Classical Poetry by Women
I selected a handful of poems I quite like, do let me know if you do too! Some of these will only be part of the full poems, as a few of them are long. Including one of my all time favorite poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning: A True Dream so I would encourage any readers to pursue the full extent of these poems and read other works by these fascinating poets.
Aphra Behn 1640-1689
A spy and playwright
The Willing Mistress
Amyntas led me to a grove,
Where all the trees did shade us;
The sun itself, though it had strove,
It could not have betrayed us.
The place secured from human eyes
No other fear allows
But when the winds that gently rise
Do kiss the yielding boughs.
A thousand amorous tricks, to pass
The heat of all the day.
A many kisses did he give
And I returned the same,
Which made me willing to receive
That which I dare not name.
His charming eyes no aid required
To tell their softening tale;
On her that was already fired,
‘Twas easy to prevail.
He did but kiss and clasp me round,
Whilst those his thoughts expressed:
And laid me gently on the ground;
Ah who can guess the rest?
Charlotte Smith 1749-1806
“An early worshipper at nature’s shrine”
Pressed by the Moon, Mute Arbitress of Tides
(Written in the churchyard at Middleton in Sussex)
Pressed by the moon, mute arbitress of tides,
While the loud equinox its power combines,
The sea no more its swelling surge confines,
But o’er the shrinking land sublimely rides.
The wild blast, rising from the western cave,
Drives the huge billows from their heaving bed,
Tears from their grassy tombs the village dead,
And breaks the silent sabbath of the grave!
With shells and seaweed mingled, on the shore
Lo! Their bones whiten in the frequent wave;
But vain to them the winds and waters rave;
They hear the warring elements no more:
While I am doomed—by life’s long storm oppressed,
To gaze with envy on their gloomy rest.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806-1861
Admired by Poe and Lord Tennyson
A True Dream
(Dreamed at Sidmouth 1833)
I had not an evil end in view,
Though I trod the evil way;
And why I practised the magic art,
My dream it did not say.
I unsealed the vial mystical,
I outpoured the liquid thing,
And while the smoke came wreathing out,
I stood unshuddering.
The smoke came wreathing, wreathing out,
All mute, and dark, and slow,
Till its cloud was stained with a fleshly hue,
And a fleshly form ‘gan show.
Then paused the smoke—the fleshly form
Looked steadfast in mine ee,
His beard was black as a thundercloud,
But I trembled not to see.
…
Emily Dickinson 1830-1886
In her later years she turned herself into a poem, living dramatically as a mythic recluse.
Death is the supple Suitor
Death is the supple Suitor
That wins at last—
It is a stealthy Wooing
Conducted first
By pallid innuendoes
And dim approach
But brave at last with Bugles
And a bisected Coach
It bears away in triumph
To Troth unknown
And Kindred as responsive
As Porcelain.
Marianne Moore 1887-1972
She, as a poet, once remarked, “I too dislike it. There are things that are important beyond all this fiddle.” Marianne was also famous for wearing a three pointed hat.
The World
By day she wooes me, soft, exceeding fair:
But all night as the moon so changeth she;
Loathsome and foul with hideous leprosy
And subtle serpents gliding in her hair.
By day she wooes me to the outer air,
Ripe fruits, sweet flowers, and full satiety:
But thro’ the night, a beast she grins at me,
A very monster void of love and prayer.
By day she stands a lie: by night she stands
In all the naked horror of the truth
With pushing horns and clawed and clutching hands.
Is this a friend indeed; that I should sell
My soul to her, give her my life and youth,
Till my feet, cloven too, take hold on hell?
O to Be a Dragon
If I, like Solomon,
Could have my wish—
My wish…O to be a dragon,
A symbol of the power of Heaven—of silkworm
Size or immense; at times invisible.
Felicitous phenomenon!
Edna St. Vincent Millay 1892-1950
Taught to write verse at four, redheaded, green eyed, a celebrity amongst artists and intellectuals.
Women have loved before as I love now
Women have loved before as I love now;
At least, in lively chronicles of the past—
Of Irish waters by a Cornish prow
Or Trojan waters by a Spartan mast
Much to their cost invaded—here and there,
Hunting the amorous line, skimming the rest,
I find some woman bearing as I bear
Love like a burning city in the breast.
I think however that of all alive
I only in such utter, ancient way
Do suffer love; in me alone survive
The unregenerate passions of a day
When treacherous queens, with death upon the tread,
Heedless and wilful, took their knights to bed.