Famous Perseus Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Perseus poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous perseus poems. These examples illustrate what a famous perseus poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Levy, Amy
...gone by, and yet
How clearly now I see it all!
The glimmer of your cigarette,
The little chamber, narrow and tall.
Perseus; your picture in its frame;
(How near they seem and yet how far!)
The blaze of kindled logs; the flame
Of tulips in a mighty jar.
Florence and spring-time: surely each
Glad things unto the spirit saith.
Why did you lead me in your speech
To these dark mysteries of death?...Read more of this...
by
Hopkins, Gerard Manley
...now hears roar
A wilder beast from West than all were, more
Rife in her wrongs, more lawless, and more lewd.
Her Perseus linger and leave her tó her extremes?—
Pillowy air he treads a time and hangs
His thoughts on her, forsaken that she seems,
All while her patience, morselled into pangs,
Mounts; then to alight disarming, no one dreams,
With Gorgon's gear and barebill, thongs and fangs....Read more of this...
by
Benet, Stephen Vincent
...To W. R. B.
And so, to you, who always were
Perseus, D'Artagnan, Lancelot
To me, I give these weedy rhymes
In memory of earlier times.
Now all those careless days are not.
Of all my heroes, you endure.
Words are such silly things! too rough,
Too smooth, they boil up or congeal,
And neither of us likes emotion --
But I can't measure my devotion!
And you know how I really feel --
...Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...br>
I mocked, being crazy, but you mastered it
And broke the chain and set my ankles free,
Saint George or else a pagan Perseus;
And now we stare astonished at the sea,
And a miraculous strange bird shrieks at us....Read more of this...
by
Hayden, Robert
...Her sleeping head with its great gelid mass
of serpents torpidly astir
burned into the mirroring shield--
a scathing image dire
as hated truth the mind accepts at last
and festers on.
I struck. The shield flashed bare.
Yet even as I lifted up the head
and started from that place
of gazing silences and terrored stone,
I thirsted to destroy....Read more of this...
by
Plath, Sylvia
...hed, victorious, as the cosmic
Laugh does away with the unstitching, plaguey wounds
Of an eternal sufferer.
To you
Perseus, the palm, and may you poise
And repoise until time stop, the celestial balance
Which weighs our madness with our sanity....Read more of this...
by
Seeger, Alan
...and the ruined town;
Or the long clouds would end. Intensely fair,
The winter constellations blazing forth --
Perseus, the Twins, Orion, the Great Bear --
Gleamed on our bayonets pointing to the north.
And the lone sentinel would start and soar
On wings of strong emotion as he knew
That kinship with the stars that only War
Is great enough to lift man's spirit to.
And ever down the curving front, aglow
With the pale rockets' intermittent light,
He...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...me,
And far away the moil, the shout, the groan,
As Hector shielded off the spear and Ajax hurled the stone;
Of winged Perseus with his flawless sword
Cleaving the snaky tresses of the witch,
And all those tales imperishably stored
In little Grecian urns, freightage more rich
Than any gaudy galleon of Spain
Bare from the Indies ever! these at least bring back again,
For well I know they are not dead at all,
The ancient Gods of Grecian poesy:
They are asleep, and when they h...Read more of this...
by
Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...nd this sharp Thunder threw.
That Taunt no Lyon's Heart cou'd bear;
And now much more he raves,
Whilst this new Perseus in the Air
Do's War and Strife again declare,
And all his Terrour braves.
Upon his haughty Neck she rides,
Then on his lashing Tail;
(Which need not now provoke his Sides)
Where she her slender Weapon guides,
And makes all Patience fail.
A Truce at length he must propose,
The Terms to be her Own;
Who likewise Rest and Quiet chose,...Read more of this...
by
Killigrew, Anne
...the Flame,
'Adores her much-derided Name;
'While impiously her hands they tie,
'Loves her in her Captivity;
'Like Perseus saves her, when she stands
'Expos'd to the Leviathans.
'So did bright Lamps once live in Urns,
'So Camphire in the water burns,
'So Ætna's Flames do ne'er go out,
'Though Snows do freeze its head without.
How dares bold Vice unmasked walk,
And like a Giant proudly stalk?
When Vertue's so exalted seen,
Arm'd and Triumphant in the Que...Read more of this...
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