Longing for someone who is absent can be a deeply emotional experience. This feeling has been explored by poets across centuries and cultures. Whether mourning a loved one, missing a distant friend, or aching for a lost romance, poetry has always given voice to these silent, stirring emotions. In this article, we will explore ten famous poems that speak to the pain and beauty of missing someone. These works offer comfort, empathy, and expression for a universal human feeling.
10 Famous Poems About Missing Someone You’ll Love
1. “When You Are Old” by W.B. Yeats
Source: The Rose, 1893
William Butler Yeats’ poem When You Are Old is a reflection on unrequited love and longing. Written for Maud Gonne, the woman he loved but who did not return his affection, this poem captures the quiet sorrow of missing someone who was never truly yours.
“But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.”
Yeats imagines a future in which Gonne reflects on her youth and the love she once had. The speaker does not accuse or beg but gently laments the missed connection. The tone is tender and wistful. Missing here is more than presence—it is about the absence of being chosen.
2. “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” by John Donne
Source: Written in 1611, published posthumously in Poems, 1633
John Donne’s metaphysical poem A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning was written for his wife before he departed on a trip to France. Unlike more sorrowful takes on absence, Donne emphasizes spiritual unity over physical separation.
“Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.”
The poem compares their love to gold that stretches but does not break, and to a compass that always stays connected at the center. While the poem acknowledges absence, it reframes missing someone as a deepening of love, not a weakening.
3. “Remember” by Christina Rossetti
Source: Goblin Market and Other Poems, 1862
Christina Rossetti’s Remember is a sonnet about death and remembrance. The speaker asks their beloved to remember them when they are gone, but also grants permission to forget if remembering brings pain.
“Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land.”
This poem portrays the quiet agony of missing someone who has died. Yet, it also shows selflessness—love that puts the emotional well-being of the living above the ego of being remembered. Missing someone here is shaped by grief and gentleness.
4. “I Measure Every Grief I Meet” by Emily Dickinson
Source: Poem 561, from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson
Emily Dickinson’s poem explores how universal grief and longing are. She observes others in mourning and wonders if their pain is like her own. While the poem does not specify whom she misses, the ache is clear.
“I measure every grief I meet
With analytic eyes;
I wonder if it weighs like mine,
Or has an easier size.”
Dickinson often wrote in short lines and with minimal punctuation. Here, missing someone becomes a quiet but overwhelming experience that connects all humans. The poem is both deeply personal and broadly empathetic.
5. “Tonight I Can Write (The Saddest Lines)” by Pablo Neruda
Source: Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, 1924
Original Spanish title: Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche
One of the most famous love poems in the Spanish-speaking world, this poem by Pablo Neruda is a raw and lyrical expression of love lost and longing. It is about remembering a past lover on a lonely night.
“I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.”
The speaker writes of walking under the stars, haunted by memories. The poem is not linear but shifts between calm reflection and painful outburst. It captures the confusion and intensity of missing someone who is gone but not forgotten.
6. “Funeral Blues” by W.H. Auden
Source: Another Time, 1940
Also known by its first line, “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone”, this poem became widely known after being read in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral. It is a powerful portrayal of grief and the overwhelming sense of loss.
“He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest.”
The speaker has lost a partner and feels that the world should stop in mourning. The poem is dramatic, almost theatrical, yet deeply sincere. The person who is missed was everything to the speaker, and now there is nothing.
7. “Come, And Be My Baby” by Maya Angelou
Source: And Still I Rise, 1978
Maya Angelou’s Come, And Be My Baby blends the struggles of daily life with the need for human connection. The poem speaks to the kind of longing that arises not from death or distance, but from emotional loneliness.
“The highway is full of big cars
going nowhere fast
and folks is smoking anything that’ll burn
some people wrap their lives around a cocktail glass.”
Amid this chaos, the speaker longs for warmth and comfort. “Come, and be my baby” is a simple request, almost a plea. Missing someone here is about craving intimacy in a cold, impersonal world.
8. “Song: When I Am Dead, My Dearest” by Christina Rossetti
Source: Poems, 1862
Rossetti appears again with another poem about death and remembrance. This one is often read at funerals and speaks to the desire not to burden others with grief.
“When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree.”
Instead of asking to be remembered in sorrow, the speaker wishes for peace. This poem recognizes that missing someone can be painful, but also offers freedom. Love, it implies, can continue even without mourning.
9. “In Memoriam A.H.H.” by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Source: Published 1850
This long elegy was written in memory of Tennyson’s close friend Arthur Henry Hallam, who died suddenly. Spanning 133 cantos, In Memoriam is one of the most sustained meditations on grief in English literature.
“I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.” (Canto 27)
This quote is perhaps the most famous line from the poem. The work explores despair, questioning of faith, and eventual healing. Missing someone becomes not just a personal sorrow but a philosophical journey.
10. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot
Source: Poetry, June 1915
Though not explicitly about missing someone, T.S. Eliot’s dramatic monologue reveals a speaker paralyzed by loneliness and longing. Prufrock is a man disconnected from the world, haunted by chances not taken and love not pursued.
“I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.”
This line shows his deep sense of exclusion. The poem captures existential longing—missing connection, missing meaning. While other poems grieve someone specific, Prufrock grieves what could have been.
Thematic Reflections: Why We Miss
The poems above come from different times, places, and poetic traditions, but they share common themes. Missing someone is not always sorrowful. It can be romantic (Yeats), spiritual (Donne), philosophical (Tennyson), or even gently accepting (Rossetti). Sometimes, we miss someone who has died. Other times, we miss someone who never loved us back. In some cases, we miss the idea of love itself.
This emotional landscape is complex but human. Poetry gives shape to longing and makes it bearable. Through metaphor, imagery, and rhythm, these poets remind us that we are not alone in our loneliness.
Conclusion
Missing someone is one of the most profound emotional experiences we can have. It can inspire great sorrow, but also deep love and growth. The poets featured in this article have offered words that transcend time. They speak to the heart with truth, beauty, and compassion.
Whether you are grieving a loss, longing for connection, or reflecting on what once was, poetry can provide a quiet solace. These ten famous poems do more than describe sadness—they offer a mirror, a companion, and sometimes, even a sense of peace.
Let them remind you that to miss someone deeply is to have loved truly. And that, in itself, is poetry.
