Theme · 199 poems

Sad Poems

Sometimes the only company that helps is a poem that's been there. Heartbreak, melancholy, and beautiful blue hours.

It's a strange fact of reading that sad poems help. The mechanism isn't mysterious: a poem that names your exact ache proves someone else felt it precisely enough to write it down — and survived long enough to revise. Aristotle called it catharsis; most readers just call it company.

The canon of sorrow is deep. Auden stopping all the clocks, Hardy haunted by his wife's ghost on the Cornish cliffs, Dickinson measuring 'the Hour of Lead' — heartbreak, regret, and melancholy each have their laureates. Read them on the bad nights; they were written on worse ones.

LengthForm

When You Are Old

W. B. Yeats · 1893

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,And nodding by the fire, take down this book,And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

12 lines · lyric

Remember

Christina Rossetti · 1862

Remember me when I am gone away,Gone far away into the silent land;When you can no more hold me by the hand,

14 lines · sonnet

Sonnet 29: When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes

William Shakespeare · 1609

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyesI all alone beweep my outcast state,And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

14 lines · sonnet

A Poison Tree

William Blake · 1794

I was angry with my friend:I told my wrath, my wrath did end.I was angry with my foe:

16 lines · lyric

Dover Beach

Matthew Arnold · 1867

The sea is calm to-night.The tide is full, the moon lies fairUpon the straits; on the French coast, the light

37 lines · lyric

Annabel Lee

Edgar Allan Poe · 1849

It was many and many a year ago,In a kingdom by the sea,That a maiden there lived whom you may know

41 lines · ballad

The Raven

Edgar Allan Poe · 1845

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore —While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

113 lines · narrative

Soft Music

Robert Herrick

The mellow touch of music most doth woundThe soul, when it doth rather sigh, than sound.

2 lines · lyric

I Shall Not Care

Sara Teasdale · 1915

Teasdale, Sara (1915), "I Shall Not Care" in Rivers to the Sea.Teasdale, Sara (1917), "I Shall Not Care" in Love Songs.

2 lines · lyric

Upon His Sister-in-law, Mistress Elizabethherrick

Robert Herrick

First, for effusions due unto the dead,My solemn vows have here accomplished;Next, how I love thee, that my grief must tell,

4 lines · lyric

So gay a Flower

Emily Dickinson

So gay a FlowerBereaves the MindAs if it were a Woe —

5 lines · lyric

Tradition, thou art for suckling children

Stephen Crane

Tradition, thou art for suckling children,Thou art the enlivening milk for babes;But no meat for men is in thee.

5 lines · lyric

To-Morrow

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Where art thou, beloved To-morrow?When young and old, and strong and weak,Rich and poor, through joy and sorrow,

6 lines · lyric

To Music

Robert Herrick

Begin to charm, and as thou strok'st mine earsWith thine enchantment, melt me into tears.Then let thy active hand scud o'er thy lyre,

6 lines · lyric

From all the Jails the Boys and Girls

Emily Dickinson

From all the Jails the Boys and GirlsEcstatically leap —Beloved only Afternoon

8 lines · lyric

Oh Future! thou secreted peace

Emily Dickinson

Oh Future! thou secreted peaceOr subterranean woe —Is there no wandering route of grace

8 lines · lyric

Only God—detect the Sorrow

Emily Dickinson

Only God — detect the Sorrow —Only God —The Jehovahs — are no Babblers —

8 lines · lyric

She's happy, with a new Content

Emily Dickinson

She's happy, with a new Content —That feels to her — like Sacrament —She's busy — with an altered Care —

8 lines · lyric

Summer is shorter than any one

Emily Dickinson

Summer is shorter than any one —Life is shorter than Summer —Seventy Years is spent as quick

8 lines · lyric

The Butterfly upon the Sky

Emily Dickinson

The Butterfly upon the Sky,That doesn't know its NameAnd hasn't any tax to pay

8 lines · lyric

A Dirge

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Rough wind, that moanest loudGrief too sad for song;Wild wind, when sullen cloud

8 lines · lyric

To Mary Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley

My dearest Mary, wherefore hast thou gone,And left me in this dreary world alone?Thy form is here indeed — a lovely one —

8 lines · lyric

Lines to an Old Sweetheart

Robert Burns

ONCE fondly lov’d, and still remember’d dear, Sweet early object of my youthful vows,Accept this mark of friendship, warm, sincere,

8 lines · lyric

Love in the Guise of Friendship

Robert Burns

YOUR friendship much can make me blest, O why that bliss destroy!Why urge the only, one request

8 lines · lyric

To Heaven

Robert Herrick

Open thy gatesTo him who weeping waits,And might come in,

8 lines · lyric

To Music, to Becalm a Sweet Sick Youth

Robert Herrick

Charms, that call down the moon from out her sphere,On this sick youth work your enchantments here!Bind up his senses with your numbers, so

8 lines · lyric

Infant Sorrow

William Blake

My mother groaned, my father wept:Into the dangerous world I leapt,Helpless, naked, piping loud,

8 lines · lyric

The Little Boy Found

William Blake

The little boy lost in the lonely fen, Led by the wandering light,Began to cry, but God, ever nigh,

8 lines · lyric

The Little Boy Lost

William Blake

"Father, father, where are you going? Oh do not walk so fast!Speak, father, speak to your little boy,

8 lines · lyric

The Sick Rose

William Blake · 1794

O rose, thou art sick! The invisible worm,That flies in the night,

8 lines · lyric

Undue Significance a starving man attaches

Emily Dickinson

Undue Significance a starving man attachesTo Food —Far off — He sighs — and therefore — Hopeless —

9 lines · lyric

Epitaph on my Ever Honoured Father

Robert Burns

O YE whose cheek the tear of pity stains, Draw near with pious rev’rence, and attend!Here lie the loving husband’s dear remains,

9 lines · lyric

Time

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Unfathomable Sea! whose waves are years,Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woeAre brackish with the salt of human tears!

10 lines · lyric

So We'll Go No More a Roving

Lord Byron · 1817

So, we'll go no more a rovingSo late into the night,Though the heart be still as loving,

12 lines · lyric

Nobody knows this little Rose

Emily Dickinson

Nobody knows this little Rose —It might a pilgrim beDid I not take it from the ways

12 lines · lyric

On a Faded Violet

Percy Bysshe Shelley

The odour from the flower is goneWhich like thy kisses breathed on me;The colour from the flower is flown

12 lines · lyric

Song. Translated From the Italian

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Oh! what is the gain of restless care,And what is ambitious treasure?And what are the joys that the modish share,

12 lines · lyric

Ah, woe is me, my Mother dear

Robert Burns

AH, woe is me, my mother dear! A man of strife ye’ve born me:For sair contention I maun bear;

12 lines · lyric

The Primrose

Robert Herrick

Ask me why I send you hereThis sweet Infanta of the year?Ask me why I send to you

12 lines · lyric

Whispers of Heavenly Death

Walt Whitman

WHISPERS of heavenly death, murmur’d I hear;Labial gossip of night—sibilant chorals;Footsteps gently ascending—mystical breezes, wafted soft and low;

12 lines · lyric

The Chimney Sweeper

William Blake

A little black thing in the snow,Crying "weep! weep!" in notes of woe!"Where are thy father and mother? Say!" —

12 lines · lyric

Pan, Echo, and the Satyr

Percy Bysshe Shelley

FROM THE GREEK OF MOSCHUS.Pan loved his neighbour Echo — but that childOf Earth and Air pined for the Satyr leaping;

13 lines · lyric

O Beauty, Passing Beauty!

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

O beauty, passing beauty! Sweetest sweet!How can thou let me waste my youth in sighs?I only ask to sit beside thy feet.

14 lines · lyric

To F

Edgar Allan Poe

Beloved! amid the earnest woes That crowd around my earthly path —(Drear path, alas! where grows

14 lines · lyric

To Zante

Edgar Allan Poe

Fair isle, that from the fairest of all flowers, Thy gentlest of all gentle names dost take!How many memories of what radiant hours

14 lines · lyric

Sonnet 09 - Can it be right to give what I can give?

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Can it be right to give what I can give?To let thee sit beneath the fall of tearsAs salt as mine, and hear the sighing years

14 lines · lyric

Sonnet 30 - I see thine image through my tears to-night

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I see thine image through my tears to-night,And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. HowRefer the cause?—Beloved, is it thou

14 lines · lyric

Sonnet 40 - Oh, yes! they love through all this world of ours!

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Oh, yes! they love through all this world of ours!I will not gainsay love, called love forsooth.I have heard love talked in my early youth,

14 lines · lyric

Where Thou art—that—is Home

Emily Dickinson

Where Thou art — that — is Home —Cashmere — or Calvary — the same —Degree — or Shame —

14 lines · lyric

Holy Sonnet III: O Might Those Sighs And Tears Return Again

John Donne

O might those sighs and tears return againInto my breast and eyes, which I have spent,That I might in this holy discontent

14 lines · lyric

Holy Sonnet IX: If Poisonous Minerals, And If That Tree

John Donne

If poisonous minerals, and if that treeWhose fruit threw death on else immortal us,If lecherous goats, if serpents envious

14 lines · lyric

Holy Sonnet V: I Am A Little World Made Cunningly

John Donne

I am a little world made cunninglyOf elements, and an angelic sprite;But black sin hath betrayed to endless night

14 lines · lyric

Holy Sonnet VII: At The Round Earth's Imagined Corners Blow

John Donne

At the round earth's imagined corners blowYour trumpets, angels, and arise, ariseFrom death, you numberless infinities

14 lines · lyric

Holy Sonnet VIII: If Faithful Souls Be Alike Glorified

John Donne

If faithful souls be alike glorifiedAs angels, then my fathers soul doth see,And adds this even to full felicity,

14 lines · lyric

Holy Sonnet XII: Why Are We By All Creatures Waited On?

John Donne

Why are we by all creatures waited on?Why do the prodigal elements supplyLife and food to me, being more pure than I,

14 lines · lyric

Holy Sonnet XIII: What If This Present Were The World's Last Night?

John Donne

What if this present were the world's last night?Mark in my heart, O soul, where thou dost dwell,The picture of Christ crucified, and tell

14 lines · lyric

To My Brother George

John Keats

Many the wonders I this day have seen:The sun, when first he kissed away the tearsThat filled the eyes of Morn;—the laurelled peers

14 lines · lyric

To Emilia Viviani

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Madonna, wherefore hast thou sent to meSweet-basil and mignonette?Embleming love and health, which never yet

14 lines · lyric

To Wordsworth

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to knowThat things depart which never may return:Childhood and youth, friendship and love's first glow,

14 lines · lyric

Upon the Loss of His Mistresses

Robert Herrick

I have lost, and lately, theseMany dainty mistresses: —Stately Julia, prime of all;

14 lines · lyric

Common questions

Why do sad poems make us feel better?

Psychologists call it catharsis; readers call it company. A poem that names your exact ache proves someone survived it long enough to write it down.

What is the saddest poem ever written?

Common nominees include W. H. Auden's 'Funeral Blues' ('Stop all the clocks') and Thomas Hardy's poems of 1912-13, written after his wife's death — grief sharpened by regret.