33 Enrapturing Poems About Princesses

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Here are my favorite poems about princesses categorized:

  • Princess poems for her
  • Princess poems for little girls
  • Beautiful princess poems

So if you want the best poems about princesses, then you’re in the right place.

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33 Best Poems About Princesses (Handpicked)
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Enrapturing Poems About Princesses

Discover a carefully curated collection of the finest poems about princesses, thoughtfully categorized for your convenience.

From enchanting princess poems perfect for special occasions, to beautiful verses that capture the essence of royalty, find the best examples of poetic elegance in one convenient location.

Our handpicked selection promises to transport you to a world of grace, beauty, and wonder, where the magic of princesses reigns supreme.

Start your journey through the world of princess poetry today and experience the enchantment for yourself.

Keep reading and enjoy!

My #1 Favorite Poem About Princesses

on top of a mountain, a princess in a pink dress with a long train

“A Song of the Princess” by Sara Teasdale

The princess has her lovers,
A score of knights has she,
And each can sing a madrigal,
And praise her gracefully.

But Love that is so bitter
Hath put within her heart
A longing for the scornful knight
Who silent stands apart.

And tho’ the others praise and plead,
She maketh no reply,
Yet for a single word from him,
I ween that she would die.

Princess Poems for Her

beautiful lady holding a bouquet of wildflowers in the woods

“The Princess” by Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson

The princess looked down from her bower high,
The youth blew his horn as he lingered thereby.
“Be quiet, O youth, will forever you blow?
It hinders my thoughts, that would far away go,
Now, when sets the sun.”

The princess looked down from her bower high,
The youth ceased his blowing, his horn he laid by.
“Why are you so quiet? Now more shall you blow,
It lifts all my thoughts, that would far away go,
Now, when sets the sun.”

The princess looked down from her bower high,
The youth blew again, as he lingered thereby.
Then weeping, she whispered: “O God, let me know
The name of this sorrow that burdens me so! –
Now has set the sun.”

“The Princess of Qulzum” by Nur Uddin (Edward Powys Mathers, Translator)

A Ballade.

I have seen a small proud face brimming with sunlight;
I have seen the daughter of the King of Qulzum passing from grace to
grace.
Yesterday she threw her bed on the floor of her double house
And laughed with a thousand graces.
She has a little pearl and coral cap
And rides in a palanquin with servants about her
And claps her hands, being too proud to call.
I have seen a small proud face brimming with sunlight.

“My palanquin is truly green and blue;
I fill the world with pomp and take my pleasure;
I make men run up and down before me,
And am not as young a girl as you pretend.
I am of Iran, of a powerful house, I am pure steel.
I hear that I am spoken of in Lahore.”
I have seen a small proud face brimming with sunlight.

I also hear that they speak of you in Lahore,
You walk with a joyous step,
Your nails are red and the palms of your hands are rosy.
A pear-tree with a fresh stem is in your palace gardens,

I would not that your mother should give my pear-tree
To twine with an evil spice-tree or fool banana.
I have seen a small proud face brimming with sunlight.

“The coins that my father gave me for my forehead
Throw rays and light the hearts of far men;
The ray of light from my red ring is sharper than a diamond.
I go about and about in pride as of hemp wine
And my words are chosen.
But I give you my honey cheeks, dear, I trust them to you.”
I have seen a small proud face brimming with sunlight.

The words of my mouth are coloured and shining things;
And two great saints are my perpetual guards.
There is never a song of Nur Uddin but has in it a great achievement
And is as brilliant as a young hyacinth;
I pour a ray of honey on my disciples,
There is as it were a fire in my ballades.
I have seen a small proud face brimming with sunlight.

“The Princess” by W.J. Turner

The stone-grey roses by the desert’s rim
Are soft-edged shadows on the moonlit sand,
Grey are the broken walls of Khangavar,
That haunt of nightingales, whose voices are
Fountains that bubble in the dream-soft Moon.

Shall the Gazelles with moonbeam pale bright feet
Entering the vanished gardens sniff the air –
Some scent may linger of that ancient time,
Musician’s song, or poet’s passionate rhyme,
The Princess dead, still wandering love-sick there.

A Princess pale and cold as mountain snow,
In cool, dark chambers sheltered from the sun,
With long dark lashes and small delicate hands:
All Persia sighed to kiss her small red mouth
Until they buried her in shifting sand.

And the Gazelles shall flit by in the Moon
And never shake the frail Tree’s lightest leaves,
And moonlight roses perfume the pale Dawn
Until the scarlet life that left her lips
Gathers its shattered beauty in the sky.

a girl in a royal red gown on a mountain

“Lady of England” by George Pope Morris

Lady of England–o’er the seas
Thy name was borne on every breeze,
Till all this sunset clime became
Familiar with Victoria’s name.

Though seas divide us many miles,
Yet, for the Queen of those fair isles,
Which gave our fathers birth, there roves
A blessing from this Land of Groves.

Our Fatherland!–Fit theme for song!
When thou art named, what memories throng!
Shall England cease our love to claim?
Not while our language is the same.

Scion of kings! so live and reign,
That, when thy nation’s swelling strain
Is breathed amid our forests green,
We too may sing, “God save the Queen!”

“The Coming of the Princess” by Kate Seymour MacLean

I.
Break dull November skies, and make
A sunshine over wood and lake;
And fill your cells of frosty air
With thousand, thousand welcomes to the Princely pair!
The land and the sea are alight for them;
The wrinkled face of old Winter is bright for them ;
The honour and pride of a race
Secure in their dwelling place,
Steadfast and stern as the rocks that guard her,
Tremble and thrill and leap in their veins,
As the blood of one man through the beacon-lit border!
Like a fire, like a flame,
At the sound of her name,
As the smoky- throated cannon mutter it,
As the smiling lips of a nation utter it,
And a hundred rock-lights write it in fire!
Daughter of Empires, the Lady of Lorne,
Back through the mists of dim centuries borne,
None nobler, none gentler that brave name have worn;
Shrilled by storm-bugles, and rolled by the seas,
Louise!
Our Princess, our Empress, our Lady of Lorne!

II.
And the wild, white horses with flying manes
Wind-tost, the riderless steeds of the sea,
Neigh to her, call to her, dreadless and free,
” Fear not to follow us ; these thy domains;
Welcome, welcome, our Lady and Queen!
O Princess, oh daughter of kingliest sire!
Under its frost girdle throbbing and keen,
A new realm awaits thee, loyal and true!”
And the round-cheeked Tritons, with fillets of blue
Binding their sea-green and scintillant hair,
Blow thee a welcome ; their brawny arms bear
Thy keel through the waves like a bird through the air.

“The Princess (excerpt)” by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height:
What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang),
In height and cold, the splendour of the hills?
But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease
To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine,
To sit a star upon the sparkling spire;
And come, for Love is of the valley, come,
For Love is of the valley, come thou down
And find him; by the happy threshold, he,
Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize,
Or red with spirted purple of the vats,
Or foxlike in the vine; nor cares to walk
With Death and Morning on the silver horns,
Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine,
Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice,
That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls
To roll the torrent out of dusky doors:
But follow; let the torrent dance thee down
To find him in the valley; let the wild
Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave
The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill
Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke
That like a broken purpose waste in air:
So waste not thou; but come; for all the vales
Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth
Arise to thee; the children call, and I
Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound,
Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;
Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro’ the lawn,
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees.

beautiful girl in a vintage dress of the 19th century

“Born to the Purple” by James Whitcomb Riley

Most-like it was this kingly lad
Spake out of the pure joy he had
In his child -heart of the wee maid
Whose eerie beauty sudden laid
A spell upon him, and his words
Burst as a song of any bird’s :
A peerless Princess thou shalt be,
Through wit of love’s rare sorcery :

To crown the crown of thy gold hair
Thou shalt have rubies, bleeding there
Their crimson splendor midst the marred
Pulp of great pearls, and afterward
Leaking in fainter ruddy stains
Adown thy neck -and – armlet- chains
Of turquoise, chrysoprase, and mad
Light- frenzied diamonds, dartling glad
Swift spirts of shine that interfuse
As though with lucent crystal dews
That glance and glitter like split rays
Of sunshine, born of burgeoning Mays
When the first bee tilts down the lip
Of the first blossom , and the drip

Of blended dew and honey heaves
Him blinded midst the underleaves.
For raiment, Fays shall weave for thee
Out of the phosphor of the sea
And the frayed floss of starlight, spun
With counterwarp of the firm sun
A vesture of such filmy sheen
As, through all ages, never queen
Therewith strove truly to make less
One fair line of her loveliness.
Thus gowned and crowned with gems and gold,
Thou shalt, through centuries untold,
Rule, ever young and ever fair,
As now thou rulest, smiling there.

“Dedicatory Poem to the Princess Alice” by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Dead Princess, living Power, if that which lived
True life live on–and if the fatal kiss,
Born of true life and love, divorce thee not
From earthly love and life–if what we call
The spirit flash not all at once from out
This shadow into Substance–then perhaps
The mellow’d murmur of the people’s praise
From thine own State, and all our breadth of realm,
Where Love and Longing dress thy deeds in light,
Ascends to thee; and this March morn that sees
Thy Soldier-brother’s bridal orange-bloom
Break thro’ the yews and cypress of thy grave,
And thine Imperial mother smile again,
May send one ray to thee! and who can tell–
Thou–England’s England-loving daughter–thou
Dying so English thou wouldst have her flag
Borne on thy coffin–where is he can swear
But that some broken gleam from our poor earth
May touch thee, while, remembering thee, I lay
At thy pale feet this ballad of the deeds
Of England, and her banner in the East?

“To the Princess Lucretia By Torquato Tasso” (Jeremiah Holmes Wiffen, Translator)

Thou, lady, in thine early days
Of life didst seem a purple rose,
That dreads the suitor sun’s warm rays,
Nor dares its virgin breast disclose;
But coy, and crimsoning to be seen,
Lies folded yet in leaves of green.

Or rather (for no earthly thing
Was like thee then), thou didst appear
Divine Aurora, when her wing
On every blossom shakes a tear,
And spangled o’er with dewdrops cold,
The mountain summits tints with gold.

Those days are past; yet from thy face
No charm the speeding years have snatched,
But left it ripening every grace,
In perfect loveliness, unmatched
By what thou wert, when, young and shy,
Thy timid graces shunned the eye.

More lovely looks the flower matured,
When full its fragrant leaves it spreads;
More rich the sun, when, unobscured,
At noon a brighter beam it sheds:
Thou, in thy beauty, blendest both
The sun’s ascent and rose’s growth.

beautiful lady in a vintage dress walks in the garden holding a red rose

“To H.R.H. Princess Beatrice” by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Two Suns of Love make day of human life,
Which else with all its pains, and griefs, and deaths,
Were utter darkness–one, the Sun of dawn
That brightens thro’ the Mother’s tender eyes,
And warms the child’s awakening world–and one
The later-rising Sun of spousal Love,
Which from her household orbit draws the child
To move in other spheres. The Mother weeps
At that white funeral of the single life,
Her maiden daughter’s marriage; and her tears
Are half of pleasure, half of pain–the child
Is happy–even in leaving her! but thou,
True daughter, whose all-faithful, filial eyes
Have seen the loneliness of earthly thrones,
Wilt neither quit the widow’d Crown, nor let
This later light of Love have risen in vain,
But moving thro’ the Mother’s home, between
The two that love thee, lead a summer life,
Sway’d by each Love, and swaying to each Love,
Like some conjectured planet in mid heaven
Between two suns, and drawing down from both
The light and genial warmth of double day.

“A Medley: Come Down, O Maid (The Princess)” by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height:
What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang)
In height and cold, the splendour of the hills?
But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease
To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine,
To sit a star upon the sparkling spire;
And come, for Love is of the valley, come,
For Love is of the valley, come thou down
And find him; by the happy threshold, he,
Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize,
Or red with spirted purple of the vats,
Or foxlike in the vine; nor cares to walk
With Death and Morning on the silver horns,
Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine,
Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice,
That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls
To roll the torrent out of dusky doors:
But follow; let the torrent dance thee down
To find him in the valley; let the wild
Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave
The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill
Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke,
That like a broken purpose waste in air:
So waste not thou; but come; for all the vales
Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth
Arise to thee; the children call, and I
Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound,
Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;
Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro’ the lawn,
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees.

“Lady Hamilton” by Muriel Stuart

Men wondered why I loved you, and none guessed
How sweet your slow, divine stupidity,
Your look of earth, your sense of drowsy rest,
So rich, so strange, so all unlike my sea.
After the temper of my sails, my lean
Tall masts, you were the lure of harbour hours,–
A sleepy landscape warm and very green,
Where browsing creatures stare above still flowers.
These salt hands holding sweetness, the leader led,
A slave, too happy and crazed to rule,
Sea land-locked, brine and honey in one bed,
And Englands’s man your servant and your fool!
My banqueting eyes foreswore my waiting ships;
I was a silly landsman at your lips.

Red-haired princess in a white dress and a black veil with a crown

“A Great Princess” by John Donne

III.
Up then faire Phœnix Bride, frustrate the Sunne,
Thy selfe from thine affection
Takest warmth enough, and from thine eye
All lesser birds will take their Jollitie.
Up, up, faire Bride, and call,
Thy starres, from out their severall boxes, take
Thy Rubies, Pearles, and Diamonds forth, and make
Thy selfe a constellation, of them All,
And by their blazing, signifie,
That a Great Princess falls, but doth not die;
Bee thou a new starre, that to us portends
Ends of much wonder; And be Thou those ends.
Since thou dost this day in new glory shine,
May all men date Records, from this thy Valentine.

“Mary” by William Butler Yeats

How a Princess Edane,
A daughter of a King of Ireland, heard
A voice singing on a May Eve like this,
And followed half awake and half asleep,
Until she came into the Land of Faery,
Where nobody gets old and godly and grave,
Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise,
Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue.
And she is still there, busied with a dance
Deep in the dewy shadow of a wood,
Or where stars walk upon a mountain-top.

“Pomare” by Heinrich Heine (Edgar Alfred Bowring, Translator)

1.
All the gods of love are shouting
In my heart, and blowing airy
Flourishes, and crying: “Hail!
“Hail, thou mighty queen Pomare!”
Not the queen of Otaheite
Whom ’twas missionaries’ duty
To convert; no, she I mean
Is a wild untutor’d beauty.
Twice in every week appears she,
All her subjects quite entrancing
In that dear Jardin Mabille,
Waltzes and the polka dancing.
Majesty in all her footsteps,
Grace and beauty ne’er forsake her,
Quite a princess every inch,
Whichsoever way you take her.
Thus she dances—gods of love are
In my heart all blowing airy
Flourishes, and crying: “Hail!
“Hail, thou mighty queen Pomare!”

Princess Poems for Little Girls

Fantasy elf princess woman walks in dark night forest, holding glowing lantern in hands

“The Asra” by Heinrich Heine

Daily went the wondrous lovely
Sultan’s daughter at the cooling
Hour of evening to the fountain,
Where the waters white were plashing.
Daily at the hour of evening
Stood the young slave at the fountain
Where the waters white were plashing,
Daily grew he pale and paler.
And one evening came the princess,
And these sudden words address’d him:
“Thou must tell me what thy name is,
“And thy country and thy kindred!”
And the slave replied: “My name is
“Mahomet, I came from Yemmen,
“And my race is of those Asras,
“Who, whene’er they love, must perish.”

“The Princess’s Finger-Nail: A Tale of Nonsense Land” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

All through the Castle of High-bred Ease,
Where the chief employment was do-as-you-please,
Spread consternation and wild despair.
The queen was wringing her hands and hair;
The maids of honor were sad and solemn;
The pages looked blank as they stood in column;
The court-jester blubbered, ‘Boo-hoo, boo-hoo’;
The cook in the kitchen dropped tears in the stew;
And all through the castle went sob and wail,
For the princess had broken her finger-nail:
The beautiful Princess Red-as-a-Rose,
Bride-elect of the Lord High-Nose,
Broken her finger—nail down to the quick—
No wonder the queen and her court were sick.
Never sorrow so dread before
Had dared to enter that castle door.
Oh! what would my Lord His-High-Nose say
When she took off her glove on her wedding-day?
The fairest princess in Nonsense Land,
With a broken finger-nail on her hand!
’Twas a terrible, terrible accident,
And they called a meeting of parliament;
And never before that royal Court
Had come such question of grave import
As ‘How could you hurry a nail to grow?’
And the skill of the kingdom was called to show.
They sent for Monsieur File-’em-off;
He smoothed down the corners so ragged and rough.
They sent for Madame la Diamond-Dust,
Who lived on the fingers of upper-crust;
They sent for Professor de Chamois-Skin,
Who took her powder and rubbed it in;
They sent for the pudgy nurse Fat-on-the-bone
To bathe her finger in eau de Cologne;
And they called the Court surgeon, Monsieur Red-Tape,
To hear what he thought of the new nail’s shape.
Over the kingdom the telegrams flew
Which told how the finger-nail thrived and grew;
And all through the realm of Nonsense Land
They offered up prayers for the princess’s hand.
At length the glad tidings were heard with a shout
That the princess’s finger-nail had grown out:
Pointed and polished and pink and clean,
Befitting the hand of a some-day queen.
Salutes were fired all over the land
By the home-guard battery pop-gun band;
And great was the joy of my Lord High-Nose,
Who straightway ordered his wedding clothes,
And paid his tailor, Don Wait-for-aye,
Who died of amazement the self-same day.
My lord by a jury was judged insane;
For they said, and the truth of the saying was plain,
That a lord of such very high pedigree
Would never be paying his bills, you see,
Unless he was out of his head; and so
They locked him up without more ado.
And the beautiful Princess Red-as-a-Rose
Pined for her lover, my Lord High-Nose,
Till she entered a convent and took the veil–
And this is the end of my nonsense tale.

“The Escaped Princess” by Wilfred Rowland Childe

II.
In the high town’s last inn the soul sits down,
Drinks ale with her fair lover in the inn :
Ah no, the proud one thinks it not a sin,
Laughter in that last tavern of the town.
a She has red lips, and he a cloak of red ;
She comes from pasturing in lonely lands
Desires, pale things, in melancholy herds :
But now for her’s a cage of snow -white birds,
She holds the amber draught between her hands,
And on his bright breast leans her floral head.

a beautiful princess nymph walking in the woods

“Song: The Princesses Were Singing” by Arthur Davison Ficke

“The Princesses were singing
Before the belted Lords,
Heads high, with sweet lips ringing,
And the Minstrel gave the words.

“But the Eldest Princess only
Lingered upon each note,
And a beauty strange and lonely
Was on her soft white throat,

“A beauty that half was sadness,
Or full-bloomed Summer’s pain,
More deep than the Spring’s swift gladness,
And touched with the Autumn rain.

“And I think that the Princess trembled
With the dream of a far desire;
And the passion in pride dissembled
Glowed up to her lips like fire,

“As she sang the song of the Minstrel
Who gave her the tender words,
As he stood in the hidden shadow
Behind the smiling Lords.

“For he was a boy, the Minstrel,
And his ways lay far apart.
But all men’s ways were his ways,
For he had the poet’s heart.

“And he saw the Eldest Princess
Like a flower on the heights above.
And he trembled below in silence
For her loneliness of love.

“But the Princesses still were singing
Before the smiling Lords,
Heads high, with sweet lips ringing,
And the Minstrel gave the words.

“‘Tis an old and well- worn story,
But I think that it once came true.
For I know the dream of the Princess,
And the Princess who dreamed was you.”

“The Princess in the Tower” by Sara Teasdale

The Princess sings:

I am the princess up in the tower
And I dream the whole day thro’
Of a knight who shall come with a silver spear
And a waving plume of blue.

I am the princess up in the tower,
And I dream my dreams by day,
But sometimes I wake, and my eyes are wet,
When the dusk is deep and gray.

For the peasant lovers go by beneath,
I hear them laugh and kiss,
And I forget my day-dream knight,
And long for a love like this.

II
The Minstrel sings:

I lie beside the princess’ tower,
So close she cannot see my face,
And watch her dreaming all day long,
And bending with a lily’s grace.

Her cheeks are paler than the moon
That sails along a sunny sky,
And yet her silent mouth is red
Where tender words and kisses lie.

I am a minstrel with a harp,
For love of her my songs are sweet,
And yet I dare not lift the voice
That lies so far beneath her feet.

III
The Knight sings:

O princess cease your dreams awhile
And look adown your tower’s gray side,
The princess gazes far away,
Nor hears nor heeds the words I cried.

Perchance my heart was overbold,
God made her dreams too pure to break,
She sees the angels in the air
Fly to and fro for Mary’s sake.

Farewell, I mount and go my way,
But oh her hair the sun sifts thro’,
The tilts and tourneys wait my spear,
I am the Knight of the Plume of Blue.

“Down in the Clover” by Mary E. Wilkins

Mid feeding lambs and springing grass
There sat a little lad and lass ,
Agreen umbrella overhead,
The flickering shade of boughs instead,
And read a book of fairy rhyme,
All in their gay vacation time.

Quoth he: ” The dearest, queerest story
Was that one of the fairy prince,
Who sailed down stream in his pearl dory,
Neath boughs of rose and flowering quince,
To savethe lovely princess whom
The wicked, white-haired, old witch-lady
Kept in a tower of awful gloom,
Deep in a magic forest shady :
How proud he tossed his plumed head
Before the witch’s door, and said “.

SHEEP: Ba-a, ba-a! Honey-sweet the clover’s blowing.
Ba-a, ba-a! Juicy-green the grass is growing.

“I think, ” quoth she, ” there’s one that’s better :
About that little fairy girl,
Who bound the ogre with a fetter
Of spider-wort and grass and pearl ;
Then singing in the gateway sat,
Till up the road the prince came prancing,
A jewelled feather in his hat,
And set the cherry-boughs a-dancing.
How low he bent his handsome head
Before the fairy girl, and said ” .

SHEEP: Ba-a, ba-a ! Who the day so sweetly passes
As a lamb who never stops,
But from dawn to twilight crops
Clover-heads and dewy grasses?”

“Well, by and by I think I’ll be
A fairy prince as brave as he :
I’ll wind a silver bugle clear,
Low and dim you’ll hear it, dear ;
Asword with jewelled hilt I’ll bear,
A cap and heron-plume I’ll wear,
And I will rescue you, ” quoth he.
“Fast to the witch’s tower I’ll fly,
And beat upon the gate, and cry”

SHEEP: Ba-a, ba-a ! Sweet the simple life we’re leading,
In the sweet green pasture feeding!

Then quoth the little reader fair,
“I’ve changed my mind, for I don’t dare
To stay there in the witch’s tower ;
I’ll be the dame who found a flower
Of gold and rubies in the tale And sold it for a fairy veil,
Which made her look so sweet and true
That she was dearly loved; then you

SHEEP: Ba-a, ba-a ! Turn the juicy morsel over.
Who would be a lad or lass,
Ifhe could his summer pass
As the sheep amongst the clover?
Grasshoppers on daisies teeter,
Dew-drops clovers sweeten sweeter.
Who can care for stupid tales,
Fairy horns and fairy veils,
Fairy princess, fairy prince ?
Yet we must not blame them, since
(Turn the juicy morsel over)
They cannot be sheep in clover.

beautiful young lady in a long red medieval dress sitting in the field

“Princess Apple-seed and Her Sisters” by Mrs. Clara Doty Bates

Long time age there was a king,
Who, without sense or reason,
Shut all his pretty daughters up
Within a gloomy prison.

There were so many, he had felt
Them very troublesome:
There were Apple-seed and Apple-corn,
And little Apple- crumb;
There were Wire, Brier, Limber- lock
A dozen, maybe, in the flock.
His order read: “Let every one
Put on a cloak of black,

And each be shut from the world so close
She never can come back.”
The dismal hinges creaked and swung;
Outside a mournful phoebe sung.
The little daughters in their cells
Lay very snug and warm,
The heavy walls kept out the cold,
And shed the winter storm .
But the hinges rusted on the doors
The king had thought so stout,

And presently the princesses
Came gayly stepping out.
They had rested well, were wide awake,
And very glad to come ;
There were Apple-seed and Apple- corn,
And little Apple-crumb ;
There were Wire, Brier, Limber- lock
Fully a dozen in the flock.

Then every one in the warm sun
Dropped off her cloak of black,
And threw a shining scarf of green
Across her slender back,
Where, soft as a morning mist, it clung;
And loud the happy blackbird sung.

There, year by year, they grew apace,
And grave and simple stood ;
Till suddenly, one April dayAs every princess should
Each put a wedding garment on,
White as the drifted snows,
And blushed through all her finery
Red as a damask rose.
Ah, how the birds did chant and shout,
And how the bees did hum
For Apple-seed and Apple-corn,
And little Apple- crumb,,
For Wire, Brier, Limber-lock,
And all the lovely bridal flock !

‘Twas not for grief, but from relief,
As ladies often do,
That the Sky took out her handkerchief
And shed a tear or two.
Meanwhile the music chimed and rung,
As orioles, thrushes, robins, sung.
At last the brides their gay attire
Laid by, to stand serene,

As summer waned into the fall,
In matron dress of green.
And each within her tender arms
Did gently rock and hold,
For sun to see, and breeze to touch,
Some little heads of gold.

The orchard then was beautiful,
Though birds and bees were dumb,
For Apple-seed, and Apple-corn,
And little Apple-crumb,
For Wire, Brier, Limber-lock,
Each had her own fair household flock.

“On Hearing the Princess Royal Sing” by Victor Hugo (Nelson R. Tyerman, Translator)

In thine abode so high
Where yet one scarce can breathe,
Dear child, most tenderly
A soft song thou dost wreathe.

Thou singest, little girl–
Thy sire, the King is he:
Around thee glories whirl,
But all things sigh in thee.

Thy thought may seek not wings
Of speech; dear love’s forbidden;
Thy smiles, those heavenly things,
Being faintly born, are chidden.

Thou feel’st, poor little Bride,
A hand unknown and chill
Clasp thine from out the wide
Deep shade so deathly still.

Thy sad heart, wingless, weak,
Is sunk in this black shade
So deep, thy small hands seek,
Vainly, the pulse God made.

Thou art yet but highness, thou
That shaft be majesty:
Though still on thy fair brow
Some faint dawn-flush may be,

Child, unto armies dear,
Even now we mark heaven’s light
Dimmed with the fume and fear
And glory of battle-might.

Thy godfather is he,
Earth’s Pope,–he hails thee, child!
Passing, armed men you see
Like unarmed women, mild.

As saint all worship thee;
Thyself even hast the strong
Thrill of divinity
Mingled with thy small song.

Each grand old warrior
Guards thee, submissive, proud;
Mute thunders at thy door
Sleep, that shall wake most loud.

Around thee foams the wild
Bright sea, the lot of kings.
Happier wert thou, my child,
I’ the woods a bird that sings!

“The Hartz-Journey by Heinrich Heine” (Edgar Alfred Bowring, Translator)

6.
I Am the princess Ilse,
And dwell in Ilsenstein;
Come with me to my castle,
And there ’midst pleasures be mine.
Thy head I’ll softly moisten
With my pellucid wave;
Thou shalt forget thine anguish,
Poor sorrow-stricken knave!
Within my arms so snowy,
Upon my snowy breast,
Shalt thou repose, and dream there
Of olden legends blest.
I’ll kiss thee and embrace thee,
As I embraced and kiss’d
The darling Kaiser Henry,
Who doth no longer exist.
None live except the living,
The dead are dead and gone;
And I am fair and blooming,
My laughing heart beats on.
And as my heart is beating,
My crystal castle doth ring;
The knights and maidens are dancing,
The squires all-joyfully spring.
The silken trains are rustling,
The spurs of iron are worn,
The dwarfs beat drum and trumpet,
And fiddle and play the horn.
But thee shall my arm hold warmly
As Kaiser Henry it held;
I held him fast imprison’d,
When loudly the trumpet’s note swell’d.

Beautiful Princess Poems

a beautiful lady princess in a green dress walks in the forest with a bouquet

“The Lady Cecile” by Marietta Holley

Sitting alone in the windy tower,
While the waves leap high, or are low at rest,
What does she think of, hour by hour,
With her strange eyes bent on the distant west,
And a fresh white rose on her withered breast,
What does she think of, hour by hour?
The Lady Cecile.

Low under the lattice, day by day,
White homeward sails like swallows come,
But the sad eyes look afar and away,
And the sailors’ songs as they near their home,
No glance may win, for she sitteth dumb,
With her sad eyes looking afar and away,
The Lady Cecile.

Just forty years has she dwelt alone
With an ancient servant, grim and gray,
Sat alone under sun and moon;
But once each year, on the third of June,
She treads the creaking staircase down,
But back in her tower with the dying day,
Is the Lady Cecile.

Beneath the tower of the lonesome hall,
Stone stairs creep down where the slow tide flows,
There, out of a niche in the mouldering wall,
Low leaneth a royal tropical rose:
Who set it there none cares, nor knows,
Long years ago in the mouldering wall,
But the Lady Cecile.

But each third of June as the sun dips low,
She descends the stairs to the water’s verge,
And plucks a rose from the lowest bough
Which the lapping waves almost submerge,
And what forms out of the deep, resurge
To vex her, maybe, with mournful brow,
Knows the Lady Cecile.

Her locks are sown with silver hairs,
And the face they shroud is pale and wan;
Once it was sweet as the rose she wears,
Though the perfect lips wore a proud disdain!
But the rose-face paled by time and pain,
No new springs know, like the flower she wears,
The Lady Cecile.

Why does she set the fresh white rose
So faithfully over her silent breast?
And what her thoughts are nobody knows,
She sits with her secret hid, unguessed,
With her strange eyes bent on the distant west,
So the slow years come, and the slow year goes,
O’er the Lady Cecile.

Forty years! and June the third
Came with a storm–loud the winds did blow–
And up in her tower the lady heard
The deep waves calling her far below;
Wild they leaped and surged, wild the winds did blow,
And, listening alone, she thought she heard
“Cecile! Cecile!”

And, wrapping her cloak round her withered form,
She crept down the stairs of crumbling stone;
Higher and fiercer raged the storm
As she bent and plucked the rose–but one
Had the tempest spared–and the winds did moan,
And she thought that she heard o’er the voice of the storm,
“Cecile! Cecile!”

She placed the rose on her bloodless breast,
And dizzy and faint she reached the tower,
And her strange eyes looked out again on the west,
And a wave dashed up, as she looked from the tower,
Like a hand, and lifted the roots of the flower,
And swept it–carried it out to the west,
From the Lady Cecile.

And like death was her face, when suddenly,
Strangely–a tremulous golden gleam
Pierced the pile of clouds, high-massed and gray,
And the shining, quivering, golden beam
Seemed a bridge of light–a gold highway
Thrown o’er the wild waves of the bay;
And the Lady Cecile

Did eagerly out of her lattice lean
With her glad eyes bent on that bridge gold-bright,
As if some form by her rapt eyes seen,
Were beckoning her down that path of light,
That quivering, shining, led from sight,
Ending afar in the sunset sheen.
And the Lady Cecile

Cried with her lips that erst were dumb
“See! am I not true? your flower I wore,”
And her thin hand eagerly touched the flower,
“He is smiling upon me! yes, love, I come.”
And a pleasant light, like the light of home,
Lit her eyes, and life and pain were o’er
To the Lady Cecile.

“Lady Clara Vere de Vere” by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,
Of me you shall not win renown:
You thought to break a country heart
For pastime, ere you went to town.
At me you smiled, but unbeguiled
I saw the snare, and I retired;
The daughter of a hundred earls,
You are not one to be desired.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,
I know you proud to bear your name,
Your pride is yet no mate for mine,
Too proud to care from whence I came.
Nor would I break for your sweet sake
A heart that dotes on truer charms.
A simple maiden in her flower
Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,
Some meeker pupil you must find,
For, were you queen of all that is,
I could not stoop to such a mind.
You sought to prove how I could love,
And my disdain is my reply.
The lion on your old stone gates
Is not more cold to you than I.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,
You put strange memories in my head.
Not thrice your branching lines have blown
Since I beheld young Laurence dead.
O, your sweet eyes, your low replies!
A great enchantress you may be;
But there was that across his throat
Which you had hardly cared to see.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,
When thus he met his mother’s view,
She had the passion of her kind,
She spake some certain truths of you.
Indeed I heard one bitter word
That scarce is fit for you to hear;
Her manners had not that repose
Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,
There stands a spectre in your hall;
The guilt of blood is at your door;
You changed a wholesome heart to gall.
You held your course without remorse,
To make him trust his modest worth,
And, last, you fix’d a vacant stare,
And slew him with your noble birth.

Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere,
From yon blue heavens above us bent
The gardener Adam and his wife
Smile at the claims of long descent.
Howe’er it be, it seems to me,
‘Tis only noble to be good.
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.

I know you, Clara Vere de Vere,
You pine among your halls and towers;
The languid light of your proud eyes
Is wearied of the rolling hours.
In glowing health, with boundless wealth,
But sickening of a vague disease,
You know so ill to deal with time,
You needs must play such pranks as these.

Clara, Clara Vere de Vere,
If time be heavy on your hands,
Are there no beggars at your gate,
Nor any poor about your lands?
O, teach the orphan-boy to read,
Or teach the orphan-girl to sew;
Pray Heaven for a human heart,
And let the foolish yeoman go.

“The Modern Amadis by Johann Wolfgang Goethe” (E. A. Bowring, W. E. Aytoun et. al., Translators)

They kept me guarded close, while yet
A little tiny elf,
And so I sat, and did beget
A world within myself,
All I cared to see.

Golden fancy then unfurled
Endless sights to me,
And a gallant knight I grew;
Like the Prince Pipi,
Roamed throughout the world .

Many a crystal palace saw,
Many overthrew;
My far – flashing falchion hurled
Through the dragon’s maw.
Ha ! then I was a man!

Next I freed in knightly wise
The Princess Periban;
Oh, the wonder of her eyes ,
Smiling , as I wooed
Her with hearted sighs!

Her kiss, it was ambrosial food,
Glowed like noble wine;
With love, oh, I was almost dead!
A golden haze divine in
She around her shed.

Who has torn her from my sight?
Can no spell delay
That dear vision, stay her flight?
Where her home, oh, say?
And thither, which the way?

Princess in a magic forest

“Envoi” by Brian Hooker

Princess, you gaze in a reverie
Where the drowsy firelight redly glows ;
Slowly you raise your eyes to me.
A petal falls from the Dreamland Rose.

“Torquato Tasso” by Johann Wolfgang Goethe

Act. 1 Scene 1

A Garden adorned with busts of the Epic Poets. To the right a bust of Virgil; to the left, one of Ariosto. PRINCESS and LEONORA, habited as shepherdesses.

PRINCESS.
Smiling thou dost survey me , Leonora;
And with a smile thou dost survey thyself.
What is it? Let a friend partake thy thought!
Thou seemest pensive yet thou seemest pleased.

LEONORA.
Yes, I am pleased , my princess, to behold
Us twain in rural fashion thus attired.
Two happy shepherd – maidens we appear,
And like the happy we are both employed.
Garlands we wreathe: this one, so gay with flowers,
Beneath my hand in varied beauty grows;
Thou hast with higher taste and larger heart
The slender pliant laurel made thy choice .

PRINCESS.

The laurel wreath, which aimlessly I twined,
Hath found at once a not unworthy head:
I place it gratefully on Virgil’s brow.

LEONORA.
With my full joyous wreath the lofty brow
Of Master Ludovico thus I crown

From “The White Cat: A Fairy Poem” by Brian Hooker

Beautiful as the memory of a dream,
And sweet as hope. Her eyes were like the dawn;
Her hair was like the twilight; and she moved
Like music over water. And the King’s Son
Looking upon her, felt his whole heart break
For wonder and great love. Then suddenly,
Ere he could move or speak, a shadow crossed
The light, and a breeze brushed the leaves, and blew
Balm from the drowsy gardens, and passed by;
And the Prince, gazing where his joy had been,
Saw only emptiness. And while he watched,
Forth from the shadow stole the great White Cat,
And yawned , stretching her claws out one by one,
And shook her ears, and turned, and walked away
Waving her plumy tail aloft in air.

But on the morrow, the Prince came before
His father and his mother, saying:

“Now That I am one- and -twenty, and a man,
It is full time I proved your gifts to me
Upon some high endeavour; for I live
As a fat hawk here, or a pampered hound,
Doing all things with cause for doing none,
Useless. But last night, waking suddenly
And wavering on the brink of sleep, I saw
Where the broad moonbeams fell from wall to wall,
A milk – white Fairy Princess dancing there,
Beautiful as the memory of a dream,
And sweet as hope. Her eyes were like the dawn ;
Her hair was like the twilight; and she moved
Like music over water. And I knew ,
Gazing upon her, that my life was hers.
And I shall follow her to Fairyland
And find her, and possess her, or I die.

a medieval princess with a white horse

“Conclusion” by Lord de Tabley

‘Tis gone, the land of dreams! a greyer sky
Has leadened all the beaming sunrise zone;
The hard world wakes in cold reality,
Romance hath still’d her music, touch and tone.

It was a land of heroes, and of streams
Rolling gigantic music ; dreadful heights
Beetled beneath the thunder clouds, with gleams
Of a wild sunset spread in flying lights.

Or emerald valleys, myrtle growths embayed,
Whereby the masted streamers Auttering ride,
Where wakeful fountains rippled on, nor stayed
The night-long murmur of their lisping tide.

The maiden waits by some enchanted spring:
His charger watches by a bleeding knight:
The fairy princess leads her elves a ring:
The ogre crashes down the pinewood’s height.

Gone? all shall go, the fable and the truth ;
Ambrosial glimpses of an antique day,
Lost, as the love dream of a withered youth
In wintry eyes where charmèd laughter lay.

“A Royal Princess (excerpt)” by Christina Rossetti

I, a princess, king-descended, decked with jewels, gilded, drest,
Would rather be a peasant with her baby at her breast,
For all I shine so like the sun, and am purple like the west.

Two and two my guards behind, two and two before,
Two and two on either hand, they guard me evermore;
Me, poor dove, that must not coo,–eagle, that must not soar.

All my fountains cast up perfumes, all my gardens grow
Scented woods and foreign spices, with all flowers in blow
That are costly, out of season as the seasons go.

All my walls are lost in mirrors, whereupon I trace
Self to right hand, self to left hand, self in every place,
Self-same solitary figure, self-same seeking face.

Then I have an ivory chair high to sit upon,
Almost like my father’s chair, which is an ivory throne;
There I sit uplift and upright, there I sit alone.

Alone by day, alone by night, alone days without end;
My father and my mother give me treasures, search and spend–
O my father! O my mother! have you ne’er a friend?