Famous Diana Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Endymion

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
THE RISING moon has hid the stars; 
Her level rays, like golden bars, 
Lie on the landscape green, 
With shadows brown between. 

And silver white the river gleams, 5 
As if Diana, in her dreams, 
Had dropt her silver bow 
Upon the meadows low. 

On such a tranquil night as this, 
She woke Endymion with a kiss, 10 
When, sleeping...Read more of this...

The Moon of Other Days

by Rudyard Kipling
 Beneath the deep veranda's shade,
 When bats begin to fly,
I sit me down and watch -- alas! --
 Another evening die.
Blood-red behind the sere ferash
 She rises through the haze.
Sainted Diana! can that be
 The Moon of Other Days?

Ah! shade of little Kitty Smith,
 Sweet Saint of Kensington!
Say, was it ever thus at Home
 The Moon of August shone,
When...Read more of this...

The Faerie Queene Book III Canto VI

by Edmund Spenser
The birth of faire Belphoebe and
Of Amoret is told.
The Gardins of Adonis fraught
With pleasures manifold.
 
And gentle sprite deforme with rude rusticity.
 But to this faire Belphoebe in her berth
The heauens so fauourable were and free,
Looking with myld aspect vpon the earth,
In th'Horoscope of her natiuitee,
That all the gifts of grace and chastitee
On her they poured forth of plenteous horne;
Ioue...Read more of this...

Hymn to Diana

by Ben Jonson
QUEEN and huntress chaste and fair  
Now the sun is laid to sleep  
Seated in thy silver chair  
State in wonted manner keep: 
Hesperus entreats thy light 5 
Goddess excellently bright. 

Earth let not thy envious shade 
Dare itself to interpose; 
Cynthia's shining orb was made 
Heaven to clear when day did close: 10 
Bless us then...Read more of this...

Sonnet -- To Science

by Edgar Allan Poe
Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart 
Vulture whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise 
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies 
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou...Read more of this...

Madrigale I

by Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 54] MADRIGALE I. Non al suo amante più Diana piacque. ANYTHING THAT REMINDS HIM OF LAURA RENEWS HIS TORMENTS.  Not Dian to her lover was more dear,When fortune 'mid the waters cold and clear,Gave him her naked beauties all to see,Than seem'd the rustic ruddy nymph to me,Read more of this...

The Father's Curse

by Victor Hugo
 ("Vous, sire, écoutez-moi.") 
 
 {LE ROI S'AMUSE, Act I.} 


 M. ST. VALLIER (an aged nobleman, from whom King Francis I. 
 decoyed his daughter, the famous beauty, Diana of 
 Poitiers). 
 
 A king should listen when his subjects speak: 
 'Tis true your mandate led me to the block, 
 Where pardon came upon me,...Read more of this...

Endimion and Phoebe (excerpts)

by Michael Drayton
 In Ionia whence sprang old poets' fame,
From whom that sea did first derive her name,
The blessed bed whereon the Muses lay,
Beauty of Greece, the pride of Asia,
Whence Archelaus, whom times historify,
First unto Athens brought philosophy:
In this fair region on a goodly plain,
Stretching her bounds unto the bord'ring main,
The mountain Latmus overlooks the sea,
Smiling to see the ocean billows play:
Latmus,...Read more of this...

Independence

by Aleister Crowley
 Come to my arms --- is it eve? is it morn? 
Is Apollo awake? Is Diana reborn? 
Are the streams in full song? Do the woods whisper hush 
Is it the nightingale? Is it the thrush? 
Is it the smile of the autumn, the blush 
Of the spring? Is the world full of peace or alarms? 
Come to my...Read more of this...

Diffugere Nives (Horace Odes 4.7)

by A E Housman
 The snows are fled away, leaves on the shaws
 And grasses in the mead renew their birth,
The river to the river-bed withdraws,
 And altered is the fashion of the earth.

The Nymphs and Graces three put off their fear
 And unapparelled in the woodland play.
The swift hour and the brief prime of the year
 Say to the soul, Thou wast...Read more of this...

Marriage

by Marianne Moore
 This institution,
perhaps one should say enterprise
out of respect for which
one says one need not change one's mind
about a thing one has believed in,
requiring public promises
of one's intention
to fulfill a private obligation:
I wonder what Adam and Eve
think of it by this time,
this firegilt steel
alive with goldenness;
how bright it shows --
"of circular traditions and impostures,
committing many spoils,"
requiring all one's criminal ingenuity
to...Read more of this...

Sonnet - To Science

by Edgar Allan Poe
 Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
 Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
 Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
 Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
 Albeit he soared with an undaunted...Read more of this...

A Meeting With The Princess

by Barry Tebb
 Just a family get-together in a terrace house in Bradford

High tea with a few stuffy aunts I hadn’t seen for years

Their husbands in tow like lost dogs sniffing round for food

But she came all the same, ushered in politely as a friend

Of a friend or somebody’s cousin twice removed though

Everybody was a bit put out at first except me...Read more of this...

303. Song—The Gowden Locks of Anna

by Robert Burns
 YESTREEN I had a pint o’ wine,
 A place where body saw na;
Yestreen lay on this breast o’ mine
 The gowden locks of Anna.


The hungry Jew in wilderness,
 Rejoicing o’er his manna,
Was naething to my hinny bliss
 Upon the lips of Anna.


Ye monarchs, take the East and West
 Frae Indus to Savannah;
Gie me, within my straining grasp,
 The melting...Read more of this...

Romance Moderne

by William Carlos (WCW) Williams
 Tracks of rain and light linger in
the spongy greens of a nature whose 
flickering mountain—bulging nearer, 
ebbing back into the sun 
hollowing itself away to hold a lake,— 
or brown stream rising and falling at the roadside, turning about, 
churning itself white, drawing 
green in over it,—plunging glassy funnels 
fall— 
And—the other world— 
the windshield a blunt barrier: 
Talk...Read more of this...

Song To Diana

by Ben Jonson
 Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair
State in wonted manner keep:
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright.

Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose;
Cynthia's shining orb was made
Heaven to clear when day did close:
Bless us then with wished sight,
Goddess excellently bright.

Lay thy bow of pearl apart,
And thy crystal-shining quiver;
Give unto...Read more of this...

Summer

by John Clare
 See what delights in sylvan scenes appear!
Descending Gods have found Elysium here. 
In woods bright Venus with Adonis stray'd, 
And chaste Diana haunts the forest shade. 
Come lovely nymph, and bless the silent hours, 
When swains from shearing seek their nightly bow'rs; 
When weary reapers quit the sultry field, 
And crown'd with corn, their thanks to Ceres yield. 
This...Read more of this...

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