Famous Grievous Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

Before A Crucifix

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Here, down between the dusty trees,
At this lank edge of haggard wood,
Women with labour-loosened knees,
With gaunt backs bowed by servitude,
Stop, shift their loads, and pray, and fare
Forth with souls easier for the prayer.

The suns have branded black, the rains
Striped grey this piteous God of theirs;
The face is full of prayers and pains,
To which they bring their pains and prayers;
Lean...Read more of this...

Cleared

by Rudyard Kipling
 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...Read more of this...

Cold Iron

by Rudyard Kipling
 Cold is for the mistress -- silver for the maid --
Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade."
"Good!" said the Baron, sitting in his hall,
"But Iron -- Cold Iron -- is master of them all."

So he made rebellion 'gainst the King his liege,
Camped before his citadel and summoned it to siege.
"Nay!" said the cannoneer on the castle wall,
"But Iron...Read more of this...

The Country Schoolmaster

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 I.

A MASTER of a country school
Jump'd up one day from off his stool,
Inspired with firm resolve to try
To gain the best society;
So to the nearest baths he walk'd,
And into the saloon he stalk'd.
He felt quite. startled at the door,
Ne'er having seen the like before.
To the first stranger made he now
A very low and graceful bow,
But quite forgot to bear...Read more of this...

The Song of the Women

by Rudyard Kipling
 How shall she know the worship we would do her?
 The walls are high, and she is very far.
How shall the woman's message reach unto her
 Above the tumult of the packed bazaar?
 Free wind of March, against the lattice blowing,
 Bear thou our thanks, lest she depart unknowing.

Go forth across the fields we may not roam in,
 Go...Read more of this...

Ode To Silence

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Aye, but she?
Your other sister and my other soul
Grave Silence, lovelier
Than the three loveliest maidens, what of her?
Clio, not you,
Not you, Calliope,
Nor all your wanton line,
Not Beauty's perfect self shall comfort me
For Silence once departed,
For her the cool-tongued, her the tranquil-hearted,
Whom evermore I follow wistfully,
Wandering Heaven and Earth and Hell and the four seasons through;
Thalia, not you,
Not you, Melpomene,
Not...Read more of this...

Sonnet III: Taking My Pen

by Michael Drayton
 Taking my pen, with words to cast my woe, 
Duly to count the sum of all my cares, 
I find my griefs innumerable grow, 
The reckonings rise to millions of despairs; 
And thus dividing of my fatal hours, 
The payments of my love I read and cross, 
Subtracting, set my sweets unto my sours, 
My joy's arrearage leads me...Read more of this...

The Beauteous Flower

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 SONG OF THE IMPRISONED COUNT.

COUNT.

I KNOW a flower of beauty rare,

Ah, how I hold it dear!
To seek it I would fain repair,

Were I not prison'd here.
My sorrow sore oppresses me,
For when I was at liberty,

I had it close beside me.

Though from this castle's walls so steep

I cast mine eyes around,
And gaze oft from the lofty keep,

The flower can not...Read more of this...

Hymn to Proserpine (After the Proclamation of the Christian

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Vicisti, Galilæe
I have lived long enough, having seen one thing, that love hath an end;
Goddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend.
Thou art more than the day or the morrow, the seasons that laugh or that weep;
For these give joy and sorrow; but thou, Proserpina, sleep.
Sweet is the treading of wine, and sweet the feet of...Read more of this...

Lost

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 You left me with the autumn time; 
When the winter stripped the forest bare, 
Then dressed it in his spotless rime; 
When frosts were lurking in the air
You left me here and went away.
The winds were cold; you could not stay.

You sought a warmer clime, until
The south wind, artful maid, should break
The winter's trumpets, and should fill
The air with...Read more of this...

Why?

by Robert William Service
 He was our leader and our guide;
He was our saviour and our star.
We walked in friendship by his side,
Yet set him where our heroes are.

He taught disdain of fame and wealth;
With courage he inspired our youth;
He preached the purity of health,
And held aloft the torch of truth.

He bade us battle for the Right,
And led us in the carnage grim;
He...Read more of this...

Sestina I

by Francesco Petrarch
SESTINA I. Mia benigna fortuna e 'l viver lieto. IN HIS MISERY HE DESIRES DEATH THE MORE HE REMEMBERS HIS PAST CONTENTMENT AND COMFORT.  My favouring fortune and my life of joy,My days so cloudless, and my tranquil nights,The tender sigh, the pleasing power of song,Which gently wont to sound in verse...Read more of this...

Cromwell And The Crown

by Victor Hugo
 ("Ah! je le tiens enfin.") 
 
 {CROMWELL, Act II., October, 1827.} 


THURLOW communicates the intention of Parliament to 
 offer CROMWELL the crown. 
 
 CROMWELL. And is it mine? And have my feet at length 
 Attained the summit of the rock i' the sand? 
 
 THURLOW. And yet, my lord, you have long reigned. 
...Read more of this...

At Eighty Years

by Robert William Service
 As nothingness draws near
 How I can see
Inexorably clear
 My vanity.
My sum of worthiness
 Always so small,
Dwindles from less to less
 To none at all.

As grisly destiny
 Claims me at last,
How grievous seem to me
 Sins of my past!
How keen a conscience edge
 Can come to be!
How pitiless the dredge
 Of memory!

Ye proud ones of the earth
 Who count...Read more of this...

A True Story

by Ann Taylor
 Little Ann and her mother were walking one day
Through London's wide city so fair,
And business obliged them to go by the way
That led them through Cavendish Square. 
And as they pass'd by the great house of a Lord,
A beautiful chariot there came,
To take some most elegant ladies abroad, 
Who straightway got into the same. 

The ladies in feathers and...Read more of this...

Picture-Show

by Siegfried Sassoon
 And still they come and go: and this is all I know— 
That from the gloom I watch an endless picture-show, 
Where wild or listless faces flicker on their way, 
With glad or grievous hearts I’ll never understand 
Because Time spins so fast, and they’ve no time to stay
Beyond the moment’s gesture of a lifted hand. 

And still, between...Read more of this...

Sonnet XL: My Heart the Anvil

by Michael Drayton
 My heart the anvil where my thoughts do beat; 
My words the hammers fashioning my desire; 
My breast the forge including all the heat; 
Love is the fuel which maintains the fire; 
My sighs the bellows which the flame increaseth, 
Filling mine ears with noise and nightly groaning; 
Toiling with pain, my labor never ceaseth, 
In grievous passions my...Read more of this...

The Story of Ung

by Rudyard Kipling
 Once, on a glittering ice-field, ages and ages ago,
Ung, a maker of pictures, fashioned an image of snow.
Fashioned the form of a tribesman -- gaily he whistled and sung,
Working the snow with his fingers. Read ye the Story of Ung!

Pleased was his tribe with that image -- came in their hundreds to scan --
Handled it, smelt it, and grunted:...Read more of this...

When I recall my grievous sins to mind,

by Omar Khayyam
When I recall my grievous sins to mind,
Fire burns my breast, and tears my vision blind;
Yet, when a slave repents, is it not meet
His lord should pardon, and again be kind?...Read more of this...

The Execution of James Graham Marquis of Montrose

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in the year of 1650, and on the twenty-first of May,
The city of Edinburgh was put into a state of dismay
By the noise of drums and trumpets, which on the air arose,
That the great sound attracted the notice of Montrose. 

Who enquired at the Captain of the guard the cause of it,
Then the officer told him, as he...Read more of this...

John Rouat the Fisherman

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Margaret Simpson was the daughter of humble parents in the county of Ayr,
With a comely figure, and face of beauty rare,
And just in the full bloom of her womanhood,
Was united to John Rouat, a fisherman good. 

John's fortune consisted of his coble, three oars, and his fishing-gear,
Besides his two stout boys, John and James, he loved most dear.
And no...Read more of this...

Dream Song 114: Henry in trouble whirped out lonely whines

by John Berryman
 Henry in trouble whirped out lonely whines.
When ich when was ever not in trouble?
But did he whip out whines
afore? And when check in wif ales & lifelines
anyone earlier O?-”Some, now, Mr Bones,
many.-”I am fleeing double:

Mr Past being no friends of mine,
all them around: Sir Future Dubious,
calamitous & grand:
I can no foothold here; wherefore I pines
for Dr Present, who won't...Read more of this...

Obesity

by Robert William Service
 With belly like a poisoned pup
 Said I: 'I must give bacon up:
And also, I profanely fear,
 I must abandon bread and beer
That make for portliness they say;
 Yet of them copiously today
I ate with an increasingly sense
 Of grievous corpulence.

I like a lot of thinks I like.
 Too bad that I must go on strike
Against pork sausages and...Read more of this...

A Ballad of Death

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Kneel down, fair Love, and fill thyself with tears,
Girdle thyself with sighing for a girth
Upon the sides of mirth,
Cover thy lips and eyelids, let thine ears
Be filled with rumour of people sorrowing;
Make thee soft raiment out of woven sighs
Upon the flesh to cleave,
Set pains therein and many a grievous thing,
And many sorrows after each his wise
For armlet and for...Read more of this...

Canzone VI

by Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE VI. Spirto gentil che quelle membra reggi. TO RIENZI, BESEECHING HIM TO RESTORE TO ROME HER ANCIENT LIBERTY.  Spirit heroic! who with fire divineKindlest those limbs, awhile which pilgrim holdOn earth a Chieftain, gracious, wise, and bold;Since, rightly, now the rod of state is thineRome and her wandering children to...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Grievous poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace