Famous Lamentations Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Lamentations poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous lamentations poems. These examples illustrate what a famous lamentations poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...ing echoes fly from tomb to tomb.
.
From the confessionals I hear arise
.
Rehearsals of forgotten tragedies,
.
And lamentations from the crypts below;
.
And then a voice celestial that begins
.
With the pathetic words, "Although your sins
.
As scarlet be," and ends with "as the snow."
IV.Written May 5, 1867.4.
With snow-white veil and garments as of flame,
.
She stands before thee, who so long ago
.
Filled thy young heart with passion and the woe
.
From which t...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...high their tower
Sprung upwards like a torch to light the skies,
Then down again it rain'd an ember shower,
And louder lamentations heard we rise;
As when the evil Manitou that dries
Th' Ohio woods, consumes them in his ire,
In vain the desolated panther flies,
And howls amidst his wilderness of fire:
Alas! too late, we reach'd and smote those Hurons dire!
But as the fox beneath the nobler hound,
So died their warriors by our battle brand;
And from the tree we, with her chi...Read more of this...
by
Campbell, Thomas
...sospiri, pianti e alti guai
risonavan per l'aere sanza stelle,
per ch'io al cominciar ne lagrimai .
Here sighs and lamentations and loud cries
were echoing across the starless air,
so that, as soon as I set out, I wept.
Diverse lingue, orribili favelle,
parole di dolore, accenti d'ira,
voci alte e fioche, e suon di man con elle
Strange utterances, horrible pronouncements,
accents of anger, words of suffering,
and voices shrill and faint, and beating hands-
...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...osegay is an introduction to a Prince.
For it were better for the SERVICE, if only select psalms were read.
For the Lamentations of Jeremiah, Songs from other scriptures, and parts of Esdras might be taken to supply the quantity.
For A is the beginning of learning and the door of heaven.
For B is a creature busy and bustling.
For C is a sense quick and penetrating.
For D is depth.
For E is eternity -- such is the power of the English letters taken singly.
For ...Read more of this...
by
Smart, Christopher
...I found him in the guard-room at the Base.
From the blind darkness I had heard his crying
And blundered in. With puzzled, patient face
A sergeant watched him; it was no good trying
To stop it; for he howled and beat his chest.
And, all because his brother had gone west,
Raved at the bleeding war; his rampant grief
Moaned, shouted, sobbed, and choked,...Read more of this...
by
Sassoon, Siegfried
...ears where never smile was seen.
4.6 She wander'd in the land of clouds thro' valleys dark, list'ning
4.7 Dolours and lamentations; waiting oft beside a dewy grave
4.8 She stood in silence, list'ning to the voices of the ground,
4.9 Till to her own grave plot she came, and there she sat down,
4.10 And heard this voice of sorrow breathed from the hollow pit.
4.11 "Why cannot the Ear be closed to its own destruction?
4.12 Or the glist'ning Eye to the poison of a smile?
4.13...Read more of this...
by
Blake, William
...o'er the plain,
And seized upon that beauteous maid
And rent her doll in twain.
Oh, 't was a piteous thing to hear
Her lamentations wild;
She tore her golden curls and cried:
"My child! My child! My child!"
Alas, what cared those Injun chiefs
How bitterly wailed she?
They never had been mothers,
And they could not hope to be!
"Have done with tears," they rudely quoth,
And then they bound her hands;
For they proposed to take her off
To distant border lands.
But, joy! from ...Read more of this...
by
Field, Eugene
...the living.
"Think of this, O Hiawatha!
Speak of it to all the people,
That henceforward and forever
They no more with lamentations
Sadden the souls of the departed
In the Islands of the Blessed.
"Do not lay such heavy burdens
In the graves of those you bury,
Not such weight of furs and wampum,
Not such weight of pots and kettles,
For the spirits faint beneath them.
Only give them food to carry,
Only give them fire to light them.
"Four days is the spirit's journey
To the lan...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...see it clearly
It is the last, and cunningest, resort
Of one who has found this world of dust and flesh,—
This world of lamentations, death, injustice,
Sickness, humiliation, slow defeat,
Bareness, and ugliness, and iteration,—
Too meaningless; or, if it has a meaning,
Too tiresomely insistent on one meaning:
Futility . . . This world, I hear you saying,—
With lifted chin, and arm in outflung gesture,
Coldly imperious,—this transient world,
What has it then to give, if not c...Read more of this...
by
Aiken, Conrad
...nches croaks, as crash
The leafy branches through the tangled boughs
Of brother oaks, so fell the hog-eyed one
Amid the lamentations of the friends
Of A. D. Blood.
Just then, four lusty men
Bore the town marshal, on whose iron face
The purple pall of death already lay,
To Trainor's drug store, shot by Jack McGuire.
And cries went up of "Lynch him!" and the sound
Of running feet from every side was heard
Bent on the...Read more of this...
by
Masters, Edgar Lee
...ed, but pride, to dareAssert o'er highest excellence his power.What tearful lamentations fill the airThe while those beauteous eyes alone are dry,Whose sway my burning thoughts and lays declare!And while in grief dissolved all weep and sigh,She, in meek silence, joyous sits secure,Gathering already virtue's guerdon high.Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...E)
Cometh the Wind from the garden, bitter with sorrow of winter.
"Wind, is thy love-song forgot? Wherefore thy dread lamentations?"
Sigheth and moaneth the Wind: "Out of the desolate garden
Come I from vigils with ghosts over the grave of the Summer!"
"Thy breath that was fragrant anon with rapture of music and loving,
It grieveth all things with its sting and the frost of its wailing
displeasure."
The Wind maketh ever more moan and ever it giveth this answer:
"My heart...Read more of this...
by
Field, Eugene
...Virgin's
heaven-sent fruits. The morning sigh of one inebriate
the bygone night is more melodious than the longdrawn
lamentations of Adhem or Bou-Saïd....Read more of this...
by
Khayyam, Omar
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