Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate,

Who ne'er the mournful midnight hours

Weeping upon his bed has sate,

He knows you not, ye Heavenly Powers.

Henry W Longfellow (1807-1882): Motto, Hyperion. Book i.

Alas! how light a cause may move

Dissension between hearts that love!

Hearts that the world in vain had tried,

And sorrow but more closely tied;

That stood the storm when waves were rough,

Yet in a sunny hour fall off,

Like ships that have gone down at sea

When heaven was all tranquillity.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): Lalla Rookh. The Light of the Harem.

Weep no more, nor sigh, nor groan,

Sorrow calls no time that's gone;

Violets plucked, the sweetest rain

Makes not fresh nor grow again.

John Fletcher (1576-1625): The Queen of Corinth. Act iii. Sc. 2.

Hysterica passio, down, thou climbing sorrow,

Thy element's below.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Lear. Act ii. Sc. 4.

Drink to-day, and drown all sorrow;

You shall perhaps not do 't to-morrow.

John Fletcher (1576-1625): The Bloody Brother. Act ii. Sc. 2.

Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish;

Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): Come, ye Disconsolate.

Ere sin could blight or sorrow fade,

Death came with friendly care;

The opening bud to heaven conveyed,

And bade it blossom there.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834): Epitaph on an Infant.

A sacred burden is this life ye bear:

Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly,

Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly.

Fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin,

But onward, upward, till the goal ye win.

Wendell Phillips (1811-1884): Lines addressed to the Young Gentlemen leaving the Lenox Academy, Mass.

Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak

Whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 3.

Hang sorrow! care 'll kill a cat.

Ben Jonson (1573-1637): Every Man in his Humour. Act i. Sc. 3.

Hang sorrow! care will kill a cat,

And therefore let's be merry.

George Wither (1588-1667): Poem on Christmas.

Do not drop in for an after-loss.

Ah, do not, when my heart hath 'scap'd this sorrow,

Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe;

Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,

To linger out a purpos'd overthrow.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Sonnet xc.

This house is to be let for life or years;

Her rent is sorrow, and her income tears.

Cupid, 't has long stood void; her bills make known,

She must be dearly let, or let alone.

Robert Herrick (1591-1674): Emblems. Book ii. Emblem 10, Ep. 10.

To sorrow

I bade good-morrow,

And thought to leave her far away behind;

But cheerly, cheerly,

She loves me dearly;

She is so constant to me, and so kind.

John Keats (1795-1821): Endymion. Book iv.

Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,

No winter in thy year.

John Logan (1748-1788): To the Cuckoo.

He that lacks time to mourn, lacks time to mend.

Eternity mourns that. 'T is an ill cure

For life's worst ills, to have no time to feel them.

Where sorrow's held intrusive and turned out,

There wisdom will not enter, nor true power,

Nor aught that dignifies humanity.

Sir Henry Taylor (1800-18—): Philip Van Artevelde. Part i. Act i. Sc. 5.

Weep no more, lady, weep no more,

Thy sorrowe is in vaine;

For violets pluckt, the sweetest showers

Will ne'er make grow againe.

Thomas Percy (1728-1811): The Friar of Orders Gray.

The path of sorrow, and that path alone,

Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.

William Cowper (1731-1800): To an Afflicted Protestant Lady.

Something the heart must have to cherish,

Must love and joy and sorrow learn;

Something with passion clasp, or perish

And in itself to ashes burn.

Henry W Longfellow (1807-1882): Hyperion. Book ii.

Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle

Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime;

Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle,

Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime?

Lord Byron 1788-1824: The Bride of Abydos. Canto i. Stanza 1.

A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.

There's nae sorrow there, John,

There's neither cauld nor care, John,

The day is aye fair,

In the land o' the leal.

Lady Nairne (1766-1845): The Land o' the Leal.

To each his suff'rings; all are men,

Condemn'd alike to groan,—

The tender for another's pain,

Th' unfeeling for his own.

Yet ah! why should they know their fate,

Since sorrow never comes too late,

And happiness too swiftly flies?

Thought would destroy their paradise.

No more; where ignorance is bliss,

'T is folly to be wise.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771): On a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Stanza 10.

Days that need borrow

No part of their good morrow

From a fore-spent night of sorrow.

Richard Crashaw (Circa 1616-1650): Wishes to his Supposed Mistress.

Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish;

Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): Come, ye Disconsolate.

Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle

Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime;

Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle,

Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime?

Lord Byron 1788-1824: The Bride of Abydos. Canto i. Stanza 1.

Never to blend our pleasure or our pride

With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Hart-leap Well. Part ii.

Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow,

That I shall say good night till it be morrow.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 2.

The path of sorrow, and that path alone,

Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.

William Cowper (1731-1800): To an Afflicted Protestant Lady.

Patience and sorrow strove

Who should express her goodliest.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Lear. Act iv. Sc. 3.

Full little knowest thou that hast not tride,

What hell it is in suing long to bide:

To loose good dayes, that might be better spent;

To wast long nights in pensive discontent;

To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;

To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow.

  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares;

To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires;

To fawne, to crowche, to waite, to ride, to ronne,

To spend, to give, to want, to be undonne.

Unhappie wight, borne to desastrous end,

That doth his life in so long tendance spend!

Edmund Spenser (1553-1599): Mother Hubberds Tale. Line 895.

A feeling of sadness and longing

That is not akin to pain,

And resembles sorrow only

As the mist resembles the rain.

Henry W Longfellow (1807-1882): The Day is done.

But sorrow return'd with the dawning of morn,

And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): The Soldier's Dream.

  Doct.      Not so sick, my lord,

As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies,

That keep her from her rest.

  Macb.        Cure her of that.

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd,

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,

Raze out the written troubles of the brain,

And with some sweet oblivious antidote

Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff

Which weighs upon the heart?

  Doct.        Therein the patient

Must minister to himself.

  Macb.  Throw physic to the dogs: I 'll none of it.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 3.

Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain

That has been, and may be again.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): The Solitary Reaper.

The desire of the moth for the star,

Of the night for the morrow,

The devotion to something afar

From the sphere of our sorrow.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822): One Word is too often profaned.

In durance vile here must I wake and weep,

And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep.

Robert Burns (1759-1796): Epistle from Esopus to Maria.

Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done,

Shoulder'd his crutch, and shew'd how fields were won.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): The Deserted Village. Line 157.

Sinks my sad soul with sorrow to the grave.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Iliad of Homer. Book xxii. Line 543.

'T is all men's office to speak patience

To those that wring under the load of sorrow,

But no man's virtue nor sufficiency

To be so moral when he shall endure

The like himself.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Much Ado about Nothing. Act v. Sc. 1.

'T is better to be lowly born,

And range with humble livers in content,

Than to be perked up in a glistering grief,

And wear a golden sorrow.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry VIII. Act ii. Sc. 3.