Famous Lamentable Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Lamentable poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous lamentable poems. These examples illustrate what a famous lamentable poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Burns, Robert
...heart! he could na mend it!
He gaped wide, but naething spak,
At langth poor Mailie silence brak.
“O thou, whase lamentable face
Appears to mourn my woefu’ case!
My dying words attentive hear,
An’ bear them to my Master dear.
“Tell him, if e’er again he keep
As muckle gear as buy a sheep—
O, bid him never tie them mair,
Wi’ wicked strings o’ hemp or hair!
But ca’ them out to park or hill,
An’ let them wander at their will:
So may his flock increase, an’ grow
To ...Read more of this...
by
Wilmot, John
...ague this woman and undo her.
But my revenge will best be timed
When she is married that is limed.
In that most lamentable state
I'll make her feel my scorn and hate:
Pelt her with scandals, truth or lies,
And her poor cur with jealousied,
Till I have torn him from her breech,
While she whines like a dog-drawn *****;
Loathed and despised, kicked out o' th' Town
Into some dirty hole alone,
To chew the cud of misery
And know she owes it all to me.
And may no woman ...Read more of this...
by
Moody, William Vaughn
...s, our cupidity!
For save we let the island men go free,
Those baffled and dislaureled ghosts
Will curse us from the lamentable coasts
Where walk the frustrate dead.
The cup of trembling shall be drainèd quite,
Eaten the sour bread of astonishment,
With ashes of the hearth shall be made white
Our hair, and wailing shall be in the tent;
Then on your guiltier head
Shall our intolerable self-disdain
Wreak suddenly its anger and its pain;
For manifest in that disa...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...and eat from off the tree,
As simple as a savage is, as careless as a boy.
For I have come to think that Life's a lamentable tale,
And all we break our hearts to win is little worth our while;
For fame and fortune in the end are comfortless and stale,
And it is best to dream and rest upon a radiant isle.
So I'll blot out the bitter years of sufferance and scorn,
And I'll forget the fear and fret, the poverty and pain;
And in a shy and secret isle I'll be a man newbo...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...was its sun obscured.What genius can with wordsRightly describe my lamentable state?Ah, blind, ungrateful world!Thou hast indeed just cause with me to mourn;That beauty thou didst hold with her is fled! Fall'n is thy glory, and thou seest it not;Unworthy thou with her,...Read more of this...
by
Manrique, Jorge
...tion;
Nor here rehearse the homely fable
Of such as yielded up their sway
These decades gone;
But let us say what lamentable
Fate the lords of yesterday
Have fallen upon.
Of fair Don Juan the king that ruled us,—
Of those hight heirs of Aragon,—
What are the tidings?
Of him, whose courtly graces schooled us,
Whom song and wisdom smiled upon,
Where the abidings?
The jousts and tourneys where vaunted
With trappings, and caparison,
And armor sheathing,—
Wer...Read more of this...
by
Donne, John
...kin
Of men late scourged for madness, or for sin,
Like sun-parched quarters on the city gate,
Such is thy tanned skin's lamentable state.
And like a bunch of ragged carrots stand
The short swol'n fingers of thy gouty hand.
Then like the Chimic's masculine equal fire,
Which in the Lymbecks warm womb doth inspire
Into th' earth's worthless dirt a soul of gold,
Such cherishing heat her best loved part doth hold.
Thine's like the dread mouth of a fired gun,
Or like ho...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...tent with all.
2
Do you suppose I could be content with all, if I thought them their own finale?
This now is too lamentable a face for a man;
Some abject louse, asking leave to be—cringing for it;
Some milk-nosed maggot, blessing what lets it wrig to its hole.
This face is a dog’s snout, sniffing for garbage;
Snakes nest in that mouth—I hear the sibilant threat.
This face is a haze more chill than the arctic sea;
Its sleepy and wobbling icebergs crunch a...Read more of this...
by
Rossetti, Christina
...tongue,
She loathed the feast:
Writhing as one possessed she leaped and sung,
Rent all her robe, and wrung
Her hands in lamentable haste,
And beat her breast.
Her locks streamed like the torch
Borne by a racer at full speed,
Or like the mane of horses in their flight,
Or like an eagle when she stems the light
Straight toward the sun,
Or like a caged thing freed,
Or like a flying flag when armies run.
Swift fire spread through her veins, knocked at her heart,
Met the ...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...t something baser than themselves."
And I,
"Master, what grievance hath their failure cost,
That through the lamentable dark they cry?"
He answered, "Briefly at a thing not worth
We glance, and pass forgetful. Hope in death
They have not. Memory of them on the earth
Where once they lived remains not. Nor the breath
Of Justice shall condemn, nor Mercy plead,
But all alike disdain them. That they know
Themselves so mean beneath aught el...Read more of this...
by
Po, Li
...go out,
There is no end to war!—
In the battlefield men grapple each other and die;
The horses of the vanquished utter lamentable cries to heaven,
While ravens and kites peck at human entrails,
Carry them up in their flight, and hang them on the branches of dead trees.
So, men are scattered and smeared over the desert grass,
And the generals have accomplished nothing.
Oh, nefarious war! I see why arms
Were so seldom used by the benign sovereigns....Read more of this...
by
Strode, William
...You that affright with lamentable notes
The servants from their beef, whose hungry throats
Vex the grume porter's surly conscience:
That blesse the mint for coyning lesse than pence:
You whose unknown and meanly payd desarts
Begge silently within, and knocke at hearts:
You whose commanding worth makes men beleeve
That you a kindnesse give when you receave:
All sorts of them that w...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...n
In confused march forlorn, th' adventurous bands,
With shuddering horror pale, and eyes aghast,
Viewed first their lamentable lot, and found
No rest. Through many a dark and dreary vale
They passed, and many a region dolorous,
O'er many a frozen, many a fiery alp,
Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death--
A universe of death, which God by curse
Created evil, for evil only good;
Where all life dies, death lives, and Nature breeds,
Perverse, ...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...I praise with electric voice;
For I do not see one imperfection in the universe;
And I do not see one cause or result lamentable at last in the universe.
O setting sun! though the time has come,
I still warble under you, if none else does, unmitigated adoration....Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...as a most dreadful sight to behold,
Heaps upon heaps of dead men lying stiff and cold;
While the cries of the dying was lamentable to hear;
And for the loss Of their comrades many a soldier shed a tear.
Men and horses fell on every aide around,
Whilst heavy cannon shot tore up the ground;
And musket balls in thousands flew,
And innocent blood bedewed the field of Waterloo.
Methinks I see the solid British square,
Whilst the shout of the French did rend the air,
As...Read more of this...
by
Verhaeren, Emile
...
Saw that far distance—an illumined haze—
Whence the voice sounded, coming toward him still.
Beneath the cold skies, lamentable, shrill.
The last oar broke—
And this the current hurried at one stroke,
Like a frail straw, towards the distant sea.
The ferryman, with arms dropped helplessly
Sank on his bench, forlorn.
His loins with vain efforts broken, torn.
Drifting, his barque struck somewhere, as by chance,
He turned a glance
Towards the bank behind h...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...ated the Arabs again,
And have added fresh laurels to their name,
Which will be enrolled in the book of fame.
'Tis lamentable to think of the horrors of war,
That men must leave their homes and go abroad afar,
To fight for their Queen and country in a foreign land,
Beneath the whirlwind's drifting scorching sand.
But whatsoever God wills must come to pass,
The fall of a sparrow, or a tiny blade of grass;
Also, man must fall at home by His command,
Just equally the ...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...blackened, that were trampled to death,
And their parents lamenting o'er them with bated breath.
Oh! it was most lamentable for to hear
The cries of the mothers for their children dear;
And many mothers swooned in grief away
At the sight of their dead children in grim array.
There was a parent took home a boy by mistake,
And after arriving there his heart was like to break
When it was found to be the body of a neighbour's child;
The parent stood aghast and was li...Read more of this...
by
Crane, Stephen
...There was a man with tongue of wood
Who essayed to sing,
And in truth it was lamentable.
But there was one who heard
The clip-clapper of this tongue of wood
And knew what the man
Wished to sing,
And with that the singer was content....Read more of this...
by
Dowson, Ernest
...t dreams divine
Lift his long, laughing reveries like enchanted wine,
And make his melancholy germane to the stars'?
O lamentable brother! if those pity thee,
Am I not fain of all thy lone eyes promise me;
Half a fool's kingdom, far from men who sow and reap,
All their days, vanity? Better than mortal flowers,
Thy moon-kissed roses seem: better than love or sleep,
The star-crowned solitude of thine oblivious hours!...Read more of this...
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