Poems about crying delve into the emotional landscape of this human experience, exploring the depths of sorrow, pain, vulnerability, and catharsis. These poetic creations encapsulate the unfiltered intensity and raw feelings that spring forth from within.
They explore the intricate tapestry of emotions that trigger tears, whether grief, heartbreak, loss, suffering, or even moments of profound joy, while concurrently evoking and stirring overwhelming sentiments in readers.
Additionally, some poems recognize the therapeutical impact of cathartic experiences that facilitate emotional processing. The poetry shows the healing power of tears as they release pent-up emotions and cleanse the soul, weaving tales of human resilience.
‘Tears, Idle Tears’ is an emotional exploration of time, life, and death, told through the eyes of a court maiden and filled with vivid imagery.
Tennyson's depiction of tears and weeping is among the most powerful of any ever produced. The speaker weeps for their lost youth and the tears thus symbolise regret. Curiously, the narrator does not initially know the reason they are crying, which reminds the reader that tears can represent emotions we are not yet aware of. Finally, the use of the adjective 'idle' suggests that the act of crying, although cathartic, is powerless to change the past.
‘An Ancient Gesture’ explores timeless sorrow through parallels between modern tears and those of mythic figures Penelope and Ulysses.
The poem delves into the topic of crying through Penelope's tears, symbolizing her emotional anguish and weariness. Her act of wiping her eyes with her apron highlights the rawness of her sorrow and the physical manifestation of her emotional labor. The tears serve as a poignant expression of her grief and longing, evoking empathy for her emotional state and the depth of her sorrow.
I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
Penelope did this too.
And more than once: you can't keep weaving all day
‘Little Boy Crying’ by Mervynn Morris describes the emotions of a child who is struck by his father for playing in the rain.
Morris' poem depicts a boy crying after his father had slapped him across the face as punishment for playing outside in the rain. The boys tears are conjured by the poet in order to make the reader empathise with him, given the punishment appears too severe. Likewise, Morris explores the manner in which tears can reflect both physical pain but also guilt, as the child feels he has failed his parent.
Your mouth contorting in brief spite and hurt,
your laughter metamorphosed into howls,
your frame so recently relaxed now tight
with three year old frustration, your bright eyes
‘The Guitar’ is a melancholy exploration of the power of music and its relationship to our experience of the world around us.
The guitar is repeatedly described as weeping, which serves to emphasise how sad the music being played on it must be, as it is capable of making an inanimate object cry. Lorca thus implies that everything that surrounds us is capable of experiencing joy and despair, rather than simply acting as the cause of those emotions in people.
Mother Goose’s ‘Hush little baby, don’t say a word’ is a popular nursery rhyme about a crying child and how parents comfort the child.
'Hush little baby, don't say a word' showcases the lengths that a parent is willing to go to in order to prevent their baby from crying. This emphasises the fact that tears are associated with negative emotions, especially in young children who do not yet mastery of language and must rely on tears to convey several different needs.
‘Night Song at Amalfi’ by Sara Teasdale weaves celestial silence and sea mystery, exploring love’s ineffable nature and expressive challenges.
'Night Song at Amalfi' addresses the topic of crying through the speaker's contemplation of weeping as a gesture to express love. The choice of weeping underscores the depth of emotion and the potential catharsis in tears. The poem explores the nuanced ways in which emotional expression, particularly through crying, contributes to the complexities of conveying love.
‘Life is Fine’ by Langston Hughes is a playful ditty. The poem is about a man who is suffering and contemplating suicide but is still able to see the beauty in life.
The narrator often cries in the poem, showing how overwhelmed they feel. Crying here isn’t just about tears—it’s about letting out the pain that’s been building inside. When they say they holler and cry, it’s like they’re asking for help, even if they’re alone. Crying shows how deeply they’re hurting, and it makes the poem feel raw and honest. It’s a reminder that sometimes, all we can do is cry.
‘Oh! Snatch’s Away in Beauty’s Bloom’ by Lord Byron is a beautiful poem about grief and the importance of expressing such emotions as a means of catharsis.
The speaker directly references crying in both the personification of grief and the admonishment of their critics in the last stanza. Both times, they acknowledge that crying just brings more pain and is itself vain, especially because the act will change nothing. But the speaker points out that's not the point of such tears, and, in reality, it's more or less an involuntary expression of sadness.
Alfred Lord Tennyson’s ‘Oenone’ weaves heart-wrenching verses as Oenone, spurned by Paris, faces solitude, despair, and a haunting future.
The poem delicately explores the theme of crying as it unravels the emotional turbulence within Oenone. Tears symbolize her profound sorrow, heartbreak, and the weight of unfulfilled love. The poet employs vivid imagery and poignant language to convey the emotional depth of Oenone's tears, offering readers a glimpse into the profound anguish that permeates the narrative.
‘The Cry of the Children’ by Browning exposes child labor’s cruelties, urging societal change through imagery of suffering.
Crying appears as a repeated image throughout the poem. It begins with the children weeping and continues with references to tears during moments that should bring joy or rest. The act of crying becomes symbolic of deeper emotional pain. These tears are not brief or shallow but show lasting sadness. The speaker emphasizes how common crying has become for these children, making it a key signal of how deeply wrong their lives have turned out to be.
Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,
Ere the sorrow comes with years ?
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, —
William Blake’s ‘The Angel’ is told through the frame of an angel who appears in a dream to the narrator throughout their life.
The poem carries the underlying idea of how men kill their emotions while going to war. The speaker weeps both day and night, and the angel wipes away their tears, emphasizing the speaker's vulnerability and the angel's role as a comforter. They liked the joy of being comforted by the angel so much that they started crying intentionally; however, the war hardened them years later.
Shakespeare’s ‘Sonnet 30’ describes the speaker’s most depressed state and what finally lifts him out, relieving his sorrows.
The speaker's occasional weeping, depicted in the line 'Then can I drown an eye, unus'd to flow,' emphasizes the depth of their grief and serves as a poignant symbol of suffering. This emotional release through crying conveys the intense impact of the speaker's loss, particularly the death of dear friends.
‘The cry of the cicada’ by Matsuo Bashō is a thoughtful poem that evokes images of summer and reminds readers about the inevitability of death.
The poet describes the cicadas as crying out in this poem. Bashō's adept use of language allows readers to find resonance in the unspoken emotions embedded within the poem, providing a platform for personal reflection on the myriad ways in which humans express and perceive emotions.
‘The Conquering Worm’ is a poem of existential dread, presenting the reader with the idea that there is no one who can alleviate the suffering of human condition and that ultimately death will come for us and is completely unavoidable.
The angels arrive at the play crying and are crying by the conclusion as well. Their grief shows their impotence in the face of the suffering of humanity and their reaction to what they see shows just how hopeless and futile the situation is.
‘The Nightingale’ is a unique love-lyric that exploits the classical myth of Philomel to morph the personal rue of a lovelorn heart into a superb piece of poetry.
The poem begins with the scenario where the poet is lamenting about his agony of his unrequited love and how miserable he is. And the second stanza of the poem shows how Philomela pulls her voice against Tereus and speaks out what she had experienced. She tells how Tereus brutally molested her and to control the damage, cut her tongue.
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