Famous Sad Poems
The Saddest Classic Poems
Coping with sadness can be quite a challenge. Many famous poets understood that whether one feels sadness because of a breakup, the loss of a loved one, illness, or another of life's many injustices, one of the best ways to vent this complicated emotion is through poetry. Many famous poets used their words to turn sadness into something tangible, making it easier to understand. Poems that deal with sadness have often helped their writers to identify the true source of their sadness. They can also help readers to feel understood and less alone.
38 Poems about Sadness and Depression by Famous Poets
-
1. Solitude
Famous Poem
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 pleasure
For a large and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.Featured Shared StoryThis poem, in my own eyes, represents things I have already heard. A sum up of this poem, for any and all that wish to understand the dark yet true meaning behind this poem, Ella states that...
-
2. Alone
Famous Poem
From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring—
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow—I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone—
And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone—
Then—in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still—
From the torrent, or the fountain—
From the red cliff of the mountain—
From the sun that ‘round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass’d 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—Featured Shared StoryThis poem touches the old scarred-over wound in my soul. Though I'm old now, when I read it - that old pain I know returns - and it bitterly breaks my heart. But not for self-pity! ...
-
3. A Dream Within A Dream
Famous Poem
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow —
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand —
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep — while I weep!
O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?Featured Shared StoryMost of what we learn we learn from others. It is the moments we ourselves have to live and learn that we realize most of what we are taught or preached have been lies. We all have to live...
-
4. Fire And Ice
Famous Poem
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.Featured Shared StoryRobert Frost is a poet of great repute. It is not within our jurisdiction to comment on such a literary giant. However, in view of your invitation, I would say that he might have been in...
-
5. It's Fine Today
Famous Poem
Sure, this world is full of trouble
I ain't said it ain't.
Lord, I've had enough and double
Reason for complaint;
Rain and storm have come to fret me,
Skies are often gray;
Thorns and brambles have beset me
On the road — but say,
Ain't it fine today?
What's the use of always weepin',
Making trouble last?
What's the use of always keepin'
Thinkin' of the past?
Each must have his tribulation —
Water with his wine;
Life, it ain't no celebration,
Trouble? — I've had mine —
But today is fine!
It's today that I am livin',
Not a month ago.
Havin'; losin'; takin'; givin';
As time wills it so.
Yesterday a cloud of sorrow
Fell across the way,
It may rain again tomorrow,
It may rain — but say,
Ain't it fine today?Featured Shared StoryWow, this poem gives a cool perspective on life. This poem makes one realize worrying doesn't help.
-
6. A Hero
Famous Poem
Three times I had the lust to kill,
To clutch a throat so young and fair,
And squeeze with all my might until
No 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 doubt
He'll get me yet, he'll get me yet.
I know I'm mad, I ought to tell
The doctors, let them care for me,
Confine me in a padded cell
And 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 track
And 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!Featured Shared StoryVery well written but a very disturbing situation. Powerful and powerfully sad.
-
7. Mirror
Famous Poem
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just 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 long
I 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 woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.Featured Shared StoryA mirror never lies. It shows what is what exactly. Just as Plath writes: "I am silver and exact". The truth of our mortality is what we keep on negating and the speaker too finds it hard to...
-
8. Acquainted With The Night
Famous Poem
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the nightFeatured Shared StoryEach word of the poem is uttering its deep pain in the darkness of night. Highly weighted poem like any other poem of him. Only the one who has gone through this sea of sorrow can understand...
-
9. We Wear The Mask
Famous Poem
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!Featured Shared StoryA wonderful poem Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote many years ago, after slavery was abolished. How it must have hurt to know his parents had been slaves... Imagine the pain that slavery...
-
10. Leisure
Famous Poem
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare
No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stareFeatured Shared StoryThis is a wonderful poem and has always been one of my favourites. At this time of lockdown restrictions and protecting ourselves, we have that time to stop and look at the world - to enjoy...
-
11. Richard Cory
Famous Poem
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 everything
To 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.Featured Shared StoryI read this poem as one of the mandatory literary pieces while in High School. Even at that tender age something about the absurdity of life struck me and it continued to haunt me. I tried to...
-
12. I Measure Every Grief I Meet
Famous Poem
I measure every Grief I meet
With narrow, probing, eyes –
I wonder if It weighs like Mine –
Or has an Easier size.
I wonder if They bore it long –
Or did it just begin –
I could not tell the Date of Mine –
It feels so old a pain –
I wonder if it hurts to live –
And if They have to try –
And whether – could They choose between –
It would not be – to die –
I note that Some – gone patient long –
At length, renew their smile –
An imitation of a Light
That has so little Oil –
I wonder if when Years have piled –
Some Thousands – on the Harm –
That hurt them early – such a lapse
Could give them any Balm –
Or would they go on aching still
Through Centuries of Nerve –
Enlightened to a larger Pain –
In Contrast with the Love –
The Grieved – are many – I am told –
There is the various Cause –
Death – is but one – and comes but once –
And only nails the eyes –
There's Grief of Want – and grief of Cold –
A sort they call "Despair" –
There's Banishment from native Eyes –
In sight of Native Air –
And though I may not guess the kind –
Correctly – yet to me
A piercing Comfort it affords
In passing Calvary –
To note the fashions – of the Cross –
And how they're mostly worn –
Still fascinated to presume
That Some – are like my own –Featured Shared StoryPenny, you are so right to be honest and tell it like it is for you because that's how I feel as well. It's ok not to be ok. My daughter died on May 23, 2019, of a drug overdose. She had...
-
13. One Art
Famous Poem
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of 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 meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-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 gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.Featured Shared StoryNo Stories yet, You can be the first!
-
14. I Sit And Look Out
Famous Poem
I SIT and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all
oppression and shame;
I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with
themselves, remorseful after deeds done;
I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying,
neglected, gaunt, desperate;
I see the wife misused by her husband—I see the treacherous seducer
of young women;
I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love, attempted to be
hid—I see these sights on the earth;
I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny—I see martyrs and
prisoners;
I observe a famine at sea—I observe the sailors casting lots who
shall be kill'd, to preserve the lives of the rest;
I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon
laborers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like;
All these—All the meanness and agony without end, I sitting, look
out upon,
See, hear, and am silent.Featured Shared StoryNo Stories yet, You can be the first!
-
15. On Another's Sorrow
Famous Poem
Can I see another's woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another's grief,
And not seek for kind relief?
Can I see a falling tear,
And not feel my sorrow's share?
Can a father see his child
Weep, nor be with sorrow filled?
Can a mother sit and hear
An infant groan, an infant fear?
No, no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!
And can He who smiles on all
Hear the wren with sorrows small,
Hear the small bird's grief and care,
Hear the woes that infants bear --
And not sit beside the next,
Pouring pity in their breast,
And not sit the cradle near,
Weeping tear on infant's tear?
And not sit both night and day,
Wiping all our tears away?
Oh no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!
He doth give his joy to all:
He becomes an infant small,
He becomes a man of woe,
He doth feel the sorrow too.
Think not thou canst sigh a sigh,
And thy Maker is not by:
Think not thou canst weep a tear,
And thy Maker is not near.
Oh He gives to us his joy,
That our grief He may destroy:
Till our grief is fled an gone
He doth sit by us and moan.Featured Shared StoryA soulful poem. Sometimes or many times for some people it's the "going through" the sorrows that make life worth living. A hard way to learn a life lesson, but it often turns out better than...
-
16. Winter Stars
Famous Poem
I went out at night alone;
The young blood flowing beyond the sea
Seemed to have drenched my spirit’s wings—
I bore my sorrow heavily.
But when I lifted up my head
From shadows shaken on the snow,
I saw Orion in the east
Burn steadily as long ago.
From windows in my father’s house,
Dreaming my dreams on winter nights,
I watched Orion as a girl
Above another city’s lights.
Years go, dreams go, and youth goes too,
The world’s heart breaks beneath its wars,
All things are changed, save in the east
The faithful beauty of the stars.Featured Shared StoryNo Stories yet, You can be the first!
-
17. Sympathy
Famous Poem
I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird feels!
I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting—
I know why he beats his wing!
I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!Featured Shared StoryIf Paul Laurence Dunbar were still here on earth, I'd tell him how wonderful those words were in his poem called Sympathy. A bird needs to feel the wind beneath its wings, for the freedom...
-
18. Tulips
Famous Poem
The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here.
Look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in.
I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly
As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands.
I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.
I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses
And my history to the anesthetist and my body to surgeons.
They have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff
Like an eye between two white lids that will not shut.
Stupid pupil, it has to take everything in.
The nurses pass and pass, they are no trouble,
They pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps,
Doing things with their hands, one just the same as another,
So it is impossible to tell how many there are.
My body is a pebble to them, they tend it as water
Tends to the pebbles it must run over, smoothing them gently.
They bring me numbness in their bright needles, they bring me sleep.
Now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage——
My patent leather overnight case like a black pillbox,
My husband and child smiling out of the family photo;
Their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks.
I have let things slip, a thirty-year-old cargo boat
stubbornly hanging on to my name and address.
They have swabbed me clear of my loving associations.
Scared and bare on the green plastic-pillowed trolley
I watched my teaset, my bureaus of linen, my books
Sink out of sight, and the water went over my head.
I am a nun now, I have never been so pure.
I didn’t want any flowers, I only wanted
To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.
How free it is, you have no idea how free——
The peacefulness is so big it dazes you,
And it asks nothing, a name tag, a few trinkets.
It is what the dead close on, finally; I imagine them
Shutting their mouths on it, like a Communion tablet.
The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me.
Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe
Lightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby.
Their redness talks to my wound, it corresponds.
They are subtle : they seem to float, though they weigh me down,
Upsetting me with their sudden tongues and their color,
A dozen red lead sinkers round my neck.
Nobody watched me before, now I am watched.
The tulips turn to me, and the window behind me
Where once a day the light slowly widens and slowly thins,
And I see myself, flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadow
Between the eye of the sun and the eyes of the tulips,
And I have no face, I have wanted to efface myself.
The vivid tulips eat my oxygen.
Before they came the air was calm enough,
Coming and going, breath by breath, without any fuss.
Then the tulips filled it up like a loud noise.
Now the air snags and eddies round them the way a river
Snags and eddies round a sunken rust-red engine.
They concentrate my attention, that was happy
Playing and resting without committing itself.
The walls, also, seem to be warming themselves.
The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals;
They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat,
And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes
Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me.
The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea,
And comes from a country far away as health.Featured Shared StoryNo Stories yet, You can be the first!
-
19. The Genius Of The Crowd
Famous Poem
There is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
Human being to supply any given army on any given day
And the best at murder are those who preach against it
And the best at hate are those who preach love
And the best at war finally are those who preach peace
Those who preach god, need god
Those who preach peace do not have peace
Those who preach peace do not have love
Beware the preachers
Beware the knowers
Beware those who are always reading books
Beware those who either detest poverty
Or are proud of it
Beware those quick to praise
For they need praise in return
Beware those who are quick to censor
They are afraid of what they do not know
Beware those who seek constant crowds for
They are nothing alone
Beware the average man the average woman
Beware their love, their love is average
Seeks average
But there is genius in their hatred
There is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
To kill anybody
Not wanting solitude
Not understanding solitude
They will attempt to destroy anything
That differs from their own
Not being able to create art
They will not understand art
They will consider their failure as creators
Only as a failure of the world
Not being able to love fully
They will believe your love incomplete
And then they will hate you
And their hatred will be perfect
Like a shining diamond
Like a knife
Like a mountain
Like a tiger
Like hemlock
Their finest artFeatured Shared StoryNo Stories yet, You can be the first!
-
20. Circus In Three Rings
Famous Poem
In the circus tent of a hurricane
designed by a drunken god
my extravagant heart blows up again
in a rampage of champagne-colored rain
and the fragments whir like a weather vane
while the angels all applaud.
Daring as death and debonair
I invade my lion's den;
a rose of jeopardy flames in my hair
yet I flourish my whip with a fatal flair
defending my perilous wounds with a chair
while the gnawings of love begin.
Mocking as Mephistopheles,
eclipsed by magician's disguise,
my demon of doom tilts on a trapeze,
winged rabbits revolving about his knees,
only to vanish with devilish ease
in a smoke that sears my eyes.Featured Shared StoryNo Stories yet, You can be the first!
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Dark Poems
Sad Poems
Hate Poems
Short Sad Poems
Famous Sad Love Poems
Famous Death Poems