PoetryMTEB/EnglishPoetryFormClassification huggingface dataset:
Thy Brother’s Blood
by Jones Very

I have no Brother,—they who meet me now
Offer a hand with their own wills defiled,
And, while they wear a smooth unwrinkled brow,
Know not that Truth can never be beguiled;
Go wash the hand that still betrays thy guilt;
Before the spirit’s gaze what stain can hide?
Abel’s red blood upon the earth is spilt,
And by thy tongue it cannot be denied;
I hear not with my ear,—the heart doth tell
Its secret deeds to me untold before;
Go, all its hidden plunder quickly sell,
Then shalt thou cleanse thee from thy brother’s gore,
Then will I take thy gift; that bloody stain
Shall not be seen upon thy hand again.

Form: sonnet
Sonnet 133: Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan
by William Shakespeare

Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan
For that deep wound it gives my friend and me:
Is’t not enough to torture me alone,
But slave to slavery my sweet’st friend must be?
Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken,
And my next self thou harder hast engrossed;
Of him, myself, and thee I am forsaken,
A torment thrice threefold thus to be crossed.
Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward,
But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail;
Whoe’er keeps me, let my heart be his guard:
Thou canst not then use rigour in my jail.
    And yet thou wilt; for I, being pent in thee,
    Perforce am thine, and all that is in me.

Form: sonnet
“Faith” is a fine invention (202)
by Emily Dickinson

“Faith” is a fine invention
For Gentlemen who see!
But Microscopes are prudent
In an Emergency!

Form: common measure
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: dramatic monologue
Modern Love: I
by George Meredith

By this he knew she wept with waking eyes:
That, at his hand's light quiver by her head,
The strange low sobs that shook their common bed
Were called into her with a sharp surprise,
And strangled mute, like little gaping snakes,
Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay
Stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away
With muffled pulses. Then, as midnight makes
Her giant heart of Memory and Tears
Drink the pale drug of silence, and so beat
Sleep's heavy measure, they from head to feet
Were moveless, looking through their dead black years,
By vain regret scrawled over the blank wall.
Like sculptured effigies they might be seen
Upon their marriage-tomb, the sword between;
Each wishing for the sword that severs all.

Form: sonnet
Amoretti XXII: This Holy Season
by Edmund Spenser

This holy season, fit to fast and pray,
Men to devotion ought to be inclin'd:
Therefore I likewise on so holy day,
For my sweet saint some service fit will find.
Her temple fair is built within my mind,
In which her glorious image placed is,
On which my thoughts do day and night attend,
Like sacred priests that never think amiss.
There I to her as th' author of my bliss,
Will build an altar to appease her ire:
And on the same my heart will sacrifice,
Burning in flames of pure and chaste desire:
The which vouchsafe, O goddess, to accept,
Amongst thy dearest relics to be kept.

Form: sonnet
The House of Life: 97. A Superscription
by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been;
     I am also call'd No-more, Too-late, Farewell;
     Unto thine ear I hold the dead-sea shell
Cast up thy Life's foam-fretted feet between;
Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seen
     Which had Life's form and Love's, but by my spell
     Is now a shaken shadow intolerable,
Of ultimate things unutter'd the frail screen.

Mark me, how still I am! But should there dart
     One moment through thy soul the soft surprise
     Of that wing'd Peace which lulls the breath of sighs,—
Then shalt thou see me smile, and turn apart
Thy visage to mine ambush at thy heart
     Sleepless with cold commemorative eyes.

Form: sonnet
Holy Sonnets: Show me dear Christ, thy spouse so bright and clear
by John Donne

Show me dear Christ, thy spouse so bright and clear.
What! is it she which on the other shore
Goes richly painted? or which, robb'd and tore,
Laments and mourns in Germany and here?
Sleeps she a thousand, then peeps up one year?
Is she self-truth, and errs? now new, now outwore?
Doth she, and did she, and shall she evermore
On one, on seven, or on no hill appear?
Dwells she with us, or like adventuring knights
First travel we to seek, and then make love?
Betray, kind husband, thy spouse to our sights,
And let mine amorous soul court thy mild Dove,
Who is most true and pleasing to thee then
When she'is embrac'd and open to most men.

Form: sonnet
Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene I [It must be by his death. And for my part]
by William Shakespeare

Brutus speaks

It must be by his death. And for my part
I know no personal cause to spurn at him,
But for the general. He would be crowned:
How that might change his nature, there’s the question.
It is the bright day that brings forth the adder,
And that craves wary walking. Crown him that,
And then I grant we put a sting in him
That at his will he may do danger with.
Th’ abuse of greatness is when it disjoins
Remorse from power. And, to speak truth of Caesar,
I have not known when his affections swayed
More than his reason. But ’tis a common proof
That lowliness is young ambition’s ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;
But, when he once attains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend. So Caesar may.
Then, lest he may, prevent. And since the quarrel
Will bear no color for the thing he is,
Fashion it thus: that what he is, augmented,
Would run to these and these extremities.
And therefore think him as a serpent’s egg,
Which, hatched, would, as his kind, grow mischievous,
And kill him in the shell.

Form: dramatic monologue
from Endymion
by John Keats

A Poetic Romance

(excerpt)

BOOK I
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

       Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast,
That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast;
They always must be with us, or we die.

       Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own valleys: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimm'd and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finish'd: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end.
And now, at once adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.

Form: couplet
Queens
by J. M. Synge

Seven dog-days we let pass
Naming Queens in Glenmacnass,
All the rare and royal names
Wormy sheepskin yet retains,
Etain, Helen, Maeve, and Fand,
Golden Deirdre's tender hand,
Bert, the big-foot, sung by Villon,
Cassandra, Ronsard found in Lyon.
Queens of Sheba, Meath and Connaught,
Coifed with crown, or gaudy bonnet,
Queens whose finger once did stir men,
Queens were eaten of fleas and vermin,
Queens men drew like Monna Lisa,
Or slew with drugs in Rome and Pisa,
We named Lucrezia Crivelli,
And Titian's lady with amber belly,
Queens acquainted in learned sin,
Jane of Jewry's slender shin:
Queens who cut the bogs of Glanna,
Judith of Scripture, and Gloriana,
Queens who wasted the East by proxy,
Or drove the ass-cart, a tinker's doxy,
Yet these are rotten — I ask their pardon —
And we've the sun on rock and garden,
These are rotten, so you're the Queen
Of all the living, or have been.

Form: couplet
Sonnet XCI [I can in groups these mimic flowers compose]
by Charlotte Smith

Reflections on Some Drawings of Plants

I can in groups these mimic flowers compose,
  These bells and golden eyes, embathed in dew;
Catch the soft blush that warms the early Rose,
  Or the pale Iris cloud with veins of blue;
Copy the scallop’d leaves, and downy stems,
  And bid the pencil’s varied shades arrest
Spring’s humid buds, and Summer’s musky gems:
  But, save the portrait on my bleeding breast,
I have no semblance of that form adored,
  That form, expressive of a soul divine,
  So early blighted, and while life is mine,
With fond regret, and ceaseless grief deplored—
  That grief, my angel! with too faithful art
  Enshrines thy image in thy Mother’s heart.

Form: sonnet
[The faint shadow of the morning moon?]
by Yone Noguchi

The faint shadow of the morning moon?
Nay, the snow falling on the earth.
The mist of blossoming flowers?
Nay, poetry smiling up the sky.

Form: haiku
“No, Master, Never!”
by Joshua McCarter Simpson

Or the true feelings of those slaves who say they
  would not be free. The following shows their
              feelings when they are free.
   Air—“Pop Goes the Weasel”
Old master always said,
   Jack will never leave me:
He has a noble head,
   He will not deceive me.
I will treat him every day
   Kindly and clever,
Then he will not run away—
   No, master, never!
One night I heard him say,
   He was going to Cleveland,
A thought struck me right away,
   That this was a free land.
I thought if I too could go,
   The dearest ties I’d sever.
And never would come back no more—
   Never! no, never!
The next morn at early dawn,
   I heard old master knocking:
He says, “Jack, we must be gone—
   Put on your shoes and stockings.”
Quickly I bounded out,
   And got my clothes together,
And told my wife I’d not come back
   No, Lizzie, never!
Soon we were on the way,
   Toward the Forest City;
There to leave my wife a slave,
   I thought it was a pity.
I heard mistress slightly say,
   We’ll all keep together,
Or Jack will go to Canada,
   No, says master, never!
Jack, says he, be wide awake,
   And let nobody tease you;
And don’t go too near the lake—
   The cold winds will freeze you!
Do you think I would run away,
   And leave a man so clever,
And seek a home in Canada?
   “No, master, never!”
We stopped at the Weddell House,
   The thought then came o’er me,
That now’s the time to go across,
   As many have gone before me.
I went down to the steamboat wharf
   Got on the Jacob Astor,
And cried aloud as she shoved off,
   Farewell, old master.
The next day, in Malden town,
   Who should I see but master,
He says, Jack, you must go home,
   You’ll starve and freeze to death sir.
Says I, you are a nice old man;
   Very kind and clever;
But think I’ll wear my chains again?
   “No, master, never!”

Form: dramatic monologue
The Skylark
by John Clare

The rolls and harrows lie at rest beside
The battered road; and spreading far and wide
Above the russet clods, the corn is seen
Sprouting its spiry points of tender green,
Where squats the hare, to terrors wide awake,
Like some brown clod the harrows failed to break.
Opening their golden caskets to the sun,
The buttercups make schoolboys eager run,
To see who shall be first to pluck the prize—
Up from their hurry, see, the skylark flies,
And o'er her half-formed nest, with happy wings
Winnows the air, till in the cloud she sings,
Then hangs a dust-spot in the sunny skies,
And drops, and drops, till in her nest she lies,
Which they unheeded passed—not dreaming then
That birds which flew so high would drop agen
To nests upon the ground, which anything
May come at to destroy. Had they the wing
Like such a bird, themselves would be too proud,
And build on nothing but a passing cloud!
As free from danger as the heavens are free
From pain and toil, there would they build and be,
And sail about the world to scenes unheard
Of and unseen—Oh, were they but a bird!
So think they, while they listen to its song,
And smile and fancy and so pass along;
While its low nest, moist with the dews of morn,
Lies safely, with the leveret, in the corn.

Form: couplet
On My First Daughter
by Ben Jonson

Here lies, to each her parents’ ruth,
Mary, the daughter of their youth;
Yet all heaven’s gifts being heaven’s due,
It makes the father less to rue.
At six months’ end she parted hence
With safety of her innocence;
Whose soul heaven’s queen, whose name she bears,
In comfort of her mother’s tears,
Hath placed amongst her virgin-train:
Where, while that severed doth remain,
This grave partakes the fleshly birth;
Which cover lightly, gentle earth!

Form: couplet
On Virtue
by Phillis Wheatley

O thou bright jewel in my aim I strive
To comprehend thee. Thine own words declare
Wisdom is higher than a fool can reach.
I cease to wonder, and no more attempt
Thine height t’explore, or fathom thy profound.
But, O my soul, sink not into despair,
Virtue is near thee, and with gentle hand
Would now embrace thee, hovers o’er thine head.
Fain would the heaven-born soul with her converse,
Then seek, then court her for her promised bliss.

Auspicious queen, thine heavenly pinions spread,
And lead celestial Chastity along;
Lo! now her sacred retinue descends,
Arrayed in glory from the orbs above.
Attend me, Virtue, thro’ my youthful years!
O leave me not to the false joys of time!
But guide my steps to endless life and bliss.
Greatness, or Goodness, say what I shall call thee,
To give an higher appellation still,
Teach me a better strain, a nobler lay,
O Thou, enthroned with Cherubs in the realms of day!

Form: blank verse
Meg Merrilies
by John Keats

Old Meg she was a Gipsy,
       And liv'd upon the Moors:
Her bed it was the brown heath turf,
       And her house was out of doors.

Her apples were swart blackberries,
       Her currants pods o' broom;
Her wine was dew of the wild white rose,
       Her book a churchyard tomb.

Her Brothers were the craggy hills,
       Her Sisters larchen trees—
Alone with her great family
       She liv'd as she did please.

No breakfast had she many a morn,
       No dinner many a noon,
And 'stead of supper she would stare
       Full hard against the Moon.

But every morn of woodbine fresh
       She made her garlanding,
And every night the dark glen Yew
       She wove, and she would sing.

And with her fingers old and brown
       She plaited Mats o' Rushes,
And gave them to the Cottagers
       She met among the Bushes.

Old Meg was brave as Margaret Queen
       And tall as Amazon:
An old red blanket cloak she wore;
       A chip hat had she on.
God rest her aged bones somewhere—
       She died full long agone!

Form: ballad
Sonnet Reversed
by Rupert Brooke

Hand trembling towards hand; the amazing lights
Of heart and eye. They stood on supreme heights.

Ah, the delirious weeks of honeymoon!
Soon they returned, and, after strange adventures,
Settled at Balham by the end of June.
Their money was in Can. Pacs. B. Debentures,
And in Antofagastas. Still he went
Cityward daily; still she did abide
At home. And both were really quite content
With work and social pleasures. Then they died.
They left three children (besides George, who drank):
The eldest Jane, who married Mr Bell,
William, the head-clerk in the County Bank,
And Henry, a stock-broker, doing well.

Form: sonnet
There was a Boy
by William Wordsworth

There was a Boy; ye knew him well, ye cliffs
And islands of Winander! many a time,
At evening, when the earliest stars began
To move along the edges of the hills,
Rising or setting, would he stand alone,
Beneath the trees, or by the glimmering lake;
And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands
Pressed closely palm to palm and to his mouth
Uplifted, he, as through an instrument,
Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls
That they might answer him.—And they would shout
Across the watery vale, and shout again,
Responsive to his call,—with quivering peals,
And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud
Redoubled and redoubled; concourse wild
Of jocund din! And, when there came a pause
Of silence such as baffled his best skill:
Then, sometimes, in that silence, while he hung
Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise
Has carried far into his heart the voice
Of mountain-torrents; or the visible scene
Would enter unawares into his mind
With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,
Its woods, and that uncertain heaven received
Into the bosom of the steady lake.

     This boy was taken from his mates, and died
In childhood, ere he was full twelve years old.
Pre-eminent in beauty is the vale
Where he was born and bred: the churchyard hangs
Upon a slope above the village-school;
And through that churchyard when my way has led
On summer-evenings, I believe that there
A long half-hour together I have stood
Mute—looking at the grave in which he lies!

Form: blank verse
To his Father
by Robinson Jeffers

Christ was your lord and captain all your life,
He fails the world but you he did not fail,
He led you through all forms of grief and strife
Intact, a man full-armed, he let prevail
Nor outward malice nor the worse-fanged snake
That coils in one’s own brain against your calm,
That great rich jewel well guarded for his sake
With coronal age and death like quieting balm.
I Father having followed other guides
And oftener to my hurt no leader at all,
Through years nailed up like dripping panther hides
For trophies on a savage temple wall
Hardly anticipate that reverend stage
Of life, the snow-wreathed honor of extreme age.

Form: sonnet
Bermudas
by Andrew Marvell

Where the remote Bermudas ride
In th’ ocean’s bosom unespy’d,
From a small boat, that row’d along,
The list’ning winds receiv’d this song.

     What should we do but sing his praise
That led us through the wat’ry maze
Unto an isle so long unknown,
And yet far kinder than our own?
Where he the huge sea-monsters wracks,
That lift the deep upon their backs,
He lands us on a grassy stage,
Safe from the storm’s and prelates’ rage.
He gave us this eternal spring
Which here enamels everything,
And sends the fowls to us in care,
On daily visits through the air.
He hangs in shades the orange bright,
Like golden lamps in a green night;
And does in the pomegranates close
Jewels more rich than Ormus shows.
He makes the figs our mouths to meet
And throws the melons at our feet,
But apples plants of such a price,
No tree could ever bear them twice.
With cedars, chosen by his hand,
From Lebanon, he stores the land,
And makes the hollow seas that roar
Proclaim the ambergris on shore.
He cast (of which we rather boast)
The Gospel’s pearl upon our coast,
And in these rocks for us did frame
A temple, where to sound his name.
Oh let our voice his praise exalt,
Till it arrive at heaven’s vault;
Which thence (perhaps) rebounding, may
Echo beyond the Mexic Bay.

     Thus sung they in the English boat
An holy and a cheerful note,
And all the way, to guide their chime,
With falling oars they kept the time.

Form: couplet
I know I am but summer to your heart (Sonnet XXVII)
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I know I am but summer to your heart,
And not the full four seasons of the year;
And you must welcome from another part
Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear.
No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell
Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing;
And I have loved you all too long and well
To carry still the high sweet breast of Spring.
Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes,
I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums,
That you may hail anew the bird and rose
When I come back to you, as summer comes.
Else will you seek, at some not distant time,
Even your summer in another clime.

Form: sonnet
Mary Morison
by Robert Burns

O Mary, at thy window be,
         It is the wish'd, the trysted hour!
Those smiles and glances let me see,
         That makes the miser's treasure poor:
How blythely wad I bide the stoure,
         A weary slave frae sun to sun,
Could I the rich reward secure,
         The lovely Mary Morison.

Yestreen when to the trembling string
         The dance gaed thro' the lighted ha'
To thee my fancy took its wing,
         I sat, but neither heard nor saw:
Tho' this was fair, and that was braw,
         And yon the toast of a' the town,
I sigh'd, and said amang them a',
         "Ye are na Mary Morison."

O Mary, canst thou wreck his peace,
         Wha for thy sake wad gladly die?
Or canst thou break that heart of his,
         Whase only faut is loving thee?
If love for love thou wilt na gie
         At least be pity to me shown:
A thought ungentle canna be
         The thought o' Mary Morison.

Form: ballad
Sonnet [Our days in swift succession bid us on]
by Luis G. Dato

Our days in swift succession bid us on
To these unchartered, desolate domains,
Where over deserts strewn with the remains
Of unreturning caravans long gone,
We follow trails that, winding, go astray
Into the dull horizon. We know not
What ending’s there, what fortunes be our lot,
When tired and spent we reach our destined way.
We only know that with each onward move,
We leave behind us friends we cherished most,
Old friends, who, unsustained, their path have lost,
Warm hearts that, hoping, beat for those they love.
We know that time relentless bids us on
To stranger lands, only to dead men known.

Form: sonnet
Fragment 6: The Moon, how definite its orb!
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Moon, how definite its orb!
Yet gaze again, and with a steady gaze—
'Tis there indeed,—but where is it not?—
It is suffused o'er all the sapphire Heaven,
Trees, herbage, snake-like stream, unwrinkled Lake,
Whose very murmur does of it partake
And low and close the broad smooth mountain
Is more a thing of Heaven than when
Distinct by one dim shade and yet undivided from the universal cloud
In which it towers, finite in height.

Form: pastoral
from The Princess: As thro' the Land
by Lord Tennyson Alfred

As thro' the land at eve we went,
      And pluck'd the ripen'd ears,
We fell out, my wife and I,
O we fell out I know not why,
      And kiss'd again with tears.
And blessings on the falling out
      That all the more endears,
When we fall out with those we love
      And kiss again with tears!
For when we came where lies the child
      We lost in other years,
There above the little grave,
O there above the little grave,
      We kiss'd again with tears.

Form: common measure