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-
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought-
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone-
This is the Hour of Lead-
Remember, if outlived,
As freezing persons, recollect the Snow-
First-Chill-then Stupor- then letting go-
Emily Dickinson
Mother, I cannot mind my wheel;
My fingers ache, my lips are dry;
Oh! If you felt the pain I feel!
But oh, whoever felt as I!
Sappho
My life closed twice before its close-
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me
So huge, so hopeless to conceive
All these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
Emily Dickinson
Neutral Tones
We stood by a pond that winter day,
And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod,
–They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.
Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles solved years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro–
On which lost the more by our love.
The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing
Alive enough to have strength to die;
And a grin of bitterness swept thereby
Like an ominous bird a-wing….
Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,
And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me
Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree,
And a pond edged with grayish leaves.
Thomas Hardy
Read other beautiful sad breakup poems:
Poem about the End of a Relationship
Japanese Poems about Breaking Up
Sad Poem about Missing Your Lover
