Famous Sickness Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Sickness poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous sickness poems. These examples illustrate what a famous sickness poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Isaac Watts
v.6
L. M.
Health, sickness, and recovery.
Firm was my health, my day was bright,
And I presumed 'twould ne'er be night;
Fondly I said within my heart,
"Pleasure and peace shall ne'er depart."
But I forgot thine arm was strong
Which made my mountain stand so long:
Soon as thy face began to hide,
My health was gone, my comforts died.
I cried aloud to thee, my God,
"What...Read more of this...
by
Wilfred Owen
I, too, saw God through mud --
The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled.
War brought more glory to their eyes than blood,
And gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child.
Merry it was to laugh there --
Where death becomes absurd and life absurder.
For power was on us as we slashed bones bare
Not...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Not Sickness stains the Brave,
Nor any Dart,
Nor Doubt of Scene to come,
But an adjourning Heart --...Read more of this...
by
William Blake
1.1 "What is the price of Experience? do men buy it for a song?
1.2 Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price
1.3 Of all that a man hath, his house, his wife, his children.
1.4 Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy,
1.5 And in the wither'd field...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
A Sickness of this World it most occasions
When Best Men die.
A Wishfulness their far Condition
To occupy.
A Chief indifference, as Foreign
A World must be
Themselves forsake -- contented,
For Deity....Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
"Tuberculosis should not be,"
The old professor said.
"If folks would hearken unto me
'Twould save a million dead.
Nay, no consumptive needs to die,
--A cure have I.
"From blood of turtle I've distilled
An elixir of worth;
Let every sufferer be thrilled
And sing for joy of earth;
Yet every doctor turns his back
And calls me quack.
"Alas! They do not want...Read more of this...
by
Anne Bronte
Why should such gloomy silence reign;
And why is all the house so drear,
When neither danger, sickness, pain,
Nor death, nor want have entered here?
We are as many as we were
That other night, when all were gay,
And full of hope, and free from care;
Yet, is there something gone away.
The moon without as pure and calm
Is shining as that night she...Read more of this...
by
George Herbert
My God, I heard this day
That none doth build a stately habitation,
But he that means to dwell therein.
What house more stately hath there been,
Or can be, than is Man? to whose creation
...Read more of this...
by
William Blake
'What is the price of Experience? do men buy it for a song?
Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price
Of all that a man hath, his house, his wife, his children.
Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy,
And in the wither'd field where the farmer plows for...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
1
OUT of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
Over the sterile sands, and the fields beyond, where the child, leaving his bed, wander’d
alone, bare-headed, barefoot,
Down from the shower’d halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows, twining and twisting as if they were alive,
Out from the...Read more of this...
by
Charlotte Bronte
Lough, vessel, plough the British main,
Seek the free ocean's wider plain;
Leave English scenes and English skies,
Unbind, dissever English ties;
Bear me to climes remote and strange,
Where altered life, fast-following change,
Hot action, never-ceasing toil,
Shall stir, turn, dig, the spirit's soil;
Fresh roots shall plant, fresh seed shall sow,
Till a new garden there shall grow,
Cleared of...Read more of this...
by
Anne Bradstreet
Twice ten years old not fully told
since nature gave me breath,
My race is run, my thread spun,
lo, here is fatal death.
All men must die, and so must I;
this cannot be revoked.
For Adam's sake this word God spake
when he so high provoked.
Yet live I shall, this life's but small,
in place of highest bliss,
Where I shall have all I can crave,
no...Read more of this...
by
Rupert Brooke
(Halted around the fire by night, after moon-set, they sing this beneath the trees.)
What light of unremembered skies
Hast thou relumed within our eyes,
Thou whom we seek, whom we shall find? . . .
A certain odour on the wind,
Thy hidden face beyond the west,
These things have called us; on a quest
Older than any road we trod,
More endless than desire. ....Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Father drank himself to death,--
Quite enjoyed it.
Urged to draw a sober breath
He'd avoid it.
'Save your sympathy,' said Dad;
'Never sought it.
Hob-nail liver, gay and glad,
Sure,--I bought it.'
Uncle made a heap of dough,
Ponies playing.
'Easy come and easy go,'
Was his saying.
Though he died in poverty
Fit he thought it,
Grinning with philosophy:
'Guess I bought it.'
Auntie took...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
As One does Sickness over
In convalescent Mind,
His scrutiny of Chances
By blessed Health obscured --
As One rewalks a Precipice
And whittles at the Twig
That held Him from Perdition
Sown sidewise in the Crag
A Custom of the Soul
Far after suffering
Identity to question
For evidence't has been --...Read more of this...
by
John Donne
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee...Read more of this...
by
Ben Jonson
VIII. ? SONG. ? TO SICKNESS. To thy altars, by their nights Spent in surfeits ; and their days, And nights too, in worser ways ? Take heed, Sickness, what you do, I shall fear you'll surfeit too. Live not we, as all thy stalls,And this age will build no more. 'Pray thee, feed contented then, Sickness, only on us men ; Or if it...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Oh, yes! they love through all this world of ours!
I will not gainsay love, called love forsooth.
I have heard love talked in my early youth,
And since, not so long back but that the flowers
Then gathered, smell still. Mussulmans and Giaours
Throw kerchiefs at a smile, and have no ruth
For any weeping. Polypheme's white tooth
Slips on the nut if, after frequent...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
That flow of gallants which approach
To kiss thy hand from out the coach;
That fleet of lackeys which do run
Before thy swift postilion;
Those strong-hoof'd mules, which we behold
Rein'd in with purple, pearl, and gold,
And shed with silver, prove to be
The drawers of the axle-tree;
Thy wife, thy children, and the state
Of Persian looms and antique plate:
--All these, and more, shall then...Read more of this...
by
Billy Collins
It seems these poets have nothing
up their ample sleeves
they turn over so many cards so early,
telling us before the first line
whether it is wet or dry,
night or day, the season the man is standing in,
even how much he has had to drink.
Maybe it is autumn and he is looking at a sparrow.
Maybe it is snowing on a town with...Read more of this...
by
Ben Jonson
FALSE world good night! since thou hast brought
That hour upon my morn of age;
Henceforth I quit thee from my thought
My part is ended on thy stage.
Yes threaten do. Alas! I fear 5
As little as I hope from thee:
I know thou canst not show nor bear
More hatred than thou hast to me.
My...Read more of this...
by
Henry Lawson
Now up and down the siding brown
The great black crows are flyin',
And down below the spur, I know,
Another `milker's' dyin';
The crops have withered from the ground,
The tank's clay bed is glarin',
But from my heart no tear nor sound,
For I have gone past carin' --
Past worryin' or carin',
Past feelin' aught or...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
A farmer's wife, both young and gay,
And fresh as op'ning buds of May;
Had taken to herself, a Spouse,
And plighted many solemn vows,
That she a faithful mate would prove,
In meekness, duty, and in love!
That she, despising joy and wealth,
Would be, in sickness and in health,
His only comfort and his Friend--
But, mark the sequel,--and attend!
This Farmer, as the tale is told--
Was...Read more of this...
by
Aleister Crowley
"Aug." 10, 1911.
Full moon to-night; and six and twenty years
Since my full moon first broke from angel spheres!
A year of infinite love unwearying ---
No circling seasons, but perennial spring!
A year of triumph trampling through defeat,
The first made holy and the last made sweet
By this same love; a year of wealth and woe,
Joy, poverty, health, sickness --- all one glow
In...Read more of this...
by
Anne Kingsmill Finch
WITH such a Pulse, with such disorder'd Veins,
Such lab'ring Breath, as thy Disease constrains;
With failing Eyes, that scarce the Light endure,
(So long unclos'd, they've watch'd thy doubtful Cure)
To his Hephaestion Alexander writes,
To soothe thy Days, and wing thy sleepless Nights,
I send thee Love: Oh! that I could impart,
As well my vital Spirits...Read more of this...
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