Classic Sad Poems by Famous Poets
The Ballad Of The Harp Weaver By Edna St. Vincent Millay
“Son,” said my mother,When I was knee-high,”you’ve need of clothes to cover you,and not a rag have I. “There’s nothing in the houseTo make a boy breeches,Nor shears to cut a cloth with,Nor thread to take stitches. “There’s nothing in the houseBut a loaf-end of rye,And a harp with a woman’s headNobody will buy,”And she began to cry.
That was in the early fall. When came the late fall,”Son,” she said, “the sight of youMakes your mother’s blood crawl,–“Little skinny shoulder-bladesSticking through your clothes!And where you’ll get a jacket fromGod above knows. “It’s lucky for me, lad,Your daddy’s in the ground,And can’t see the way I letHis son go around!”And she made a queer sound. That was in the late fall. When the winter came,I’d not a pair of breechesNor a shirt to my name. I couldn’t go to school,Or out of doors to play.
And all the other little boysPassed our way. “Son,” said my mother,”Come, climb into my lap,And I’ll chafe your little bonesWhile you take a nap. “And, oh, but we were sillyFor half and hour or more,Me with my long legs,Dragging on the floor,A-rock-rock-rockingTo a mother-goose rhyme!Oh, but we were happyFor half an hour’s time!But there was I, a great boy,And what would folks sayTo hear my mother singing meTo sleep all day,In such a daft way?Men say the winterWas bad that year;Fuel was scarce,And food was dear. A wind with a wolf’s headHowled about our door,And we burned up the chairsAnd sat upon the floor. All that was left usWas a chair we couldn’t break,And the harp with a woman’s headNobody would take,For song or pity’s sake. The night before ChristmasI cried with cold,I cried myself to sleepLike a two-year old.
And in the deep nightI felt my mother rise,And stare down upon meWith love in her eyes. I saw my mother sittingOn the one good chair,A light falling on herFrom I couldn’t tell where. Looking nineteen,And not a day older,And the harp with a woman’s headLeaned against her shoulder. Her thin fingers, movingIn the thin, tall strings,Were weav-weav-weavingWonderful things. Many bright threads,From where I couldn’t see,Were running through the harp-stringsRapidly,And gold threads whistlingThrough my mother’s hand.
I saw the web grow,And the pattern expand. She wove a child’s jacket,And when it was doneShe laid it on the floorAnd wove another one. She wove a red cloakSo regal to see,”She’s made it for a king’s son,”I said, “and not for me. “But I knew it was for me.
She wove a pair of breechesQuicker than that!She wove a pair of bootsAnd a little cocked hat. She wove a pair of mittens,Shw wove a little blouse,She wove all nightIn the still, cold house. She sang as she worked,And the harp-strings spoke;Her voice never faltered,And the thread never broke,And when I awoke,–There sat my motherWith the harp against her shoulder,Looking nineteen,And not a day older,A smile about her lips,And a light about her head,And her hands in the harp-stringsFrozen dead. And piled beside herAnd toppling to the skies,Were the clothes of a king’s son,Just my size.
Richard Cory By Edwin Arlington Robinson
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,We people on the pavement looked at him:He was a gentleman from sole to crown,Clean favored, and imperially slim. And he was always quietly arrayed,And he was always human when he talked;But still he fluttered pulses when he said,”Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked. And he was rich – yes, richer than a king -And admirably schooled in every grace:In fine, we thought that he was everythingTo make us wish that we were in his place. So on we worked, and waited for the light,And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,Went home and put a bullet through his head.
A Dream Within A Dream By Edgar Allan Poe
Take this kiss upon the brow!And, in parting from you now,Thus much let me avow-You are not wrong, who deemThat my days have been a dream;Yet if hope has flown awayIn a night, or in a day,In a vision, or in none,Is it therefore the less gone?All that we see or seemIs but a dream within a dream. I stand amid the roarOf a surf-tormented shore,And I hold within my handGrains of the golden sand-How few! yet how they creepThrough my fingers to the deep,While I weep- while I weep!O God! can I not graspThem with a tighter clasp?O God! can I not saveOne from the pitiless wave?Is all that we see or seemBut a dream within a dream?
Alone By Edgar Allan Poe
From childhood’s hour I have not beenAs others were; I have not seenAs others saw; I could not bringMy passions from a common spring. From the same source I have not takenMy sorrow; I could not awakenMy heart to joy at the same tone;And all I loved, I loved alone. Then- in my childhood, in the dawnOf a most stormy life- was drawnFrom every depth of good and illThe mystery which binds me still:From the torrent, or the fountain,From the red cliff of the mountain,From the sun that round me rolledIn its autumn tint of gold,From the lightning in the skyAs it passed me flying by,From the thunder and the storm,And the cloud that took the form(When the rest of Heaven was blue)Of a demon in my view.
Solitude By Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Laugh, and the world laughs with you;Weep, and you weep alone;For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;Sigh, it is lost on the air;The echoes bound to a joyful sound,But shrink from voicing care. Rejoice, and men will seek you;Grieve, and they turn and go;They want full measure of all your pleasure,But they do not need your woe. Be glad, and your friends are many;Be sad, and you lose them all,There are none to decline your nectared wine,But alone you must drink life’s gall. Feast, and your halls are crowded;Fast, and the world goes by. Succeed and give, and it helps you live,But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasureFor a large and lordly train,But one by one we must all file onThrough the narrow aisles of pain.
Sonnet 29 by William Shakespeare
When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,I all alone beweep my outcast state,And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,And look upon myself, and curse my fate,Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,Featur’d like him, like him with friends possess’d,Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,With what I most enjoy contented least;Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,Haply I think on thee, and then my state,Like to the lark at break of day arisingFrom sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth bringsThat then I scorn to change my state with kings.
One Art By Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;so many things seem filled with the intentto be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the flusterof lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:places, and names, and where it was you meantto travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, ornext-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gestureI love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evidentthe art of losing’s not too hard to masterthough it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
A Hero By Robert William Service
Three times I had the lust to kill,To clutch a throat so young and fair,And squeeze with all my might untilNo breath of being lingered there. Three times I drove the demon out,Though on my brow was evil sweat. .
. . And yet I know beyond a doubtHe’ll get me yet, he’ll get me yet. I know I’m mad, I ought to tellThe doctors, let them care for me,Confine me in a padded cellAnd never, never set me free;But Oh how cruel that would be!For I am young – and comely too . .
. Yet dim my demon I can see,And there is but one thing to do. Three times I beat the foul fiend back;The fourth, I know he will prevail,And so I’ll seek the railway trackAnd lay my head upon the rail,And sight the dark and distant train,And hear its thunder louder roll,Coming to crush my cursed brain . .
. Oh God, have mercy on my soul!
Mirror By Sylvia Plath
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. Whatever I see I swallow immediatelyJust as it is, unmisted by love or dislike. I am not cruel, only truthful,The eye of a little god, four-cornered. Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so longI think it is part of my heart. But it flickers. Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,Searching my reaches for what she really is. Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon. I see her back, and reflect it faithfully. She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old womanRises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
The Bells By Edgar Allan Poe
IHear the sledges with the bells -Silver bells!What a world of merriment their melody foretells!How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,In the icy air of night!While the stars that oversprinkleAll the heavens seem to twinkleWith a crystalline delight;Keeping time, time, time,In a sort of Runic rhyme,To the tintinnabulation that so musically wellsFrom the bells, bells, bells, bells,Bells, bells, bells -From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.IIHear the mellow wedding bells -Golden bells!What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!Through the balmy air of nightHow they ring out their delight!From the molten-golden notes,And all in tune,What a liquid ditty floatsTo the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloatsOn the moon!Oh, from out the sounding cellsWhat a gush of euphony voluminously wells!How it swells!How it dwellsOn the Future! -how it tellsOf the rapture that impelsTo the swinging and the ringingOf the bells, bells, bells,Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,Bells, bells, bells -To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!IIIHear the loud alarum bells -Brazen bells!What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!In the startled ear of nightHow they scream out their affright!Too much horrified to speak,They can only shriek, shriek,Out of tune,In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,Leaping higher, higher, higher,With a desperate desire,And a resolute endeavorNow -now to sit or never,By the side of the pale-faced moon.Oh, the bells, bells, bells!What a tale their terror tellsOf despair!How they clang, and clash, and roar!What a horror they outpourOn the bosom of the palpitating air!Yet the ear it fully knows,By the twangingAnd the clanging,How the danger ebbs and flows;Yet the ear distinctly tells,In the janglingAnd the wrangling,How the danger sinks and swells,By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells -Of the bells,Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,Bells, bells, bells -In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!IVHear the tolling of the bells -Iron bells!What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!In the silence of the night,How we shiver with affrightAt the melancholy menace of their tone!For every sound that floatsFrom the rust within their throatsIs a groan.And the people -ah, the people -They that dwell up in the steeple,All alone,And who tolling, tolling, tolling,In that muffled monotone,Feel a glory in so rollingOn the human heart a stone -They are neither man nor woman -They are neither brute nor human -They are Ghouls:And their king it is who tolls;And he rolls, rolls, rolls,RollsA paean from the bells!And his merry bosom swellsWith the paean of the bells!And he dances, and he yells;Keeping time, time, time,In a sort of Runic rhyme,To the paean of the bells,Of the bells -Keeping time, time, time,In a sort of Runic rhyme,To the throbbing of the bells,Of the bells, bells, bells -To the sobbing of the bells;Keeping time, time, time,As he knells, knells, knells,In a happy Runic rhyme,To the rolling of the bells,Of the bells, bells, bells -To the tolling of the bells,Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,Bells, bells, bells -To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
The Sick Rose By William Blake
O Rose, thou art sick!The invisible wormThat flies in the night,In the howling storm,Has found out thy bedOf crimson joy:And his dark secret loveDoes thy life destroy.
