PoetryMTEB/EnglishPoetryFormClassification huggingface dataset:
Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand
by Walt Whitman

Whoever you are holding me now in hand,
Without one thing all will be useless,
I give you fair warning before you attempt me further,
I am not what you supposed, but far different.

Who is he that would become my follower?
Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections?

The way is suspicious, the result uncertain, perhaps destructive,
You would have to give up all else, I alone would expect to be your sole and exclusive standard,
Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting,
The whole past theory of your life and all conformity to the lives around you would have to be abandon’d,
Therefore release me now before troubling yourself any further, let go your hand from my shoulders,
Put me down and depart on your way.

Or else by stealth in some wood for trial,
Or back of a rock in the open air,
(For in any roof’d room of a house I emerge not, nor in company,
And in libraries I lie as one dumb, a gawk, or unborn, or dead,)
But just possibly with you on a high hill, first watching lest any person for miles around approach unawares,
Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea or some quiet island,
Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you,
With the comrade’s long-dwelling kiss or the new husband’s kiss,
For I am the new husband and I am the comrade.

Or if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing,
Where I may feel the throbs of your heart or rest upon your hip,
Carry me when you go forth over land or sea;
For thus merely touching you is enough, is best,
And thus touching you would I silently sleep and be carried eternally.

But these leaves conning you con at peril,
For these leaves and me you will not understand,
They will elude you at first and still more afterward, I will certainly elude you,
Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me, behold!
Already you see I have escaped from you.

For it is not for what I have put into it that I have written this book,
Nor is it by reading it you will acquire it,
Nor do those know me best who admire me and vauntingly praise me,
Nor will the candidates for my love (unless at most a very few) prove victorious,
Nor will my poems do good only, they will do just as much evil, perhaps more,
For all is useless without that which you may guess at many times and not hit, that which I hinted at;
Therefore release me and depart on your way.

Form: free verse
A Man Said to the Universe
by Stephen Crane

A man said to the universe:
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.”

Form: free verse
Let not my love be call'd idolatry (Sonnet 105)
by William Shakespeare

Let not my love be call’d idolatry,
Nor my beloved as an idol show,
Since all alike my songs and praises be
To one, of one, still such, and ever so.
Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,
Still constant in a wondrous excellence;
Therefore my verse to constancy confined,
One thing expressing, leaves out difference.
‘Fair, kind, and true; is all my argument,
‘Fair, kind, and true’ varying to other words;
And in this change is my invention spent,
Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.
    ‘Fair, kind, and true,’ have often lived alone,
    Which three till now never kept seat in one.

Form: sonnet
The Hold-fast
by George Herbert

I threaten'd to observe the strict decree
    Of my dear God with all my power and might;
    But I was told by one it could not be;
Yet I might trust in God to be my light.
"Then will I trust," said I, "in Him alone."
    "Nay, e'en to trust in Him was also His:
    We must confess that nothing is our own."
"Then I confess that He my succour is."
"But to have nought is ours, not to confess
    That we have nought." I stood amaz'd at this,
    Much troubled, till I heard a friend express
That all things were more ours by being His;
    What Adam had, and forfeited for all,
    Christ keepeth now, who cannot fail or fall.

Form: sonnet
The Indian
by Elizabeth Kirkham Mathews

Alone, unfriended, on a foreign shore,
 Behold an hapless, melancholy maid,
Begging her scanty fare from door to door,
 With piteous voice, and humbly bended head.
Alas! her native tongue is known to few:
 Her manners and her garb excite suprise;
The vulgar stare to see her bid adieu;
 Her tattered garments fix their curious eyes.
Cease, cease your laugh, ye thoughtless vain;
Why sneer at yon poor Indian’s pain?
’Tis nature’s artless voice that speaks:
Behold the tear bedew her cheeks!
Imploring actions, bursting sighs,
Reveal enough to British eyes.

Form: sonnet
On First Looking into Chapman's Homer
by John Keats

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
 And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
 Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
 That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;
 Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
 When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
 He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—
 Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

Form: sonnet
Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes
by Thomas Gray

’Twas on a lofty vase’s side,
Where China’s gayest art had dyed
 The azure flowers that blow;
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima, reclined,
 Gazed on the lake below.

Her conscious tail her joy declared;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
 The velvet of her paws,
Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,
 She saw; and purred applause.

Still had she gazed; but ’midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
 The genii of the stream;
Their scaly armour’s Tyrian hue
Through richest purple to the view
 Betrayed a golden gleam.

The hapless nymph with wonder saw;
A whisker first and then a claw,
 With many an ardent wish,
She stretched in vain to reach the prize.
What female heart can gold despise?
 What cat’s averse to fish?

Presumptuous maid! with looks intent
Again she stretch’d, again she bent,
 Nor knew the gulf between.
(Malignant Fate sat by, and smiled)
The slippery verge her feet beguiled,
 She tumbled headlong in.
Eight times emerging from the flood
She mewed to every watery god,
 Some speedy aid to send.
No dolphin came, no Nereid stirred;
Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard;
 A Favourite has no friend!

From hence, ye beauties, undeceived,
Know, one false step is ne’er retrieved,
 And be with caution bold.
Not all that tempts your wandering eyes
And heedless hearts, is lawful prize;
 Nor all that glisters, gold.

Form: elegy
Sheep in Winter
by John Clare

The sheep get up and make their many tracks
And bear a load of snow upon their backs,
And gnaw the frozen turnip to the ground
With sharp quick bite, and then go noising round
The boy that pecks the turnips all the day
And knocks his hands to keep the cold away
And laps his legs in straw to keep them warm
And hides behind the hedges from the storm.
The sheep, as tame as dogs, go where he goes
And try to shake their fleeces from the snows,
Then leave their frozen meal and wander round
The stubble stack that stands beside the ground,
And lie all night and face the drizzling storm
And shun the hovel where they might be warm.

Form: sonnet
The Laboratory
by Robert Browning

Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly,
May gaze thro’ these faint smokes curling whitely,
As thou pliest thy trade in this devil’s-smithy—
Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?

   He is with her, and they know that I know
Where they are, what they do: they believe my tears flow
While they laugh, laugh at me, at me fled to the drear
Empty church, to pray God in, for them!—I am here.

   Grind away, moisten and mash up thy paste,
Pound at thy powder,—I am not in haste!
Better sit thus and observe thy strange things,
Than go where men wait me and dance at the King’s.

   That in the mortar—you call it a gum?
Ah, the brave tree whence such gold oozings come!
And yonder soft phial, the exquisite blue,
Sure to taste sweetly,—is that poison too?

   Had I but all of them, thee and thy treasures,
What a wild crowd of invisible pleasures!
To carry pure death in an earring, a casket,
A signet, a fan-mount, a filigree basket!

   Soon, at the King’s, a mere lozenge to give
And Pauline should have just thirty minutes to live!
But to light a pastile, and Elise, with her head
And her breast and her arms and her hands, should drop dead!

   Quick—is it finished? The colour’s too grim!
Why not soft like the phial’s, enticing and dim?
Let it brighten her drink, let her turn it and stir,
And try it and taste, ere she fix and prefer!

   What a drop! She’s not little, no minion like me—
That’s why she ensnared him: this never will free
The soul from those masculine eyes,—say, “no!”
To that pulse’s magnificent come-and-go.

   For only last night, as they whispered, I brought
My own eyes to bear on her so, that I thought
Could I keep them one half minute fixed, she would fall,
Shrivelled; she fell not; yet this does it all!

   Not that I bid you spare her the pain!
Let death be felt and the proof remain;
Brand, burn up, bite into its grace—
He is sure to remember her dying face!

   Is it done? Take my mask off! Nay, be not morose;
It kills her, and this prevents seeing it close:
The delicate droplet, my whole fortune’s fee—
If it hurts her, beside, can it ever hurt me?

   Now, take all my jewels, gorge gold to your fill,
You may kiss me, old man, on my mouth if you will!
But brush this dust off me, lest horror it brings
Ere I know it—next moment I dance at the King’s!

Form: dramatic monologue
Book 1, Epigram 39: Ad librum suum.   ﻿
by Thomas Bastard

My little book: who will thou please, tell me?
 All which shall read thee? No that cannot be.
 Whom then, the best? But few of these are known.
 How shall thou know to please, thou know'st not whom?
 The meaner sort commend not poetry;
 And sure the worst should please themselves for thee:
       But let them pass, and set by most no store,
       Please thou one well, thou shall not need please more.
 ﻿

Form: couplet
If By Dull Rhymes Our English Must Be Chain'd
by John Keats

If by dull rhymes our English must be chain'd,
   And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet
Fetter'd, in spite of pained loveliness;
Let us find out, if we must be constrain'd,
   Sandals more interwoven and complete
To fit the naked foot of poesy;
Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress
Of every chord, and see what may be gain'd
   By ear industrious, and attention meet:
Misers of sound and syllable, no less
   Than Midas of his coinage, let us be
   Jealous of dead leaves in the bay wreath crown;
So, if we may not let the Muse be free,
   She will be bound with garlands of her own.

Form: sonnet
Book 1, Epigram 5: Ad lectorem de subjecto operis sui.
by Thomas Bastard

The little world, the subject of my muse,
 Is a huge task and labor infinite;
 Like to a wilderness or mass confuse,
 Or to an endless gulf, or to the night:
 How many strange Meanders do I find?
 How many paths do turn my straying pen?
 How many doubtful twilights make me blind,
 Which seek to limb out this strange All of men?
 Easy it were the earth to portray out,
 Or to draw forth the heavens’ purest frame,
 Whose restless course, by order whirls about
 Of change and place, and still remains the same.
     But how shall man’s, or manner’s, form appear,
     Which while I write, do change from what they were?
 ﻿

Form: couplet
Autumn
by John Clare

The thistledown's flying, though the winds are all still,
On the green grass now lying, now mounting the hill,
The spring from the fountain now boils like a pot;
Through stones past the counting it bubbles red-hot.

The ground parched and cracked is like overbaked bread,
The greensward all wracked is, bents dried up and dead.
The fallow fields glitter like water indeed,
And gossamers twitter, flung from weed unto weed.

Hill-tops like hot iron glitter bright in the sun,
And the rivers we're eying burn to gold as they run;
Burning hot is the ground, liquid gold is the air;
Whoever looks round sees Eternity there.

Form: couplet
Lines Written in the Bay of Lerici
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

She left me at the silent time
When the moon had ceas'd to climb
The azure path of Heaven's steep,
And like an albatross asleep,
Balanc'd on her wings of light,
Hover'd in the purple night,
Ere she sought her ocean nest
In the chambers of the West.
She left me, and I stay'd alone
Thinking over every tone
Which, though silent to the ear,
The enchanted heart could hear,
Like notes which die when born, but still
Haunt the echoes of the hill;
And feeling ever—oh, too much!—
The soft vibration of her touch,
As if her gentle hand, even now,
Lightly trembled on my brow;
And thus, although she absent were,
Memory gave me all of her
That even Fancy dares to claim:
Her presence had made weak and tame
All passions, and I lived alone
In the time which is our own;
The past and future were forgot,
As they had been, and would be, not.
But soon, the guardian angel gone,
The daemon reassum'd his throne
In my faint heart. I dare not speak
My thoughts, but thus disturb'd and weak
I sat and saw the vessels glide
Over the ocean bright and wide,
Like spirit-winged chariots sent
O'er some serenest element
For ministrations strange and far,
As if to some Elysian star
Sailed for drink to medicine
Such sweet and bitter pain as mine.
And the wind that wing'd their flight
From the land came fresh and light,
And the scent of winged flowers,
And the coolness of the hours
Of dew, and sweet warmth left by day,
Were scatter'd o'er the twinkling bay.
And the fisher with his lamp
And spear about the low rocks damp
Crept, and struck the fish which came
To worship the delusive flame.
Too happy they, whose pleasure sought
Extinguishes all sense and thought
Of the regret that pleasure leaves,
Destroying life alone, not peace!

Form: couplet
On the Death of Richard West
by Thomas Gray

In vain to me the smiling Mornings shine,
   And reddening Phœbus lifts his golden fire;
The birds in vain their amorous descant join;
   Or cheerful fields resume their green attire;
These ears, alas! for other notes repine,
   A different object do these eyes require;
My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine;
   And in my breast the imperfect joys expire.
Yet Morning smiles the busy race to cheer,
   And new-born pleasure brings to happier men;
The fields to all their wonted tribute bear;
   To warm their little loves the birds complain;
I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear,
   And weep the more because I weep in vain.

Form: elegy
Sonnet: On Being Cautioned Against Walking on an Headland Overlooking the Sea, Because It Was Frequented by a Lunatic
by Charlotte Smith

Is there a solitary wretch who hies
   To the tall cliff, with starting pace or slow,
And, measuring, views with wild and hollow eyes
   Its distance from the waves that chide below;
Who, as the sea-born gale with frequent sighs
   Chills his cold bed upon the mountain turf,
With hoarse, half-uttered lamentation, lies
   Murmuring responses to the dashing surf?
In moody sadness, on the giddy brink,
   I see him more with envy than with fear;
He has no nice felicities that shrink
   From giant horrors; wildly wandering here,
He seems (uncursed with reason) not to know
The depth or the duration of his woe.

Form: sonnet
When I consider every thing that grows (Sonnet 15)
by William Shakespeare

When I consider every thing that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment.
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment.
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheerèd and checked even by the self-same sky,
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory;
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay,
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wasteful Time debateth with decay
To change your day of youth to sullied night;
    And all in war with Time for love of you,
    As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

Form: sonnet
Divine Epigrams: Samson to his Delilah
by Richard Crashaw

Could not once blinding me, cruel, suffice?
When first I look’d on thee, I lost mine eyes.

Form: couplet
Thus can my love excuse the slow offence (Sonnet 51)
by William Shakespeare

Thus can my love excuse the slow offence
Of my dull bearer when from thee I speed:
From where thou art why should I haste me thence?
Till I return, of posting is no need.
O, what excuse will my poor beast then find,
When swift extremity can seem but slow?
Then should I spur, though mounted on the wind;
In winged speed no motion shall I know;
Then can no horse with my desire keep pace;
Therefore desire, of perfect’st love being made.
Shall neigh—no dull flesh—in his fiery race;
But love, for love, this shall excuse my jade;
     Since from thee going he went willful-slow,
     Towards thee I’ll run, and give him leave to go.

Form: sonnet
The New Year
by Carrie Williams Clifford

The New Year comes—fling wide, fling wide the door
Of Opportunity! the spirit free
To scale the utmost heights of hopes to be,
To rest on peaks ne’er reached by man before!
The boundless infinite let us explore,
To search out undiscovered mystery,
Undreamed of in our poor philosophy!
The bounty of the gods upon us pour!
Nay, in the New Year we shall be as gods:
No longer apish puppets or dull clods
Of clay; but poised, empowered to command,
Upon the Etna of New Worlds we’ll stand—
This scant earth-raiment to the winds will cast—
Full richly robed as supermen at last!

Form: sonnet
Toussaint L’Ouverture
by Henrietta Cordelia Ray

To those fair isles where crimson sunsets burn,
We send a backward glance to gaze on thee,
Brave Toussaint! thou was surely born to be
A hero; thy proud spirit could but spurn
Each outrage on the race. Couldst thou unlearn
The lessons taught by instinct? Nay! and we
Who share the zeal that would make all men free,
Must e’en with pride unto thy life-work turn.
Soul-dignity was thine and purest aim;
And ah! how sad that thou wast left to mourn
In chains ’neath alien skies. On him, shame! shame!
That mighty conqueror who dared to claim
The right to bind thee. Him we heap with scorn,
And noble patriot! guard with love thy name.

Form: sonnet
The Valley of Unrest
by Edgar Allan Poe

Once it smiled a silent dell
Where the people did not dwell;
They had gone unto the wars,
Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
Nightly, from their azure towers,
To keep watch above the flowers,
In the midst of which all day
The red sun-light lazily lay.
Now each visitor shall confess
The sad valley’s restlessness.
Nothing there is motionless—
Nothing save the airs that brood
Over the magic solitude.
Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees
That palpitate like the chill seas
Around the misty Hebrides!
Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven
That rustle through the unquiet Heaven
Uneasily, from morn till even,
Over the violets there that lie
In myriad types of the human eye—
Over the lilies there that wave
And weep above a nameless grave!
They wave:—from out their fragrant tops
External dews come down in drops.
They weep:—from off their delicate stems
Perennial tears descend in gems.

Form: couplet
Sonnet 15: Fairfax, whose name in arms through Europe rings
by John Milton

On the Lord General Fairfax at the Siege of Colchester

Fairfax, whose name in arms through Europe rings
      Filling each mouth with envy, or with praise,
      And all her jealous monarchs with amaze
      And rumours loud, that daunt remotest kings;
Thy firm unshak'n virtue ever brings
      Victory home, though new rebellions raise
      Their hydra heads, and the false north displays
      Her brok'n league, to imp their serpent wings:
O yet a nobler task awaits thy hand;
      For what can war but endless war still breed?
      Till Truth and Right from Violence be freed,
And Public Faith clear'd from the shameful brand
      Of Public Fraud. In vain doth Valour bleed
      While Avarice and Rapine share the land.

Form: sonnet
Sonnet 131 [I’d sing of Love in such a novel fashion]
by Petrarch

I’d sing of Love in such a novel fashion
that from her cruel side I would draw by force
a thousand sighs a day, kindling again
in her cold mind a thousand high desires;

I’d see her lovely face transform quite often
her eyes grow wet and more compassionate,
like one who feels regret, when it’s too late,
for causing someone’s suffering by mistake;

And I’d see scarlet roses in the snows,
tossed by the breeze, discover ivory
that turns to marble those who see it near them;

All this I’d do because I do not mind
my discontentment in this one short life,
but glory rather in my later fame.

Form: sonnet
Homage to Darío
by Arturo Giménez Pastor

Sadly mourns the fair princess, while her golden bees,
Clustering together in the stillness of the sun,
Murmur faintly like the waves of enchanted seas.
Knight and Squire around her are striving, every one,
Vainly striving to awake on her cheek the blush,
Soft as on an evening cloud the last sunset flush.

Sadly mourns the centaur troop from the classic lands,
Suddenly arrested on some distant shore,
By the cadence of the waves, like a funeral band,
Till they cover all the marge, and are heard no more.
Till the last faint ripple, with a sobbing breath,
Dies away in silence, and all is still as death.

Sacred swans of poesy, snow-white and snow-soft,
Floating heaps of slumber on waveless lakes afar;
Royal train of peacocks, with crested heads aloft,
Such as pace majestic, linked to Juno’s car.
Or in Versailles gardens step slowly one by one,
Past the steps of Pompadour’s rose-heaped, rose-hung throne.

Floating vapors slowly rise and wreathe, wind-swept and pale;
Hiding arching necks of snow, shining crests of blue;
Sad and sweet the murmurs through the misty veil,
Till the poet’s song resounds, the flowerless desert through;
And but for a moment rings the Sonatina’s lay,
Roaring winds and thunder peals sweep it far away.

                  *      *      *      *      *      *

The spectral Archer of the Northern sky,
Bends his great bow across the sphere on high;
Through the unmeasured realms of night and day,
Speeds his black arrow on its destined way.
It strikes, but pierces not, the poet’s breast,
His empty quiver near him lies at rest,
And over him sinks slowly in the West
            The Archer Boy.

Let no loud weeping chill the budding bloom,
That elves and nymphs have wreathed about his tomb,
The gentle Syrinx mourns his shortened years,
And on his laurels Pan sheds quiet tears;
In the cathedral raise the exile’s Psalm,
That through the transepts breathes like sorrow’s balm,
And in the tinted window rises calm
            The Archer Boy

And now the band of those who loved him best
Follows him slowly to his place of rest.
To the slow beating of the muffled drum
With heads bowed down and measured tread they come.
Pale and serene, fixed in triumphant peace,
His noble face bids lamentation cease,
His only fitting requiem shall be
The pealing Psalm that tells of victory.
The blazoned banners float above his bier,
And from blue far-off waters rises clear
            The swan-song on the ear!

Form: elegy
Glass was the Street - in Tinsel Peril (1518)
by Emily Dickinson

Glass was the Street - in Tinsel Peril
Tree and Traveller stood.
Filled was the Air with merry venture
Hearty with Boys the Road.

Shot the lithe Sleds like Shod vibrations
Emphacized and gone
It is the Past’s supreme italic
Makes the Present mean -

Form: quatrain