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Famous Lonesome Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Dickinson, Emily
...A faded Boy -- in sallow Clothes
Who drove a lonesome Cow
To pastures of Oblivion --
A statesman's Embryo --

The Boys that whistled are extinct --
The Cows that fed and thanked
Remanded to a Ballad's Barn
Or Clover's Retrospect --...Read more of this...



by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...he varying roof of heaven
And the green earth, lost in his heart its claims
To love and wonder; he would linger long
In lonesome vales, making the wild his home,
Until the doves and squirrels would partake 
From his innocuous band his bloodless food,
Lured by the gentle meaning of his looks,
And the wild antelope, that starts whene'er
The dry leaf rustles in the brake, suspend
Her timid steps, to gaze upon a form
More graceful than her own.

His wandering step,
Obedient t...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...ir northerly wilds, beasts of prey haunting the Adirondacks, the hills—or
 lapping
 the
 Saginaw waters to drink; 
In a lonesome inlet, a sheldrake, lost from the flock, sitting on the water, rocking
 silently; 
In farmers’ barns, oxen in the stable, their harvest labor done—they rest
 standing—they are too tired;
Afar on arctic ice, the she-walrus lying drowsily, while her cubs play around; 
The hawk sailing where men have not yet sail’d—the farthest polar sea, ripply,
 crys...Read more of this...

by Johnson, James Weldon
...ad;
She's resting in the bosom of Jesus.
Heart-broken husband--weep no more;
Grief-stricken son--weep no more;
Left-lonesome daughter --weep no more;
She only just gone home.

Day before yesterday morning,
God was looking down from his great, high heaven,
Looking down on all his children,
And his eye fell of Sister Caroline,
Tossing on her bed of pain.
And God's big heart was touched with pity,
With the everlasting pity.

And God sat back on his throne,
And he...Read more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
...o, and went, 
 leaving no broken hearts, 
who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars racketing 
 through snow toward lonesome farms in grand- 
 father night, 
who studied Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross telep- 
 athy and bop kabbalah because the cosmos in- 
 stinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas, 
who loned it through the streets of Idaho seeking vis- 
 ionary indian angels who were visionary indian 
 angels, 
who thought they were only mad when Baltimore 
 g...Read more of this...



by Frost, Robert
...they could say was ‘God!’ when you proposed
Their coming out and making useful farmers.”

“Did they make something lonesome go through you?
It would take more than them to sicken you—
Us of our bargain. But they left us so
As to our fate, like fools past reasoning with.
They almost shook me.”

“It’s all so much
What we have always wanted, I confess
It’s seeming bad for a moment makes it seem
Even worse still, and so on down, down, down.
It’s nothing; it’s...Read more of this...

by Johnson, James Weldon
...ody-bent
Before Thy throne of grace.
O Lord--this morning--
Bow our hearts beneath our knees,
And our knees in some lonesome valley.
We come this morning--
Like empty pitchers to a full fountain,
With no merits of our own.
O Lord--open up a window of heaven,
And lean out far over the battlements of glory,
And listen this morning.

Lord, have mercy on proud and dying sinners--
Sinners hanging over the mouth of hell,
Who seem to love their distance well.
Lor...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...mith was anti-mud puddle, but then you migl

not say that at all.












THE SALT

CREEK COYOTES





High and lonesome and steady, it's the smell of sheep down

in the valley that has done it to them. Here all afternoon in

the rain I've been listening to the sound of the coyotes up on

Salt Creek.

 The smell of the sheep grazing in the valley has done it

to them. Their voices water and come down the canyon, past

the summer homes. Their voices are...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...ng carouse, and drinking? 

15
Yet, O my soul supreme! 
Know’st thou the joys of pensive thought? 
Joys of the free and lonesome heart—the tender, gloomy heart?
Joy of the solitary walk—the spirit bowed yet proud—the suffering and the
 struggle? 
The agonistic throes, the extasies—joys of the solemn musings, day or night? 
Joys of the thought of Death—the great spheres Time and Space? 
Prophetic joys of better, loftier love’s ideals—the Divine Wife—the sweet,
 eternal, perfec...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...with all the different bugle-calls! 
Trooping tumultuous, filling the midnight late, bending me powerless, 
Entering my lonesome slumber-chamber—Why have you seiz’d me? 

2
Come forward, O my Soul, and let the rest retire; 
Listen—lose not—it is toward thee they tend;
Parting the midnight, entering my slumber-chamber, 
For thee they sing and dance, O Soul. 

A festival song! 
The duet of the bridegroom and the bride—a marriage-march, 
With lips of love, and hearts of love...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...ich forth he slowly drew: 
And him with further words I thus bespake, 
"What occupation do you there pursue? 
This is a lonesome place for one like you." 
Ere he replied, a flash of mild surprise 
Broke from the sable orbs of his yet-vivid eyes, 

XIV 

His words came feebly, from a feeble chest, 
But each in solemn order followed each, 
With something of a lofty utterance drest-- 
Choice word and measured phrase, above the reach 
Of ordinary men; a stately speech; 
Such ...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...ich forth he slowly drew: 
And him with further words I thus bespake, 
"What occupation do you there pursue? 
This is a lonesome place for one like you." 
Ere he replied, a flash of mild surprise 
Broke from the sable orbs of his yet-vivid eyes, 

XIV 

His words came feebly, from a feeble chest, 
But each in solemn order followed each, 
With something of a lofty utterance drest-- 
Choice word and measured phrase, above the reach 
Of ordinary men; a stately speech; 
Such ...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...men bathe by the shore; 
Twenty-eight young men, and all so friendly: 
Twenty-eight years of womanly life, and all so lonesome. 

She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank; 
She hides, handsome and richly drest, aft the blinds of the window.

Which of the young men does she like the best? 
Ah, the homeliest of them is beautiful to her. 

Where are you off to, lady? for I see you; 
You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...nd many a bouncing boy had sought to make her change her name;
And living just across the way 'twas surely only human
A lonesome man like Casey should be wishfully the same.
So every Sunday, shaved and shined, he'd make the fine occasion
To call upon the lady, and she'd take his and coat;
And supping tea it seemed that she might yield to his persuasion,
But alas! he hadn't counted on that devastating goat.

For Shamus loved his master with a deep and dumb devotion,
An...Read more of this...

by Poe, Edgar Allan
...Lo! 't is a gala night

Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng bewinged bedight

In veils and drowned in tears 
Sit in a theatre to see

A play of hopes and fears 
While the orchestra breathes fitfully

The music of the spheres.
Mimes in the form of God on high 

Mutter and mumble low 
And hither and thither fly -

Mere puppets they who come and go
At bidding of...Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
...n is brave, the sun is bright,
The sun is lord of love and light;
But after him it cometh night.
Dim anguish of the lonesome dark! --
Once a girl's body, stiff and stark,
Was laid in a tomb without a mark,
Ah me!


Song for "The Jacquerie".


The hound was cuffed, the hound was kicked,
O' the ears was cropped, o' the tail was nicked,
(All.) Oo-hoo-o, howled the hound.
The hound into his kennel crept;
He rarely wept, he never slept.
His mouth he always open...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...he track.—
     Brave Douglas,—lovely Ellen,—nay,
     Naught here of parting will I say.
     Earth does not hold a lonesome glen
     So secret but we meet again.—
     Chieftain! we too shall find an hour,'—
     He said, and left the sylvan bower.
     XXXVI.

     Old Allan followed to the strand—
     Such was the Douglas's command—
     And anxious told, how, on the morn,
     The stern Sir Roderick deep had sworn,
     The Fiery Cross should circle o'er
...Read more of this...

by Warton, Thomas
...s; while airy voices talk
Along the glimm'ring walls; or ghostly shape
At distance seen, invites with beck'ning hand
My lonesome steps, thro' the far-winding vaults.
Nor undelightful is the solemn noon
Of night, when haply wakeful from my couch
I start: lo, all is motionless around!
Roars not the rushing wind; the sons of men
And every beast in mute oblivion lie;
All nature's hush'd in silence and in sleep.
O then how fearful is it to reflect,
That thro' the still glo...Read more of this...

by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
...e
I viewed the ocean green,
And looked far forth, yet little saw
Of what had else been seen--

Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.

But soon there breathed a wind on me,
Nor sound nor motion made:
Its path was not upon the sea,
In ripple or in shade.

It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek
Like ...Read more of this...

by Neruda, Pablo
...long stem of the trampled bush
that the depths, converted into archipelago,
O natural star, green diadem,
alone in your lonesome dynasty,
still unattainable, elusive, desolate
like one drop, like one grape, like the sea....Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things