PoetryMTEB/EnglishPoetryFormClassification huggingface dataset:
The Tree
by Countess of Winchilsea Anne Finch

Fair tree! for thy delightful shade
'Tis just that some return be made;
Sure some return is due from me
To thy cool shadows, and to thee.
When thou to birds dost shelter give,
Thou music dost from them receive;
If travellers beneath thee stay
Till storms have worn themselves away,
That time in praising thee they spend
And thy protecting pow'r commend.
The shepherd here, from scorching freed,
Tunes to thy dancing leaves his reed;
Whilst his lov'd nymph, in thanks, bestows
Her flow'ry chaplets on thy boughs.
Shall I then only silent be,
And no return be made by me?
No; let this wish upon thee wait,
And still to flourish be thy fate.
To future ages may'st thou stand
Untouch'd by the rash workman's hand,
Till that large stock of sap is spent,
Which gives thy summer's ornament;
Till the fierce winds, that vainly strive
To shock thy greatness whilst alive,
Shall on thy lifeless hour attend,
Prevent the axe, and grace thy end;
Their scatter'd strength together call
And to the clouds proclaim thy fall;
Who then their ev'ning dews may spare
When thou no longer art their care,
But shalt, like ancient heroes, burn,
And some bright hearth be made thy urn.

Form: couplet
Jabberwocky
by Lewis Carroll

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
      And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
      The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
      The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;
      Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree
      And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
      The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
      And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
      The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
      He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
      Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
      He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
      And the mome raths outgrabe.

Form: ballad
Henry VIII, Prologue [I come no more to make you laugh]
by William Shakespeare

I come no more to make you laugh: things now,
That bear a weighty and a serious brow,
Sad, high, and working, full of state and woe,
Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow,
We now present. Those that can pity, here
May, if they think it well, let fall a tear;
The subject will deserve it. Such as give
Their money out of hope they may believe,
May here find truth too. Those that come to see
Only a show or two, and so agree
The play may pass, if they be still and willing,
I'll undertake may see away their shilling
Richly in two short hours. Only they
That come to hear a merry bawdy play,
A noise of targets, or to see a fellow
In a long motley coat guarded with yellow,
Will be deceived; for, gentle hearers, know,
To rank our chosen truth with such a show
As fool and fight is, beside forfeiting
Our own brains, and the opinion that we bring,
To make that only true we now intend,
Will leave us never an understanding friend.
Therefore, for goodness' sake, and as you are known
The first and happiest hearers of the town,
Be sad, as we would make ye: think ye see
The very persons of our noble story
As they were living; think you see them great,
And follow'd with the general throng and sweat
Of thousand friends; then in a moment, see
How soon this mightiness meets misery:
And, if you can be merry then, I'll say
A man may weep upon his wedding-day.

Form: dramatic monologue
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought (Sonnet 30)
by William Shakespeare

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanished sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
    But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
    All losses are restored and sorrows end.

Form: sonnet
Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day (Sonnet 34)
by William Shakespeare

Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day
And make me travel forth without my cloak,
To let base clouds o’ertake me in my way,
Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?
’Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,
To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
For no man well of such a salve can speak
That heals the wound and cures not the disgrace:
Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;
Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:
The offender’s sorrow lends by weak relief
To him that bears the strong offence’s cross.
    Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,
    And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.

Form: sonnet
Flaxman
by Margaret Fuller

We deemed the secret lost, the spirit gone,
Which spake in Greek simplicity of thought,
And in the forms of gods and heroes wrought
Eternal beauty from the sculptured stone,—
A higher charm than modern culture won
With all the wealth of metaphysic lore,
Gifted to analyze, dissect, explore.
A many-colored light flows from one sun;
Art, ’neath its beams, a motley thread has spun;
The prism modifies the perfect day;
But thou hast known such mediums to shun,
And cast once more on life a pure, white ray.
Absorbed in the creations of thy mind,
Forgetting daily self, my truest self I find.

Form: sonnet
1492
by Emma Lazarus

Thou two-faced year, Mother of Change and Fate,
Didst weep when Spain cast forth with flaming sword,
The children of the prophets of the Lord,
Prince, priest, and people, spurned by zealot hate.
Hounded from sea to sea, from state to state,
The West refused them, and the East abhorred.
No anchorage the known world could afford,
Close-locked was every port, barred every gate.
Then smiling, thou unveil’dst, O two-faced year,
A virgin world where doors of sunset part,
Saying, "Ho, all who weary, enter here!
There falls each ancient barrier that the art
Of race or creed or rank devised, to rear
Grim bulwarked hatred between heart and heart!"

Form: sonnet
Epitaph
by Katherine Philips

On her Son H.P. at St. Syth’s Church where her body also lies interred

What on Earth deserves our trust?
Youth and Beauty both are dust.
Long we gathering are with pain,
What one moment calls again.
Seven years childless marriage past,
A Son, a son is born at last:
So exactly lim’d and fair,
Full of good Spirits, Meen, and Air,
As a long life promised,
Yet, in less than six weeks dead.
Too promising, too great a mind
In so small room to be confined:
Therefore, as fit in Heaven to dwell,
He quickly broke the Prison shell.
So the subtle Alchemist,
Can’t with Hermes Seal resist
The powerful spirit’s subtler flight,
But t’will bid him long good night.
And so the Sun if it arise
Half so glorious as his Eyes,
Like this Infant, takes a shrowd,
Buried in a morning Cloud.

Form: couplet
Ca' the Yowes to the Knowes
by Robert Burns

Chorus
Ca' the yowes to the knowes,
Ca' them where the heather grows
Ca' them where the burnie rows,
      My bonie dearie.

Hark! the mavis' evening sang
Sounding Cluden's woods amang,
Then a-fauldin let us gang,
      My bonie dearie.

We'll gae down by Cluden side,
Thro' the hazels spreading wide,
O'er the waves that sweetly glide
      To the moon sae clearly.

Yonder Cluden's silent towers,
Where at moonshine midnight hours,
O'er the dewy-bending flowers,
      Fairies dance sae cheery.

Ghaist nor bogle shalt thou fear;
Thou 'rt to love and Heaven sae dear,
Nocht of ill may come thee near,
      My bonie dearie.

Fair and lovely as thou art,
Thou hast stown my very heart;
I can die—but canna part,
      My bonie dearie.

Form: ballad
Song: “You charm'd me not with that fair face”
by John Dryden

from An Evening's Love

You charm'd me not with that fair face
      Though it was all divine:
To be another's is the grace,
      That makes me wish you mine.

   The Gods and Fortune take their part
      Who like young monarchs fight;
And boldly dare invade that heart
      Which is another's right.

   First mad with hope we undertake
      To pull up every bar;
But once possess'd, we faintly make
      A dull defensive war.

   Now every friend is turn'd a foe
      In hope to get our store:
And passion makes us cowards grow,
      Which made us brave before.

Form: common measure
Song: Calm was the even, and clear was the sky
by John Dryden

from An Evening's Love

Calm was the even, and clear was the sky,
      And the new budding flowers did spring,
When all alone went Amyntas and I
      To hear the sweet nightingale sing;
I sate, and he laid him down by me;
      But scarcely his breath he could draw;
For when with a fear, he began to draw near,
      He was dash'd with A ha ha ha ha!

He blush'd to himself, and lay still for a while,
      And his modesty curb'd his desire;
But straight I convinc'd all his fear with a smile,
      Which added new flames to his fire.
O Silvia, said he, you are cruel,
      To keep your poor lover in awe;
Then once more he press'd with his hand to my breast,
      But was dash'd with A ha ha ha ha!

I knew 'twas his passion that caus'd all his fear;
      And therefore I pitied his case:
I whisper'd him softly, there's nobody near,
      And laid my cheek close to his face:
But as he grew bolder and bolder,
      A shepherd came by us and saw;
And just as our bliss we began with a kiss,
      He laugh'd out with A ha ha ha ha!

Form: common measure
Gitanjali 5
by Rabindranath Tagore

I ask for a moment’s indulgence to sit by thy side. The works that I have in hand I will finish afterwards.

Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite, and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil.

To-day the summer has come at my window with its sighs and murmurs; and the bees are plying their minstrelsy at the court of the flowering grove.

Now it is time to sit quiet, face to face with thee, and to sing dedication of life in this silent and overflowing leisure.

Form: prose poem
Evening
by William Lisle Bowles

Evening! as slow thy placid shades descend,
      Veiling with gentlest hush the landscape still,
      The lonely battlement, the farthest hill
And wood, I think of those who have no friend;
Who now, perhaps, by melancholy led,
      From the broad blaze of day, where pleasure flaunts,
      Retiring, wander to the ring-dove’s haunts
Unseen; and watch the tints that o’er thy bed
Hang lovely; oft to musing Fancy’s eye
      Presenting fairy vales, where the tir’d mind
      Might rest beyond the murmurs of mankind,
Nor hear the hourly moans of misery!
Alas for man! that Hope’s fair views the while
Should smile like you, and perish as they smile!

Form: sonnet
Ah, Silly Pug, wert thou so Sore Afraid
by Queen Elizabeth I

Ah, silly Pug, wert thou so sore afraid?
Mourn not, my Wat, nor be thou so dismayed.
It passeth fickle Fortune’s power and skill
To force my heart to think thee any ill.
No Fortune base, thou sayest, shall alter thee?
And may so blind a witch so conquer me?
No, no, my Pug, though Fortune were not blind,
Assure thyself she could not rule my mind.
Fortune, I know, sometimes doth conquer kings,
And rules and reigns on earth and earthly things,
But never think Fortune can bear the sway
If virtue watch, and will her not obey.
Ne chose I thee by fickle Fortune’s rede,
Ne she shall force me alter with such speed
But if to try this mistress’ jest with thee.
Pull up thy heart, suppress thy brackish tears,
Torment thee not, but put away thy fears.
Dead to all joys and living unto woe,
Slain quite by her that ne’er gave wise men blow,
Revive again and live without all dread,
The less afraid, the better thou shalt speed.

Form: couplet
Holy Thursday: 'Twas on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean
by William Blake

Twas on a Holy Thursday their innocent faces clean 
The children walking two & two in red & blue & green 
Grey-headed beadles walkd before with wands as white as snow,
Till into the high dome of Pauls they like Thames waters flow 

O what a multitude they seemd these flowers of London town 
Seated in companies they sit with radiance all their own 
The hum of multitudes was there but multitudes of lambs 
Thousands of little boys & girls raising their innocent hands 

Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice of song 
Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of Heaven among 
Beneath them sit the aged men wise guardians of the poor 
Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door

Form: couplet
The Old Slave-Music
by Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt

Blow back the breath of the bird,
     Scatter the song through the air,
 There was music you never heard,
     And cannot hear anywhere.
  
 It was not the sob of the vain
     In the old, old dark so sweet,
 (I shall never hear it again,)
     Nor the coming of fairy feet.
  
 It was music and music alone,
     Not a sigh from a lover’s mouth;
 Now it comes in a phantom moan
     From the dead and buried South.
  
 It was savage and fierce and glad,
     It played with the heart at will;
 Oh, what a wizard touch it had—
     Oh, if I could hear it still!
  
 Were they slaves? They were not then;
     The music had made them free.
 They were happy women and men—
     What more do we care to be?
  
 There is blood and blackness and dust,
     There are terrible things to see,
 There are stories of swords that rust,
     Between that music and me.
  
 Dark ghosts with your ghostly tunes
     Come back till I laugh through tears;
 Dance under the sunken moons,
     Dance over the grassy years!
  
 Hush, hush—I know it, I say;
     Your armies were bright and brave,
 But the music they took away
     Was worth—whatever they gave.

Form: quatrain
A Description of the Morning
by Jonathan Swift

Now hardly here and there a hackney-coach
Appearing, show'd the ruddy morn's approach.
Now Betty from her master's bed had flown,
And softly stole to discompose her own.
The slip-shod 'prentice from his master's door
Had par'd the dirt, and sprinkled round the floor.
Now Moll had whirl'd her mop with dext'rous airs,
Prepar'd to scrub the entry and the stairs.
The youth with broomy stumps began to trace
The kennel-edge, where wheels had worn the place.
The small-coal man was heard with cadence deep;
Till drown'd in shriller notes of "chimney-sweep."
Duns at his lordship's gate began to meet;
And brickdust Moll had scream'd through half a street.
The turnkey now his flock returning sees,
Duly let out a-nights to steal for fees.
The watchful bailiffs take their silent stands;
And schoolboys lag with satchels in their hands.

Form: couplet
[The cry of the cicada]
by Matsuo Bashō

translated from the Japanese by William George Aston

The cry of the cicada
Gives us no sign
That presently it will die.

Form: haiku
Sonnet XLIV
by Charlotte Smith

written in the churchyard at Middleton in Sussex

Press’d by the Moon, mute arbitress of tides,
    While the loud equinox its pow’r combines,
    The sea no more its swelling surge confines,
But o’er the shrinking land sublimely rides.
The wild blasts, rising from the Western cave,
    Drives the huge billows from their heaving bed;
    Tears from their grassy tombs the village dead,
And breaks the silent sabbath of the grave!
With shells and seaweed mingled, on the shore,
    Lo! their bones whiten in the frequent wave;
    But vain to them the winds and waters rave;
They hear the warring elements no more:
While I am doom’d—by life’s long storm opprest,
To gaze with envy, on their gloomy rest.

Form: sonnet
On the Sale By Auction of Keats' Love Letters
by Oscar Wilde

These are the letters which Endymion wrote
    To one he loved in secret, and apart.
    And now the brawlers of the auction mart
Bargain and bid for each poor blotted note,
Ay! for each separate pulse of passion quote
    The merchant’s price. I think they love not art
    Who break the crystal of a poet’s heart
That small and sickly eyes may glare and gloat.

Is it not said that many years ago,
    In a far Eastern town, some soldiers ran
    With torches through the midnight, and began
To wrangel for mean raiment, and to throw
    Dice for the garments of a wretched man,
Not knowing the God’s wonder, or His woe?

Form: sonnet
Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene II [I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus]
by William Shakespeare

Cassius speaks to Brutus

I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus,
As well as I do know your outward favor.
Well, honor is the subject of my story.
I cannot tell what you and other men
Think of this life; but, for my single self,
I had as lief not be as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself.
I was born free as Caesar; so were you;
We both have fed as well, and we can both
Endure the winter’s cold as well as he.
For once, upon a raw and gusty day,
The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores,
Caesar said to me “Dar’st thou, Cassius, now
Leap in with me into this angry flood
And swim to yonder point?” Upon the word,
Accoutered as I was, I plungèd in
And bade him follow; so indeed he did.
The torrent roared, and we did buffet it
With lusty sinews, throwing it aside
And stemming it with hearts of controversy.
But ere we could arrive at the point proposed,
Caesar cried “Help me, Cassius, or I sink!”
I, as Aeneas, our great ancestor,
Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder
The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber
Did I the tired Caesar. And this man
Is now become a god, and Cassius is
A wretched creature and must bend his body
If Caesar carelessly but nod on him.
He had a fever when he was in Spain,
And when the fit was on him, I did mark
How he did shake. ’Tis true, this god did shake.
His coward lips did from their color fly,
And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world
Did lose his luster. I did hear him groan.
Ay, and that tongue of his that bade the Romans
Mark him and write his speeches in their books,
“Alas,” it cried “Give me some drink, Titinius”
As a sick girl. You gods, it doth amaze me
A man of such feeble temper should
So get the start of the majestic world
And bear the palm alone.

Form: dramatic monologue
The Face of All the World (Sonnet 7)
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The face of all the world is changed, I think,
Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul
Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole
Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink
Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,
Was caught up into love, and taught the whole
Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole
God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,
And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.
The names of country, heaven, are changed away
For where thou art or shalt be, there or here;
And this... this lute and song... loved yesterday,
(The singing angels know) are only dear,
Because thy name moves right in what they say.

Form: sonnet
The Unquiet Grave
by Anonymous

I

'The wind doth blow today, my love,
  And a few small drops of rain;
I never had but one true-love;
  In cold grave she was lain.

II

'I'll do as much for my true-love
  As any young man may;
I'll sit and mourn all at her grave
  For a twelvemonth and a day.'

III

The twelvemonth and a day being up,
  The dead began to speak:
'Oh who sits weeping on my grave,
  And will not let me sleep?'—

IV

''Tis I, my love, sits on your grave,
  And will not let you sleep;
For I crave one kiss of your clay-cold lips,
  And that is all I seek.'—

V

'You crave one kiss of my clay-cold lips;
  But my breath smells earthy strong;
If you have one kiss of my clay-cold lips,
  Your time will not be long.

VI

''Tis down in yonder garden green,
  Love, where we used to walk,
The finest flower that ere was seen
  Is wither'd to a stalk.

VII

'The stalk is wither'd dry, my love,
  So will our hearts decay;
So make yourself content, my love,
  Till God calls you away.'

Form: ballad
from The Princess: Tears, Idle Tears
by Lord Tennyson Alfred

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

         Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

         Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

         Dear as remember'd kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more!

Form: blank verse
A Coronet for his Mistress, Philosophy
by George Chapman

Muses that sing love's sensual empery,
And lovers kindling your enraged fires
At Cupid's bonfires burning in the eye,
Blown with the empty breath of vain desires;
You that prefer the painted cabinet
Before the wealthy jewels it doth store ye,
That all your joys in dying figures set,
And stain the living substance of your glory;
Abjure those joys, abhor their memory,
And let my love the honour'd subject be
Of love, and honour's complete history.
Your eyes were never yet let in to see
   The majesty and riches of the mind,
   But dwell in darkness; for your god is blind.

Form: sonnet
Sonnet from an Ungrafted Tree, XVII
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Gazing upon him now, severe and dead,
It seemed a curious thing that she had lain
Beside him many a night in that cold bed,
And that had been which would not be again.
From his desirous body the great heat
Was gone at last, it seemed, and the taut nerves
Loosened forever. Formally the sheet
Set forth for her to-day those heavy curves
And lengths familiar as the bedroom door.
She was as one that enters, sly, and proud,
To where her husband speaks before a crowd,
And sees a man she never saw before --
The man who eats his victuals at her side,
Small, and absurd, and hers: for once, not hers, unclassified.

Form: sonnet
Modern Love: XXXVII
by George Meredith

Along the garden terrace, under which
A purple valley (lighted at its edge
By smoky torch-flame on the long cloud-ledge
Whereunder dropped the chariot), glimmers rich,
A quiet company we pace, and wait
The dinner-bell in prae-digestive calm.
So sweet up violet banks the Southern balm
Breathes round, we care not if the bell be late:
Though here and there grey seniors question Time
In irritable coughings. With slow foot
The low rosed moon, the face of Music mute,
Begins among her silent bars to climb.
As in and out, in silvery dusk, we tread,
I hear the laugh of Madam, and discern
My Lady’s heel before me at each turn.
Our tragedy, is it alive or dead?

Form: sonnet