PoetryMTEB/EnglishPoetryFormClassification huggingface dataset:
I Hid my Love
by John Clare

I hid my love when young till I
Couldn't bear the buzzing of a fly;
I hid my love to my despite
Till I could not bear to look at light:
I dare not gaze upon her face
But left her memory in each place;
Where'er I saw a wild flower lie
I kissed and bade my love good-bye.

I met her in the greenest dells,
Where dewdrops pearl the wood bluebells;
The lost breeze kissed her bright blue eye,
The bee kissed and went singing by,
A sunbeam found a passage there,
A gold chain round her neck so fair;
As secret as the wild bee's song
She lay there all the summer long.

I hid my love in field and town
Till e'en the breeze would knock me down;
The bees seemed singing ballads o'er,
The fly's bass turned a lion's roar;
And even silence found a tongue,
To haunt me all the summer long;
The riddle nature could not prove
Was nothing else but secret love.

Form: couplet
Unsolved
by John McCrae

Amid my books I lived the hurrying years,
   Disdaining kinship with my fellow man;
Alike to me were human smiles and tears,
   I cared not whither Earth's great life-stream ran,
Till as I knelt before my mouldered shrine,
   God made me look into a woman's eyes;
And I, who thought all earthly wisdom mine,
   Knew in a moment that the eternal skies
Were measured but in inches, to the quest
   That lay before me in that mystic gaze.
“Surely I have been errant; it is best
   That I should tread, with men their human ways.”
God took the teacher, ere the task was learned,
And to my lonely books again I turned.

Form: sonnet
I Heard an Angel
by William Blake

I heard an Angel singing
When the day was springing 
Mercy Pity Peace
Is the worlds release 

Thus he sung all day
Over the new mown hay 
Till the sun went down
And haycocks looked brown 

I heard a Devil curse
Over the heath & the furze 
Mercy could be no more 
If there was nobody poor 

And pity no more could be 
If all were as happy as we 
At his curse the sun went down 
And the heavens gave a frown 

Down pourd the heavy rain
Over the new reapd grain 
And Miseries increase
Is Mercy Pity Peace

Form: couplet
The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd
by Sir Walter Raleigh

If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every Shepherd’s tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move,
To live with thee, and be thy love.

Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
When Rivers rage and Rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb,
The rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields,
To wayward winter reckoning yields,
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall.

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of Roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten:
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

Thy belt of straw and Ivy buds,
The Coral clasps and amber studs,
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee and be thy love.

But could youth last, and love still breed,
Had joys no date, nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee, and be thy love.

Form: couplet
To His Coy Mistress
by Andrew Marvell

Had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
       But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust;
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
       Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

Form: couplet
Astrophil and Stella 64: No more, my dear, no more these counsels try
by Sir Philip Sidney

No more, my dear, no more these counsels try;
Oh, give my passions leave to run their race;
Let Fortune lay on me her worst disgrace;
Let folk o'ercharg'd with brain against me cry;
Let clouds bedim my face, break in mine eye;
Let me no steps but of lost labour trace;
Let all the earth with scorn recount my case,
But do not will me from my love to fly.
I do not envy Aristotle's wit,
Nor do aspire to Caesar's bleeding fame;
Nor aught do care though some above me sit;
Nor hope nor wish another course to frame,
But that which once may win thy cruel heart:
Thou art my wit, and thou my virtue art.

Form: sonnet
Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame (Sonnet 129)
by William Shakespeare

Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight:
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad:
Mad in pursuit, and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
        All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
        To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

Form: sonnet
Song of the Witches: “Double, double toil and trouble”
by William Shakespeare

(from Macbeth)

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

Form: couplet
On Playwright
by Ben Jonson

Playwright, convict of public wrongs to men,
Takes private beatings and begins again.
Two kinds of valor he doth show at once:
Active in ’s brain, and passive in his bones.

Form: free verse
Mediocrity in Love Rejected
by Thomas Carew

Give me more love or more disdain;
     The torrid, or the frozen zone,
Bring equal ease unto my pain;
     The temperate affords me none;
Either extreme, of love, or hate,
Is sweeter than a calm estate.

Give me a storm; if it be love,
     Like Danae in that golden show'r
I swim in pleasure; if it prove
     Disdain, that torrent will devour
My vulture-hopes; and he's possess'd
Of heaven, that's but from hell releas'd.

Then crown my joys, or cure my pain;
Give me more love, or more disdain.

Form: sonnet
Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth (Sonnet 146)
by William Shakespeare

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
My sinful earth these rebel powers array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body’s end?
Then soul, live thou upon thy servant’s loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more:
    So shall thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,
    And Death once dead, there’s no more dying then.

Form: sonnet
When in the chronicle of wasted time (Sonnet 106)
by William Shakespeare

When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have express’d
Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all your prefiguring;
And, for they look’d but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing:
    For we, which now behold these present days,
    Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

Form: sonnet
Let me not to the marriage of true minds (Sonnet 116)
by William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
    If this be error, and upon me prov’d,
    I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.

Form: sonnet
Book 6, Epigram 14: De Piscatione.  ﻿
by Thomas Bastard

Fishing, if I a fisher may protest,
 Of pleasures is the sweetest, of sports the best,
 Of exercises the most excellent.
 Of recreations the most innocent.
 But now the sport is marred, and what, ye, why?
 Fishes decrease, and fishers multiply.
 ﻿

Form: couplet
To The Times Editorials
by Alice Duer Miller

Lovely Antiques, breathing in every line
The perfume of an age long passed away,
Wafting us back to 1829,
Museum pieces of a by-gone day,
You should not languish in the public press
Where modern thought might reach and do you harm,
And vulgar youth insult your hoariness,
Missing the flavor of your old world charm;
You should be locked, where rust cannot corrode
In some old rosewood cabinet, dimmed by age,
With silver-lustre, tortoise shell and Spode;
And all would cry, who read your yellowing page:
            “Yes, that’s the sort of thing that men believed
            Before the First Reform Bill was conceived!”

Form: sonnet
How like a winter hath my absence been (Sonnet 97)
by William Shakespeare

How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December’s bareness every where!
And yet this time remov’d was summer’s time;
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,
Like widow’d wombs after their lords’ decease:
Yet this abundant issue seem’d to me
But hope of orphans and unfather’d fruit;
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And, thou away, the very birds are mute:
    Or, if they sing, ’tis with so dull a cheer,
    That leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near.

Form: sonnet
In the old age black was not counted fair (Sonnet 127)
by William Shakespeare

In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty’s name;
But now is black beauty’s successive heir,
And beauty slander’d with a bastard shame:
For since each hand hath put on nature’s power,
Fairing the foul with art’s false borrow’d face,
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,
But it profaned, if not lives in disgrace.
Therefore my mistress’ brows are raven black,
Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem
At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,
Slandering creation with a false esteem:
    Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe,
    That every tongue says beauty should look so.

Form: sonnet
I Love to Do My Homework
by Anonymous

I love to do my homework,
It makes me feel so good.
I love to do exactly
As my teacher says I should.

I love to do my homework,
I never miss a day.
I even love the men in white
Who are taking me away.

Form: ballad
So are you to my thoughts as food to life (Sonnet 75)
by William Shakespeare

So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife
As ’twixt a miser and his wealth is found;
Now proud as an enjoyer and anon
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure,
Now counting best to be with you alone,
Then better’d that the world may see my pleasure;
Sometime all full with feasting on your sight
And by and by clean starved for a look;
Possessing or pursuing no delight,
Save what is had or must from you be took.
    Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
    Or gluttoning on all, or all away.

Form: sonnet
Basanta Panchami
by Pankajini Basu

To-day, after a year, on the sacred fifth day, Nature has flung away her worn raiment, and with new jewels, see, with fresh buds and new shoots she has begemmed herself and smiles. The birds wing their way, singing with joy; ah, how lovely! The black bee hums as if with sound of “Ulu! ulu!” he wished good fortune to Nature. The south breeze seems to say as it flits from house to house, “To-day Bīnāpāni comes here to Bengal.” Arrayed in guise that would enrapture even sages, maid Nature has come to worship thy feet, O propitious one! See, O India, at this time all pay no heed to fear of plague, famine, earthquake; all put away pain and grief and gloom; to-day all are drunk with pleasure. For a year Nature was waiting in hope for this day to come. Many folk in many a fashion now summon thee, O white-armed one; I also have a mind to worship. Thy two feet are red lotuses; but, say, with what gift shall we worship thee, O mother Bināpāni? Ever sorrowful, ever ill-starred are we women of Bengal, all of us. Yet if thou have mercy, this utterly dependent one will worship thee with the gift of a single tear of devotion shed on thy lotus feet. Graciously accept that, and in mercy, O white-armed one, grant this blessing on my head on this propitious, sacred day, that this life may be spent in thy worship, Mother.

Form: prose poem
Gitanjali 6
by Rabindranath Tagore

Pluck this little flower and take it, delay not! I fear lest it droop and drop into the dust.

It may not find a place in thy garland, but honour it with a touch of pain from thy hand and pluck it. I fear lest the day end before I am aware, and the time of offering go by.

Though its colour be not deep and its smell be faint, use this flower in thy service and pluck it while there is time.

Form: prose poem
Sonnet to Vauxhall
by Thomas Hood

“The English Garden.”—Mason

The cold transparent ham is on my fork—
 It hardly rains—and hark the bell!—ding-dingle—
Away! Three thousand feet at gravel work,
 Mocking a Vauxhall shower!—Married and Single
Crush—rush;—Soak’d Silks with wet white Satin mingle.
 Hengler! Madame! round whom all bright sparks lurk
Calls audibly on Mr. and Mrs. Pringle
 To study the Sublime, &c.—(vide Burke)
All Noses are upturn’d!—Whish-ish!—On high
 The rocket rushes—trails—just steals in sight—
Then droops and melts in bubbles of blue light—
 And Darkness reigns—Then balls flare up and die—
Wheels whiz—smack crackers—serpents twist—and then
 Back to the cold transparent ham again!

Form: sonnet
To John Donne
by Ben Jonson

Donne, the delight of Phoebus and each Muse
Who, to thy one, all other brains refuse;
Whose every work of thy most early wit
Came forth example, and remains so yet;
Longer a-knowing than most wits do live;
And which no affection praise enough can give!
To it, thy language, letters, arts, best life,
Which might with half mankind maintain a strife.
All which I meant to praise, and yet I would;
But leave, because I cannot as I should!

Form: couplet
On the Cliffs, Newport
by Alan Seeger

Tonight a shimmer of gold lies mantled o’er
Smooth lovely Ocean. Through the lustrous gloom
A savor steals from linden trees in bloom
And gardens ranged at many a palace door.
Proud walls rise here, and, where the moonbeams pour
Their pale enchantment down the dim coast-line,
Terrace and lawn, trim hedge and flowering vine,
Crown with fair culture all the sounding shore.
How sweet, to such a place, on such a night,
From halls with beauty and festival a-glare,
To come distract and, stretched on the cool turf,
Yield to some fond, improbable delight,
While the moon, reddening, sinks, and all the air
Sighs with the muffled tumult of the surf!

Form: sonnet
From the German of Uhland
by Ludwig Uhland

Three students once tarried over the Rhine,
And into Frau Wirthin’s turned to dine.

“Say, hostess, have you good beer and wine?
And where is that pretty daughter of thine?”

“My beer and wine is fresh and clear.
My daughter lies on her funeral bier.”

They softly tipped into the room;
She lay there in the silent gloom.

The first the white cloth gently raised,
And tearfully upon her gazed.

“If thou wert alive, O, lovely maid,
My heart at thy feet would to-day be laid!”

The second covered her face again,
And turned away with grief and pain.

“Ah, thou upon thy snow-white bier!
And I have loved thee so many a year.”

The third drew back again the veil,
And kissed the lips so cold and pale.

“I’ve loved thee always, I love thee to-day,
And will love thee, yes, forever and aye!”

 

 

 

Es zogen drei Bursche wohl über den Rhein,
Bei einer Frau Wirthin, da kehrten sie ein.

„Frau Wirthin! hat Sie gut Bier und Wein?
Wo hat Sie Ihr schönes Töchterlein?“

„Mein Bier und Wein ist frisch und klar,
Mein Töchterlein liegt auf der Todtenbahr.“

Und als sie traten zur Kammer hinein,
Da lag sie in einem schwarzen Schrein.

Der erste, der schlug den Schleier zurück
Und schaute sie an mit traurigem Blick:

„Ach! lebtest du noch, du schöne Maid!
Ich würde dich lieben von dieser Zeit.“

Der zweite deckte den Schleier zu,
Und kehrte sich ab, und weinte dazu:

„Ach! daß du liegst auf der Todtenbahr!
Ich hab’ dich geliebet so manches Jahr.“

Der dritte hub ihn wieder sogleich
Und küßte sie an den Mund so bleich:

„Dich liebt’ ich immer, dich lieb’ ich noch heut,
Und werde dich lieben in Ewigkeit.“

Form: ballad
My Last Duchess
by Robert Browning

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will 't please you sit and look at her? I said
'Frà Pandolf' by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 't was not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Frà Pandolf chanced to say, 'Her mantle laps
Over my lady's wrist too much,' or 'Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat:' such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 't was all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace—all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men,—good! but thanked
Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech—(which I have not)—to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, 'Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark'—and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
—E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will 't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below then. I repeat,
The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

Form: dramatic monologue
The World Is Too Much With Us
by William Wordsworth

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

Form: sonnet
In Memory of Walter Savage Landor
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Back to the flower-town, side by side,
         The bright months bring,
New-born, the bridegroom and the bride,
         Freedom and spring.

   The sweet land laughs from sea to sea,
         Filled full of sun;
All things come back to her, being free;
         All things but one.

   In many a tender wheaten plot
         Flowers that were dead
Live, and old suns revive; but not
         That holier head.

   By this white wandering waste of sea,
         Far north, I hear
One face shall never turn to me
         As once this year:

   Shall never smile and turn and rest
         On mine as there,
Nor one most sacred hand be prest
         Upon my hair.

   I came as one whose thoughts half linger,
         Half run before;
The youngest to the oldest singer
         That England bore.

   I found him whom I shall not find
         Till all grief end,
In holiest age our mightiest mind,
         Father and friend.

   But thou, if anything endure,
         If hope there be,
O spirit that man's life left pure,
         Man's death set free,

   Not with disdain of days that were
         Look earthward now;
Let dreams revive the reverend hair,
         The imperial brow;

   Come back in sleep, for in the life
         Where thou art not
We find none like thee. Time and strife
         And the world's lot

   Move thee no more; but love at least
         And reverent heart
May move thee, royal and released,
         Soul, as thou art.

   And thou, his Florence, to thy trust
         Receive and keep,
Keep safe his dedicated dust,
         His sacred sleep.

   So shall thy lovers, come from far,
         Mix with thy name
As morning-star with evening-star
         His faultless fame.

Form: elegy
Sonnet 10: Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son
by John Milton

To Mr. Lawrence

Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son,
       Now that the fields are dank, and ways are mire,
       Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire
       Help waste a sullen day; what may be won
From the hard season gaining? Time will run
       On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire
       The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire
       The lily and rose, that neither sow'd nor spun.
What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice,
       Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise
       To hear the lute well touch'd, or artful voice
Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air?
       He who of those delights can judge, and spare
       To interpose them oft, is not unwise.

Form: sonnet