Are you ready to celebrate the strength and resilience of women?
Here are 10 invigorating Women’s Day poems that honor the power of strong women throughout history and in our lives today.
These poems will inspire you, reminding you of the courage and determination that women possess, encouraging you to embrace your own strength.
Let’s get started!
My favorite women’s day poem for strong women
#1 From “A Troth For Eternity” by Arthur William Edgar O’Shaughnessy
O, Woman!—you are greatest in the world:
You have all fairest things; all joy is yours
To give and take away; you have all love;
Your beauty is to man’s heart as the sun
That doles out day and night to the whole earth;
You have strange gifts of passion and sweet words:
In truth you are right splendid,—and well fit,
I think, to be the leman of a god;
But all too fair, and yet not good enough,
To be the spouse and helpmate of one man.
This poem resonates with me because it acknowledges women’s unique gifts and their profound impact on love and joy in our lives.
The comparison of a woman’s beauty to the sun highlights her vital role in nurturing and inspiring those around her.
For me, it beautifully encapsulates admiration and appreciation, celebrating women as the greatest in the world.
9 more women’s day poems for strong women
#2 “Maidenhood” by Sappho (Percy Osborn, Translator)
Why do I fearfully cling to my maidenhood?
‘Tis but a pearl to be cast in thy waves, O Love!
#3 “Woman” by Jean Blewett
Not faultless, for she was not fashioned so,
A mingling of the bitter and the sweet;
Lips that can laugh and sigh and whisper low
Of hope and trust and happiness complete,
Or speak harsh truths; eyes that can flash with fire,
Or make themselves but wells of tenderness
Wherein is drowned all bitterness and ire –
Warm eyes whose lightest glance is a caress.
Heaven sent her here to brighten this old earth,
And only heaven fully knows her worth.
#4 “More Golden Than Gold” by Sappho (Percy Osborn, Translator)
O sweeter far in melody
Than dulcimer or psaltery;
More golden than the richest gold
The eye of man did e’er behold.
#5 “Sonnet 130: My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” by William Shakespeare
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
#6 “The Woman” by Madison Julius Cawein
With her fair face she made my heaven,
Beneath whose stars and moon and sun
I worshiped, praying, having striven,
For wealth through which she might be won.
And yet she had no soul: A woman
As fair and cruel as a god;
Who played with hearts as nothing human,
And tossed them by and on them trod.
She killed a soul; she did it nightly;
Luring it forth from peace and prayer,
To strangle it, and laughing lightly,
Cast it into the gutter there.
And yet, not for a purer vision
Would I exchange; or Paradise
Possess instead of Hell, my prison,
Where burns the passion of her eyes.
#7 “The Heart of a Woman” by Georgia Douglas Johnson
The heart of a woman goes forth with the dawn,
As a lone bird, soft winging, so restlessly on,
Afar o’er life’s turrets and vales does it roam
In the wake of those echoes the heart calls home.
The heart of a woman falls back with the night,
And enters some alien cage in its plight,
And tries to forget it has dreamed of the stars
While it breaks, breaks, breaks on the sheltering bars.
#8 “Feminism” by Alice Duer Miller
“Mother, what is a Feminist?”
“A Feminist, my daughter,
Is any woman now who cares
To think about her own affairs
As men don’t think she oughter.”
#9 “Females” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The female fox she is a fox;
The female whale a whale;
The female eagle holds her place
As representative of race
As truly as the male.
The mother hen doth scratch for her chicks,
And scratch for herself beside;
The mother cow doth nurse her calf,
Yet fares as well as her other half
In the pasture far and wide.
The female bird doth soar in air;
The female fish doth swim;
The fleet-foot mare upon the course
Doth hold her own with the flying horse–
Yea and she beateth him!
One female in the world we find
Telling a different tale.
It is the female of our race,
Who holds a parasitic place
Dependent on the male.
Not so, saith she, ye slander me!
No parasite am I.
I earn my living as a wife;
My children take my very life;
Why should I share in human strife,
To plant and build and buy?
The human race holds highest place
In all the world so wide,
Yet these inferior females wive,
And raise their little ones alive,
And feed themselves beside.
The race is higher than the sex,
Though sex be fair and good;
A Human Creature is your state,
And to be human is more great
Than even womanhood!
The female fox she is a fox;
The female whale a whale;
The female eagle holds her place
As representative of race
As truly as the male.
#10 “The Bravery of Battles” by Joaquin Miller
The bravest battle that ever was fought,
Shall I tell you where and when?
On the maps of the world you’ll find it not,
“Twas fought by the mothers of men.
Nay, not with cannon or battle shot,
With sword or noble pen;
Nay, not with eloquent word or thought,
From the mouths of wonderful men.
But deep in the walled- up woman’s heart—
Of woman that would not yield,
But bravely, silently bore her part—
Lo! there is the battlefield.
No marshalling troop, no bivouac song,
No banner to gleam and wave!
But 0, these battles! they last so long,
From babyhood to the grave.