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Famous Medea Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...;
No deaths, no prodigious injuries
Glut these hunters after an old meat,
Blood-spoor of the austere tragedies.

Mother Medea in a green smock
Moves humbly as any housewife through
Her ruined apartments, taking stock
Of charred shoes, the sodden upholstery:
Cheated of the pyre and the rack,
The crowd sucks her last tear and turns away....Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia



...bend the knee
In profitless prostrations whose effect
Is by itself condemned, what alchemy
Can teach me this? what herb Medea brewed
Will bring the unexultant peace of essence not subdued?

The minor chord which ends the harmony,
And for its answering brother waits in vain
Sobbing for incompleted melody,
Dies a swan's death; but I the heir of pain,
A silent Memnon with blank lidless eyes,
Wait for the light and music of those suns which never rise.

The quenched-out torch, th...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar
...Where in the map of all my misery 
Is modell'd out the world of my disgrace. 
Whilst, in despite of tyrannizing times, 
Medea-like, I make thee young again, 
Proudly thou scorn'st my world-outwearing rhymes 
And murtherest virtue with thy coy disdain. 
And though in youth my youth untimely perish, 
To keep thee from oblivion and the grave 
Ensuing ages yet my rhymes shall cherish, 
When I entomb'd, my better part shall save; 
And though this earthly body fade and die, 
My nam...Read more of this...
by Drayton, Michael
...nch again
Into the white-plumed battle of the waves
And fight old Proteus for the spoil of coral-flowered caves!

O for Medea with her poppied spell!
O for the secret of the Colchian shrine!
O for one leaf of that pale asphodel
Which binds the tired brows of Proserpine,
And sheds such wondrous dews at eve that she
Dreams of the fields of Enna, by the far Sicilian sea,

Where oft the golden-girdled bee she chased
From lily to lily on the level mead,
Ere yet her sombre Lord had...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar
...e agone*, *olden times*
Nor yet the folly of King Solomon,
Nor yet the greate strength of Hercules,
Th' enchantments of Medea and Circes,
Nor of Turnus the hardy fierce courage,
The rich Croesus *caitif in servage.*  *abased into slavery*
Thus may ye see, that wisdom nor richess,
Beauty, nor sleight, nor strength, nor hardiness
Ne may with Venus holde champartie*, *divided possession 
For as her liste the world may she gie*. *guide
Lo, all these folk so caught were in...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey



...d Leander for his fair Hero;
The teares of Helene, and eke the woe
Of Briseis, and Laodamia;
The cruelty of thee, Queen Medea,
Thy little children hanging by the halse*, *neck
For thy Jason, that was of love so false.
Hypermnestra, Penelop', Alcest',
Your wifehood he commendeth with the best.
But certainly no worde writeth he
Of *thilke wick'* example of Canace, *that wicked*
That loved her own brother sinfully;
(Of all such cursed stories I say, Fy),
Or else of Tyrius Apollo...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things