Famous Sympathetic Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Sympathetic poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous sympathetic poems. These examples illustrate what a famous sympathetic poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Butler, Ellis Parker
...great as he;
He was either very happy or very, very sad;
He was always feeling heavenly or oppositely bad;
In fact, so sympathetic that he either must enthuse
Or have the dumps; feel ecstacy or flounder in the blues.
So all agreed that Peterkin Von Gabriel O’Lang
Was the greatest violinist in the virtuoso gang.
The ladies bought his photographs and put them on the shelves
In the place of greatest honor, right beside those of themselves;
They gladly gave ten dollars ...Read more of this...
by
Field, Eugene
...weep upon his bier--
The men all wond'ring why on earth the women had gone mad!
And this wonderment increased
Till the sympathetic priest
Inquired of those same ladies: "Why this fuss about deceased?"
Whereupon were they appalled,
For, as one, those women squalled:
"We doted on deceased for being bald--bald--bald!"
He was bald because his genius burnt that shock of hair away
Which, elsewise, clogs one's keenness and activity of mind;
And (barring present company, of course)...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...ique because he overhauls
Your Jerome, piano, bath, you come on board
Bare--why, you cut a figure at the first
While sympathetic landsmen see you off;
Not afterward, when long ere half seas over,
You peep up from your utterly naked boards
Into some snug and well-appointed berth,
Like mine for instance (try the cooler jug--
Put back the other, but don't jog the ice!)
And mortified you mutter "Well and good;
"He sits enjoying his sea-furniture;
"'T is stout and prope...Read more of this...
by
Tate, James
...that is,
if he was speaking or trying to speak
because I was commanding Sithnewy to be silent,
though, indeed I was sympathetic
to his emotional excitement.
It was, as I recall, a day of prodigious beauty.
April 21, 1932--clouds
like the inside of your head explained.
Bluebirds, too numerous to mention.
The clover calling you by name.
And fields oozing green.
And this motorist from nowhere
moving his lips
like the wings of a butterfly
and not...Read more of this...
by
Taylor, Edward
...that is,
if he was speaking or trying to speak
because I was commanding Sithnewy to be silent,
though, indeed I was sympathetic
to his emotional excitement.
It was, as I recall, a day of prodigious beauty.
April 21, 1932--clouds
like the inside of your head explained.
Bluebirds, too numerous to mention.
The clover calling you by name.
And fields oozing green.
And this motorist from nowhere
moving his lips
like the wings of a butterfly
and not...Read more of this...
by
Betjeman, John
...The heavy mahogany door with its wrought-iron screen
Shuts. And the sound is rich, sympathetic, discreet.
The sun still shines on this eighteenth-century scene
With Edwardian faience adornment -- Devonshire Street.
No hope. And the X-ray photographs under his arm
Confirm the message. His wife stands timidly by.
The opposite brick-built house looks lofty and calm
Its chimneys steady against the mackerel sky.
N...Read more of this...
by
Berryman, John
...t thou'
are pressurized, they swore, my love, bad for—
ten days ago—a dim & bloody ear,
or ears.
They say are sympathetic, ears, & hears
more than they should or
did....Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...ger's taperness,
And soothe thy lips: hist, when the airy stress
Of music's kiss impregnates the free winds,
And with a sympathetic touch unbinds
Eolian magic from their lucid wombs:
Then old songs waken from enclouded tombs;
Old ditties sigh above their father's grave;
Ghosts of melodious prophecyings rave
Round every spot where trod Apollo's foot;
Bronze clarions awake, and faintly bruit,
Where long ago a giant battle was;
And, from the turf, a lullaby doth pass
In every pl...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...le worth more than the man.
If on my pure tomb they should grave
My vices,--how the folks would grin!
And say with sympathetic wave:
"Like us he was a man of sin."
And somehow he consoled thereby,
Knowing they may, though Hades bent,
When finally they come to die,
Enjoy a snow-white monument.
And maybe it is just as well
When we from life and lust are riven,
That though our souls should sink to hell
Our tombs point: Destination Heaven!...Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...
Yet at Town-meetings every chief
Pinn'd faith on great M'Fingal's sleeve;
Which when he lifted, all by rote
Raised sympathetic hands to vote.
The Town, our hero's scene of action,
Had long been torn by feuds of faction,
And as each party's strength prevails,
It turn'd up different, heads or tails;
With constant rattling, in a trice,
Show'd various sides, as oft as dice.
As that famed weaver, wife t' Ulysses,
By night her day's-work pick'd in pieces,
And though ...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Mary Darby
...
Her spotless bosom's language speak;
I mark'd the tear of pity roll,
Sweet emblem of her feeling soul:
I heard the sympathetic sigh
Upon her lips vermilion die.
When busy LOVE too eager sped
His light steps near the charmer's bed;
His pinions rustling thro' the air
Awoke the trembling spotless fair;
Swiftly her radiant eyes unclose,
When, on my filmy wing I rose
Sweet MAB the rapt'rous tale to bear,
TO "IL FERITO'S" GRATEFUL EAR....Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Mary Darby
...e sweet descriptive tale to trace;
To picture Nature's winning grace;
To steal the tear from Pity's eye;
To catch the sympathetic sigh;
O teach me, with swift light'nings force
To watch wild passion's varying course;
To mark th' enthusiast's vivid fire,
Or calmly touch thy golden lyre,
While gentle Reason mildly sings
Responsive to the trembling strings.
SWEET Nymph, enchanting Poetry!
I dedicate my mind to Thee.
Oh! from thy bright Parnassian bow'rs
Descend, ...Read more of this...
by
Edgar, Marriott
...thanks,
And the first thing I find when I get here,
Is that I've been reduced to the ranks.
He found all the lads sympathetic,
They agreed that 'twere a disgrace,
Except one old chap in the corner,
With a nutcracker kind of a face.
Said the old fella, "Who do you think you are?
The last to appear on the scene,
And you start off by wanting promotion,
Last come, last served... see what I mean?"
Said Sam, "Wasn't I at Corunna,
And when company commander g...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Mary Darby
...ive queen,
Just emblem of MY weary woes:
For ah ! where'er the virgin goes,
Each flow'ret greets her with a tear
To sympathetic sorrow dear;
And when in black obtrusive clouds
The chilly MOON her pale cheek shrouds,
I mark the twinkling starry train
Exulting glitter in her wane,
And proudly gleam their borrow'd light
To gem the sombre dome of night.
Then o'er the meadows cold and bleak,
The glow-worm's glimm'ring lamp I seek.
Or climb the craggy cliff to ...Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...o when he gave a man the sack
O'Sullivan got on his track
And straightway went and fetched him back.
And with a sympathetic tear
He'd say, "How dare you interfere,
You most misguided engineer?
"Your sordid manners please amend --
No man can possibly offend
Who has a Member for a friend.
"With euchre, or a friendly rub,
And whisky, from the nearest 'pub',
We'll make the dockyard like a club.
"Heave ho, my hearties, play away,
We'll do no weary work...Read more of this...
by
Moure, Erin
...pidation honest
Whose declaration met silence?
Whose demurred?
Whose wall shored up became
houses?
Whose "will"?
Whose sympathetic concatenation? Whose picture
withstood "ordeal"?
Who caressed "that tiger"?
Whose laugh at an airport called forth? Whose ground
shifted?...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...he bridge,
But Angus paused not on the edge;
Though the clerk waves danced dizzily,
Though reeled his sympathetic eye,
He dashed amid the torrent's roar:
His right hand high the crosslet bore,
His left the pole-axe grasped, to guide
And stay his footing in the tide.
He stumbled twice,—the foam splashed high,
With hoarser swell the stream raced by;
And had he fallen,—forever there,
Farewell Duncraggan's orphan h...Read more of this...
by
Gray, Thomas
...keys, immortal Boy!
This can unlock the gates of Joy;
Of Horror that, and thrilling Fears,
Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic Tears."
Nor second he, that rode sublime
Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy,
The secrets of th' Abyss to spy.
He passed the flaming bounds of place and time:
The living Throne, the sapphire-blaze,
Where Angels tremble while they gaze,
He saw; but, blasted with excess of light,
Closed his eyes in endless night.
Behold where Dryden's les...Read more of this...
by
Sassoon, Siegfried
...hould be here by rights. They little know’d
‘How they’d get buried in such wretched style.’
I told him with a sympathetic grin,
That Germans boil dead soldiers down for fat;
And he was horrified. ‘What shameful sin!
‘O sir, that Christian souls should come to that!’...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...glow
Say, will you mourn my absent name,
Apostate from your gentle train
An infant Bard, at least, may claim
From you a sympathetic strain.
Adieu, fond race! a long adieu!
The hour of fate is hovering nigh;
E'en now the gulf appears in view,
Where unlamented you must lie:
Oblivion's blackening lake is seen,
Convuls'd by gales you cannot weather,
Where you, and eke your gentle queen,
Alas! must perish altogether....Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Sympathetic poems.