Famous Wailings Poems by Famous Poets

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

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177. Elegy on the Death of Sir James Hunter Blair

...ivid east.
 And ’mong the cliffs disclos’d a stately form
In weeds of woe, that frantic beat her breast,
 And mix’d her wailings with the raving storm


Wild to my heart the filial pulses glow,
 ’Twas Caledonia’s trophied shield I view’d:
Her form majestic droop’d in pensive woe,
 The lightning of her eye in tears imbued.


Revers’d that spear, redoubtable in war,
 Reclined that banner, erst in fields unfurl’d,
That like a deathful meteor gleam’d afar,
 And brav’d the mighty ...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert


Inferno (English)

...with all its stars, as night we know, 
 But burdened with an ocean-weight of woe 
 The darkness closed us. 
 Sighs, and wailings loud, 
 Outcries perpetual of recruited pain, 
 Sounds of strange tongues, and angers that remain 
 Vengeless for ever, the thick and clamorous crowd 
 Of discords pressed, that needs I wept to hear, 
 First hearing. There, with reach of hands anear, 
 And voices passion-hoarse, or shrilled with fright, 
 The tumult of the everlasting night, 
 As sa...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante

Pan liveth

...iem sad and tender,
Lo, thither came a shepherd-maid--
Full comely she and slender!
I were indeed a churlish blade
With wailings to offend 'er--
For, surely, wooing's sweeter than
A mourning over Pan!

So, presently, whiles I did scan
That shepherd-maiden pretty,
And heard her accents, I began
To pipe a cheerful ditty;
And so, betimes, forgot old Pan
Whose death had waked my pity;
So--so did Love undo the man
Who sought and pined for Pan!

He was not dead! I found him there--...Read more of this...
by Field, Eugene

Prometheus

...a child
And ignorant of life,
I turned my wandering gaze
Up tow'rd the sun, as if with him
There were an ear to hear my wailings,
A heart, like mine,
To feel compassion for distress.

Who help'd me
Against the Titans' insolence?
Who rescued me from certain death,
From slavery?
Didst thou not do all this thyself,
My sacred glowing heart?
And glowedst, young and good,
Deceived with grateful thanks
To yonder slumbering one?

I honour thee! and why?
Hast thou e'er lighten'd the s...Read more of this...
by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang

Sea Dreams

...l'n."
And still they strove and wrangled: and she grieved
In her strange dream, she knew not why, to find
Their wildest wailings never out of tune
With that sweet note; and ever as their shrieks
Ran highest up the gamut, that great wave
Returning, while none mark'd it, on the crowd
Broke, mixt with awful light, and show'd their eyes
Glaring, and passionate looks, and swept away
The men of flesh and blood, and men of stone,
To the waste deeps together. 

`Then I fixt
My wistfu...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord


St. George

...is coat of mail around,
His battle-spurs amid the fight!
—He—the St. George—who shines so bright
And comes, 'mid the wailings of my desire.
To seize and lift my poor hands higher
Toward his dauntless valour's fire!


Like a cry great with faith, to God
His lance St. George upraised doth hold;
Crossing athwart my glance he trod.
As 'twere one tumult of haggard gold.
The chrism's glow on his forehead shone,
The great St. George of duty high!
Beautiful by his heart...Read more of this...
by Verhaeren, Emile

That Music Always Round Me

...ense waves, 
A transparent bass, shuddering lusciously under and through the universe,
The triumphant tutti—the funeral wailings, with sweet flutes and violins—all
 these I
 fill myself with; 
I hear not the volumes of sound merely—I am moved by the exquisite meanings, 
I listen to the different voices winding in and out, striving, contending with fiery
 vehemence
 to excel each other in emotion; 
I do not think the performers know themselves—but now I think I begin to know t...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Earthly Paradise: The Lady of the Land

...form, and end her woe.


As for the man, who knows what things he bore?
What mournful faces peopled the sad night,
What wailings vexed him with reproaches sore,
What images of that nigh-gained delight!
What dreamed caresses from soft hands and white,
Turning to horrors ere they reached the best;
What struggles vain, what shame, what huge unrest?


No man he knew, three days he lay and raved
And cried for death, until a lethargy
Fell on him, and his fellows thought him saved;
...Read more of this...
by Morris, William

The Emigrants: Book I

...e,
Which yon rough beach repulses, that returns
With the next breath of wind, to fail again.--
Ah! Mourner--cease these wailings: cease and learn,
That not the Cot sequester'd, where the briar
And wood-bine wild, embrace the mossy thatch,
(Scarce seen amid the forest gloom obscure!)
Or more substantial farm, well fenced and warm,
Where the full barn, and cattle fodder'd round
Speak rustic plenty; nor the statelier dome
By dark firs shaded, or the aspiring pine,
Close by the v...Read more of this...
by Turner Smith, Charlotte

To His Lute

...e those spheres above,
What art thou but a harbinger of woe?
Thy pleasing notes be pleasing notes no more,
But orphans' wailings to the fainting ear;
Each stroke a sigh, each sound draws forth a tear;
For which be silent as in woods before:
Or if that any hand to touch thee deign,
Like widowed turtle, still her loss complain....Read more of this...
by Drummond, William

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