Sad poems
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The Free
© George William Russell
THEY bathed in the fire-flooded fountains:
Life girdled them round and about:
They slept in the clefts of the mountains:
The stars called them forth with a shout.
Warning
© George William Russell
PURE at heart we wander now:
Comrade on the quest divine,
Turn not from the stars your brow
That your eyes may rest on mine.
An Irish Face
© George William Russell
NOT her own sorrow only that hath place
Upon yon gentle face.
Too slight have been her childhoods years to gain
The imprint of such pain.
The Dream of the Children
© George William Russell
THE CHILDREN awoke in their dreaming
While earth lay dewy and still:
They followed the rill in its gleaming
To the heart-light of the hill.
Dust
© George William Russell
I HEARD them in their sadness say,
The earth rebukes the thought of God;
We are but embers wrapped in clay
A little nobler than the sod.
The Dawn of Darkness
© George William Russell
COME earths little children pit-pat from their burrows on the hill;
Hangs within the gloom its weary head the shining daffodil.
In the valley underneath us through the fragrance flit along
Over fields and over hedgerows little quivering drops of song.
Waiting
© George William Russell
WHEN the dawn comes forth I wonder
Will our sad, sad hearts awaken,
And the grief we laboured under
From the new-in-joy be shaken?
The Place of Rest
© George William Russell
UNTO the deep the deep heart goes,
It lays its sadness nigh the breast:
Only the Mighty Mother knows
The wounds that quiver unconfessed.
Upper Lambourne
© John Betjeman
Up the ash tree climbs the ivy,
Up the ivy climbs the sun,
With a twenty-thousand pattering,
Has a valley breeze begun,
Feathery ash, neglected elder,
Shift the shade and make it run -
Senex
© John Betjeman
Oh would I could subdue the flesh
Which sadly troubles me!
And then perhaps could view the flesh
As though I never knew the flesh
And merry misery.
Occupational Hazard
© Sophie Hannah
He has slept with accountants and brokers,
With a cowgirl (well, someone from Healds).
He has slept with non-smokers and smokers
In commercial and cultural fields.
Celestial Music
© John Donne
I have a friend who still believes in heaven.
Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to God.
She thinks someone listens in heaven.
On earth she's unusually competent.
Brave too, able to face unpleasantness.
Cloris Charmes Dissolved by EUDORA.
© Anne Killigrew
For there's no Light,
But all is Night,
And Darkness that you meet.
THE Complaint of a Lover
© Anne Killigrew
Deep underneath a Cave does lie,
Th' entrance hid with dismal Yew,
Where Phebus never shew'd his Eye,
Or cheerful Day yet pierced through.
Gregory Corso
© Gregory Corso
Budger of history Brake of time You Bomb
Toy of universe Grandest of all snatched sky I cannot hate you
Do I hate the mischievous thunderbolt the jawbone of an ass
The bumpy club of One Million B.C. the mace the flail the axe
The Sale of Saint Thomas
© Lascelles Abercrombie
Captain Well, I hope so.
There's threatening in the weather. Have you a mind
To hug your belly to the slanted deck,
Like a louse on a whip-top, when the boat
Spins on an axlie in the hissing gales?
The Deserted Garden
© Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I mind me in the days departed,
How often underneath the sun
With childish bounds I used to run
To a garden long deserted.
The House Of Clouds
© Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I would build a cloudy House
For my thoughts to live in;
When for earth too fancy-loose
And too low for Heaven!
A Curse For A Nation
© Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I heard an angel speak last night,
And he said 'Write!
Write a Nation's curse for me,
And send it over the Western Sea.'
Mother and Poet
© Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
Dead ! both my boys ! When you sit at the feast
And are wanting a great song for Italy free,
Let none look at me !
