Sad Poetry?

Question

What some really sad but touching poems that are really good?

Answer 1

Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe, Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysse Shelley (although many have argued that it is actually quite positive, I always found it somewhat melancholy) And many of Keats poems were written toward the end of his sadly abbreviated life, so if you were to go through his works, I think you'd find beauty, but a great deal of pathos as well....

Answer 2

Masters of War


Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead


by Bob Dylan

Answer 3

The Lady of Shalott, by Alfred Lord Tennyson
The Skater of Ghost Lake, by William Rose Benét

Great poems, I found these both in "Stories in Verse", edited by Max T. Hohn. There were a lot of other really good poems in there, by I can't remember any more at the moment.

The Lady of Shalott is pretty long, here's a website where you can find it: http://charon.sfsu.edu/TENNYSON/TENNLADY.HTML

Here's the Skater of Ghost Lake:
http://www.geocities.com/jennyblues/Poetryblues/2000/00may5.htm

Answer 4

I like a night without armour by Jewel Kilcher. It's a book but some of the poems are sad. Love it.

Answer 5

I'm sorry I don't have the book nearby, it's a collection by Emily Dickinson. Her poetry looks simple and easy to read, but it needs deep reflections behind each one. Try reading some and you'd feel sad with her words.

Answer 6

Pablo Neruda´s "Saddest Poem"
(thought it´s much more beautiful in its original language)


I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.

Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.

Answer 7

Wings
(author unknown)

Wings into sunset, wings
Leaving behind them
Silence for cedar boughs
Where wind cannot find them

For ledges where currents of stars
Wash softly about them
For beaches under the cliffs
That were lonely without them.

Sure of their flight, unafraid
Of night that has drawn them
Home to be folded in sleep
With distance upon them.

This has been my favorite poem since I was a little girl. I just wish I knew who wrote it. :)

Answer 8

The Cold Within (unknown source)

Six humans trapped by happenstance, in bleak and bitter cold.
Each one possessed a stick of wood, or so the story's told.

Their dying fire in need of logs, the first man held his back,
For of the faces 'round the fire, he noticed one was black.

The next man looking 'cross the way saw one not of his church,
And couldn't bring himself to give the fire his stick of birch.

The third one sat in tattered clothes, he gave his coat a hitch,
Why should his log be put to use to warm the idle rich?

The rich man just sat back and thought of the wealth he had in store,
And how to keep what he had earned from the lazy, shiftless poor.

The black man's face bespoke revenge as the fire passed from sight,
For all he saw in his stick of wood was a chance to spite the white.

The last man of this forlorn group did naught except for gain,
Giving only to those who gave was how he played the game.

Their logs held tight in death's still hand was proof of human sin,
They didn't die from the cold without - they died from the cold within.

Answer 9

You dont even know
how much I love you
You dont even know
how much I care
Or how much pain I feel
When you are not there
You dont even know
the way I feel
When I gaze into your eyes
You dont even know
How my heart skips a beat
When I am by your side
The reason you dont know
Is all so simple and true
Its because you believe only you.

I wrote this I dont know if it helps but I like it.

Answer 10

sounds like you need a chicken soup for the soul (on tough stuff) book ...