Famous Sorrows Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Sorrows poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous sorrows poems. These examples illustrate what a famous sorrows poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CLXXX. Tutto 'l di piango; e poi la notte, quando. HER CRUELTY RENDERS LIFE WORSE THAN DEATH TO HIM. Through the long lingering day, estranged from rest,My sorrows flow unceasing; doubly flow,Painful prerogative of lover's woe!In that still hour, when slumber soothes th' unblest.With such deep anguish is my heart...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("O Charles, je te sens près de moi.")
{July, 1871.}
I feel thy presence, Charles. Sweet martyr! down
In earth, where men decay,
I search, and see from cracks which rend thy tomb,
Burst out pale morning's ray.
Close linked are bier and cradle: here the dead,
To charm us,...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Vous eûtes donc hier un an.")
{September, 1870.}
You've lived a year, then, yesterday, sweet child,
Prattling thus happily! So fledglings wild,
New-hatched in warmer nest 'neath sheltering bough,
Chirp merrily to feel their feathers grow.
Your mouth's a rose, Jeanne! In these volumes grand
Whose pictures please you—while I trembling...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
EDINA! Scotia’s darling seat!
All hail thy palaces and tow’rs,
Where once, beneath a Monarch’s feet,
Sat Legislation’s sov’reign pow’rs:
From marking wildly scatt’red flow’rs,
As on the banks of Ayr I stray’d,
And singing, lone, the lingering hours,
I shelter in they honour’d shade.
Here Wealth still swells the golden tide,
As busy Trade his labours plies;
There Architecture’s noble pride
Bids elegance...Read more of this...
by
Oscar Wilde
Dear Heart, I think the young impassioned priest
When first he takes from out the hidden shrine
His God imprisoned in the Eucharist,
And eats the bread, and drinks the dreadful wine,
Feels not such awful wonder as I felt
When first my smitten eyes beat full on thee,
And all night long before thy feet I knelt
Till thou wert wearied of Idolatry.
Ah! hadst thou...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
NOW spring has clad the grove in green,
And strew’d the lea wi’ flowers;
The furrow’d, waving corn is seen
Rejoice in fostering showers.
While ilka thing in nature join
Their sorrows to forego,
O why thus all alone are mine
The weary steps o’ woe!
The trout in yonder wimpling burn
That glides, a silver dart,
And, safe beneath the shady thorn,
Defies...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
This jug did once, like me, love's sorrows taste,
And bonds of beauty's tresses once embraced,
This handle, which you see upon its side,
Has many a time twined round a slender waist!...Read more of this...
by
William Blake
1. But Los saw the Female & pitied
He embrac'd her, she wept, she refus'd
In perverse and cruel delight
She fled from his arms, yet he followd
2. Eternity shudder'd when they saw,
Man begetting his likeness,
On his own divided image.
3. A time passed over, the Eternals
Began to erect the tent;
When Enitharmon sick,
Felt a Worm within her womb.
4. Yet helpless...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
The burden of fair women. Vain delight,
And love self-slain in some sweet shameful way,
And sorrowful old age that comes by night
As a thief comes that has no heart by day,
And change that finds fair cheeks and leaves them grey,
And weariness that keeps awake for hire,
And grief that says what pleasure used to say;
This is the end of every man's...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
The Messiah's coming and kingdom.
Joy to the world! the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare him room,
And heav'n and nature sing.
Joy to the earth! the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ,
While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains,
Repeat the sounding joy.
No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make his...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
O Love! while yet you can, with tender art,
Lift sorrow's burden from your lover's heart;
Your wealth of graces will not always last,
But slip from your possession, and depart!...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
WAE is my heart, and the tear’s in my e’e;
Lang, lang has Joy been a stranger to me:
Forsaken and friendless, my burden I bear,
And the sweet voice o’ Pity ne’er sounds in my ear.
Love thou hast pleasures, and deep hae I luv’d;
Love, thou hast sorrows, and sair hae I pruv’d;
But this bruisèd heart that now bleeds in my breast,
I...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
[Prefixed to the second edition.]
EV'RY youth for love's sweet portion sighs,
Ev'ry maiden sighs to win man's love;
Why, alas! should bitter pain arise
From the noblest passion that we prove?
Thou, kind soul, bewailest, lov'st him well,
From disgrace his memory's saved by thee;
Lo, his spirit signs from out its cell:
BE A MAN, NOR SEEK TO FOLLOW ME.
1775....Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XXIII. Quand' io veggio dal ciel scender l' Aurora. MORN RENDERS HIS GRIEF MORE POIGNANT. When from the heavens I see Aurora beam,With rosy-tinctured cheek and golden hair,Love bids my face the hue of sadness wear:"There Laura dwells!" I with a sigh exclaim.Thou knowest well the hour that shall redeem,Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Kneel down, fair Love, and fill thyself with tears,
Girdle thyself with sighing for a girth
Upon the sides of mirth,
Cover thy lips and eyelids, let thine ears
Be filled with rumour of people sorrowing;
Make thee soft raiment out of woven sighs
Upon the flesh to cleave,
Set pains therein and many a grievous thing,
And many sorrows after each his wise
For armlet and for...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Heaven multiplies our sorrows day by day,
And grants no joys it does not take away;
If those unborn could know the ills we bear,
What think you, would they rather come or stay?...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Priam's castle-walls had sunk,
Troy in dust and ashes lay,
And each Greek, with triumph drunk,
Richly laden with his prey,
Sat upon his ship's high prow,
On the Hellespontic strand,
Starting on his journey now,
Bound for Greece, his own fair land.
Raise the glad exulting shout!
Toward the land that gave them birth
Turn they now the ships about,
As they seek their native earth.
And in rows, all...Read more of this...
by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The uses of sorrow I comprehend
Better and better at each year’s end.
Deeper and deeper I seem to see
Why and wherefore it has to be
Only after the dark, wet days
Do we fully rejoice in the sun’s bright rays.
Sweeter the crust tastes after the fast
Than the sated gourmand’s finest repast.
The faintest cheer sounds never amiss
To the actor who once has heard...Read more of this...
by
Amy Lowell
Look, Dear, how bright the moonlight is to-night!
See where it casts the shadow of that tree
Far out upon the grass. And every gust
Of light night wind comes laden with the scent
Of opening flowers which never bloom by day:
Night-scented stocks, and four-o'clocks, and that
Pale yellow disk, upreared on its tall stalk,
The evening primrose, comrade of the stars.
It seems as though...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
Pity the sorrows of the poor blind,
For they can but little comfort find;
As they walk along the street,
They know not where to put their feet.
They are deprived of that earthly joy
Of seeing either man, woman, or boy;
Sad and lonely through the world they go,
Not knowing a friend from a foe:
Nor the difference betwixt day and night,
For the want of...Read more of this...
by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Sweeping the chords of Hellas with firm hand,
He wakes lost echoes from song's classic shore,
And brings their crystal cadence back once more
To touch the clouds and sorrows of a land
Where God's truth, cramped and fettered with a band
Of iron creeds, he cheers with golden lore
Of heroes and the men that long before
Wrought...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
The Humiliation and exaltation of Christ.
Isa. 53:1-5,10-12.
Who has believed thy word,
Or thy salvation known?
Reveal thine arm, Almighty Lord,
And glorify thy Son.
The Jews esteemed him here
Too mean for their belief;
Sorrows his chief acquaintance were,
And his companion, grief.
They turned their eyes away,
And treated him with scorn;
But 'twas their grief upon him lay,
Their sorrows he has borne.
'Twas for the stubborn Jews,
And...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I never gave a lock of hair away
To a man, Dearest, except this to thee,
Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully,
I ring out to the full brown length and say
'Take it.' My day of youth went yesterday;
My hair no longer bounds to my foot's glee,
Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle-tree,
As girls do, any more: it only may
Now shade...Read more of this...
by
Rabindranath Tagore
This is my prayer to thee, my lord---strike,
strike at the root of penury in my heart.
Give me the strength lightly to bear my joys and sorrows.
Give me the strength to make my love fruitful in service.
Give me the strength never to disown the poor or bend my knees before insolent might.
Give me the strength...Read more of this...
by
Alexander Pope
He said, and pass'd with sad presaging heart
To seek his spouse, his soul's far dearer part;
At home he sought her, but he sought in vain:
She, with one maid of all her menial train,
Had thence retir'd; and, with her second joy,
The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy,
Pensive she stood on Ilion's tow'ry height,
Beheld the war, and sicken'd at the sight;
There...Read more of this...
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