1. Oh, Gray And Tender Is The Rain - written by Lizette Woodworth Reese
From Spicewood. Published in 1920. Read 829 times on American Poems.

Oh, gray and tender is the rain,
That drips, drips on the pane!
A hundred things come in the door,
The scent of herbs, the thought of yore.

I see the pool out in the grass,
A bit of broken glass;
The red flags running wet and straight,
Down to the... (Read full poem)

Sweet love, sweet thorn, when lightly to my heart
I took your thrust, whereby I since am slain,
And lie disheveled in the grass apart,
A sodden thing bedrenched by tears and rain,
While rainy evening drips to misty night,
And misty night to cloudy... (Read full poem)

3. The Ripest Peach - written by James Whitcomb Riley
Read 2627 times on American Poems.

The ripest peach is highest on the tree -- 
And so her love, beyond the reach of me, 
Is dearest in my sight. Sweet breezes, bow 
Her heart down to me where I worship now! 

She looms aloft where every eye may see 
The ripest peach is highest... (Read full poem)

When I behold how black, immortal ink
Drips from my deathless pen - ah, well-away!
Why should we stop at all for what I think?
There is enough in what I chance to say.

It is enough that we once came together;
What is the use of setting it to... (Read full poem)

5. Fight - written by Carl Sandburg
From Chicago Poems. Published in 1914. Read 4470 times on American Poems.

RED drips from my chin where I have been eating.
Not all the blood, nowhere near all, is wiped off my mouth.

Clots of red mess my hair
And the tiger, the buffalo, know how.

I was a killer.
Yes, I am a killer.

I come from killing.
I go to more.
I... (Read full poem)

Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.

     Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in... (Read full poem)

7. A Journey Through The Moonlight - written by Russell Edson
Read 1347 times on American Poems.

In sleep when an old man's body is no longer 
aware of his boundaries, and lies flattened by 
gravity like a mere of wax in its bed . . . It drips 
down to the floor and moves there like a tear down a 
cheek . . . Under the back door into the silver... (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)

9. 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)

I lie here thinking of you:—

the stain of love
is upon the world!
Yellow, yellow, yellow
it eats into the leaves,
smears with saffron
the horned branched the lean
heavily
against a smooth purple sky!
There is no light
only a honey-thick... (Read full poem)

11. 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)

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)

13. 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)

There is a quiet in my heart
Like on who rests from days of pain.
Outside, the sparrows on the roof
Are chirping in the dripping rain.

Rain in my heart; rain on the roof;
And memory sleeps beneath the gray 
And the windless sky and brings no... (Read full poem)

15. 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)

The Heart asks Pleasure -- first --
And then -- Excuse from Pain --
And then -- those little Anodyness
That deaden suffering --

And then -- to go to sleep --
And then -- if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor
The privilege to die --(Read full poem)

17. Temps Perdu - written by Dorothy Parker
From Death and Taxes. Published in 1931. Read 2967 times on American Poems.

I never may turn the loop of a road
Where sudden, ahead, the sea is Iying,
But my heart drags down with an ancient load-
My heart, that a second before was flying.

I never behold the quivering rain-
And sweeter the rain than a lover to me-
But my... (Read full poem)

I'm tired of murdering children.
Once, long ago today, they wanted to live;
now I feel Vietnam the place
where rigor mortis is beginning to set-in upon me.

I force silence down the throats of mutes,
down the throats of mating-cries of animals who... (Read full poem)

19. Destruction Of Daughters - written by Lee Upton
Read 464 times on American Poems.

The friend who is concerned
with backdrops, not us,
but what we stand against,
his way of looking at the women
he loves,
to not look at them at all
but at roofs, a bit of sky.
To understand when exactly
a woman is angry
because of the way she... (Read full poem)

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)

21. If I can stop one Heart from breaking - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 13855 times on American Poems.

If I can stop one Heart from breaking
I shall not live in vain
If I can ease one Life the Aching
Or cool one Pain

Or help one fainting Robin
Unto his Nest again
I shall not live in Vain.(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)

23. In The End - written by Sara Teasdale
Read 2392 times on American Poems.

All that could never be said,
All that could never be done,
Wait for us at last
Somewhere back of the sun;

All the heart broke to forego
Shall be ours without pain,
We shall take them as lightly as girls
Pluck flowers after rain.

And when they are... (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)

25. Distance - written by Dorothy Parker
From Death and Taxes. Published in 1931. Read 10590 times on American Poems.

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)