22 Touching Sad Poems You Will Definitely Relate To

22 Touching Sad Poems You Will Definitely Relate To.

Sad Poems: As humans, we don’t go through life with a single set of emotions. We are all susceptible to joy as we are to pain. Poets and writers through the ages have taught us not to demonize any of our emotions but embrace them as essential parts of our complex personalities.

Sad poems are powerful in the way they point us to our humanness. These sad poems remind us that we aren’t immune to pain and hurt and should celebrate our tendencies to be sad as we do with our more socially acceptable expressions.

1. A Sad Child

You’re sad because you’re sad.
It’s psychic. It’s the age. It’s chemical.
Go see a shrink or take a pill,
or hug your sadness like an eyeless doll
you need to sleep.

Well, all children are sad
but some get over it.
Count your blessings. Better than that,
buy a hat. Buy a coat or pet.
Take up dancing to forget.

Forget what?
Your sadness, your shadow,
whatever it was that was done to you
the day of the lawn party
when you came inside flushed with the sun,
your mouth sulky with sugar,
in your new dress with the ribbon
and the ice-cream smear,
and said to yourself in the bathroom,
I am not the favorite child.

My darling, when it comes
right down to it
and the light fails and the fog rolls in
and you’re trapped in your overturned body
under a blanket or burning car,

and the red flame is seeping out of you
and igniting the tarmac beside your head
or else the floor, or else the pillow,
none of us is;
or else we all are.
– Margaret Atwood

2. Be Not Sad

Be not sad because all men
Prefer a lying clamour before you:
Sweetheart, be at peace again — –
Can they dishonour you?

They are sadder than all tears;
Their lives ascend as a continual sigh.
Proudly answer to their tears:
As they deny, deny.
– James Joyce

3.  Sad

sad for all the time my embrace was empty of you
sad for being stubborn to be sad
sad for touching objects baring your presence
sad for not touching you…

sad for re adi ng your name everywhere i turn
sad for all the blue jackets other men should not have worn
sad for all my weak spots left to be weak
sad to open my eyes in the morning

sad for a cruel truth not even dreams can survive
sad without dreaming
sad of nothing to hope for
sad for still seing beautiful things worth for you to know

sad…
just what she is not
– Cristina Geanta

4. A Fairly Sad Tale

I think that I shall never know
Why I am thus, and I am so.
Around me, other girls inspire
In men the rush and roar of fire,
The sweet transparency of glass,
The tenderness of April grass,
The durability of granite;
But me- I don’t know how to plan it.
The lads I’ve met in Cupid’s deadlock
Were- shall we say?- born out of wedlock.
They broke my heart, they stilled my song,
And said they had to run along,
Explaining, so to sop my tears,
First came their parents or careers.
But ever does experience
Deny me wisdom, calm, and sense!
Though she’s a fool who seeks to capture
The twenty-first fine, careless rapture,
I must go on, till ends my rope,
Who from my birth was cursed with hope.
A heart in half is chaste, archaic;
But mine resembles a mosaic-
The thing’s become ridiculous!
Why am I so? Why am I thus?
– Dorothy Parker

5. In My Own Shire, If I Was Sad

In my own shire, if I was sad,
Homely comforters I had:
The earth, because my heart was sore,
Sorrowed for the son she bore;
And standing hills, long to remain,
Shared their short-lived comrade’s pain.
And bound for the same bourn as I,
On every road I wandered by,
Trod beside me, close and dear,
The beautiful and death-struck year:
Whether in the woodland brown
I heard the beechnut rustle down,
And saw the purple crocus pale
Flower about the autumn dale;
Or littering far the fields of May
Lady-smocks a-bleaching lay,
And like a skylit water stood
The bluebells in the azured wood.

Yonder, lightening other loads,
The seasons range the country roads,
But here in London streets I ken
No such helpmates, only men;
And these are not in plight to bear,
If they would, another’s care.
They have enough as ’tis: I see
In many an eye that measures me
The mortal sickness of a mind
Too unhappy to be kind.
Undone with misery, all they can
Is to hate their fellow man;
And till they drop they needs must still
Look at you and wish you ill.
– Alfred Edward Housman

6. Acquainted With The Night

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night
– Robert Frost

7. To The Sad Moon

With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb’st the skies!
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What! May it be that even in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel’st a lover’s case:
I read it in thy looks; thy languished grace
To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,
Is constant love deemed there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be loved, and yet
Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?
Do they call ‘virtue’ there— ungratefulness?
– Sir Philip Sidney

8. Bored And Sad

It’s boring and sad, and there’s no one around
In times of my spirit’s travail…
Desires!…What use is our vain and eternal desire?..
While years pass on by – all the best years!

To love…but love whom?.. a short love is vexing,
And permanent love’s just a myth.
Perhaps look within? – The past’s left no trace:
All trivial, joys and distress…

What good are the passions? For sooner or later
Their sweet sickness ends when reason speaks up;
And life, if surveyed with cold-blooded regard,-
Is stupid and empty – a joke…
– Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov

9. Sad Is Stupid

I’m sorry you’re sad
‘I’m not sad.
Don’t use that word.
Sad is stupid.’

… cos when you’re sad
you’re always angry
and push me away

‘Of course I’m angry.
I’m pissed off
I’m allowed to be angry.’

so I guess I’d better
leave you alone
– and not show I mind –
till you’re happy again

‘Happy?
I’m never happy.
Happy is dumb and stupid! ‘
– Alison Cassidy

10. The Bad Season Makes The Poet Sad

Dull to myself, and almost dead to these,
My many fresh and fragrant mistresses;
Lost to all music now, since every thing
Puts on the semblance here of sorrowing.
Sick is the land to th’ heart; and doth endure
More dangerous faintings by her desperate cure.
But if that golden age would come again,
And Charles here rule, as he before did reign;
If smooth and unperplex’d the seasons were,
As when the sweet Maria lived here;
I should delight to have my curls half drown’d
In Tyrian dews, and head with roses crown’d:
And once more yet, ere I am laid out dead,
Knock at a star with my exalted head.
– Robert Herrick

11. Close Those Sad Sad Eyes Girl-

Close those sad sad eyes girl,
and let your feelings wash away,
Bring up nothing more than what you want to say,
So close those sad sad eyes girl,
realize your way,
I hope it all passes by my love,
and hope you it flies away
Now close your sad sad eyes girl,
and forget about your sad sad day.
– Beautiful Grim

12. Baseball’s Sad Lexicon

These are the saddest of possible words:
Tinker to Evers to Chance.
Trio of Bear-cubs, fleeter than birds,
Tinker to Evers to Chance.
Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,
Making a Giant hit into a double —
Words that are weighty with nothing but trouble:
Tinker to Evers to Chance.
– Franklin Pierce Adams

13. Sad-Eyed And Soft And Grey

Sad-Eyed and soft and grey thou art, o morn!
Across the long grass of the marshy plain
Thy west wind whispers of the coming rain,
Thy lark forgets that May is grown forlorn
Above the lush blades of the springing corn,
Thy thrush within the high elms strives in vain
To store up tales of spring for summer’s pain –
Vain day, why wert thou from the dark night born?

O many-voiced strange morn, why must thou break
With vain desire the softness of my dream
Where she and I alone on earth did seem?
How hadst thou heart from me that land to take
Wherein she wandered softly for my sake
And I and she no harm of love might deem?
– William Morris

14. To A Sad Girl

There is no way to explain
Unending sorrow and grief,
No way to kiss a young girl’s cheek
In a way that would give her back
The joy death has stolen.

Humans are brave enough
To live and bleed and die,
But to be the one remaining
As others say goodbye
Is too much to withstand.

There are evil stars that smirk
And thus mark us for treacherous fates,
The days all burn like desert fields
Until there is nothing left to love
And nothing left to feel.
– Uriah Hamilton

15. The Sad Bastards Club

A happy lot, us Sad Bastards.
We raise our glasses
Kick some asses
Laugh, tell rude jokes
Give the fire a poke
And throw on another log.
We talk of locks
And untimely clocks
And stocks and shares
And dual-purpose chairs
Play the organ, sing and giggle
Until 3 in the morning
When mutually yawning
We tuck ourselves into bed.
A happy lot
Us Sad Bastards.
– Francesca Johnson

16. A Sad Sad Story

The river flowed through meadows green
I saw the wild rose, pink and serene.
There came a voice from beyond the blue,
An angel from heaven said – it was you.

Resting beneath the rays of the sun,
I gazed at the sky to talk with my one.
The breezes blew sweet whispers to me
Across the mountain and waves of the sea.

The hymn you sang was ‘O Love Divine’
I heard your dear voice and you heard mine.
But as the sun went down in the evening sky
There was no sound…just your last goodbye.
– Joyce Hemsley

17. Solitude

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air;
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go;
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all,
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life’s gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a large and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.
– Ella Wheeler Wilcox

18. Alone

From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring—
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow—I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone—
And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone—
Then—in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still—
From the torrent, or the fountain—
From the red cliff of the mountain—
From the sun that ‘round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass’d me flying by—
From the thunder, and the storm—
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view—
– Edgar Allan Poe

19. Richard Cory

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
“Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich – yes, richer than a king –
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
– Edwin Arlington Robinson

20. A Hero

Three times I had the lust to kill,
To clutch a throat so young and fair,
And squeeze with all my might until
No breath of being lingered there.
Three times I drove the demon out,
Though on my brow was evil sweat. . . .
And yet I know beyond a doubt
He’ll get me yet, he’ll get me yet.

I know I’m mad, I ought to tell
The doctors, let them care for me,
Confine me in a padded cell
And never, never set me free;
But Oh how cruel that would be!
For I am young – and comely too . . .
Yet dim my demon I can see,
And there is but one thing to do.

Three times I beat the foul fiend back;
The fourth, I know he will prevail,
And so I’ll seek the railway track
And lay my head upon the rail,
And sight the dark and distant train,
And hear its thunder louder roll,
Coming to crush my cursed brain . . .
Oh God, have mercy on my soul!
– Robert W. Service

21. I Sit And Look Out

I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world,
and upon all oppression and shame;
I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with
themselves, remorseful after deeds done;
I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying,
neglected, gaunt, desperate;
I see the wife misused by her husband
—I see the treacherous seducer of young women;
I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love, attempted to behid
—I see these sights on the earth;
I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny—I see martyrs and
prisoners;
I observe a famine at sea—I observe the sailors casting lots who
shall be kill’d, to preserve the lives of the rest;
I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon
laborers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like;
All these—All the meanness and agony without end,
I sitting, lookout upon,
See, hear, and am silent.
-Walt Whitman

22. Circus In Three Rings

In the circus tent of a hurricane
designed by a drunken god
my extravagant heart blows up again
in a rampage of champagne-colored rain
and the fragments whir like a weather vane
while the angels all applaud.

Daring as death and debonair
I invade my lion’s den;
a rose of jeopardy flames in my hair
yet I flourish my whip with a fatal flair
defending my perilous wounds with a chair
while the gnawings of love begin.

Mocking as Mephistopheles,
eclipsed by magician’s disguise,
my demon of doom tilts on a trapeze,
winged rabbits revolving about his knees,
only to vanish with devilish ease
in a smoke that sears my eyes.
– Sylvia Plath

A little slice of sadness in our lives reawakens us to the consciousness that we are humans. Sad poems are remarkable in the way they spark emotions and relate to our most vulnerable sides. We hope you share these sad poems with friends and leave us a review.

Daily Time Poems