Click on the hyperlinks to read the rest on the poems on interestingliterature.com
Poetry and magic share a curious history, since shamans and priests of ancient times would chant verses and incantations as part of their rituals designed to heal the sick, influence the weather, or appeal to the gods. So we might even say there is something peculiarly ‘magical’ about poetry.
Below, we introduce ten of the very best poems about magic and the supernatural, featuring witches, black magic, fairies, ghosts, and much else.
1. William Shakespeare, from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire!
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon’s sphere;
And I serve the Fairy Queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green;
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours;
In those freckles live their savours;
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.
2. John Donne, ‘The Apparition’.
3. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, ‘The Magic Net’.
4. Percy Shelley, The Witch of Atlas.
5. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, ‘Lilian’.
6. Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Haunted Palace’.
7. William Allingham, ‘The Fairies’.
8. Emily Dickinson, ‘I Think I Was Enchanted’.
9. Mary Coleridge, ‘The Witch’.
10. W. B. Yeats, ‘Supernatural Songs’.
Witches Of The Craft® 