1. Pain has but one Acquaintance - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1991 times on American Poems.

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)

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)

3. Pain -- expands the Time -- - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1976 times on American Poems.

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)

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of... (Read full poem)

5. Testament - written by Dorothy Parker
From Enough Rope. Published in 1926. Read 2327 times on American Poems.

Oh, let it be a night of lyric rain
And singing breezes, when my bell is tolled.
I have so loved the rain that I would hold
Last in my ears its friendly, dim refraln.
I shall lie cool and quiet, who have lain
Fevered, and watched the book of day... (Read full poem)

Love walked alone.
The rocks cut her tender feet,
And the brambles tore her fair limbs.
There came a companion to her,
But, alas, he was no help,
For his name was heart's pain.(Read full poem)

7. 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)

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; 
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink 
And rise and sink and rise and sink again; 
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath, 
Nor clean the blood, nor set... (Read full poem)

9. Love and Law - written by Vachel Lindsay
Read 7156 times on American Poems.

TRUE Love is founded in rocks of Remembrance 
In stones of Forbearance and mortar of pain. 
The workman lays wearily granite on granite, 
And bleeds for his castle, 'mid sunshine and rain. 

Love is not velvet, not all of it velvet, 
Not all of it... (Read full poem)

This is what I vow;
He shall have my heart to keep,
Sweetly will we stir and sleep,
All the years, as now.
Swift the measured sands may run;
Love like this is never done;
He and I are welded one:
This is what I vow.

This is what I pray:
Keep him by... (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)

It is what recurs that we believe,
your face not at one moment looking
sideways up at me anguished or

elate, but the old words welling up by
gravity rearranged:
two weeks before you died in

pain worn out, after my usual casual sign-off
with All my... (Read full poem)

13. There is a pain -- so utter -- - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 2973 times on American Poems.

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)

'Twas the old -- road -- through pain --
That unfrequented -- one --
With many a turn -- and thorn --
That stops -- at Heaven --

This -- was the Town -- she passed --
There -- where she -- rested -- last --
Then -- stepped more fast --
The little... (Read full poem)

15. 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)

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)

17. Love Will Wane - written by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Read 458 times on American Poems.

When your love begins to wane, 
Spare me from the cruel pain
Of all speech that tells me so -
Spare me words, for I shall know, 

By the half-averted eyes, 
By the breast that no more sighs
By the rapture I shall miss
From your... (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. Wait - written by Galway Kinnell
Read 2781 times on American Poems.

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours.  Haven't they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out... (Read full poem)

Never love a simple lad,
Guard against a wise,
Shun a timid youth and sad,
Hide from haunted eyes.

Never hold your heart in pain
For an evil-doer;
Never flip it down the lane
To a gifted wooer.

Never love a loving son,
Nor a sheep astray;
Gather... (Read full poem)

21. You love me -- you are sure - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 78868 times on American Poems.

You love me -- you are sure --
I shall not fear mistake --
I shall not cheated wake --
Some grinning morn --
To find the Sunrise left --
And Orchards -- unbereft --
And Dollie -- gone!

I need not start -- you're sure --
That night will never be... (Read full poem)

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)

23. The Room - written by Conrad Aiken
Read 3670 times on American Poems.

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)

Were you to cross the world, my dear,
To work or love or fight,
I could be calm and wistful here,
And close my eyes at night.

It were a sweet and gallant pain
To be a sea apart;
But, oh, to have you down the lane
Is bitter to my heart.(Read full poem)

25. Unless - written by James Whitcomb Riley
Read 1000 times on American Poems.

Who has not wanted, does not guess 
What plenty is.--Who has not groped 
In depths of doubt and hopelessness, 
Has never truly hoped.-- 
Unless, sometimes, a shaow falls 
Upon his mirth, and veils his sight, 
And from the darkness drifts the... (Read full poem)