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Heartbreak in Verse: A Compilation of 31 Breakup Poems to Heal Your Soul
Here are some heartbreak poems from the best contemporary poets of the world. If you are dealing with separation, find a poem from here to dedicate to your ex.
Finding the right words to describe your feelings and make acquaintance with the situation might be challenging when you're heartbroken. That's why breakup poems can be a great source of comfort. Whether it's the lyrics to a breakup song or the powerful words of a poem, the pain of heartbreak can be expressed and understood so much better when we have great writing to turn to. They can be just the thing to give you the courage to keep going and the soothing reminder that better days are on the horizon.
Sad Love Poems
1. They Flee from Me, by Sir Thomas Wyatt
They flee from me that sometime did me seek
With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild and do not remember
That sometime they put themself in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change.
2. Mariana, by Alfred Lord Tennyson
With blackest moss the flower-plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The rusted nails fell from the knots
That held the pear to the gable-wall.
The broken sheds look'd sad and strange:
Unlifted was the clinking latch;
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch
Upon the lonely moated grange.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"
Her tears fell with the dews at even;
Her tears fell ere the dews were dried;
She could not look on the sweet heaven,
Either at morn or eventide.
After the flitting of the bats,
When thickest dark did trance the sky,
She drew her casement-curtain by,
And glanced athwart the glooming flats.
She only said, "The night is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"
3. Sonnet 87 by William Shakespeare
Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know'st thy estimate,
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?
And for that riches where is my deserving?
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
And so my patent back again is swerving.
Thy self thou gavest, thy own worth then not knowing,
Or me to whom thou gav'st it else mistaking;
So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,
Comes home again, on better judgement making.
Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,
In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.
4. You Left Me, Sweet, Two Legacies by Emily Dickinson
You left me, sweet, two legacies,--
A legacy of love
A Heavenly Father would content,
Had He the offer of;
You left me boundaries of pain
Capacious as the sea,
Between eternity and time,
Your consciousness and me.
5. He wouldn't stay for me, and who can wonder? by A. E. Housman
He would not stay for me, and who can wonder?
He would not stay for me to stand and gaze.
I shook his hand, and tore my heart in sunder,
And went with half my life about my ways.
Relationship Poems
6. Never Give All the Heart, by W. B. Yeats
NEVER give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that's lovely is
But a brief, dreamy. Kind delight.
O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.
7. "A Pause for Thought," by Christina Rossetti
I looked for that which is not, nor can be,
And hope deferred made my heart sick in truth:
But years must pass before a hope of youth
Is resigned utterly.
I watched and waited with a steadfast will:
And though the object seemed to flee away
That I so longed for, ever day by day
I watched and waited still.
Sometimes I said: This thing shall be no more;
My expectation wearies and shall cease;
I will resign it now and be at peace:
Yet never gave it o'er.
Sometimes I said: It is an empty name
I long for; to a name why should I give
The peace of all the days I have to live?—
Yet gave it all the same.
Alas, thou foolish one! alike unfit
For healthy joy and salutary pain:
Thou knowest the chase useless, and again
Turnest to follow it.
8. Home is so Sad by Philip Larkin
Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft
And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase.
9. Pad, Pad, by Stevie Smith
I always remember your beautiful flowers
And the beautiful kimono you wore
When you sat on the couch
With that tigerish crouch
And told me you loved me no more.
What I cannot remember is how I felt when you were unkind
All I know is, if you were unkind now I should not mind.
Ah me, the power to feel exaggerated, angry and sad
The years have taken from me. Softly I go now, pad pad.
Breakup Poems
10. He’ll Never Know, by Jennifer
I want to run, I want to hide
From all the pain he caused inside
I want to scream, I want to cry
Why can't I just tell him goodbye
I want to move on; I can't let go
I love him more than he'll ever know
Memories come, when I'm alone
Thinking about all the things that I've been told
I want to start over, I want to be free
But this pain and memories just won't leave me
"If I am stressing you out, then you should just forget about me,"
How could you think it's so easy?
He hurt me bad, the pain is deep;
From all the promises he couldn't keep
All the things I heard him say,
Are in my head and just won't fade
How can I forget him, leave him behind?
Erase the memories from my mind?
He doesn't love me, and he never will
He will never care about how I feel.
11. Never Give All the Heart, by William Butler Yeats
Never give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that’s lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.
12. The Fist, by Derek Walcott
The fist clenched round my heart
loosens a little, and I gasp
brightness; but it tightens
again. When have I ever not loved
the pain of love? But this has moved
past love to mania. This has the strong
clench of the madman, this is
gripping the ledge of unreason, before
plunging howling into the abyss.
Hold hard then, heart. This way at least you live.
13. A Winter’s Tale, by D.H. Lawrence
Yesterday the fields were only grey with scattered snow,
And now the longest grass-leaves hardly emerge;
Yet her deep footsteps mark the snow, and go
On towards the pines at the hills’ white verge.
I cannot see her, since the mist’s white scarf
Obscures the dark wood and the dull orange sky;
But she’s waiting, I know, impatient and cold, half
Sobs struggling into her frosty sigh.
Why does she come so promptly, when she must know
That she’s only the nearer to the inevitable farewell;
The hill is steep, on the snow my steps are slow –
Why does she come, when she knows what I have to tell?
14. I Loved You, by Aleksander Pushkin
I loved you, and I probably still do,
And for a while the feeling may remain...
But let my love no longer trouble you,
I do not wish to cause you any pain.
I loved you; and the hopelessness I knew,
The jealousy, the shyness - though in vain -
Made up a love so tender and so true
As may God grant you to be loved again.
Poems about Missing Someone
15. Sonnet 139, by William Shakespeare
O, call not me to justify the wrong
That thy unkindness lays upon my heart;
Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue;
Use power with power, and slay me not by art.
Tell me thou lov’st elsewhere; but in my sight,
Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside;
What need’st thou wound with cunning when thy might
Is more than my o’erpressed defense can bide?
Let me excuse thee: ah, my love well knows
Her pretty looks have been mine enemies;
And therefore from my face she turns my foes,
That they elsewhere might dart their injuries—
Yet do not so; but since I am near slain,
Kill me outright with looks and rid my pain.
16. Proud of My Broken Heart, by Emily Dickenson
Proud of my broken heart, since thou didst break it,
Proud of the pain I did not feel till thee,
Proud of my night, since thou with moons dost slake it,
Not to partake thy passion, my humility.
Thou can’st not boast, like Jesus, drunken without companion
Was the strong cup of anguish brewed for the Nazarene
Thou can’st not pierce tradition with the peerless puncture,
See! I usurped thy crucifix to honor mine!
17. Lost Love, by Gary R. Hess
I loved you more than I have ever known
Those starry eyes
Those tender lips
You made my heart melt
Then boil into a roaring fire
I now know
What my eyes could not see
You are the only one that is for me
Many nights those tears flew
Being myself without anyone
Anyone to care about the thoughts
Looking at the sky and knowing
Many mistakes I had
Many mistakes I have had.
Poem about Pain And Love
18. Carry On - By Briana D. Washington
I don't hate you,
Because I still love you.
I can't look at you,
Because it hurts to.
We don't talk,
Because there is nothing left to say.
You apologized,
But I just walked away.
I'm leaving you and the thought of you behind,
Because I just need to clear my mind.
I'm angered because you wasted my time,
Hurt because I believed you were mine,
But I just didn't see the signs.
I guess that's why they say love is blind,
Because you got my heart caught in binds.
Look me in my eyes,
And listen as my heart cries,
Cries out in pain.
This feeling makes me feel like I'm covered in flames,
Until ashes are all that remain.
Thought you were different,
But you're all the same.
Thought this was real,
But it was all a game.
I gave you my love,
And you gave it away.
That's why my heart is blue
And my skies are gray.
Will I ever see the light of day?
Will this dark cloud ever go away?
Or will it follow me for my remaining days?
Grasp all my joy and strip it away?
NO! I am too bold.
Way too bold to be stuck in the cold.
I am way too strong not to carry on.
19. You thought, by Dorothea Lasky
You thought I’d flipped the switch and I hadn’t
You thought I’d left the window open
And I wouldn’t
You thought I’d turn the dial up
But I didn’t
You thought I’d ring the sun the super
But I shouldn’t
You thought I’d unlock the beehive
But I wouldn’t
You thought I’d sing the dirge
But I couldn’t
You thought I’d cook the rabbit
And I hadn’t
You thought I’d come back that day
And I didn’t
You thought I’d tend the flowers
But I couldn’t
You thought I’d turn the lock
But I hadn’t
You thought I’d open the door
See you
But I couldn’t
You thought I’d lay down
But I couldn’t
It kills me still
I couldn’t
I couldn’t
20. Local News: Woman Dies in Chimney, by Kristen Tracy
They broke up and she, either fed up or drunk or undone,
ached to get back inside. Officials surmise
she climbed a ladder to his roof, removed
the chimney cap and entered feet first. Long story short,
she died there. Stuck. Like a tragic Santa. Struggling
for days, the news explains. It was a smell that led
to the discovery of her body. One neighbor
speaks directly into the microphone, asks how a person
could disregard so much: the damper, the flue,
the smoke shelf. He can’t imagine what it was she faced.
The empty garage. The locked back door. And is that
a light on in the den? They show us the grass
where they found her purse. And it’s not impossible to picture
her standing on the patio — abandoned — the mind
turning obscene, all hopes pinned on refastening the snap.
Then spotting the bricks rising above the roof
and at first believing and then knowing, sun flashing its
god-blinding light behind it, that the chimney was the way.
21. A Pity, We Were Such a Good Invention, by Yehuda Amichai
They amputated
Your thighs off my hips.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all surgeons. All of them.
They dismantled us
Each from the other.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all engineers. All of them.
A pity. We were such a good
And loving invention.
An aeroplace made from a man and wife.
Wings and everything.
We hovered above the earth.
We even flew a little.
22. The Coin of Your Country, by Monica Ferrell
When I take my scissors to your shirts,
I am frightened: not that they will whimper
But that they won’t understand the violence I mean.
That kind of violence is the other side of love,
Bright as a light-saber and permanent
As the angel’s swords above Eden
Barring that couple with a final X,
That violence means a love strong as death.
Once Sie ist mein leben, you said, meaning me
And I took those words personally
And knocked upon the door of my heart
Until all its birds flooded to you, in a rush—
Like the Iroquois, I tugged on our peace-pipe,
I wrote your name in smoke. Then went home
With my pockets rolling in shining glass beads,
My pockets so rich with the coin of your country.
Poems about Lost Love
23. You Are the Penultimate Love of My Life, by Rebecca Hazlton
I want to spend a lot but not all of my years with you.
We’ll talk about kids
but make plans to travel.
I will remember your eyes
as green when they were gray.
Our dogs will be named For Now and Mostly.
Sex will be good but next door’s will sound better.
There will be small things.
I will pick up your damp towel from the bed,
and then I won’t.
I won’t be as hot as
I was when I wasn’t yours
and your hairline now
so untrustworthy.
24. I Don't Miss It, by Tracy K. Smith
But sometimes I forget where I am,
Imagine myself inside that life again.
Recalcitrant mornings. Sun perhaps,
Or more likely colorless light
Filtering its way through shapeless cloud.
And when I begin to believe I haven’t left,
The rest comes back. Our couch. My smoke
Climbing the walls while the hours fall.
Straining against the noise of traffic, music,
Anything alive, to catch your key in the door.
And that scamper of feeling in my chest,
As if the day, the night, wherever it is
I am by then, has been only a whir
Of something other than waiting.
We hear so much about what love feels like.
Right now, today, with the rain outside,
And leaves that want as much as I do to believe
In May, in seasons that come when called,
It’s impossible not to want
To walk into the next room and let you
Run your hands down the sides of my legs,
Knowing perfectly well what they know.
25. The Flurry, by Sharon Old
When we talk about when to tell the kids,
we are so together, so concentrated.
I mutter, “I feel like a killer.” “I’m
the killer”—taking my wrist—he says,
holding it. He is sitting on the couch,
the old indigo chintz around him,
rich as a night sea with jellies,
I am sitting on the floor. I look up at him,
as if within some chamber of matedness,
some dust I carry around me. Tonight,
to breathe its Magellanic field is less
painful, maybe because he is drinking
a wine grown where I was born—fog,
eucalyptus, sempervirens—and I’m
sharing the glass with him. “Don’t catch
my cold,” he says, “—oh that’s right, you want
to catch my cold.” I should not have told him that,
I tell him I will try to fall out of
love with him, but I feel I will love him
all my life. He says he loves me
as the mother of our children, and new troupes
of tears mount to the acrobat platforms
of my ducts and do their burning leaps.
Some of them jump straight sideways, and, for a
moment, I imagine a flurry
of tears like a whirra of knives thrown
at a figure, to outline it—a heart’s spurt
of rage. It glitters, in my vision, I nod
to it, it is my hope.
26. Hyacinth, by Louise Gluck
Is that an attitude for a flower, to stand
like a club at the walk; poor slain boy,
is that a way to show
gratitude to the gods? White
with colored hearts, the tall flowers
sway around you, all the other boys,
in the cold spring, as the violets open.
There were no flowers in antiquity
but boys’ bodies, pale, perfectly imagined.
So the gods sank to human shape with longing.
In the field, in the willow grove,
Apollo sent the courtiers away.
Poems about Moving On
27. And The World Carries On, by Amy O Connor
The plates will still shift
and the clouds will still spew.
The sun will slowly rise
and the moon will follow too.
Life’s beauty will continue
to flourish all around,
but now you are gone,
These birds have no sound.
And my heart does not beat.
It is still inside my chest.
My tears keep on falling
and my head will not rest.
But I have no choice only
to move through this life.
Endlessly attempting
to fill this longing that is rife.
28. I Tried So Hard, by Whitney Barton
I tried so hard.
I tried my best.
I gave you my all,
And now there's nothing left.
You stole my heart
Then tore it in two.
Now I'm falling apart
And don't know what to do.
Divided by decisions,
Burned by the fire,
Confused by your words,
Tempted by desire.
I'm living in the present.
My mind is on the past.
Not knowing what I'll lose,
Not knowing what will last.
Blinded by fear,
Drowning in doubt,
Struggling to be free,
Looking for a way out.
29. A Broken Heart, by Jenna
How do I mend a broken heart?
My entire world has fallen apart.
How do I find hope in a brand new day,
when the one I love has gone away?
My mind overflows with memories of you,
of all that we've shared, all that we knew.
I long for your touch and your warm embrace,
the look in your eyes, the smile on your face.
My dreams are filled with your soft gentle kiss.
I wake and cry for all that I miss.
How do I mend a broken heart,
when my one true love and I are apart?
My heart knows to love only you, it won't let go, what do I do?
Our moments together were precious and few,
but I cherished them all more than you knew.
I love you, my angel, and always will.
I loved you then and I love you still.
30. The Good Times Are Over, by Luke A. Wilks
I was happiest with you
I thought you were happy too
Now that you left, only sadness does remain
I can't get the thought of you out of my brain
They say all wounds heal in time
But it's been a while, and I'm still not fine
If I could turn back time and have one more day
I would go to when we were together, and there I'd stay
But I can't change the past
And good times never seem to last
I'm grateful for the time we had
I hope one day I can stop being so sad
31. To A Young GIrl, by William Butler Yeats
My dear, my dear, I know
More than another
What makes your heart beat so;
Not even your own mother
Can know it as I know,
Who broke my heart for her
When the wild thought,
That she denies
And has forgot,
Set all her blood astir
And glittered in her eyes
For anyone going through the pain of separation, these breakup poems can be a source of solace and understanding. They capture the heartache, the confusion, and the moments of strength that come with getting over a failed relationship. They act as a gentle reminder that everything will work itself out.
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