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Famous Sympathies Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide,
As being past away. -Vain sympathies!
For backward, Duddon! as I cast my eyes,
I see what was, and is, and will abide;
Still glides the Stream, and shall not cease to glide;
The Form remains, the Function never dies;
While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise,
We Men, who in our morn of youth defied
The elements, must vanish; -be it so!
Enough, if something from our hands have pow...Read more of this...



by Rosenberg, Isaac
...I pull the parapet's poppy
To stick behind my ear. 
Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew 
Your cosmopolitan sympathies, 
Now you have touched this English hand 
You will do the same to a German
Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure 
To cross the sleeping green between. 
It seems you inwardly grin as you pass 
Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes, 
Less chanced than you for life,
Bonds to the whims of murder, 
Sprawled in the bowels of the earth, 
The tor...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...ul arise,
Like Farinata from his fiery tomb.
Thy sacred song is like the trump of doom;
Yet in thy heart what human sympathies,
What soft compassion glows, as in the skies
The tender stars their clouded lamps relume!
Methinks I see thee stand, with pallid cheeks,
By Fra Hilario in his diocese,
As up the convent-walls, in golden streaks,
The ascending sunbeams mark the day's decrease;
And, as he asks what there the stranger seeks,
Thy voice along the cloister whispers, "Pe...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...I do not care to talk to you although
Your speech evokes a thousand sympathies,
And all my being's silent harmonies
Wake trembling into music. When you go
It is as if some sudden, dreadful blow
Had severed all the strings with savage ease.
No, do not talk; but let us rather seize
This intimate gift of silence which we know.
Others may guess your thoughts from what you say,
As storms are guessed from clouds where ...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...the same key
Being tun'd by Art, if the one touched be
The other opposite as soon replies,
Mov'd by the Air and hidden Sympathies;
So while he with his gouty Fingers craules
Over the Lute, his murmuring Belly calls,
Whose hungry Guts to the same streightness twin'd
In Echo to the trembling Strings repin'd.
I, that perceiv'd now what his Musick ment,
Ask'd civilly if he had eat this Lent.
He answered yes; with such, and such an one.
For he has this of gen'rous, th...Read more of this...



by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
...he grate,
Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.
Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
Making it a companionable form,
Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit
By its own moods interprets, every where
Echo or mirror seeking of itself,
And makes a toy of Thought.

But O! how oft,
How oft, at school, with most believing mind,
Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars,
To watch that fluttering stranger...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...t thou, unknown and awful as thou art,
Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart.
Thou messgenger of sympathies,
That wax and wane in lovers' eyes --
Thou -- that to human thought art nourishment,
Like darkness to a dying flame!
Depart not as thy shadow came,
Depart not -- lest the grave should be,
Like life and fear, a dark reality.

While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped
Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin,
And starlight wood, with ...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...female, 
The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean, 
The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,
Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity, 
Womanhood, and all that is a woman—and the man that comes from woman, 
The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping, love-looks,
 love-perturbations and risings, 
The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud, 
Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, w...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...
A strict domestic part,
And in my flurry I forget
The Five Good Rules of Etiquette
We have to know by heart." 

My sympathies were warming fast
Towards the little fellow:
He was so utterly aghast
At having found a Man at last,
And looked so scared and yellow. 

"At least," I said, "I'm glad to find
A Ghost is not a DUMB thing!
But pray sit down: you'll feel inclined
(If, like myself, you have not dined)
To take a snack of something: 

"Though, certainly, you don't ap...Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
...SPAN>And from those lips I heard—oh! such a tale,As might awake brute Nature's sympathies!Wit, pity, excellence, and grief, and loveWith blended plaint so sweet a concert made,As ne'er was given to mortal ear to prove:And heaven itself such mute attention paid,That not a breath disturb'd the listening grove—...Read more of this...

by Shakespeare, William
...The strong man's hand, the snow-cool head of age,
The certain-footed sympathies of youth -
These, and that lofty passion after truth,
Hunger unsatisfied in priest or sage
Or the great men of former years, he needs
That not unworthily would dare to sing
(Hard task!) black care's inevitable ring
Settling with years upon the heart that feeds
Incessantly on glory. Year by year
The narrowing toil grows closer round his feet;
W...Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
...sentiment so sweetTo meditate their object in my breast—Perhaps her sympathies my wishes meetWith gentlest pity, seeing me distress'd:Nor when removed to that her sacred restThe present life changed for that blest retreat,Vanish'd in air my former visions fleet,My hopes, my tears, in vain to her a...Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
...hare;What envy of the blest in heaven above,With whom she dwells in sympathies divineDenied to me on earth, though sought in sighs;And oh! what envy of stern Death I prove,That with her life has ta'en the light of mine,Yet calls me not,—though fixed and cold those eyes. ...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...to woo,
Came down, in shepherd-guise, Latona's son
Between men, heroes, gods, harmonious then
Love wove sweet links and sympathies divine;
Blest Amathusia, heroes, gods, and men,
Equals before thy shrine!

Not to that culture gay,
Stern self-denial, or sharp penance wan!
Well might each heart be happy in that day--
For gods, the happy ones, were kin to man!
The beautiful alone the holy there!
No pleasure shamed the gods of that young race;
So that the chaste Camoenae favoring...Read more of this...

by Hardy, Thomas
...they know; since it be
That He who breathes All's Well to these
Breathes no All's Well to me,
My lack might move their sympathies
And Christian charity!

I am like a gazer who should mark
An inland company
Standing upfingered, with, "Hark! hark!
The glorious distant sea!"
And feel, "Alas, 'tis but yon dark
And wind-swept pine to me!"

Yet I would bear my shortcomings
With meet tranquillity,
But for the charge that blessed things
I'd liefer have unbe.

O, doth a bird depr...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...When Friendship or Love
Our sympathies move;
When Truth, in a glance, should appear,
The lips may beguile,
With a dimple or smile,
But the test of affection's a Tear:

Too oft is a smile
But the hypocrite's wile,
To mask detestation, or fear;
Give me the soft sigh,
Whilst the soultelling eye
Is dimm'd, for a time, with a Tear:

Mild Charity's glow,
To us mortals below,
Shows the soul f...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things