Here are my favorite bad break up poems categorized:
- Short break up poems
- Break up poems that will make you cry
- Angry break up poems
- Goodbye break up poems
- Break up poems that rhyme
So if you want the best bad break up poems, then you’re in the right place.
Let’s get right to it!
- 19 Forbidden Poems About Romeo and Juliet
- 115 Sad Breakup Poems for Her
- 77 Heartbreaking Poems About Breakups
- 73 Passionate Love & Pain Poems
- 93 Shattering Poems About Heartbreak
Bad Break Up Poems
Dive into a carefully curated compilation of the most poignant break-up poems ever penned, meticulously organized for your cathartic journey.
From concise and evocative short break-up poems to seething verses fueled by anger and resentment, this collection presents an immersive exploration of heartbreak’s depths.
Unleash the power of poetic expression as you navigate through the labyrinth of shattered emotions, finding solace, understanding, and perhaps even healing, within these exquisite verses of heartache.
Let’s get started!
My #1 Favorite Bad Break Up Poem
“The Separation” by Henry Lawson
We knew too little of the world,
And you and I were good —
‘Twas paltry things that wrecked our lives
As well I knew they would.
The people said our love was dead,
But how were they to know?
Ah! had we loved each other less
We’d not have quarrelled so.
We knew too little of the world,
And you and I were kind,
We listened to what others said
And both of us were blind.
The people said ’twas selfishness,
But how were they to know?
Ah! had we both more selfish been
We’d not have parted so.
But still when all seems lost on earth
Then heaven sets a sign —
Kneel down beside your lonely bed,
And I will kneel by mine,
And let us pray for happy days —
Like those of long ago.
Ah! had we knelt together then
We’d not have parted so.
Short Break Up Poems
“If You Should Go” by Countee Cullen
Love, leave me like the light,
The gently passing day;
We would not know, but for the night,
When it has slipped away.
Go quietly; a dream,
When done, should leave no trace
That it has lived, except a gleam
Across the dreamer’s face.
“Ebb” by Edna St. Vincent Millay
I know what my heart is like
Since your love died:
It is like a hollow ledge
Holding a little pool
Left there by the tide,
A little tepid pool,
Drying inward from the edge.
“Parted” by Paul Laurence Dunbar
She wrapped her soul in a lace of lies,
With a prime deceit to pin it;
And I thought I was gaining a fearsome prize,
So I staked my soul to win it.
We wed and parted on her complaint,
And both were a bit of barter,
Tho’ I’ll confess that I’m no saint,
I’ll swear that she’s no martyr.
“After Parting” by Sara Teasdale
Oh, I have sown my love so wide
That he will find it everywhere;
It will awake him in the night,
It will enfold him in the air.
I set my shadow in his sight
And I have winged it with desire,
That it may be a cloud by day,
And in the night a shaft of fire.
“Dead Love” by Sara Teasdale
God let me listen to your voice,
And look upon you for a space,
And then he took your voice away,
And dropped a veil before your face.
God let me look within your eyes,
And touch for once your clinging hand,
And then he left me all alone,
And took you to the Silent Land.
I cannot weep, I cannot pray,
My heart has very silent grown,
I only watch how God gives love,
And then leaves lovers all alone.
“The Shadow Rose” by Robert Cameron Rogers
A noisette on my garden path
An ever-swaying shadow throws;
But if I pluck it strolling by,
I pluck the shadow with the rose.
Just near enough my heart you stood
To shadow it,—but was it fair
In him, who plucked and bore you off,
To leave your shadow lingering there?
“Finis” by Waring Cuney
Now that our love has drifted
To a quiet close,
Leaving the empty ache
That always follows when beauty goes;
Now that you and I,
Who stood tip-toe on earth
To touch our fingers to the sky,
Have turned away
To allow our little love to die—
Go, dear, seek again the magic touch.
But if you are wise,
As I shall be wise,
You will not again
Love over much.
“Lightning” by Witter Bynner
There is a solitude in seeing you,
Followed by your company when you are gone.
You are like heaven’s veils of lightning.
I cannot see till afterward
How beautiful you are.
There is a blindness in seeing you,
Followed by the sight of you when you are gone.
“The Sea of Glass” by Ezra Pound
I looked and saw a sea
roofed over with rainbows,
In the midst of each
two lovers met and departed;
Then the sky was full of faces
with gold glories behind them
“Separation” by Walter Savage Landor
There is a mountain and a wood between us,
Where the lone shepherd and late bird have seen us
Morning and noon and eventide repass.
Between us now the mountain and the wood
Seem standing darker than last year they stood,
And say we must not cross, alas! alas!
“After Love” by Sara Teasdale
There is no magic any more,
We meet as other people do,
You work no miracle for me
Nor I for you.
You were the wind and I the sea,
There is no splendor any more,
I have grown listless as the pool
Beside the shore.
But though the pool is safe from storm
And from the tide has found surcease,
It grows more bitter than the sea,
For all its peace.
“Separation” from Song of Korea (Edward Powys Mathers, Translator)
As water runs in the river, so runs time;
And ever my eyes are wasted of her presence.
The red flowers of the second moon were yesterday;
To-day the earth has spots of blood, and there are no flowers.
The wild geese were harnessed to the autumn moon;
They have come, I heard their crying, and they are gone.
They have passed and given me no message;
I only hear the falling, falling noise of white rain.
“Let Us Forget” by James Whitcomb Riley
Let us forget. What matters it that we
Once reigned o’er happy realms of long-ago,
And talked of love, and let our voices low,
And ruled for some brief sessions royally?
What if we sung, or laughed, or wept maybe?
It has availed not anything, and so
Let it go by that we may better know
How poor a thing is lost to you and me.
But yesterday I kissed your lips, and yet
Did thrill you not enough to shake the dew
From your drenched lids – and missed, with no regret,
Your kiss shot back, with sharp breaths failing you;
And so, to-day, while our worn eyes are wet
With all this waste of tears, let us forget!
“Heart, We Will Forget Him!” by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
Heart, we will forget him!
You and I, to-night!
You may forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.
When you have done, pray tell me,
That I my thoughts may dim;
Haste! lest while you’re lagging,
I may remember him!
“Never Give All the Heart” by William Butler Yeats
Never give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that’s lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.
“Consecration” by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
Proud of my broken heart since thou didst break it,
Proud of the pain I did not feel till thee,
Proud of my night since thou with moons dost slake it,
Not to partake thy passion, my humility.
Break Up Poems That Will Make You Cry
“Ashes of Life” by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;
Eat I must, and sleep I will,—and would that night were here!
But ah!—to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!
Would that it were day again!—with twilight near!
Love has gone and left me and I don’t know what to do;
This or that or what you will is all the same to me;
But all the things that I begin I leave before I’m through,—
There’s little use in anything as far as I can see.
Love has gone and left me,—and the neighbours knock and borrow,
And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse,—
And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
There’s this little street and this little house.
“The Dream” by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Love, if I weep it will not matter,
And if you laugh I shall not care;
Foolish am I to think about it,
But it is good to feel you there.
Love, in my sleep I dreamed of waking,—
White and awful the moonlight reached
Over the floor, and somewhere, somewhere,
There was a shutter loose,—it screeched!
Swung in the wind,—and no wind blowing!—
I was afraid, and turned to you,
Put out my hand to you for comfort,—
And you were gone! Cold, cold as dew,
Under my hand the moonlight lay!
Love, if you laugh I shall not care,
But if I weep it will not matter,—
Ah, it is good to feel you there!
“Sonnet II” by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide!
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,—so with his memory they brim!
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him!
“Sonnet IV” by Edna St. Vincent Millay
I shall forget you presently, my dear,
So make the most of this, your little day,
Your little month, your little half a year,
Ere I forget, or die, or move away,
And we are done forever; by and by
I shall forget you, as I said, but now,
If you entreat me with your loveliest lie
I will protest you with my favourite vow.
I would indeed that love were longer-lived,
And oaths were not so brittle as they are,
But so it is, and nature has contrived
To struggle on without a break thus far,—
Whether or not we find what we are seeking
Is idle, biologically speaking.
“A Rhapsody” by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
1
Oh! fly not, Pleasure, pleasant hearted Pleasure,
Fold me thy wings, prithee, yet and stay,
For my heart no measure Knows, nor other treasure
To buy a garland for my love to-day.
2
And thou too, Sorrow, tender- hearted Sorrow,
Thou grey-eyed mourner, fly not yet away,
For I fain would borrow, Thy sad weeds to-morrow
To make a mourning for love’s yesterday.
3
The voice of Pity, Time’s divine dear Pity,
Moved me to tears. I dared not say them nay,
But went forth from the city Making thus my ditty
Of fair love lost for ever and a day.
“Song of the Desert Lark” by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
1
Love, love, in vain
We count the days of Spring.
Lost is all love’s pain,
Lost the songs we sing.
Sunshine and Summer rain,
Winter and Spring again
Still the years shall bring,
But we die.
2
Love, what a noon
Of happy love was ours!
Grief came too soon,
Touched the Autumn flowers,
Grief and the doubt of death,
Mixed with the roses’ breath;
Darkly the Winter lowers,
And we die.
3
His torch, love, the Sun
Turns to the stormy West,
Like a fair dream begun.
Changing to jest.
Love, while our souls are one,
Still let us sing the Sun,
Sing and forget the rest ,
And so die.
“Absence” by Elizabeth Jennings
I visited the place where we last met.
Nothing was changed, the gardens were well-tended,
The fountains sprayed their usual steady jet;
There was no sign that anything had ended
And nothing to instruct me to forget.
The thoughtless birds that shook out of the trees,
Singing an ecstasy I could not share,
Played cunning in my thoughts. Surely in these
Pleasures there could not be a pain to bear
Or any discord shake the level breeze.
It was because the place was just the same
That made your absence seem a savage force,
For under all the gentleness there came
An earthquake tremor: Fountain, birds and grass
Were shaken by my thinking of your name.
“The Parting” by Anne Brontë
1
The chestnut steed stood by the gate
His noble master’s will to wait,
The woody park so green and bright
Was glowing in the morning light,
The young leaves of the aspen trees
Were dancing in the morning breeze.
The palace door was open wide,
Its lord was standing there,
And his sweet lady by his side
With soft dark eyes and raven hair.
He smiling took her wary hand
And said, ‘No longer here I stand;
My charger shakes his flowing mane
And calls me with impatient neigh.
Adieu then till we meet again,
Sweet love, I must no longer stay.’
2
‘You must not go so soon,’ she said,
‘I will not say farewell.
The sun has not dispelled the shade
In yonder dewy dell;
Dark shadows of gigantic length
Are sleeping on the lawn;
And scarcely have the birds begun
To hail the summer morn;
Then stay with me a little while,’
She said with soft and sunny smile.
3
He smiled again and did not speak,
But lightly kissed her rosy cheek,
And fondly clasped her in his arms,
Then vaulted on his steed.
And down the park’s smooth winding road
He urged its flying speed.
Still by the door his lady stood
And watched his rapid flight,
Until he came to a distant wood
That hid him from her sight.
But ere he vanished from her view
He waved to her a last adieu,
Then onward hastily he steered
And in the forest disappeared.
4
The lady smiled a pensive smile
And heaved a gently sigh,
But her cheek was all unblanched the while
And tearless was her eye.
‘A thousand lovely flowers,’ she said,
‘Are smiling on the plain.
And ere one half of them are dead,
My lord will come again.
The leaves are waving fresh and green
On every stately tree,
And long before they die away
He will return to me!’ —
Alas! Fair lady, say not so;
Thou canst not tell the weight of woe
That lies in store for thee.
5
Those flowers will fade, those leaves will fall,
Winter will darken yonder hall;
Sweet spring will smile o’er hill and plain
And trees and flowers will bloom again,
And years will still keep rolling on,
But thy beloved lord is gone.
His absence thou shalt deeply mourn,
And never smile on his return.
“Take, O, take those lips away” by William Shakespeare
Take, O, take those lips away,
That so sweetly were forsworn;
And those eyes, like break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn;
But my kisses bring again,
Seals of love, but sealed in vain.
Hide, O, hide those hills of snow
Which thy frozen bosom bears,
On whose tops the pinks that grow
Are yet of those that April wears!
But first set my poor heart free,
Bound in those icy chains by thee.
“When We Two Parted” by George Gordon Byron
When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.
The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow—
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame;
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.
They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o’er me—
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well—
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.
In secret we met—
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?—
With silence and tears.
“Now at Liberty” by Dorothy Parker
Little white love, your way you’ve taken;
Now I am left alone, alone.
Little white love, my heart’s forsaken.
(Whom shall I get by telephone?)
Well do I know there’s no returning;
Once you go out, it’s done, it’s done.
All of my days are gray with yearning.
(Nevertheless, a girl needs fun.)
Little white love, perplexed and weary,
Sadly your banner fluttered down.
Sullen the days, and dreary, dreary.
(Which of the boys is still in town?)
Radiant and sure, you came a-flying;
Puzzled, you left on lagging feet.
Slow in my breast, my heart is dying.
(Nevertheless, a girl must eat.)
Little white love, I hailed you gladly;
Now I must wave you out of sight.
Ah, but you used me badly, badly.
(Who’d like to take me out tonight?)
All of the blundering words I’ve spoken,
Little white love, forgive, forgive.
Once you went out, my heart fell, broken.
(Nevertheless, a girl must live.)
“Bei Hennef” by D. H. Lawrence
The little river twittering in the twilight,
The wan, wondering look of the pale sky,
This is almost bliss.
And everything shut up and gone to sleep,
All the troubles and anxieties and pain
Gone under the twilight.
Only the twilight now, and the soft “Sh!” of the river
That will last forever.
And at last I know my love for you is here,
I can see it all, it is whole like the twilight,
It is large, so large, I could not see it before
Because of the little lights and flickers and interruptions,
Troubles, anxieties, and pains.
You are the call and I am the answer,
You are the wish, and I the fulfillment,
You are the night, and I the day.
What else—it is perfect enough,
It is perfectly complete,
You and I.
Strange, how we suffer in spite of this!
“Remember” by Christina Rossetti
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
“The Grief of a Girl’s Heart” by Lady Gregory
‘O Donall og, if you go across the sea, bring myself with
you and do not forget it; and you will have a sweetheart for
fair days and market days, and the daughter of the King of
Greece beside you at night.
‘It is late last night the dog was speaking of you; the snipe
was speaking of you in her deep marsh. It is you are the
lonely bird through the woods; and that you may be without
a mate until you find me.
‘You promised me, and you said a lie to me, that you
would be before me where the sheep are flocked; I gave a
whistle and three hundred cries to you, and I found nothing
there but a bleating lamb.
‘You promised me a thing that was hard for you, a ship of
gold under a silver mast; twelve towns with a market in all of
them, and a fine white court by the side of the sea.
‘You promised me a thing that is not possible, that you
would give me gloves of the skin of a fish; that you would
give me shoes of the skin of a bird; and a suit of the dearest
silk in Ireland.
‘O Donall og, it is I would be better to you than a high,
proud, spendthrift lady: I would milk the cow; I would bring
help to you; and if you were hard pressed, I would strike a
blow for you,
‘O, ochone, and it’s not with hunger or with wanting food,
or drink, or sleep , that I am growing thin , and my life is
shortened ; but it is the love of a young man has withered me
away.
‘It is early in the morning that I saw him coming, going
along the road on the back of a horse ; he did not come to
me; he made nothing of me; and it is on my way home that
I cried my fill .
‘When I go by myself to the Well of Loneliness, I sit down
and I go through my trouble; when I see the world and do
not see my boy, he that has an amber shade in his hair.
‘It was on that Sunday I gave my love to you ; the Sunday
that is last before Easter Sunday. And myself on my knees
reading the Passion ; and my two eyes giving love to you for ever.
‘O, aya! my mother, give myself to him ; and give him all
that you have in the world; get out yourself to ask for alms,
and do not come back and forward looking for me.
My mother said to me not to be talking with you to-day,
or to-morrow, or on the Sunday; it was a bad time she took
for telling me that; it was shutting the door after the house
was robbed .
My heart is as black as the blackness of the sloe, or as the
black coal that is on the smith’s forge; or as the sole of a shoe
left in white halls; it was you put that darkness over my life.
‘You have taken the east from me; you have taken the west
from me; you have taken what is before me and what is behind
me; you have taken the moon, you have taken the sun from
me; and my fear is great that you have taken God from me!
“Heartbreak Hill” by Celia Thaxter
In Ipswich town, not far from the sea,
Rises a hill which the people call
Heartbreak Hill, and its history
Is an old, old legend, known to all.
The selfsame dreary, worn-out tale
Told by all peoples in every clime,
Still to be told till the ages fail,
And there comes a pause in the march of Time.
It was a sailor who won the heart
Of an Indian maiden, lithe and young;
And she saw him over the sea depart,
While sweet in her ear his promise rung;
For he cried, as he kissed her wet eyes dry,
“I’ll come back, sweetheart ; keep your faith!”
She said, ” I will watch while the moons go by”:
Her love was stronger than life or death.
So this poor dusk Ariadne kept
Her watch from the hill-top rugged and steep;
Slowly the empty moments crept
While she studied the changing face of the deep,
Fastening her eyes upon every speck
That crossed the ocean within her ken;
Might not her lover be walking the deck,
Surely and swiftly returning again?
The Isles of Shoals loomed, lonely and dim,
In the northeast distance far and gray,
And on the horizon’s uttermost rim
The low rock heap of Boone Island lay.
And north and south and west and east
Stretched sea and land in the blinding light,
Till evening fell, and her vigil ceased,
And many a hearth-glow lit the night,
To mock those set and glittering eyes
Fast growing wild as her hope went out.
Hateful seemed earth, and the hollow skies,
Like her own heart, empty of aught but doubt.
Oh, but the weary, merciless days,
With the sun above, with the sea afar,
No change in her fixed and wistful gaze
From the morning-red to the evening star!
Oh, the winds that blew, and the birds that sang,
The calms that smiled, and the storms that rolled,
The bells from the town beneath, that rang
Through the summer’s heat and the winter’s cold!
The flash of the plunging surges white,
The soaring gull’s wild boding cry,
She was weary of all ; there was no delight
In heaven or earth, and she longed to die.
What was it to her though the Dawn should paint
With delicate beauty skies and seas?
But the sweet, sad sunset splendors faint
Made her soul sick with memories:
Drowning in sorrowful purple a sail
In the distant east, where shadows grew,
Till the twilight shrouded it, cold and pale,
And the tide of her anguish rose anew.
Like a slender statue carved of stone
She sat, with hardly motion or breath.
She wept no tears and she made no moan,
But her love was stronger than life or death.
He never came back! Yet faithful still,
She watched from the hill-top her life away.
And the townsfolk christened it Heartbreak Hill,
And it bears the name to this very day.
“Separation” by Nora Pembroke (Margaret Moran Dixon Mcdougall)
ELIZABETH TO WALTER
He has come and he has gone,
Meeting, parting, both are o’er;
And I feel the same dull pain,
Aching heart and throbbing brain
Coming o’er me once again
That I often felt before.
For he is my father’s son,
And, in childhood’s loving time
He and I so lone, so young,
No twin blossoms ever sprung,
No twin cherries ever clung,
Closer than his heart and mine.
He is changed, ah me! ah me!
Have we then a different aim?
Shall earth’s glory or its gold
Make his heart to mine grow cold?
Or can new love kill the old?
Leaving me for love and fame
Oh, my brother fair to see!
Idol of my lonely heart,
Parting is a time of test,
Father, give him what is best,
Father keep him from the rest,
Bless him though we fall apart.
Well I know love will not die,
It will cause us bliss or pain;
We may part for many years,
But my loving prayers and tears,
Rising up to Him who hears,
Will yet draw him back again.
From the fount of tenderness,
All the past comes brimming up;
When his brow is touched with care,
When no grief of his I share,
When we’re separated far,
It will be a bitter cup;
Bless him from before Thy throne,
Thus my heart to Thee makes moan,
Keep him Lord where he is gone
“Severed and Gone” by Anne Brontë
Severed and gone, so many years!
And art thou still so dear to me,
That throbbing heart and burning tears
Can witness how I cling to thee?
I know that in the narrow tomb
The form I loved was buried deep,
And left, in silence and in gloom,
To slumber out its dreamless sleep.
I know the corner where it lies,
Is but a dreary place of rest:
The charnel moisture never dries
From the dark flagstones o’er its breast,
For there the sunbeams never shine,
Nor ever breathes the freshening air,
–But not for this do I repine;
For my beloved is not there.
O, no! I do not think of thee
As festering there in slow decay:–
‘Tis this sole thought oppresses me,
That thou art gone so far away.
For ever gone; for I, by night,
Have prayed, within my silent room,
That Heaven would grant a burst of light
Its cheerless darkness to illume;
And give thee to my longing eyes,
A moment, as thou shinest now,
Fresh from thy mansion in the skies,
With all its glories on thy brow.
Wild was the wish, intense the gaze
I fixed upon the murky air,
Expecting, half, a kindling blaze
Would strike my raptured vision there,–
A shape these human nerves would thrill,
A majesty that might appal,
Did not thy earthly likeness, still,
Gleam softly, gladly, through it all.
False hope! vain prayer! it might not be
That thou shouldst visit earth again.
I called on Heaven–I called on thee,
And watched, and waited–all in vain.
Had I one shining tress of thine,
How it would bless these longing eyes!
Or if thy pictured form were mine,
What gold should rob me of the prize?
A few cold words on yonder stone,
A corpse as cold as they can be–
Vain words, and mouldering dust, alone–
Can this be all that’s left of thee?
O, no! thy spirit lingers still
Where’er thy sunny smile was seen:
There’s less of darkness, less of chill
On earth, than if thou hadst not been.
Thou breathest in my bosom yet,
And dwellest in my beating heart;
And, while I cannot quite forget,
Thou, darling, canst not quite depart.
Though, freed from sin, and grief, and pain
Thou drinkest now the bliss of Heaven,
Thou didst not visit earth in vain;
And from us, yet, thou art not riven.
Life seems more sweet that thou didst live,
And men more true that thou wert one:
Nothing is lost that thou didst give,
Nothing destroyed that thou hast done.
Earth hath received thine earthly part;
Thine heavenly flame has heavenward flown;
But both still linger in my heart,
Still live, and not in mine alone.
Angry Break Up Poems
“Separation” by Matthew Arnold
Stop Not to me, at this bitter departing,
Speak of the sure consolations of Time.
Fresh be the wound, still-renew’d be its smarting,
So but thy image endure in its prime.
But, if the stedfast commandment of Nature
Wills that remembrance should always decay;
If the lov’d form and the deep-cherish’d feature
Must, when unseen, from the soul fade away
Me let no half-effac’d memories cumber!
Fled, fled at once, be all vestige of thee
Deep be the darkness, and still be the slumber
Dead be the Past and its phantoms to me!
Then, when we meet, and thy look strays towards me,
Scanning my face and the changes wrought there,
Who, let me say, is this Stranger regards me,
With the grey eyes, and the lovely brown hair?
“Mag” by Carl Sandburg
I wish to God I never saw you, Mag.
I wish you never quit your job and came along with me.
I wish we never bought a license and a white dress
For you to get married in the day we ran off to a minister
And told him we would love each other and take care of each other
Always and always long as the sun and the rain lasts anywhere.
Yes, I’m wishing now you lived somewhere away from here
And I was a bum on the bumpers a thousand miles away dead broke.
I wish the kids had never come
And rent and coal and clothes to pay for
And a grocery man calling for cash,
Every day cash for beans and prunes.
I wish to God I never saw you, Mag.
I wish to God the kids had never come.
“Sonnet 139” by William Shakespeare
O, call not me to justify the wrong
That thy unkindness lays upon my heart;
Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue;
Use power with power and slay me not by art.
Tell me thou lovest elsewhere, but in my sight.
Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside:
What need’st thou wound with cunning when thy might
Is more than my o’er-press’d defense can bride?
Let me excuse thee: ah! my love well knows
Her pretty looks have been mine enemies,
And therefore from my face she turns my foes,
That they elsewhere might dart their injuries:
Yet do not so: but since I am near slain,
Kill me outright with looks and rid my pain.
“Woman’s Inconstancy” by Sir Robert Ayton
I loved thee once, I ’ll love no more,
Thine be the grief as is the blame;
Thou art not what thou wast before,
What reason I should be the same?
He that can love unloved again,
Hath better store of love than brain:
God sends me love my debts to pay,
While unthrifts fool their love away.
Nothing could have my love o’erthrown,
If thou hadst still continued mine;
Yea, if thou hadst remained thy own,
I might perchance have yet been thine.
But thou thy freedom didst recall,
That if thou might elsewhere inthrall;
And then how could I but disdain
A captive’s captive to remain?
When new desires had conquered thee,
And changed the object of thy will,
It had been lethargy in me,
Not constancy, to love thee still.
Yea, it had been a sin to go
And prostitute affection so,
Since we are taught no prayers to say
To such as must to others pray.
Yet do thou glory in thy choice,
Thy choice of his good fortune boast;
I ’ll neither grieve nor yet rejoice,
To see him gain what I have lost;
The height of my disdain shall be,
To laugh at him, to blush for thee;
To love thee still, but go no more
A begging to a beggar’s door.
“The Nevermore” by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been;
I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell;
Unto thine ear I hold the dead-sea shell
Cast up thy Life’s foam-fretted feet between;
Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seen
Which had Life’s form and Love’s, but by my spell
Is now a shaken shadow intolerable,
Of ultimate things unuttered the frail screen.
Mark me, how still I am! But should there dart
One moment through my soul the soft surprise
Of that winged Peace which lulls the breath of sighs,—
Then shalt thou see me smile, and turn apart
Thy visage to mine ambush at thy heart
Sleepless with cold commemorative eyes.
“Episode” by Elsa Gidlow
I have robbed the garrulous streets,
Thieved a fair girl from their blight,
I have stolen her for a sacrifice
That I shall make to this mysteried night.
I have brought her, laughing,
To my quietly sinister garden.
For what will be done there
I ask no man’s pardon.
I brush the rouge from her cheeks,
Clean the black kohl from the rims
Of her eyes; loose her hair;
Uncover the glimmering, shy limbs.
I break wild roses, scatter them over her.
The thorns between us sing like love’s pain.
Her flesh, bitter and salt to my tongue,
I taste with endless kisses and taste again.
At dawn I leave her
Asleep in my wakening garden
(For what was done there
I ask no man’s pardon.)
“They Part” by Dorothy Parker
And if, my friend, you’d have it end,
There’s naught to hear or tell.
But need you try to black my eye
In wishing me farewell?
Though I admit an edgèd wit
In woe is warranted,
May I be frank? . . . Such words as “——”
Are better left unsaid.
There’s rosemary for you and me;
But is it usual, dear,
To hire a man, and fill a van
By way of souvenir?
“Godspeed” by Dorothy Parker
Oh, seek, my love, your newer way;
I’ll not be left in sorrow.
So long as I have yesterday,
Go take your damned to-morrow!
“Louise Smith” by Edgar Lee Masters
Herbert broke our engagement of eight years
When Annabelle returned to the village
From the Seminary, ah me!
If I had let my love for him alone
It might have grown into a beautiful sorrow –
Who knows? – filling my life with healing fragrance.
But I tortured it, I poisoned it,
I blinded its eyes, and it became hatred –
Deadly ivy instead of clematis.
And my soul fell from its support,
Its tendrils tangled in decay.
Do not let the will play gardener to your soul
Unless you are sure
It is wiser than your soul’s nature.
“Separation” by W. M. Mackeracher
Parted cruelly from thee,
What, Oh! what is life to me?
‘Tis the morn without the lark;
It is wine without its spark.
Christmas time without its glee;
Music without harmony.
New Year’s eve devoid of mirth;
Winter night without the hearth.
‘Tis a day without the light;
‘Tis a moonless, starless night.
Thorn-bush, barren of its leaf;
Weeping, without its relief.
‘Tis a fire, but unconsuming;
Poisonous plant, but never blooming.
Ship becalmed, without its peace;
Death, without its sweet release.
Goodbye Break Up Poems
“Fare The Well, Love” by George Pope Morris
Fare thee well, love!–We must sever!
Nor for years, love; but for ever!
We must meet no more–or only
Meet as strangers–sad and lonely.
Fare thee well!
Fare thee well, love!–How I languish
For the cause of all my anguish!
None have ever met and parted
So forlorn and broken-hearted.
Fare thee well!
Fare thee well, love–Till I perish
All my truth for thee I’ll cherish;
And, when thou my requiem hearest,
Know till death I loved thee, dearest.
Fare thee well!
“Fare Thee Well” by John Clare
Here’s a sad good bye for thee, my love,
To friends and foes a smile:
I leave but one regret behind,
That’s left with thee the while,
But hopes that fortune is our friend
Already pays the toil.
Force bids me go, your friends to please.
Would they were not so high!
But be my lot on land or seas,
It matters not where by,
For I shall keep a thought for thee,
In my heart’s core to lie.
Winter shall lose its frost and snow,
The spring its blossomed thorn,
The summer all its bloom forego,
The autumn hound and horn
Ere I will lose that thought of thee,
Or ever prove forsworn.
The dove shall change a hawk in kind,
The cuckoo change its tune,
The nightingale at Christmas sing,
The fieldfare come in June–
Ere I do change my love for thee
These things shall change as soon.
So keep your heart at ease, my love,
Nor waste a joy for me:
I’ll ne’er prove false to thee, my love,
Till fish drown in the sea,
And birds forget to fly, my love,
And then I’ll think of thee.
The red cock’s wing may turn to grey,
The crow’s to silver white,
The night itself may be for day,
And sunshine wake at night:
Till then–and then I’ll prove more true
Than Nature, life, and light.
Though you may break your fondest vow,
And take your heart from me,
And though my heart should break to hear
What I may never see,
Yet never can’st thou break the link
That binds my love to thee.
So fare-thee-well, my own true love;
No vow from thee I crave,
But thee I never will forego,
Till no spark of life I have,
Nor will I ever thee forget
Till we both lie in the grave.
“Farewell And Defiance To Love” by John Clare
Love and thy vain employs, away
From this too oft deluded breast!
No longer will I court thy stay,
To be my bosom’s teazing guest.
Thou treacherous medicine, reckoned pure,
Thou quackery of the harassed heart,
That kills what it pretends to cure,
Life’s mountebank thou art.
With nostrums vain of boasted powers,
That, ta’en, a worse disorder leave;
An asp hid in a group of flowers,
That bites and stings when few perceive;
Thou mock-truce to the troubled mind,
Leading it more in sorrow’s way,
Freedom, that leaves us more confined,
I bid thee hence away.
Dost taunt, and deem thy power beyond
The resolution reason gave?
Tut! Falsity hath snapt each bond,
That kept me once thy quiet slave,
And made thy snare a spider’s thread,
Which een my breath can break in twain;
Nor will I be, like Sampson, led
To trust thy wiles again.
I took thee as my staff to guide
Me on the road I did pursue,
And when my weakness most relied
Upon its strength it broke in two.
I took thee as my friendly host
That counsel might in dangers show,
But when I needed thee the most
I found thou wert my foe.
Tempt me no more with rosy cheeks,
Nor daze my reason with bright eyes;
I’m wearied with thy painted freaks,
And sicken at such vanities:
Be roses fine as eer they will,
They, with the meanest, fade and die,
And eyes, though thronged with darts to kill,
Share like mortality.
Feed the young bard, that madly sips
His nectar-draughts from folly’s flowers,
Bright eyes, fair cheeks, and ruby lips,
Till muses melt to honey showers;
Lure him to thrum thy empty lays,
While flattery listens to the chimes,
Till words themselves grow sick with praise
And stop for want of rhymes.
Let such be still thy paramours,
And chaunt love’s old and idle tune,
Robbing the spring of all its flowers,
And heaven of all her stars and moon,
To gild with dazzling similes
Blind folly’s vain and empty lay:
I’m sobered from such phantasies,
So get thee hence away.
Nor bid me sigh for mine own cost,
Nor count its loss, for mine annoy,
Nor say my stubbornness hath lost
A paradise of dainty joy:
I’ll not believe thee, till I know
That sober reason turns an ape,
And acts the harlequin, to show
That cares in every shape,
Heart-achings, sighs, and grief-wrung tears,
Shame-blushes at betrayed distress,
Dissembled smiles, and jealous fears,
Are nought but real happiness:
Then will I mourn what now I brave,
And suffer Celia’s quirks to be
(Like a poor fate-bewilder’d slave,)
The rulers of my destiny.
I’ll weep and sigh wheneer she wills
To frown, and when she deigns to smile
It shall be cure for all my ills,
And, foolish still, I’ll laugh the while;
But till that comes, I’ll bless the rules
Experience taught, and deem it wise
To hold thee as the game of fools,
And all thy tricks despise.
“Farewell” by Anne Brontë
Farewell to thee! but not farewell
To all my fondest thoughts of thee:
Within my heart they still shall dwell;
And they shall cheer and comfort me.
O, beautiful, and full of grace!
If thou hadst never met mine eye,
I had not dreamed a living face
Could fancied charms so far outvie.
If I may ne’er behold again
That form and face so dear to me,
Nor hear thy voice, still would I fain
Preserve, for aye, their memory.
That voice, the magic of whose tone
Can wake an echo in my breast,
Creating feelings that, alone,
Can make my tranced spirit blest.
That laughing eye, whose sunny beam
My memory would not cherish less; —
And oh, that smile! whose joyous gleam
Nor mortal language can express.
Adieu, but let me cherish, still,
The hope with which I cannot part.
Contempt may wound, and coldness chill,
But still it lingers in my heart.
And who can tell but Heaven, at last,
May answer all my thousand prayers,
And bid the future pay the past
With joy for anguish, smiles for tears?
“Farewell” by Marietta Holley
Lift up your brown eyes, darling,
Not timidly and shy,
As in the fair, lost past, not thus
I’d have you meet my eye.
But grave, and calm, and earnest,
Thus bravely should we part,
Not sorrowfully, not lightly,
And so farewell, dear heart.
Yes, fare thee well, farewell,
Whate’er shall me betide
May gentlest angels comfort thee,
And peace with thee abide;
Our love was but a stormy love,
‘Tis your will we should part–
So smile upon me once, darling,
And then farewell, dear heart.
But lay your hand once on my brow,
Set like a saintly crown,
It will shield me, it will help me
To hurl temptations down.
God give thee better love than mine–
Nay, dear, no tears must start,
See, I am quiet, thou must be,
And now farewell, dear heart.
“Farewell to the Muse” by Walter Scott (Sir)
Enchantress, farewell, who so oft hast decoy’d me,
At the close of the evening through woodlands to roam,
Where the forester, ‘lated, with wonder espied me
Explore the wild scenes he was quitting for home.
Farewell and take with thee thy numbers wild speaking
The language alternate of rapture and woe:
Oh! none but some lover, whose heartstrings are breaking
The pang that I feel at our parting can know.
Each joy thou couldst double, and when there came sorrow,
Or pale disappointment to darken my way,
What voice was like thine, that could sing of tomorrow,
Till forgot in the strain was the grief of today!
But when friends drop around us in life’s weary waning,
The grief, Queen of Numbers, thou canst not assuage;
Nor the gradual estrangement of those yet remaining,
The languor of pain, and the chillness of age.
‘Twas thou that once taught me, accents bewailing,
To sing how a warrior I lay stretch’d on the plain,
And a maiden hung o’er him with aid unavailing,
And held to his lips the cold goblet in vain;
As vain thy enchantments, O Queen of wild Numbers
To a bard when the reign of his fancy is o’er,
And the quick pulse of feeling in apathy slumbers—
Farewell, then, Enchantress I’ll meet thee no more!
“The Broken Lute” by Theodosia Garrison
Good-bye, my song — I, who found words for sorrow,
Offer my joy today a useless lute.
In the deep night I sang me of the morrow;
The sun is on my face and I am mute.
Good-bye, my song, in you was all my yearning,
The prayer for this poor heart I wore so long.
Now love heaps roses where the wounds were burning;
What need have I for song?
Long since I sang of all one loves and misses;
How may I sing today who know no wrong?
My lips are all for laughter and for kisses.
Good-bye, my song.
Break Up Poems That Rhyme
“Folk Tune” by Dorothy Parker
Other lads, their ways are daring:
Other lads, they’re not afraid;
Other lads, they show they’re caring;
Other lads—they know a maid.
Wiser Jock than ever you were,
Will’s with gayer spirit blest,
Robin’s kindlier and truer,—
Why should I love you the best?
Other lads, their eyes are bolder.
Young they are, and strong and slim,
Ned is straight and broad of shoulder,
Donald has a way with him.
David stands a head above you,
Dick’s as brave as Lancelot,—
Why, ah why, then, should I love you?
Naturally, I do not.
“Her Voice” by Oscar Wilde
The wild bee reels from bough to bough
With his furry coat and his gauzy wing.
Now in a lily-cup, and now
Setting a jacinth bell a-swing,
In his wandering;
Sit closer love: it was here I trow
I made that vow,
Swore that two lives should be like one
As long as the sea-gull loved the sea,
As long as the sunflower sought the sun,—
It shall be, I said, for eternity
‘Twixt you and me!
Dear friend, those times are over and done.
Love’s web is spun.
Look upward where the poplar trees
Sway in the summer air,
Here n the valley never a breeze
Scatters the thistledown, but there
Great winds blow fair
From the mighty murmuring mystical seas,
And the wave-lashed leas.
Look upward where the white gull screams,
What does it see that we do not see?
Is that a star? or the lamp that gleams
On some outward voyaging argosy,—
Ah! can it be
We have lived our lives in a land of dreams!
How sad it seems.
Sweet, there is nothing left to say
But this, that love is never lost,
Keen winter stabs the breasts of May
Whose crimson roses burst his frost,
Ships tempest-tossed
Will find a harbor in some bay,
And so we may.
And there is nothing left to do
But to kiss once again, and part,
Nay, there is nothing we should rue,
I have my beauty,—you your Art,
Nay, do not start,
One world was not enough for two
Like me and you.
“Parted” by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell
Farewell to one now silenced quite,
Sent out of hearing, out of sight,–
My friend of friends, whom I shall miss.
He is not banished, though, for this,–
Nor he, nor sadness, nor delight.
Though I shall walk with him no more,
A low voice sounds upon the shore.
He must not watch my resting-place
But who shall drive a mournful face
From the sad winds about my door?
I shall not hear his voice complain,
But who shall stop the patient rain?
His tears must not disturb my heart,
But who shall change the years, and part
The world from every thought of pain?
Although my life is left so dim,
The morning crowns the mountain-rim;
Joy is not gone from summer skies,
Nor innocence from children’s eyes,
And all these things are part of him.
He is not banished, for the showers
Yet wake this green warm earth of ours.
How can the summer but be sweet?
I shall not have him at my feet,
And yet my feet are on the flowers.
“Parting” by Matthew Arnold
Ye storm-winds of Autumn
Who rush by, who shake
The window, and ruffle
The gleam-lighted lake;
Who cross to the hill-side
Thin-sprinkled with farms,
Where the high woods strip sadly
Their yellowing arms;—
Ye are bound for the mountains—
Ah, with you let me go
Where your cold distant barrier,
The vast range of snow,
Through the loose clouds lifts dimly
Its white peaks in air—
How deep is their stillness!
Ah! would I were there!
But on the stairs what voice is this I hear,
Buoyant as morning, and as morning clear?
Say, has some wet bird-haunted English lawn
Lent it the music of its trees at dawn?
Or was it from some sun-fleck’d mountain-brook
That the sweet voice its upland clearness took?
Ah! it comes nearer—
Sweet notes, this way!
Hark! fast by the window
The rushing winds go,
To the ice-cumber’d gorges,
The vast seas of snow.
There the torrents drive upward
Their rock-strangled hum,
There the avalanche thunders
The hoarse torrent dumb.
—I come, O ye mountains!
Ye torrents, I come!
But who is this, by the half-open’d door,
Whose figure casts a shadow on the floor?
The sweet blue eyes—the soft, ash-colour’d hair—
The cheeks that still their gentle paleness wear—
The lovely lips, with their arch smile, that tells
The unconquer’d joy in which her spirit dwells—
Ah! they bend nearer—
Sweet lips, this way!
Hark! the wind rushes past us—
Ah! with that let me go
To the clear waning hill-side
Unspotted by snow,
There to watch, o’er the sunk vale,
The frore mountain wall,
Where the nich’d snow-bed sprays down
Its powdery fall.
There its dusky blue clusters
The aconite spreads;
There the pines slope, the cloud-strips
Hung soft in their heads.
No life but, at moments,
The mountain-bee’s hum.
—I come, O ye mountains!
Ye pine-woods, I come!
Forgive me! forgive me!
Ah, Marguerite, fain
Would these arms reach to clasp thee:—
But see! ’tis in vain.
In the void air towards thee
My strain’d arms are cast.
But a sea rolls between us—
Our different past.
To the lips, ah! of others,
Those lips have been prest,
And others, ere I was,
Were clasp’d to that breast;
Far, far from each other
Our spirits have grown.
And what heart knows another?
Ah! who knows his own?
Blow, ye winds! lift me with you!
I come to the wild.
Fold closely, O Nature!
Thine arms round thy child.
To thee only God granted
A heart ever new:
To all always open;
To all always true.
Ah, calm me! restore me!
And dry up my tears
On thy high mountain platforms,
Where Morn first appears,
Where the white mists, for ever,
Are spread and upfurl’d;
In the stir of the forces
Whence issued the world.
“Whoso list to hunt” by Thomas Wyatt
Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
But as for me, hélas, I may no more.
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,
I am of them that farthest cometh behind.
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind
Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,
Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,
As well as I may spend his time in vain.
And graven with diamonds in letters plain
There is written, her fair neck round about:
Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.
“Since there’s no help, come, let us kiss and part” by Michael Drayton
Since there’s no help, come, let us kiss and part,—
Nay, I have done, you get no more of me;
And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart,
That thus so clearly I myself can free:
Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again,
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.
Now, at the last gasp of Love’s latest breath,
When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies,
When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And Innocence is closing up his eyes,—
Now, if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,
From death to life thou mightst him yet recover!
“Blighted Love” by Luís de Camões (Lord Strangford, Translator)
Flowers are fresh, and bushes green,
Cheerily the linnets sing;
Winds are soft, and skies serene;
Time, however, soon shall throw
Winter’s snow
O’er the buxom breast of Spring!
Hope, that buds in lover’s heart,
Lives not through the scorn of years;
Time makes love itself depart;
Time and scorn congeal the mind,—
Looks unkind
Freeze affection’s warmest tears.
Time shall make the bushes green;
Time dissolve the inter snow;
Winds be soft, and skies serene;
Linnets sing their wonted strain:
But again
Blighted love shall never blow!
“Plea” by Dorothy Parker
Secrets, you said, would hold us two apart;
You’d have me know of you your least transgression
And so the intimate places of your heart,
Kneeling, you bared to me, as in confession.
Softly you told of loves that went before,—
Of clinging arms, of kisses gladly given;
Luxuriously clean of heart once more,
You rose up, then, and stood before me, shriven.
When this, my day of happiness, is through,
And love, that bloomed so fair, turns brown and brittle,
There is a thing that I shall ask of you—
I, who have given so much, and asked so little.
Some day, when there’s another in my stead;
Again you’ll feel the need of absolution,
And you will go to her, and bow your head,
And offer her your past, as contribution.
When with your list of loves you overcome her,
For Heaven’s sake, keep this one secret from her!
“Divorce” by vicomte Calixte Erneste de Beaupré D’ Arnoux
Why tremble tears on yonder lash,
Why throbs the frame with grief?
‘Tis but a day that eye would flash,
Before decree and brief.
That doubting heart-it loves him still:
They saw and wooed and wed
A wanton word that love would kill,
Put hatred in its stead.
It draped a shroud about that love,
Beneath it liveth still;
And placed a mighty stone above
The love it meant to kill.
Arise, oh love, from out the grave,
And burst its clammy walls;
Tear off the shroud that anger gave:
To life the bugle calls.
Thy home is not ‘ mid lifeless dead,
Not in the crawling grave;
The crown of life shines on thy head;
Arise, for once be brave!
Rap at the heart that drove thee far,
And take thy place again;
And let not grief thy beauty mar,
Thy eye with anguish stain!
And throw thy arm around the form,
The arm once loved so well;
Kiss from the soul the scowling storm,
Of love, devotion tell.
There is no wall so closely built,
No ray will pass it through;
There is no heart so dastard-willed
But it will love anew.
Separation” from the Hebrew poets of Medaeval Spain (Emma Lazarus, Translator)
And so we twain must part! Oh linger yet,
Let me still feed my glance upon thine eyes.
Forget not, love, the days of our delight,
And I our nights of bliss shall ever prize.
In dreams thy shadowy image I shall see,
Oh even in my dream be kind to me!
Though I were dead, I none the less would hear
Thy step, thy garment rustling on the sand.
And if thou waft me greetings from the grave,
I shall drink deep the breath of that cold land.
Take thou my days, command this life of mine,
If it can lengthen out the space of thine.
No voice I hear from lips death-pale and chill,
Yet deep within my heart it echoes still.
My frame remains – my soul to thee yearns forth.
A shadow I must tarry still on earth.
Back to the body dwelling here in pain,
Return, my soul, make haste and come again!