Sympathy Poems

Table of Contents

1. Sympathy

   by Paul Laurence Dunbar

   
   

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   I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
   When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
   When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass, And the river flows like a stream of glass;
   When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
   And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
   I know what the caged bird feels!
   

   I know why the caged bird beats his wing
   Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
   For he must fly back to his perch and cling
   When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
   And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
   And they pulse again with a keener sting—
   I know why he beats his wing!
   

   I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
   When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
   When he beats his bars and he would be free;
   It is not a carol of joy or glee,
   But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
   But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
   I know why the caged bird sings!
   

2. If I can stop one heart from breaking

   by Emily Dickinson

   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.

3. The Other Side

   by Anonymous

   Your side is gold, the other side is brass?
   Perhaps but stay your pride,
   Gold may be tarnished, brass be radiant;
   Look on the other side.
   

   Your side is true, the other side is false?
   Perhaps; but time and tide
   Have often overturned the thoughts of men;
   Look on the other side.
   

4. If We Understood

   We'd love each other better,
   If we only understood.
   

   - Anonymous
   If We Understood

   “

   by Anonymous

   
   

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   Could we but draw back the curtains
   That surround each other's lives,
   See the naked heart and spirit,
   Know what spur the action gives,
   Often we should find it better,
   Purer than we judged we should,
   We should love each other better,
   If we only understood.
   

   Could we judge all deeds by motives,
   See the good and bad within,
   Often we should love the sinner
   All the while we loathe the sin;
   Could we know the powers working
   To o'erthrow integrity,
   We should judge each other's errors
   With more patient charity.
   

   If we knew the cares and trials,
   Knew the effort all in vain,
   And the bitter disappointment,
   Understood the loss and gain—
   Would the grim, eternal roughness
   Seem—I wonder—just the same?
   Should we help where now we hinder,
   Should we pity where we blame?
   

   Ah! we judge each other harshly,
   Knowing not life's hidden force;
   Knowing not the fount of action
   Is less turbid at its source;
   Seeing not amid the evil
   All the golden grains of good;
   Oh! we'd love each other better,
   If we only understood.
   

5. If We But Knew

   by Freeman E. Miller

   
   

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   If we but knew the weary way,
   The poisoned paths of hostile hate,
   The roughened roads of fiercest fate,
   Through which our brother's journey lay,
   Would we condemn, as now we do,
   His faults and failures,—if we knew?
   

   Would we forget the shadows grim,
   The lonely hours of grief and pain,
   The follies dead, the pleasures slain,
   The tears and toils that hindered him,
   And only prize the deeds that grew
   To mighty conquest, if we knew?
   

   Would careless hand sow tares of strife,
   Amid the blooms of happy care,
   And plant, in spite of sigh and prayer,
   Wild thorns amid the blameless life,
   Till sorrows rule the nations through,
   With scarce a rival, if we knew?
   

   Would we be quicker with our praise,
   And gladly give the greatest meeds
   As recompense for noble deeds,
   And heroes crown with brightest bays,
   And slay all foes that hearts imbue
   With doubt and weakness, if we knew?
   

   From lofty kings would constant worth
   On peasant brows their crowns bestow,
   And rising from her overthrow
   Eternal justice rule the earth,
   While right would strip the favored few
   To bless the many, if we knew?
   

   If we but knew! Ah, well-a-day!
   From lives that murmur, full of ills,
   Behind the shadows of the hills,
   God hides our brother's heart away;
   And we shall know in vales of rest
   That His eternal ways are best!
   

6. Charity

   by Hezekiah Jordan Leavitt

   
   

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   The oak that grows on the mountain
   Has many a twist and crook,—
   Stunted, and gnarled, and knotty,
   With never a pleasant look;
   For by every storm it is beaten,
   And beset by every blast;
   And the soil is cold and sterile
   Wherein its roots are cast.
   

   But the oak that grows in the valley
   Is a fair and shapely tree;
   Straight, and tall, and majestic
   As ever an oak should be!
   For 'tis fed by the land's best fatness
   And sheltered from every storm,
   With never a blast of the mountain wind
   To mar its graceful form.
   

   Yet the stunted oak of the mountain
   With as fair a form was blest,
   When, a young and tender sapling,
   It clung to its mother's breast;
   And had it grown in the valley,
   And been fanned by the tempered breeze,
   High and wide it had towered in pride,
   A giant among the trees!
   

7. Two Pictures

   by John Charles McNeill

   
   

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   One sits in soft light, where the hearth is warm,
   A halo, like an angel's, on her hair.
   She clasps a sleeping infant in her arm.
   A holy presence hovers round her there,
   And she, for all her mother-pains more fair,
   Is happy, seeing that all sweet thoughts that stir
   The hearts of men bear worship unto her.
   

   Another wanders where the cold wind blows,
   Wet-haired, with eyes that sting one like a knife.
   Homeless forever, at her bosom close
   She holds the purchase of her love and life,
   Of motherhood, unglorified as wife;
   And bitterer than the world's relentless scorn
   The knowing her child were happier never born.
   

   Whence are the halo and the fiery shame
   That fashion thus a crown and curse of love?
   Have roted words such power to bless and blame?
   Ay, men have stained a raven from many a dove,
   And all the grace and all the grief hereof
   Are the two words which bore one's lips apart
   And which the other hoarded in her heart.
   

   He who stooped down and wrote upon the sand,
   The God-heart in him touched to tenderness,
   Saw deep, saw what we cannot understand,—
   We, who draw near the shrine of one to bless
   The while we scourge another's sore distress,
   And judge like gods between the ill and good,
   The glory and the guilt of womanhood.
   

8. Sympathy

   by Emily Brontë

   
   

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   There should be no despair for you
   While nightly stars are burning,
   While evening pours its silent dew,
   And sunshine gilds the morning.
   There should be no despair—though tears
   May flow down like a river:
   Are not the best beloved of years
   Around your heart for ever?
   

   They weep, you weep, it must be so;
   Winds sigh as you are sighing,
   And winter sheds its grief in snow
   Where Autumn's leaves are lying:
   Yet, these revive, and from their fate
   Your fate cannot be parted:
   Then, journey on, if not elate,
   Still never broken-hearted!
   

9. Sympathy

   by Georgia Douglas Johnson

   
   

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   My joy leaps with your ecstasy,
   In sympathy divine;
   The smiles that wreathe upon your lips,
   Find sentinels on mine:
   

   Your lightest sigh I'm echoing,
   I tremble with your pain,
   And all your tears are falling
   In my heart like bitter rain.
   

10. The Willow

    by Georgia Douglas Johnson

    
    

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    When life is young, without a care,
    Alone we walk, and free:
    The world, a splendid merry round
    Of rhythmic melody.
    

    Before the end, grim sorrow calls
    Into each mortal ear,
    When friendship fades to memories,
    And love lies in its bier.
    

    Then, then it is that sympathy
    Is holden close and dear;
    Ah, then life's consolation comes
    Commingled with a tear.
    

11. Brotherhood

    by Georgia Douglas Johnson

    Come, brothers all!
    Shall we not wend
    The blind-way of our prison-world
    By sympathy entwined?
    Shall we not make
    The bleak way for each other's sake
    Less rugged and unkind?
    O let each throbbing heart repeat
    The faint note of another's beat
    To lift a chanson for the feet
    That stumble down life's checkered street.
    

12. Sympathy

    by Douglas Malloch

    
    

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    No man so poor but he may give
    To other men some cheer,
    No man too low or high may live
    To help some brother near.
    The forest that we tread is dark
    And hidden is the trail;
    Oh, keep alight the single spark
    That leads to Holy Grail.
    

    No gift so cheap to give, and yet
    No gift so dear to hold;
    The eyes that weep when eyes are wet
    Are mines of rarest gold.
    No gift so cheap as love is cheap,
    Yet none so rich may be
    As they who on their altars keep
    The lamp of sympathy.
    

    A forest dark, bewildering,
    This life we wander through;
    Praise God for those who work and sing,
    For both we have to do—
    Our greater mission not to win
    The thing we most desire,
    But more to keep, through care and sin,
    Our hearts with love afire.
    

    For there are others on the road,
    The dark and misty trail,
    And we who bear the lighter load
    Must help the ones who fail;
    And, helping on the weary soul
    Who stumbles by alone,
    Thus we, in striving for his goal,
    Shall come upon our own.
    

13. If We Knew

    by Jacob Huff

    
    

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    No one knows the secret sighing,—
    Sobbing in a neighbor's heart;
    No one knows the fond hopes dying—
    No one knows the cruel smart.
    

    No one knows the hungry yearning
    Of a neighbor's cheerless soul;
    No one knows how grief is burning
    In the heart where love grows cold.
    

    None but God knows each desire;
    He alone knows griefs untold:
    Ah, He sees the heart's slow fire
    Dying out as love grows cold.
    

    Ah, I see your neighbor sitting,
    Often with a low bowed head;
    And I know how grief is flitting
    Through his heart, where hope is dead.
    

14. Sympathy

    by Clara H. Hazelrigg

    
    

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    I sit to-night in the gloaming
    On the sands of the desolate sea;
    And the mourning clouds
    Like dark grave shrouds,
    Float drearily o'er me.
    Ah me! Ah me!
    Float wearily over me.
    

    The plover's cry rings seaward
    O'er the sands of the desolate sea,
    And the wind's sad moan—
    Like a human groan,
    Thrills sobbingly through me.
    Ah me! Ah me!
    Thrills sobbingly through me.
    

    From o'er the passionate ocean
    To the sands of the moaning sea,
    A feeling of tears
    And of dead men's fears
    Comes like the rush of the waves to me.
    Ah me! Ah me!
    Like the rush of the waves to me.
    

    I sit to-night in the glooming
    On the sands of Life's desolate sea;
    And the terrible pain
    Of the yearning main
    Is a thing as real as life to me.
    Ah me! Ah me!
    As real as Life to me.
    

15. Sympathy

    by Edith Franklin Wyatt

    As one within a moated tower,
    I lived my life alone;
    And dreamed not other granges' dower,
    Nor ways unlike mine own.
    I thought I loved. But all alone
    As one within a moated tower
    I lived. Nor truly knew
    One other mortal fortune's hour.
    As one within a moated tower,
    One fate alone I knew.
    Who hears afar the break of day
    Before the silvered air
    Reveals her hooded presence gray,
    And she, herself, is there?
    I know not how, but now I see
    The road, the plain, the pluming tree, The carter on the wain.
    On my horizon wakes a star.
    The distant hillsides wrinkled far
    Fold many hearts' domain.
    On one the fire-worn forests sweep,
    Above a purple mountain-keep
    And soar to domes of snow.
    One heart has swarded fountains deep
    Where water-lilies blow:
    And one, a cheerful house and yard,
    With curtains at the pane,
    Board-walks down lawns all clover-starred,
    And full-fold fields of grain.
    As one within a moated tower
    I lived my life alone;
    And dreamed not other granges' dower
    Nor ways unlike mine own.
    But now the salt-chased seas uncurled
    And mountains trooped with pine
    Are mine. I look on all the world
    And all the world is mine.
    

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