Famous Sympathy Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Sympathy poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous sympathy poems. These examples illustrate what a famous sympathy poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
He never made a fortune, or a noise
In the world where men are seeking after fame;
But he had a healthy brood of girls and boys
Who loved the very ground on which he trod.
They thought him just little short of God;
Oh you should have heard the way they said his name –
‘Father.’
There seemed to be a loving little...Read more of this...
by
Ellis Parker Butler
The great millennium is at hand.
Redder apples grow on the tree.
A saxophone is in ev’ry band.
Brandy no longer taints our tea.
Dimples smile in the red-rouged knee.
The dowagers are no longer fat.
Radio now makes safe the sea—
And the Turk has bought him a derby hat.
Even our sauerkraut now is canned.
Verse is a dangsight more than free.
A “highboy” now is the...Read more of this...
by
D. H. Lawrence
The elephant, the huge old beast,
is slow to mate;
he finds a female, they show no haste
they wait
for the sympathy in their vast shy hearts
slowly, slowly to rouse
as they loiter along the river-beds
and drink and browse
and dash in panic through the brake
of forest with the herd,
and sleep in massive silence, and wake
together, without a...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Lee Masters
Doc Meyers said I had satyriasis,
And Doc Hill called it leucaemia --
But I know what brought me here:
I was sixty-four but strong as a man
Of thirty-five or forty.
And it wasn't writing a letter a day,
And it wasn't late hours seven nights a week,
And it wasn't the strain of thinking of Minnie,
And it wasn't fear or a jealous dread,
Or the...Read more of this...
by
Ehsan Sehgal
" Love includes sympathy, but sympathy does not love."
Ehsan Sehgal...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
UNFOLDED out of the folds of the woman, man comes unfolded, and is always to
come unfolded;
Unfolded only out of the superbest woman of the earth, is to come the superbest
man of the earth;
Unfolded out of the friendliest woman, is to come the friendliest man;
Unfolded only out of the perfect body of a woman, can...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
ENLIGHTEN'D Patron of the sacred Lyre?
Whose ever-varying, ever-witching song
Revibrates on the heart
With magic thrilling touch,
Till ev'ry nerve with quiv'ring throb divine,
In madd'ning tumults, owns thy wondrous pow'r;
For well thy dulcet notes
Can wind the mazy song,
In labyrinth of wild fantastic form;
Or with empassion'd pathos woo the soul
With sounds more sweetly mild,
Than SAPPHO's plaint forlorn,
When bending o'er the wave she sung...Read more of this...
by
I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird feels!
I...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
RESPONDEZ! Respondez!
(The war is completed—the price is paid—the title is settled beyond recall;)
Let every one answer! let those who sleep be waked! let none evade!
Must we still go on with our affectations and sneaking?
Let me bring this to a close—I pronounce openly for a new distribution of roles;
Let that which stood in front go behind!...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
While I am emulating Keats
My brother fabrics toilet seats,
The which, they say, are works of art,
Aesthetic features of the mart;
So exquisitely are they made
With plastic of a pastel shade,
Of topaz, ivory or rose,
Inviting to serene repose.
Rajahs I'm told have seats of gold,--
(They must, I fear, be very cold).
But Tom's have thermostatic heat,
With sympathy your grace to greet.
Like silver they...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
My Muse is simple,--yet it's nice
To think you don't need to think twice
On words I write.
I reckon I've a common touch
And if you say I cuss too much
I answer: 'Quite!'
I envy not the poet's lot;
He has something I haven't got,
Alas, I know.
But I have something maybe he
Would envy just a mite in me,--
I'm rather low.
For...Read more of this...
by
Emily Brontë
There should be no despair for you
While nightly stars are burning,
While evening pours its silent dew
And sunshine gilds the morning.
There should be no despair - though tears
May flow down like a river:
Are not the best beloved of years
Around your heart forever?
They weep - you weep - it must be so;
Winds sigh as you are sighing,
And Winter sheds his...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals--
I know what the caged bird...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
If I were only a little puppy, not your baby, mother dear, would
you say "No" to me if I tried to eat from your dish?
Would you drive me off, saying to me, "Get away, you naughty
little puppy?"
Then go, mother, go! I will never come to you when you call
me, and never let you feed me any more.
If I were...Read more of this...
by
Christina Rossetti
VI
We lack, yet cannot fix upon the lack:
Not this, nor that; yet somewhat, certainly.
We see the things we do not yearn to see
Around us: and what see we glancing back?
Lost hopes that leave our hearts upon the rack,
Hopes that were never ours yet seem’d to be,
For which we steer’d on life’s salt stormy...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Christ's compassion to the weak and tempted.
Heb. 4:15,16; 5:7; Matt. 12:20.
With joy we meditate the grace
Of our High Priest above;
His heart is made of tenderness,
His bowels melt with love.
Touched with a sympathy within,
He knows our feeble frame;
He knows what sore temptations mean,
For he has felt the same.
But spotless, innocent, and pure,
The great Redeemer stood,
While Satan's fiery darts he...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Never in this false world on friends rely
(I give this counsel confidentially),
Put up with pain, and seek no antidote,
Endure your grief, and ask no sympathy!...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
The butterfly obtains
But little sympathy
Though favorably mentioned
In Entomology --
Because he travels freely
And wears a proper coat
The circumspect are certain
That he is dissolute --
Had he the homely scutcheon
Of modest Industry
'Twere fitter certifying
For Immortality --...Read more of this...
by
Ann Taylor
1 Whatever 'tis, whose beauty here below
2 Attracts thee thus and makes thee stream and flow,
3 And wind and curl, and wink and smile,
4 Shifting thy gate and guile;
5 Though thy close commerce nought at all imbars
6 My present search, for eagles eye not stars,
7 And still the lesser by the best
8 And highest good is blest;
9 Yet, seeing...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Italian people peaceful are,--
Let it be to their credit.
They mostly fail to win a war,
--Oh they themselves have said it.
"Allergic we to lethal guns
And military might:
We love our homes and little ones,
And loath to fight."
But Teutons are a warrior race
Who seek the sword to rattle;
And in the sun they claim a place,
Even at...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Therefore I dare reveal my private woe,
The secret blots of my imperfect heart,
Nor strive to shrink or swell mine own desert,
Nor beautify nor hide. For this I know,
That even as I am, thou also art.
Thou past heroic forms unmoved shalt go,
To pause and bide with me, to whisper low:
"Not I alone am...Read more of this...
by
George (Lord) Byron
Thou Power! who hast ruled me through Infancy's days,
Young offspring of Fancy, 'tis time we should part;
Then rise on the gale this the last of my lays,
The coldest effusion which springs from my heart.
This bosom, responsive to rapture no more,
Shall hush thy wild notes, nor implore thee to sing;
The feelings of childhood, which taught thee to soar,
Are wafted far...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Joy, thou goddess, fair, immortal,
Offspring of Elysium,
Mad with rapture, to the portal
Of thy holy fame we come!
Fashion's laws, indeed, may sever,
But thy magic joins again;
All mankind are brethren ever
'Neath thy mild and gentle reign.
CHORUS.
Welcome, all ye myriad creatures!
Brethren, take the kiss of love!
Yes, the starry realms above
Hide a Father's smiling features!
He, that noble prize possessing--
He that boasts a friend...Read more of this...
by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Life is a privilege. Its youthful days
Shine with the radiance of continuous Mays.
To live, to breathe, to wonder and desire,
To feed with dreams the heart’s perpetual fire,
To thrill with virtuous passions, and to glow
With great ambitions – in one hour to know
The depths and heights of feeling – God! in truth,
How beautiful, how beautiful is youth!...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas on a Monday morning, and in the year of 1884,
That a fire broke out in Bailie Bradford's store,
Which contained bales of jute and large quantities of waste,
Which the brave firemen ran to extinguish in great haste.
They left their wives that morning without any dread,
Never thinking, at the burning pile, they would be killed dead
By the falling of...Read more of this...
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