Famous Solace Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Evening Solace

by Charlotte Bronte
 THE human heart has hidden treasures, 
In secret kept, in silence sealed;­
The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures, 
Whose charms were broken if revealed. 
And days may pass in gay confusion, 
And nights in rosy riot fly, 
While, lost in Fame's or Wealth's illusion, 
The memory of the Past may die. 

But, there are hours of lonely musing,...Read more of this...

crematorium-return

by Rg Gregory
 (to where the ashes of both
 my parents are strewn)

i)
ok the pair of you lie still
what's disturbing me need pass
no fretful hand over your peace
this world's vicissitudes are stale
fodder for you who feed the grass

some particles of your two dusts
by moon's wish accident or wind
may have leapt that late-life wound
refound in you the rhapsodists
first-married days had twinned

i've come today...Read more of this...

Juvenilia An Ode to Natural Beauty

by Alan Seeger
 There is a power whose inspiration fills 
Nature's fair fabric, sun- and star-inwrought, 
Like airy dew ere any drop distils, 
Like perfume in the laden flower, like aught 
Unseen which interfused throughout the whole 
Becomes its quickening pulse and principle and soul. 
Now when, the drift of old desire renewing, 
Warm tides flow northward over valley and field, 
When...Read more of this...

If This Be All

by Anne Bronte
 O God! if this indeed be all
That Life can show to me;
If on my aching brow may fall
No freshening dew from Thee, -- 
If with no brighter light than this
The lamp of hope may glow,
And I may only dream of bliss,
And wake to weary woe;

If friendship's solace must decay,
When other joys are gone,
And love must keep so far away,
While...Read more of this...

The Song Of The Camp-Fire

by Robert William Service
 Heed me, feed me, I am hungry, I am red-tongued with desire;
Boughs of balsam, slabs of cedar, gummy fagots of the pine,
Heap them on me, let me hug them to my eager heart of fire,
Roaring, soaring up to heaven as a symbol and a sign.
Bring me knots of sunny maple, silver birch and tamarack;
Leaping, sweeping, I will lap them...Read more of this...

A Meeting With Despair

by Thomas Hardy
 AS evening shaped I found me on a moor
Which sight could scarce sustain:
The black lean land, of featureless contour,
Was like a tract in pain.

"This scene, like my own life," I said, "is one
Where many glooms abide;
Toned by its fortune to a deadly dun--
Lightless on every side.

I glanced aloft and halted, pleasure-caught
To see the contrast there:
The ray-lit clouds gleamed glory;...Read more of this...

Mirth

by Robert Herrick
 True mirth resides not in the smiling skin;
The sweetest solace is to act no sin....Read more of this...

Solace

by Dorothy Parker
 There was a rose that faded young;
I saw its shattered beauty hung
Upon a broken stem.
I heard them say, "What need to care
With roses budding everywhere?"
I did not answer them.

There was a bird, brought down to die;
They said, "A hundred fill the sky-
What reason to be sad?"
There was a girl, whose lover fled;
I did not wait, the while they said,
"There's...Read more of this...

Sonnet VIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET VIII. Poichè la vista angelica serena. WITH HER, HIS ONLY SOLACE, IS TAKEN AWAY ALL HIS DESIRE OF LIFE.  Since her calm angel face, long beauty's fane,My beggar'd soul by this brief parting throwsIn darkest horrors and in deepest woes,I seek by uttering to allay my pain.Certes, just sorrow leads...Read more of this...

On a Fine Morning

by Thomas Hardy
 Whence comes Solace?--Not from seeing 
What is doing, suffering, being, 
Not from noting Life's conditions, 
Nor from heeding Time's monitions; 
 But in cleaving to the Dream, 
 And in gazing at the gleam 
 Whereby gray things golden seem. 

II 

Thus do I this heyday, holding 
Shadows but as lights unfolding, 
As no specious show this moment 
With...Read more of this...

Sonnet XIV

by Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 246] SONNET XIV. Alma felice, che sovente torni. HE THANKS HER THAT FROM TIME TO TIME SHE RETURNS TO CONSOLE HIM WITH HER PRESENCE.  O blessed spirit! who dost oft return,Ministering comfort to my nights of woe,From eyes which Death, relenting in his blow,Has lit with all the...Read more of this...

A Banjo Song

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Oh, dere 's lots o' keer an' trouble
In dis world to swaller down;
An' ol' Sorrer 's purty lively
In her way o' gittin' roun'.
Yet dere's times when I furgit em,—
Aches an' pains an' troubles all,—
An' it's when I tek at ebenin'
My ol' banjo f'om de wall.
'Bout de time dat night is fallin'
An' my daily wu'k is done,
An' above de shady hilltops
I...Read more of this...

At a Hasty Wedding

by Thomas Hardy
 If hours be years the twain are blest, 
For now they solace swift desire 
By bonds of every bond the best, 
If hours be years. The twain are blest 
Do eastern stars slope never west, 
Nor pallid ashes follow fire: 
If hours be years the twain are blest, 
For now they solace swift desire....Read more of this...

To A Poor Old Woman

by William Carlos (WCW) Williams
 munching a plum on
the street a paper bag
of them in her hand

They taste good to her
They taste good
to her. They taste
good to her

You can see it by
the way she gives herself
to the one half
sucked out in her hand

Comforted
a solace of ripe plums
seeming to fill the air
They taste good to her...Read more of this...

Beautiful Nairn

by William Topaz McGonagall
 All ye tourists who wish to be away
From the crowded city for a brief holiday;
The town of Nairn is worth a visit, I do confess,
And it's only about fifteen miles from Inverness. 

And in the summer season it's a very popular bathing-place,
And the visitors from London and Edinburgh finds solace,
As they walk along the yellow sand beach inhaling fresh...Read more of this...

The Minstrel

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 [This fine poem is introduced in the second 
book of Wilhelm Meister.]

"WHAT tuneful strains salute mine ear

Without the castle walls?
Oh, let the song re-echo here,

Within our festal halls!"
Thus spake the king, the page out-hied;
The boy return'd; the monarch cried:

"Admit the old man yonder!"

"All hail, ye noble lords to-night!

All hail, ye beauteous dames!
Star placed by star! What heavenly sight!

Whoe'er can...Read more of this...

Daniel MCumber

by Edgar Lee Masters
 When I went to the city, Mary McNeely,
I meant to return for you, yes I did.
But Laura, my landlady's daughter,
Stole into my life somehow, and won me away.
Then after some years whom should I meet
But Georgine Miner from Niles -- a sprout
Of the free love, Fourierist gardens that flourished
Before the war all over Ohio.
Her dilettante lover had tired of...Read more of this...

Sonnet XV

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XV. Discolorato hai, Morte, il più bel volto. HER PRESENCE IN VISIONS IS HIS ONLY CONSOLATION.  Death, thou of fairest face hast 'reft the hue,And quench'd in deep thick night the brightest eyes,[Pg 247]And loosed from all its tenderest, closest tiesA spirit to faith and ardent virtue true.Read more of this...

The Burning of the Leaves

by Laurence Binyon
 Now is the time for the burning of the leaves, 
They go to the fire; the nostrils prick with smoke 
Wandering slowly into the weeping mist. 
Brittle and blotched, ragged and rotten sheaves! 
A flame seizes the smouldering ruin, and bites 
On stubborn stalks that crackle as they resist. 
The last hollyhock’s fallen tower is dust: 
All the spices...Read more of this...

Any Wife To Any Husband

by Robert Browning
 I

My love, this is the bitterest, that thou
Who art all truth and who dost love me now
As thine eyes say, as thy voice breaks to say— 
Shouldst love so truly and couldst love me still
A whole long life through, had but love its will,
Would death that leads me from thee brook delay!

II

I have but to be by thee, and...Read more of this...

When We Are Old And These Rejoicing Veins

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 When we are old and these rejoicing veins
Are frosty channels to a muted stream,
And out of all our burning their remains
No feeblest spark to fire us, even in dream,
This be our solace: that it was not said
When we were young and warm and in our prime,
Upon our couch we lay as lie the dead,
Sleeping away the unreturning time.
O sweet,...Read more of this...

Forget-Me-Not

by William Topaz McGonagall
 A gallant knight and his betroth'd bride,
Were walking one day by a river side,
They talk'd of love, and they talk'd of war,
And how very foolish lovers are. 

At length the bride to the knight did say,
'There have been many young ladies led astray
By believing in all their lovers said,
And you are false to me I am afraid.' 

'No, Ellen,...Read more of this...

Behind a Wall

by Amy Lowell
 I own a solace shut within my heart,
A garden full of many a quaint delight
And warm with drowsy, poppied sunshine; bright,
Flaming with lilies out of whose cups dart
Shining things
With powdered wings.
Here terrace sinks to terrace, arbors close
The ends of dreaming paths; a wanton wind
Jostles the half-ripe pears, and then, unkind,
Tumbles a-slumber in a pillar rose,
With content
Grown indolent.
By night my...Read more of this...

Winter Landscape, with Rooks

by Sylvia Plath
 Water in the millrace, through a sluice of stone,
 plunges headlong into that black pond
where, absurd and out-of-season, a single swan
 floats chaste as snow, taunting the clouded mind
which hungers to haul the white reflection down.

The austere sun descends above the fen,
 an orange cyclops-eye, scorning to look
longer on this landscape of chagrin;
 feathered dark in thought, I stalk...Read more of this...

Benjamin Painter

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Together in this grave lie Benjamin Painter, attorney at law, 
And Nig, his dog, constant companion, solace and friend. 
Down the grey road, friends, children, men and women, 
Passing one by one out of life, left me till I was alone 
With Nig for partner, bed fellow, comrade in drink. 
In the morning of life I knew aspiration and...Read more of this...

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