Best Grief Poems

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
...

To give life you must take life,
and as our grief falls flat and hollow
upon the billion-blooded sea
I pass upon serious inward-breaking shoals rimmed
...

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses
your understanding.
...

It may be misery not to sing at all,
And to go silent through the brimming day;
It may be misery never to be loved,
But deeper griefs than these beset the way.
...

My tears are like the quiet drift
Of petals from some magic rose;
And all my grief flows from the rift
Of unremembered skies and snows.
...

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
...

Calm is all nature as a resting wheel.
The kine are couched upon the dewy grass;
The horse alone, seen dimly as I pass,
Is cropping audibly his later meal:
...

How great my grief, my joys how few,
Since first it was my fate to know thee!
- Have the slow years not brought to view
How great my grief, my joys how few,
...

O World! O Life! O Time!
On whose last steps I climb,
Trembling at that where I had stood before;
When will return the glory of your prime?
...

Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot water bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass.
...

We think forever for salvation,
We cannot live in separation.
Father is great solves situation,
Continuous is human migration.
...

Now, God be thanked Who has watched us with His hour,
And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping,
With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,
To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,
...

Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf
How the heart feels a languid grief
Laid on it for a covering,
And how sleep seems a goodly thing
...

Once, at night, in the manor wood
My Love and I long silent stood,
Amazed that any heavens could
Decree to part us, bitterly repining.
...

'There is no grief
which time does not lessen
or soften' -
so said Cicero, a man so often right;
...

I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
...

CHILDREN, ye have not lived, to you it seems
Life is a lovely stalactite of dreams,
Or carnival of careless joys that leap
About your hearts like billows on the deep
...

DEATH:
For my dagger is bathed in the blood of the brave,
I come, care-worn tenant of life, from the grave,
...

O marriage-bells, your clamor tells
Two weddings in one breath.
SHE marries whom her love compels:
- And I wed Goodman Death!
...

1 Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade
2 How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood;
3 Blue with all malice, like a madman's flash;
4 And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh.
...

I lift my heart as spring lifts up
A yellow daisy to the rain;
My heart will be a lovely cup
Altho' it holds but pain.
...

No time to prepare
Shoved over cliff by sorrows
Float down now, gently
...

Of the dark past
A child is born;
With joy and grief
My heart is torn.
...

I speak not, I trace not, I breathe not thy name;
There is grief in the sound, there is guilt in the fame;
But the tear that now burns on my cheek may impart
The deep thoughts that dwell in that silence of heart.
...

O well for him who lives at ease
With garnered gold in wide domain,
Nor heeds the splashing of the rain,
...

Can I see another's woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another's grief,
...

Orpheus with his lute made trees
And the mountain tops that freeze
...

A grief ago,
She who was who I hold, the fats and the flower,
Or, water-lammed, from the scythe-sided thorn,
...

Less time than it takes to say it, less tears than it takes to die; I've taken account of everything,
there you have it. I've made a census of the stones, they are as numerous as my fingers and some
...

Ay, thou art for the grave; thy glances shine
Too brightly to shine long; another Spring
Shall deck her for men's eyes---but not for thine---
Sealed in a sleep which knows no wakening.
...

Orpheus with his lute made trees,
And the mountain tops that freeze,
Bow themselves, when he did sing:
To his music plants and flowers
...

Angel-fair, Walhalla's charms displaying,
Fairer than all mortal youths was he;
Mild his look, as May-day sunbeams straying
Gently o'er the blue and glassy sea.
...

I TELL you, hopeless grief is passionless;
That only men incredulous of despair,
Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air
Beat upward to God's throne in loud access
...

Then call me traitor if you must,
Shout reason and default!
Say I betray a sacred trust
Aching beyond this vault.
...

1540

As imperceptibly as Grief
The Summer lapsed away—
...

Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all;
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;
All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more.
...

A friend to light a candle
When darkness overcomes.
A friend to hold you closer
When distant thunder drums.
...

Rough wind, that moanest loud
Grief too sad for song;
Wild wind, when sullen cloud
...

Please tread softly as you pass my heart,
For wounded souls are sensitive to sorrow,
And need the solace of a peaceful calm,
To mend the grief and start a new tomorrow.
...

When snow falls against the window,
Long sounds the evening bell...
For so many has the table
Been prepared, the house set in order.
...

...

I live, I die, I burn, I drown
I endure at once chill and cold
Life is at once too soft and too hard
I have sore troubles mingled with joys
...

O make me a mask and a wall to shut from your spies
Of the sharp, enamelled eyes and the spectacled claws
Rape and rebellion in the nurseries of my face,
Gag of dumbstruck tree to block from bare enemies
...

And a woman spoke, saying, 'Tell us of Pain.'

And he said:

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
...

O'erwhelming sorrow now demands my song:
From death the overwhelming sorrow sprung.
What flowing tears? What hearts with grief opprest?
What sighs on sighs heave the fond parent's breast?
...

Grief may have thought it was grief.
Care may have thought it was care.
They were welcome to their belief,
The overimportant pair.
...

Nay, do not grieve tho' life be full of sadness,
Dawn will not veil her spleandor for your grief,
Nor spring deny their bright, appointed beauty
To lotus blossom and ashoka leaf.
...

The moon comes forth, bright in the sky;
A lovelier sight to draw my eye
Is she, that lady fair.
...

When the rose is faded,
Memory may still dwell on
Her beauty shadowed,
And the sweet smell gone.
...

Do not ask, my love, for the love we had before:
You existed, I told myself, so all existence shone,
Grief for me was you; the world’s grief was far.
Spring was ever renewed in your face:
...

So much of what we live goes on inside–
The diaries of grief, the tongue-tied aches
Of unacknowledged love are no less real
For having passed unsaid. What we conceal
...

Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy Blood's slow loss,
And yet not weep?
...

I cannot change, as others do,
Though you unjustly scorn;
Since that poor swain that sighs for you,
For you alone was born.
...

And only where the forest fires have sped,
Scorching relentlessly the cool north lands,
A sweet wild flower lifts its purple head,
And, like some gentle spirit sorrow-fed,
...

When the kites fly in the sky
Like lovely tall ladies
A dark cloud extends
To the north-west horizon
...

I cannot change, as others do,
Though you unjustly scorn;
Since that poor swain, that sighs for you
For you alone was born.
...

From the grief ocean, I steal, a drop of happiness,
For every autumn, I get a lovely beautiful spring,
For human youth; the festive, to dance and sing,
We nature, within nature; keepeth blissful fitness,
...

Oft have I brooded on defeat and pain,
The pathos of the stupid, stumbling throng.
These I ignore to-day and only long
To pour my soul forth in one trumpet strain,
...

February. Take ink and weep,
write February as you’re sobbing,
while black Spring burns deep
through the slush and throbbing.
...

I will not cry for satisfaction if I could get my choice,
Among the divine beautiful virgins of heaven, I want only you.
...

How can I then return in happy plight
That am debarred the benefit of rest?
When day's oppression is not eased by night,
But day by night, and night by day oppressed?
...

Only mouths are we. Who sings the distant heart
which safely exists in the center of all things?
His giant heartbeat is diverted in us
into little pulses. And his giant grief
...

Spring rides no horses down the hill,
But comes on foot, a goose-girl still.
And all the loveliest things there be
Come simply, so, it seems to me.
...

Heavy are my thoughts of you tonight,
You, who's face fills me with sheer delight,
You, whispering in my head through dreams so real,
Why is it, that I so cherish what I feel.
...

Grief thief of time crawls off,
The moon-drawn grave, with the seafaring years,
The knave of pain steals off
...

Because he was a butcher and thereby
Did earn an honest living (and did right),
I would not have you think that Reuben Bright
Was any more a brute than you or I;
...

A friend is one who stands to share
Your every touch of grief and care.
He comes by chance, but stays by choice;
Your praises he is quick to voice.
...

It seems wrong that out of this bird,
Black, bold, a suggestion of dark
Places about it, there yet should come
Such rich music, as though the notes'
...

Already, you are mine. Rest with your dream inside my dream.
Love, grief, labour, must sleep now.
...

I measure every Grief I meet
With narrow, probing, Eyes--
I wonder if It weighs like Mine--
Or has an Easier size.
...

Why is this age worse than earlier ages?
In a stupor of grief and dread
have we not fingered the foulest wounds
and left them unhealed by our hands?
...

All night the cocks crew, under a moon like day,
And I, in the cage of sleep, on a stranger's breast,
Shed tears, like a task not to be put away---
In the false light, false grief in my happy bed,
...

When you are gone, there is nor bloom nor leaf,
Nor singing sea at night, nor silver birds;
And I can only stare, and shape my grief
In little words.
...

The days drag on, each moment multiplies
Within my wounded heart the pain and sadness
Of an unhappy love and, dark, gives rise.
...

It may indeed be fantasy when I
Essay to draw from all created things
Deep, heartfelt, inward joy that closely clings;
And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie
...

Is this everything now, the quick delusions of flowers,
And the down colors of the bright summer meadow,
The soft blue spread of heaven, the bees' song,
Is this everything only a god's
...

The conversation of prayers about to be said
By the child going to bed and the man on the stairs
Who climbs to his dying love in her high room,
The one not caring to whom in his sleep he will move
...

Alive in doubt danger or hope
from burial to birth- Acceptance
of any invitation makes for grief or mirth
More often taken and spilled
...

Your hand full of hours, you came to me – and I said:
‘Your hair is not brown.’
You lifted it, lightly,
on to the balance of grief,
it was heavier than I.
...

The smooth-worn coin and threadbare classic phrase
Of Grecian myths that did beguile my youth,
Beguile me not as in the olden days:
I think more grief and beauty dwell with truth.
...

If grief for grief can touch thee,
If answering woe for woe,
If any truth can melt thee
Come to me now!
...

...

Eyes aloft, over dangerous places,
The children follow the butterflies,
And, in the sweat of their upturned faces,
Slash with a net at the empty skies.
...

Cytherea, thy dainty Adonis is dying!
Ah, what shall we do?
O Nymphs, let it echo, the voice of your crying,
The greenwood through!
...

I am two fools, I know—
For loving, and for saying so
In whining poetry;
But where's that wiseman that would not be I,
...

Under her dark veil she wrung her hands.
"Why are you so pale today?"
"Because I made him drink of stinging grief
Until he got drunk on it.
...

'Tis a strange mystery, the power of words!
Life is in them, and death. A word can send
The crimson colour hurrying to the cheek.
Hurrying with many meanings; or can turn
...

Farewell, false love, the oracle of lies,
A mortal foe and enemy to rest,
An envious boy, from whom all cares arise,
A bastard vile, a beast with rage possessed,
...

Don’t ask me why, alone in dismal thought,
In times of mirth, I’m often filled with strife,
And why my weary stare is so distraught,
...

Come to me when grief is over,
When the tired eyes,
Seek thy cloudy wings to cover
Close their burning skies.
...

How heavy do I journey on the way,
When what I seek, my weary travel's end,
Doth teach that case and that repose to say,
"Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!"
...

This is the debt I pay
Just for one riotous day,
Years of regret and grief,
Sorrow without relief.
...

I feel the Spring far off, far off,
The faint far scent of bud and leaf--
Oh how can Spring take heart to come
To a world in grief,
...

The wind flapped loose, the wind was still,
Shaken out dead from tree and hill:
I had walk’d on at the wind’s will,—
I sat now, for the wind was still.
...

And wilt thou have me fashion into speech
The love I bear thee, finding words enough,
And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough,
Between our faces, to cast light upon each?
...

WHILE deep you mourn beneath the cypress-shade
The hand of Death, and your dear daughter
laid
In dust, whose absence gives your tears to flow,
...

The many sow, but only the chosen reap;
Happy the wretched host if Day be brief,
...

The splendour of the kindling day,
The splendor of the setting sun,
These move my soul to wend its way,
And have done
...

Winter's last rose; rose of regret:
O how once your radiant beauty
Shimmered in summer's potent hour.
Now your faded petals offer,
...

Are you loving enough? There is some one dear,
Some one you hold as the dearest of all
In the holiest shrine of your heart.
Are you making it known? Is the truth of it clear
...