Famous Hurt Poems by Famous Poets

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

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There Was A Saviour

by Dylan Thomas
 There was a saviour
 Rarer than radium,
 Commoner than water, crueller than truth;
 Children kept from the sun
 Assembled at his tongue
 To hear the golden note turn in a groove,
Prisoners of wishes locked their eyes
In the jails and studies of his keyless smiles.

 The voice of children says
 From a lost wilderness
 There was calm to be done...Read more of this...

Sonnet XCIV: They That Have Power to Hurt and Will Do None

by William Shakespeare
 They that have power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow:
They rightly do inherit heaven's graces
And husband nature's riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others but stewards of their excellence.
The summer's flower is to the summer...Read more of this...

Sonnets XCIV: They that have power to hurt and will do none

by William Shakespeare
 They that have power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow:
They rightly do inherit heaven's graces
And husband nature's riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others but stewards of their excellence.
The summer's flower is to the summer...Read more of this...

Blind Mans Buff

by William Blake
 When silver snow decks Susan's clothes,
And jewel hangs at th' shepherd's nose,
The blushing bank is all my care,
With hearth so red, and walls so fair;
`Heap the sea-coal, come, heap it higher,
The oaken log lay on the fire.'
The well-wash'd stools, a circling row,
With lad and lass, how fair the show!
The merry can of nut-brown ale,
The laughing jest, the love-sick tale,
Till,...Read more of this...

The Bandaged Shoulder

by Constantine P Cavafy
 He said that he had hurt himself on a wall or that he had fallen.
But there was probably another reason
for the wounded and bandaged shoulder.

With a somewhat abrupt movement,
to bring down from a shelf some
photographs that he wanted to see closely,
the bandage was untied and a little blood ran.

I bandaged the shoulder again, and while bandaging it
I was somewhat...Read more of this...

Mother and Poet

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 I.

Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
Dead ! both my boys ! When you sit at the feast
And are wanting a great song for Italy free,
Let none look at me !

II.
Yet I was a poetess only last year,
And good at my art, for a...Read more of this...

A Tale of Starvation

by Amy Lowell
 There once was a man whom the gods didn't love,
And a disagreeable man was he.
He loathed his neighbours, and his neighbours hated him,
And he cursed eternally.
He damned the sun, and he damned the stars,
And he blasted the winds in the sky.
He sent to Hell every green, growing thing,
And he raved at the birds as they fly.
His oaths were many,...Read more of this...

Healed of My Hurt

by Herman Melville
 Healed of my hurt, I laud the inhuman Sea--
Yea, bless the Angels Four that there convene; 
For healed I am even by the pitiless breath 
Distilled in wholesome dew named rosmarine....Read more of this...

The River-Merchants Wife: A Letter

by Ezra Pound
 After Li Po

While my hair was still cut straight 
 across my forehead
I played at the front gate, pulling
 flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing
 horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with
 blue plums. 
And we went on living in the village of 
 Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or 
 suspicion. 

At fourteen I married My Lord...Read more of this...

Chaucer

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 An old man in a lodge within a park; 
The chamber walls depicted all around 
With portraitures of huntsman, hawk, and hound, 
And the hurt deer. He listeneth to the lark, 
Whose song comes with the sunshine through the dark 
Of painted glass in leaden lattice bound; 
He listeneth and he laugheth at the sound, 
Then writeth in a...Read more of this...

Healed of My Hurt

by Herman Melville
 Children of my happier prime,
When One yet lived with me, and threw
Her rainbow over life and time,
Even Hope, my bride, and mother to you!
O, nurtured in sweet pastoral air,
And fed on flowers and light and dew
Of morning meadows -spare, ah, spare
Reproach; spare, and upbraid me not
That, yielding scarce to reckless mood,
But jealous of your future lot,
I sealed you in...Read more of this...

The Whistle Of Sandy McGraw

by Robert William Service
 You may talk o' your lutes and your dulcimers fine,
 Your harps and your tabors and cymbals and a',
But here in the trenches jist gie me for mine
 The wee penny whistle o' Sandy McGraw.
Oh, it's: "Sandy, ma lad, will you lilt us a tune?"
 And Sandy is willin' and trillin' like mad;
Sae silvery sweet that we a' throng...Read more of this...

41. Epistle to John Rankine

by Robert Burns
 O ROUGH, rude, ready-witted Rankine,
The wale o’ cocks for fun an’ drinkin!
There’s mony godly folks are thinkin,
 Your dreams and tricks
Will send you, Korah-like, a-sinkin
 Straught to auld Nick’s.


Ye hae saw mony cracks an’ cants,
And in your wicked, drucken rants,
Ye mak a devil o’ the saunts,
 An’ fill them fou;
And then their failings, flaws, an’ wants,
 Are a’ seen...Read more of this...

two crocodiles gossip by the banks of the thames at abingdon

by Rg Gregory
 two old lazy crocodiles are basking by the water
they get round to talk about the macdonalds' daughter

gemini gemini
have you ever set eyes on young stephanie

jiminy jiminy
who lives here in abingdon - the one who is two

gemini gemini
everyone knows she's a smart one that stephanie

jiminy jiminy
oh ever so smart - there's just nothing she can't do

gemini gemini
so smart - she...Read more of this...

Hurt Hawks

by Robinson Jeffers
 I

The broken pillar of the wing jags from the clotted shoulder,
The wing trails like a banner in defeat, 

No more to use the sky forever but live with famine
And pain a few days: cat nor coyote
Will shorten the week of waiting for death, there is game without talons.

He stands under the oak-bush and waits 
The lame feet of salvation;...Read more of this...

It ceased to hurt me though so slow

by Emily Dickinson
 It ceased to hurt me, though so slow
I could not feel the Anguish go --
But only knew by looking back --
That something -- had benumbed the Track --

Nor when it altered, I could say,
For I had worn it, every day,
As constant as the Childish frock --
I hung upon the Peg, at night.

But not the Grief -- that nestled close
As...Read more of this...

Bound for your distant home

by Alexander Pushkin
 Bound for your distant home
you were leaving alien lands.
In an hour as sad as I’ve known
I wept over your hands.
My hands were numb and cold,
still trying to restrain
you, whom my hurt told
never to end this pain.

But you snatched your lips away
from our bitterest kiss.
You invoked another place
than the dismal exile of this.
You said, ‘When we meet again,
in the shadow...Read more of this...

My True Love Hath My Heart And I Have His

by Sir Philip Sidney
 My true-love hath my heart, and I have his,
By just exchange, one for the other giv'n.
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss;
There never was a better bargain driv'n.
His heart in me keeps me and him in one,
My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides;
He loves my heart, for once it was his own;
I cherish his, because...Read more of this...

Sonnet 94: They that have power to hurt and will do none

by William Shakespeare
 They that have power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing, they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmovèd, cold, and to temptation slow,
They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,
And husband nature's riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others, but stewards of their excellence.
The summer's flower is to the summer...Read more of this...

The Other One

by Robert William Service
 "Gather around me, children dear;
The wind is high and the night is cold;
Closer, little ones, snuggle near;
Let's seek a story of ages old;
A magic tale of a bygone day,
Of lovely ladies and dragons dread;
Come, for you're all so tired of play,
We'll read till it's time to go to bed."

So they all are glad, and they nestle in,
And squat on...Read more of this...

The Dinner-Party

by Amy Lowell
 Fish
"So . . ." they said,
With their wine-glasses delicately poised,
Mocking at the thing they cannot understand.
"So . . ." they said again,
Amused and insolent.
The silver on the table glittered,
And the red wine in the glasses
Seemed the blood I had wasted
In a foolish cause.

Game
The gentleman with the grey-and-black whiskers
Sneered languidly over his quail.
Then my heart flew up and laboured,
And I...Read more of this...

The Faerie Queene: Book I Canto I

by Edmund Spenser
Lo I the man, whose Muse whilome did maske,
As time her taught in lowly Shepheards weeds,
Am now enforst a far unfitter taske,
For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine Oaten reeds,
And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds;
Whose prayses having slept in silence long,
Me, all too meane, the sacred Muse areeds
To blazon broad emongst her learned throng:
Fierce warres and faithful loves shall...Read more of this...

Three Odes To My Friend

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 THESE are the most singular of all the Poems 
of Goethe, and to many will appear so wild and fantastic, as to 
leave anything but a pleasing impression. Those at the beginning, 
addressed to his friend Behrisch, were written at the age of eighteen, 
and most of the remainder were composed while he was still quite 
young. Despite, however,...Read more of this...

Lotus Hurt by the Cold

by D. H. Lawrence
 How many times, like lotus lilies risen 
Upon the surface of a river, there 
Have risen floating on my blood the rare 
Soft glimmers of my hope escaped from prison.

So I am clothed all over with the light
And sensitive beautiful blossoming of passion;
Till naked for her in the finest fashion 
The flowers of all my mud swim into sight....Read more of this...

Ships That Pass in the Night

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
 Out in the sky the great dark clouds are massing; 
I look far out into the pregnant night,
Where I can hear the solemn booming gun
And catch the gleaming of a random light,
That tells me that the ship I seek
is passing, passing.
My tearful eyes my soul's deep hurt are glassing;
For I would hail and check that ship of ships.
I stretch...Read more of this...

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