Famous sad poems that may make people cry include "Mirror" by Sylvia Plath, "The Man He Killed" by Thomas Hardy, "The Sick Rose" by William Blake and "Alone" by Edgar Allen Poe. Poe wrote numerous other sad poems, such as "A Dream Within a Dream."Continue Reading
Sylvia Plath's "Mirror" tells the story of a woman struggling while looking at her aging reflection in a mirror over time. The poem is narrated from the perspective of the mirror, through which Plath offers a brilliant example of personification. The mirror describes itself as "silver and exact," but it laments being misunderstood as cold and unfeeling when it is simply truthful. It is this truth that the woman who owns the mirror sees in her reflection, as she grows sadder over time peering at her aging visage. Plath herself had bouts of depression until she committed suicide in 1963.
Thomas Hardy writes "The Man He Killed" from the perspective of a soldier struggling with having killed a man in battle whom he could have been friends with in a peaceful setting.
Blake's "The Sick Rose" is a one-stanza poem that uses a rose as a metaphor for love. The narrator despairs over forces of nature such as a worm coming to destroy the rose, symbolizing the possibility of beautiful love being destroyed at any given moment by outside forces.
Poe is well known for his morose tones and depressing passages, and "Alone," written by Poe at the young age of 20, paints a vivid picture of the tormented poet's lonely soul. A later poem, "A Dream Within A Dream" describes the desperate struggle with the realization that time is constantly in motion and passing the narrator by.Learn more about Poetry