Famous Sigh Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Dont Tell the World that Youre Waiting for Me

by Eliza Cook
 THREE summers have gone since the first time we met, love,
And still 'tis in vain that I ask thee to wed ;
I hear no reply but a gentle " Not yet, love,"
With a smile of your lip, and a shake of your head.
Ah ! how oft have I whispered, how oft have I sued thee,
And breathed my soul's question...Read more of this...

Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard

by Thomas Gray
 The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

Save that from yonder...Read more of this...

Psalm 80

by Isaac Watts
 The church's prayer under affliction; or, The vineyard of God wasted.

Great Shepherd of thine Israel,
Who didst between the cherubs dwell,
And lead the tribes, thy chosen sheep,
Safe through the desert and the deep;

Thy church is in the desert now,
Shine from on high and guide us through;
Turn us to thee, thy love restore,
We shall be saved and sigh no more.

Great God,...Read more of this...

The Song And The Sigh

by Henry Lawson
 The creek went down with a broken song, 
'Neath the sheoaks high; 
The waters carried the song along, 
And the oaks a sigh. 

The song and the sigh went winding by, 
Went winding down; 
Circling the foot of the mountain high, 
And the hillside brown. 

They were hushed in the swamp of the Dead Man's Crime, 
Where the curlews...Read more of this...

September On Jessore Road

by Allen Ginsberg
 Millions of babies watching the skies
Bellies swollen, with big round eyes
On Jessore Road--long bamboo huts
Noplace to **** but sand channel ruts

Millions of fathers in rain
Millions of mothers in pain
Millions of brothers in woe
Millions of sisters nowhere to go

One Million aunts are dying for bread
One Million uncles lamenting the dead
Grandfather millions homeless and sad
Grandmother millions silently mad

Millions of daughters walk...Read more of this...

Shall I still sigh for what I have not got,

by Omar Khayyam
Shall I still sigh for what I have not got,
Or try with cheerfulness to bear my lot?
Fill up my cup! I know not if the breath
I now am drawing is my last, or not!...Read more of this...

A Funeral Poem on the Death of C.E

by Phillis Wheatley
 Through airy roads he wings his instant flight
To purer regions of celestial light;
Enlarg'd he sees unnumber'd systems roll,
Beneath him sees the universal whole,
Planets on planets run their destin'd round,
And circling wonders fill the vast profound.
Th' ethereal now, and now th' empyreal skies
With growing splendors strike his wond'ring eyes:
The angels view him with delight unknown,
Press his soft hand, and seat...Read more of this...

On Going Unnoticed

by Robert Frost
 As vain to raise a voice as a sigh
In the tumult of free leaves on high.
What are you in the shadow of trees
Engaged up there with the light and breeze?

Less than the coral-root you know
That is content with the daylight low,
And has no leaves at all of its own;
Whose spotted flowers hang meanly down.

You grasp the bark by a...Read more of this...

The Pencil Seller

by Robert William Service
 A pencil, sir; a penny -- won't you buy?
I'm cold and wet and tired, a sorry plight;
Don't turn your back, sir; take one just to try;
I haven't made a single sale to-night.
Oh, thank you, sir; but take the pencil too;
I'm not a beggar, I'm a business man.
Pencils I deal in, red and black and blue;
It's hard, but still I...Read more of this...

The Deserted Cottage

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Who dwelt in yonder lonely Cot,
Why is it thus forsaken?
It seems, by all the world forgot,
Above its path the high grass grows,
And through its thatch the northwind blows
--Its thatch, by tempests shaken.

And yet, it tops a verdant hill
By Summer gales surrounded:
Beneath its door a shallow rill
Runs brawling to the vale below,
And near it sweetest flowrets grow
By banks of willow...Read more of this...

Sigh No More

by William Shakespeare
 Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, 
Men were deceivers ever; 
One foot in sea, and one on shore, 
To one thing constant never. 
Then sigh not so, 
But let them go, 
And be you blith and bonny, 
Converting all your sounds of woe 
Into Hey nonny, nonny. 

Sing no more ditties, sing no mo 
Of dumps so dull...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXXVIII: Oh Sigh

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Oh Sigh! thou steal'st, the herald of the breast,
The lover's fears, the lover's pangs to tell;
Thou bid'st with timid grace the bosom swell,
Cheating the day of joy, the night of rest!
Oh! lucid Tears! with eloquence confest,
Why on my fading cheek unheeded dwell,
Meek, as the dew-drops on the flowret's bell
By ruthless tempests to the green-sod prest.
Fond sigh be hush'd! congeal,...Read more of this...

Romance

by Claude McKay
 To clasp you now and feel your head close-pressed,
Scented and warm against my beating breast;

To whisper soft and quivering your name,
And drink the passion burning in your frame;

To lie at full length, taut, with cheek to cheek,
And tease your mouth with kisses till you speak

Love words, mad words, dream words, sweet senseless words,
Melodious like notes of mating birds;

To hear...Read more of this...

Sonnet XVIII

by Edmund Spenser
 THe rolling wheele that runneth often round,
The hardest steele in tract of time doth teare:
and drizling drops that often doe redound,
the firmest flint doth in continuance weare.
Yet cannot I with many a dropping teare,
and long intreaty soften her hard hart:
that she will once vouchsafe my plaint to heare,
or looke with pitty on my payneful smart.
But when I pleade, she...Read more of this...

Elegy to the Memory of Richard Boyle Esq

by Mary Darby Robinson
 NEAR yon bleak mountain's dizzy height, 
That hangs o'er AVON's silent wave; 
By the pale Crescent's glimm'ring light, 
I sought LORENZO's lonely grave. 

O'er the long grass the silv'ry dew, 
Soft Twilight's tears spontaneous shone; 
And the dank bough of baneful yew 
Supply'd the place of sculptured stone. 

Oft, as my trembling steps drew near, 
The aëry voice of...Read more of this...

Alexanders Feast; Or The Power Of Music

by John Dryden
 'Twas at the royal feast for Persia won
By Philip's warlike son— 
Aloft in awful state
The godlike hero sate
On his imperial throne;
His valiant peers were placed around,
Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound
(So should desert in arms be crowned);
The lovely Thais by his side
Sate like a blooming eastern bride
In flower of youth and beauty's pride:— 
Happy, happy, happy pair!
None...Read more of this...

To the Name above every Name the Name of Jesus

by Richard Crashaw
 I sing the Name which None can say
But touch’t with An interiour Ray:
The Name of our New Peace; our Good:
Our Blisse: and Supernaturall Blood:
The Name of All our Lives and Loves.
Hearken, And Help, ye holy Doves!
The high-born Brood of Day; you bright
Candidates of blissefull Light,
The Heirs Elect of Love; whose Names belong
Unto The everlasting life of Song;
All ye wise...Read more of this...

We to Sigh Instead of Sing

by James Whitcomb Riley
 "Rain and Rain! and rain and rain!" 
Yesterday we muttered 
Grimly as the grim refrain 
That the thunders uttered: 
All the heavens under cloud -- 
All the sunshine sleeping; 
All the grasses limply bowed 
With their weight of weeping.

Sigh and sigh! and sigh and sigh! 
Never end of sighing; 
Rain and rain for our reply -- 
Hopes half-drowned and...Read more of this...

For union with my love I sigh in vain,

by Omar Khayyam
For union with my love I sigh in vain,
The pangs of absence I can scarce sustain,
My grief I dare not tell to any friend;
O trouble strange, sweet passion, bitter pain!...Read more of this...

Death

by Thomas Hood
 It is not death, that sometime in a sigh 
This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight; 
That sometime these bright stars, that now reply 
In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night; 
That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite, 
And all life's ruddy springs forget to flow; 
That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal sprite 
Be...Read more of this...

The long sigh of the Frog

by Emily Dickinson
 The long sigh of the Frog
Upon a Summer's Day
Enacts intoxication
Upon the Revery --
But his receding Swell
Substantiates a Peace
That makes the Ear inordinate
For corporal release --...Read more of this...

A Song On A Sigh

by William Strode
 O tell mee, tell, thou god of wynde,
In all thy cavernes canst thou finde
A vapor, fume, a gale or blast
Like to a sigh which love doth cast?
Can any whirlwynde in thy vault
Plough upp earth's breast with like assault?
Goe wynde and blowe thou where thou please,
Yea breathles leave mee to my ease.


If thou be wynde, O then refrayne
From wracking whiles...Read more of this...

The Trail Of Ninety-Eight

by Robert William Service
 Gold! We leapt from our benches. Gold! We sprang from our stools.
Gold! We wheeled in the furrow, fired with the faith of fools.
Fearless, unfound, unfitted, far from the night and the cold,
Heard we the clarion summons, followed the master-lure--Gold!

Men from the sands of the Sunland; men from the woods of the West;
Men from the farms and the cities, into...Read more of this...

I cried at Pity -- not at Pain --

by Emily Dickinson
 I cried at Pity -- not at Pain --
I heard a Woman say
"Poor Child" -- and something in her voice
Convicted me -- of me --

So long I fainted, to myself
It seemed the common way,
And Health, and Laughter, Curious things --
To look at, like a Toy --

To sometimes hear "Rich people" buy
And see the Parcel rolled --
And carried, I supposed...Read more of this...

The Black Dudeen

by Robert William Service
 Humping it here in the dug-out,
 Sucking me black dudeen,
I'd like to say in a general way,
 There's nothing like Nickyteen;
There's nothing like Nickyteen, me boys,
 Be it pipes or snipes or cigars;
So be sure that a bloke
Has plenty to smoke,
 If you wants him to fight your wars.

When I've eat my fill and my belt is snug,
I begin...Read more of this...

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