Sad poems
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Wanderer
© Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev
Wanderer, far from his homeland,
You are poor and you are alone,
For the time, deprived of listening
To the music of mother tongue.
The Missionary - Canto Eighth
© William Lisle Bowles
Oh, shout for Lautaro, the young and the brave!
The arm of whose strength was uplifted to save,
When the steeds of the strangers came rushing amain,
And the ghosts of our fathers looked down on the slain!
Ghost Glen
© Henry Kendall
"Shut your ears, stranger, or turn from Ghost Glen now,
For the paths are grown over, untrodden by men now;
Shut your ears, stranger," saith the grey mother, crooning
Her sorcery runic, when sets the half-moon in.
Patmos
© Friedrich Hölderlin
The god
Is near, and hard to grasp.
But where there is danger,
A rescuing element grows as well.
The Race
© William Rose Benet
A stretch of sand
Muffled the hoofs, and seemed to check us. Then
Caleppitcaleppitcaleppit! again. And neither gaining ...
Pursuer, pursued, and all a flowing illusion!
Poor Kitty Popcorn
© Henry Clay Work
Did you ever hear the story of the loyal cat? Meyow!
Who was faithful to the flag, and ever follow'd that? Meyow!
Oh, she had a happy home beneath a southern sky,
But she pack'd her goods and left it when our troups came nigh,
And she fell into the collumn with a low glad cry, Meyow!
Doubtful Dreams
© Adam Lindsay Gordon
Aye, snows are rife in December,
And sheaves are in August yet,
Doors, Doors, Doors
© Anne Sexton
Old man, it's four flights up and for what?
Your room is hardly bigger than your bed.
Puffing as you climb, you are a brown woodcut
stooped over the thin tail and the wornout tread.
Invocation
© Alfred Austin
Where Apennine slopes unto Tuscan plain,
And breaks into dimples, and laughs to flowers,
To see where the terrors of Winter wane,
And out of a valley of grape and grain
There blossoms a City of domes and towers,
Sylvia's Death
© Anne Sexton
for Sylvia Plath
O Sylvia, Sylvia,
with a dead box of stones and spoons,
with two children, two meteors
April Is The Saddest Month
© William Carlos Williams
There they were
stuck
dog and bitch
halving the compass
Sonnet
© Sara Teasdale
I saw a ship sail forth at evening time;
Her prow was gilded by the western fire,
And all her rigging one vast golden lyre,
For winds to play on to the ocean's rhyme
The Hermit of Mont-Blanc
© Mary Darby Robinson
High, on the Solitude of Alpine Hills,
O'er-topping the grand imag'ry of Nature,
Where one eternal winter seem'd to reign;
An HERMIT'S threshold, carpetted with moss,
The Faded Bouquet
© Mary Darby Robinson
FAIR was this blushing ROSE of May,
And fresh it hail'd morn's breezy hour,
When ev'ry spangled leaf look'd gay,
Besprinkled with the twilight show'r;
The Deserted Cottage
© Mary Darby Robinson
Who dwelt in yonder lonely Cot,
Why is it thus forsaken?
It seems, by all the world forgot,
Above its path the high grass grows,
And through its thatch the northwind blows
--Its thatch, by tempests shaken.
The Adieu to Love
© Mary Darby Robinson
Nor do I dread thy vengeful wiles,
Thy soothing voice, thy winning smiles,
Thy trick'ling tear, thy mien forlorn,
Thy pray'r, thy sighs, thy oaths I scorn;
No more on ME thy arrows show'r,
Capricious Love! I BRAVE THY POW'R.
Stanzas
© Mary Darby Robinson
WHEN fragrant gales and summer show'rs
Call'd forth the sweetly scented flow'rs;
When ripen'd sheaves of golden grain,
Strew'd their rich treasures o'er the plain;
Sonnet XXXIX: Prepare Your Wreaths
© Mary Darby Robinson
Prepare your wreaths, Aonian maids divine,
To strew the tranquil bed where I shall sleep;
In tears, the myrtle and the laurel steep,
And let Erato's hand the trophies twine.
Sonnet XXVI: Where Antique Woods
© Mary Darby Robinson
Where antique woods o'er-hang the mountains's crest,
And mid-day glooms in solemn silence lour;
Philosophy, go seek a lonely bow'r,
And waste life's fervid noon in fancied rest.
