Famous Grief Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Grief poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous grief poems. These examples illustrate what a famous grief poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Omar Khayyam
Yield not to grief, though fortune prove unkind,
Nor call sad thoughts of parted friends to mind;
Devote thy heart to sugary lips, and wine,
Cast not thy precious life unto the wind!...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
That thou hast her, it is not all my grief,
And yet it may be said I loved her dearly;
That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,
A loss in love that touches me more nearly.
Loving offenders, thus I will excuse ye:
Thou dost love her because thou know'st I love her,
And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,
Suff'ring...Read more of this...
by
William Cowper
Ah! wherefore should my weeping maid suppress
Those gentle signs of undissembled woe?
When from soft love proceeds the deep distress,
Ah, why forbid the willing tears to flow?
Since for my sake each dear translucent drop
Breaks forth, best witness of thy truth sincere,
My lips should drink the precious mixture up,
And, ere it falls, receive the trembling tear.
Trust me, these symptoms of thy...Read more of this...
by
Denise Levertov
Ah, Grief, I should not treat you
like a homeless dog
who comes to the back door
for a crust, for a meatless bone.
I should trust you.
I should coax you
into the house and give you
your own corner,
a worn mat to lie on,
your own water dish.
You think I don't know you've been living
under my porch.
You long for your real place to be readied
before...Read more of this...
by
Louise Gluck
In the end, I made myself
Known to your wife as
A god would, in her own house, in
Ithaca, a voice
Without a body: she
Paused in her weaving, her head turning
First to the right, then left
Though it was hopeless of course
To trace that sound to any
Objective source: I doubt
She will return to her loom
With what she knows now. When
You see her again,...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Out of my heart, one treach'rous winter's day,
I locked young Love and threw the key away.
Grief, wandering widely, found the key,
And hastened with it, straightway, back to me,
With Love beside him. He unlocked the door
And bade Love enter with him there and stay.
And so the twain abide for evermore.
...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I TELL you hopeless grief is passionless;
That only men incredulous of despair
Half-taught in anguish through the midnight air
Beat upward to God's throne in loud access
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness 5
In souls as countries lieth silent-bare
Under the blanching vertical eye-glare
Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man express
Grief for thy Dead in silence...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
To Certain Poets About to Die
TAKE your fill of intimate remorse, perfumed sorrow,
Over the dead child of a millionaire,
And the pity of Death refusing any check on the bank
Which the millionaire might order his secretary to
scratch off
And get cashed.
Very well,
You for your grief and I for mine.
Let me have a sorrow my own if I want to.
I shall cry...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
If your own satisfaction consists in casting grief into a
heart free from all care, you could, friend, make mourning
with your wisdom during your whole life. Go, be
unhappy, then, for you are a person strangely ignorant....Read more of this...
by
Emily Brontë
If grief for grief can touch thee,
If answering woe for woe,
If any truth can melt thee
Come to me now!
I cannot be more lonely,
More drear I cannot be!
My worn heart beats so wildly
'Twill break for thee--
And when the world despises--
When Heaven repels my prayer--
Will not mine angel comfort?
Mine idol hear?
Yes, by...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
'Tis good -- the looking back on Grief --
To re-endure a Day --
We thought the Mighty Funeral --
Of All Conceived Joy --
To recollect how Busy Grass
Did meddle -- one by one --
Till all the Grief with Summer -- waved
And none could see the stone.
And though the Woe you have Today
Be larger -- As the Sea
Exceeds its Unremembered Drop --
They're...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
No longer hug your grief and vain despair,
But in this unjust world be just and fair;
And since the issue of the world is naught,
Think you are naught, and so shake off dull care!...Read more of this...
by
Barry Tebb
Rivers, tow paths, caravan parks
From Kirkstall to Keighley
The track’s ribbon flaps
Like Margaret’s whirling and twirling
At ten with her pink-tied hair
And blue-check patterned frock
O my lost beloved
Mills fall like doomed fortresses
Their domes topple, stopped clocks
Chime midnight forever and ever
Amen to the lost hegemony of mill girls
Flocking through dawn fog, their clogs clacking,
Their beauty, only Vermeer could capture
O my lost beloved
In...Read more of this...
by
Charles Bukowski
I even hear the mountains
the way they laugh
up and down their blue sides
and down in the water
the fish cry
and the water
is their tears.
I listen to the water
on nights I drink away
and the sadness becomes so great
I hear it in my clock
it becomes knobs upon my dresser
it becomes paper on the floor
it becomes a shoehorn
a laundry ticket
it becomes
cigarette smoke
climbing...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
As imperceptibly as Grief
The Summer lapsed away --
Too imperceptible at last
To seem like Perfidy --
A Quietness distilled
As Twilight long begun,
Or Nature spending with herself
Sequestered Afternoon --
The Dusk drew earlier in --
The Morning foreign shone --
A courteous, yet harrowing Grace,
As Guest, that would be gone --
And thus, without a Wing
Or service of a Keel
Our Summer made her light escape
Into the...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
My poor heart, full of grief and folly, has not been
able to free itself from drunkenness where passion for
my well-beloved has plunged it. Oh! the day when the
wine of this love was distributed, my portion was, without
doubt, drawn from the blood of my heart!...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
How great my grief, my joys how few,
Since first it was my fate to know thee!
- Have the slow years not brought to view
How great my grief, my joys how few,
Nor memory shaped old times anew,
Nor loving-kindness helped to show thee
How great my grief, my joys how few,
Since first it...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
O my heart! if thou free thyself from the grief inherent
in matter, thou shalt become a soul in all its purity; thou
shalt mount to the heavens, thy residence shall be the
firmament. Oh! how thou shouldst suffer from shame
at inhabiting the earth!...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
I measure every grief I meet
With analytic eyes;
I wonder if it weighs like mine,
Or has an easier size.
I wonder if they bore it long,
Or did it just begin?
I could not tell the date of mine,
It feels so old a pain.
I wonder if it hurts to live,
...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
Grief is fatiguing. He is out of it,
the whole humiliating Human round,
out of this & that.
He made a-many hearts go pit-a-pat
who now need never mind his nostril-hair
nor a critical error laid bare.
He endured fifty years. He was Randall Jarrell
and wrote a-many books & he wrote well.
Peace to the bearded corpse.
His last book was his best. His wives loved him.
He...Read more of this...
by
William Lisle Bowles
O TIME! who know'st a lenient hand to lay
Softest on sorrow's wound, and slowly thence
(Lulling to sad repose the weary sense)
The faint pang stealest unperceived away;
On thee I rest my only hope at last,
And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear
That flows in vain o'er all my soul held dear,
I may...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Grief is a Mouse --
And chooses Wainscot in the Breast
For His Shy House --
And baffles quest --
Grief is a Thief -- quick startled --
Pricks His Ear -- report to hear
Of that Vast Dark --
That swept His Being -- back --
Grief is a Juggler -- boldest at the Play --
Lest if He flinch -- the eye that way
Pounce on His...Read more of this...
by
D. H. Lawrence
A yellow leaf from the darkness
Hops like a frog before me.
Why should I start and stand still?
I was watching the woman that bore me
Stretched in the brindled darkness
Of the sick-room, rigid with will
To die: and the quick leaf tore me
Back to this rainy swill
Of leaves and lamps and traffic mingled before me....Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Resign yourself to grief if you would find a remedy,
and do not complain of your suffering if you would cure
it. In poverty, be thankful to Providence, if you wish
some day to have riches for your portion....Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
I can wade Grief --
Whole Pools of it --
I'm used to that --
But the least push of Joy
Breaks up my feet --
And I tip -- drunken --
Let no Pebble -- smile --
'Twas the New Liquor --
That was all!
Power is only Pain --
Stranded, thro' Discipline,
Till Weights -- will hang --
Give Balm -- to Giants --
And they'll wilt, like Men --
Give...Read more of this...
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