Famous Fancying Poems by Famous Poets

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

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He Hears That His Beloved Has Become Engaged

by Philip Larkin
 For C.G.B.

When she came on, you couldn't keep your seat;
Fighting your way up through the orchestra,
Tup-heavy bumpkin, you confused your feet,
Fell in the drum - how we went ha ha ha!
But once you gained her side and started waltzing
We all began to cheer; the way she leant
Her cheek on yours and laughed was so exalting
We thought you were stooging...Read more of this...

Wyther Park School Leeds Five

by Barry Tebb
 I stood there in front of forty-five faces

The first day of term, not especially fancying

"Exercises in Mechanical Arithmetic" and so instead

I read a poem from Kirkup in Japan, about Nijinsky,

Hand-written on a fan of rice-paper.

Thirty years later, taking a Sri Lankan girl

In search of her first job around London schools,

A Head-of-English announced "You wouldn’t get away

With that now!" as...Read more of this...

Rapunzel

by Anne Sexton
 A woman 
who loves a woman 
is forever young. 
The mentor 
and the student 
feed off each other. 
Many a girl 
had an old aunt 
who locked her in the study 
to keep the boys away. 
They would play rummy 
or lie on the couch 
and touch and touch. 
Old breast against young breast... 
Let your dress fall down...Read more of this...

TO My Lord Colrane In Answer to his Complemental Verses sent me under the Name of CLEANOR

by Anne Killigrew
 LOng my dull Muse in heavy slumbers lay, 
Indulging Sloth, and to soft Ease gave way, 
Her Fill of Rest resolving to enjoy, 
Or fancying little worthy her employ. 
When Noble Cleanors obliging Strains
Her, the neglected Lyre to tune, constrains. 
Confus'd at first, she rais'd her drowsie Head, 
Ponder'd a while, then pleas'd, forsook her Bed. 
Survey'd each Line...Read more of this...

Zara, The Bather

by Victor Hugo
 ("Sara, belle d'indolence.") 
 
 {XIX., August, 1828.} 


 In a swinging hammock lying, 
 Lightly flying, 
 Zara, lovely indolent, 
 O'er a fountain's crystal wave 
 There to lave 
 Her young beauty—see her bent. 
 
 As she leans, so sweet and soft, 
 Flitting oft, 
 O'er the mirror to and fro, 
 Seems that...Read more of this...

A Fine Madness

by Barry Tebb
 Any poets about or bored muses fancying a day out?

Rainy, windy, cold Leeds City Station

Half-way through its slow chaotic transformation

Contractors’ morning break, overalls, hard hats and harness

Flood McDonalds where I sip my tea and try to translate Val?ry.



London has everything except my bardic inspiration

I’ve only to step off the coach in Leeds and it whistles

Its bravuras down every wind,...Read more of this...

Rapunzel

by Anne Sexton
 A woman 
who loves a woman 
is forever young. 
The mentor 
and the student 
feed off each other. 
Many a girl 
had an old aunt 
who locked her in the study 
to keep the boys away. 
They would play rummy 
or lie on the couch 
and touch and touch. 
Old breast against young breast... 
Let your dress fall down...Read more of this...

Full of Life Now

by Walt Whitman
 FULL of life, now, compact, visible, 
I, forty years old the Eighty-third Year of The States, 
To one a century hence, or any number of centuries hence, 
To you, yet unborn, these, seeking you. 

When you read these, I, that was visible, am become invisible;
Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poems, seeking me; 
Fancying how happy you...Read more of this...

November

by William Cullen Bryant
 The landscape sleeps in mist from morn till noon;
And, if the sun looks through, 'tis with a face
Beamless and pale and round, as if the moon,
When done the journey of her nightly race,
Had found him sleeping, and supplied his place.
For days the shepherds in the fields may be,
Nor mark a patch of sky— blindfold they trace,
The plains, that seem...Read more of this...

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