Famous Fling Poems by Famous Poets

 1
I CELEBRATE myself; 
And what I assume you shall assume; 
For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you. 

I loafe and invite my Soul; 
I lean...Read More

 Swift as a spirit hastening to his task 
Of glory & of good, the Sun sprang forth
Rejoicing in his splendour, & the mask
Of darkness fell from the awakened Earth.
The...Read More

 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

 Smith, great writer of stories, drank; found it immortalized his pen;
Fused in his brain-pan, else a blank, heavens of glory now and then;
Gave him the magical genius touch; God-given...Read More

 To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on...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

CANTO FIRST.

The Chase.

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

 Oh all ye, who pass by, whose eyes and mind
To worldly things are sharp, but to me blind; 
To me, who took eyes that I might you find: 
Was...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

 Since I have come to years sedate
I see with more and more acumen
The bitter irony of Fate,
The vanity of all things human.
Why, just to-day some fellow said,
As I surveyed...Read More

 I.
Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan's Turret in a...Read More

 A Masque Presented At Ludlow Castle, 1634, Before 

The Earl Of Bridgewater, Then President Of Wales.

The Persons

 The ATTENDANT SPIRIT, afterwards in the habit of THYRSIS.
COMUS, with his Crew.
The...Read More

 I

Who would be
A mermaid fair,
Singing alone,
Combing her hair
Under the sea,
In a golden curl
With a comb of pearl,
On a throne?

II

I would be a mermaid fair;
I would sing to myself the...Read More

 Part First
Frau Concert-Meister Altgelt shut the door.
A storm was rising, heavy gusts of wind
Swirled through the trees, and scattered leaves before
Her on the clean, flagged path. The sky behind
The...Read More

 Lucilla, wedded to Lucretius, found
Her master cold; for when the morning flush
Of passion and the first embrace had died 
Between them, tho' he loved her none the less, 
Yet...Read More

 At break of day the College Portress came: 
She brought us Academic silks, in hue 
The lilac, with a silken hood to each, 
And zoned with gold; and now...Read More

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast,...Read More

I DREAM'D that as I wander'd by the way 
Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring, 
And gentle odours led my steps astray, 
Mix'd with a sound of waters murmuring...Read More

 UPON that night, when fairies light
 On Cassilis Downans 2 dance,
Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze,
 On sprightly coursers prance;
Or for Colean the rout is ta’en,
 Beneath the...Read More

I leant upon a coppice gate
     When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
     The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored...Read More

 New Castle, July 4, 1878

or a hundred years the pulse of time
Has throbbed for Liberty;
For a hundred years the grand old clime
Columbia has been free;
For a hundred years our...Read More

 After seeing at Boston the statue of Robert Gould Shaw, killed while storming Fort Wagner, July 18, 1863, at the head of the first enlisted negro regiment, the Fifty-fourth...Read More

 He

Lift up the veils that darken the delicate moon 
of thy glory and grace,
Withhold not, O love, from the night 
of my longing the joy of thy luminous face,
Give...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

 O Sovereign power of love! O grief! O balm!
All records, saving thine, come cool, and calm,
And shadowy, through the mist of passed years:
For others, good or bad, hatred and...Read More