30 Grief Poems – Emotions, Comfort & Meaning

8 Grief Poems for Saying Goodbye

We selected these famous poems for their ability to capture the complex emotions of loss and goodbye. They express the pain of separation, the longing for connection, and the hope for new beginnings.

1) Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

---

2) Talking to Grief by Denise Levertov

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 know you’ve been living
under my porch.
You long for your real place to be readied
before winter comes. You need
your name,
your collar and tag. You need
the right to warn off intruders,
to consider
my house your own
and me your person
and yourself
my own dog.

---

3) Funeral Blues by W.H. 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 crepe 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 forever: 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.

4) Separation by W.S. Merwin

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.

---

5) Making a Fist By Naomi Shihab Nye

For the first time, on the road north of Tampico,
I felt the life sliding out of me,
a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear.
I was seven, I lay in the car
watching palm trees swirl a sickening pattern past the glass.
My stomach was a melon split wide inside my skin.

“How do you know if you are going to die?”
I begged my mother.
We had been traveling for days.
With strange confidence she answered,
“When you can no longer make a fist.”

Years later I smile to think of that journey,
the borders we must cross separately,
stamped with our unanswerable woes.
I who did not die, who am still living,
still lying in the backseat behind all my questions,
clenching and opening one small hand.

---

6) The Dying Child By John Clare

He could not die when trees were green,
For he loved the time too well.
His little hands, when flowers were seen,
Were held for the bluebell,
As he was carried o’er the green.

His eye glanced at the white-nosed bee;
He knew those children of the spring:
When he was well and on the lea
He held one in his hands to sing,
Which filled his heart with glee.

Infants, the children of the spring!
How can an infant die
When butterflies are on the wing,
Green grass, and such a sky?
How can they die at spring?

He held his hands for daisies white,
And then for violets blue,
And took them all to bed at night
That in the green fields grew,
As childhood’s sweet delight.

And then he shut his little eyes,
And flowers would notice not;
Birds’ nests and eggs caused no surprise,
He now no blossoms got;
They met with plaintive sighs.

When winter came and blasts did sigh,
And bare were plain and tree,
As he for ease in bed did lie
His soul seemed with the free,
He died so quietly.

---

7) A Daughter of Eve By Christina Rossetti

A fool I was to sleep at noon,
And wake when night is chilly
Beneath the comfortless cold moon;
A fool to pluck my rose too soon,
A fool to snap my lily.

My garden-plot I have not kept;
Faded and all-forsaken,
I weep as I have never wept:
Oh it was summer when I slept,
It’s winter now I waken.

Talk what you please of future spring
And sun-warm’d sweet to-morrow:—
Stripp’d bare of hope and everything,
No more to laugh, no more to sing,
I sit alone with sorrow.

---

8) Robin’s Egg by Keith Leonard

This blue-green robin’s egg
cracked, now, and left
in the porch nest—impossibly
light in my palm. Somehow
the chick knew to press its beak
against the egg’s surrounding walls.
In darkness, it must have followed
sound—the thunder clap,
its mother’s song, the dog—each
driving its first and final fissure
of the shell. But how did it trust
that leaving one world would,
in fact, reveal another? I listen
to the wind and hear
only wind.

Poems – Grieving the Death Of a Mother

---

Types of Grief Poems

Elegy: An elegy is a poem that mourns the death of a loved one. It often expresses feelings of sadness, loss, and longing.

• “In Memory of W.B. Yeats” by W.H. Auden: Auden’s moving tribute to Yeats demonstrates to me the timeless nature of an elegy, capturing the mourning of a respected poet and the legacy he left behind.
• “Elegy for Jane” by Theodore Roethke: As I read this poem, Roethke’s tender reminiscence of his student, Jane, defines it as an elegy, expressing personal grief and the painful beauty of youthful potential cut short.
• “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” by Thomas Gray: To me, Gray’s contemplative lines on the death of common folk profoundly capture the spirit of an elegy, highlighting the universality of mortality and the equalizing nature of death.
• “O Captain! My Captain!” by Walt Whitman: I see Whitman’s mournful tribute to Abraham Lincoln as a quintessential elegy, giving voice to a nation’s grief and the tragedy of a great leader’s fall.
• “A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London” by Dylan Thomas: In my perspective, Thomas’s poem is an unconventional elegy, where he refuses traditional mourning rituals, illuminating raw and complex grief.

---

Lament: A lament is a poem that expresses grief or sorrow. It often uses vivid language and imagery to describe the pain of loss.

• “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” by Walt Whitman: In my eyes, Whitman’s poignant homage to Abraham Lincoln encapsulates the shared sorrow of a nation, defining it as a classic lament.
• “Lament for the Dorsets” by Al Purdy: I view this poem as a mournful ode to the extinct Dorset culture, it gives voice to the collective grief over lost civilizations.
• “The Wanderer” by Anonymous: To me, this ancient English poem profoundly expresses the lament of an exiled man, capturing the despair and yearning characteristic of a lament.
• “The Lamentation of Old Women” by Anna Akhmatova: I see this poem as a piercing lament, where Akhmatova unveils the universal sorrow of mothers losing their sons to war.
• “The Wife’s Lament” by Anonymous: This old English poem, in my perspective, powerfully conveys a wife’s grief and longing for her absent husband, aptly fitting the form of a lament.

---

In Memoriam: An in memoriam poem is a poem that is written in memory of a loved one who has died. It often celebrates the deceased’s life and expresses gratitude for their time with the poet.

• “In Memoriam A.H.H.” by Alfred Lord Tennyson: Tennyson’s lengthy and heartfelt tribute to his close friend, Arthur Henry Hallam, strikes me as a profound journey through grief, demonstrating the power of love and memory in shaping our lives.
• “Memorial for the City” by Adrienne Rich: This poem acts as a eulogy for a city changed by time, and to me, it encapsulates the collective grief experienced by its inhabitants.
• “Memorial Verses” by Matthew Arnold: Arnold’s sincere tribute to the authors Goethe and Wordsworth makes me reflect on the impact that others, even those we’ve not met personally, can have on our lives and how we mourn their loss.
• “Requiem” by Anna Akhmatova: Akhmatova’s extensive elegy commemorating the victims of political repression in Russia strikes me as a powerful testament to collective memory and grief.
• “Elegy for Jane” by Theodore Roethke: Roethke’s tribute to his student, Jane, deeply moves me as it expresses the grief of an unexpected loss and the enduring imprint left by those who depart too soon.

---

Anticipatory Grief: Anticipatory grief is grief that is felt before the death of a loved one. It is often experienced by people caring for a dying loved one.

• “Because I could not stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson: In this poem, Dickinson personifies Death as a kind gentleman, signaling the inevitability of mortality and causing me to anticipate and reflect on my demise.
• “Do not go gentle into that good night” by Dylan Thomas: Thomas’s plea to his dying father to resist the quiet of death encourages me to face and anticipate the grief associated with impending loss.
• “Sonnet 71” by William Shakespeare: Shakespeare’s contemplation of his own death and how it will affect his beloved is a poignant anticipation of grief from both sides—the dying and the one to be left behind.
• “Tithonus” by Alfred Lord Tennyson: Tennyson’s exploration of the mythological Tithonus, who has eternal life but not eternal youth, makes me confront the painful reality of aging and the anticipation of death.
• “An Elegy for My Father’s Father” by James K. Baxter: Baxter’s reflection on his grandfather’s life and death prompts me to consider the cycle of life and death, bringing anticipation of grief.

---

Recovery: Recovery poems explore the process of healing from grief. They often offer hope and encouragement to those who are still grieving.

• “Healing” by Danna Faulds: This poem, full of hope and resilience, walks me through the recovery journey from grief, emphasizing that time and love can heal wounds.
• “Surprised by Joy” by William Wordsworth: While Wordsworth captures the pain of missing a loved one, he also expresses a moment of unexpected happiness, suggesting that joy can return after loss.
• “Hope is the Thing with Feathers” by Emily Dickinson: Dickinson’s poem, personifying hope as a bird, reminds me that hope can persist even through the most challenging grief.
• “If You See a Comet” by Haley Morgan: In this poem, the appearance of a comet serves as a symbol of light and hope after the storm, illustrating that life and beauty continue after a loss.
• “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop: Bishop’s poem teaches me that it’s possible to practice losing and surviving it, suggesting that recovery and resilience are part of life’s journey.

---

---