Famous Ghostlike Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Giant Snail

...a dinner plate. I have set myself a goal, a 
certain rock, but it may well be dawn before I get there. 
Although I move ghostlike and my floating edges barely graze 
the ground, I am heavy, heavy, heavy. My white muscles are 
already tired. I give the impression of mysterious ease, but it is 
only with the greatest effort of my will that I can rise above the 
smallest stones and sticks. And I must not let myself be dis-
tracted by those rough spears of grass. Don't touch them...Read more of this...
by Bishop, Elizabeth


Guinevere

...Giant in it, 
Enwound him fold by fold, and made him gray 
And grayer, till himself became as mist 
Before her, moving ghostlike to his doom. 

Then she stretched out her arms and cried aloud 
`Oh Arthur!' there her voice brake suddenly, 
Then--as a stream that spouting from a cliff 
Fails in mid air, but gathering at the base 
Re-makes itself, and flashes down the vale-- 
Went on in passionate utterance: 

`Gone--my lord! 
Gone through my sin to slay and to be slain! 
And h...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse

...night and day
Into their stone-carved basins cold
The splashing icy fountains play--
The humid corridors behold!
Where, ghostlike in the deepening night,
Cowl'd forms brush by in gleaming white. 

The chapel, where no organ's peal
Invests the stern and naked prayer--
With penitential cries they kneel
And wrestle; rising then, with bare
And white uplifted faces stand,
Passing the Host from hand to hand; 

Each takes, and then his visage wan
Is buried in his cowl once more.
The...Read more of this...
by Arnold, Matthew

The Assignation

...So swiftly by me now?
No-'twas the startled bird that swept
The light leaves of the bough!
Day, quench thy torch! come, ghostlike, from on high,
With thy loved silence, come, thou haunting Eve,
Broaden below thy web of purple dye,
Which lulled boughs mysterious round us weave.
For love's delight, enduring listeners none,
The froward witness of the light will flee;
Hesper alone, the rosy silent one,
Down-glancing may our sweet familiar be!

What murmur in the distance spoke,
A...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von

The Ghosts

...omise true; told like his very heart would break:
"Oh, my dearest! what shall I do? shall I not sell it for your sake?"
Ghostlike she lay, as still as doom; turned to the wall her weary head;
Icy-cold in the pallid gloom, silent as death . . . at last she said:
"Do! my husband? Keep your vow! Guard his secret and let me die. . . .
Oh, my dear, I must tell you now -- the women he loved and wronged was I;
Darling! I haven't long to live: I never told you -- forgive, forgive!"

...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William


The House Of Dust: Complete (Long)

...Along damp sinuous streets it crawls,
Curls like a dream among the motionless trees
And seems to freeze.

The fog slips ghostlike into a thousand rooms,
Whirls over sleeping faces,
Spins in an atomy dance round misty street lamps;
And blows in cloudy waves over open spaces . . .

And one from his high window, looking down,
Peers at the cloud-white town,
And thinks its island towers are like a dream . . .
It seems an enormous sleeper, within whose brain
Laborious shadows revol...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad

The House Of Dust: Part 01: 08: The white fog creeps from the cold sea over the city

...Along damp sinuous streets it crawls,
Curls like a dream among the motionless trees
And seems to freeze.

The fog slips ghostlike into a thousand rooms,
Whirls over sleeping faces,
Spins in an atomy dance round misty street lamps;
And blows in cloudy waves over open spaces . . .

And one from his high window, looking down,
Peers at the cloud-white town,
And thinks its island towers are like a dream . . .
It seems an enormous sleeper, within whose brain
Laborious shadows revol...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad

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