The Right to Grief

Related poetry:

1. If grief for grief can touch thee If grief for grief can touch thee, If answering woe for woe, If any truth can melt thee Come to me now! I cannot be more lonely, More drear I cannot be! My worn heart beats so wildly ‘Twill break for thee And when the world despises When Heaven repels my prayer Will not mine […]...
2. I measure every Grief I meet 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 […]...
3. Grief 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 Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness In souls, as countries, lieth silent-bare Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare Of the absolute heavens. Deep-hearted man, express Grief for thy […]...
4. Grief O who will give me tears? Come, all ye springs, Dwell in my head and eyes; come, clouds And rain; My grief hath need of all the watery things That nature hath produced: let every vein Suck up a river to supply mine eyes, My weary weeping eyes, too dry for me, Unless they get […]...
5. Grief is a Mouse Grief is a Mouse And chooses Wainscot in the Breast For His Shy House And baffles quest Grief is a Thief quick startled Pricks His Ear report to hear Of that Vast Dark That swept His Being back Grief is a Juggler boldest at the Play Lest if He flinch the eye that way Pounce […]...
6. No Worst, There Is None. Pitched Past Pitch Of Grief No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief, More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring. Comforter, where, where is your comforting? Mary, mother of us, where is your relief? My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief Woe, world-sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing- Then lull, then leave […]...
7. Summer is shorter than any one Summer is shorter than any one Life is shorter than Summer Seventy Years is spent as quick As an only Dollar Sorrow now is polite and stays See how well we spurn him Equally to abhor Delight Equally retain him...
8. 'Tis good the looking back on Grief ‘Tis good the looking back on Grief To re-endure a Day We thought the Mighty Funeral Of All Conceived Joy To recollect how Busy Grass Did meddle one by one Till all the Grief with Summer waved And none could see the stone. And though the Woe you have Today Be larger As the Sea […]...
9. Mill-Doors YOU never come back. I say good-by when I see you going in the doors, The hopeless open doors that call and wait And take you then for how many cents a day? How many cents for the sleepy eyes and fingers? I say good-by because I know they tap your wrists, In the dark, […]...
10. Introspection If you go deep Into the heart What do you find there? Fear, fear, Fear of the jaws of the rock, Fear of the teeth and splinters of iron that tear Flesh from the bone, and the moist Blood, running unfelt From the wound, and the hand Suddenly moist and red. If you go deep […]...
11. Elizabeth Childers Dust of my dust, And dust with my dust, O, child who died as you entered the world, Dead with my death! Not knowing breath, though you tried so hard, With a heart that beat when you lived with me, And stopped when you left me for Life. It is well, my child. For you […]...
12. Consummation Of Grief I even hear the mountains The way they laugh Up and down their blue sides And down in the water The fish cry And the water Is their tears. I listen to the water On nights I drink away And the sadness becomes so great I hear it in my clock It becomes knobs upon […]...
13. Time and Grief O TIME! who know’st a lenient hand to lay Softest on sorrow’s wound, and slowly thence (Lulling to sad repose the weary sense) The faint pang stealest unperceived away; On thee I rest my only hope at last, And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear That flows in vain o’er all my soul […]...
14. "How Great My Grief" (Triolet) 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, Nor memory shaped old times anew, Nor loving-kindness helped to show thee How great my grief, my joys how few, Since […]...
15. To Delia: On Her Endeavouring To Conceal Her Grief At Parting Ah! wherefore should my weeping maid suppress Those gentle signs of undissembled woe? When from soft love proceeds the deep distress, Ah, why forbid the willing tears to flow? Since for my sake each dear translucent drop Breaks forth, best witness of thy truth sincere, My lips should drink the precious mixture up, And, ere […]...
16. A Spring Piece Left In The Middle Taut, thick fingers punch The teeth of my typewriter. Three words are down on paper in capitals: SPRING SPRING SPRING… And me poet, proofreader, The man who’s forced to read Two thousand bad lines every day for two liras Why, since spring has come, am I still sitting here like a ragged black chair? My […]...
17. My Coffin Deeming that I was due to die I framed myself a coffin; So full of graveyard zeal was I, I set the folks a-laughing. I made it snugly to my fit, My joinering was honest; And sometimes in it I would sit, And fancy I was non est. I stored it on my cabin shelf […]...
18. Nothing But Death There are cemeteries that are lonely, Graves full of bones that do not make a sound, The heart moving through a tunnel, In it darkness, darkness, darkness, Like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves, As though we were drowning inside our hearts, As though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul. […]...
19. Reconciliation WORD over all, beautiful as the sky! Beautiful that war, and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly lost; That the hands of the sisters Death and Night, incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil’d world: … For my enemy is dead-a man divine as myself is dead; I look […]...
20. I can wade Grief I can wade Grief Whole Pools of it I’m used to that But the least push of Joy Breaks up my feet And I tip drunken Let no Pebble smile ‘Twas the New Liquor That was all! Power is only Pain Stranded, thro’ Discipline, Till Weights will hang Give Balm to Giants And they’ll wilt, […]...
21. Grief If grief could burn out Like a sunken coal The heart would rest quiet The unrent soul Be as still as a veil But I have watched all night The fire grow silent The grey ash soft And I stir the stubborn flint The flames have left And the bereft Heart lies impotent...
22. Talking to Grief Ah, Grief, I should not treat you Like a homeless dog Who comes to the back door For a crust, for a meatless bone. I should trust you. I should coax you Into the house and give you Your own corner, A worn mat to lie on, Your own water dish. You think I don’t […]...
23. As imperceptibly as Grief As imperceptibly as Grief The Summer lapsed away Too imperceptible at last To seem like Perfidy A Quietness distilled As Twilight long begun, Or Nature spending with herself Sequestered Afternoon The Dusk drew earlier in The Morning foreign shone A courteous, yet harrowing Grace, As Guest, that would be gone And thus, without a Wing […]...
24. The Firebombers We are America. We are the coffin fillers. We are the grocers of death. We pack them in crates like cauliflowers. The bomb opens like a shoebox. And the child? The child is certainly not yawning. And the woman? The woman is bathing her heart. It has been torn out of her And as a […]...
25. Dream Song 121: Grief is fatiguing. He is out of it Grief is fatiguing. He is out of it, The whole humiliating Human round, Out of this & that. He made a-many hearts go pit-a-pat Who now need never mind his nostril-hair Nor a critical error laid bare. He endured fifty years. He was Randall Jarrell And wrote a-many books & he wrote well. Peace to […]...
26. The Ballad Of The Northern Lights One of the Down and Out that’s me. Stare at me well, ay, stare! Stare and shrink say! you wouldn’t think that I was a millionaire. Look at my face, it’s crimped and gouged one of them death-mask things; Don’t seem the sort of man, do I, as might be the pal of kings? Slouching […]...
27. Sonnet 42: That thou hast her, it is not all my grief That thou hast her, it is not all my grief, And yet it may be said I loved her dearly; That she hath thee is of my wailing chief, A loss in love that touches me more nearly. Loving offenders, thus I will excuse ye: Thou dost love her because thou know’st I love her, […]...
28. Birthday (16th January 1949) I thank whatever gods may be For all the happiness that’s mine; That I am festive, fit and free To savour women, wit and wine; That I may game of golf enjoy, And have a formidable drive: In short, that I’m a gay old boy Though I be Seventy-and-five. My daughter thinks. […]...
29. At Night On The High Seas At night, when the sea cradles me And the pale star gleam Lies down on its broad waves, Then I free myself wholly From all activity and all the love And stand silent and breathe purely, Alone, alone cradled by the sea That lies there, cold and silent, with a thousand lights. Then I have […]...
30. Chicken's claw by a dank and ancient coffin In the gaunt and gloomy hall Alone and sighing deeply Crouched the sorriest crone of all Her worn hands clutched a feather Her eyes were sore with tears Her lips were mumbling slowly Through the burdens of her fears Her clothes were drab and tattered Her body drooped and […]...
31. Memorial Day For The War Dead Memorial day for the war dead. Add now The grief of all your losses to their grief, Even of a woman that has left you. Mix Sorrow with sorrow, like time-saving history, Which stacks holiday and sacrifice and mourning On one day for easy, convenient memory. Oh, sweet world soaked, like bread, In sweet milk […]...
32. Imitated From The Japanese A most astonishing thing Seventy years have I lived; (Hurrah for the flowers of Spring, For Spring is here again.) Seventy years have I lived No ragged beggar-man, Seventy years have I lived, Seventy years man and boy, And never have I danced for joy....
33. On Anothers Sorrow Can I see anothers woe, And not be in sorrow too? Can I see anothers grief, And not seek for kind relief. Can I see a falling tear. And not feel my sorrows share, Can a father see his child, Weep, nor be with sorrow fill’d. Can a mother sit and hear. An infant groan […]...
34. When Gassy Thompson Struck It Rich He paid a Swede twelve bits an hour Just to invent a fancy style To spread the celebration paint So it would show at least a mile. Some things they did I will not tell. They’re not quite proper for a rhyme. But I will say Yim Yonson Swede Did sure invent a sunflower time. […]...
35. Graceland TOMB of a millionaire, A multi-millionaire, ladies and gentlemen, Place of the dead where they spend every year The usury of twenty-five thousand dollars For upkeep and flowers To keep fresh the memory of the dead. The merchant prince gone to dust Commanded in his written will Over the signed name of his last testament […]...
36. Skyscraper BY day the skyscraper looms in the smoke and sun and Has a soul. Prairie and valley, streets of the city, pour people into It and they mingle among its twenty floors and are Poured out again back to the streets, prairies and Valleys. It is the men and women, boys and girls so poured […]...
37. Christmas Trees (A Christmas Circular Letter) THE CITY had withdrawn into itself And left at last the country to the country; When between whirls of snow not come to lie And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove A stranger to our yard, who looked the city, Yet did in country fashion in that there He […]...
38. The Sunderland Calamity ‘Twas in the town of Sunderland, and in the year of 1883, That about 200 children were launch’d into eternity While witnessing an entertainment in Victoria Hall, While they, poor little innocents, to God for help did call. The entertainment consisted of conjuring, and the ghost illusion play, Also talking waxworks, and living marionettes, and […]...
39. Pi The admirable number pi: Three point one four one. All the following digits are also just a start, Five nine two because it never ends. It can’t be grasped, six five three five, at a glance, Eight nine, by calculation, Seven nine, through imagination, Or even three two three eight in jest, or by comparison […]...
40. Logos Out of the night forth flamed a star – mine own! Now seventy light-years nearer as I urge Constant my heart through the abyss unknown, Its glory my sole guide while space surge About me. Seventy light-yaers! As I near That gate of light that men call death, its cold Pale gleam begins to pulse, […]...