Famous Laments Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Laments poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous laments poems. These examples illustrate what a famous laments poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...In the prologue to her Alexiad,
Anna Comnena laments her widowhood.
Her soul is dizzy. "And with rivers
of tears," she tells us "I wet
my eyes... Alas for the waves" in her life,
"alas for the revolts." Pain burns her
"to the the bones and the marrow and the cleaving of the soul."
But it seems the truth is, that this ambitious woman
knew only one great sorrow;
she only had one deep longing
(though sh...Read more of this...
by
Cavafy, Constantine P
...re to importune.
What more elevating sight
Than of man with logic crass,
Who with hot breath fogs the glass,
Then laments it is not bright!
Scorn and favor, favor, scorn,
What you will, result the same,
Treat you ill, and earn your blame,
Love you well, be left forlorn.
Scant regard will she possess
Who with caution wends her way,—
Is held thankless for her “nay,”
And as wanton for her “yes.”
What must be the rare caprice
Of the quarry you engage:
If sh...Read more of this...
by
Juana Inés de la Cruz, Sor
...y care,From each false passion which had work'd him ill,Kept safe and pure, laments he, graceless, stillThe sweet life he has gain'd?And, blindly, thus his fortune dares he blame,Who owes his very fameTo me, his genius who sublimed, sustain'd,In the proud flight to which he, else, had dared not aim? Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...d I keep, for death in flight were shame.Myself I needs must blameFor these laments; tears, sighs, and death to meet,Such fate for her is sweet.Own, slave of Love, whose eyes these rhymes may catch,Earth has no good that with my grief can match. ...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...they live, in the valley,
an elderly Lament responds to the youth as he asks:-
We were once, she says, a great race, we Laments.
Our fathers worked the mines up there in the mountains;
sometimes among men you will find a piece of polished
primeval pain, or a petrified slag from an ancient volcano.
Yes, that came from there. Once we were rich.-
And she leads him gently through the vast landscape
of Lamentation, shows him the columns of temples,
the ruins of strongholds from w...Read more of this...
by
Rilke, Rainer Maria
...to his vow;
"Let Erin remember" the echoes are calling;
Through "The Vale of Avoca" the waters are rolled;
"The Exile" laments while the night~dews are falling;
"The Morning of Life" dawns again as of old.
But ah! those warm love-songs of fresh adolescence!
Around us such raptures celestial they flung
That it seemed as if Paradise breathed its quintessence
Through the seraph-toned lips of the maiden that sung!
Long hushed are the chords that my boyhood enchanted
As when th...Read more of this...
by
Holmes, Oliver Wendell
...
A spirit brave has passed beyond the mists
And vapors that obscure the sun of life.
And Ethiopia, with bosom torn,
Laments the passing of her noblest born.
She weeps for him a mother's burning tears--
She loved him with a mother's deepest love
He was her champion thro' direful years,
And held her weal all other ends above.
When Bondage held her bleeding in the dust,
He raised her up and whispered, 'Hope and Trust.'
For her his voice, a fearless clarion, rung
...Read more of this...
by
Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...Spouse, so bright and clear.
What! is it She, which on the other shore
Goes richly painted? or which, robbed and tore,
Laments and mourns in Germany and here?
Sleeps she a thousand, then peeps up one year?
Is she self-truth and errs? now new, now outwore?
Doth she, and did she, and shall she evermore
On one, on seven, or on no hill appear?
Dwells she with us, or like adventuring knights
First travail we to seek and then make love?
Betray, kind husband, thy spouse to our sigh...Read more of this...
by
Donne, John
...scun grida ;
where you shall hear the howls of desperation
and see the ancient spirits in their pain,
as each of them laments his second death;
e vederai color che son contenti
nel foco, perch? speran di venire
quando che sia a le beate genti .
and you shall see those souls who are content
within the fire, for they hope to reach-
whenever that may be-the blessed people.
A le quai poi se tu vorrai salire,
anima fia a ci? pi? di me degna:
con lei ti lascer? nel mio parti...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...soon her cruelty
With a deserv'd and mighty pain:
About this squalid heap of bones,
Her wand'ring and condemned shade,
Laments in long and piercing groans
The destiny her rigour made,
And the more to augment her right,
Her crime is ever in her sight.
11
There upon antique marbles trac'd,
Devices of past times we see,
Here age ath almost quite defac'd,
What lovers carv'd on every tree.
The cellar, here, the highest room
Receives when its old rafters fail,
Soil'd with the v...Read more of this...
by
Philips, Katherine
...hy rocks and rills
And o’er thy hate which chills,
My heart with purpose thrills,
To rise above.
Let laments swell the breeze
And wring from all the trees
Sweet freedom’s song.
Let laggard tongues awake,
Let all who hear partake,
Let Southern silence quake,
The sound prolong.
Our fathers’ God to thee
Author of Liberty,
To thee we sing
Soon may our land be bright,
With Freedom’s happy light
Protect us by ...Read more of this...
by
Du Bois, W. E. B.
...
But, when its destined years are o'er,
We must regret the loss the more.
So long accustomed to your aid,
The world laments your exit made;
So long befriended by your art,
Philosopher, 'tis hard to part!--
When monarchs tumble to the ground,
Successors easily are found:
But, matchless FRANKLIN! what a few
Can hope to rival such as YOU,
Who seized from kings their sceptered pride,
And turned the lightning darts aside....Read more of this...
by
Freneau, Philip
...e and
say nothing not the moon
that awful eye not the woman
she will become with her
scarred tongue who who who the owl
laments into the evening who
will protect her this prettylittlegirl
3
if the little girl lies
still enough
shut enough
hard enough
shapeshifter may not
walk tonight
the full moon may not
find him here
the hair on him
bristling
rising
up
4
the poem at the end of the world
is the poem the little girl breathes
into her pillow the one
she cannot tell the one...Read more of this...
by
Clifton, Lucille
.../SPAN>But Love so dazzles and deludes me still,My heart their pain and not my loss laments,And blind, to its own death my soul consents. Macgregor....Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...she sees it and is still.H. Sometimes, though mute the tongue, the heart lamentsFondly, and, though the face be calm and bright,Bleeds inly, where no eye beholds its grief.P. Nathless the mind not thus itself contents,Breaking the stagnant woes which there unite,For misery in fine hopes finds no r...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...ld avail'd to spareWithin, without, behold me poor and bare,Though never in laments is breathed my woe.But since on me your bright glance ever shines,E'en as a sunbeam through transparent glass,Suffice then the desire without the lines.Faith Peter bless'd and Mary, but, alas!It proves an enemy to me alone,Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...ey show how more was lost by chance and time
the Hannibal or Ceasar could consume.
The Tiber flows still, but its waste laments
a city that has fallen in its grave—
each wave's a woman beating at her breast.
O Rome! Form all you palms, dominion, bronze
and beauty, what was firm has fled. What once
was fugitive maintains its permenance....Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Robert
...man durst
Who in the heroic schools
Was nurst.
But now, behold, what
Is war with those where honour is not!
Rama laments
Its dead innocents;
Herod howls: "Sly slaughter
Rules now! Let us, by modes once called accurst,
Overhead, under water,
Stab first."...Read more of this...
by
Hardy, Thomas
...love the heavens' crash, but also wish to hear
Bees humming over red azaleas.
Such is the honest bard. With passion he laments
At solemn fairs of Melpomena -
To smile upon the crowd's plebeian merriments,
The liberties of coarse arena.
Now Rome is calling him, now majesties of Troy,
Now elder Ossian's craggy gravels -
And in the meantime he will hear with childish joy
Of Czar Sultan's heroic travels....Read more of this...
by
Pushkin, Alexander
...an anyone.
Thinking, freeing birds, dissolving images,
burying lamps.
Belfry of fogs, how far away, up there!
Stifling laments, milling shadowy hopes,
taciturn miller,
night falls on you face downward, far from the city.
Your presence is foreign, as strange to me as a thing.
I think, I explore great tracts of my life before you.
My life before anyone, my harsh life.
The shout facing the sea, among the rocks,
running free, mad, in the sea-spray.
The sad rage, the shout, the ...Read more of this...
by
Neruda, Pablo
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