PoetryMTEB/EnglishPoetryFormClassification huggingface dataset:
The Three Enemies
by Christina Rossetti

THE FLESH
"Sweet, thou art pale."
     "More pale to see,
Christ hung upon the cruel tree
And bore His Father's wrath for me."

"Sweet, thou art sad."
     "Beneath a rod
More heavy, Christ for my sake trod
The winepress of the wrath of God."

"Sweet, thou art weary."
     "Not so Christ:
Whose mighty love of me suffic'd
For Strength, Salvation, Eucharist."

"Sweet, thou art footsore."
     "If I bleed,
His feet have bled; yea in my need
His Heart once bled for mine indeed."

THE WORLD
"Sweet, thou art young."
     "So He was young
Who for my sake in silence hung
Upon the Cross with Passion wrung."

"Look, thou art fair."
     "He was more fair
Than men, Who deign'd for me to wear
A visage marr'd beyond compare."

"And thou hast riches."
     "Daily bread:
All else is His: Who, living, dead,
For me lack'd where to lay His Head."

"And life is sweet."
     "It was not so
To Him, Whose Cup did overflow
With mine unutterable woe."

THE DEVIL
"Thou drinkest deep."
     "When Christ would sup
He drain'd the dregs from out my cup:
So how should I be lifted up?"

"Thou shalt win Glory."
     "In the skies,
Lord Jesus, cover up mine eyes
Lest they should look on vanities."

"Thou shalt have Knowledge."
     "Helpless dust!
In Thee, O Lord, I put my trust:
Answer Thou for me, Wise and Just."

"And Might."—
     "Get thee behind me. Lord,
Who hast redeem'd and not abhorr'd
My soul, oh keep it by Thy Word."

Form: couplet
Modern Love: XXV
by George Meredith

You like not that French novel? Tell me why.
You think it quite unnatural. Let us see.
The actors are, it seems, the usual three:
Husband, and wife, and love. She—but fie!
In England we’ll not hear of it. Edmond,
The lover, her devout chagrin doth share;
Blanc-mange and absinthe are his penitent fare,
Till his pale aspect makes her over-fond:
So, to preclude fresh sin, he tried rosbif.
Meantime, the husband is no more abused:
Auguste forgives her ere the tear is used.
Then hangeth all on one tremendous IF:—
If she will choose between them. She does choose;
And takes her husband, like a proper wife.
Unnatural! My dear, these things are life:
And life, some think, is worthy of the Muse.

Form: sonnet
"I Have a Young Sister"
by Anonymous

I have a yong suster
Fer beyonden the se,
Many be the drowryes
That she sente me.

She sente me the cherye
Withouten ony ston;
And so she dede the dove
Withouten ony bon.

She sente me the brer
Withouten ony rinde;
She bad me love my lemman
Withoute longing.

How shuld ony cherye
Be withoute ston?
And how shuld ony dove
Be withoute bon?

How shuld ony brer
Been withoute rinde?
How shuld I love myn lemman
Withoute longing?

Whan the cherye was a flowr
Than hadde it non ston.
When the dove was an ey
Than hadde it non bon.

When the brer was onbred
Than hadde it non rind.
Whan the maiden hath that she loveth
She is without longing.

Form: ballad
Color
by Christina Rossetti

What is pink? a rose is pink
By a fountain's brink.
What is red? a poppy's red
In its barley bed.
What is blue? the sky is blue
Where the clouds float thro'.
What is white? a swan is white
Sailing in the light.
What is yellow? pears are yellow,
Rich and ripe and mellow.
What is green? the grass is green,
With small flowers between.
What is violet? clouds are violet
In the summer twilight.
What is orange? Why, an orange,
Just an orange!

Form: couplet
Sonnet 33: Full many a glorious morning have I seen
by William Shakespeare

Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace.
Even so my sun one early morn did shine
With all-triumphant splendour on my brow;
But out, alack! he was but one hour mine;
The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.
Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;
Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.

Form: sonnet
[’Tis the first snow—]
by Matsuo Bashō

’Tis the first snow—
Just enough to bend
The gladiolus leaves!

Form: haiku
Sonnet 1
by Gwendolyn Bennett

He came in silvern armour, trimmed with black—
A lover come from legends long ago—
With silver spurs and silken plumes a-blow,
And flashing sword caught fast and buckled back
In a carven sheath of Tamarack.
He came with footsteps beautifully slow,
And spoke in voice meticulously low.
He came and Romance followed in his track...

I did not ask his name—I thought him Love;
I did not care to see his hidden face.
All life seemed born in my intaken breath;
All thought seemed flown like some forgotten dove.
He bent to kiss and raised his visor's lace...
All eager-lipped I kissed the mouth of Death.

Form: sonnet
[Weaned from life and flown away]
by Emily Brontë

Weaned from life and flown away
In the morning of thy day,
Bound in everlasting gloom,
Buried in a hapless tomb.

Yet upon thy bended knee
Thank the power that banished thee;
Chain and bar and dungeon wall
Saved thee from a deadlier thrall.

Thank the power that made thee part
Ere that parting broke thy heart.
Wildly rushed the mountain spring
From its source of fern and ling;
How invincible its roar,
Had its waters worn the shore.

Form: sonnet
Modern Love: VIII
by George Meredith

Yet it was plain she struggled, and that salt
Of righteous feeling made her pitiful.
Poor twisting worm, so queenly beautiful!
Where came the cleft between us? whose the fault?
My tears are on thee, that have rarely dropped
As balm for any bitter wound of mine:
My breast will open for thee at a sign!
But no: we are two reed-pipes, coarsely stopped:
The God once filled them with his mellow breath;
And they were music till he flung them down,
Used! used! Hear now the discord-loving clown
Puff his gross spirit in them, worse than death!
I do not know myself without thee more:
In this unholy battle I grow base:
If the same soul be under the same face,
Speak, and a taste of that old time restore!

Form: sonnet
Sonnet: They Dub Thee Idler
by Henry Timrod

They dub thee idler, smiling sneeringly,
And why? because, forsooth, so many moons,
Here dwelling voiceless by the voiceful sea,
Thou hast not set thy thoughts to paltry tunes
In song or sonnet. Them these golden noons
Oppress not with their beauty; they could prate,
Even while a prophet read the solemn runes
On which is hanging some imperial fate.
How know they, these good gossips, what to thee
The ocean and its wanderers may have brought?
How know they, in their busy vacancy,
With what far aim thy spirit may be fraught?
Or that thou dost not bow thee silently
Before some great unutterable thought?

Form: sonnet
The Snail
by Richard Lovelace

Wise emblem of our politic world,
Sage snail, within thine own self curl’d;
Instruct me softly to make haste,
Whilst these my feet go slowly fast.

     Compendious snail! thou seem’st to me,
Large Euclid’s strict epitome;
And in each diagram dost fling
Thee from the point unto the ring;
A figure now triangular,
An oval now, and now a square;
And then a serpentine dost crawl,
Now a straight line, now crook’d, now all.

     Preventing rival of the day,
Th’art up and openest thy ray,
And ere the morn cradles the moon
Th’art broke into a beauteous noon.
Then when the sun sups in the deep,
Thy silver horns ere Cynthia’s peep;
And thou from thine own liquid bed
New Phoebus heav’st thy pleasant head.

     Who shall a name for thee create,
Deep riddle of mysterious state?
Bold Nature that gives common birth
To all products of seas and earth,
Of thee, as earthquakes, is afraid,
Nor will thy dire deliv’ry aid.

     Thou thine own daughter then, and sire,
That son and mother art entire,
That big still with thy self dost go,
And liv’st an aged embryo;
That like the cubs of India,
Thou from thyself a while dost play;
But frighted with a dog or gun,
In thine own belly thou dost run,
And as thy house was thine own womb,
So thine own womb concludes thy tomb.

     But now I must (analyz’d king)
Thy economic virtues sing;
Thou great stay’d husband still within,
Thou, thee, that’s thine dost discipline;
And when thou art to progress bent,
Thou mov’st thy self and tenement,
As warlike Scythians travell’d, you
Remove your men and city too;
Then after a sad dearth and rain,
Thou scatterest thy silver train;
And when the trees grow nak’d and old,
Thou clothest them with cloth of gold,
Which from thy bowels thou dost spin,
And draw from the rich mines within.

     Now hast thou chang’d thee saint; and made
Thy self a fane that’s cupola’d;
And in thy wreathed cloister thou
Walkest thine own grey friar too;
Strict, and lock’d up, th’art hood all o’er,
And ne’er eliminat’st thy door.
On salads thou dost feed severe,
And ’stead of beads thou dropp’st a tear;
And when to rest, each calls the bell,
Thou sleep’st within thy marble cell,
Where in dark contemplation plac’d,
The sweets of nature thou dost taste;
Who now with time thy days resolve,
And in a jelly thee dissolve,
Like a shot star, which doth repair
Upward, and rarify the air.

Form: ode
The New Decalogue
by Ambrose Bierce

Have but one God: thy knees were sore
If bent in prayer to three or four.

Adore no images save those
The coinage of thy country shows.

Take not the Name in vain. Direct
Thy swearing unto some effect.

Thy hand from Sunday work be held—
Work not at all unless compelled.

Honor thy parents, and perchance
Their wills thy fortunes may advance.

Kill not—death liberates thy foe
From persecution’s constant woe.

Kiss not thy neighbor’s wife. Of course
There’s no objection to divorce.

To steal were folly, for ’tis plain
In cheating there is greater gain.

Bear not false witness. Shake your head
And say that you have “heard it said.”

Who stays to covet ne’er will catch
An opportunity to snatch.

Form: couplet
[When night draws on, remembering keeps me wakeful]
by al-Khansāʾ

translated from the Arabic by Reynold A. Nicholson

When night draws on, remembering keeps me wakeful 
And hinders my rest with grief upon grief returning 
For Ṣakhr. What a man was he on the day of battle, 
When, snatching their chance, they swiftly exchange the spear-thrusts! 
Ah, never of woe like this in the world of spirits 
I heard, or of loss like mine in the heart of woman. 
What Fortune might send, none stronger than he to bear it; 
None better to meet the trouble with mind unshaken; 
The kindest to help, wherever the need was sorest: 
They all had of him a boon—wife, friend, and suitor. 
O Ṣakhr! I will ne’er forget thee until in dying 
part from my soul, and earth for my tomb is cloven. 
The rise of the sun recalls to me Ṣakhr my brother, 
And him I remember also at every sunset.

Form: elegy
The World Below the Brine
by Walt Whitman

The world below the brine,
Forests at the bottom of the sea, the branches and leaves,
Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds, the thick tangle, openings, and pink turf,
Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold, the play of light through the water,
Dumb swimmers there among the rocks, coral, gluten, grass, rushes, and the aliment of the swimmers,
Sluggish existences grazing there suspended, or slowly crawling close to the bottom,
The sperm-whale at the surface blowing air and spray, or disporting with his flukes,
The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea-leopard, and the sting-ray,
Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes, sight in those ocean-depths, breathing that thick-breathing air, as so many do,
The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed by beings like us who walk this sphere,
The change onward from ours to that of beings who walk other spheres.

Form: free verse
No Buyers
by Thomas Hardy

A Load of brushes and baskets and cradles and chairs
       Labours along the street in the rain:
With it a man, a woman, a pony with whiteybrown hairs. —
   The man foots in front of the horse with a shambling sway
       At a slower tread than a funeral train,
   While to a dirge-like tune he chants his wares,
Swinging a Turk's-head brush (in a drum-major's way
           When the bandsmen march and play).

A yard from the back of the man is the whiteybrown pony's nose:
He mirrors his master in every item of pace and pose:
       He stops when the man stops, without being told,
   And seems to be eased by a pause; too plainly he's old,
           Indeed, not strength enough shows
       To steer the disjointed waggon straight,
   Which wriggles left and right in a rambling line,
   Deflected thus by its own warp and weight,
   And pushing the pony with it in each incline.

       The woman walks on the pavement verge,
           Parallel to the man:
   She wears an apron white and wide in span,
And carries a like Turk's-head, but more in nursing-wise:
   Now and then she joins in his dirge,
   But as if her thoughts were on distant things,
   The rain clams her apron till it clings. —
So, step by step, they move with their merchandize,
           And nobody buys.

Form: pastoral
On the Departure of Sir Walter Scott from Abbotsford, for Naples
by William Wordsworth

A trouble, not of clouds, or weeping rain,
Nor of the setting sun's pathetic light
Engendered, hangs o'er Eildon's triple height:
Spirits of Power, assembled there, complain
For kindred Power departing from their sight;
While Tweed, best pleased in chanting a blithe strain,
Saddens his voice again, and yet again.
Lift up your hearts, ye Mourners! for the might
Of the whole world's good wishes with him goes;
Blessings and prayers in nobler retinue
Than sceptred king or laurelled conqueror knows,
Follow this wondrous Potentate. Be true,
Ye winds of ocean, and the midland sea,
Wafting your Charge to soft Parthenope!

Form: sonnet
Delight in Disorder
by Robert Herrick

A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness;
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction;
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher;
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribands to flow confusedly;
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat;
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility:
Do more bewitch me, than when art
Is too precise in every part.

Form: couplet
The Pond
by Amy Lowell

Cold, wet leaves
Floating on moss-coloured water   
And the croaking of frogs—
Cracked bell-notes in the twilight.

Form: free verse
Remember
by Christina Rossetti

Remember me when I am gone away,
         Gone far away into the silent land;
         When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
         You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
         Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
         And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
         For if the darkness and corruption leave
         A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
         Than that you should remember and be sad.

Form: sonnet
Clorinda and Damon
by Andrew Marvell

C. Damon, come drive thy flocks this way.
D. No, ’tis too late; they went astray.
C. I have a grassy scutcheon spied,
  Where Flora blazons all her pride.
  The grass I aim to feast thy sheep:
  The flowers I for thy temples keep.
D. Grass withers; and the flowers too fade.
C. Seize the short joys then, ere they vade,
  Seest thou that unfrequented cave?
D. That den?
C.           Love’s Shrine.
D.                         But virtue’s grave.
C. In whose cool bosom we may lie
  Safe from the sun.
D.                    Not heaven’s eye.
C. Near this, a fountain’s liquid bell
  Tinkles within the concave shell.
D. Might a soul bathe there and be clean,
  Or slake its drought?
C.                      What is’t you mean?
D. These once had been enticing things,
  Clorinda, pastures, caves, and springs.
C. And what late change?
D.                       The other day
  Pan met me.
C.              What did great Pan say?
D. Words that transcend poor shepherds’ skill,
  But he e’er since my songs does fill:
  And his name swells my slender oat.
C. Sweet must Pan sound in Damon’s note.
D. Clorinda’s voice might make it sweet.
C. Who would not in Pan’s praises meet?

CHORUS
Of Pan the flowery pastures sing,
Caves echo, and the fountains ring.
Sing then while he doth us inspire;
For all the world is our Pan’s choir.

Form: couplet
The Chimney Sweeper: When my mother died I was very young
by William Blake

When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry " 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!"
So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head
That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved, so I said,
"Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."

And so he was quiet, & that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping he had such a sight!
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, & Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black;

And by came an Angel who had a bright key,
And he opened the coffins & set them all free;
Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing they run,
And wash in a river and shine in the Sun.

Then naked & white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind.
And the Angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father & never want joy.

And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark
And got with our bags & our brushes to work.
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm;
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

Form: couplet
Sonnet:  Grief Dies
by Henry Timrod

Grief dies like joy; the tears upon my cheek
Will disappear like dew. Dear God! I know
Thy kindly Providence hath made it so,
And thank thee for the law. I am too weak
To make a friend of Sorrow, or to wear,
With that dark angel ever by my side
(Though to thy heaven there be no better guide),
A front of manly calm. Yet, for I hear
How woe hath cleansed, how grief can deify,
So weak a thing it seems that grief should die,
And love and friendship with it, I could pray,
That if it might not gloom upon my brow,
Nor weigh upon my arm as it doth now,
No grief of mine should ever pass away.

Form: sonnet
Farewell Love and all thy Laws for ever
by Sir Thomas Wyatt

Farewell love and all thy laws forever;
Thy baited hooks shall tangle me no more.
Senec and Plato call me from thy lore
To perfect wealth, my wit for to endeavour.
In blind error when I did persever,
Thy sharp repulse, that pricketh aye so sore,
Hath taught me to set in trifles no store
And scape forth, since liberty is lever.
Therefore farewell; go trouble younger hearts
And in me claim no more authority.
With idle youth go use thy property
And thereon spend thy many brittle darts,
For hitherto though I have lost all my time,
Me lusteth no lenger rotten boughs to climb.

Form: sonnet
Sonnet—Mutation
by William Cullen Bryant

They talk of short-lived pleasure—be it so—
Pain dies as quickly: stern, hard-featured pain
Expires, and lets her weary prisoner go.
The fiercest agonies have shortest reign;
And after dreams of horror, comes again
The welcome morning with its rays of peace.
Oblivion, softly wiping out the stain,
Makes the strong secret pangs of shame to cease:
Remorse is virtue’s root; its fair increase
Are fruits of innocence and blessedness:
Thus joy, o’erborne and bound, doth still release
His young limbs from the chains that round him press.
Weep not that the world changes—did it keep
A stable changeless state, ’twere cause indeed to weep.

Form: sonnet
Sonnet 29: When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes
by William Shakespeare

When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
       For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
       That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Form: sonnet
The Baby's Dance
by Ann Taylor

DANCE little baby, dance up high,
Never mind baby, mother is by ;
Crow and caper, caper and crow,
There little baby, there you go ;
Up to the ceiling, down to the ground,
Backwards and forwards, round and round ;
Dance little baby, and mother shall sing,
With the merry coral, ding, ding, ding.

Form: couplet
Look in thy glass, and tell the faces thou viewest (Sonnet 3)
by William Shakespeare

Look in thy glass, and tell the faces thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another;
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose unear’d womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime:
So thou through windows of thing age shalt see
Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.
    But if thou live, remember’d not to be,
    Die single, and thing image dies with thee.

Form: sonnet
The Blue Scarf
by Amy Lowell

Pale, with the blue of high zeniths, shimmered over with silver, brocaded
In smooth, running patterns, a soft stuff, with dark knotted fringes, it lies there,
Warm from a woman’s soft shoulders, and my fingers close on it, caressing.
Where is she, the woman who wore it? The scent of her lingers and drugs me.
A languor, fire-shotted, runs through me, and I crush the scarf down on my face,
And gulp in the warmth and the blueness, and my eyes swim in cool-tinted heavens.
Around me are columns of marble, and a diapered, sun-flickered pavement.
Rose-leaves blow and patter against it. Below the stone steps a lute tinkles.
A jar of green jade throws its shadow half over the floor. A big-bellied
Frog hops through the sunlight, and plops in the gold-bubbled water of a basin,
Sunk in the black and white marble. The west wind has lifted a scarf
On the seat close beside me; the blue of it is a violent outrage of colour.
She draws it more closely about her, and it ripples beneath her slight stirring.
Her kisses are sharp buds of fire; and I burn back against her, a jewel
Hard and white, a stalked, flaming flower; till I break to a handful of cinders,
And open my eyes to the scarf, shining blue in the afternoon sunshine.

How loud clocks can tick when a room is empty, and one is alone!

Form: free verse