Have you ever felt a longing so deep that it consumes your thoughts?
Poetry has a unique way of expressing those intense emotions that often go unspoken.
Here are 10 powerful poems that delve into the complexities of desire and encourage you to reflect on your own heart’s hidden desires.
Let’s dive right in!
My favorite poem about longing
#1 “I Am A Thirst, But Not For Wine” by Mathilde Blind
I am a thirst, but not for wine;
The drink I long for is divine,
Poured only from your eyes in mine.
I hunger, but the bread I want,
Of which my blood and brain are scant,
Is your sweet speech, for which I pant.
I love this poem because it beautifully captures the deep emotional hunger we all feel.
Its portrayal of longing as a thirst and hunger for connection is incredibly relatable and raw.
It reminds me of my own experiences and how our hunger and thirst for things cannot be easily quenched because there just seem to be no end in longing for things.
9 more poems about longing
#2 “Sleepless” by Sara Teasdale
If I could have your arms tonight,
But half the world and the broken sea
Lie between you and me.
The autumn rain reverberates in the courtyard,
Beating all night against the barren stone,
The sound of useless rain in the desolate courtyard
Makes me more alone.
If you were here, if you were only here,
My blood cries out to you all night in vain
As sleepless as the rain.
#3 “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.
#4 “Absence” by William Lisle Bowles
How shall I cheat the heavy hours, of thee
Deprived, of thy kind looks and converse sweet,
Now that the waving grove the dark storms beat,
And wintry winds sad sounding o’er the lea,
Scatter the sallow leaf! I would believe,
Thou, at this hour, with tearful tenderness
Dost muse on absent images, and press
In thought my hand, and say: Oh do not grieve,
Friend of my heart! at wayward fortune’s power;
One day we shall be happy, and each hour
Of pain forget, cheered by the summer ray.
These thoughts beguile my sorrow for thy loss,
And, as the aged pines their dark heads toss,
Oft steal the sense of solitude away.
So am I sadly soothed, yet do I cast
A wishful glance upon the seasons past,
And think how different was the happy tide,
When thou, with looks of love, wert smiling by my side.
#5 “Longing” by Sara Teasdale
I am not sorry for my soul
That it must go unsatisfied,
For it can live a thousand times,
Eternity is deep and wide.
I am not sorry for my soul,
But oh, my body that must go
Back to a little drift of dust
Without the joy it longed to know.
#6 “When Shall We Meet Again?” by John Clare
How many times Spring blossoms meek
Have faded on the land
Since last I kissed that pretty cheek,
Caressed that happy hand.
Eight time the green’s been painted white
With daisies in the grass
Since I looked on thy eyes so bright,
And pressed my bonny lass.
The ground lark sung about the farms,
The blackbird in the wood,
When fast locked in each other’s arms
By hedgerow thorn we stood.
It was a pleasant Sabbath day,
The sun shone bright and round,
His light through dark oaks passed, and lay
Like gold upon the ground.
How beautiful the blackbird sung,
And answered soft the thrush;
And sweet the pearl-like dew-drops hung
Upon the white thorn bush.
O happy day, eight years ago!
We parted without pain:
The blackbird sings, primroses blow;
When shall we meet again?
#7 “The End” by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)
If I could have put you in my heart,
If but I could have wrapped you in myself,
How glad I should have been!
And now the chart
Of memory unrolls again to me
The course of our journey here, before we had to part.
And oh, that you had never, never been
Some of your selves, my love, that some
Of your several faces I had never seen!
And still they come before me, and they go,
And I cry aloud in the moments that intervene.
And oh, my love, as I rock for you to-night,
And have not any longer any hope
To heal the suffering, or make requite
For all your life of asking and despair,
I own that some of me is dead to-night.
#8 “On Himself” by Robert Herrick
Love-sick I am, and must endure
A desperate grief, that finds no cure.
Ah me! I try; and trying, prove
No herbs have power to cure love.
Only one sovereign salve I know,
And that is death, the end of woe.
I am a-cold, and lagging lame,
Life creeps along my languid frame;
Your love would fan it into flame.
Heaven’s in that little word-your love!
It makes my heart coo like a dove,
My tears fall as I think thereof.
#9 “Sonnet: My Heart Is Sick With Longing, Tho’ I Feed” by Thomas Hood
My heart is sick with longing, tho’ I feed
On hope; Time goes with such a heavy pace
That neither brings nor takes from thy embrace,
As if he slept – forgetting his old speed:
For, as in sunshine only we can read
The march of minutes on the dial’s face,
So in the shadows of this lonely place
There is no love, and Time is dead indeed.
But when, dear lady, I am near thy heart,
Thy smile is time, and then so swift it flies,
It seems we only meet to tear apart,
With aching hands and lingering of eyes.
Alas, alas! that we must learn hours’ flight
By the same light of love that makes them bright!
#10 “Alone” by Robert J. Burdett
I miss you, my darling, my darling,
The embers burn low on the hearth:
And still is the stir of the household,
And hushed is the voice of its mirth;
The rain splashes fast on the terrace,
The wind past the lattices moans,
The midnight chimes out from the Minster,
And I am alone.
I want you, my darling, my darling,
I’m tired with care and with fret;
I would nestle in silence beside you,
And all but your presence forget,
In the hush of the happiness given
To those who through trusting have grown
To the fulness of love in contentment:
But I am alone.
I call you, my darling, my darling!
My voice echoes back on the heart;
I stretch my arms to you in longing,
And lo! they fall empty apart;
I whisper the sweet words you taught me,
The words that we only have known,
Till the blank of the dumb air is bitter,
For I am alone.
I need you, my darling, my darling!
With its yearnings my very heart aches;
The load that divides us weighs harder;
I shrink from the jar that it makes,
Old sorrows rise up to beset me;
Old doubts make my spirit their own.
Oh, come through the darkness and save me,
For I am alone!