Famous Pining Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Pining poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous pining poems. These examples illustrate what a famous pining poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Robert Louis Stevenson
WHAT man may learn, what man may do,
Of right or wrong of false or true,
While, skipper-like, his course he steers
Through nine and twenty mingled years,
Half misconceived and half forgot,
So much I know and practise not.
Old are the words of wisdom, old
The counsels of the wise and bold:
To close the ears, to check the tongue,
To keep the pining spirit young;
To...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Oh! thou bright-beaming god, the plains are thirsting,
Thirsting for freshening dew, and man is pining;
Wearily move on thy horses--
Let, then, thy chariot descend!
Seest thou her who, from ocean's crystal billows,
Lovingly nods and smiles?--Thy heart must know her!
Joyously speed on thy horses,--
Tethys, the goddess, 'tis nods!
Swiftly from out his flaming chariot leaping,
Into her arms he springs,--the reins takes Cupid,--
Quietly stand...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
I see her still--by her fair train surrounded,
The fairest of them all, she took her place;
Afar I stood, by her bright charms confounded,
For, oh! they dazzled with their heavenly grace.
With awe my soul was filled--with bliss unbounded,
While gazing on her softly radiant face;
But soon, as if up-borne on wings of fire,
My fingers 'gan to sweep the sounding lyre.
The thoughts...Read more of this...
by
Anne Bronte
That wind is from the North, I know it well;
No other breeze could have so wild a swell.
Now deep and loud it thunders round my cell,
The faintly dies,
And softly sighs,
And moans and murmurs mournfully.
I know its language; thus is speaks to me --
'I have passed over thy own mountains dear,
Thy northern mountains -- and they still are free,
Still lonely,...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
Unwillingly Miranda wakes,
Feels the sun with terror,
One unwilling step she takes,
Shuddering to the mirror.
Miranda in Miranda's sight
Is old and gray and dirty;
Twenty-nine she was last night;
This morning she is thirty.
Shining like the morning star,
Like the twilight shining,
Haunted by a calendar,
Miranda is a-pining.
Silly girl, silver girl,
Draw the...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Who and what gave to me the wish to woo thee--
Still, lip to lip, to cling for aye unto thee?
Who made thy glances to my soul the link--
Who bade me burn thy very breath to drink--
My life in thine to sink?
As from the conqueror's unresisted glaive,
Flies, without strife subdued, the ready slave--
So, when to life's unguarded fort, I see
Thy...Read more of this...
by
Majeed Amjad
Who can say
Why her eyes,
Those playmates of the hamlet where Beauty dwells,
Why her eyes smile that way ?
When notes arising from her soul,
That Temple-Palace of Music,
And traipsing through the land of glad tidings,
Mirthfully smothering the tinkling of their anklets,
Tip toe up, haltingly, secretively,
To the gates of her lips,
Why her gaze sparkles and smiles ?
Leaping over islands of silence
And...Read more of this...
by
Edmund Spenser
THe wanton boy was shortly wel recured,
of that his malady:
But he soone after fresh againe enured,
his former cruelty.
And since that time he wounded hath my selfe
with his sharpe dart of loue:
And now forgets the cruell carelesse elfe,
his mothers heast to proue.
So now I languish till he please,
my pining anguish to appease....Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
I once knew all the birds that came
And nested in our orchard trees;
For every flower I had a name--
My friends were woodchucks, toads, and bees;
I knew where thrived in yonder glen
What plants would soothe a stone-bruised toe--
Oh, I was very learned then;
But that was very long ago!
I knew the spot upon the hill
Where checkerberries could be found,
I knew the...Read more of this...
by
Ted Hughes
Crow, feeling his brain slip,
Finds his every feather the fossil of a murder.
Who murdered all these?
These living dead, that root in his nerves and his blood
Till he is visibly black?
How can he fly from his feathers?
And why have they homed on him?
Is he the archive of their accusations?
Or their ghostly purpose,...Read more of this...
by
Sir Walter Scott
O lovers’ eyes are sharp to see,
And lovers’ ears in hearing;
And love, in life’s extremity,
Can lend an hour of cheering.
Disease had been in Mary’s bower
And slow decay from mourning,
Though now she sits on Neidpath’s tower
To watch her Love’s returning.
All sunk and dim her eyes so bright,
Her form decay’d by pining,...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Chatterton
On Tiber's banks, Tiber, whose waters glide
In slow meanders down to Gaigra's side;
And circling all the horrid mountain round,
Rushes impetuous to the deep profound;
Rolls o'er the ragged rocks with hideous yell;
Collects its waves beneath the earth's vast shell;
There for a while in loud confusion hurl'd,
It crumbles mountains down and shakes the world....Read more of this...
by
Edmund Spenser
TEll me when shall these wearie woes haue end,
Or shall their ruthlesse torment neuer cease:
but al my dayes in pining languor spend,
without hope of aswagement or release.
Is there no meanes for me to purchace peace,
or make agreement with her thrilling eyes:
but that their cruelty doth still increace,
and dayly more augment my miseryes.
But when ye haue shewed all extremityes,
then thinke...Read more of this...
by
George Herbert
1 I saw Eternity the other night,
2 Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
3 All calm, as it was bright;
4 And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years,
5 Driv'n by the spheres
6 Like a vast shadow mov'd; in which the world
7 And all her train were hurl'd.
8 The doting lover in his quaintest strain
9 Did there...Read more of this...
by
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Felix Randal the farrier, O he is dead then? my duty all ended,
Who have watched his mould of man, big-boned and hardy-handsome
Pining, pining, till time when reason rambled in it and some
Fatal four disorders, fleshed there, all contended?
Sickness broke him. Impatient he cursed at first, but mended
Being anointed and all; though a heavenlier heart began some
Months earlier, since...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Gray
Ye distant spires, ye antique towers,
That crown the watery glade,
Where grateful Science still adores
Her Henry's holy shade;
And ye, that from the stately brow
Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below
Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,
Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among
Wanders the hoary Thames along
His silver-winding way.
Ah happy hills, ah pleasing shade,
Ah fields beloved in vain,
Where once my careless childhood...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
WHILE winds frae aff Ben-Lomond blaw,
An’ bar the doors wi’ driving snaw,
An’ hing us owre the ingle,
I set me down to pass the time,
An’ spin a verse or twa o’ rhyme,
In hamely, westlin jingle.
While frosty winds blaw in the drift,
Ben to the chimla lug,
I grudge a wee the great-folk’s gift,
That live sae bien an’ snug:
...Read more of this...
by
Anne Bronte
Though not a breath can enter here,
I know the wind blows fresh and free;
I know the sun is shining clear,
Though not a gleam can visit me.
They thought while I in darkness lay,
'Twere pity that I should not know
How all the earth is smiling gay;
How fresh the vernal breezes blow.
They knew, such tidings to impart
Would pierce my weary spirit...Read more of this...
by
Robert Seymour Bridges
Beautiful must be the mountains whence ye come,
And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams, wherefrom
Ye learn your song:
Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there,
Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air
Bloom the year long!
Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams:
Our song is the voice of desire,...Read more of this...
by
Anne Bronte
Love, indeed thy strength is mighty
Thus, alone, such strife to bear --
Three 'gainst one, and never ceasing --
Death, and Madness, and Despair!
'Tis not my own strength has saved me;
Health, and hope, and fortitude,
But for love, had long since failed me;
Heart and soul had sunk subdued.
Often, in my wild impatience,
I have lost my trust in Heaven,
And my soul has...Read more of this...
by
Anne Bronte
I'm buried now; I've done with life;
I've done with hate, revenge and strife;
I've done with joy, and hope and love
And all the bustling world above.
Long have I dwelt forgotten here
In pining woe and dull despair;
This place of solitude and gloom
Must be my dungeon and my tomb.
No hope, no pleasure can I find:
I am grown weary of my mind;
Often...Read more of this...
by
Anne Bronte
A prisoner in a dungeon deep
Sat musing silently;
His head was rested on his hand,
His elbow on his knee.
Turned he his thoughts to future times
Or are they backward cast?
For freedom is he pining now
Or mourning for the past?
No, he has lived so long enthralled
Alone in dungeon gloom
That he has lost regret and hope,
Has ceased to mourn his doom.
He pines...Read more of this...
by
Anne Bronte
'O cast away your sorrow; --
A while, at least, be gay!
If grief must come tomorrow,
At least, be glad today!
'How can you still be sighing
When smiles are everywhere?
The little birds are flying
So blithely through the air;
'The sunshine glows so brightly
O'er all the blooming earth;
And every heart beats lightly, --
Each face is full of mirth.'
'I always feel the deepest gloom
When...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
Command the roof, great Genius, and from thence
Into this house pour down thy influence,
That through each room a golden pipe may run
Of living water by thy benizon;
Fulfil the larders, and with strength'ning bread
Be ever-more these bins replenished.
Next, like a bishop consecrate my ground,
That lucky fairies here may dance their round;
And, after that, lay down some silver pence,
The master's charge...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
This silly sorrow-laden heart of mine
Is ever pining for that Love of mine;
When the Cupbearer poured the wine of love,
With my heart's blood he filled this cup of mine!...Read more of this...
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