Famous Weeping Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Iliad: Book VI (excerpt)

by Alexander Pope
 He said, and pass'd with sad presaging heart
To seek his spouse, his soul's far dearer part;
At home he sought her, but he sought in vain:
She, with one maid of all her menial train,
Had thence retir'd; and, with her second joy,
The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy,
Pensive she stood on Ilion's tow'ry height,
Beheld the war, and sicken'd at the sight;
There...Read more of this...

The Weeping

by Federico García Lorca
 I have shut my windows.
I do not want to hear the weeping.
But from behind the grey walls.
Nothing is heard but the weeping.

There are few angels that sing.
There are few dogs that bark.
A thousand violins fit in the palm of the hand.
But the weeping is an immense angel.
The weeping is an immense dog.
The weeping is an immense violin.
Tears strangle the...Read more of this...

A New Being

by George William Russell
 I KNOW myself no more, my child,
 Since thou art come to me,
Pity so tender and so wild
 Hath wrapped my thoughts of thee.


These thoughts, a fiery gentle rain,
 Are from the Mother shed,
Where many a broken heart hath lain
 And many a weeping head....Read more of this...

The Widow and Her Son XXI

by Kahlil Gibran
 Night fell over North Lebanon and snow was covering the villages surrounded by the Kadeesha Valley, giving the fields and prairies the appearance of a great sheet of parchment upon which the furious Nature was recording her many deeds. Men came home from the streets while silence engulfed the night. 

In a lone house near those villages lived a...Read more of this...

Earendil

by J R R Tolkien
 Earendil was a mariner
that tarried in Arvernien;
he built a boat of timber felled
in Nimbrethil to journey in;
her sails he wove of silver fair,
of silver were her lanterns made,
her prow was fashioned like a swan
and light upon her banners laid.

In panolpy of ancient kings,
in chained rings he armoured him;
his shining shield was scored with runes
to ward all wounds and harm...Read more of this...

Kisses

by Arthur Symons
 Sweet, can I sing you the song of your kisses? 
How soft is this one, how subtle this is, 
How fluttering swift as a bird's kiss that is, 
As a bird that taps at a leafy lattice; 
How this one clings and how that uncloses 
From bud to flower in the way of roses; 
And this through laughter and...Read more of this...

Epitaph On the Lady Mary Villiers

by Thomas Carew
 THE Lady Mary Villiers lies 
Under this stone; with weeping eyes 
The parents that first gave her birth, 
And their sad friends, laid her in earth. 
If any of them, Reader, were 
Known unto thee, shed a tear; 
Or if thyself possess a gem 
As dear to thee, as this to them, 
Though a stranger to this place, 
Bewail...Read more of this...

Monody to the Memory of Chatterton

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Chill penury repress'd his noble rage, 
And froze the genial current of his soul.
GRAY. 


IF GRIEF can deprecate the wrath of Heaven, 
Or human frailty hope to be forgiven ! 
Ere now thy sainted spirit bends its way 
To the bland regions of celestial day; 
Ere now, thy soul, immers'd in purest air 
Smiles at the triumphs of supreme...Read more of this...

The ocean said to me once

by Stephen Crane
 The ocean said to me once,
"Look!
Yonder on the shore
Is a woman, weeping.
I have watched her.
Go you and tell her this --
Her lover I have laid
In cool green hall.
There is wealth of golden sand
And pillars, coral-red;
Two white fish stand guard at his bier.

"Tell her this
And more --
That the king of the seas
Weeps too, old, helpless man.
The bustling fates
Heap his hands...Read more of this...

Hiawathas Fasting

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 You shall hear how Hiawatha 
Prayed and fasted in the forest, 
Not for greater skill in hunting, 
Not for greater craft in fishing, 
Not for triumphs in the battle, 
And renown among the warriors, 
But for profit of the people, 
For advantage of the nations.
First he built a lodge for fasting, 
Built a wigwam in the forest, 
By the...Read more of this...

Weeping

by Federico García Lorca
 Weeping,
I go down the street
Grotesque, without solution
With the sadness of Cyrano
And Quixote.

Redeeming
Infinite impossiblities
With the rhythm of the clock.

(The captive voice, far away.
Put on a cricket' clothes.)...Read more of this...

I Heard Immanuel Singing

by Vachel Lindsay
 (The poem shows the Master, with his work done, singing to free his heart in Heaven.)


I heard Immanuel singing 
Within his own good lands,
I saw him bend above his harp.
I watched his wandering hands
Lost amid the harp-strings;
Sweet, sweet I heard him play.
His wounds were altogether healed.
Old things had passed away.

All things were new, but music.
The blood of David ran
Within...Read more of this...

Prayer XXIII

by Kahlil Gibran
 Then a priestess said, "Speak to us of Prayer." 

And he answered, saying: 

You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance. 

For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether? 

And if it is for your...Read more of this...

Berck-Plage

by Sylvia Plath
(1)

This is the sea, then, this great abeyance.
How the sun's poultice draws on my inflammation.

Electrifyingly-colored sherbets, scooped from the freeze
By pale girls, travel the air in scorched hands.

Why is it so quiet, what are they hiding?
I have two legs, and I move smilingly..

A sandy damper kills the vibrations;
It stretches for miles, the shrunk voices

Waving and crutchless, half their old size.
The...Read more of this...

Hymn on the Morning of Christs Nativity

by John Milton
 IT was the Winter wilde, 
While the Heav'n-born-childe, 
 All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; 
Nature in aw to him 
Had doff't her gawdy trim, 
 With her great Master so to sympathize: 
It was no season then for her 
To wanton with the Sun her lusty Paramour. 

Only with speeches fair 
She woo's the gentle Air...Read more of this...

A Valediction: Of Weeping

by John Donne
 Let me pour forth
My tears before thy face, whilst I stay here,
For thy face coins them, and thy stamp they bear,
And by this mintage they are something worth,
For thus they be
Pregnant of thee;
Fruits of much grief they are, emblems of more;
When a tear falls that, thou falls which it bore,
So thou and I are nothing then, when on a...Read more of this...

The Cry Of The Children

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,
Ere the sorrow comes with years?
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,
And that cannot stop their tears.
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows,
The young birds are chirping in the nest,
The young fawns are playing with the shadows,
The young flowers are blowing toward the west— 
But the young, young...Read more of this...

Song of the Indian Maid from Endymion

by John Keats
 O SORROW! 
 Why dost borrow 
 The natural hue of health, from vermeil lips?-- 
 To give maiden blushes 
 To the white rose bushes? 
 Or is it thy dewy hand the daisy tips? 

 O Sorrow! 
 Why dost borrow 
 The lustrous passion from a falcon-eye?-- 
 To give the glow-worm light? 
 Or, on...Read more of this...

Sonnet to Evening

by Mary Darby Robinson
 [Written under a tree in the woods of St. Amand, in Flanders.]


SWEET BALMY HOUR! ­dear to the pensive mind,
Oft have I watch'd thy dark and weeping shade,
Oft have I hail'd thee in the dewy glade,
And drop'd a tear of SYMPATHY refin'd. 

When humming bees, hid in their golden bow'rs,
Sip the pure nectar of MAY'S blushing rose,
Or faint with noon-day...Read more of this...

In A Dark Time

by Theodore Roethke
 In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood--
A lord of nature weeping to a tree,
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.

What's madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire!
I know the...Read more of this...

445. The Minstel at Lincluden

by Robert Burns
 AS I stood by yon roofless tower,
 Where the wa’flow’r scents the dery air,
Where the howlet mourns in her ivy bower,
 And tells the midnight moon her care.


Chorus.—A lassie all alone, was making her moan,
 Lamenting our lads beyond the sea:
In the bluidy wars they fa’, and our honour’s gane an’ a’,
 And broken-hearted we maun die.


The winds were...Read more of this...

Burning of the Exeter Theatre

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in the year of 1887, which many people will long remember,
The burning of the Theatre at Exeter on the 5th of September,
Alas! that ever-to-be-remembered and unlucky night,
When one hundred and fifty lost their lives, a most agonising sight. 

The play on this night was called "Romany Rye,"
And at act four, scene third, Fire! Fire! was the cry;
And all...Read more of this...

In Memory of Sigmund Freud

by Wystan Hugh (W H) Auden
When there are so many we shall have to mourn,when grief has been made so public, and exposedto the critique of a whole epochthe frailty of our conscience and anguish, of whom shall we speak? For every day they dieamong us, those who were doing us some good,who knew it was never enough buthoped to improve a little by living....Read more of this...

at Weeping Face

by Walt Whitman
 WHAT weeping face is that looking from the window? 
Why does it stream those sorrowful tears? 
Is it for some burial place, vast and dry? 
Is it to wet the soil of graves?...Read more of this...

The Weeping Babe

by Katharine Tynan
 She kneels by the cradle 
Where Jesus doth lie; 
Singing, Lullaby, my Baby! 
But why dost Thou cry? 

The babes of the village 
Smile sweetly in sleep; 
And lullaby, my Baby, 
That ever dost weep! 

I've wrapped Thee in linen, 
The gift of the Kings; 
And wool, soft and fleecy, 
The kind Shepherd brings. 

Now smile, little Jesus, 
Whom...Read more of this...

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