PoetryMTEB/EnglishPoetryFormClassification huggingface dataset:
Languages
by Carl Sandburg

There are no handles upon a language
Whereby men take hold of it
And mark it with signs for its remembrance.
It is a river, this language,
Once in a thousand years
Breaking a new course
Changing its way to the ocean.
It is mountain effluvia
Moving to valleys
And from nation to nation
Crossing borders and mixing.
Languages die like rivers.
Words wrapped round your tongue today
And broken to shape of thought
Between your teeth and lips speaking
Now and today
Shall be faded hieroglyphics
Ten thousand years from now.
Sing—and singing—remember
Your song dies and changes
And is not here to-morrow
Any more than the wind
Blowing ten thousand years ago.

Form: ars poetica
Fragment 4: As some vast Tropic tree, itself a wood
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

As some vast Tropic tree, itself a wood,
That crests its Head with clouds, beneath the flood
Feeds its deep roots, and with the bulging flank
Of its wide base controls the fronting bank,
(By the slant current's pressure scoop'd away
The fronting bank becomes a foam-piled bay)
High in the Fork the uncouth Idol knits
His channel'd Brows; low murmurs stir by fits
And dark below the horrid Faquir sits;
An Horror from its broad Head's branchy wreath
Broods o'er the rude Idolatry beneath—

Form: couplet
That thou hast her, it is not all my grief (Sonnet 42)
by William Shakespeare

That thou hast her, it is not all my grief,
And yet it may be said I loved her dearly;
That she hath thee, is of my wailing chief,
A loss in love that ouches me more nearly.
Loving offenders, thus I will excuse ye:
Thou dost hove her, because thou know’st I love her;
And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,
Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her.
If I lose thee, my loss is my love’s gain,
And losing her, my friend hath found that loss;
Both find each other, and I lose both twain,
And both for my sake lay on me this cross:
    But here’s the joy; my friend and I are one;
    Sweet flattery! then she loves but me alone.

Form: sonnet
Yarrow Unvisited
by William Wordsworth

From Stirling castle we had seen
The mazy Forth unravelled;
Had trod the banks of Clyde, and Tay,
And with the Tweed had travelled;
And when we came to Clovenford,
Then said my "winsome Marrow ,"
"Whate'er betide, we'll turn aside,
And see the Braes of Yarrow."
"Let Yarrow folk, frae Selkirk town,
Who have been buying, selling,
Go back to Yarrow, 'tis their own;
Each maiden to her dwelling!
On Yarrow's banks let her herons feed,
Hares couch, and rabbits burrow!
But we will downward with the Tweed
Nor turn aside to Yarrow.
"There's Galla Water, Leader Haughs,
Both lying right before us;
And Dryborough, where with chiming Tweed
The lintwhites sing in chorus;
There's pleasant Tiviot-dale, a land
Made blithe with plough and harrow:
Why throw away a needful day
To go in search of Yarrow?
"What's Yarrow but a river bare,
That glides the dark hills under?
There are a thousand such elsewhere
As worthy of your wonder."
—Strange words they seemed of slight and scorn;
My True-love sighed for sorrow;
And looked me in the face, to think
I thus could speak of Yarrow!
"Oh! green," said I, "are Yarrow's holms,
And sweet is Yarrow flowing!
Fair hangs the apple frae the rock,
But we will leave it growing.
O'er hilly path, and open Strath,
We'll wander Scotland thorough;
But, though so near, we will not turn
Into the dale of Yarrow.
"Let beeves and home-bred kine partake
The sweets of Burn-mill meadow,
The swan on still St. Mary's Lake
Float double, swan and shadow!
We will not see them; will not go,
To-day, nor yet to-morrow;
Enough if in our hearts we know
There's such a place as Yarrow.
"Be Yarrow stream unseen, unknown!
It must, or we shall rue it:
We have a vision of our own;
Ah! why should we undo it?
The treasured dreams of times long past,
We'll keep them, winsome Marrow!
For when we'er there, although 'tis fair,
'Twill be another Yarrow!
"If Care with freezing years should come,
And wandering seem but folly,—
Should we be loth to stir from home,
And yet be melancholy;
Should life be dull, and spirits low,
'Twill soothe us in our sorrow,
That earth has something yet to show,
The bonny holms of Yarrow!"

Form: ballad
A Ballad of François Villon, Prince of All Ballad-Makers
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Bird of the bitter bright grey golden morn
      Scarce risen upon the dusk of dolorous years,
First of us all and sweetest singer born
      Whose far shrill note the world of new men hears
      Cleave the cold shuddering shade as twilight clears;
When song new-born put off the old world's attire
And felt its tune on her changed lips expire,
      Writ foremost on the roll of them that came
Fresh girt for service of the latter lyre,
      Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name!

Alas the joy, the sorrow, and the scorn,
      That clothed thy life with hopes and sins and fears,
And gave thee stones for bread and tares for corn
      And plume-plucked gaol-birds for thy starveling peers
      Till death clipt close their flight with shameful shears;
Till shifts came short and loves were hard to hire,
When lilt of song nor twitch of twangling wire
      Could buy thee bread or kisses; when light fame
Spurned like a ball and haled through brake and briar,
      Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name!

Poor splendid wings so frayed and soiled and torn!
      Poor kind wild eyes so dashed with light quick tears!
Poor perfect voice, most blithe when most forlorn,
      That rings athwart the sea whence no man steers
      Like joy-bells crossed with death-bells in our ears!
What far delight has cooled the fierce desire
That like some ravenous bird was strong to tire
      On that frail flesh and soul consumed with flame,
But left more sweet than roses to respire,
      Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name?

Prince of sweet songs made out of tears and fire,
A harlot was thy nurse, a God thy sire;
      Shame soiled thy song, and song assoiled thy shame.
But from thy feet now death has washed the mire,
Love reads out first at head of all our quire,
      Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name.

Form: ballad
Macbeth, Act V, Scene V [She should have died hereafter]
by William Shakespeare

Macbeth speaks to Seyton, his servant, after learning of Lady Macbeth's death

She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Form: dramatic monologue
The Bear Hunt
by Abraham Lincoln

A wild-bear chace, didst never see?
   Then hast thou lived in vain.
Thy richest bump of glorious glee,
   Lies desert in thy brain.

When first my father settled here,
   ’Twas then the frontier line:
The panther’s scream, filled night with fear
   And bears preyed on the swine.

But woe for Bruin’s short lived fun,
   When rose the squealing cry;
Now man and horse, with dog and gun,
   For vengeance, at him fly.

A sound of danger strikes his ear;
   He gives the breeze a snuff;
Away he bounds, with little fear,
   And seeks the tangled rough.

On press his foes, and reach the ground,
   Where’s left his half munched meal;
The dogs, in circles, scent around,
   And find his fresh made trail.

With instant cry, away they dash,
   And men as fast pursue;
O’er logs they leap, through water splash,
   And shout the brisk halloo.

Now to elude the eager pack,
   Bear shuns the open ground;
Through matted vines, he shapes his track
   And runs it, round and round.

The tall fleet cur, with deep-mouthed voice,
   Now speeds him, as the wind;
While half-grown pup, and short-legged fice,
   Are yelping far behind.

And fresh recruits are dropping in
   To join the merry corps:
With yelp and yell,—a mingled din—
   The woods are in a roar.

And round, and round the chace now goes,
   The world’s alive with fun;
Nick Carter’s horse, his rider throws,
   And more, Hill drops his gun.

Now sorely pressed, bear glances back,
   And lolls his tired tongue;
When as, to force him from his track,
   An ambush on him sprung.

Across the glade he sweeps for flight,
   And fully is in view.
The dogs, new-fired, by the sight,
   Their cry, and speed, renew.

The foremost ones, now reach his rear,
   He turns, they dash away;
And circling now, the wrathful bear,
   They have him full at bay.

At top of speed, the horse-men come,
   All screaming in a row,
“Whoop! Take him Tiger. Seize him Drum.”
   Bang,—bang—the rifles go.

And furious now, the dogs he tears,
   And crushes in his ire,
Wheels right and left, and upward rears,
   With eyes of burning fire.

But leaden death is at his heart,
   Vain all the strength he plies.
And, spouting blood from every part,
   He reels, and sinks, and dies.

And now a dinsome clamor rose,
   ’Bout who should have his skin;
Who first draws blood, each hunter knows,
   This prize must always win.

But who did this, and how to trace
   What’s true from what’s a lie,
Like lawyers, in a murder case
   They stoutly argufy.

Aforesaid fice, of blustering mood,
   Behind, and quite forgot,
Just now emerging from the wood,
   Arrives upon the spot.

With grinning teeth, and up-turned hair—
   Brim full of spunk and wrath,
He growls, and seizes on dead bear,
   And shakes for life and death.

And swells as if his skin would tear,
   And growls and shakes again;
And swears, as plain as dog can swear,
   That he has won the skin.

Conceited whelp! we laugh at thee—
   Nor mind, that now a few
Of pompous, two-legged dogs there be,
   Conceited quite as you.

Form: common measure
S. I. W.
by Wilfred Owen

I will to the King,
         And offer him consolation in his trouble,
         For that man there has set his teeth to die,
         And being one that hates obedience,
         Discipline, and orderliness of life,
          I cannot mourn him.
                                                  W.B. YEATS

                                   I. THE PROLOGUE
  
 Patting good-bye, doubtless they told the lad
 He’d always show the Hun a brave man’s face;
 Father would sooner him dead than in disgrace,—
 Was proud to see him going, aye, and glad.
 Perhaps his mother whimpered how she’d fret
 Until he got a nice safe wound to nurse.
 Sisters would wish girls too could shoot, charge, curse …
 Brothers—would send his favourite cigarette.
 Each week, month after month, they wrote the same,
 Thinking him sheltered in some Y.M. Hut,
 Because he said so, writing on his butt
 Where once an hour a bullet missed its aim
 And misses teased the hunger of his brain.
 His eyes grew old with wincing, and his hand
 Reckless with ague. Courage leaked, as sand
 From the best sand-bags after years of rain.
 But never leave, wound, fever, trench-foot, shock,
 Untrapped the wretch. And death seemed still withheld
 For torture of lying machinally shelled,
 At the pleasure of this world’s Powers who’d run amok.
  
 He’d seen men shoot their hands, on night patrol.
 Their people never knew. Yet they were vile.
 ‘Death sooner than dishonour, that’s the style!’
 So Father said.
  
  
                                    II. THE ACTION
  
                               One dawn, our wire patrol
 Carried him. This time, Death had not missed.
 We could do nothing but wipe his bleeding cough.
 Could it be accident? - Rifles go off…
 Not sniped? No. (Later they found the English ball.)
  
  
                                    III. THE POEM
  
 It was the reasoned crisis of his soul
 Against more days of inescapable thrall,
 Against infrangibly wired and blind trench wall
 Curtained with fire, roofed in with creeping fire,
 Slow grazing fire, that would not burn him whole
 But kept him for death’s promises and scoff,
 And life’s half-promising, and both their riling.
  
  
                                    IV. THE EPILOGUE
  
 With him they buried the muzzle his teeth had kissed,
 And truthfully wrote the Mother, ‘Tim died smiling’.

Form: couplet
Felix Randal
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Felix Randal the farrier, O is he dead then? my duty all ended,
Who have watched his mould of man, big-boned and hardy-handsome
Pining, pining, till time when reason rambled in it, and some
Fatal four disorders, fleshed there, all contended?
Sickness broke him. Impatient, he cursed at first, but mended
Being anointed and all; though a heavenlier heart began some
Months earlier, since I had our sweet reprieve and ransom
Tendered to him. Ah well, God rest him all road ever he offended!

This seeing the sick endears them to us, us too it endears.
My tongue had taught thee comfort, touch had quenched thy tears,
Thy tears that touched my heart, child, Felix, poor Felix Randal;
How far from then forethought of, all thy more boisterous years,
When thou at the random grim forge, powerful amidst peers,
Didst fettle for the great grey drayhorse his bright and battering sandal!

Form: sonnet
Modern Love: XII
by George Meredith

Not solely that the Future she destroys,
And the fair life which in the distance lies
For all men, beckoning out from dim rich skies:
Nor that the passing hour’s supporting joys
Have lost the keen-edged flavour, which begat
Distinction in old times, and still should breed
Sweet Memory, and Hope,—earth’s modest seed,
And heaven’s high prompting: not that the world is flat
Since that soft-luring creature I embraced,
Among the children of Illusion went:
Methinks with all this loss I were content,
If the mad Past, on which my foot is based,
Were firm, or might be blotted: but the whole
Of life is mixed: the mocking Past will stay:
And if I drink oblivion of a day,
So shorten I the stature of my soul.

Form: sonnet
Introduction to the Songs of Innocence
by William Blake

Piping down the valleys wild 
Piping songs of pleasant glee 
On a cloud I saw a child. 
And he laughing said to me. 

Pipe a song about a Lamb; 
So I piped with merry chear, 
Piper pipe that song again— 
So I piped, he wept to hear.

Drop thy pipe thy happy pipe 
Sing thy songs of happy chear, 
So I sung the same again 
While he wept with joy to hear 

Piper sit thee down and write
In a book that all may read— 
So he vanish'd from my sight. 
And I pluck'd a hollow reed. 

And I made a rural pen,
And I stain'd the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs
Every child may joy to hear

Form: couplet
With Music
by Helen Hay Whitney

Dear, did we meet in some dim yesterday?
    I half remember how the birds were mute
    Among green leaves and tulip-tinted fruit,
And on the grass, beside a stream, we lay
In early twilight; faintly, far away,
    Came lovely sounds adrift from silver lute,
    With answered echoes of an airy flute,
While Twilight waited tiptoe, fain to stay.

Her violet eyes were sweet with mystery.
    You looked in mine, the music rose and fell
Like little, lisping laughter of the sea;
        Our souls were barks, wind-wafted from the shore—
     Gold cup, a rose, a ruby, who can tell?
         Soft—music ceases—I recall no more.

Form: sonnet
A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted (Sonnet 20)
by William Shakespeare

A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted,
Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;
A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women’s fashion:
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
A man in hue all ‘hues’ in his controlling,
Which steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth.
And for a woman wert thou first created;
Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated,
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
    But since she prick’d thee out for women’s pleasure,
    Mine be thy love and thy love’s use their treasure.

Form: sonnet
Epitaph on Elizabeth, L. H.
by Ben Jonson

Wouldst thou hear what man can say
In a little? Reader, stay.
Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die;
Which in life did harbour give
To more virtue than doth live.
If at all she had a fault,
Leave it buried in this vault.
One name was Elizabeth,
Th' other let it sleep with death:
Fitter, where it died to tell,
Than that it liv'd at all. Farewell.

Form: couplet
Ode, Inscribed to William H. Channing
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Though loath to grieve
The evil time's sole patriot,
I cannot leave
My honied thought
For the priest's cant,
Or statesman's rant.

If I refuse
My study for their politique,
Which at the best is trick,
The angry Muse
Puts confusion in my brain.

But who is he that prates
Of the culture of mankind,
Of better arts and life?
Go, blindworm, go,
Behold the famous States
Harrying Mexico
With rifle and with knife!

Or who, with accent bolder,
Dare praise the freedom-loving mountaineer?
I found by thee, O rushing Contoocook!
And in thy valleys, Agiochook!
The jackals of the negro-holder.

The God who made New Hampshire
Taunted the lofty land
With little men; —
Small bat and wren
House in the oak: —
If earth-fire cleave
The upheaved land, and bury the folk,
The southern crocodile would grieve.
 Virtue palters; Right is hence;
Freedom praised, but hid;
Funeral eloquence
Rattles the coffin-lid.

What boots thy zeal,
O glowing friend,
That would indignant rend
The northland from the south?
Wherefore? to what good end?
Boston Bay and Bunker Hill
Would serve things still; —
Things are of the snake.

The horseman serves the horse,
The neat-herd serves the neat,
The merchant serves the purse,
The eater serves his meat;
'T is the day of the chattel
Web to weave, and corn to grind;
Things are in the saddle,
And ride mankind.
There are two laws discrete,
Not reconciled,—
Law for man, and law for thing;
The last builds town and fleet,
But it runs wild,
And doth the man unking.
'T is fit the forest fall,
The steep be graded,
The mountain tunnelled,
The sand shaded,
The orchard planted,
The glebe tilled,
The prairie granted,
The steamer built.
Let man serve law for man;
Live for friendship, live for love,
For truth's and harmony's behoof;
The state may follow how it can,
As Olympus follows Jove.

     Yet do not I implore
The wrinkled shopman to my sounding woods,
Nor bid the unwilling senator
Ask votes of thrushes in the solitudes.
Every one to his chosen work; —
Foolish hands may mix and mar;
Wise and sure the issues are.
Round they roll till dark is light,
Sex to sex, and even to odd; —
The over-god
Who marries Right to Might,
Who peoples, unpeoples, —
He who exterminates
Races by stronger races,
Black by white faces, —
Knows to bring honey
Out of the lion;
Grafts gentlest scion
On pirate and Turk.

The Cossack eats Poland,
Like stolen fruit;
Her last noble is ruined,
Her last poet mute;
Straight into double band
The victors divide;
Half for freedom strike and stand; —
The astonished Muse finds thousands at her side.

Form: ode
Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press (Sonnet 140)
by William Shakespeare

Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;
Lest sorrow lend me words and words express
The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
If I might teach thee wit, better it were,
Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so;
As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,
No news but health from their physicians know;
For it I should despair, I should grow mad,
And in my madness might speak ill of thee:
Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,
Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.
    That I may not be so, nor thou belied,
    Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.

Form: sonnet
Getting Information Out of Pa
by Anonymous

My pa he didn’t go to town
      Last evening after tea,
But got a book and settled down
      As comfy as could be.
I’ll tell you I was offul glad
      To have my pa about
To answer all the things I had
      Been tryin’ to find out.
And so I asked him why the world
      Is round instead of square,
And why the piggies’ tails are curled,
      And why don’t fish breathe air?
And why the moon don’t hit a star,
      And why the dark is black,
And just how many birds there are,
      And will the wind come back?
And why does water stay in wells,
      And why do June bugs hum,
And what’s the roar I hear in shells,
      And when will Christmas come?
And why the grass is always green,
      Instead of sometimes blue,
And why a bean will grow a bean
      And not an apple, too?
And why a horse can’t learn to moo,
      And why a cow can’t neigh?
And do the fairies live on dew,
      And what makes hair grow gray—
And then my pa got up an’ gee!
      The offul words he said,
I hadn’t done a things, but he
      Jest sent me off to bed.

Form: ballad
To Lucy, Countess of Bedford, with John Donne's Satires
by Ben Jonson

Lucy, you brightness of our sphere, who are
Life of the Muses' day, their morning star!
If works, not th' author's, their own grace should look,
Whose poems would not wish to be your book?
But these, desir'd by you, the maker's ends
Crown with their own. Rare poems ask rare friends.
Yet satires, since the most of mankind be
Their unavoided subject, fewest see;
For none e'er took that pleasure in sin's sense
But, when they heard it tax'd, took more offence.
They, then, that living where the matter is bred,
Dare for these poems, yet, both ask and read
And like them too, must needfully, though few,
Be of the best; and 'mongst those best are you,
Lucy, you brightness of our sphere, who are
The Muses' evening, as their morning star.

Form: couplet
[the snow is melting]
by Kobayashi Issa

The snow is melting
and the village is flooded
      with children.

Form: haiku
[’Twas the new moon!]
by Matsuo Bashō

’Twas the new moon! 
Since then I waited—
And lo! to-night!
[I have my reward!]

Form: haiku
Sonnets from the Cherokee (I)
by Ruth Muskrat Bronson

My heart is like an opal, flashing fire
And flaming gleams of pointed light
At thy approach; or lying cold and white
When thou art gone; robbed of a dream’s desire
Is left moon-white and dull; no darting flame
Or sapphire gleam to mark a sweet suspense.
But only still, benumbed indifference
Unwaked at thy soft whisper of my name.
Come now, I tire of waiting to know love;
Teach me to scorn indifference white and dim
For I would drain fate’s cup of joy or strife;
Would play to the lost chord the vibrant hymn
That passion sings; my heart lifted above
Dull apathy; pulsating; knowing Life.

Form: sonnet
His Return to London
by Robert Herrick

From the dull confines of the drooping west
To see the day spring from the pregnant east,
Ravish'd in spirit, I come, nay more, I fly
To thee, blest place of my nativity!
Thus, thus with hallow'd foot I touch the ground,
With thousand blessings by thy fortune crown'd.
O fruitful genius! that bestowest here
An everlasting plenty, year by year.
O place! O people! Manners! fram'd to please
All nations, customs, kindreds, languages!
I am a free-born Roman; suffer then
That I amongst you live a citizen.
London my home is, though by hard fate sent
Into a long and irksome banishment;
Yet since call'd back, henceforward let me be,
O native country, repossess'd by thee!
For, rather than I'll to the west return,
I'll beg of thee first here to have mine urn.
Weak I am grown, and must in short time fall;
Give thou my sacred relics burial.

Form: couplet
To John Clare
by John Clare

Well, honest John, how fare you now at home?
The spring is come, and birds are building nests;
The old cock-robin to the sty is come,
With olive feathers and its ruddy breast;
And the old cock, with wattles and red comb,
Struts with the hens, and seems to like some best,
Then crows, and looks about for little crumbs,
Swept out by little folks an hour ago;
The pigs sleep in the sty; the bookman comes—
The little boy lets home-close nesting go,
And pockets tops and taws, where daisies blow,
To look at the new number just laid down,
With lots of pictures, and good stories too,
And Jack the Giant-killer's high renown.

Form: sonnet