Deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope.
Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
Category Archives: Grief poems
Tear Of Grief by Maurice Maeterlinck & Maurice Sendak
When we lose one we love,our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough.
Maurice Maeterlinck
I cry a lot because I miss people.They die and I can’t stop them.They leave me and I love them more.
Maurice Sendak
Orphan’s Heart:Poems:An Orphan’s Lament by Anne Brontë*The Little Orphan by BY EDGAR ALBERT GUEST*The Poor Orphan Child by Charlotte Bronte
Music:
Secret Garden-Sometimes when it rains
An Orphan’s Lament
Anne Brontë
She’s gone — and twice the summer’s sun
Has gilt Regina’s towers,
And melted wild Angora’s snows,
And warmed Exina’s bowers.
The flowerets twice on hill and dale
Have bloomed and died away,
And twice the rustling forest leaves
Have fallen to decay,
And thrice stern winter’s icy hand
Has checked the river’s flow,
And three times o’er the mountains thrown
His spotless robe of snow.
Two summers springs and autumns sad
Three winters cold and grey —
And is it then so long ago
That wild November day!
They say such tears as children weep
Will soon be dried away,
That childish grief however strong
Is only for a day,
And parted friends how dear soe’er
Will soon forgotten be;
It may be so with other hearts,
It is not thus with me.
My mother, thou wilt weep no more
For thou art gone above,
But can I ever cease to mourn
Thy good and fervent love?
While that was mine the world to me
Was sunshine bright and fair;
No feeling rose within my heart
But thou couldst read it there.
And thou couldst feel for all my joys
And all my childish cares
And never weary of my play
Or scorn my foolish fears.
Beneath thy sweet maternal smile
All pain and sorrow fled,
And even the very tears were sweet
Upon thy bosom shed.
I shall not know again
While life remains, the peaceful joy
That filled my spirit then.
Where shall I find a heart like thine
While life remains to me,
And where shall I bestow the love
I ever bore for thee?
Elena shumilova Photography
The Little Orphan
EDGAR ALBERT GUEST
The crowded street his playground is,a patch of blue his sky;
A puddle in a vacant lot his sea where ships pass by:
Poor little orphan boy of five,the city smoke and grime
Taint every cooling breeze he gets throughout the summer time;
And he is just as your boy is,a child who loves to play,
Except that he is drawn and white and cannot get away.
And he would like the open fields,for often in his dreams
The angels kind bear him off to where are pleasant streams,
Where he may sail a splendid boat,sometimes he flies a kite,
Or romps beside a shepherd dog and shouts with all his might;
But when the dawn of morning comes he wakes to find once more
That what he thought were sun-kissed hills are rags upon the floor.
Then through the hot and sultry day he plays at “make-pretend,”
The alley is a sandy beach where all the rich folks send
Their little boys and girls to play,a barrel is his boat,
But,oh,the air is tifling and the dust fills up his throat;
And though he tries so very hard to play,somehow it seems
He never gets such wondrous joys as angels bring in dreams.
Poor little orphan boy of five,except that he is pale,
With sunken cheeks and hollow eyes and very wan and frail,
Just like that little boy of yours,with same desire to play,
Fond of the open fields and skies,he’s built the self-same way;
But kept by fate and circumstance away from shady streams,
His only joy comes when he sleeps and angels bring him dreams.
Magdalena Berney Photography
The Poor Orphan Child
Charlotte Bronte
(From Jane Eyre,chapter three.)
My feet they are sore,and my limbs they are weary;
Long is the way,and the mountains are wild;
Soon will the twilight close moonless and dreary
Over the path of the poor orphan child.
Why did they send me so far and so lonely,
Up where the moors spread and grey rocks are piled?
Men are hard-hearted,and kind angels only
Watch o’er the steps of a poor orphan child.
Yet distant and soft the night breeze is blowing,
Clouds there are none,and clear stars beam mild,
God,in His mercy,protection is showing,
Comfort and hope to the poor orphan child.
Ev’n should I fall o’er the broken bridge passing,
Or stray in the marshes, by false lights beguiled,
Still will my Father,with promise and blessing,
Take to His bosom the poor orphan child.
There is a thought that for strength should avail me,
Though both of shelter and kindred despoiled;
Heaven is a home, and a rest will not fail me;
God is a friend to the poor orphan child.’
Give sorrow words by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Moran Weistling Art
Give sorrow words;the grief that does not speak
knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,Macbeth
Remembered Joy
Remembered Joy
And if my parting has left a void,
Then fill it with remembered joy.
A friendship shared, a laugh, a kiss…
Ah yes, these things I, too, shall miss.
My life’s been full, I’ve savoured much:
Good times, good friends, a loved-one’s touch.
Perhaps my time seemed all too brief—
Don’t shorten yours with undue grief.
Be not burdened with tears of sorrow,
Enjoy the sunshine of the morrow.
Dealing with sadness by Kevin Bacon & percy BYssshe Shelly
I really believe that all of us have a lot of darkness in our souls. Anger, rage, fear, sadness. I don’t think that’s only reserved for people who have horrible upbringings. I think it really exists and is part of the human condition. I think in the course of your life you figure out ways to deal with that.
Kevin Bacon
Change is certain. Peace is followed by disturbances; departure of evil men by their return. Such recurrences should not constitute occasions for sadness but realities for awareness, so that one may be happy in the interim.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
It rains in my heart by Paul Verlaine
It Rains in My Heart
Paul verlaine
It rains in my heart
As it rains on the town,
What languor so dark
That it soaks to my heart?
Oh sweet sound of the rain
On the earth and the roofs!
For the dull heart again,
Oh the song of the rain!
It rains for no reason
In this heart that lacks heart.
What? And no treason?
It’s grief without reason.
By far the worst pain,
Without hatred, or love,
Yet no way to explain
Why my heart feels such pain!
Tomorrow, At Dawn by Victor Hugo
Tomorrow, At Dawn
Victor Marie Hugo
Tomorrow, at dawn, at the hour when the countryside whitens,
I will set out. You see, I know that you wait for me.
I will go by the forest, I will go by the mountain.
I can no longer remain far from you.
I will walk with my eyes fixed on my thoughts,
Seeing nothing of outdoors, hearing no noise
Alone, unknown, my back curved, my hands crossed,
Sorrowed, and the day for me will be as the night.
I will not look at the gold of evening which falls,
Nor the distant sails going down towards Harfleur,
And when I arrive, I will place on your tomb
A bouquet of green holly and of flowering heather
Grief and loss poem:Traditional Native American Prayer
I give you this one thought to keep
I am with you still – I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush,
I am the sweet uplifting rush,
of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft starts that shine at night.
Do not think of me as gone –
I am with you still in each new dawn.
Traditional Native American Prayer
Quotes on Sadness and suffering
No one feels another’s grief, no one understands another’s joy. People imagine that they can reach one another. In reality they only pass each other by.
Franz Schubert
Wouldn’t it be much worse if life really were fair and all the terrible things that happen to us happen because we really deserve them?
J Michael Straczynski.
truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt.
Thomas Merton
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