A poem to console?

Question

I'm looking for a poem to give to a friend to offer words of consolation and hope, or maybe a laugh too. He has had a bad year, splitting up from his fiancée, health and family problems etc. What poems made you laugh, cry, rage and generally feel better?

Answer 1

Write one for him... it will be a lot more personal and more sentimental ... they don't have to rhyme... give that a go he will appreciate that more...

Answer 2

I like 'The Rape of the Lock' by Alexander Pope, it's very beautiful, but also pretty funny. But for a laugh you can't beat Roald Dahl really. Or Spike Milligan. Robert Burns is also good for laughs and some of his poems are rather nice. I find William Wordsworth's poems quite soothing too. Have a look a Shakespeare's sonnets too, or some of his monologues in his plays, they're really moving and some are funny. That's about all I can think of right now.

Answer 3

Found a great website for you.... hundreds of poems etc there...
My favourite is WH Auden:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public
doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

try these for some inspiration
http://www.lovepoemsandquotes.com/
http://www.poemsforfree.com/poetry.html

Hope helps!

Answer 4

Sometimes

Sometimes things don't go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don't fail.
Sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war,
elect an honest man, decide they care
enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best intentions do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen; may it happen for you.

-- Sheenagh Pugh

Answer 5

As life beats down with losing hands,
That drag you to the empty depths.
As spirits sink to vacant lows,
Shine on.

Life’s colours fade to frosted tones,
Cold images in monochrome.
Help the colours find their hue,
Shine on.

When all but sorrow snubs you still,
As an errant child with wayward cares.
Seek the comfort of a friend.
Shine on.

Shout and scream and curse the world,
For mourning brought from random acts.
For tearing down your trusted dreams.
Scream loud.

But fighting back is all to do.
Scratch and crawl back to the rim.
Defy the odds, crash through the door.
Survive.

And when the journey home is done,
The hurdles cleared, the rivers swum.
Seek out others suffering still.
Shine on, shine on and on.

Answer 6

"Look Down from Clouds" by Martin Levine, 1997

Full of hope. Here's an excerpt:

TRANSCENDING
Escher got it right.
Men step down and yet rise up,
the hand is drawn by the hand it draws,
and a woman is poised
on her very own shoulders.

Without you and me this universe is simple,
run with the regularity of a prison.
Galaxies spin along stipulated arcs,
stars collapse at the specified hour,
crows u-turn south and monkeys rut on schedule.

But we, whom the cosmos shaped for a billion years
to fit this place, we know it failed.
For we can reshape,
reach an arm through the bars
and, Escher-like, pull ourselves out.

And while whales feeding on mackerel
are confined forever in the sea,
we climb the waves,
look down from clouds.

Answer 7

As I Walked Out One Evening
by W. H. Auden


As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
'Love has no ending.

'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

'I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

'The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.'

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
'O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

'In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

'In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

'Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

'O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.

'The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

'Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

'O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

'O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.'

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

Answer 8

Any poem written by Robert Frost!

Answer 9

The serenity prayer.
God grant me the serenity to accept the thing I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference,

Answer 10

hmmm im thinking now