A request

[bemkah.livejournal.com]

I'm looking for any poems you guys might have on dealing with heartbreak, moving on, etc, but that aren't cheesy or overly dramatic. Thanks heaps.

Comments

[18788.livejournal.com]

John Keats's Ode to Melancholy is always perfect for, well, anything.

[liberaltorso.livejournal.com]

TIME does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide!

There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,—so with his memory they brim!
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him!

- edna st vincent millay

[thenetwork.livejournal.com]

The Unchanging

Sun-swept beaches with a light wind blowing
From the immense blue circle of the sea,
And the soft thunder where long waves whiten --
These were the same for Sappho as for me.

Two thousand years -- much has gone by forever,
Change takes the gods and ships and speech of men --
But here on the beaches that time passes over
The heart aches now as then.

Sarah Teasdale

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Someone posted "One Art" (Elizabeth Bishop) in this community recently (http://community.livejournal.com/greatpoets/2463915.html), which is I think the most lovely understated heartbreak poem I know.

Another Millay for you:

Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;
In my own way, and with my full consent.
Say what you will, kings in a tumbrel rarely
Went to their deaths more proud than this one went.
Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping
I will confess; but that's permitted me;
Day dried my eyes; I was not one for keeping
Rubbed in a cage a wing that would be free.
If I had loved you less or played you slyly
I might have held you for a summer more,
But at the cost of words I value highly,
And no such summer as the one before.
Should I outlive this anguish — and men do —
I shall have only good to say of you.

[bemkah.livejournal.com]

Oh I love this one, and the Elizabeth Bishop one. Thanks heaps!