These verses about longing transport readers to the realm of unfulfilled desires and yearnings. They paint intricate pictures of the soul’s unrest, the hunger for connection, or the nostalgia for a long-time time.
Poets use metaphors and vivid descriptions to evoke the profound emotions of longing, creating a tapestry of unrequited love, unattained dreams, or distant lands calling. Such poems often explore the complexities of human emotions, leaving readers with both melancholy and hope.
‘Gacela of Unforseen Love’ explores the relationship between love and despair through a remembered romance which has run its course.
No one understood the perfume
of the dark magnolia of your womb
Nobody knew that you tormented
a hummingbird of love between your teeth.
In ‘A Hymn to God the Father,’ Donne’s introspective and confessional tone explores sin, forgiveness, and the speaker’s personal relationship with God.
Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
‘A Far Cry from Africa’ encapsulates the turbulent struggle between ancestral African roots and colonial influence, invoking introspection and cultural complexities within a powerful poetic narrative.
A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt
Of Africa. Kikuyu, quick as flies,
Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt.
Corpses are scattered through a paradise.
‘The childless woman’ by Hattori Ransetsu is a beautifully emotional poem about a childless woman longing to have real children.
The childless woman,
How tender she is
To the dolls!
‘The Old Vicarage, Grantchester’ is a light poem about a homesick traveler sentimentally remembering his former home in the English town of Grantchester. The poem takes a gently satirical tone to its subject matter.
Just now the lilac is in bloom,
All before my little room;
And in my flower-beds, I think,
Smile the carnation and the pink;
‘Heliocentric’ by Keith S. Wilson is a singsongy poem about an astronaut in space missing someone on Earth whom he loves and desires.
I’m striving to be a better astronaut,
but consider where I’m coming from,
the exosphere,
a desk where the bluest air
‘Their Pleas’ talks about the longing of departed souls for guidance, connection, and empathy in their journey through the afterlife.
They pluck my sleeve, tug my hand, pull
my hair. They do not kneel to kiss my hem.
No, it’s not like that but they want tokens.
Again, not souvenirs but something small
In rich poetic language, ‘Ash Wednesday’ presents the spiritual struggle of an alienated individual lacking faith in decayed modern culture.
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
‘The Sea and the Hills’ by Rudyard Kipling depicts the ocean, its heaving waves, incredible winds, and ever-present danger. It has evoked longing in men throughout time and will continue to do so, just as one longs to return home.
Who hath desired the Sea? - the sight of salt water unbounded -
The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber wind-hounded?
The sleek-barrelled swell before storm, grey, foamless, enormous, and growing
Stark calm on the lap of the Line or the crazy-eyed hurricane blowing -
Once considered as a preface to the major poem ‘The Waste Land’ by T.S. Eliot, ‘Gerontion’ effectively deals with the huge psychological, spiritual, and physical destruction caused by the great war.
Here I am, an old man in a dry month,
Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain.
I was neither at the hot gates
Nor fought in the warm rain
‘I Know, You Walk—’ by Hermann Hesse is a foreboding poem that depicts a nightly encounter between a troubled speaker and the visage of a person they dread running into you.
I walk so often, late, along the streets,
Lower my gaze, and hurry, full of dread,
Suddenly, silently, you still might rise
‘In Kyoto’ by Matsuo Bashō expresses a deep sense of longing and nostalgia for the city of Kyoto through a 3-line haiku.
In Kyoto,
hearing the cuckoo,
I long for Kyoto.
‘Sweeney Among the Nightingales’ reflects the modern world’s degraded state through its layered allusions, symbolism, and imagery.
Apeneck Sweeney spread his knees
Letting his arms hang down to laugh,
The zebra stripes along his jaw
Swelling to maculate giraffe.
‘The Jewel Stairs’ Grievance’ (translated by Ezra Pound) by Li Bai captures the lovelorn yearning of a woman waiting for her lover late at night in a picturesque scene of melancholic beauty.
The jewelled steps are already quite white with dew,
It is so late that the dew soaks my gauze stockings,
And I let down the crystal curtain
And watch the moon through the clear autumn.
‘The Waste Land,’ epitomizing literary modernism, is one of the most important poems of the 20th century portraying its despondent mood in a new form.
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
‘Late Love’ explores the transformative power of love, contrasting its passionate heights with the fading memories and passage of time.
How they strut about, people in love,
how tall they grow, pleased with themselves,
their hair, glossy, their skin shining.
They don’t remember who they have been.
‘Ghazal’ is an ancient Persian form of poetry that makes use of couplets, which are quite similar to sonnets that have been in use by the European poets.
If I am the grass and you the breeze, blow through me.
If I am the rose and you the bird, then woo me.
IN ‘Heaven-Haven: A Nun Takes the Veil’ the speaker yearns for a tranquil sanctuary, free from life’s storms, desiring a realm of eternal springs and serene beauty.
I have desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail
And a few lilies blow.
‘Evening’ by Friedrich Schiller contains a speaker’s plea to Apollo that he allow the sun to set and rest, and love to descend.
Oh! thou bright-beaming god, the plains are thirsting,
Thirsting for freshening dew, and man is pining;
Wearily move on thy horses--
Let, then, thy chariot descend!
Thomas Hardy’s ‘In a Wood’ explores disillusionment in nature as conflicts and rivalries undermine the speaker’s search for solace.
Pale beech and pine-tree blue,
Set in one clay,
Bough to bough cannot you
Bide out your day?
‘Romance Sonámbulo’ by Federico García Lorca is a mournful and beautiful dream sequence in which the poet longs for something unattainable.
Green, how I want you green.
Green wind. Green branches.
The ship out on the sea
and the horse on the mountain.
Edmund Spenser’s ‘Amoretti LXVII: Like as a Huntsman’ explores the pursuit of love and the unexpected rewards it brings.
Like as a huntsman after weary chase,
Seeing the game from him escap'd away,
Sits down to rest him in some shady place,
With panting hounds beguiled of their prey:
‘I Loved You’ by Alexander Pushkin is a simple but effective poem in which the speaker expresses his devotion and respect for a woman he loved.
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.
Gwendolyn Brooks’ scathing critique exposes Ladies’ insincere charity, highlighting social inequality and privilege.
arrive. The Ladies from the Ladies’ Betterment League
Arrive in the afternoon, the late light slanting
In diluted gold bars across the boulevard brag
Amidst scarlet flames and camaraderie, ‘Around the Campfire’ captures transformative connections. Vivid imagery illuminates rekindled friendships, binding souls in tranquility.
Rising from the fire like a phoenix,
ash morphs into flights of flaming darts.
And shadows mark the fringes of light,
extinguishing all unwary sparks.
Edgar Albert Guest’s ‘Thanksgiving’ radiates familial warmth, intertwining laughter, gratitude, and time-honored traditions in shared gatherings.
Gettin’ together to smile an’ rejoice,
An’ eatin’ an’ laughin’ with folks of your choice;
An’ kissin’ the girls an’ declarin’ that they
Are growin’ more beautiful day after day;
‘Ex-Basketball Player’ by John Updike explores the faded glory of Flick Webb, a former basketball star, as he navigates a life of unfulfilled potential and routine.
Pearl Avenue runs past the high-school lot,
Bends with the trolley tracks, and stops, cut off
Before it has a chance to go two blocks,
At Colonel McComsky Plaza. Berth’s Garage
Lawrence Ferlinghetti passionately urges poets to break free, engage the world, and speak out for transformative change.
Poets, come out of your closets,
Open your windows, open your doors,
You have been holed-up too long
in your closed worlds.
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s ‘The Slave Mother’ portrays an enslaved woman’s anguish, emphasizing the enduring power of love amid oppression.
Heard you that shriek? It rose
So wildly on the air,
It seem’d as if a burden’d heart
Was breaking in despair.
‘To a Highland Girl’ by Wordsworth celebrates the beauty and innocence of the girl, her harmonious connection to nature.
Sweet Highland Girl, a very shower
Of beauty is thy earthly dower!
Twice seven consenting years have shed
Their utmost bounty on thy head:
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