Sorrow is defined as a feeling of deep grief, distress, or sadness in the face of a loss. It might also be applied to someone feeling regret in regard to a missed opportunity, relationship, or other connection. These poems evoke or explore sorrow and are written with a great deal of emotion and relatable imagery.
‘On Joy and Sorrow’ by Kahlil Gibran is a meditative, insightful, poetic essay that makes interesting implications about the inseparable emotions of joy and sorrow.
'On Joy and Sorrow' investigates sorrow's relationship with joy. While the speaker admits that sorrow is unpleasant and tearful, he offers hope to those who are sad, indicating that sorrow would be impossible to feel unless one has also felt joy. In the same way, one cannot mourn an object or person unless, at one time, that person or thing brought them joy.
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
Stevie Smith’s ‘Parrot’ is a moving exploration of a parrot’s imprisonment and suffering set against the backdrop of the modern urban world.
The poem shows immense sorrow, juxtaposing the cruelty of human actions and the parrot's tragic fate. The tragedy begins when it arrives 'to the night of his despair' in a polluted, desolated urban city where he gets entrapped. This sorrow reflects the tragic reality of human domination and oppression over other species, as the parrot gets forcibly confined into a grim urban existence. The parrot's sorrow is so deep that death becomes his only escape, as it 'sits and coughs and spits, / Waiting for death to come.'
‘Any Human to Another’ by Countee Cullen connects humans through the shared experience of sorrow, advocating empathy and compassion.
Sorrow is presented as the one human experience that is truly universal and experienced by all sorts of individuals, either good or virtuous or wrong or immoral. Thus, it interconnects humanity across all diversities as everyone experiences and understands the emotional pain of sorrow, making it the emotion that can evoke empathy and compassion and promote harmony and unity among humans while invoking humanity's intrinsic humanness. The poem conveys the extent of emotional pain sorrows cause through violent imagery and metaphors while honoring the act of sharing others' burdens as noble and virtuous, like a warrior.
‘Mariana’ by Alfred Lord Tennyson, drawing from a Shakespearean play, depicts the sorrow of a lonely woman abandoned by her lover.
Mariana's sorrow permeates the poem, depicting her monotonous, lifeless existence submerged in despair. She is in a state of perpetual waiting, suffering from loneliness and depression. Her emotional and psychological decay is mirrored in the dark, decaying environment surrounding her. Even in sleep, she is restless, haunted by the eerie sounds of the night, 'without hope of change.' The sweetness of heaven and sunlight now irritate her, as her life has become so hopeless that even nature can offer no solace. Her sorrow is so intense that she longs for death, as that seems to be the only escape.
Shakespeare’s ‘Sonnet 30’ describes the speaker’s most depressed state and what finally lifts him out, relieving his sorrows.
Sorrow has an enduring and unyielding presence in the speaker's life as he expresses his suffering and disappointment. The poem portrays sorrow as a relentless force, with the intensity of pain always feeling as if it's new. This is exemplified in the lines, 'The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, / Which I new pay as if not paid before,' conveying the speaker's perpetual cycle of lamentation over past grievances. The speaker's tormenting memories seemingly become fresh with time instead of fading, intensifying his sorrow.
‘Away, Melancholy’ by Stevie Smith encourages finding joy in nature and human kindness, urging readers to let go of sorrow.
Gloom is very much a part of the poem, and yet, the poem is quite clear to deny and dismiss it. Smith claims over and over again, that Melancholy must be discarded, as a hindrance to the appreciation of life’s zest. This direct approach puts the reader on the spot and forces the reader to rethink the purpose of sadness in light of the inherent joy and busyness of life.
‘Ae Fond Kiss’ by Robert Burns is a Scottish poem describing the emotional parting of two lovers trapped in inevitable circumstances.
The speaker's admission of being surrounded by 'Dark despair' illustrates the depth of his sorrow. Each line resonates with the poignant reality of love disrupted and the emotional weight of impending loss without any hope of reconciliation. The sadness in this poem transcends personal experience, capturing the universal emotion of the heartache that accompanies the separation from a cherished love.
‘Havisham’ by Carol Ann Duffy explores the psychological reality of Dickens’ Miss Havisham from a feminist perspective.
The speaker's abandonment plunged her into the depths of sorrow as her fiancé jilted her at the altar. It seems the speaker was in disbelief, having been betrayed and left on her wedding day, dressed in her wedding gown. She could never accept and process this betrayal, humiliation, the grief of this loss of love, trust, and the life she would have planned, thus, burdening her despair as her mind and body decayed in the abyss of her sorrow, tortured by the memories of that day. The weight of the sorrow of this loss is so much that she was constantly trapped in the thoughts of that day, couldn't move on or even part ways with her wedding dress, admitting, 'I stink and remember.'
Beloved sweetheart bastard. Not a day since then
I haven’t wished him dead. Prayed for it
so hard I’ve dark green pebbles for eyes,
ropes on the back of my hands I could strangle with.
‘Strange Meeting’ by Wilfred Owen explores soldiers’ disillusionment with war, their moral dilemma, and shared humanity.
Sorrow engulfs the poem as the two soldiers express shared despair after dying in the war. The speaker thought - 'It seemed that out of battle I escaped' only to realize soon that - 'By his dead smile I knew we stood in hell. With a thousand fears, that vision's face was grained.' Thus, the poem stresses that there is no escape from perpetual sorrow after a war. The contemplations of the futility of the war and the loss of 'many years' of young soldiers' lives with ruined futures exacerbate the sorrow and grief.
‘Mid-Term Break’ by Seamus Heaney describes the emotional turmoil experienced by a speaker who has lost a loved one in a traumatic way.
The poem does an excellent job of showing the multifaceted nature of sorrow and grief. On the one hand, it is something extremely acute and causes intense and immediate emotional turmoil. However, on the other hand, it is a slow-acting force that never truly leaves a person, remaining with them even after years have passed since the event that first caused it.
‘Disabled’ by Wilfred Owen explores the suffering, alienation, and traumatic life of a disabled soldier who participated in the Great War.
Sorrow is expressed through the lens of remorse and loss as the poem mourns the loss of youth, their dreams, and lives, embodying the collective sorrow of a generation marked by the permanent physical and psychological scars of WWI. The protagonist's overwhelming sorrow is evident as he can't bear to face his vulnerable state and position as disabled in a society where nobody even values his sacrifice.
‘Her Initials’ by Thomas Hardy is a deeply poignant poem that wrestles lucidly with grief’s diminishing effect on memories of loved ones.
Sorrow is a topic that this poem by Thomas Hardy explores with agonizing clarity. We might not know the exact source of the speaker's sorrow, but they’re yearning for someone they clearly cannot be with is potent. It fills the poem with a void of happiness and light that illustrates its ability to affect the way we even remember our loved ones.
‘How Great My Grief’ by Thomas Hardy is a moving poem that examines a different kind of grief than the poet is typically associated with expressing.
Sorrow is another topic that Thomas Hardy's poem unsurprisingly explores. This sorrow is not over a dead loved one but rather directed at the speaker's sad realization that the person they are with brings them nothing but unhappiness. Such a devastating revelation leaves them reeling as they try to make sense of it.
Shakespeare’s ‘Sonnet 145’ depicts the speaker’s changing emotions in response to the Dark Lady’s words and her amends.
The speaker gets plunged into sorrow hearing the sound of his beloved's words that said, 'I hate,' assuming she hates him. Although the beloved later reassures him that it is not he whom she hates, the speaker's brief 'woeful state' shows the sorrow when one's love does not get reciprocated but instead, hated, disliked, or disapproved by the person you love deeply. The poem also shows how sorrow can connect lovers as the speaker's sorrow melts the beloved's heart, making the beloved comfort him.
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