Say Long Goodbye: A Collection of Heartfelt Poems About Grief

In Memoriam

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Dark house, by which once more I stand Here in the long unlovely street, Doors, where my heart was used to beat So quickly, waiting for a hand,

A hand that can be clasp'd no more— Behold me, for I cannot sleep, And like a guilty thing I creep At earliest morning to the door.

He is not here; but far away The noise of life begins again, And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain On the bald street breaks the blank day.

Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep

By Mary Elizabeth Frye

Do not stand at my grave and weep; I am not there; 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 swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circling flight. I am the soft stars that shine at night. Do not stand at my grave and cry; I am not there; I did not die.

Grief

By W.H. Auden

Now you will feel it—your heart Will be slow to recover. Your friends will go on talking— You will hardly hear a word.

The seagull screams: as if There were an answer to his cry. The distant lighthouse glows: As if it had to say something.

A leaf falls: as if Such a thing had never happened before. Nothing can make it stop— It is like a clock that won't run down.

When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be

By John Keats

When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high-piled books, in charactery, Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;

When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;

And when I feel, fair creature of an hour, That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power Of unreflecting love;—then on the shore

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

After Great Pain, A Formal Feeling Comes

By Emily Dickinson

After great pain, a formal feeling comes— The nerves sit ceremonious, like tombs— The stiff heart questions was it He, that bore, And Yesterday, or centuries before?

The feet, mechanical, go round— A wooden way Of ground, or air, or ought— Regardless grown, a quartz contentment, like

A stone— A feeling in the air of odds— And trepidation—to the looking eye— There is a curious sense—as if— Some ghastly friend had come— And outward bustle is assigned to hands— And inward purpose, pain—

And silent cautiousness—