Your grief is so profound and overwhelming that it’s impossible to express the depths of your despair. If you have lost someone, or you know someone who has, these grief poems and poetry about loss can offer words of comfort and validation on the worst days. Although poems on loss can’t erase the pain and heartache, they can be part of the process of grief that leads to healing.
13 Poems About Loss to Ease the Pain
If you are searching for a poem about grieving and loss, read through the following thirteen we have curated just for you. Each poem on loss speaks to a unique situation that you or a loved one may be experiencing right now.
Turn Again to Life, Mary Hall
If I should die, and leave you here a while,Be not like others sore undone,who keep long vigils by the silent dust and weep.For my sake, turn again to life, and smile,Nerving thy heart, and trembling hand to doSomething to comfort weaker hearts than thine,Complete these dear unfinished tasks of mine,And I, perchance, may therein comfort you!
Loss and Gain, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
When I compareWhat I have lost with what I have gained,What I have missed with what attained,Little room do I find for pride.I am awareHow many days have been idly spent;How like an arrow the good intentHas fallen short or been turned aside.But who shall dareTo measure loss and gain in this wise?Defeat may be victory in disguise;The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.
Excerpt from Starlings in Winter, Mary Oliver
Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us, even in the leafless winter,even in the ashy city.I am thinking nowof grief, and of getting past it;I feel my bootstrying to leave the ground,I feel my heartpumping hard. I wantto think again of dangerous and noble things.I want to be light and frolicsome.I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing, as though I had wings.
Coat, Vicki Feaver
Sometimes I have wantedto throw you offlike a heavy coat.Sometimes I have saidyou would not let mebreathe or move.But now that I am freeto choose light clothesor none at allI feel the coldand all the time I thinkhow warm it used to be.
Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep, 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 hushI am the swift uplifting rushOf quiet birds in circled 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.
Don’t Run Away from Grief, Rumi
Don’t run away from grief, o’ soulLook for the remedy inside the painBecause the rose came from the thorn And the ruby came from a stone.
Nothing Gold Can Stay, 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 dayNothing gold can stay.
I So Liked Spring, Charlotte Mew
I so liked Spring last yearBecause you were here; –The thrushes too –Because it was these you so liked to hear –I so liked you.This year’s a different thing, –I’ll not think of you.But I’ll like the Spring because it is simply SpringAs the thrushes do.
For Grief, John O’Donahue
When you lose someone you love,Your life becomes strange,The ground beneath you becomes fragile,Your thoughts make your eyes unsure;And some dead echo drags your voice downWhere words have no confidenceYour heart has grown heavy with loss;And though this loss has wounded others too,No one knows what has been taken from youWhen the silence of absence deepens.Flickers of guilt kindle regretFor all that was left unsaid or undone.There are days when you wake up happy;Again inside the fullness of life,Until the moment breaksAnd you are thrown backOnto the black tide of loss.Days when you have your heart back,You are able to function wellUntil in the middle of work or encounter,Suddenly with no warning,You are ambushed by grief.It becomes hard to trust yourself.All you can depend on now is thatSorrow will remain faithful to itself.More than you, it knows its wayAnd will find the right timeTo pull and pull the rope of griefUntil that coiled hill of tearsHas reduced to its last drop.Gradually, you will learn acquaintanceWith the invisible form of your departed;And when the work of grief is done,The wound of loss will healAnd you will have learnedTo wean your eyesFrom that gap in the airAnd be able to enter the hearthIn your soul where your loved oneHas awaited your returnAll the time.
The Uses of Sorrow, Mary Oliver
Someone I loved oncegave me a box full of darkness.It took me years to understand thatthis, too, was a gift.
One Art, Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;so many things seem filled with the intentto be lost that their loss is no disaster.Lose something every day. Accept the flusterof lost door keys, the hour badly spent.The art of losing isn’t hard to master.Then practice losing farther, losing faster:places, and names, and where it was you meantto travel. None of these will bring disaster.I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, ornext-to-last, of three loved houses went.The art of losing isn’t hard to master.I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gestureI love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evidentthe art of losing’s not too hard to masterthough it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
I Have Lost You, Edna St. Vincent Milay
Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;In my own way, and with my full consent.Say what you will, kings in a tumbrel rarelyWent to their deaths more proud than this one went.Some nights of apprehension and hot weepingI will confess; but that’s permitted me;Day dried my eyes; I was not one for keepingRubbed in a cage a wing that would be free.If I had loved you less or played you slylyI might have held you for a summer more,But at the cost of words I value highly,And no such summer as the one before.Should I outlive this anguish, and men do,I shall have only good to say of you.
In Blackwater Woods, Mary Oliver
To live in this worldyou must be ableto do three things:to love what is mortal;to hold itagainst your bones knowingyour own life depends on it;and, when the time comes to let it go,to let it go. 11 Of The Most Powerful Poems About Hope Ever Written 23 Of The Best Love Poems For Your Husband 31 Romantic And Sweet Good Morning Poems For Her You are not alone in your sadness and loss — these are universal experiences. That’s why these poems of grieving were written and shared by so many. Write down your favorites to read in times of deep sadness, or share one with someone you care about who has recently had a loss. Allow the words to provide comfort and support as you move through the difficult days ahead.
