Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Friendless Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Burns, Robert
...humble life,
The victim sad of fortune’s strife,
I, thro’ the tender-gushing tear,
Should recognise my master dear;
If friendless, low, we meet together,
Then, sir, your hand—my Friend and Brother!...Read more of this...



by Robinson, Mary Darby
...e the clear brook swiftly flows--
"Upon the turf at dawn of day,
"When bright the sun's full lustre shone,
"I wander'd, FRIENDLESS--and ALONE!"


XX. 

Thou art not, boy, for I have seen
Thy tiny footsteps print the dew,
And while the morning sky serene
Spread o'er the hill a yellow hue,
I heard thy sad and plaintive moan,
Beside the cold sepulchral stone.


XXI. 

And when the summer noontide hours
With scorching rays the landscape spread,
I mark'd thee, weaving ...Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
...0>In the fair limbs of thy beloved Son,Ah! turn on my sad doubt,Who friendless, helpless thus, for counsel come to thee! [Pg 319]O Virgin! pure and perfect in each part,Maiden or Mother, from thy honour'd birth,This life to lighten and the next adorn;Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...Ah, foolish maid!
Glad was the hour, when, with thee, myriads bade
Adieu to Ganges and their pleasant fields!
To one so friendless the clear freshet yields
A bitter coolness, the ripe grape is sour:
Yet I would have, great gods! but one short hour
Of native air--let me but die at home."

 Endymion to heaven's airy dome
Was offering up a hecatomb of vows,
When these words reach'd him. Whereupon he bows
His head through thorny-green entanglement
Of underwood, and to the...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...But Wisdom's triumph is a well-tim'd Retreat, 
As hard a science to the Fair as Great! 
Beauties, like Tyrants, old and friendless grown, 
Yet hate repose, and dread to be alone, 
Worn out in public, weary ev'ry eye, 
Nor leave one sigh behind them when they die. 

Pleasures the sex, as children Birds, pursue, 
Still out of reach, yet never out of view; 
Sure, if they catch, to spoil the Toy at most, 
To covet flying, and regret when lost: 
At last, to follies Youth could...Read more of this...



by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...es of snow, when the wind from the northeast
Strikes aslant through the fogs that darken the Banks of Newfoundland.
Friendless, homeless, hopeless, they wandered from city to city,
From the cold lakes of the North to sultry Southern savannas,--
From the bleak shores of the sea to the lands where the Father of Waters
Seizes the hills in his hands, and drags them down to the ocean,
Deep in their sands to bury the scattered bones of the mammoth.
Friends they sought and h...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...'s last seraph--everywhere we seek
Union and bond--till in one sea sublime
Of love be merged all measure and all time!

Friendless ruled God His solitary sky;
He felt the want, and therefore souls were made,
The blessed mirrors of his bliss!--His eye
No equal in His loftiest works surveyed;
And from the source whence souls are quickened, He
Called His companion forth--ETERNITY!...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...and tho' this be, and tho' love is from lovers learn'd,
it springeth none the less from the old essence of self.
No friendless man ('twas well said) can be truly himself;
what a man looketh for in his friend and findeth,
and loving self best, loveth better than himself,
is his own better self, his live lovable idea,
flowering by expansion in the loves of his life.
And in the nobility of our earthly friendships
we hav al grades of attainment, and the best may claim
per...Read more of this...

by Bryant, William Cullen
...ce, when thy shafts
Drink up the ebbing spirit--then the hard
Of heart and violent of hand restores
The treasure to the friendless wretch he wronged.
Then from the writhing bosom thou dost pluck
The guilty secret; lips, for ages sealed,
Are faithless to the dreadful trust at length,
And give it up; the felon's latest breath
Absolves the innocent man who bears his crime;
The slanderer, horror smitten, and in tears,
Recalls the deadly obloquy he forged
To work his brother's...Read more of this...

by Campbell, Thomas
...
Roused from drear visions of distempered sleep,
Poor Broderick wakes—in solitude to weep !

"Cease, Memory; cease (the friendless mourner cried)
To probe the bosom too severely tried !
Oh ! ever cease, my pensive thoughts, to stray
Through tie bright fields of Fortune's better day,
When youthful Hope, the music of the mind,
Tuned all its charms, and Errington was kind !

Yet, can I cease, while glows this trembling frame,
In sighs to speak thy melancholy name !
I hear thy sp...Read more of this...

by Bronte, Charlotte
...y her daughter worn: 
For, e'er she died, a child was born; 
A child that ne'er its mother knew, 
That lone, and almost friendless grew; 
For, ever, when its step drew nigh, 
Averted was the father's eye; 
And then, a life impure and wild 
Made him a stranger to his child; 
Absorbed in vice, he little cared 
On what she did, or how she fared. 
The love withheld, she never sought, 
She grew uncherished­learnt untaught; 
To her the inward life of thought 
Full soon was open...Read more of this...

by Boland, Eavan
...
on the road from Youghal to Cahirmoyle.
He has no comfort, no food and no future.
He has no fire to recite his friendless measures by.
His riddles and flatteries will have no reward.
His patrons sheath their swords in Flanders and Madrid.

Reader of poems, lover of poetry—
in case you thought this was a gentle art
follow this man on a moonless night
to the wretched bed he will have to make:

The Gaelic world stretches out under a hawthorn tree
and burns i...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...shake
Thy gentle heart with tears. Thou well
Rememberest when we met no more;
And, though I dwelt with Lionel,
That friendless caution pierced me sore
With grief; a wound my spirit bore
Indignantly--but when he died,
With him lay dead both hope and pride. 

Alas! all hope is buried now.
But then men dreamed the aged earth
Was laboring in that mighty birth
Which many a poet and a sage
Has aye foreseen--the happy age
When truth and love shall dwell below
Among the w...Read more of this...

by Bryant, William Cullen
...o minglest in the harder strife 
For truths which men receive not now, 
Thy warfare only ends with life. 20 

A friendless warfare! lingering long 
Through weary day and weary year; 
A wild and many-weaponed throng 
Hang on thy front, and flank, and rear. 

Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof, 25 
And blench not at thy chosen lot, 
The timid good may stand aloof, 
The sage may frown¡ªyet faint thou not. 

Nor heed the shaft too surely cast, 
The foul ...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...And at the mast-head, 
White, blue, and red, 
A flag unrolls the stripes and stars. 
Ah! when the wanderer, lonely, friendless, 
In foreign harbors shall behold 
That flag unrolled, 
'T will be as a friendly hand 
Stretched out from his native land, 
Filling his heart with memories sweet and endless! 
All is finished! and at length 
Has come the bridal day 
Of beauty and of strength. 
To-day the vessel shall be launched! 
With fleecy clouds the sky is blanched, 
And o...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...e call in our pamper'd mountebanks—  And this is their best cure! uncomforted.   And friendless solitude, groaning and tears.  And savage faces, at the clanking hour,  Seen through the steams and vapour of his dungeon,  By the lamp's dismal twilight! So he lies  Circled with evil, till his very soul  Unmoulds its essence, hopelessly deformed  By sights of eve...Read more of this...

by Turner Smith, Charlotte
...And know that they deserve the woes they feel.
Poor wand'ring wretches! whosoe'er ye are,
That hopeless, houseless, friendless, travel wide
O'er these bleak russet downs; where, dimly seen,
The solitary Shepherd shiv'ring tends
His dun discolour'd flock (Shepherd, unlike
Him, whom in song the Poet's fancy crowns
With garlands, and his crook with vi'lets binds);
Poor vagrant wretches! outcasts of the world!
Whom no abode receives, no parish owns;
Roving, like Nature's comm...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...friend: patron, protector, spur and shield.
Poor, loving-wistful, dreamy Brown, long and lean, with a smile askew,
Friendless he wandered up and down, gaunt as a wolf, as hungry too.
Brown with his lilt of saucy rhyme, Brown with his tilt of tender mirth
Garretless in the gloom and grime, singing his glad, mad songs of earth:
So at last with a faith divine, down and down to the Hunger-line.

There as he stood in a woeful plight, tears a-freeze on his sharp cheek-...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...the aged man began to rouse.
With help he once more gained his trembling feet.
"My daughter, Mynheer Breuck, is friendless now.
Will you watch over her? I ask a solemn vow."

17
Max laid his hand upon the old man's arm,
"Before God, sir, I vow, when you are gone,
So to protect your daughter from all harm
As one man may." Thus sorrowful, forlorn,
The situation to Max Breuck appeared,
He gave his promise almost without thought,
Nor looked to see a difficulty...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...,
Students, tradesmen, pale mechanics,
All have sung them.

Thou hast been their friend;
They, alas! have left thee friendless!
Yet at least by one warm fireside
Art thou welcome.

And, as swallows build
In these wide, old-fashioned chimneys,
So thy twittering songs shall nestle
In my bosom,--

Quiet, close, and warm,
Sheltered from all molestation,
And recalling by their voices
Youth and travel....Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Friendless poems.


Book: Reflection on the Important Things