Famous Regretting Poems by Famous Poets

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

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For Annie

...d, to sleep, you must slumber 
In just such a bed. 

My tantalized spirit 
Here blandly reposes, 
Forgetting, or never 
Regretting its roses- 
Its old agitations 
Of myrtles and roses: 

For now, while so quietly 
Lying, it fancies 
A holier odor 
About it, of pansies- 
A rosemary odor, 
Commingled with pansies- 
With rue and the beautiful 
Puritan pansies. 

And so it lies happily, 
Bathing in many 
A dream of the truth 
And the beauty of Annie- 
Drowned in a bath 
Of the tr...Read more of this...
by Poe, Edgar Allan


Frances

...ern.

Nor wherefore, friendship's forms forgetting, 
He careless left, and cool withdrew; 
Nor spoke of grief, nor fond regretting, 
Nor even one glance of comfort threw.

And neither word nor token sending,
Of kindness, since the parting day,
His course, for distant regions bending,
Went, self-contained and calm, away. 

Oh, bitter, blighting, keen sensation, 
Which will not weaken, cannot die, 
Hasten thy work of desolation, 
And let my tortured spirit fly !

Vain as the pa...Read more of this...
by Bronte, Charlotte

Leeds

...Gare de l’Est?



Often, O how often, did I mingle with your crowds

Crossing the Pont Mirabeau in their Sunday best,

Regretting my lost loves, watching the barges

Snail along the Seine, hearing the bells

Of the Angelus dawn?



II



Exiled in the south and in a new century,

I recall leisurely Sundays on the Grande Jatte;

The children in sun hats knelt by their boats

Unfurling handkerchiefs for sails and for supreme farewells

(Shall I return? Steamer with your poised...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry

Letter To My Wife

...fear
 in Nazim's
 blue eyes!
In the twilight of my last morning
I
will see my friends and you,
and I'll go
to my grave
 regretting nothing but an unfinished song...
My wife!
Good-hearted,
golden,
eyes sweeter than honey--my bee!
Why did I write you
 they want to hang me?
The trial has hardly begun,
and they don't just pluck a man's head
 like a turnip.
Look, forget all this.
If you have any money,
 buy me some flannel underwear:
my sciatica is acting up again.
And don't forge...Read more of this...
by Hikmet, Nazim

No One So Much As You

...

We look and understand, 
We cannot speak
Except in trifles and
Words the most weak. 

For I at most accept
Your love, regretting
That is all: I have kept
Only a fretting 

That I could not return
All that you gave
And could not ever burn
With the love you have, 

Till sometimes it did seem
Better it were
Never to see you more
Than linger here 

With only gratitude
Instead of love -
A pine in solitude
Cradling a dove....Read more of this...
by Thomas, Edward


Sohrab and Rustum

...them feebly on his father's face;
Till now all strength was ebb'd, and from his limbs
Unwillingly the spirit fled away,
Regretting the warm mansion which it left,
And youth, and bloom, and this delightful world. 

So, on the bloody sand, Sohrab lay dead;
And the great Rustum drew his horseman's cloak
Down o'er his face, and sate by his dead son.
As those black granite pillars, once high-rear'd
By Jemshid in Persepolis, to bear
His house, now 'mid their broken flights of steps...Read more of this...
by Arnold, Matthew

Swan Song

...d
carrying on the swan tradition -- hissing
inside their white bodies, raising and lowering their heads
like ostriches, regretting only the sad ritual
that forced them to waddle back into the water
after their life under the rocks, wishing they could lie again
 in the sun

and dream of spreading their terrifying wings;
wishing, this time, they could sail through the sky like
 horses,
their tails rigid, their white manes fluttering,
their mouths open, their sharp teeth flashin...Read more of this...
by Stern, Gerald

Syringa

...he wind after a summer storm
And is happening in lacy shadows of shore-trees, now, 
day after day."

But how late to be regretting all this, even
Bearing in mind that regrets are always late, too late!
To which Orpheus, a bluish cloud with white contours,
Replies that these are of course not regrets at all,
Merely a careful, scholarly setting down of
Unquestioned facts, a record of pebbles along the way.
And no matter how all this disappeared,
Or got where it was going, it is...Read more of this...
by Ashbery, John

The Siege of Corinth

...e [3] 
Adorn'd the triumph of Eugene, 
When on Carlowitz' bloody plain, 
The last and mightiest of the slain, 
He sank, regretting not to die, 
But cursed the Christian's victory — 
Coumourgi — can his glory cease, 
That latest conqueror of Greece, 
Till Christian hands to Greece restore 
The freedom Venice gave of yore? 
A hundred years have roll'd away 
Since he refix'd the Moslem's sway, 
And now he led the Mussulman, 
And gave the guidance of the van 
To Alp, who well rep...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

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