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Famous Fictions Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...This dream of summertime. 

Our hearts are lighter for its sake, 
Our fancy's age renews its youth, 
And dim-remembered fictions take 
The guise of present truth. 

A wizard of the Merrimac, - 
So old ancestral legends say, - 
Could call green leaf and blossom back 
To frosted stem and spray. 

The dry logs of the cottage wall, 
Beneath his touch, put out their leaves; 
The clay-bound swallow, at his call, 
Played round the icy eaves. 

The settler saw his oaken flail 
Take b...Read more of this...
by Whittier, John Greenleaf



...Who says that fictions only and false hair
Become a verse? Is there in truth no beauty?
Is all good structure in a winding stair?
May no lines pass, except they do their duty
Not to a true, but painted chair?

Is it no verse, except enchanted groves
And sudden arbours shadow coarse-spun lines?
Must purling streams refresh a lover's loves?
Must all be veiled, while he that...Read more of this...
by Herbert, George
...on them, dearer than money,
In the blue hour before sunup.
Yet they recede, untouchable as tomorrow,
Or those glittery fictions of spilt water
That glide ahead of the very thirsty.

I think of the lizards airing their tongues
In the crevice of an extremely small shadow
And the toad guarding his heart's droplet.
The desert is white as a blind man's eye,
Comfortless as salt. Snake and bird
Doze behind the old maskss of fury.
We swelter like firedogs in the wind.
The sun puts i...Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia
...alk at large:
each day demands we create our whole world over,
disguising the constant horror in a coat
of many-colored fictions; we mask our past
in the green of Eden, pretend future's shining fruit
can sprout from the navel of this present waste.
In this particular tub, two knees jut up
like icebergs, while minute brown hairs rise
on arms and legs in a fringe of kelp; green soap
navigates the tidal slosh of seas
breaking on legendary beaches; in faith
we shall board our ima...Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia
...usly the Muse wou'd stray; 
To Fable I descend with soft Delight, 
Pleas'd to Translate, or easily Endite: 
Whilst aery Fictions hastily repair 
To fill my Page, and rid my Thoughts of Care, 
As they to Birds and Beasts new Gifts impart, 
And Teach, as Poets shou'd, whilst they Divert. 

But here, the Critick bids me check this Vein. 
Fable, he crys, tho' grown th' affected Strain, 
But dies, as it was born, without Regard or Pain. 
Whilst of his Aim the lazy Trifler fails, 
...Read more of this...
by Finch, Anne Kingsmill



...signed in water
and witnessed in granite and ugly bronze and gun-metal.

And by me. I am your citizen: composed of
your fictions, your compromise, I am
a part of your story and its outcome.
And ready to record its contradictions....Read more of this...
by Boland, Eavan
...n evoked 
From transcendental nests!" 

News-hunting turkeys from afar 
Now ran with all thin legs 
To gobble facts and fictions of 
The goose with golden eggs. 

But best of all the little fowls 
Still playing on the shore, 
Soft downy chicks and goslings gay, 
Chirped out, "Dear Goose, lay more." 

But goosey all these weary years 
Had toiled like any ant, 
And wearied out she now replied 
"My little dears, I can't. 

"When I was starving, half this corn 
Had been of vital ...Read more of this...
by Alcott, Louisa May
...ntom broke and fled,
Straightway I saw within my head
A vision of a ghostly bed, 

Where lay two worn decrepit men,
The fictions of a lawyer's pen,
Who never more might breathe again. 

The serving-man of Richard Roe
Wept, inarticulate with woe:
She wept, that waiting on John Doe. 

"Oh rouse", I urged, "the waning sense
With tales of tangled evidence,
Of suit, demurrer, and defence." 

"Vain", she replied, "such mockeries:
For morbid fancies, such as these,
No suits can suit...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis
...satire,
Nor will in panegyric flatter.
Unjustly poets we asperse;
Truth shines the brighter clad in verse,
And all the fictions they pursue
Do but insinuate what is true.
Now, should my praises owe their truth
To beauty, dress, or paint, or youth,
What stoics call without our power,
They could not be ensured an hour;
'Twere grafting on an annual stock,
That must our expectation mock,
And, making one luxuriant shoot,
Die the next year for want of root:
Before I could my verse...Read more of this...
by Swift, Jonathan
...s is
Shall fix my flying wishes,
And determine them to kisses.

Let her full glory,
My fancies, fly before ye;
Be ye my fictions, but her story....Read more of this...
by Crashaw, Richard

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things