Famous Distressed Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Distressed poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous distressed poems. These examples illustrate what a famous distressed poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...wind will listen. And the bones sang chirping
With the burden of the grasshopper, saying
Lady of silences
Calm and distressed
Torn and most whole
Rose of memory
Rose of forgetfulness
Exhausted and life-giving
Worried reposeful
The single Rose
Is now the Garden
Where all loves end
Terminate torment
Of love unsatisfied
The greater torment
Of love satisfied
End of the endless
Journey to no end
Conclusion of all that
Is inconclusible
Speech without word and
Word of no speech...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...Thy clemency, whose wilfulness innate
Has gone uncurbed and roughshod while the years
Have lengthened into decades; now distressed
He knows no rule by which to move or stay,
And teased with restlessness and desperate fears
He dares not watch in silence thy wise way
Bringing about results none could have guessed....Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...Help for a patriot distressed, a spotless spirit hurt,
Help for an honourable clan sore trampled in the dirt!
From Queenstown Bay to Donegal, O listen to my song,
The honourable gentlemen have suffered grievous wrong.
Their noble names were mentioned -- O the burning black disgrace! --
By a brutal Saxon paper in an Irish shooting-case;
They sat upon it for a year, then st...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...request
I am here!
SPIR. Goddess dear,
We implore thy powerful hand
To undo the charmed band
Of true virgin here distressed
Through the force and through the wile
Of unblessed enchanter vile.
SABR. Shepherd, 't is my office best
To help ensnared chastity.
Brightest Lady, look on me.
Thus I sprinkle on thy breast
Drops that from my fountain pure
I have kept of precious cure;
Thrice upon thy finger's tip,
Thrice upon thy rubied lip:
Next this marble veno...Read more of this...
by
Hall, Donald
...In a week or ten days
the snow and ice
will melt from Cemetery Road.
I'm coming! Don't move!
Once again it is April.
Today is the day
we would have been married
twenty-six years.
I finished with April
halfway through March.
You think that their
dying is the worst
thing that could happen.
Then they stay dead.
Will Hall ever wri...Read more of this...
by
Tolkien, J R R
...hs that seldom mortal goes
his boat it bore with biting breath
as might of death across the grey
and long forsaken seas distressed;
from east to west he passed away.
Thought Evernight he back was borne
on black and roaring waves that ran
o'er leagues unlit and foundered shores
that drowned before the Days began,
until he hears on strands of pearl
where end the world the music long,
where ever-foaming billows roll
the yellow gold and jewels wan.
He saw the Mountain s...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...s
As sword of Urraca—he ever shows
His strength is for the feeble and oppressed;
Father of orphans he, and all distressed!
Kings of the Rhine in strongholds were by him
Boldly attacked, and tyrant barons grim.
He freed the towns—confronting in his lair
Hugo the Eagle; boldly did he dare
To break the collar of Saverne, the ring
Of Colmar, and the iron torture thing
Of Schlestadt, and the chain that Haguenau bore.
Such Eviradnus was a wrong befo...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...sel is, so to speak, "snarked".
But the principal failing occurred in the sailing,
And the Bellman, perplexed and distressed,
Said he had hoped, at least, when the wind blew due East,
That the ship would not travel due West!
But the danger was past--they had landed at last,
With their boxes, portmanteaus, and bags:
Yet at first sight the crew were not pleased with the view
Which consisted of chasms and crags.
The Bellman perceived that their spirits were low,
An...Read more of this...
by
Homer,
...r the wayside where they had left her before, and led her to the house of their dear father. And she walked behind, distressed in her dear heart, with her head veiled and wearing a dark cloak which waved about the slender feet of the goddess.
[Line 184] Soon they came to the house of heaven-nurtured Celeus and went through the portico to where their queenly mother sat by a pillar of the close-fitted roof, holding her son, a tender scion, in her bosom. And the g...Read more of this...
by
Bradstreet, Anne
...c'd to Lisbon's wall,
2.30 Don Anthony in's right for to install.
2.31 She frankly help'd Franks' (brave) distressed King,
2.32 The States united now her fame do sing.
2.33 She their Protectrix was, they well do know,
2.34 Unto our dread Virago, what they owe.
2.35 Her Nobles sacrific'd their noble blood,
2.36 Nor men, nor coin she shap'd, to do them good.
2.37 The rude untamed Irish she did quell,
2.38 And Tiron bo...Read more of this...
by
Watts, Isaac
..."Thou ever good and just;
Thy power can rescue from the grave,
Thy power is all my trust."
The Lord beheld me sore distressed,
He bid my pains remove
Return, my soul, to God thy rest,
For thou hast known his love.
My God hath saved my soul from death,
And dried my falling tears;
Now to his praise I'll spend my breath,
And my remaining years....Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...half my money, so they tell me, from the Crown;
But -- it's just enough to drive a fellow daft --
My landlord's quite distressed, by this very bank he's pressed,
And he'll sell me up, to pay his overdraft.
There's my nearest neighbour, Johnson, owed this self-same bank a debt,
Every feather off his poor old back they pluck't,
For they set to work to shove him, and they sold his house above him,
Lord! They never gave him time to reconstruct.
And their profits...Read more of this...
by
St Vincent Millay, Edna
...XLI
I, being born a woman and distressed
By all the needs and notions of my kind,
Am urged by your propinquity to find
Your person fair, and feel a certain zest
To bear you body's weight upon my breast:
So subtly is the fume of life designed,
To clairfy the pulse and cloud the mind,
And leave me once again undone, possessed.
Think not for this, however, the poor treason
Of my stout b...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...ow;
But as he reached his daughter's door
His eyes were all aglow.
Joylike he raised his hand to knock,
Then sore distressed was I,
For from the silence like a shock
I heard a cry.
A drunken curse, a sob of woe . . .
His withered face grew grey.
"I think," said he, "we'd better go
And come another day."
And as he went a block with me,
Walking with weary feet,
His violets, I sighed to see,
Bestrewed the street....Read more of this...
by
Goldsmith, Oliver
...share the good man's smile.
His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed,
Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in Heaven.
As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.
Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...sel is, so to speak, "snarked."
But the principal failing occurred in the sailing,
And the Bellman, perplexed and distressed,
Said he had hoped, at least, when the wind blew due East,
That the ship would not travel due West!
But the danger was past--they had landed at last,
With their boxes, portmanteaus, and bags:
Yet at first sight the crew were not pleased with the view,
Which consisted to chasms and crags.
The Bellman perceived that their spirits were low,
...Read more of this...
by
Fu, Du
...sound miss flock Who remember one now shadow Mutual lose myriad layer cloud Look utmost seem as if look Distressed much like become hear Wild duck without state of mind Call voices also numerous and confused The solitary goose does not drink or eat, It flies about and calls, missing the flock. No-one now remembers this one shadow, They've lost each other in the myriad layers of cloud. It looks into th...Read more of this...
by
Herrick, Robert
...f Dorcas dead:
These were thy acts, and thou shalt have
These hung as honours o'er thy grave:--
CHOR. And after us, distressed,
Should fame be dumb,
Thy very tomb
Would cry out, Thou art blessed....Read more of this...
by
Lear, Edward
...erson of Ealing,Who was wholly devoid of good feeling;He drove a small gig, with three Owls and a Pig,Which distressed all the people of Ealing. ...Read more of this...
by
Untermeyer, Louis
...breast, it carries a curved, white scar.
What will you find out there that is not torn and anguished?
Can God be less distressed than the least of His creatures are?
Below are the blatant lights in a huddled squalor;
Above are futile fires in freezing space.
What can they give that you should look to them for compassion
Though you bare your heart and lift an imploring face?
They have seen, by countless waters and windows,
The women of your race facing a stony sky;
Th...Read more of this...
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