Poems that are sad hold a profound and universal appeal due to their ability to evoke raw and genuine emotions within the reader. They act as a mirror reflecting the depths of human experience, validating our own sorrows and struggles. In their stark honesty, these poems create a sense of connection, reminding us that we are not alone in our melancholy. Though we don’t have to be sad to read sad poems. It can feel good to read sad poetry, even when you’re happy. The emotional resonance serves as a cathartic release, allowing readers to confront their own pain in the safe space of literature. In the process of engaging with sad poems, we can often find solace, a comforting realization that others have navigated similar emotional landscapes and emerged resilient, offering hope and strength.
Below are a few sad poems that I absolutely love. Sad poems transcend time and place, author or literary school. They have been written by poets for all time and while there are way too many to create an exhaustive list, these few are some of the best in the business and one of my own to throw into the mix. Remember, sad poems can be happy, too.
I Loved You by Alexander Pushkin
I loved you: yet the love, maybe,
Has not extinguished in my heart;
But hence may not it trouble thee;
I do not want to make you sad.
I loved you hopelessly and mutely,
Now with shyness, now with jealousy being vexed;
I loved you so sincerely, so fondly,
Likewise may someone love you next.
Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath
These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,
Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.
The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut
As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
Read the Full Poem here
The Last Toast by Anna Akhmatova
I drink to our ruined house
To the evil of my life
To our loneliness together
And I drink to you—
To the lying lips that have betrayed us,
To the dead-cold eyes,
To the fact that the world is brutal and coarse
To the fact that God did not save us.
Suicide’s Note by Langston Hughes
The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss.
When You Are Old by W.B. Yeats
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
Read the Full Poem here
The End by Mark Strand
Not every man knows what he shall sing at the end,
Watching the pier as the ship sails away, or what it will seem like
When he’s held by the sea’s roar, motionless, there at the end,
Or what he shall hope for once it is clear that he’ll never go back.
Read the Full Poem here
What the Living Do by Marie Howe
I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,
I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.
What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss—we want more and more and then more of it.
Read the Full Poem here
Laughter by C.W. Bryan
I laughed recently.
it felt
like opening a letter, seeing your name
scrawled out in a familiar hand,
and the words that follow just say
i’m sorry.
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