Famous Fantasy Poems by Famous Poets

DEAR love for nothing less than thee 
Would I have broke this happy dream; 
It was a theme 
For reason much too strong for fantasy. 
Therefore thou waked'st me wisely;...Read More

 I.

He was a Grecian lad, who coming home
With pulpy figs and wine from Sicily
Stood at his galley's prow, and let the foam
Blow through his crisp brown curls unconsciously,
And holding...Read More

 I love the evenings, passionless and fair, I love the evens, 
Whether old manor-fronts their ray with golden fulgence leavens, 
In numerous leafage bosomed close; 
Whether the mist in...Read More

 THE PROLOGUE. 1


Experience, though none authority* *authoritative texts
Were in this world, is right enough for me
To speak of woe that is in marriage:
For, lordings, since I twelve year was...Read More

 THE PROLOGUE.


Our Hoste saw well that the brighte sun
Th' arc of his artificial day had run
The fourthe part, and half an houre more;
And, though he were not deep expert...Read More

 THE PROLOGUE.

When that the Knight had thus his tale told
In all the rout was neither young nor old,
That he not said it was a noble story,
And worthy to be...Read More

 Dagonet, the fool, whom Gawain in his mood 
Had made mock-knight of Arthur's Table Round, 
At Camelot, high above the yellowing woods, 
Danced like a withered leaf before the...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

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

 GIFT from the cold and silent Past! 
A relic to the present cast, 
Left on the ever-changing strand 
Of shifting and unstable sand, 
Which wastes beneath the steady chime...Read More

 The last tall son of Lot and Bellicent, 
And tallest, Gareth, in a showerful spring 
Stared at the spate. A slender-shafted Pine 
Lost footing, fell, and so was whirled...Read More

 A Fantasy, dedicated to the little poet Alice Oliver Henderson, ten years old. 

The Fantasy shows how tiger-hearts are the cause of war in all ages. It shows how...Read More

 The construction of a woman:
a woman is not made of flesh 
of bone and sinew 
belly and breasts, elbows and liver and toe. 
She is manufactured like a sports...Read More

 Kind solace in a dying hour!
Such, father, is not (now) my theme-
I will not madly deem that power
Of Earth may shrive me of the sin
Unearthly pride hath revell'd in-
I...Read More

 (France -- Ancient Regime.) 

I.

Go away! 
Go away; I will not confess to you! 
His black biretta clings like a hangman's cap; under his twitching fingers the beads shiver...Read More

SpanishVagos preludios. En la noche espléndidaSu voz de perlas una fuente calla,Cuelgan las brisas sus celestes pifanosEn el follaje. Las cabezas pardasDe los búhos acechan.Las flores se abren más, como...Read More

 Lo, here the gentle lark, weary of rest,
From his moist cabinet mounts up on high,
And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast
The sun ariseth in his majesty;
Who doth the...Read More

 The senseless years' extinguished mirth and laughter
Oppress me like some hazy morning-after.
But sadness of days past, as alcohol -
The more it age, the stronger grip the soul.
My course is...Read More

 I'll tell you something: every day
people are dying. And that's just the beginning.
Every day, in funeral homes, new widows are born,
new orphans. They sit with their hands folded,
trying to...Read More

 (Lines written in the Vale of Chamouni)

1

The everlasting universe of things
Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
Now dark - now glittering - now reflecting gloom -
Now lending...Read More

 Morn in the wake of the morning star 
Came furrowing all the orient into gold. 
We rose, and each by other drest with care 
Descended to the court that...Read More

 Her ivory hands on the ivory keys
Strayed in a fitful fantasy,
Like the silver gleam when the poplar trees
Rustle their pale-leaves listlessly,
Or the drifting foam of a restless sea
When the...Read More

 I -- A Pleasant Afternoon

 for Michael Brownstein and Dick Gallup


One day 3 poets and 60 ears sat under a green-striped Chau-
 tauqua tent in Aurora
listening to Black spirituals,...Read More

  1

You, once a belle in Shreveport,
with henna-colored hair, skin like a peachbud,
still have your dresses copied from that time,
and play a Chopin prelude
called by Cortot: "Delicious recollections
float like...Read More

 S. Patrick. You who are bent, and bald, and blind,
With a heavy heart and a wandering mind,
Have known three centuries, poets sing,
Of dalliance with a demon thing.

Oisin. Sad to...Read More