1. Death Snips Proud Men - written by Carl Sandburg
From Smoke and Steel. Published in 1922. Read 3490 times on American Poems.

DEATH is stronger than all the governments because the governments are men and men die and then death laughs: Now you see ’em, now you don’t.
  
Death is stronger than all proud men and so death snips proud men on the nose, throws a pair... (Read full poem)

Had I known that the first was the last
I should have kept it longer.
Had I known that the last was the first
I should have drunk it stronger.
Cup, it was your fault,
Lip was not the liar.
No, lip, it was yours,
Bliss was most to blame.(Read full poem)

3. 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)

5. Pain -- expands the Time -- - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1977 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)

It is good for strength not to be merciful
To its own weakness, good for the deep urn to run
     over, good to explore
The peaks and the deeps, who can endure it,
Good to be hurt, who can be healed afterward: but
     you that have whetted... (Read full poem)

7. 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)

But these maneuverings to avoid
The touching of hands,
These shifts to keep the eyes employed
On objects more or less neutral
(As honor, for time being, commands)
Will hardly prevent their downfall.

Stronger medicines are needed.
Already they... (Read full poem)

9. 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)

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)

11. If pain for peace prepares - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 4570 times on American Poems.

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)

Whoever you are as you read this, 
Whatever your trouble or grief, 
I want you to know and to heed this: 
The day draweth near with relief.

No sorrow, no woe is unending, 
Though heaven seems voiceless and dumb; 
So sure as your cry is... (Read full poem)

13. Josiah Tompkins - written by Edgar Lee Masters
Read 342 times on American Poems.

I was well known and much beloved
And rich, as fortunes are reckoned
In Spoon River, where I had lived and worked.
That was the home for me,
Though all my children had flown afar—
Which is the way of Nature—all but one.
The boy, who was the... (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)

15. 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)

The longer I live and the more I see 
Of the struggle of souls towards the heights above, 
The stronger this truth comes home to me--- 
That the Universe rests on the shoulders of love, 
A love so limitless, deep, and broad, 
That men have... (Read full poem)

17. After great pain, a formal feeling comes - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 25096 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)

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)

19. Jump Rope - written by Connie Wanek
Published in 2002. Read 746 times on American Poems.

There is menace
in its relentless course, round and round,
describing an ellipsoid,
an airy prison in which a young girl
is incarcerated.

Whom will she marry? Whom will she love?
The rope, like a snake,
has the gift of divination,
yet reveals only... (Read full poem)

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)

21. The Widow's Lament In Springtime - written by William Carlos Williams
Read 10049 times on American Poems.

Sorrow is my own yard
where the new grass
flames as it has flamed
often before but not
with the cold fire
that closes round me this year.
Thirtyfive years
I lived with my husband.
The plumtree is white today
with masses of flowers.
Masses of... (Read full poem)

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)

23. Thoughts. - written by Walt Whitman
From Leaves of Grass. Published in 1900. Read 16415 times on American Poems.

OF Public Opinion; 
Of a calm and cool fiat, sooner or later, (How impassive! How certain and final!) 
Of the President with pale face, asking secretly to himself, What will the people say
    at
	last? 
Of the frivolous Judge—Of the corrupt... (Read full poem)

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)

25. 'Twas the old -- road -- through pain - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1742 times on American Poems.

'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)