PoetryMTEB/EnglishPoetryFormClassification huggingface dataset:
On the Death of Sir Erasmus Philips
by Anna Williams

Unfortunately drowned in the River Avon, near Bath, October 15, 1743

Why dash the floods! What cries my soul affright!
How steep the precipice! How dark the night!
Then Virtue sunk in Avon’s fatal wave,
No friend to succour, no kind hand to save; 
The circling waters hide his sinking head,
The treach’rous bottom forms his oozy bed. 
Behold the bloated corpse, the visage pale; 
See here what virtue, wealth, and birth avail.
What now remains beneath this load of pain?
To weep is nature, but to weep is vain.
What now remains? It yet remains to try 
What hope, what peace, religion can supply: 
It yet remains to catch the parting ray,
To note his worth ere mem’ry fade away,
To mark how various excellence combin’d, 
Recount his virtues, and transcribe his mind. 
It yet remains with holy rites to lay,
The breathless reliques in their kindred day.
Ye wise, ye good, the holy rites attend,
Here lies the wise man’s guide, the good man’s friend.
Awhile let faith exalt th’ adoring eye, 
And meditation deep suspend the sigh;
Then close the grave, and sound the fun’ral knell,
Each drop a tear, and take a last farewell; 
In peace retire, and wish to live as well.

Form: elegy
Sonnet VIII
by Luís de Camões

Mondego! thou, whose waters cold and clear 
Gird those green banks, where fancy fain would stay, 
Fondly to muse on that departed day 
When Hope was kind and Friendship seem’d sincere; 
—Ere I had purchas’d knowledge with a tear.
—Mondego! though I bend my pilgrim way 
To other shores, where other fountains stray,
And other rivers roll their proud career, 
Still—nor shall time, nor grief, nor stars severe, 
Nor widening distance e’er prevail in aught 
To make thee less to this sad bosom dear; 
And Memory oft, by old Affection taught, 
Shall lightly speed upon the plumes of thought, 
To bathe amongst thy waters cold and clear!

 

 

 

Doces e claras aguas do Mondego, 
Doce repouso de minha lembrança, 
Onde a comprida e pérfida esperança 
Longo tempo apoz si me trouxe cego.
De vós me aparto, si; porém não nego, 
Que inda a longa memoria, que me alcança. 
Me não deixa de vós fazer mudança. 
Mas quanto mais me alongo, mais me achego.
Bem poderá a Fortuna este instrumento 
Da alma levar por terra nova e extranha, 
Oíferecido ao mar remoto, ao vento.
Mas a alma, que de cá vos acompanha. 
Nas azas do ligeiro pensamento 
Para vós, aguas, vôa, e em vós se banha.

Form: sonnet
The Charge of the Light Brigade
by Lord Tennyson Alfred

I
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
   Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said.
Into the valley of Death
   Rode the six hundred.

II
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
   Someone had blundered.
   Theirs not to make reply,
   Theirs not to reason why,
   Theirs but to do and die.
   Into the valley of Death
   Rode the six hundred.

III
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
   Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
   Rode the six hundred.

IV
Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
   All the world wondered.
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre stroke
   Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not
   Not the six hundred.

V
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
   Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell.
They that had fought so well
Came through the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of hell,
All that was left of them,
   Left of six hundred.

VI
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
   All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
   Noble six hundred!

Form: elegy
Apollo Musagetes
by Matthew Arnold

Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts,
Thick breaks the red flame;
All Etna heaves fiercely
Her forest-clothed frame.

Not here, O Apollo!
Are haunts meet for thee.
But, where Helicon breaks down
In cliff to the sea,

Where the moon-silver'd inlets
Send far their light voice
Up the still vale of Thisbe,
O speed, and rejoice!

On the sward at the cliff-top
Lie strewn the white flocks,
On the cliff-side the pigeons
Roost deep in the rocks.

In the moonlight the shepherds,
Soft lull'd by the rills,
Lie wrapped in their blankets
Asleep on the hills.

—What forms are these coming
So white through the gloom?
What garments out-glistening
The gold-flower'd broom?

What sweet-breathing presence
Out-perfumes the thyme?
What voices enrapture
The night's balmy prime?

'Tis Apollo comes leading
His choir, the Nine.
—The leader is fairest,
But all are divine.

They are lost in the hollows!
They stream up again!
What seeks on this mountain
The glorified train?—

They bathe on this mountain,
In the spring by their road;
Then on to Olympus,
Their endless abode.

—Whose proase do they mention?
Of what is it told?—
What will be for ever;
What was from of old.

First hymn they the Father
Of all things; and then,
The rest of immortals,
The action of men.

The day in his hotness,
The strife with the palm;
The night in her silence,
The stars in their calm.

Form: pastoral
Sir Humphrey Gilbert
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Southward with fleet of ice
Sailed the corsair Death;
Wild and gast blew the blast,
And the east-wind was his breath.

His lordly ships of ice
Glisten in the sun;
On each side, like pennons wide,
Flashing crystal streamlets run.

His sails of white sea-mist
Dripped with silver rain;
But where he passed there were cast
Leaden shadows o'er the main.

Eastward from Campobello
Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed;
Three days or more seaward he bore,
Then, alas! the land-wind failed.

Alas! the land-wind failed,
And ice-cold grew the night;
And nevermore, on sea or shore,
Should Sir Humphrey see the light.

He sat upon the deck,
The Book was in his hand;
"Do not fear! Heaven is as near,"
He said, "by water as by land!"

In the first watch of the night,
Without a signal's sound,
Out of the sea, mysteriously,
The fleet of Death rose all around.

The moon and the evening star
Were hanging in the shrouds;
Every mast, as it passed,
Seemed to rake the passing clouds.

They grappled with their prize,
At midnight black and cold!
As of a rock was the shock;
Heavily the ground-swell rolled.

Southward through day and dark,
They drift in cold embrace,
With mist and rain, o'er the open main;
Yet there seems no change of place.

Southward, forever southward,
They drift through dark and day;
And like a dream, in the Gulf-Stream
Sinking, vanish all away.

Form: common measure
Modern Love: XXXIII
by George Meredith

‘In Paris, at the Louvre, there have I seen
The sumptuously-feathered angel pierce
Prone Lucifer, descending. Looked he fierce,
Showing the fight a fair one? Too serene!
The young Pharsalians did not disarray
Less willingly their locks of floating silk:
That suckling mouth of his, upon the milk
Of heaven might still be feasting through the fray.
Oh, Raphael! when men the Fiend do fight,
They conquer not upon such easy terms.
Half serpent in the struggle grown these worms.
And does he grow half human, all is right.’
This to my Lady in a distant spot,
Upon the theme: ‘While mind is mastering clay,
Gross clay invades it.’ If the spy you play,
My wife, read this! Strange love talk, is it not?

Form: sonnet