Misery loves company. That can only explain why so many artists, writers, and musicians share with the world their most miserable works of sadness and depression, and why these works are so popular.

Many a poem has been written out of sadness, a sadness that one either openly or furtively wants to share. While most of these poems never leave the privacy of a notebook or a computer, sad poems encompass an almost sub-genre of literature. It is not only the amateur poet, then, who seeks to relieve his or her misery by writing it away, but the most celebrated poets, as well.

One poet whose reputation rests upon poems that are often outpourings of grief or sadness is Alfred Lord Tennyson (1810-1892). Tennyson’s poems written upon the loss of friends and loved ones are among his best-known and most lauded poems. Grief and sadness were two themes that Tennyson would return to again and again in his poetry, one of which is “And ask ye why these sad tears stream:”

Tennyson is far from the only poet who became famous for his sad poems. Another was Emily Dickinson, who returned again and again to themes of sadness, including those of death, grief, depression, and even suicidal thoughts.

One of Dickinson’s better known poems of depression and sadness is “I felt a funeral in my brain:”

The “boots of lead” that seem to stamp sadness into Dickinson’s very brain brought with them the themes of the poem – wrecked solitude, sadness.

Sad poems comprise a great deal of the poetic literature. Poets throughout time have been spurred on by their misery or grief to write lines of sadness that would both comfort and inspire readers for years to come.