Famous Fairy Poems by Famous Poets

 DEDICATION 

Of great limbs gone to chaos,
A great face turned to night--
Why bend above a shapeless shroud
Seeking in such archaic cloud
Sight of strong lords and light?

Where seven sunken Englands
Lie...Read More

 Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire!
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the Fairy Queen,
To dew her orbs upon...Read More

 LARA. [1] 

CANTO THE FIRST. 

I. 

The Serfs are glad through Lara's wide domain, [2] 
And slavery half forgets her feudal chain; 
He, their unhoped, but unforgotten lord —...Read More

 (Newdigate prize poem recited in the Sheldonian Theatre Oxford 
June
26th, 1878.

To my friend George Fleming author of 'The Nile Novel' and
'Mirage')


I.


A year ago I breathed the Italian air, -
And...Read More

 Sir Walter Vivian all a summer's day 
Gave his broad lawns until the set of sun 
Up to the people: thither flocked at noon 
His tenants, wife and child,...Read More

 Your daisies have come
on the day of my divorce:
the courtroom a cement box,
a gas chamber for the infectious Jew in me
and a perhaps land, a possibly promised land
for the...Read More

 Today I opened wide my eyes,
And stared with wonder and surprise,
To see beneath November skies
An apple blossom peer;
Upon a branch as bleak as night
It gleamed exultant on my sight,
A...Read More

 Before those cruel twins whom at one birth
Incestuous Change bore to her father Time,
Error and Truth, had hunted from the earth
All those bright natures which adorned its prime,
And left...Read More

 "Had we never loved so kindly, 
Had we never loved so blindly, 
Never met or never parted, 
We had ne'er been broken-hearted." — Burns 


TO 
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD...Read More

 Muse of my native land! loftiest Muse!
O first-born on the mountains! by the hues
Of heaven on the spiritual air begot:
Long didst thou sit alone in northern grot,
While yet our...Read More

CANTO FIRST.

The Chase.

     Harp of the North! that mouldering long hast hung
        On the witch-elm that shades Saint Fillan's...Read More

 I

PRELUDE

Daughter of Psyche, pledge of that last night
When, pierced with pain and bitter-sweet delight,
She knew her Love and saw her Lord depart,
Then breathed her wonder and her woe forlorn
Into...Read More

I MIND me in the days departed, 
How often underneath the sun 
With childish bounds I used to run 
To a garden long deserted. 

The beds and walks were vanish'd...Read More

 I.

How well I know what I mean to do
When the long dark autumn-evenings come:
And where, my soul, is thy pleasant hue?
With the music of all thy voices, dumb
In life's...Read More

Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay,
   Within that temple where the vestal flame
   Was wont to burn; and, passing by that way,
  ...Read More

 PART I

O! nothing earthly save the ray
(Thrown back from flowers) of Beauty's eye,
As in those gardens where the day
Springs from the gems of Circassy-
O! nothing earthly save the thrill
Of...Read More

 THE KNIGHT ERRANT. 
 
 ("Qu'est-ce que Sigismond et Ladislas ont dit.") 
 
 {Bk. XV. iii. 1.} 


 I. 
 
 THE ADVENTURER SETS OUT. 
 
 What...Read More

 I know a village in a far-off land
Where from a sunny, mountain-girdled plain
With tinted walls a space on either hand
And fed by many an olive-darkened lane
The high-road mounts, and...Read More

 Consider
a girl who keeps slipping off,
arms limp as old carrots,
into the hypnotist's trance,
into a spirit world
speaking with the gift of tongues.
She is stuck in the time machine,
suddenly two years...Read More

 ENDYMION.

A Poetic Romance.

"THE STRETCHED METRE OF AN AN ANTIQUE SONG."
INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS CHATTERTON.


Book I


A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will...Read More

ON either side the river lie

Long fields of barley and of rye, 
That clothe the wold and meet the sky; 
And thro' the field the road runs by 
To many-tower'd...Read More

PART I

'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock
And the owls have awakened the crowing cock;
Tu-whit!- Tu-whoo!
And hark, again! the crowing cock,
How drowsily it crew.
Sir Leoline, the Baron rich,
Hath...Read More

epilogue: 
Your thoughts, 
dreaming on a softened brain, 
like an over-fed lackey on a greasy settee, 
with my heart's bloody tatters I'll mock again; 
impudent and caustic, I'll jeer to...Read More

Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
   Which I gaze on so fondly today,
Were to change by tomorrow, and fleet in my arms,
   Like fairy-gifts...Read More

 I. WINTER IN NORTHUMBERLAND
OUTSIDE the garden
The wet skies harden;
The gates are barred on
The summer side:
"Shut out the flower-time,
Sunbeam and shower-time;
Make way for our time,"
Wild winds have cried.
Green once and...Read More