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Famous Girlish Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Chatterton, Thomas
...ine thy foppery soft, 
When discord's the voice of my fair? 

If Turner remitted my bluster and rhymes, 
If Hardind was girlish and cold, 
If never an ogle was got from Miss Grimes, 
If Flavia was blasted and old; 

I chose without liking, and left without pain, 
Nor welcomed the frown with a sigh; 
I scorned, like a monkey, to dangle my chain, 
And paint them new charms with a lie. 

Once Cotton was handsome; I flam'd and I burn'd, 
I died to obtain the bright queen; 
Bu...Read more of this...



by Carroll, Lewis
...st of all the signs that fleet 
From lips that lovingly repeat 
Again, again, the message sweet! 
Full to the brim with girlish glee, 
A child, a very child is she, 
Whose dream of heaven is still to be 
At Home: for Home is Bliss....Read more of this...

by Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...ds do's stray, 
Where his Kids have lost their way: 
Young Narcissus iv'ry Brow 
Rac'd by a malicious Bough, 
Keeps the girlish Boy from sight, 
Till Time shall do his Beauty right. 

[Dorinda] Where's Alexis? 


[Silvia] –He, alas! 
Lies extended on the Grass; 
Tears his Garland, raves, despairs, 
Mirth and Harmony forswears; 
Since he was this Morning shown, 
That Delia must not be his Own. 


[Dorinda] Foolish Swain! such Love to place. 


[Silvia] On any but D...Read more of this...

by Hardy, Thomas
...aggonette, 
I look behind at the fading byway, 
And see on its slope, now glistening wet, 
Distinctly yet

Myself and a girlish form benighted
In dry March weather. We climb the road
Beside a chaise. We had just alighted
To ease the sturdy pony's load
When he sighed and slowed.

What we did as we climbed, and what we talked of
Matters not much, nor to what it led, -
Something that life will not be balked of
Without rude reason till hope is dead, 
And feeling fled....Read more of this...

by Holmes, Oliver Wendell
...GRANDMOTHER's mother: her age, I guess,
Thirteen summers, or something less;
Girlish bust, but womanly air;
Smooth, square forehead with uprolled hair;
Lips that lover has never kissed;
Taper fingers and slender wrist;
Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade;
So they painted the little maid.

On her hand a parrot green
Sits unmoving and broods serene.
Hold up the canvas full in view,--
Look! there's a rent the light shines through,
...Read more of this...



by Lindsay, Vachel
...ugh I have found you llke a snow-drop pale, 
On sunny days have found you weak and still,
Though I have often held your girlish head
Drooped on my shoulder, faint from little ill:—

Under the blessing of your Psyche-wings
I hide to-night like one small broken bird,
So soothed. I half-forget the world gone mad:—
And all the winds of war are now unheard.

My heaven-doubting pennons feel your hands
With touch most delicate so circling round,
That for an hour I dream that...Read more of this...

by Sherrick, Fannie Isabelle
...its warm, impetuous flood.
Enough; my words are wandering; a will
He left that may thy heart with gladness fill,
Thy girlish right be recognized at last
And left for thee his rich and vast estate.
Into the world's deep tide thy life is cast,
Yet thou art still the mistress of thy fate.
If thou would'st wear thy birthright's name and power
Speak but the word and claim thy rightful dower."
And this is all, her head is bending low,
From shaded eyes the tears unbidden f...Read more of this...

by Sherrick, Fannie Isabelle
...ks with heaven above,
And all that's pure below; a running ease
Of careless thought beguiles the murmuring stream
Of girlish life, and as some sweet, vague dream,
The fleeting days go by; fair womanhood
Comes oft to lure the girlish feet away,
But by the brooklet still they love to stray,
Nor long to seek the world's engulfing flood.
Hilda—a name that seems to stand alone—
So strong, so clear it sharply echoing tone;
And yet a name that holds a weirdlike grace,
Wit...Read more of this...

by Gluck, Louise
...tly to images rapturous-
Sleep, pretty lady, a couple of years.

Sleep, pretty lady, the world awaits day with you;
Girlish and golden, the slender young moon.
Grant the fond darkness its mystical way with you;
Morning returns to us ever too soon.
Roses unfold, in their loveliness, all for you;
Blossom the lilies for hope of your glance.
When you're awake, all the men go and fall for you-
Sleep, pretty lady, and give me a chance....Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...by right
 They burn before her shrine;
And that's because I'm seventeen
 And She is forty-nine.

I cannot check my girlish blush,
 My color comes and goes;
I redden to my finger-tips,
 And sometimes to my nose.
But She is white where white should be,
 And red where red should shine.
The blush that flies at seventeen
 Is fixed at forty-nine.

I wish I had Her constant cheek;
 I wish that I could sing
All sorts of funny little songs,
 Not quite the proper thing...Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...mile. 
Queen Hilda little dreamed – Ah, me! – 
On what dark miry plain, 
And what blood-blinded eyes would see 
Her girlish smile again! 

Queen Hilda rode on through the crowd, 
We heard the distant roar; 
We heard the clack of gear and plank, 
The sailors on the shore. 
Queen Hilda sought her "bower" to rest, 
(For her day's work was done), 
We kissed our wives – or others' wives – 
And sailed ere set of sun. 

(Some sail because they're married men, 
And some b...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...I watched, and surely hoped to see
Some goat-foot Pan make merry minstrelsy
Amid the reeds! some startled Dryad-maid
In girlish flight! or lurking in the glade,
The soft brown limbs, the wanton treacherous face
Of woodland god! Queen Dian in the chase,
White-limbed and terrible, with look of pride,
And leash of boar-hounds leaping at her side!
Or Hylas mirrored in the perfect stream.

O idle heart! O fond Hellenic dream!
Ere long, with melancholy rise and swell,
The eveni...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...g so buoyant, with milk-white foam on the waters. 

But I am not the sea, nor the red sun; 
I am not the wind, with girlish laughter; 
Not the immense wind which strengthens—not the wind which lashes;
Not the spirit that ever lashes its own body to terror and death; 
But I am that which unseen comes and sings, sings, sings, 
Which babbles in brooks and scoots in showers on the land, 
Which the birds know in the woods, mornings and evenings, 
And the shore-sands know, and ...Read more of this...

by Poe, Edgar Allan
...lesson is- the heart:
For 'mid that sunshine, and those smiles,
When, from our little cares apart,
And laughing at her girlish wiles,
I'd throw me on her throbbing breast,
And pour my spirit out in tears-
There was no need to speak the rest-
No need to quiet any fears
Of her- who ask'd no reason why,
But turn'd on me her quiet eye!

Yet more than worthy of the love
My spirit struggled with, and strove,
When, on the mountain peak, alone,
Ambition lent it a new tone-
I had no ...Read more of this...

by Moody, William Vaughn
...his morning face and lustrous hair 
Breathes on me sudden ruin and despair. 
In any other guise, 
With any but this girlish depth of gaze, 
Your coming had not so unsealed and poured 
The dusty amphoras where I had stored 
The drippings of the winepress of my days. 
I think these eyes foresee, 
Now in their unawakened virgin time, 
Their mother's pride in me, 
And dream even now, unconsciously, 
Upon each soaring peak and sky-hung lea 
You pictured I should climb....Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...kes, a pipe, and Father's best
Tobacco, brought from countries harbouring
Dawn's earliest footstep. Wait." With girlish 
zest
To please her guest she flew. A moment more
She came again, with her old nurse behind.
Then, sitting on the bench and knitting fast,
She talked as someone with a noble store
Of hidden fancies, blown upon the wind,
Eager to flutter forth and leave their silent past.

31
The little apple leaves above their heads
Let fall a quivering s...Read more of this...

by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...r-will or the cat of the glen
Look into my eyes and be bold?

IX.
I am black, I am black!--
But, once, I laughed in girlish glee;
For one of my colour stood in the track
Where the drivers drove, and looked at me--
And tender and full was the look he gave:
Could a slave look so at another slave?--
I look at the sky and the sea.

X.
And from that hour our spirits grew
As free as if unsold, unbought:
Oh, strong enough, since we were two
To conquer the world, we thoug...Read more of this...

by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...r-will or the cat of the glen
Look into my eyes and be bold?

IX.
I am black, I am black!--
But, once, I laughed in girlish glee;
For one of my colour stood in the track
Where the drivers drove, and looked at me--
And tender and full was the look he gave:
Could a slave look so at another slave?--
I look at the sky and the sea.

X.
And from that hour our spirits grew
As free as if unsold, unbought:
Oh, strong enough, since we were two
To conquer the world, we thoug...Read more of this...

by Sherrick, Fannie Isabelle
...he gloried in that strange, terrific storm,
The lightning's glare and hurried thunder peal
Awakened in her slight and girlish form
A hidden might that bade her trembling kneel
Upon that lonely, wave-encircled height
And pledge her life to fame, that she might win
The glory of the world's enthroning light,
Then give it back to God all freed from sin.
Long, long she knelt, her soul in prayer thrown,
Unheeding still the lightning's lurid glare;
For what were raging sto...Read more of this...

by Field, Eugene
...ks of retrospection!

And lo! to-night, the phantom light,
That, as a sprite, flits on the fender,
Reveals a face whose girlish grace
Brings back the feeling, warm and tender;
And, all the while, the old-time smile
Plays on my visage, grim and wrinkled,--
As though, soubrette, your footfalls yet
Upon my rusty heart-strings tinkled!...Read more of this...

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