These unique and memorable poems delve into the tapestry of ancient myths and legends. They transport readers to realms of gods, goddesses, heroes, and mythical creatures.
These lyrical poems weave timeless tales of creation, heroism, love, and betrayal. Poets explore the symbolism and allegories embedded in mythology, drawing parallels to contemporary human experiences.
These poems celebrate the enduring fascination with mythology, reflecting on its role in shaping cultures, morals, and collective imagination throughout history.
‘Odysseus to Telemachus’ by Joseph Brodsky is told from the perspective of the epic hero, Odysseus, while he is stranded on Circe’s island.
My dear Telemachus,
The Trojan War
is over now; I don't recall who won it.
The Greeks, no doubt, for only they would leave
‘Horatius’ by Thomas Babington Macaulay is a long narrative ballad about Horatius Cocles, a legendary hero from early Roman history.
LARS Porsena of Clusium
By the Nine Gods he swore
That the great house of Tarquin
Should suffer wrong no more.
‘Not my Best Side’ by U. A. Fanthorpe depicts a humorous transformation of the dynamic between the characters in Paolo Uccello’s Saint George and the Dragon.
Not my best side, I'm afraid. The artist didn't give me a chance to Pose properly, and as you can see, Poor chap, he had this obsession with
‘Evening’ by Friedrich Schiller contains a speaker’s plea to Apollo that he allow the sun to set and rest, and love to descend.
Oh! thou bright-beaming god, the plains are thirsting,
Thirsting for freshening dew, and man is pining;
Wearily move on thy horses--
Let, then, thy chariot descend!
The Lady of Shalott by Alfred Lord Tennyson is a popular ballad that illustrates the life of a woman isolated in a tower in a tower far from what she wants to live and experience.
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
‘Kubla Khan’ by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a poem that describes the poet’s dream of visiting the palace of Kubla Khan, a Mongol emperor who ruled over the ancient Chinese Yuan Dynasty.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
‘Bards of Passion and of Mirth’ by John Keats is one of the poet’s early odes. In it, Keats confirms that bards, or authors, have two souls, with one rising to heaven, and the other staying on earth.
Bards of Passion and of Mirth,
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Have ye souls in heaven too,
Doubled-lived in regions new?
‘Ithaka’ is a Greek language poem, written by the Greek poet Constantine Peter Cavafy. This piece features Odysseus’s journey to Ithaca, his home island.
As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
‘Circe’ by Hilda Doolittle is a poem that gives voice to Circe, a goddess and master of magical enchantments. Despite her power, she laments that she cannot control love.
It was easy enough
to bend them to my wish,
it was easy enough
to alter them with a touch,
‘The Song of Hiawatha’ Introduction by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is the first in a series of sections, or cantos, from the long epic poem, ‘The Song of Hiawatha.’
Should you ask me, whence these stories?
Whence these legends and traditions,
With the odors of the forest
With the dew and damp of meadows,
‘The Changeling’ by Charlotte Mew is a unique poem told from the perspective of a child who thinks she’s a fairy and longs to return to the fairy world.
Toll no bell for me, dear Father, dear Mother,
Waste no sighs;
There are my sisters, there is my little brother
Who plays in the place called Paradise,
‘Hiawatha’s Childhood’ by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow describes how the protagonist of ‘The Song of Hiawatha’ grew up and learned about his surroundings. It also focuses on the life of his grandmother.
By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By yhr shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
‘Beautiful’ by Carol Ann Duffy explores the physical and mental damage that can come from beauty by tracing the lives of four women.
She was born from an egg,
a daughter of the gods,
divinely fair, a pearl, drop-dead
gorgeous, beautiful, a peach,
‘Love Cycle’ by Chinua Achebe describes sunrise, sunset, and their effects on Earth using the metaphor of a barely happy couple.
At dawn slowly
the sun withdraws his
long misty arms of
embrace. Happy lovers
‘Far over the misty mountains cold’ by J.R.R. Tolkien depicts the destruction of Thorin Oakenshield’s home and his desire to win it back from Smaug.
Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To seek the pale enchanted gold.
‘Two Lovers and a Beachcomber by the Real Sea’ by Sylvia Plath explores imagination. Reality, the speaker realizes, doesn’t always live up to what one imagined.
Cold and final, the imagination
Shuts down its fabled summer house;
Blue views are boarded up; our sweet vacation
Dwindles in the hour-glass.
‘Failing and Flying’ by Jack Gilbert explores the idea that although something may ultimately fail, the process of arriving at that point may be a triumph.
Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
‘Lady Lazarus’ is one of the best poems of Sylvia Plath and an ideal example of Plath’s diction. This poem contains Plath’s poetic expression of her suicidal thoughts.
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it——
‘A Musical Instrument’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning describes the decimation of a riverbed and the crafting of the god Pan’s famous flute.
High on the shore sate the great god Pan,
While turbidly flowed the river ;
And hacked and hewed as a great god can,
With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,
‘A Picture of Otto’ by Ted Hughes is addressed to Sylvia Plath’s father, Otto. It contains Hughes’ disagreements about how he and Otto were depicted in Plath’s work.
‘Actaeon’ by A. E. Stallings is based on the captivating mythological story of Actaeon and is told from the perspective of a speaker who taunts the main character for how he lost his life.
The hounds, you know them all by name.
You fostered them from purblind whelps
At their dam’s teats, and you have come
To know the music of their yelps:
‘Amethyst Beads’ by Eavan Boland alludes to Greek mythology and the suffering of a child, Persephone, after she was separated from her mother, Demeter.
‘Circe’ by Carol Ann Duffy is a poem about Circe’s reassertion of control over her life and how she now considers men.
I'm fond, nereids and nymphs, unlike some, of the pig,
of the tusker, the snout, the boar and the swine.
One way or another, all pigs have been mine -
under my thumb, the bristling, salty skin of their backs,
in my nostrils here, their yobby, porky colognes.
‘Delilah’ by Carol Ann Duffy focuses on the story of Delilah. It illuminates her individuality and how she felt about Samson.
Teach me, he said—
we were lying in bed—
how to care.
I nibbled the purse of his ear.
What do you mean?
Tell me more.
He sat up and reached for his beer
‘Icarus’ by Edward Field places the Icarus of Greek mythology in a modern context to explore themes of alienation and displacement.
Wright’s poem ‘In Response to a Rumor That the Oldest Whorehouse in Wheeling, West Virginia Has Been Condemned’ describes how a speaker finds the evening scene of a whorehouse quite fascinating and fairy-tale-like.
‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ describes the birth of the Christ child on a “bleak midwinter” day and those who came to see him.
In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.
Published in Yeats’ collection of Later Poems in 1926, ‘Leda and the Swan’ is a sonnet based on a myth from Greek mythology. According to Greek myth, Leda was the mother of mankind.
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
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