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. 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 […]...
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. '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 […]...
5. 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 […]...
6. 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 […]...
7. "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 […]...
8. 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 […]...
9. First Sight Lambs that learn to walk in snow When their bleating clouds the air Meet a vast unwelcome, know Nothing but a sunless glare. Newly stumbling to and fro All they find, outside the fold, Is a wretched width of cold. As they wait beside the ewe, Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies Hidden round them, […]...
10. What Do I Care? What do I care, in the dreams and the languor of spring, That my songs do not show me at all? For they are a fragrance, and I am a flint and a fire, I am an answer, they are only a call. But what do I care, for love will be over so soon, […]...
11. The Right to Grief To Certain Poets About to Die TAKE your fill of intimate remorse, perfumed sorrow, Over the dead child of a millionaire, And the pity of Death refusing any check on the bank Which the millionaire might order his secretary to Scratch off And get cashed. Very well, You for your grief and I for mine. […]...
12. 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 […]...
13. 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, […]...
14. 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 […]...
15. 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 […]...
16. 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 […]...
17. 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, […]...
18. On a Hill-top BEARDED with dewy grass the mountains thrust Their blackness high into the still grey light, Deepening to blue: far up the glimmering height In silver transience shines the starry dust. Silent the sheep about me; fleece by fleece They sleep and stir not: I with awe around Wander uncertain o’er the giant mound, A fire […]...
19. The Pain of Earth DOES the earth grow grey with grief For her hero darling fled? Though her vales let fall no leaf, In our hearts her tears are shed. Still the stars laugh on above: Not to them her grief is said; Mourning for her hero love In our hearts the tears are shed. We her children mourn […]...
20. We met as Sparks Diverging Flints We met as Sparks Diverging Flints Sent various scattered ways We parted as the Central Flint Were cloven with an Adze Subsisting on the Light We bore Before We felt the Dark A Flint unto this Day perhaps But for that single Spark....
21. 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 […]...
22. WINTERLIGHT Let us, this December night, leave the ring Of heat, the lapping flames around the fire’s heart, Move with bodies tensed against the light Towards the moon’s pull and the cloud’s hand. Arms of angels hold us, lend our bodies Height of stars and the planets’ whirl, Grant us sufficiency of light so we may […]...
23. The House Of Dust: Part 02: 11: Snow falls. The sky is grey, and sullenly glares Snow falls. The sky is grey, and sullenly glares With purple lights in the canyoned street. The fiery sign on the dark tower wreathes and flares. . . The trodden grass in the park is covered with white, The streets grow silent beneath our feet. . . The city dreams, it forgets its past to-night. […]...
24. A prayer to the Wind Go thou gentle whispering wind, Bear this sigh; and if thou find Where my cruel fair doth rest, Cast it in her snowy breast, So, enflam’d by my desire, It may set her heart a-fire. Those sweet kisses thou shalt gain, Will reward thee for thy pain: Boldly light upon her lip, There suck odours, […]...
25. Lost Love His eyes are quickened so with grief, He can watch a grass or leaf Every instant grow; he can Clearly through a flint wall see, Or watch the startled spirit flee From the throat of a dead man. Across two counties he can hear And catch your words before you speak. The woodlouse or the […]...
26. Good Friday O my chief good, How shall I measure out thy blood? How shall I count what thee befell, And each grief tell? Shall I thy woes Number according to thy foes? Or, since one star show’d thy first breath, Shall all thy death? Or shall each leaf, Which falls in Autumn, score a grief? Or […]...
27. Australian Scenery The Mountains A land of sombre, silent hills, where mountain cattle go By twisted tracks, on sidelings deep, where giant gum trees grow And the wind replies, in the river oaks, to the song of the stream below. A land where the hills keep watch and ward, silent and wide awake As those who sit […]...
28. Lenten Flowers Primrose, anemone, bluebell, moss Grow in the Kingdom of the Cross And the ash-tree’s purple bud Dresses the spear that sheds his blood. With the thorns that pierce his brow Soft encircling petals grow For in each flower the secret lies Of the tree that crucifies. Garden by the water clear All must die who […]...
29. Old Boy Scout A bonny bird I found today Mired in a melt of tar; Its silky breast was silver-grey, Its wings were cinnabar. So still it lay right in the way Of every passing car. Yet as I gently sought to pry It loose, it glared at me; You would have thought its foe was I, It […]...
30. An Olive Fire An olive fire’s a lovely thing; Somehow it makes me think of Spring As in my grate it over-spills With dancing flames like daffodils. They flirt and frolic, twist and twine, The brassy fire-irons wink and shine. . . . Leap gold, you flamelets! Laugh and sing: An olive fire’s a lovely thing. An olive […]...
31. 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 […]...
32. To Thos. Floyd How fares it, friend, since I by Fate annoy’d Left the old home in need of livelier play For body and mind? How fare, this many a day, The stubborn thews and ageless heart of Floyd? If not too well with country sport employ’d, Visit my flock, the breezy hill that they Choose for their […]...
33. TO SIR CLIPSBY CREW Since to the country first I came, I have lost my former flame; And, methinks, I not inherit, As I did, my ravish’d spirit. If I write a verse or two, ‘Tis with very much ado; In regard I want that wine Which should conjure up a line. Yet, though now of Muse bereft, I […]...
34. Poem (The lump of coal my parents teased) The lump of coal my parents teased I’d find in my Christmas stocking Turned out each year to be an orange, For I was their sunshine. Now I have one C. gave me, A dense node of sleeping fire. I keep it where I read and write. “You’re on chummy terms with dread,” It reminds […]...
35. Affinity YOU and I have found the secret way, None can bar our love or say us nay: All the world may stare and never know You and I are twined together so. You and I for all his vaunted width Know the giant Space is but a myth; Over miles and miles of pure deceit […]...
36. Tцrnfallet There is a meadow in Sweden Where I lie smitten, Eyes stained with clouds’ White ins and outs. And about that meadow Roams my widow Plaiting a clover Wreath for her lover. I took her in marriage In a granite parish. The snow lent her whiteness, A pine was a witness. She’d swim in the […]...
37. A GRIEF Rivers, tow paths, caravan parks From Kirkstall to Keighley The track’s ribbon flaps Like Margaret’s whirling and twirling At ten with her pink-tied hair And blue-check patterned frock O my lost beloved Mills fall like doomed fortresses Their domes topple, stopped clocks Chime midnight forever and ever Amen to the lost hegemony of mill girls […]...
38. God's Grief “Lord God of Hosts,” the people pray, “Make strong our arms that we may slay Our cursed foe and win the day.” “Lord God of Battles,” cries the foe, “Guide us to strike a bloody blow, And lay the adversary low.” But brooding o’er the battle smother Bewails the Lord: “Brother to brother, Why must […]...
39. The Song Of The Blindman I am blind, you out there that is a curse, Against one’s will, a contradiction, A heavy daily burden. I lay my hand on the arm of my wife, My grey hand upon her greyer grey, As she guides me through empty spaces. You move about and stir, and imagine Your sounds differing from stone […]...
40. Brooding Grief A yellow leaf from the darkness Hops like a frog before me. Why should I start and stand still? I was watching the woman that bore me Stretched in the brindled darkness Of the sick-room, rigid with will To die: and the quick leaf tore me Back to this rainy swill Of leaves and lamps […]...