Famous Danced Poems by Famous Poets

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

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By The Fire-Side

...he turn to a range beyond,
Is the chapel reached by the one-arched bridge
Where the water is stopped in a stagnant pond
Danced over by the midge.

XV.

The chapel and bridge are of stone alike,
Blackish-grey and mostly wet;
Cut hemp-stalks steep in the narrow dyke.
See here again, how the lichens fret
And the roots of the ivy strike!

XVI.

Poor little place, where its one priest comes
On a festa-day, if he comes at all,
To the dozen folk from their scattered homes,
Gathered ...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert


Charmides

...now and then a little tinkling bell
As the shorn wether led the sheep down to the mossy well.

Through the grey willows danced the fretful gnat,
The grasshopper chirped idly from the tree,
In sleek and oily coat the water-rat
Breasting the little ripples manfully
Made for the wild-duck's nest, from bough to bough
Hopped the shy finch, and the huge tortoise crept across the
slough.

On the faint wind floated the silky seeds
As the bright scythe swept through the waving grass,
...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

...
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

An...Read more of this...
by Thomas, Dylan

Four Riddles

...ancient City, stricken down
With a strange frenzy, and for many a day
They paced from morn to eve the crowded town,
And danced the night away. 

I asked the cause: the aged man grew sad:
They pointed to a building gray and tall,
And hoarsely answered "Step inside, my lad,
And then you'll see it all." 


Yet what are all such gaieties to me
Whose thoughts are full of indices and surds? 

x*x + 7x + 53 = 11/3 

But something whispered "It will soon be done:
Bands cannot always ...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

Howl

...in despair, fell out of the subway window, jumped in the filthy Passaic, leaped on *******, cried all over the street, danced on broken wineglasses barefoot smashed phonograph records of nostalgic European 1930s German jazz finished the whiskey and threw up groaning into the bloody toilet, moans in their ears and the blast of colossal steamwhistles,
who barreled down the highways of the past journeying to each other’s hotrod-Golgotha jail-solitude watch or Birmingham jazz i...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen


I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud

...margin of a bay: 
Ten thousand saw I at a glance, 
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. 

The waves beside them danced; but they 
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: 
A poet could not but be gay, 
In such a jocund company: 
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought 
What wealth the show to me had brought: 

For oft, when on my couch I lie 
In vacant or in pensive mood, 
They flash upon that inward eye 
Which is the bliss of solitude; 
And then my heart with...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

Impossible To Tell

...he," he shouted;
But nothing happened. The body lay still. So then
The little rabbi called for hundreds of candles

And danced around the body, chanting and praying
In Hebrew, then Yiddish, then Aramaic. He prayed
In Turkish and Egyptian and Old Galician

For nearly three hours, leaping about the coffin
In the candlelight so that his tiny black shoes
Seemed not to touch the floor. With one last prayer

Sobbed in the Spanish of before the Inquisition
He stopped, exhausted, and...Read more of this...
by Pinsky, Robert

Paradise Lost: Book 05

...and mossy seats had round, 
And on her ample square from side to side 
All autumn piled, though spring and autumn here 
Danced hand in hand. A while discourse they hold; 
No fear lest dinner cool; when thus began 
Our author. Heavenly stranger, please to taste 
These bounties, which our Nourisher, from whom 
All perfect good, unmeasured out, descends, 
To us for food and for delight hath caused 
The earth to yield; unsavoury food perhaps 
To spiritual natures; only this I kno...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 09

...ld! 
O Earth, how like to Heaven, if not preferred 
For what God, after better, worse would build? 
Terrestrial Heaven, danced round by other Heavens 
That shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps, 
Light above light, for thee alone, as seems, 
In thee concentring all their precious beams 
Of sacred influence! As God in Heaven 
Is center, yet extends to all; so thou, 
Centring, receivest from all those orbs: in thee, 
Not in themselves, all their known virtue appears 
Pro...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

The Everlasting Mercy

...y body's nerves were snappin' 
With sense of summat 'bout to happen, 
And music seemed to come and go 
And seven lights danced in a row. 
There used be a custom then, 
Miss Bourne, the Friend, went round at ten 
To all the pubs in all the place, 
To bring the drunkards' souls to grace; 
Some sulked, of course, and some were stirred, 
But none give her a dirty word. 
A tall pale woman, grey and bent, 
Folk said of her that she was sent 
She wore Friend's clothes, and women smi...Read more of this...
by Masefield, John

The Female Vagrant

...;  The red-breast known for years, which at my casement peck'd.   The suns of twenty summers danced along,—  Ah! little marked, how fast they rolled away:  Then rose a stately hall our woods among,  And cottage after cottage owned its sway.  No joy to see a neighbouring house, or stray  Through pastures not his own, the master took;  My Father dared his greedy wish gainsay;  He lo...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

The Holy Grail

...e knights, 
So many and famous names; and never yet 
Had heaven appeared so blue, nor earth so green, 
For all my blood danced in me, and I knew 
That I should light upon the Holy Grail. 

`Thereafter, the dark warning of our King, 
That most of us would follow wandering fires, 
Came like a driving gloom across my mind. 
Then every evil word I had spoken once, 
And every evil thought I had thought of old, 
And every evil deed I ever did, 
Awoke and cried, "This Quest is not f...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Lady of the Lake

...
     Then silent be no more! Enchantress, wake again!
     I.

     The stag at eve had drunk his fill,
     Where danced the moon on Monan's rill,
     And deep his midnight lair had made
     In lone Glenartney's hazel shade;
     But when the sun his beacon red
     Had kindled on Benvoirlich's head,
     The deep-mouthed bloodhound's heavy bay
     Resounded up the rocky way,
     And faint, from farther distance borne,
     Were heard the clanging hoof and h...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Most Beautiful Woman In Town

...er understand Cass. To
the men she was simply a sex machine and they didn't care whether she was crazy or not.
And Cass danced and flirted, kissed the men, but except for an instance or two, when it
came time to make it with Cass, Cass had somehow slipped away, eluded the men. 
Her sisters accused her of misusing her beauty, of not using her mind enough, but Cass
had mind and spirit; she painted, she danced, she sang, she made things of clay, and when
people were hurt either ...Read more of this...
by Bukowski, Charles

The Princess (prologue)

...ain of the moment, playing, now 
A twisted snake, and now a rain of pearls, 
Or steep-up spout whereon the gilded ball 
Danced like a wisp: and somewhat lower down 
A man with knobs and wires and vials fired 
A cannon: Echo answered in her sleep 
From hollow fields: and here were telescopes 
For azure views; and there a group of girls 
In circle waited, whom the electric shock 
Dislinked with shrieks and laughter: round the lake 
A little clock-work steamer paddling plied 
An...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Shadow

...hild
He would play with his watches and gems, with glee
Calling the Shadow to look and see
How the spots on the ceiling danced prettily
When he flashed his stones. "Mother, the green
Has slid so cunningly in between
The blue and the yellow. Oh, please look down!"
Then, with a pitiful, puzzled frown,
He would get up slowly from his play
And walk round the room, feeling his way
From table to chair, from chair to door,
Stepping over the cracks in the floor,
Till reaching the tab...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

The Triumph of Life

...ows, yet unlike themselves,
Behind them, some like eaglets on the wing
"Were lost in the white blaze, others like elves
Danced in a thousand unimagined shapes
Upon the sunny streams & grassy shelves;
"And others sate chattering like restless apes
On vulgar paws and voluble like fire.
Some made a cradle of the ermined capes
"Of kingly mantles, some upon the tiar
Of pontiffs sate like vultures, others played
Within the crown which girt with empire
"A baby's or an idiot's brow, ...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

The White Cliffs

...o tell him, but changed my mind—
I needed a friend, and he seemed kind; 
So I put my gloved hand into his glove,
And we danced together— and fell in love.

IV
Young and in love-how magical the phrase! 
How magical the fact! Who has not yearned 
Over young lovers when to their amaze 
They fall in love and find their love returned, 
And the lights brighten, and their eyes are clear 
To see God's image in their common clay. 
Is it the music of the spheres they hear? 
Is it the p...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer

The Wife of Baths Tale

...Britons speake great honour,
All was this land full fill'd of faerie;* *fairies
The Elf-queen, with her jolly company,
Danced full oft in many a green mead
This was the old opinion, as I read;
I speak of many hundred years ago;
But now can no man see none elves mo',
For now the great charity and prayeres
Of limitours,* and other holy freres, *begging friars 2
That search every land and ev'ry stream
As thick as motes in the sunne-beam,
Blessing halls, chambers, kitchenes, and...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

White Flock

...as"
"Be quiet" and descended the stairs
Losing breath and looking for keys.

Past the buildings, where sometime
We danced and had fun and drank wine
Past the white columns of Senate
Where it's dark, dark again.

"What are you doing, you madman!"
"No, I am only in love with thee!
This evening is wide and noisy,
Ship will have lots of fun at the sea!"

Horror tightly clutches the throat,
Shuttle took us at dusk on our turn..
The tough smell of ocean tightrope
I...Read more of this...
by Akhmatova, Anna

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