Classical Poetry By Women 

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.