields beloved in vain,
Where once my careless childhood...Read more of this...

Rhymes for Gloriana

by Vachel Lindsay
 I. THE DOLL UPON THE TOPMOST BOUGH


This doll upon the topmost bough,
This playmate-gift, in Christmas dress,
Was taken down and brought to me
One sleety night most comfortless. 

Her hair was gold, her dolly-sash 
Was gray brocade, most good to see. 
The dear toy laughed, and I forgot 
The ill the new year promised me.


II. ON SUDDENLY RECEIVING A CURL LONG...Read more of this...

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