PoetryMTEB/EnglishPoetryFormClassification huggingface dataset:
On Shakespeare. 1630
by John Milton

What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones,
The labor of an age in pilèd stones,
Or that his hallowed relics should be hid   
Under a star-ypointing pyramid?
Dear son of Memory, great heir of fame,
What need’st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thyself a live-long monument.
For whilst to th’ shame of slow-endeavouring art,   
Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart   
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book
Those Delphic lines with deep impression took,   
Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving,   
Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;
And so sepúlchred in such pomp dost lie,
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.

Form: elegy
Modern Love: IX
by George Meredith

He felt the wild beast in him between whiles
So masterfully rude, that he would grieve
To see the helpless delicate thing receive
His guardianship through certain dark defiles.
Had he not teeth to rend, and hunger too?
But still be spared her. Once: ‘Have you no fear?’
He said: ’t was dusk; she in his grasp; none near.
She laughed: ‘No, surely; am I not with you?’
And uttering that soft starry ‘you,’ she leaned
 Her gentle body near him, looking up;
And from her eyes, as from a poison-cup,
He drank until the flittering eyelids screened.
Devilish malignant witch! and oh, young beam
Of heaven’s circle-glory! Here thy shape
To squeeze like an intoxicating grape—
I might, and yet thou goest safe, supreme.

Form: sonnet
To Lucasta, Going to the Wars
by Richard Lovelace

Tell me not (Sweet) I am unkind,
         That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind
         To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase,
         The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith embrace
         A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such
         As you too shall adore;
I could not love thee (Dear) so much,
         Lov’d I not Honour more.

Form: common measure
The Cut
by Ann Taylor

WELL, what's the matter ? there's a face
   What ! has it cut a vein ?
And is it quite a shocking place ?
   Come, let us look again.

I see it bleeds, but never mind
   That tiny little drop ;
I don't believe you'll ever find
   That crying makes it stop.

'Tis sad indeed to cry at pain,
   For any but a baby ;
If that should chance to cut a vein,
   We should not wonder, may be.

But such a man as you should try
   To bear a little sorrow :
So run along, and wipe your eye,
   'Twill all be well to-morrow.

Form: common measure
Upon Parson Beanes
by Robert Herrick

Old Parson Beanes hunts six days of the week,
And on the seventh, he has his notes to seek.
Six days he hollows so much breath away
That on the seventh he can nor preach or pray.

Form: couplet
Flood
by James Joyce

Gold-brown upon the sated flood
The rock-vine clusters lift and sway:
Vast wings above the lambent waters brood
Of sullen day.

A waste of waters ruthlessly
Sways and uplifts its weedy mane,
Where brooding day stares down upon the sea
In dull disdain.

Uplift and sway, O golden vine,
Thy clustered fruits to love's full flood,
Lambent and vast and ruthless as is thine
Incertitude.

Form: ode
Lo! as a careful housewife run to catch (Sonnet 143)
by William Shakespeare

Lo! as a careful housewife run to catch
One of her feather’d creatures broke away,
Sets down her babe and makes all swift dispatch
In pursuit of the thing she would have stay,
Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,
Cried to catch her whose busy care is bent
To follow that which flies before her face,
Not prizing her poor infant’s discontent;
So runn’st thou after that which flies from thee,
Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind;
But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,
And play the mother’s part, kiss me, be kind:
    So will I pray that thou mayst have thy ‘Will.’
    If thou turn back ,and my loud crying still.

Form: sonnet
War Mothers
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

There is something in the sound of drum and fife
 That stirs all the savage instincts into life.
  
 In the old times of peace we went our ways,
 Through proper days
 Of little joys and tasks. Lonely at times,
 When from the steeple sounded wedding chimes,
 Telling to all the world some maid was wife—
 But taking patiently our part in life
 As it was portioned us by Church and State,
 Believing it our fate.
     Our thoughts all chaste
 Held yet a secret wish to love and mate
     Ere youth and virtue should go quite to waste.
 But men we criticised for lack of strength,
 And kept them at arm's length.
 Then the war came—
 The world was all aflame!
 The men we had thought dull and void of power
 Were heroes in an hour.
 He who had seemed a slave to petty greed
 Showed masterful in that great time of need.
 He who had plotted for his neighbour's pelf,
 Now for his fellows offers up himself.
 And we were only women, forced by war
 To sacrifice the things worth living for.
  
 Something within us broke,
    Something within us woke,
        The wild cave-woman spoke.
  
 When we heard the sound of drumming,
    As our soldiers went to camp,
    Heard them tramp, tramp, tramp;
 As we watched to see them coming,
    And they looked at us and smiled
    (Yes, looked back at us and smiled),
 As they filed along by hillock and by hollow,
    Then our hearts were so beguiled
    That, for many and many a day,
    We dreamed we heard them say,
 'Oh, follow, follow, follow!'
    And the distant, rolling drum
    Called us 'Come, come, come!'
    Till our virtue seemed a thing to give away.
  
 War had swept ten thousand years away from earth.
    We were primal once again.
    There were males, not modern men;
 We were females meant to bring their sons to birth.
    And we could not wait for any formal rite,
    We could hear them calling to us, 'Come to-night;
 For to-morrow, at the dawn,
 We move on!'
    And the drum
    Bellowed, 'Come, come, come!'
 And the fife
 Whistled, 'Life, life, life!'
  
 So they moved on and fought and bled and died;
 Honoured and mourned, they are the nation's pride.
 We fought our battles, too, but with the tide
 Of our red blood, we gave the world new lives.
 Because we were not wives
 We are dishonoured. Is it noble, then,
 To break God's laws only by killing men
 To save one's country from destruction?
 We took no man's life but gave our chastity,
 And sinned the ancient sin
 To plant young trees and fill felled forests in.
  
 Oh, clergy of the land,
 Bible in hand,
 All reverently you stand,
    On holy thoughts intent
    While barren wives receive the sacrament!
 Had you the open visions you could see
    Phantoms of infants murdered in the womb,
    Who never knew a cradle or a tomb,
 Hovering about these wives accusingly.
  
 Bestow the sacrament! Their sins are not well known—
 Ours to the four winds of the earth are blown.

Form: couplet
So, now I have confess'd that he is thine (Sonnet 134)
by William Shakespeare

So, now I have confess’d that he is thine,
And I myself am mortgaged to thy will,
Myself I’ll forfeit, so that other mine
Thou wilt restore, to be my comfort still:
But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,
For thou art covetous and he is kind;
He learn’d but surety-like to write for me
Under that bond that him as fast doth bind,
The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,
Thou usurer, that put’st forth all to use
And sue a friend came debtor for my sake;
So him I lost through my unkind abuse.
    Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me:
    He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.

Form: sonnet
Sonnets from the Portuguese 35: If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange
And be all to me? Shall I never miss
Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss
That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange,
When I look up, to drop on a new range
Of walls and floors ... another home than this?
Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is
Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change?
That's hardest. If to conquer love, has tried,
To conquer grief, tries more ... as all things prove;
For grief indeed is love and grief beside.
Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.
Yet love me—wilt thou? Open thine heart wide,
And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove.

Form: sonnet
The Well of St. Keyne
by Robert Southey

A Well there is in the west country,
    And a clearer one never was seen;
There is not a wife in the west country
    But has heard of the Well of St. Keyne.
An oak and an elm-tree stand beside,
    And behind doth an ash-tree grow,
And a willow from the bank above
    Droops to the water below.
A traveller came to the Well of St. Keyne;
    Joyfully he drew nigh,
For from the cock-crow he had been travelling,
    And there was not a cloud in the sky.
He drank of the water so cool and clear,
    For thirsty and hot was he,
And he sat down upon the bank
    Under the willow-tree.
There came a man from the house hard by
    At the Well to fill his pail;
On the Well-side he rested it,
    And he bade the Stranger hail.
"Now art thou a bachelor, Stranger?" quoth he,
    "For an if thou hast a wife,
The happiest draught thou hast drank this day
    That ever thou didst in thy life.
"Or has thy good woman, if one thou hast,
    Ever here in Cornwall been?
For an if she have, I'll venture my life
    She has drank of the Well of St. Keyne."
"I have left a good woman who never was here."
    The Stranger he made reply,
"But that my draught should be the better for that,
    I pray you answer me why?"
"St. Keyne," quoth the Cornish-man, "many a time
    Drank of this crystal Well,
And before the Angel summon'd her,
    She laid on the water a spell.
"If the Husband of this gifted Well
    Shall drink before his Wife,
A happy man thenceforth is he,
    For he shall be Master for life.
"But if the Wife should drink of it first,—
    God help the Husband then!"
The Stranger stoopt to the Well of St. Keyne,
    And drank of the water again.
"You drank of the Well I warrant betimes?"
    He to the Cornish-man said:
But the Cornish-man smiled as the Stranger spake,
    And sheepishly shook his head.
"I hasten'd as soon as the wedding was done,
    And left my Wife in the porch;
But i' faith she had been wiser than me,
    For she took a bottle to Church."

Form: quatrain
Elegy V: His Picture
by John Donne

Here take my picture; though I bid farewell
Thine, in my heart, where my soul dwells, shall dwell.
’Tis like me now, but I dead, ’twill be more
When we are shadows both, than 'twas before.
When weather-beaten I come back, my hand
Perhaps with rude oars torn, or sun beams tann’d,
My face and breast of haircloth, and my head
With care’s rash sudden storms being o’erspread,
My body’a sack of bones, broken within,
And powder’s blue stains scatter’d on my skin;
If rival fools tax thee to’have lov’d a man
So foul and coarse as, oh, I may seem then,
This shall say what I was, and thou shalt say,
“Do his hurts reach me? doth my worth decay?
Or do they reach his judging mind, that he
Should now love less, what he did love to see?
That which in him was fair and delicate,
Was but the milk which in love's childish state
Did nurse it; who now is grown strong enough
To feed on that, which to disus’d tastes seems tough.”

Form: elegy
Slow through the Dark
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Slow moves the pageant of a climbing race;
   Their footsteps drag far, far below the height,
   And, unprevailing by their utmost might,
Seem faltering downward from each hard won place.
No strange, swift-sprung exception we; we trace
   A devious way thro’ dim, uncertain light,—
   Our hope, through the long vistaed years, a sight
Of that our Captain’s soul sees face to face.

   Who, faithless, faltering that the road is steep,
Now raiseth up his drear insistent cry?
   Who stoppeth here to spend a while in sleep
Or curseth that the storm obscures the sky?
   Heed not the darkness round you, dull and deep;
The clouds grow thickest when the summit’s nigh.

Form: sonnet
Sonnet III: “Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring”
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring,
    And all the flowers that in the springtime grow,
    And dusty roads, and thistles, and the slow
Rising of the round moon, all throats that sing
The summer through, and each departing wing,
    And all the nests that the bared branches show,
    And all winds that in any weather blow,
And all the storms that the four seasons bring.

You go no more on your exultant feet
    Up paths that only mist and morning knew,
Or watch the wind, or listen to the beat
    Of a bird’s wings too high in air to view,—
But you were something more than young and sweet
    And fair,—and the long year remembers you.

Form: sonnet
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: pastoral
Fate
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

That you are fair or wise is vain,
Or strong, or rich, or generous;
You must have also the untaught strain
That sheds beauty on the rose.
There is a melody born of melody,
Which melts the world into a sea:
Toil could never compass it;
Art its height could never hit;
It came never out of wit;
But a music music-born
Well may Jove and Juno scorn.
Thy beauty, if it lack the fire
Which drives me mad with sweet desire,
What boots it? what the soldier's mail,
Unless he conquer and prevail?
What all the goods thy pride which lift,
If thou pine for another's gift?
Alas! that one is born in blight,
Victim of perpetual slight:
When thou lookest on his face,
Thy heart saith, "Brother, go thy ways!
None shall ask thee what thou doest,
Or care a rush for what thou knowest,
Or listen when thou repliest,
Or remember where thou liest,
Or how thy supper is sodden;"
And another is born
To make the sun forgotten.
Surely he carries a talisman
Under his tongue;
Broad are his shoulders, and strong;
And his eye is scornful,
Threatening, and young.
I hold it of little matter
Whether your jewel be of pure water,
A rose diamond or a white,
But whether it dazzle me with light.
I care not how you are dressed,
In the coarsest or in the best;
Nor whether your name is base or brave;
Nor for the fashion of your behavior;
But whether you charm me,
Bid my bread feed and my fire warm me,
And dress up Nature in your favor.
One thing is forever good;
That one thing is Success, —
Dear to the Eumenides,
And to all the heavenly brood.
Who bides at home, nor looks abroad,
Carries the eagles, and masters the sword.

Form: couplet
My Last Duchess
by Robert Browning

FERRARA

That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said
“Fra 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, ’twas not
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek; perhaps
Fra 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, ’twas 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 pretense
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: couplet
The Mower against Gardens
by Andrew Marvell

Luxurious man, to bring his vice in use,
 Did after him the world seduce,
And from the fields the flowers and plants allure,
 Where nature was most plain and pure.
He first enclosed within the gardens square
 A dead and standing pool of air,
And a more luscious earth for them did knead,
 Which stupified them while it fed.
The pink grew then as double as his mind;
 The nutriment did change the kind.
With strange perfumes he did the roses taint,
 And flowers themselves were taught to paint.
The tulip, white, did for complexion seek,
 And learned to interline its cheek:
Its onion root they then so high did hold,
 That one was for a meadow sold.
Another world was searched, through oceans new,
 To find the Marvel of Peru.
And yet these rarities might be allowed
 To man, that sovereign thing and proud,
Had he not dealt between the bark and tree,
 Forbidden mixtures there to see.
No plant now knew the stock from which it came;
 He grafts upon the wild the tame:
That th’ uncertain and adulterate fruit
 Might put the palate in dispute.
His green seraglio has its eunuchs too,
 Lest any tyrant him outdo.
And in the cherry he does nature vex,
 To procreate without a sex.
’Tis all enforced, the fountain and the grot,
 While the sweet fields do lie forgot:
Where willing nature does to all dispense
 A wild and fragrant innocence:
And fauns and fairies do the meadows till,
 More by their presence than their skill.
Their statues, polished by some ancient hand,
 May to adorn the gardens stand:
But howsoe’er the figures do excel,
 The gods themselves with us do dwell.

Form: couplet
Immortality
by Matthew Arnold

Foil'd by our fellow-men, depress'd, outworn,
We leave the brutal world to take its way,
And, Patience! in another life, we say
The world shall be thrust down, and we up-borne.

And will not, then, the immortal armies scorn
The world's poor, routed leavings? or will they,
Who fail'd under the heat of this life's day,
Support the fervours of the heavenly morn?

No, no! the energy of life may be
Kept on after the grave, but not begun;
And he who flagg'd not in the earthly strife,

From strength to strength advancing—only he,
His soul well-knit, and all his battles won,
Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life.

Form: sonnet
Troilus and Cressida, Act III, Scene III [Time hath, my lord]
by William Shakespeare

Ulysses speaks to Achilles in the Grecian camp

Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
A great-sized monster of ingratitudes:
Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devour'd
As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
As done: perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honour bright: to have done is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
In monumental mockery. Take the instant way;
For honour travels in a strait so narrow,
Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path;
For emulation hath a thousand sons
That one by one pursue: if you give way,
Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by
And leave you hindmost;
Or like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank,
Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,
O'er-run and trampled on: then what they do in present,
Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours;
For time is like a fashionable host
That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand,
And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly,
Grasps in the comer: welcome ever smiles,
And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek
Remuneration for the thing it was;
For beauty, wit,
High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
To envious and calumniating time.
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,
That all with one consent praise new-born gawds,
Though they are made and moulded of things past,
And give to dust that is a little gilt
More laud than gilt o'er-dusted.
The present eye praises the present object.
Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,
That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax;
Since things in motion sooner catch the eye
Than what not stirs. The cry went once on thee,
And still it might, and yet it may again,
If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive
And case thy reputation in thy tent;
Whose glorious deeds, but in these fields of late,
Made emulous missions 'mongst the gods themselves
And drave great Mars to faction.

Form: dramatic monologue