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Famous Changeling Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Changeling poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous changeling poems. These examples illustrate what a famous changeling poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ey say, 
Died but of late, and sent his cry to me, 
To hear him speak before he left his life. 
Shrunk like a fairy changeling lay the mage; 
And when I entered told me that himself 
And Merlin ever served about the King, 
Uther, before he died; and on the night 
When Uther in Tintagil past away 
Moaning and wailing for an heir, the two 
Left the still King, and passing forth to breathe, 
Then from the castle gateway by the chasm 
Descending through the dismal night--a ni...Read more of this...



by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...nd echoed him, 
'Lord, we have heard from our wise man at home 
To Northward, that this King is not the King, 
But only changeling out of Fairyland, 
Who drave the heathen hence by sorcery 
And Merlin's glamour.' Then the first again, 
'Lord, there is no such city anywhere, 
But all a vision.' 

Gareth answered them 
With laughter, swearing he had glamour enow 
In his own blood, his princedom, youth and hopes, 
To plunge old Merlin in the Arabian sea; 
So pushed them ...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...e these have falle'n from me?
   Can calm despair and wild unrest
   Be tenants of a single breast,
Or sorrow such a changeling be?
 
Or cloth she only seem to take
   The touch of change in calm or storm;
   But knows no more of transient form
In her deep self, than some dead lake
 
That holds the shadow of a lark
   Hung in the shadow of a heaven?
   Or has the shock, so harshly given,
Confused me like the unhappy bark
 
That strikes by night a craggy shelf,
...Read more of this...

by Stevenson, Robert Louis
...d scents,
Man their beribboned battlements.
But let the stars appear, and they
Shed inhumanities away;
And from the changeling fashion see,
Through comic and through sweet degree,
In nature's toilet unsurpassed,
Forth leaps the laughing girl at last....Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...t trailed
Its ravelled fleeces by.

He did not wring his hands, as do
Those witless men who dare
To try to rear the changeling Hope
In the cave of black Despair:
He only looked upon the sun,
And drank the morning air.

He did not wring his hands nor weep,
Nor did he peek or pine,
But he drank the air as though it held
Some healthful anodyne;
With open mouth he drank the sun
As though it had been wine!

And I and all the souls in pain,
Who tramped the other ring,
Forgo...Read more of this...



by Edson, Russell
...A man had a son who was an anvil. And then sometimes 
he was an automobile tire.
 I do wish you would sit still, said the father.
 Sometimes his son was a rock.
 I realize that you have quite lost boundary, where no 
excess seems excessive, nor to where poverty roots hunger to 
need. But should you allow time to embrace you to its bosom...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...FOR the fairest maid in Hampton
They needed not to search,
Who saw young Anna favor
Come walking into church,--

Or bringing from the meadows,
At set of harvest-day,
The frolic of the blackbirds,
The sweetness of the hay.

Now the weariest of all mothers,
The saddest two years' bride,
She scowls in the face of her husband,
And spurns her child aside.Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...ow vouchsafe again
     Through Stirling streets to lead his train.
     'O Lennox, who would wish to rule
     This changeling crowd, this common fool?
     Hear'st thou,' he said, 'the loud acclaim
     With which they shout the Douglas name?
     With like acclaim the vulgar throat
     Strained for King James their morning note;
     With like acclaim they hailed the day
     When first I broke the Douglas sway;
     And like acclaim would Douglas greet
     If...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...'d it passing: it is flown: 
Full on his eye the clear moon shone. 
And thus he spake — "Whate'er my fate, 
I am no changeling — 'tis too late: 
The reed in storms may bow and quiver, 
Then rise again; the tree must shiver. 
What Venice made me, I must be, 
Her foe in all, save love to thee: 
But thou art safe: oh, fly with me!" 
He turn'd, but she is gone! 
Nothing is there but the column stone. 
Hath she sunk in the earth, or melted in air? 
He saw not — he knew...Read more of this...

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