PoetryMTEB/EnglishPoetryFormClassification huggingface dataset:
To the King on his Navy
by Edmund Waller

Where’er thy navy spreads her canvas wings,
Homage to thee, and peace to all, she brings:
The French and Spaniard, when thy flags appear,
Forget their hatred, and consent to fear.
So Jove from Ida did both hosts survey,
And when he pleas’d to thunder, part the fray.
Ships heretofore in seas like fishes sped,
The mightiest still upon the smallest fed:
Thou on the deep imposest nobler laws,
And by that justice hast remov’d the cause
Of those rude tempests, which, for rapine sent,
Too oft, alas, involv’d the innocent.
Now shall the ocean, as thy Thames, be free
From both those fates, of storms and piracy.
But we most happy, who can fear no force
But winged troops, or Pegasean horse:
’Tis not so hard for greedy foes to spoil
Another nation, as to touch our soil.
Should Nature’s self invade the world again,
And o’er the centre spread the liquid main,
Thy power were safe; and her destructive hand
Would but enlarge the bounds of thy command:
Thy dreadful fleet would style thee lord of all,
And ride in triumph o’er the drowned ball:
Those towers of oak o’er fertile plains might go,
And visit mountains, where they once did grow.

         The world’s restorer once could not endure,
That finish’d Babel should those men secure,
Whose pride design’d that fabric to have stood
Above the reach of any second flood:
To thee His chosen, more indulgent, He
Dares trust such power with so much piety.

Form: couplet
Silence
by Thomas Hood

There is a silence where hath been no sound,
   There is a silence where no sound may be,
   In the cold grave—under the deep deep sea,
Or in the wide desert where no life is found,
Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound;
   No voice is hush’d—no life treads silently,
   But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free,
That never spoke, over the idle ground:
But in green ruins, in the desolate walls
   Of antique palaces, where Man hath been,
Though the dun fox, or wild hyena, calls,
   And owls, that flit continually between,
Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan,
There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone.

Form: sonnet
Sonnet 55: Not marble nor the gilded monuments
by William Shakespeare

Not marble nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
’Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
    So, till the Judgement that yourself arise,
    You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.

Form: sonnet
“Still to be neat, still to be dressed”
by Ben Jonson

Still to be neat, still to be dressed,
As you were going to a feast;
Still to be powdered, still perfumed; 
Lady, it is to be presumed,
Though art's hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.

Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free;
Such sweet neglect more taketh me
                       Than all th'adulteries of art. 
They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

Form: couplet
Stella's Birthday March 13, 1727
by Jonathan Swift

This day, whate'er the Fates decree,
Shall still be kept with joy by me:
This day then let us not be told,
That you are sick, and I grown old;
Nor think on our approaching ills,
And talk of spectacles and pills.
To-morrow will be time enough
To hear such mortifying stuff.
Yet, since from reason may be brought
A better and more pleasing thought,
Which can, in spite of all decays,
Support a few remaining days:
From not the gravest of divines
Accept for once some serious lines.

         Although we now can form no more
Long schemes of life, as heretofore;
Yet you, while time is running fast,
Can look with joy on what is past.

         Were future happiness and pain
A mere contrivance of the brain,
As atheists argue, to entice
And fit their proselytes for vice;
(The only comfort they propose,
To have companions in their woes;)
Grant this the case; yet sure 'tis hard
That virtue, styl'd its own reward,
And by all sages understood
To be the chief of human good,
Should, acting, die, nor leave behind
Some lasting pleasure in the mind;
Which by remembrance will assuage
Grief, sickness, poverty, and age;
And strongly shoot a radiant dart
To shine through life's declining part.

         Say, Stella, feel you no content,
Reflecting on a life well spent?
Your skilful hand employ'd to save
Despairing wretches from the grave;
And then supporting with your store
Those whom you dragg'd from death before?
So Providence on mortals waits,
Preserving what it first creates.
Your gen'rous boldness to defend
An innocent and absent friend;
That courage which can make you just
To merit humbled in the dust;
The detestation you express
For vice in all its glitt'ring dress;
That patience under torturing pain,
Where stubborn stoics would complain:
Must these like empty shadows pass,
Or forms reflected from a glass?
Or mere chimæras in the mind,
That fly, and leave no marks behind?
Does not the body thrive and grow
By food of twenty years ago?
And, had it not been still supplied,
It must a thousand times have died.
Then who with reason can maintain
That no effects of food remain?
And is not virtue in mankind
The nutriment that feeds the mind;
Upheld by each good action past,
And still continued by the last?
Then, who with reason can pretend
That all effects of virtue end?

         Believe me, Stella, when you show
That true contempt for things below,
Nor prize your life for other ends,
Than merely to oblige your friends;
Your former actions claim their part,
And join to fortify your heart.
For Virtue, in her daily race,
Like Janus, bears a double face;
Looks back with joy where she has gone
And therefore goes with courage on:
She at your sickly couch will wait,
And guide you to a better state.

         O then, whatever Heav'n intends,
Take pity on your pitying friends!
Nor let your ills affect your mind,
To fancy they can be unkind.
Me, surely me, you ought to spare,
Who gladly would your suff'rings share;
Or give my scrap of life to you,
And think it far beneath your due;
You, to whose care so oft I owe
That I'm alive to tell you so.

Form: couplet
Modern Love: XXX
by George Meredith

What are we first? First, animals; and next
Intelligences at a leap; on whom
Pale lies the distant shadow of the tomb,
And all that draweth on the tomb for text.
Into which state comes Love, the crowning sun:
Beneath whose light the shadow loses form.
We are the lords of life, and life is warm.
Intelligence and instinct now are one.
But Nature says: ‘My children most they seem
When they least know me: therefore I decree
That they shall suffer.’ Swift doth young Love flee,
And we stand wakened, shivering from our dream.
Then if we study Nature we are wise.
Thus do the few who live but with the day:
The scientific animals are they.—
Lady, this is my sonnet to your eyes.

Form: sonnet
Sonnets from the Portuguese 14: If thou must love me, let it be for nought
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
I love her for her smile ... her look ... her way
Of speaking gently, ... for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day'—
For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may
Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,—
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.

Form: sonnet
Two Sonnets [XXXIII]
by Charles Hamilton Sorley

I

Saints have adorned the lofty soul of you.
Poets have whitened at your high renown.
We stand among the many millions who
Do hourly wait to pass your pathway down.
You, so familiar, once were strange: we tried
To live as of your presence unaware.
But now in every road on every side
We see your straight and steadfast signpost there.

I think it like that signpost in my land
Hoary and tall, which pointed me to go
Upward, into the hills, on the right hand,
Where the mists swim and the winds shriek and blow,
A homeless land and friendless, but a land
I did not know and that I wished to know.

II

Such, such is Death: no triumph: no defeat:
Only an empty pail, a slate rubbed clean,
A merciful putting away of what has been.

And this we know: Death is not Life effete,
Life crushed, the broken pail. We who have seen
So marvellous things know well the end not yet.

Victor and vanquished are a-one in death:
Coward and brave: friend, foe. Ghosts do not say,
“Come, what was your record when you drew breath?”
But a big blot has hid each yesterday
So poor, so manifestly incomplete.
And your bright Promise, withered long and sped,
Is touched, stirs, rises, opens and grows sweet
And blossoms and is you, when you are dead.

Form: sonnet
from The Princess: Home they Brought her Warrior Dead
by Lord Tennyson Alfred

Home they brought her warrior dead:
         She nor swoon'd nor utter'd cry:
All her maidens, watching, said,
         "She must weep or she will die."

Then they praised him, soft and low,
         Call'd him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe;
         Yet she neither spoke nor moved.

Stole a maiden from her place,
         Lightly to the warrior stepped,
Took the face-cloth from the face;
         Yet she neither moved nor wept.

Rose a nurse of ninety years,
         Set his child upon her knee—
Like summer tempest came her tears—
         "Sweet my child, I live for thee."

Form: common measure
The Argument of his Book
by Robert Herrick

I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers,
Of April, May, of June, and July flowers.
I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes,
Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes.
I write of youth, of love, and have access
By these to sing of cleanly wantonness.
I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by piece
Of balm, of oil, of spice, and ambergris.
I sing of Time's trans-shifting; and I write
How roses first came red, and lilies white.
I write of groves, of twilights, and I sing
The court of Mab, and of the fairy king.
I write of Hell; I sing (and ever shall)
Of Heaven, and hope to have it after all.

Form: couplet
How can I then return in happy plight (Sonnet 28)
by William Shakespeare

How can I then return in happy plight,
That am debarr’d the benefit of rest?
When day’s oppression is not eased by night,
But day by night, and night by day, oppress’d?
And each, though enemies to either’s reign,
Do in consent shake hands to torture me;
The one by toil, the other to complain
How far I toil, still farther off from thee.
I tell the day, to please him thou art bright
And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:
So flatter I the swart-complexion’d night,
When sparkling stars twire not thou gild’st the even
     But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer
     And night doth nightly make grief’s strength seem stronger.

Form: sonnet
My Butterfly
by Robert Frost

Thine emulous fond flowers are dead, too,
And the daft sun-assaulter, he
That frighted thee so oft, is fled or dead:
Save only me
(Nor is it sad to thee!)
Save only me
There is none left to mourn thee in the fields.

The gray grass is not dappled with the snow;
Its two banks have not shut upon the river;
But it is long ago—
It seems forever—
Since first I saw thee flance,
With all the dazzling other ones,
In airy dalliance,
Precipitate in love,
Tossed, tangled, whirled and whirled above,
Like a limp rose-wreath in a fairy dance.

When that was, the soft mist
Of my regret hung not on all the land,
And I was glad for thee,
And glad for me, I wist.

Thou didst not know, who tottered, wandering on high,
That fate had made thee for the pleasure of the wind,
With those great careless wings,
Nor yet did I.

And there were other things:
It seemed God let thee flutter from his gentle clasp:
Then fearful he had let thee win
Too far beyond him to be gathered in,
Snatched thee, o'er eager, with ungentle grasp.

Ah! I remember me
How once conspiracty was rife
Against my life—
The languor of it and the dreaming fond;
Surging, the grasses dizzied me of thought,
The breeze three odors brought,
And a gem-flower waved in a wand!

Then when I was distraught
And could not speak,
Sidelong, full on my cheek,
What should that reckless zephyr fling
But the wild touch of thy dye-dusty wing!

I found that wing broken to-day!
For thou art dead, I said,
And the strange birds say.
I found it with the withered leaves
Under the eaves.

Form: elegy
On Shakespeare
by John Milton

What needs my Shakespeare for his honour'd Bones,
The labour of an age in pilèd Stones,
Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid
Under a stary pointing Pyramid?
Dear son of Memory, great heir of Fame,
What need'st thou such weak witnes of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thy self a live-long Monument.
For whilst to th' shame of slow-endeavouring art,
Thy easie numbers flow, and that each heart
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalu'd Book
Those Delphick lines with deep impression took,
Then thou our fancy of it self bereaving,
Dost make us Marble with too much conceaving;
And so Sepulcher'd in such pomp dost lie,
That Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die.

Form: sonnet
One's-Self I Sing
by Walt Whitman

One’s-Self I sing, a simple separate person,
Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.

Of physiology from top to toe I sing,
Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I say the Form complete is worthier far,
The Female equally with the Male I sing.

Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,
Cheerful, for freest action form’d under the laws divine,
The Modern Man I sing.

Form: free verse
A Ballad: The Lake of the Dismal Swamp
by Thomas Moore

Written at Norfolk, in Virginia

“They made her a grave, too cold and damp
For a soul so warm and true;
And she’s gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp,
Where, all night long, by a fire-fly lamp,
She paddles her white canoe.

“And her fire-fly lamp I soon shall see,
And her paddle I soon shall hear;
Long and loving our life shall be,
And I’ll hide the maid in a cypress tree,
When the footstep of death is near.”

Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds—
His path was rugged and sore,
Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds,
Through many a fen where the serpent feeds,
And man never trod before.

And when on the earth he sunk to sleep,
If slumber his eyelids knew,
He lay where the deadly vine doth weep
Its venomous tear and nightly steep
The flesh with blistering dew!

And near him the she-wolf stirr’d the brake,
And the copper-snake breath’d in his ear,
Till he starting cried, from his dream awake,
“Oh! when shall I see the dusky Lake,
And the white canoe of my dear?”

He saw the Lake, and a meteor bright
Quick over its surface play’d—
“Welcome,” he said, “my dear one’s light!”
And the dim shore echoed for many a night
The name of the death-cold maid.

Till he hollow’d a boat of the birchen bark,
Which carried him off from shore;
Far, far he follow’d the meteor spark,
The wind was high and the clouds were dark,
And the boat return’d no more.

But oft, from the Indian hunter’s camp,
This lover and maid so true
Are seen at the hour of midnight damp
To cross the Lake by a fire-fly lamp,
And paddle their white canoe!

Form: ballad
The Burial of the Rev. George Gilfillan
by Knight of the White Elephant of Burmah William McGonagall

On the Gilfillan burial day,
In the Hill o’ Balgay,
It was a most solemn sight to see,
Not fewer than thirty thousand people assembled in Dundee,
All watching the funeral procession of Gilfillan that day,
That death had suddenly taken away,
And was going to be buried in the Hill o’ Balgay.

There were about three thousand people in the procession alone,
And many were shedding tears, and several did moan,
And their bosoms heaved with pain,
Because they knew they would never look upon his like again.

There could not be fewer than fifty carriages in the procession that day,
And gentlemen in some of them that had come from far away,
And in whispers some of them did say,
As the hearse bore the precious corpse away,
Along the Nethergate that day.

I’m sure he will be greatly missed by the poor,
For he never turned them empty-handed away from his door;
And to assist them in distress it didn’t give him pain,
And I’m sure the poor will never look upon his like again.

On the Gilfillan burial day, in the Hill o’ Balgay,
There was a body of policemen marshalled in grand array,
And marched in front of the procession all the way;
Also the relatives and friends of the deceas’d,
Whom I hope from all sorrows has been releas’d,
And whose soul I hope to heaven has fled away,
To sing with saints above for ever and aye.

The Provost, Magistrates, and Town Council were in the procession that day;
Also Mrs Gilfillan, who cried and sobbed all the way
For her kind husband, that was always affable and gay,
Which she will remember until her dying day.

When the procession arrived in the Hill o’ Balgay,
The people were almost as hush as death, and many of them did say—
As long as we live we’ll remember the day
That the great Gilfillan was buried in the Hill o’Balgay.

When the body of the great Gilfillan was lowered into the grave,
’Twas then the people’s hearts with sorrow did heave;
And with tearful eyes and bated breath,
Mrs Gilfillan lamented her loving husband’s death.

Then she dropped a ringlet of immortelles into his grave,
Then took one last fond look, and in sorrow did leave;
And all the people left with sad hearts that day,
And that ended the Gilfillan burial in the Hill o’ Balgay.

Form: couplet
from Lalla Rookh
by Thomas Moore

From The Fire-worshippers

“How sweetly,” said the trembling maid,
Of her own gentle voice afraid,
So long had they in silence stood,
Looking upon that tranquil flood—
“How sweetly does the moon-beam smile
To-night upon yon leafy isle!
Oft in my fancy’s wanderings,
I’ve wish’d that little isle had wings,
And we, within its fairy bow’rs,
      Were wafted off to seas unknown,
Where not a pulse should beat but ours,
      And we might live, love, die alone!
Far from the cruel and the cold,—
      Where the bright eyes of angels only
Should come around us, to behold
      A paradise so pure and lonely.
Would this be world enough for thee?”—
Playful she turn’d, that he might see
      The passing smile her cheek put on;
But when she mark’d how mournfully
      His eyes met hers, that smile was gone;
And, bursting into heart-felt tears,
“Yes, yes,” she cried, “my hourly fears
My dreams have boded all too right—
We part—for ever part—to-night!
I knew, I knew it  could not last—
’Twas bright, ’twas heav’nly, but ’tis past!
Oh! ever thus, from childhood’s hour,
I’ve seen my fondest hopes decay;
I never lov’d a tree or flow’r,
      But ’twas the first to fade away.
I never nurs’d a dear gazelle
      To glad me with its soft black eye,
But when it came to know me well
      And love me, it was sure to die!
Now too—the joy most like divine
      Of all I ever dreamt or knew,
To see thee, hear thee, call thee mine,—
      Oh misery! must I lose  that too?
Yet go—on peril’s brink we meet;—
      Those frightful rocks—that treach’rous sea—
No, never come again—though sweet,
      Though heav’n, it may be death to thee.
Farewell—and blessings on thy way,
      Where’er thou goest, beloved stranger!
Better to sit and watch that ray,
And think thee safe, though far away,
      Than have thee near me, and in danger!”

Form: couplet
October, 1803
by William Wordsworth

These times strike monied worldlings with dismay:
Even rich men, brave by nature, taint the air
With words of apprehension and despair:
While tens of thousands, thinking on the affray,
Men unto whom sufficient for the day
And minds not stinted or untilled are given,
Sound, healthy, children of the God of heaven,
Are cheerful as the rising sun in May.
What do we gather hence but firmer faith
That every gift of noble origin
Is breathed upon by Hope's perpetual breath;
That virtue and the faculties within
Are vital,—and that riches are akin
To fear, to change, to cowardice, and death?

Form: sonnet
Book 5, Epigram 20: In Misum & Mopsam.
by Thomas Bastard

Misus and Mopsa hardly could agree,
 Striving about superiority.
 The text which says that man and wife are one,
 Was the chief argument they stood upon. 
 She held they both one woman should become,
 He held both should be man, and both but one.
      So they contended daily, but the strife
      Could not be ended, till both were one wife.

Form: couplet
A Slumber did my Spirit Seal
by William Wordsworth

A slumber did my spirit seal;
     I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
     The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;
     She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
     With rocks, and stones, and trees.

Form: common measure
Who is it that says most? Which can say more (Sonnet 84)
by William Shakespeare

Who is it that says most? Which can say more
Than this rich praise, that you alone are you?
In whose confine immured is the store
Which should example where your equal grew
Lean penury within that pen doth dwell
That to his subject lends not some small glory;
But he that writes of you, if he can tell
That you are you, so dignified his story,
Let him but copy what in you is writ,
Not making worse what nature made so clear
And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,
Making his style admired every where.
    You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,
    Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.

Form: sonnet
“Roll on, sad world! not Mercury or Mars”
by Frederick Goddard Tuckerman

from Sonnets, Second Series

              XVII

Roll on, sad world! not Mercury or Mars
Could swifter speed, or slower, round the sun,
Than in this year of variance thou hast done
For me. Yet pain, fear, heart-break, woes, and wars
Have natural limit; from his dread eclipse
The swift sun hastens, and the night debars
The day, but to bring in the day more bright;
The flowers renew their odorous fellowships;
The moon runs round and round; the slow earth dips,
True to her poise, and lifts; the planet-stars
Roll and return from circle to ellipse;
The day is dull and soft, the eave-trough drips;
And yet I know the splendor of the light
Will break anon: look! where the gray is white!

Form: sonnet
Sonnet to Winter
by Emily Chubbuck Judson

Thy brow is girt, thy robe with gems inwove;
    And palaces of frost-work, on the eye,
    Flash out, and gleam in every gorgeous dye,
The pencil, dipped in glorious things above,
    Can bring to earth. Oh, thou art passing fair!
But cold and cheerless as the heart of death,
Without one warm, free pulse, one softening breath,
    One soothing whisper for the ear of Care.
Fortune too has her Winter. In the Spring,
    We watch the bud of promise; and the flower
    Looks out upon us at the Summer hour;
And Autumn days the blessed harvest bring;
    Then comes the reign of jewels rare, and gold,
    When brows flash light, but hearts grow strangely cold.

Form: sonnet