In the depths of hardship, poetry guides us through turbulent times with its comforting embrace.
Within the lines of these 10 poignant poems, lies a tapestry of emotions—pain transformed into healing and despair into renewed strength.
Join me on a journey of introspection as we delve into these comforting poems that offer a glimpse into the transformative power of healing.
My favorite poem about healing
#1 “The Well of All-Healing” by Walter Murdoch
There’s a cure for sorrow in the well at Ballylee
Where the scarlet cressets hang over the trembling pool:
And joyful winds are blowing from the Land of Youth to me,
And the heart of the earth is full.
Many and many a sunbright maiden saw the enchanted land
With star faces glimmer up from the druid wave:
Many and many a pain of love was soothed by a faery hand
Or lost in the love it gave.
When the quiet with a ring of pearl shall wed the earth,
And the scarlet berries burn dark by the stars in the pool;
Oh, it’s lost and deep I’ll be amid the Danaan mirth,
While the heart of the earth is full.
This poem is my favorite about healing because it shows just how possible it is for our sorrows to be transformed into joy.
Furthermore, I find that this poem portrays a realm where the beauty of nature can be of a help in finding healing and emotional restoration amidst heartbreak.
9 more poems about healing
#2 “Nature The Healer” by Richard Le Gallienne
When all the world has gone awry,
And I myself least favour find
With my own self, and but to die
And leave the whole sad coil behind,
Seems but the one and only way;
Should I but hear some water falling
Through woodland veils in early May,
And small bird unto small bird calling –
O then my heart is glad as they.
Lifted my load of cares, and fled
My ghosts of weakness and despair,
And, unafraid, I raise my head
And Life to do its utmost dare;
Then if in its accustomed place
One flower I should chance find blowing,
With lovely resurrected face
From Autumn’s rust and Winter’s snowing –
I laugh to think of my disgrace.
A simple brook, a simple flower,
A simple wood in green array, –
What, Nature, thy mysterious power
To bind and heal our mortal clay?
What mystic surgery is thine,
Whose eyes of us seem all unheeding,
That even so sad a heart as mine
Laughs at the wounds that late were bleeding? –
Yea! sadder hearts, O Power Divine.
I think we are not otherwise
Than all the children of thy knee;
For so each furred and winged one flies,
Wounded, to lay its heart on thee;
And, strangely nearer to thy breast,
Knows, and yet knows not, of thy healing,
Asking but there awhile to rest,
With wisdom beyond our revealing –
Knows and yet knows not, and is blest.
#3 “Maternal Healing” by Gottfried Emanuel Hult
Little child,
Stung by a clover-jostling bee,
Flees with its ache
To waiting mother- arms ;
And mother-hands,
Beautiful heal- all mother-hands take loam,
Alittle cool moist loam, and therewith leech
The throbbing pain.
And I who pause,
Noting the tenderling’s relief,
Wonder if so
Earth deal with us, her children
Of the tortured fate- stung heart;
If thus the cool loam- poultice in her soft
Mothering hand will ease the inward ache, –
The inward ache!
#4 “O weary heart, there is a rest for thee!” by Mrs. Elizabeth Fries Ellet
O weary heart, there is a rest for thee!
O truant heart, there is a blessed home,
An isle of gladness on life’s wayward sea,
Where storms that vex the waters never come.
There trees perennial yield their balmy shade;
There flower-wreathed hills in sunlit beauty sleep;
There meek streams murmur through the verdant glade;
There heaven bends smiling o’er the placid deep.
Winnowed by wings immortal that fair isle;
Vocal its air with music from above;
There meets the exile eye a welcoming smile;
There ever speaks a summoning voice of love
Unto the heavy-laden and distressed,—
“Come unto me, and I will give you rest.”
#5 “The New Love” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
I thought my heart was death chilled,
I thought its fires were cold;
But the new love, the new love,
It warmeth like the old.
I thought its rooms were shadowed
With the gloom of endless night;
But the new love, the new love,
It fills them full of light.
I thought the chambers empty,
And proclaimed it unto men;
But the new love, the new love,
It peoples them again.
I thought its halls were silent,
And hushed the whole day long;
But the new love, the new love,
It fills them full of song.
Then here is to the new love,
Let who will sing the old;
The new love, the new love,
‘Tis more than fame or gold.
For it gives us joy for sorrow,
And it gives us warmth for cold;
Oh! the new love, the new love,
‘Tis better than the old.
#6 “Moving On” by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)
In this war we’re always moving,
Moving on;
When we make a friend another friend has gone;
Should a woman’s kindly face
Make us welcome for a space,
Then it’s boot and saddle, boys, we’re
Moving on.
In the hospitals they’re moving,
Moving on;
They’re here today, tomorrow they are gone;
When the bravest and the best
Of the boys you know “go west”,
Then you’re choking down your tears and
Moving on.
#7 “The Past” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
I fling my past behind me, like a robe
Worn threadbare in the seams, and out of date.
I have outgrown it. Wherefore should I weep
And dwell upon its beauty, and its dyes
Of Oriental splendor, or complain
That I must needs discard it? I can weave
Upon the shuttles of the future years
A fabric far more durable. Subdued,
It may be, in the blending of its hues,
Where somber shades commingle, yet the gleam
Of golden warp shall shoot it through and through,
While over all a fadeless luster lies,
And starred with gems made out of crystalled tears,
My new robe shall be richer than the old.
#8 “Regeneration” by George Herbert
Surely if each one saw another’s heart,
There would be no commèrce,
No sale or bargain pass: all would disperse
And live apart.
Lord, mend or rather make us: one creation 5
Will not suffice our turn:
Except Thou make us daily, we shall spurn
Our own salvation.
#9 “Angels” by Elizabeth Oakes Smith
With downy pinion they enfold
The heart surcharged with woe,
And fan with balmy wing the eye,
Whence floods of sorrow flow ;
They bear in golden censers up
That sacred gift, a tear,
By which is register’d the griefs
Hearts may have suffer’d here.
No inward pang, no yearning love
Is lost to human hearts ;
No anguish that the spirit feels
When bright-wing’d hope departs :
Though in the mystery oflife.
Discordant powers prevail,
That life itself be weariness,
And sympathy may fail;
Yet all becomes a discipline
To lure us to the sky ;
And angels bear the good it brings
With fostering care on high.
Though others, weary at the watch,
May sink to toil- spent sleep,
And we are left in solitude
And agony to weep—
Yet THEY with ministering zeal
The cup of healing bring,
And bear our love and gratitude
Away on heavenly wing.
And thus the inner life is wrought,
The blending earth and heaven—
The love more earnest in its glow,
Where much has been forgiven.
#10 “Light in the Darkness” by John Henry Newman
Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home—
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene,—one step enough for me.
I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou
Shouldst lead me on.
I loved to choose and see my path; but now
Lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will; remember not past years.
So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on,
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone;
And with the morn those Angel faces smile
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.