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Famous Dryad Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...ws his hood
Over his guilty gaze, and creeps away,
Nor dares to wind his horn, or - else at the first break of day

The Dryads come and throw the leathern ball
Along the reedy shore, and circumvent
Some goat-eared Pan to be their seneschal
For fear of bold Poseidon's ravishment,
And loose their girdles, with shy timorous eyes,
Lest from the surf his azure arms and purple beard should rise.

On this side and on that a rocky cave,
Hung with the yellow-belled laburnum, stands
Sm...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar



...windscreen wipers

like a bird's broken tongue,
and I am perfectly happy
to see your head, quick
round the door like a dryad,

as I pretend to be Ovid
in exile, composing Tristia
and sad for the shining,
the missed, the muscular beach....Read more of this...
by Raine, Craig
...made for Leonora this low dwelling in the ground, 
And with cedar they have woven the four walls round. 
Like a little dryad hiding she’ll be wrapped all in green, 
Better kept and longer valued than by ways that would have been. 

They will come with many roses in the early afternoon,
They will come with pinks and lilies and with Leonora soon; 
And as long as beauty’s garments over beauty’s limbs are thrown, 
There’ll be lilies that are liars, and the rose will have its own...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...sunk: 
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, 5 
But being too happy in thine happiness, 
That thou, light-wing¨¨d Dryad of the trees, 
In some melodious plot 
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, 
Singest of summer in full-throated ease. 10 

O for a draught of vintage! that hath been 
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delv¨¨d earth, 
Tasting of Flora and the country-green, 
Dance, and Proven?al song, and sunburnt mirth! 
O for a beaker full of the warm South!...Read more of this...
by Keats, John
...his repulse. 
Thus saying, from her husband's hand her hand 
Soft she withdrew; and, like a Wood-Nymph light, 
Oread or Dryad, or of Delia's train, 
Betook her to the groves; but Delia's self 
In gait surpassed, and Goddess-like deport, 
Though not as she with bow and quiver armed, 
But with such gardening tools as Art yet rude, 
Guiltless of fire, had formed, or Angels brought. 
To Pales, or Pomona, thus adorned, 
Likest she seemed, Pomona when she fled 
Vertumnus, or to Cer...Read more of this...
by Milton, John



...in.
Long time I watched, and surely hoped to see
Some goat-foot Pan make merry minstrelsy
Amid the reeds! some startled Dryad-maid
In girlish flight! or lurking in the glade,
The soft brown limbs, the wanton treacherous face
Of woodland god! Queen Dian in the chase,
White-limbed and terrible, with look of pride,
And leash of boar-hounds leaping at her side!
Or Hylas mirrored in the perfect stream.

O idle heart! O fond Hellenic dream!
Ere long, with melancholy rise and swell,...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar
...s behold,In charms below, what she above could do?What fountain-nymph, what dryad-maid e'er threwUpon the wind such tresses of pure gold?What heart such numerous virtues can unfold?Although the chiefest all my fond hopes slew.He for celestial charms may look in vain,Who has not seen my fair one's radiant eyes,Read more of this...
by Petrarch, Francesco
...Like as a dryad, from her native bole 
Coming at dusk, when the dim stars emerge, 
To a slow river at whose silent verge 
Tall poplars tremble and deep grasses roll, 
Come thou no less and, kneeling in a shoal 
Of the freaked flag and meadow buttercup, 
Bend till thine image from the pool beam up 
Arched with blue heaven like an aureole. 
See how adorable in fancy the...Read more of this...
by Seeger, Alan
...and pricking spear.

Lie still, lie still, O passionate heart, lie still!
O Melancholy, fold thy raven wing!
O sobbing Dryad, from thy hollow hill
Come not with such despondent answering!
No more thou winged Marsyas complain,
Apollo loveth not to hear such troubled songs of pain!

It was a dream, the glade is tenantless,
No soft Ionian laughter moves the air,
The Thames creeps on in sluggish leadenness,
And from the copse left desolate and bare
Fled is young Bacchus with his...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar
...in his golden car,
In silent glory swept the fields of heaven!
On yonder hill the Oread was adored,
In yonder tree the Dryad held her home;
And from her urn the gentle Naiad poured
The wavelet's silver foam.

Yon bay, chaste Daphne wreathed,
Yon stone was mournful Niobe's mute cell,
Low through yon sedges pastoral Syrinx breathed,
And through those groves wailed the sweet Philomel,
The tears of Ceres swelled in yonder rill--
Tears shed for Proserpine to Hades borne;
And, for...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von
...y by thy side 
Will I to Olive plight my troth, 
And gain her for my bride. 

And when my marriage morn may fall, 
She, Dryad-like, shall wear 
Alternate leaf and acorn-ball 
In wreath about her hair. 

And I will work in prose and rhyme, 
And praise thee more in both 
Than bard has honour'd beech or lime, 
Or that Thessalian growth, 

In which the swarthy ringdove sat, 
And mystic sentence spoke; 
And more than England honours that, 
Thy famous brother-oak, 

Wherein the you...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ly is kindled.
And from the sedge of the stream smilingly signs the blue god.
Crushingly falls the axe on the tree, the Dryad sighs sadly;
Down from the crest of the mount plunges the thundering load.
Winged by the lever, the stone from the rocky crevice is loosened;
Into the mountain's abyss boldly the miner descends.
Mulciber's anvil resounds with the measured stroke of the hammer;
Under the fist's nervous blow, spurt out the sparks of the steel.
Brilliantly twines the gold...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von
...bloom, 
And white, slim birches whisper, mirrored clear
In the pool's lucent gloom. 

Here Pan might pipe, or wandering dryad kneel
To view her loveliness beside the brim,
Or laughing wood-nymphs from the byways steal
To dance around its rim. 

'Tis such a witching spot as might beseem
A seeker for young friendship's trysting place,
Or lover yielding to the immortal dream
Of one beloved face....Read more of this...
by Montgomery, Lucy Maud

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry