Famous Joyless Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Joyless poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous joyless poems. These examples illustrate what a famous joyless poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...aid;
I court, I beg thy friendly aid,
To close this scene of care!
When shall my soul, in silent peace,
Resign life’s joyless day—
My weary heart is throbbing cease,
Cold mould’ring in the clay?
No fear more, no tear more,
To stain my lifeless face,
Enclaspèd, and grasped,
Within thy cold embrace!...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...y vigils keep,
Beneath thy wan, unwarming beam;
And mourn, in lamentation deep,
How life and love are all a dream!
I joyless view thy rays adorn
The faintly-marked, distant hill;
I joyless view thy trembling horn,
Reflected in the gurgling rill:
My fondly-fluttering heart, be still!
Thou busy pow’r, remembrance, cease!
Ah! must the agonizing thrill
For ever bar returning peace!
No idly-feign’d, poetic pains,
My sad, love-lorn lamentings claim:
No shepherd’s pipe—Arc...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...s burst open. War-glory was given
to Beowulf. From there Grendel must fly away,
sick to life, under the fen-fastness, joylessly
seeking his lair. He knew too well
that his life was coming to its conclusion,
the count of his days. The desire of every Dane
came true after that slaughtering battle. (ll. 809-24)
Then he had cleansed the hall of Hrothgar,
he who had recently come from afar,
wise and mighty souled, preserving it against malice.
He rejoiced in the night’...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...all men, yet blood-fierce his mind,
his breast-hoard, grew, no bracelets gave he
to Danes as was due; he endured all joyless
strain of struggle and stress of woe,
long feud with his folk. Here find thy lesson!
Of virtue advise thee! This verse I have said for thee,
wise from lapsed winters. Wondrous seems
how to sons of men Almighty God
in the strength of His spirit sendeth wisdom,
estate, high station: He swayeth all things.
Whiles He letteth right lustily fare
t...Read more of this...
by
Anonymous,
...articles of water fall;
Now vapours riding on the north wind's wing,
With transitory darkness shadow all.
Alas! how joyless the descriptive theme,
When sorrow on the writer's quiet preys
And like a mouse in Cheshire cheese supreme,
Devours the substance of the less'ning bays.
Come, February, lend thy darkest sky.
There teach the winter'd muse with clouds to soar;
Come, February, lift the number high;
Let the sharp strain like wind thro' alleys roar.
Ye channels,...Read more of this...
by
Chatterton, Thomas
...father's mansion stood.
Returning from the copse he soon was there;
And soon has Gertrude hied from dark greenwood:
Nor joyless, by the converse, understood
Between the man of age and pilgrim young,
That gay congeneality of mood,
And early liking from acquaintance sprung;
Full fluently conversed their guest in England's tongue.
And well could he his pilgrimage of taste
Unfold,--and much they loved his fervid strain,
While he each fair variety retraced
Of climes, and manners,...Read more of this...
by
Campbell, Thomas
...ght shows it, - for their transit o'er
The unbridged abyss?"
He answered, "When we stand
Together, waiting on the joyless strand,
In all it shall be told thee." If he meant
Reproof I know not, but with shame I bent
My downward eyes, and no more spake until
The bank we reached, and on the stream beheld
A bark ply toward us.
Of exceeding eld,
And hoary showed the steersman, screaming shrill,
With horrid glee the while he neared us, "Woe
To ye, depraved! ...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...man of mist, and have no shadow.
God save you, Lancelot. If I laugh at you,
I laugh in envy and in admiration.”
The joyless evanescence of a smile,
Discovered on the face of Lancelot
By Gawaine’s unrelenting vigilance,
Wavered, and with a sullen change went out;
And then there was the music of a woman
Laughing behind them, and a woman spoke:
“Gawaine, you said ‘God save you, Lancelot.’
Why should He save him any more to-day
Than on another day? What has he done,
G...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...If this
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft—
In darkness and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart—
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,
O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer through the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!
And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And s...Read more of this...
by
Wordsworth, William
...f still the paths of lore she follow,
'Twill be with tired and goaded will;
She'll only toil, the aching hollow,
The joyless blank of life to fill.
And oh ! full oft, quite spent and weary,
Her hand will pause, her head decline;
That labour seems so hard and dreary,
On which no ray of hope may shine.
Thus the pale blight of time and sorrow
Will shade with grey her soft, dark hair
Then comes the day that knows no morrow,
And death succeeds to long despair.
So sp...Read more of this...
by
Bronte, Charlotte
...sky stems,
Would thrust a hand before the lifted bowl,
Whispering: A little space, and thou art mine!
It may be on that joyless feast his eye
Dwelt with mere outward seeming; he, within,
Took measure of his soul, and knew its strength,
And by that silent knowledge, day by day,
Was calm'd, ennobled, comforted, sustain'd.
It may be; but not less his brow was smooth,
And his clear laugh fled ringing through the gloom,
And his mirth quail'd not at the mild reproof
Sigh'd out by w...Read more of this...
by
Arnold, Matthew
...nor what good friends
Forsake us in the seeming, we are all
At one with a complete companionship;
And though forlornly joyless be the ways
We travel, the compensate spirit-gleams
Of Wisdom shaft the darkness here and there,
Like scattered lamps in unfrequented streets.
IX
When one that you and I had all but sworn
To be the purest thing God ever made
Bewilders us until at last it seems
An angel has come back restigmatized, --
Faith wavers, and we wonder what there is
On ...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...
His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings,
Reigns here and revels; not in the bought smile
Of harlots, loveless, joyless, unendeared,
Casual fruition; nor in court-amours,
Mixed dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball,
Or serenate, which the starved lover sings
To his proud fair, best quitted with disdain.
These, lulled by nightingales, embracing slept,
And on their naked limbs the flowery roof
Showered roses, which the morn repaired. Sleep on,
Blest pair; and ...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...om the Ismenian steep,
So, strook with dread and anguish, fell the Fiend,
And to his crew, that sat consulting, brought
Joyless triumphals of his hoped success,
Ruin, and desperation, and dismay,
Who durst so proudly tempt the Son of God.
So Satan fell; and straight a fiery globe
Of Angels on full sail of wing flew nigh,
Who on their plumy vans received Him soft
From his uneasy station, and upbore,
As on a floating couch, through the blithe air;
Then, in a flowery valley, se...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...e:
Depart! ye restless wandering thoughts,
And let me be alone!
One hour, my spirit, stretch thy wings,
And quit this joyless sod,
Bask in the sunshine of the sky,
And be alone with God!...Read more of this...
by
Bronte, Anne
...on her full bright eye,
Thou mightst forget thy native wood.
But thou, poor solitary dove,
Must make, unheard, thy joyless moan;
The heart, that Nature formed to love,
Must pine, neglected, and alone....Read more of this...
by
Bronte, Anne
...has power,
That I sunk down in a sinful fray,
And 'twixt life and death was snatched away
To the joyless Elfin bower.
'But wist I of a woman bold,
Who thrice my brow durst sign,
I might regain my mortal mould,
As fair a form as thine.'
She crossed him once—she crossed him twice—
That lady was so brave;
The fouler grew his goblin hue,
The darker grew the cave.
She crossed him...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...s the dotard views the store,
262 He views, and wonders that they please no more;
263 Now pall the tasteless meats, and joyless wines,
264 And Luxury with sighs her slave resigns.
265 Approach, ye minstrels, try the soothing strain,
266 And yield the tuneful lenitives of pain:
267 No sounds alas would touch th' impervious ear,
268 Though dancing mountains witness'd Orpheus near;
269 Nor lute nor lyre his feeble pow'rs attend,
270 Nor sweeter music of a virtuous friend,
271 Bu...Read more of this...
by
Johnson, Samuel
...ing on the earth
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth ¡ª
And ever-changing like a joyless eye 5
That finds no object worth its constancy? ...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...woodland dress, And bring no book, for this one day We'll give to idleness. No joyless forms shall regulate Our living Calendar: We from to-day, my friend, will date The opening of the year. Love, now an universal birth, From heart to heart is stealing, From earth to man, from man to earth, —It is the hour of feeling. One moment now ...Read more of this...
by
Wordsworth, William
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