Famous Fans Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Hiawathas Lamentation

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 In those days the Evil Spirits,
All the Manitos of mischief,
Fearing Hiawatha's wisdom,
And his love for Chibiabos,
Jealous of their faithful friendship,
And their noble words and actions,
Made at length a league against them,
To molest them and destroy them.
Hiawatha, wise and wary,
Often said to Chibiabos,
"O my brother! do not leave me,
Lest the Evil Spirits harm you!"
Chibiabos, young and heedless,
Laughing shook his coal-black...Read more of this...

Wounded

by Robert William Service
 Is it not strange? A year ago to-day,
 With scarce a thought beyond the hum-drum round,
I did my decent job and earned my pay;
 Was averagely happy, I'll be bound.
Ay, in my little groove I was content,
 Seeing my life run smoothly to the end,
With prosy days in stolid labour spent,
 And jolly nights, a pipe, a glass, a...Read more of this...

Henry Purcell

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 The poet wishes well to the divine genius of Purcell 
 and praises him that, whereas other musicians have 
 given utterance to the moods of man's mind, he has, 
 beyond that, uttered in notes the very make and 
 species of man as created both in him and in all men 
 generally.


Have, fair fallen, O fair,...Read more of this...

An EPISTLE from Alexander to Hephaestion In His Sickness

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 WITH such a Pulse, with such disorder'd Veins, 
Such lab'ring Breath, as thy Disease constrains; 
With failing Eyes, that scarce the Light endure, 
(So long unclos'd, they've watch'd thy doubtful Cure) 
To his Hephaestion Alexander writes, 
To soothe thy Days, and wing thy sleepless Nights, 
I send thee Love: Oh! that I could impart, 
As well my vital Spirits...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of Hank The Finn

by Robert William Service
 Now Fireman Flynn met Hank the Finn where lights of Lust-land glow;
"Let's leave," says he, "the lousy sea, and give the land a show.
I'm fed up to the molar mark with wallopin' the brine;
I feel the bloody barnacles a-carkin' on me spine.
Let's hit the hard-boiled North a crack, where creeks are paved with gold."
"You count me in," says Hank...Read more of this...

Elevation

by Charles Baudelaire
 Above the ponds, beyond the valleys,
The woods, the mountains, the clouds, the seas,
Farther than the sun, the distant breeze,
The spheres that wilt to infinity

My spirit, you move with agility
And, like a good swimmer who swoons in the wave
You groove the depths immensity gave,
The inexpressible and male ecstasy.

>From this miasma of waste,
You will be purified in superior air
And drink a...Read more of this...

The Rape of the Lock: Canto 5

by Alexander Pope
 She said: the pitying audience melt in tears, 
But Fate and Jove had stopp'd the Baron's ears.
In vain Thalestris with reproach assails,
For who can move when fair Belinda fails?
Not half so fix'd the Trojan could remain,
While Anna begg'd and Dido rag'd in vain.
Then grave Clarissa graceful wav'd her fan;
Silence ensu'd, and thus the nymph began.
"Say, why are beauties prais'd...Read more of this...

Tithonus

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 The woods decay, the woods decay and fall, 
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground, 
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath, 
And after many a summer dies the swan. 
Me only cruel immortality 
Consumes; I wither slowly in thine arms, 
Here at the quiet limit of the world, 
A white-hair'd shadow roaming like a dream...Read more of this...

Effects At A Distance

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 THE queen in the lofty hall takes her place,

The tapers around her are flaming;
She speaks to the page: "With a nimble pace

Go, fetch me my purse for gaming.

'Tis lying, I'll pledge,

On my table's edge."
Each nerve the nimble boy straineth,
And the end of the castle soon gaineth.

The fairest of maidens was sipping sherbet

Beside the queen that minute;
Near her mouth broke...Read more of this...

Upon A Wasp Chilled With Cold

by Edward Taylor
 The bear that breathes the northern blast
Did numb, torpedo-like, a wasp
Whose stiffened limbs encramped, lay bathing
In Sol's warm breath and shine as saving,
Which with her hands she chafes and stands
Rubbing her legs, shanks, thighs, and hands.
Her pretty toes, and fingers' ends
Nipped with this breath, she out extends
Unto the sun, in great desire
To warm her digits at that fire.
Doth hold...Read more of this...

Edmunds Wedding

by Mary Darby Robinson
 By the side of the brook, where the willow is waving
Why sits the wan Youth, in his wedding-suit gay!
Now sighing so deeply, now frantickly raving
Beneath the pale light of the moon's sickly ray.
Now he starts, all aghast, and with horror's wild gesture,
Cries, "AGNES is coming, I know her white vesture!
"See! see! how she beckons me on to the willow,
"Where,...Read more of this...

Ode to Psyche

by John Keats
O GODDESS! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung 
By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear, 
And pardon that thy secrets should be sung 
Even into thine own soft-conch¨¨d ear: 
Surely I dream'd to-day, or did I see 5 
The wing¨¨d Psyche with awaken'd eyes? 
I wander'd in a forest thoughtlessly, 
And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise, 
Saw two fair creatures, couch¨¨d...Read more of this...

The House Of Dust: Part 03: 11: Conversation: Undertones

by Conrad Aiken
 What shall we talk of? Li Po? Hokusai?
You narrow your long dark eyes to fascinate me;
You smile a little. . . .Outside, the night goes by.
I walk alone in a forest of ghostly trees . . .
Your pale hands rest palm downwards on your knees.

'These lines—converging, they suggest such distance!
The soul is drawn away, beyond horizons.
Lured out to what?...Read more of this...

Nights Nothings Again

by Carl Sandburg
 WHO knows what I know
when I have asked the night questions
and the night has answered nothing
only the old answers?

Who picked a crimson cryptogram,
the tail light of a motor car turning a corner,
or the midnight sign of a chile con carne place,
or a man out of the ashes of false dawn muttering “hot-dog” to the night watchmen:
Is there a spieler...Read more of this...

Subway Wind

by Claude McKay
 Far down, down through the city's great, gaunt gut, 
The gray train rushing bears the weary wind; 
In the packed cars the fans the crowd's breath cut, 
Leaving the sick and heavy air behind. 
And pale-cheeked children seek the upper door 
To give their summer jackets to the breeze; 
Their laugh is swallowed in the deafening roar 
Of captive...Read more of this...

Beak-Bashing Boy

by Robert William Service
 But yesterday I banked on fistic fame,
Figgerin' I'd be a champion of the Ring.
Today I've half a mind to quit the Game,
For all them rosy dreams have taken wing,
Since last night a secondary bout
I let a goddam ****** knock me out.

It must have been that T-bone steak I ate;
They might have doped it, them smart gambling guys,
For round my...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXII: In Highest Way of Heavn

by Sir Philip Sidney
 In highest way of heav'n the Sun did ride, 
Progressing then from fair twins' golden place: 
Having no scarf of clouds before his face, 
But shining forth of heat in his chief pride; 

When some fair ladies by hard promise tied, 
On horseback met him in his furious race, 
Yet each prepar'd with fan's well-shading grace 
From that foe's...Read more of this...

The Songs of the Lathes

by Rudyard Kipling
 1918Being the Words of the Tune Hummed at Her Lathe by Mrs. L. Embsay, Widow
The fans and the beltings they roar round me.
The power is shaking the floor round me
Till the lathes pick up their duty and the midnight-shift takes over.
 It is good for me to be here!

Guns in Flanders--Flanders guns!
(I had a man that worked 'em once!)
Shells...Read more of this...

A Nocturnal Reverie

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
In such a night, when every louder wind
Is to its distant cavern safe confined;
And only gentle Zephyr fans his wings,
And lonely Philomel, still waking, sings;
Or from some tree, famed for the owl's delight,
She, hollowing clear, directs the wand'rer right:
In such a night, when passing clouds give place,
Or thinly veil the heav'ns' mysterious face;
When in some river, overhung with green,
The waving...Read more of this...

from the Ansty Experience

by Rg Gregory
 (a)
they seek to celebrate the word
not to bring their knives out on a poem
dissecting it to find a heart
whose beat lies naked on a table
not to score in triumph on a line
no sensitive would put a nostril to
but simply to receive it as an
offering glimpsing the sacred there

poem probes the poet's once-intention
but each time said budges its truth
afresh (leaving...Read more of this...

Mementos

by Charlotte Bronte
 ARRANGING long-locked drawers and shelves 
Of cabinets, shut up for years, 
What a strange task we've set ourselves ! 
How still the lonely room appears ! 
How strange this mass of ancient treasures, 
Mementos of past pains and pleasures; 
These volumes, clasped with costly stone, 
With print all faded, gilding gone; 

These fans of leaves, from Indian trees­ 
These...Read more of this...

Lines Written Beneath An Elm In The Churchyard Of Harrow

by George (Lord) Byron
 Spot of my youth! whose hoary branches sigh,
Swept by the breeze that fans thy cloudless sky;
Where now alone I muse, who oft have trod,
With those I loved, thy soft and verdant sod;
With those who, scattered far, perchance deplore,
Like me, the happy scenes they knew before:
Oh! as I trace again thy winding hill,
Mine eyes admire, my heart adores thee still,
Thou...Read more of this...

To a Lady on Her Coming to North-America

by Phillis Wheatley
 Indulgent muse! my grov'ling mind inspire,
And fill my bosom with celestial fire.
See from Jamaica's fervid shore she moves,
Like the fair mother of the blooming loves,
When from above the Goddess with her hand
Fans the soft breeze, and lights upon the land;
Thus she on Neptune's wat'ry realm reclin'd
Appear'd, and thus invites the ling'ring wind.
"Arise, ye winds, America explore,

"Waft me, ye gales,...Read more of this...

Crow And Auden

by John Lindley
 A misprint in a newspaper reported: ‘Auden stepped from the train and was greeted by a small but enthusiastic crow.’

‘Hmm,’ Auden thought when first he saw
the bird, as train came to a stop,
‘I’ll make this image mine before
some Yorkshire upstart snaps it up.’

He drew a notebook from his mac’,
unclipped a biro from his tweed,
stared at the crow, the crow...Read more of this...

Poor Marguerite

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Swift, o'er the wild and dreary waste
A NUT-BROWN GIRL was seen to haste;
Wide waving was her unbound hair,
And sun-scorch'd was her bosom bare;
For Summer's noon had shed its beams
While she lay wrapp'd in fev'rish dreams;
While, on the wither'd hedge-row's side,
By turns she slept, by turns she cried,
"Ah ! where lies hid the balsam sweet,
"To heal the wounds of MARGUERITE?"

Dark...Read more of this...

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