Famous Threnody Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Threnody poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous threnody poems. These examples illustrate what a famous threnody poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...ave, the strong, the fleet?
Where is our English chivalry?
Wild grasses are their burial-sheet,
And sobbing waves their threnody.
O loved ones lying far away,
What word of love can dead lips send!
O wasted dust! O senseless clay!
Is this the end! is this the end!
Peace, peace! we wrong the noble dead
To vex their solemn slumber so;
Though childless, and with thorn-crowned head,
Up the steep road must England go,
Yet when this fiery web is spun,
Her watchmen shall descry fr...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...honoured as a psalm)
i believed in flower-power (the triumph of the meek)
though evidence was mocking (less song than threnody)
i savoured the impossible without a qualm
(ii)
and sought to make it practical – to bed worn earth
with a seed that tried to answer those dire conundrums
(making of every longed-for scene a landscape bleak)
to bring exciting prospects to a life of humdrums
reveal the spirit-ordinary in its dancing worth
yet the visions my dreams gave voice to fai...Read more of this...
by
Gregory, Rg
...The day that YOUTH had died,
There came to his grave-side,
In decent mourning, from the country's ends,
Those scatter'd friends
Who had lived the boon companions of his prime,
And laughed with him and sung with him and wasted,
In feast and wine and many-crown'd carouse,
The days and nights and dawnings of the time
When YOUTH kept open house,
Nor left untas...Read more of this...
by
Brooke, Rupert
...dome
Which overtops Valdarno hung in air
By Brunelleschi - O Melpomene
Breathe through thy melancholy pipe thy sweetest threnody!
Breathe through the tragic stops such melodies
That Joy's self may grow jealous, and the Nine
Forget awhile their discreet emperies,
Mourning for him who on Rome's lordliest shrine
Lit for men's lives the light of Marathon,
And bare to sun-forgotten fields the fire of the sun!
O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto's tower!
Let some young Florent...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...som blown before the breeze
A white moon drifts across the shimmering sky,
Mute arbitress of all thy sad, thy rapturous threnody.
She does not heed thee, wherefore should she heed,
She knows Endymion is not far away;
'Tis I, 'tis I, whose soul is as the reed
Which has no message of its own to play,
So pipes another's bidding, it is I,
Drifting with every wind on the wide sea of misery.
Ah! the brown bird has ceased: one exquisite trill
About the sombre woodland seems to cli...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...The Day that Youth had died,
There came to his grave-side,
In decent mourning, from the country’s ends,
Those scatter’d friends
Who had lived the boon companions of his prime,
And laughed with him and sung with him and wasted,
In feast and wine and many-crown’d carouse,
The days and nights and dawnings of the time
When Youth kept open house,
Nor lef...Read more of this...
by
Brooke, Rupert
...of Adonais: with his lips Song passed away.
Nay, when Keats died the Muses still had left
One silver voice to sing his threnody,
But ah! too soon of it we were bereft
When on that riven night and stormy sea
Panthea claimed her singer as her own,
And slew the mouth that praised her; since which time we walk
alone,
Save for that fiery heart, that morning star
Of re-arisen England, whose clear eye
Saw from our tottering throne and waste of war
The grand Greek limbs of young De...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...e’d made it to Haworth as we
Dreamed, standing on the moor top, the heather muffling your tears,
The wind sighing its threnody, crying its cradle-song, whispering
Promises of its care to come, its breath caressing the very stones
We sat on, lost beyond the ken of any guide, beyond the signatures
Of time and place, beyond, beyond...
II
There is no clock can measure what we both passed through,
The darker griefs that soon began to haunt your fragile sleep,
The echoes...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...The South-wind brings
Life, sunshine and desire,
And on every mount and meadow
Breathes aromatic fire;
But over the dead he has no power,
The lost, the lost, he cannot restore;
And, looking over the hills, I mourn
The darling who shall not return.
I see my empty house,
I see my trees repair their boughs;
And he, the wondrous child,
Whose silver ...Read more of this...
by
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...The south-wind brings
Life, sunshine, and desire,
And on every mount and meadow
Breathes aromatic fire,
But over the dead he has no power,
The lost, the lost he cannot restore,
And, looking over the hills, I mourn
The darling who shall not return.
I see my empty house,
I see my trees repair their boughs,
And he, —the wondrous child,
Whose silver warble wi...Read more of this...
by
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...Lilacs blossom just as sweet
Now my heart is shattered.
If I bowled it down the street,
Who's to say it mattered?
If there's one that rode away
What would I be missing?
Lips that taste of tears, they say,
Are the best for kissing.
Eyes that watch the morning star
Seem a little brighter;
Arms held out to darkness are
Usually whiter.
Shall I bar the strolli...Read more of this...
by
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...When the dark comes down, oh, the wind is on the sea
With lisping laugh and whimper to the red reef's threnody,
The boats are sailing homeward now across the harbor bar
With many a jest and many a shout from fishing grounds afar.
So furl your sails and take your rest, ye fisher folk so brown,
For task and quest are ended when the dark comes down.
When the dark comes down, oh, the landward valleys fill
Like brimming cups of purple, and on every landward hil...Read more of this...
by
Montgomery, Lucy Maud
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