PoetryMTEB/EnglishPoetryFormClassification huggingface dataset:
from Upon Appleton House, to my Lord Fairfax
by Andrew Marvell

Within this sober frame expect
Work of no foreign architect;
That unto caves the quarries drew,
And forests did to pastures hew;
Who of his great design in pain
Did for a model vault his brain;
Whose columns should so high be rais’d
To arch the brows that on them gaz’d.

Why should of all things man unrul’d
Such unproportion’d dwellings build?
The beasts are by their dens exprest,
And birds contrive an equal nest;
The low roof’d tortoises do dwell
In cases fit of tortoise-shell;
No creature loves an empty space;
Their bodies measure out their place.

But he, superfluously spread,
Demands more room alive than dead;
And in his hollow palace goes
Where winds as he themselves may lose.
What need of all this marble crust
T’impark the wanton mote of dust,
That thinks by breadth the world t’unite
Though the first builders fail’d in height?

But all things are composed here
Like nature, orderly and near;
In which we the dimensions find
Of that more sober age and mind,
When larger sized men did stoop
To enter at a narrow loop;
As practising, in doors so straight,
To strain themselves through Heaven’s gate.

And surely when the after age
Shall hither come in pilgrimage,
These sacred places to adore,
By Vere and Fairfax trod before,
Men will dispute how their extent
Within such dwarfish confines went;
And some will smile at this, as well
As Romulus his bee-like cell.

Humility alone designs
Those short but admirable lines,
By which, ungirt and unconstrain’d,
Things greater are in less contain’d.
Let others vainly strive t’immure
The circle in the quadrature!
These holy mathematics can
In ev’ry figure equal man.

Yet thus the laden house does sweat,
And scarce endures the master great,
But where he comes the swelling hall
Stirs, and the square grows spherical;
More by his magnitude distress’d,
Then he is by its straightness press’d,
And too officiously it slights
That in itself which him delights.

So honour better lowness bears,
Than that unwonted greatness wears;
Height with a certain grace does bend,
But low things clownishly ascend.
And yet what needs there here excuse,
Where ev’ry thing does answer use?
Where neatness nothing can condemn,
Nor pride invent what to contemn?

A stately frontispiece of poor
Adorns without the open door;
Nor less the rooms within commends
Daily new furniture of friends.
The house was built upon the place
Only as for a mark of grace;
And for an inn to entertain
Its lord a while, but not remain.

Him Bishops-Hill, or Denton may,
Or Billbrough, better hold than they;
But nature here hath been so free
As if she said leave this to me.
Art would more neatly have defac’d
What she had laid so sweetly waste;
In fragrant gardens, shady woods,
Deep meadows, and transparent floods.

Form: couplet
Meg Merrilies
by John Keats

Old Meg she was a Gipsy,
       And liv'd upon the Moors:
Her bed it was the brown heath turf,
       And her house was out of doors.

Her apples were swart blackberries,
       Her currants pods o' broom;
Her wine was dew of the wild white rose,
       Her book a churchyard tomb.

Her Brothers were the craggy hills,
       Her Sisters larchen trees—
Alone with her great family
       She liv'd as she did please.

No breakfast had she many a morn,
       No dinner many a noon,
And 'stead of supper she would stare
       Full hard against the Moon.

But every morn of woodbine fresh
       She made her garlanding,
And every night the dark glen Yew
       She wove, and she would sing.

And with her fingers old and brown
       She plaited Mats o' Rushes,
And gave them to the Cottagers
       She met among the Bushes.

Old Meg was brave as Margaret Queen
       And tall as Amazon:
An old red blanket cloak she wore;
       A chip hat had she on.
God rest her aged bones somewhere—
       She died full long agone!

Form: common measure
In a Garden
by Amy Lowell

Gushing from the mouths of stone men
To spread at ease under the sky
In granite-lipped basins,
Where iris dabble their feet
And rustle to a passing wind,
The water fills the garden with its rushing,
In the midst of the quiet of close-clipped lawns.

Damp smell the ferns in tunnels of stone,   
Where trickle and plash the fountains,   
Marble fountains, yellowed with much water.

Splashing down moss-tarnished steps   
It falls, the water;
And the air is throbbing with it;
With its gurgling and running;
With its leaping, and deep, cool murmur.

And I wished for night and you.
I wanted to see you in the swimming-pool,   
White and shining in the silver-flecked water.

While the moon rode over the garden,   
High in the arch of night,
And the scent of the lilacs was heavy with stillness.

Night and the water, and you in your whiteness, bathing!

Form: free verse
Book 4, Epigram 7: "Our fathers did but use the world before"
by Thomas Bastard

Our fathers did but use the world before,
And having used did leave the same to us.
We spill whatever resteth to their store.
What can our heirs inherit but our curse?
For we have sucked the sweet and sap away,
And sowed consumption in the fruitful ground;
The woods and forests clad in rich array
With nakedness and baldness we confound.
We have defaced the lasting monuments,
And caused all honour to have end with us;
The holy temples feel our ravishments.
What can our heirs inherit but our curse?
The world must end, for men are so accurst;
Unless God end it sooner, they will first.

Form: couplet
Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness; (Sonnet 96)
by William Shakespeare

Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness;
Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport;
Both grace and faults are loved of more and less;
Thou makest faults graces that to thee resort.
As on the finger of a throned queen
The basest jewel will be well esteem’d,
So are those errors that in thee are seen
To truths translated and for true things deem’d.
How many lambs night the stern wolf betray,
If like a lamb he could his looks translate!
How many gazers mightst thou lead away,
If thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state!
    But do not so; I love thee in such sort
    As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report.

Form: sonnet
How heavy do I journey on the way (Sonnet 50)
by William Shakespeare

How heavy do I journey on the way,
When what I seek, my weary travel’s end,
Doth teach that ease and that repose to say
‘Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!’
The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
As if by some instinct the wretch did know
His rider loved not speed, being made from thee:
The bloody spur cannot provoke him on
That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide;
Which heavily he answers with a groan,
More sharp to me than spurring to his ide;
    For that same groan doth put this in my mind;
    My grief lies onward and my joy behind.

Form: sonnet
In a London Drawingroom
by George Eliot

The sky is cloudy, yellowed by the smoke.
For view there are the houses opposite
Cutting the sky with one long line of wall
Like solid fog: far as the eye can stretch
Monotony of surface & of form
Without a break to hang a guess upon.
No bird can make a shadow as it flies,
For all is shadow, as in ways o'erhung
By thickest canvass, where the golden rays
Are clothed in hemp. No figure lingering
Pauses to feed the hunger of the eye
Or rest a little on the lap of life.
All hurry on & look upon the ground,
Or glance unmarking at the passers by
The wheels are hurrying too, cabs, carriages
All closed, in multiplied identity.
The world seems one huge prison-house & court
Where men are punished at the slightest cost,
With lowest rate of colour, warmth & joy.

Form: blank verse
Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said (Sonnet 56)
by William Shakespeare

Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said
Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,
Which but to-day by feeding is allay’d,
To-morrow sharpen’d in his former might:
So, love, be thou; although to-day thou fill
Thy hungry eyes even till they wink with fullness,
To-morrow see again, and do not kill
The spirit of love with a perpetual dullness.
Let this sad interim like the ocean be
Which parts the shore, where two contracted new
Come daily to the banks, that, when they see
Return of love, more blest may be the view;
    Else call it winter, which being full of care
    Makes summer’s welcome thrice more wish’d, more rare.

Form: sonnet
The Good, Great Man
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"How seldom, friend! a good great man inherits
   Honour or wealth with all his worth and pains!
It sounds like stories from the land of spirits
If any man obtain that which he merits
   Or any merit that which he obtains."

REPLY TO THE ABOVE
 For shame, dear friend, renounce this canting strain!
What would'st thou have a good great man obtain?
Place? titles? salary? a gilded chain?
Or throne of corses which his sword had slain?
Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends!
Hath he not always treasures, always friends,
The good great man? three treasures, LOVE, and LIGHT,
   And CALM THOUGHTS, regular as infant's breath:
And three firm friends, more sure than day and night,
   HIMSELF, his MAKER, and the ANGEL DEATH!

Form: couplet
They that have power to hurt and will do none (Sonnet 95)
by William Shakespeare

How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame
Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,
Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!
O, in what sweets doth thou thy sins enclose!
That tongue that tells the story of thy days,
Making lascivious comments on thy sport,
Cannot dispraise but in a kind of praise;
Naming thy name blesses an ill report.
O, what a mansion have those vices got
Which for their habitation chose out thee,
Where beauty’s veil doth cover every blot,
And all things turn to fair that eyes can see!
    Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege;
    The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge.

Form: sonnet
Was it the proud full sail of his great verse (Sonnet 86)
by William Shakespeare

Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,
Bound for the prize of all too precious you,
That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,
Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?
Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write
Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?
No, neither he, nor his compeers by night
Giving him aid, my verse astonished.
He, nor that affable familiar ghost
Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,
As victors of my silence cannot boast;
I was not sick of any fear from thence:
    But when your countenance fill’d up his line,
    Then lack’d I matter; that enfeebled mine.

Form: sonnet
Astrophil and Stella 39: Come Sleep! O Sleep, the certain knot of peace
by Sir Philip Sidney

Come Sleep! O Sleep, the certain knot of peace,
The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe,
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,
Th' indifferent judge between the high and low.
With shield of proof shield me from out the prease
Of those fierce darts despair at me doth throw:
O make in me those civil wars to cease;
I will good tribute pay, if thou do so.
Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed,
A chamber deaf to noise and blind to light,
A rosy garland and a weary head:
And if these things, as being thine by right,
Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me,
Livelier than elsewhere, Stella's image see.

Form: sonnet
Sonnet V
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,
As once Electra her sepulchral urn,
And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn
The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see
What a great heap of grief lay hid in me,
And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn
Through the ashen greyness. If thy foot in scorn
Could tread them out to darkness utterly,
It might be well perhaps. But if instead
Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow
The grey dust up….—those laurels on thine head
O my belovèd, will not shield thee so.
That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred
The hair beneath. Stand further off then! go.

Form: sonnet
Modern Love: XXVIII
by George Meredith

I must be flattered. The imperious
Desire speaks out. Lady, I am content
To play with you the game of Sentiment,
And with you enter on paths perilous;
But if across your beauty I throw light,
To make it threefold, it must be all mine.
First secret; then avowed. For I must shine
Envied,—I, lessened in my proper sight!
Be watchful of your beauty, Lady dear!
How much hangs on that lamp you cannot tell.
Most earnestly I pray you, tend it well:
And men shall see me as a burning sphere;
And men shall mark you eyeing me, and groan
To be the God of such a grand sunflower!
I feel the promptings of Satanic power,
While you do homage unto me alone.

Form: sonnet
Holy Sonnets: Batter my heart, three-person'd God
by John Donne

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Form: sonnet
The Tragedy of Pete
by Joseph Seamon Cotter Sr.

There was a man
   Whose name was Pete,
And he was a buck
   From his head to his feet.

He loved a dollar,
   But hated a dime;
And so was poor
   Nine-tenths of the time.

The Judge said “Pete,
   What of your wife?”
And Pete replied
   “She lost her life.”

“Pete,” said the Judge,
   “Was it lost in a row?
Tell me quick,
   And tell me how.”

Pete straightened up
   With a hic and a sigh,
Then looked the Judge
   Full in the eye.

“O, Judge, my wife
   Would never go
To a Sunday dance
   Or a movie show.

“But I went, Judge,
   Both day and night,
And came home broke
   And also tight.

“The moon was up,
   My purse was down,
And I was the bully
   Of the bootleg town.

“I was crooning a lilt
   To corn and rye
For the loop in my legs
   And the fight in my eye.

“I met my wife;
   She was wearing a frown,
And catechising
   Her Sunday gown.

‘O Pete, O Pete’
   She cried aloud,
‘The Devil is falling
   Right out of a cloud.’

“I looked straight up
   And fell flat down
And a Ford machine
   Pinned my head to the ground.

“The Ford moved on,
   And my wife was in it;
And I was sober,
   That very minute.

“For my head was bleeding,
   My heart was a-flutter;
And the moonshine within me
   Was tipping the gutter.

“The Ford, it faster
   And faster sped
Till it dipped and swerved
   And my wife was dead.

“Two bruised men lay
   In a hospital ward   
One seeking vengeance,
   The other the Lord.

“He said to me:
   ‘Your wife was drunk,
You are crazy,
   And my Ford is junk.’

“I raised my knife
   And drove it in
At the top of his head
   And the point of his chin.

“O Judge, O Judge,
   If the State has a chair,
Please bind me in it
   And roast me there.”

There was a man
   Whose name was Pete,
And he welcomed death
   From his head to his feet.

Form: ballad
Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage (Sonnet 26)
by William Shakespeare

Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
Thy merit hath my duty strongly knot,
To thee I send this written embassage,
To witness duty, not to show my wit:
Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine
May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it,
But that I hope some good conceit of thine
In thy soul’s thought, all naked, will bestow it;
Till whatsoever star that guides my moving
Points on me graciously with fair aspect
And puts apparel on my tatter’d loving,
To show me worthy of thy sweet respect:
    Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;
    Till then not show my head where thou mayst prove me.

Form: sonnet
Astrophil and Stella 63: O Grammar rules, O now your virtues show
by Sir Philip Sidney

O Grammar rules, O now your virtues show;
    So children still readread To discern and discover you with awfulawful Archaic term for “awe-filled”.  eyes,
    As my young Dove may in your precepts wise
Her grant to me, by her own virtue know.
For late with heart most high, with eyes most low,
    I crav’d the thing which ever she denies:
    She lightning Lovelightning Love That is, lightening Love, displaying Venus’ skiesVenus’ skies Venus as both the planet (evening star) and the goddess of Love,
Least once should not be heard, twice said, No, No.
    SingSing … sing This line is an example of epanalepsis, the poetic technique of beginning and ending the line with the same word.  then my Muse, now Io Pæan Io Pæan Homer began his hymn to Apollo with these words, which serve as a Latinized version of the phrase “Sing Muse...” sing,
    Heav’ns envy not at my high triumphing:
But Grammar’s force with sweet success confirm,
    For Grammar says (O this dear Stella weigh,)
    For Grammar says (to Grammar who says nay)
That in one speech two Negatives affirm.

Form: sonnet
The House of Life: 72. The Choice, II
by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Watch thou and fear; to-morrow thou shalt die.
     Or art thou sure thou shalt have time for death?
     Is not the day which God's word promiseth
To come man knows not when? In yonder sky,
Now while we speak, the sun speeds forth: can I
     Or thou assure him of his goal? God's breath
     Even at this moment haply quickeneth
The air to a flame; till spirits, always nigh

Though screen'd and hid, shall walk the daylight here.
     And dost thou prate of all that man shall do?
          Canst thou, who hast but plagues, presume to be
          Glad in his gladness that comes after thee?
     Will his strength slay thy worm in Hell? Go to:
Cover thy countenance, and watch, and fear.

Form: sonnet
Infant Joy
by William Blake

I have no name 
I am but two days old.— 
What shall I call thee?
I happy am 
Joy is my name,— 
Sweet joy befall thee!

Pretty joy!
Sweet joy but two days old,
Sweet joy I call thee; 
Thou dost smile. 
I sing the while 
Sweet joy befall thee.

Form: dramatic monologue
Damon the Mower
by Andrew Marvell

Hark how the Mower Damon sung,
With love of Juliana stung!
While everything did seem to paint
The scene more fit for his complaint.
Like her fair eyes the day was fair,
But scorching like his am’rous care.
Sharp like his scythe his sorrow was,
And withered like his hopes the grass.

‘Oh what unusual heats are here,
Which thus our sunburned meadows sear!
The grasshopper its pipe gives o’er;
And hamstringed frogs can dance no more.
But in the brook the green frog wades;
And grasshoppers seek out the shades.
Only the snake, that kept within,
Now glitters in its second skin.

‘This heat the sun could never raise,
Nor Dog Star so inflame the days.
It from an higher beauty grow’th,
Which burns the fields and mower both:
Which mads the dog, and makes the sun
Hotter than his own Phaëton.
Not July causeth these extremes,
But Juliana’s scorching beams.

‘Tell me where I may pass the fires
Of the hot day, or hot desires.
To what cool cave shall I descend,
Or to what gelid fountain bend?
Alas! I look for ease in vain,
When remedies themselves complain.
No moisture but my tears do rest,
Nor cold but in her icy breast.

‘How long wilt thou, fair shepherdess,
Esteem me, and my presents less?
To thee the harmless snake I bring,
Disarmèd of its teeth and sting;
To thee chameleons, changing hue,
And oak leaves tipped with honey dew.
Yet thou, ungrateful, hast not sought
Nor what they are, nor who them brought.

‘I am the Mower Damon, known
Through all the meadows I have mown.
On me the morn her dew distills
Before her darling daffodils.
And, if at noon my toil me heat,
The sun himself licks off my sweat.
While, going home, the evening sweet
In cowslip-water bathes my feet.

‘What, though the piping shepherd stock
The plains with an unnumbered flock,
This scythe of mine discovers wide
More ground than all his sheep do hide.
With this the golden fleece I shear
Of all these closes every year.
And though in wool more poor than they,
Yet am I richer far in hay.

‘Nor am I so deformed to sight,
If in my scythe I lookèd right;
In which I see my picture done,
As in a crescent moon the sun.
The deathless fairies take me oft
To lead them in their dances soft:
And, when I tune myself to sing,
About me they contract their ring.

‘How happy might I still have mowed,
Had not Love here his thistles sowed!
But now I all the day complain,
Joining my labour to my pain;
And with my scythe cut down the grass,
Yet still my grief is where it was:
But, when the iron blunter grows,
Sighing, I whet my scythe and woes.’

While thus he threw his elbow round,
Depopulating all the ground,
And, with his whistling scythe, does cut
Each stroke between the earth and root,
The edgèd steel by careless chance
Did into his own ankle glance;
And there among the grass fell down,
By his own scythe, the Mower mown.

‘Alas!’ said he, ‘these hurts are slight
To those that die by love’s despite.
With shepherd’s-purse, and clown’s-all-heal,
The blood I staunch, and wound I seal.
Only for him no cure is found,
Whom Juliana’s eyes do wound.
’Tis death alone that this must do:
For Death thou art a Mower too.’

Form: couplet
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat
by Edward Lear

I
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
   In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
   Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
   And sang to a small guitar,
"O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,
    What a beautiful Pussy you are,
         You are,
         You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!"

II
Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl!
   How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
   But what shall we do for a ring?"
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
   To the land where the Bong-Tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
   With a ring at the end of his nose,
             His nose,
             His nose,
   With a ring at the end of his nose.

III
"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
   Your ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will."
So they took it away, and were married next day
   By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
   Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
   They danced by the light of the moon,
             The moon,
             The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.

Form: ballad