1. There is a Languor of the Life - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1481 times on American Poems.

There is a Languor of the Life
More imminent than Pain --
'Tis Pain's Successor -- When the Soul
Has suffered all it can --

A Drowsiness -- diffuses --
A Dimness like a Fog
Envelops Consciousness --
As Mists -- obliterate a Crag.

The Surgeon --... (Read full poem)

If one poor burdened toiler o’er life’s road, 
Who meets us by the way, 
Goes on less conscious of his galling load, 
Then life, indeed, does pay.

If we can show the troubled heart the gain
That lies always in loss, 
Why, then, we too are... (Read full poem)

3. Eugenia Todd - written by Edgar Lee Masters
Read 390 times on American Poems.

Have any of you, passers-by,
Had an old tooth that was an unceasing discomfort?
Or a pain in the side that never quite left you?
Or a malignant growth that grew with time?
So that even in profoundest slumber
There was shadowy consciousness or... (Read full poem)

Pain has but one Acquaintance
And that is Death --
Each one unto the other
Society enough.

Pain is the Junior Party
By just a Second's right --
Death tenderly assists Him
And then absconds from Sight.(Read full poem)

5. Pain -- has an Element of Blank -- - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 6945 times on American Poems.

Pain -- has an Element of Blank --
It cannot recollect
When it begun -- or if there were
A time when it was not --

It has no Future -- but itself --
Its Infinite contain
Its Past -- enlightened to perceive
New Periods -- of Pain.(Read full poem)

Pain -- expands the Time --
Ages coil within
The minute Circumference
Of a single Brain --

Pain contracts -- the Time --
Occupied with Shot
Gamuts of Eternities
Are as they were not --(Read full poem)

7. Praise Life - written by Robinson Jeffers
Read 1900 times on American Poems.

This country least, but every inhabited country
Is clotted with human anguish.
Remember that at your feasts.

And this is no new thing but from time out of mind,
No transient thing, but exactly
Conterminous with human life.

Praise life, it... (Read full poem)

A Planted Life -- diversified
With Gold and Silver Pain
To prove the presence of the Ore
In Particles -- 'tis when

A Value struggle -- it exist --
A Power -- will proclaim
Although Annihilation pile
Whole Chaoses on Him --(Read full poem)

9. I cried at Pity -- not at Pain -- - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1880 times on American Poems.

I cried at Pity -- not at Pain --
I heard a Woman say
"Poor Child" -- and something in her voice
Convicted me -- of me --

So long I fainted, to myself
It seemed the common way,
And Health, and Laughter, Curious things --
To look at, like a Toy... (Read full poem)

Our whole life a translation 
the permissible fibs

and now a knot of lies 
eating at itself to get undone

Words bitten thru words

~~

meanings burnt-off like paint 
under the blowtorch

All those dead letters 
rendered into the... (Read full poem)

11. The hallowing of Pain - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1900 times on American Poems.

The hallowing of Pain
Like hallowing of Heaven,
Obtains at a corporeal cost --
The Summit is not given

To Him who strives severe
At middle of the Hill --
But He who has achieved the Top --
All -- is the price of All --(Read full poem)

There is a pain -- so utter --
It swallows substance up --
Then covers the Abyss with Trance --
So Memory can step
Around -- across -- upon it --
As one within a Swoon --
Goes safely -- where an open eye --
Would drop Him -- Bone by Bone.(Read full poem)

13. The Big Boots Of Pain - written by Anne Sexton
Read 3115 times on American Poems.

There can be certain potions 
needled in the clock 
for the body's fall from grace, 
to untorture and to plead for. 
These I have known 
and would sell all my furniture 
and books and assorted goods 
to avoid, and more, more. 

But the other pain
I... (Read full poem)

The subtle beauty of this day
Hangs o'er me like a fairy spell,
And care and grief have flown away,
And every breeze sings, "all is well."
I ask, "Holds earth or sin, or woe?"
My heart replies, "I do not know."

Nay! all we know, or... (Read full poem)

15. Life's Harmonies - written by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Read 416 times on American Poems.

Let no man pray that he know not sorrow,
Let no soul ask to be free from pain,
For the gall of to-day is the sweet of to-morrow,
And the moment's loss is the lifetime's gain.

Through want of a thing does its worth redouble,
Through... (Read full poem)

Once there was a man --
Oh, so wise!
In all drink
He detected the bitter,
And in all touch
He found the sting.
At last he cried thus:
"There is nothing --
No life,
No joy,
No pain --
There is nothing save opinion,
And opinion be damned."(Read full poem)

17. Are Friends Delight or Pain? - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 4622 times on American Poems.

Are Friends Delight or Pain?
Could Bounty but remain
Riches were good --

But if they only stay
Ampler to fly away
Riches are sad.(Read full poem)

If pain for peace prepares
Lo, what "Augustan" years
Our feet await!

If springs from winter rise,
Can the Anemones
Be reckoned up?

If night stands fast -- then noon
To gird us for the sun,
What gaze!

When from a thousand skies
On our developed... (Read full poem)

19. The Love a Life can show Below - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1820 times on American Poems.

The Love a Life can show Below
Is but a filament, I know,
Of that diviner thing
That faints upon the face of Noon --
And smites the Tinder in the Sun --
And hinders Gabriel's Wing --

'Tis this -- in Music -- hints and sways --
And far abroad on... (Read full poem)

Through that window—all else being extinct
Except itself and me—I saw the struggle
Of darkness against darkness. Within the room
It turned and turned, dived downward. Then I saw
How order might—if chaos wished—become:
And saw... (Read full poem)

21. Thanksgiving - written by Joyce Kilmer
From Main Street and Other Poems. Published in 1917. Read 3457 times on American Poems.

(For John Bunker)

The roar of the world is in my ears.
Thank God for the roar of the world!
Thank God for the mighty tide of fears
Against me always hurled!
Thank God for the bitter and ceaseless strife,
And the sting of His chastening... (Read full poem)

When this world's pleasures for my soul sufficed, 
Ere my heart's plummet sounded depths of pain, 
I call on Reason to control my brain, 
And scoffed at that old story of Christ.

But when o'er burning wastes my feet had trod, 
And all my... (Read full poem)

23. After great pain, a formal feeling comes - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 25095 times on American Poems.

After great pain, a formal feeling comes --
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs --
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round --
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought --
A Wooden... (Read full poem)

I'm "wife" -- I've finished that --
That other state --
I'm Czar -- I'm "Woman" now --
It's safer so --

How odd the Girl's life looks
Behind this soft Eclipse --
I think that Earth feels so
To folks in Heaven -- now --

This being comfort --... (Read full poem)

25. To learn the Transport by the Pain - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 2228 times on American Poems.

To learn the Transport by the Pain
As Blind Men learn the sun!
To die of thirst -- suspecting
That Brooks in Meadows run!

To stay the homesick -- homesick feet
Upon a foreign shore --
Haunted by native lands, the while --
And blue -- beloved... (Read full poem)