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epf-000438 | SOUL
O who shall, from this dungeon, raise
A soul enslav’d so many ways?
With bolts of bones, that fetter’d stands
In feet, and manacled in hands;
Here blinded with an eye, and there
Deaf with the drumming of an ear;
A soul hung up, as ’twere, in chains
Of nerves, and arteries, and veins;
Tortur’d, besides each other p... | A Dialogue between the Soul and the Body | Andrew Marvell | 1 | couplet |
epf-001267 | Oblong, its jutted ends rounding into circles,
The old sunken basin lies with its flat, marble lip
An inch below the terrace tiles.
Over the stagnant water
Slide reflections:
The blue-green of coned yews;
The purple and red of trailing fuchsias
Dripping out of marble urns;
Bright squares of sky
Ribbed by the wake of a ... | The Broken Fountain | Amy Lowell | 13 | ekphrasis |
epf-000982 | "Not by the justice that my father spurn'd,
Not for the thousands whom my father slew,
Altars unfed and temples overturn'd,
Cold hearts and thankless tongues, where thanks are due;
Fell this dread voice from lips that cannot lie,
Stern sentence of the Powers of Destiny.
"I will unfold my sentence and my crime.
My cri... | Mycerinus | Matthew Arnold | 8 | dramatic monologue |
epf-000796 | I know a funny little man,
As quiet as a mouse,
Who does the mischief that is done
In everybody’s house!
There’s no one ever sees his face,
And yet we all agree
That every plate we break was cracked
By Mr. Nobody.
’Tis he who always tears out books,
Who leaves the door ajar,
He pulls the buttons fr... | Mr. Nobody | Anonymous | 3 | ballad |
epf-000082 | Flavius speaks to two or three servants
Good fellows all,
The latest of my wealth I'll share amongst you.
Wherever we shall meet, for Timon's sake,
Let's yet be fellows; let's shake our heads, and say,
As 'twere a knell unto our master's fortunes,
'We have seen better days.' Let each take some;
Nay, put out all your h... | Timon of Athens, Act IV, Scene II [Good fellows all] | William Shakespeare | 8 | dramatic monologue |
epf-001029 | I thank you, kind and best beloved friend,
With the same thanks one murmurs to a sister,
When, for some gentle favor, he hath kissed her,
Less for the gifts than for the love you send,
Less for the flowers, than what the flowers convey;
If I, indeed, divine their meaning truly,
And not unto myself ascribe, unduly,
Thin... | Sonnet: I Thank You | Henry Timrod | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001222 | What sacramental hurt that brings
The terror of the truth of things
Had changed thee? Secret be it yet.
’Twas thine, upon a headland set,
To view no isles of man’s delight,
With lyric foam in rainbow flight,
But all a-swing, a-gleam, mid slow uproar,
Black sea, and curved uncouth sea-bitten shore. | Emily Brontë | Louise Imogen Guiney | 1 | couplet |
epf-001096 | My boy, not of your will nor mine
You keep the mountain pass and wait,
Restless, for evil gold to shine
And hold you to your fate.
A stronger Hand than yours gave you
The lawless sword—you know not why.
That you must live is all too true,
And other men must die.
My boy, be brigand if you m... | Counsel—In the South | Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt | 12 | quatrain |
epf-001445 | The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,... | Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard | Thomas Gray | 4 | elegy |
epf-000024 | (excerpt)
O knights, O squires, O gentle bloods yborn,
You were not born all only for yourselves:
Your country claims some part of all your pains.
There should you live, and therein should you toil
To hold up right and banish cruel wrong,
To help the poor, to bridle back the rich,
To punish vice, and virtue to advance... | The Steel Glass | George Gascoigne | 6 | blank verse |
epf-000565 | Sweet poet of the woods, a long adieu!
Farewell soft mistrel of the early year!
Ah! ’twill be long ere thou shalt sing anew,
And pour thy music on the night’s dull ear.
Whether on spring thy wandering flights await,
Or whether silent in our groves you dwell,
The pensive muse shall own thee for her mate,
And... | On the Departure of the Nightingale | Charlotte Smith | 10 | pastoral |
epf-000791 | Who gave thee, O Beauty,
The keys of this breast,—
Too credulous lover
Of blest and unblest?
Say, when in lapsed ages
Thee knew I of old;
Or what was the service
For which I was sold?
When first my eyes saw thee,
I found me thy thrall,
By magical drawings,
Sweet tyrant of all!
I drank at thy fountain
False waters of th... | Ode to Beauty | Ralph Waldo Emerson | 7 | ode |
epf-001399 | I have a rendezvous with Life,
In days I hope will come,
Ere youth has sped, and strength of mind,
Ere voices sweet grow dumb.
I have a rendezvous with Life,
When Spring's first heralds hum.
Sure some would cry it's better far
To crown their days with sleep
Than face the road, the wind and rain,
To heed the calling dee... | I Have a Rendezvous With Life | Countee Cullen | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001154 | From breakfast on through all the day
At home among my friends I stay,
But every night I go abroad
Afar into the land of Nod.
All by myself I have to go,
With none to tell me what to do —
All alone beside the streams
And up the mountain-sides of dreams.
The strangest things are there for me,
Both things to eat and th... | The Land of Nod | Robert Louis Stevenson | 1 | couplet |
epf-001335 | I
Bear me to Dictaeus,
and to the steep slopes;
to the river Erymanthus.
I choose spray of dittany,
cyperum, frail of flower,
buds of myrrh,
all-healing herbs,
close pressed in calathes.
For she lies panting,
drawing sharp breath,
broken with harsh sobs,
she, Hyella,
whom no god pities.
II
Dryads
haunting the grov... | Acon | H.D. | 7 | ode |
epf-001137 | Beside a humble stone, a tree
Floats in the cemetery’s air,
Not planted in memoriam there,
But growing wild, uncultured, free.
A bird comes perching there to sing,
Winter and summer, proffering
Its faithful song—sad, bittersweet.
That tree, that bird are you and I:
You, memory; absence, me, that tide
And... | Last Hope | Paul Verlaine | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001225 | Long, long ago, my people say, as their traditions tell,
They were a happy, powerful race, loved and respected well.
To them belonged the sacred charge, the synagogue to keep,
And every Autumn to the tribes, the Manitou’s praises speak.
And all things went with them full well, the Manitou was pleased;
The Indian race w... | A Delaware Indian Legend | Richard Calmit Adams | 3 | ballad |
epf-001203 | I must launch out my boat. The languid hours pass by on the shore—Alas for me!
The spring has done its flowering and taken leave. And now with the burden of faded futile flowers I wait and linger.
The waves have become clamorous, and upon the bank in the shady lane the yellow leaves flutter and fall.
What emptiness ... | Gitanjali 21 | Rabindranath Tagore | 9 | prose poem |
epf-000312 | I am unable, yonder beggar cries,
To stand, or move; if he say true, he lies. | A Lame Begger | John Donne | 1 | couplet |
epf-000153 | O, how I faint when I of you do write,
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
And in the praise thereof spends all his might.
To make me tongue-tied, speaking of your fame!
But since your worth, wide as the ocean is,
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,
My saucy bark inferior far to his
On your broad main do... | O, how I faint when I of you do write (Sonnet 80) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000112 | Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,
As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;
For well thou know’st to my dear doting heart
Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.
Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold
Thy face hath not the power to make love groan:
To say they err I dare not be so bold,
Althoug... | Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art (Sonnet 131) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001130 | I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hours we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light's delay.
With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead lette... | I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day' | Gerard Manley Hopkins | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001341 | Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead!
There’s none of these so lonely and poor of old,
But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.
These laid the world away; poured out the red
Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be
Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,
That men call age; and th... | The Dead (III) | Rupert Brooke | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000913 | Rome, 15—
Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!
Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?
Nephews—sons mine . . . ah God, I know not! Well—
She, men would have to be your mother once,
Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!
What's done is done, and she is dead beside,
Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,
And as she di... | The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church | Robert Browning | 8 | dramatic monologue |
epf-000050 | Highway, since you my chief Parnassus be,
And that my Muse, to some ears not unsweet,
Tempers her words to trampling horses' feet
More oft than to a chamber melody.
Now, blessed you bear onward blessed me
To her, where I my heart, safe-left, shall meet:
My Muse and I must you of duty greet
With thanks and wishes, wishi... | Astrophil and Stella 84: Highway, since you my chief Parnassus be | Sir Philip Sidney | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000413 | The world’s light shines, shine as it will,
The world will love its darkness still.
I doubt though when the world’s in hell,
It will not love its darkness half so well. | But Men Loved Darkness rather than Light | Richard Crashaw | 1 | couplet |
epf-000333 | To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;
While I confess thy writings to be such
As neither man nor muse can praise too much;
'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise;
For seeliest ignorance on these may light,
Which, when it so... | To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare | Ben Jonson | 1 | couplet |
epf-000315 | Kind pity chokes my spleen; brave scorn forbids
Those tears to issue which swell my eyelids;
I must not laugh, nor weep sins and be wise;
Can railing, then, cure these worn maladies?
Is not our mistress, fair Religion,
As worthy of all our souls' devotion
As virtue was in the first blinded age?
Are not heaven's joys as... | Satire III | John Donne | 1 | couplet |
epf-000843 | The autumn-time has come;
On woods that dream of bloom,
And over purpling vines,
The low sun fainter shines.
The aster-flower is failing,
The hazel’s gold is paling;
Yet overhead more near
The eternal stars appear!
And present gratitude
Insures the future’s good,
And for the things I see
I trust the things to be;
Th... | My Triumph | John Greenleaf Whittier | 1 | couplet |
epf-000212 | Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.
Why lovest thou that which thou receives not gladly,
Or else receives with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
I... | Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly? (Sonnet 8) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001325 | The twilight’s inner flame grows blue and deep,
And in my Lesbos, over leagues of sea,
The temples glimmer moonwise in the trees.
Twilight has veiled the little flower face
Here on my heart, but still the night is kind
And leaves her warm sweet weight against my breast.
Am I that Sappho who would run at dusk
Along the ... | Sappho | Sara Teasdale | 8 | dramatic monologue |
epf-000329 | Pray thee, take care, that tak’st my book in hand,
To read it well: that is, to understand. | To the Reader | Ben Jonson | 1 | couplet |
epf-001220 | Across the bridge, where in the morning blow
The wrinkled tide turns homeward, and is fain
Homeward to drag the black sea-goer’s chain,
And the long yards by Dowgate dipping low;
Across dispeopled ways, patient and slow,
Saint Magnus and Saint Dunstan call in vain:
From Wren’s forgotten belfries, in the rain,
Down the ... | Sunday Chimes in the City | Louise Imogen Guiney | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000962 | Whoever you are holding me now in hand,
Without one thing all will be useless,
I give you fair warning before you attempt me further,
I am not what you supposed, but far different.
Who is he that would become my follower?
Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections?
The way is suspicious, the result uncertai... | Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand | Walt Whitman | 5 | free verse |
epf-001237 | A man said to the universe:
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.” | A Man Said to the Universe | Stephen Crane | 5 | free verse |
epf-000132 | Let not my love be call’d idolatry,
Nor my beloved as an idol show,
Since all alike my songs and praises be
To one, of one, still such, and ever so.
Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,
Still constant in a wondrous excellence;
Therefore my verse to constancy confined,
One thing expressing, leaves out difference.
‘Fa... | Let not my love be call'd idolatry (Sonnet 105) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001168 | To-day, O martyred chief, beneath the sun
We would unveil thy form; to thee who won
Th’applause of nations for thy soul sincere,
A loving tribute we would offer here.
’T was thine not worlds to conquer, but men’s hearts;
To change to balm the sting of slavery’s darts;
In lowly charity thy joy to find,
And open “... | Lincoln | Henrietta Cordelia Ray | 4 | elegy |
epf-001108 | Here, where the world is quiet;
Here, where all trouble seems
Dead winds' and spent waves' riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams;
I watch the green field growing
For reaping folk and sowing,
For harvest-time and mowing,
A sleepy world of streams.
I am tired of tears and laughter,
And me... | The Garden of Proserpine | Algernon Charles Swinburne | 10 | pastoral |
epf-000361 | I threaten'd to observe the strict decree
Of my dear God with all my power and might;
But I was told by one it could not be;
Yet I might trust in God to be my light.
"Then will I trust," said I, "in Him alone."
"Nay, e'en to trust in Him was also His:
We must confess that nothing is our own."
"Then I co... | The Hold-fast | George Herbert | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000663 | Alone, unfriended, on a foreign shore,
Behold an hapless, melancholy maid,
Begging her scanty fare from door to door,
With piteous voice, and humbly bended head.
Alas! her native tongue is known to few:
Her manners and her garb excite suprise;
The vulgar stare to see her bid adieu;
Her tattered garments fix their c... | The Indian | Elizabeth Kirkham Mathews | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000755 | Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak ... | On First Looking into Chapman's Homer | John Keats | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000536 | ’Twas on a lofty vase’s side,
Where China’s gayest art had dyed
The azure flowers that blow;
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima, reclined,
Gazed on the lake below.
Her conscious tail her joy declared;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,
Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
He... | Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes | Thomas Gray | 4 | elegy |
epf-000738 | The sheep get up and make their many tracks
And bear a load of snow upon their backs,
And gnaw the frozen turnip to the ground
With sharp quick bite, and then go noising round
The boy that pecks the turnips all the day
And knocks his hands to keep the cold away
And laps his legs in straw to keep them warm
And hides beh... | Sheep in Winter | John Clare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000912 | Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly,
May gaze thro’ these faint smokes curling whitely,
As thou pliest thy trade in this devil’s-smithy—
Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?
He is with her, and they know that I know
Where they are, what they do: they believe my tears flow
While they laugh, laugh at me, ... | The Laboratory | Robert Browning | 8 | dramatic monologue |
epf-000276 | My little book: who will thou please, tell me?
All which shall read thee? No that cannot be.
Whom then, the best? But few of these are known.
How shall thou know to please, thou know'st not whom?
The meaner sort commend not poetry;
And sure the worst should please themselves for thee:
But let them pass, and... | Book 1, Epigram 39: Ad librum suum. | Thomas Bastard | 1 | couplet |
epf-000760 | If by dull rhymes our English must be chain'd,
And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet
Fetter'd, in spite of pained loveliness;
Let us find out, if we must be constrain'd,
Sandals more interwoven and complete
To fit the naked foot of poesy;
Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress
Of every chord, and see what ... | If By Dull Rhymes Our English Must Be Chain'd | John Keats | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000274 | The little world, the subject of my muse,
Is a huge task and labor infinite;
Like to a wilderness or mass confuse,
Or to an endless gulf, or to the night:
How many strange Meanders do I find?
How many paths do turn my straying pen?
How many doubtful twilights make me blind,
Which seek to limb out this strange Al... | Book 1, Epigram 5: Ad lectorem de subjecto operis sui. | Thomas Bastard | 1 | couplet |
epf-000742 | The thistledown's flying, though the winds are all still,
On the green grass now lying, now mounting the hill,
The spring from the fountain now boils like a pot;
Through stones past the counting it bubbles red-hot.
The ground parched and cracked is like overbaked bread,
The greensward all wracked is, bents dried up an... | Autumn | John Clare | 1 | couplet |
epf-000727 | She left me at the silent time
When the moon had ceas'd to climb
The azure path of Heaven's steep,
And like an albatross asleep,
Balanc'd on her wings of light,
Hover'd in the purple night,
Ere she sought her ocean nest
In the chambers of the West.
She left me, and I stay'd alone
Thinking over every tone
Which, though ... | Lines Written in the Bay of Lerici | Percy Bysshe Shelley | 1 | couplet |
epf-000537 | In vain to me the smiling Mornings shine,
And reddening Phœbus lifts his golden fire;
The birds in vain their amorous descant join;
Or cheerful fields resume their green attire;
These ears, alas! for other notes repine,
A different object do these eyes require;
My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine;
And... | On the Death of Richard West | Thomas Gray | 4 | elegy |
epf-000562 | Is there a solitary wretch who hies
To the tall cliff, with starting pace or slow,
And, measuring, views with wild and hollow eyes
Its distance from the waves that chide below;
Who, as the sea-born gale with frequent sighs
Chills his cold bed upon the mountain turf,
With hoarse, half-uttered lamentation, lies
... | Sonnet: On Being Cautioned Against Walking on an Headland Overlooking the Sea, Because It Was Frequented by a Lunatic | Charlotte Smith | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000225 | When I consider every thing that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment.
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment.
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheerèd and checked even by the self-same sky,
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And... | When I consider every thing that grows (Sonnet 15) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000416 | Could not once blinding me, cruel, suffice?
When first I look’d on thee, I lost mine eyes. | Divine Epigrams: Samson to his Delilah | Richard Crashaw | 1 | couplet |
epf-000176 | Thus can my love excuse the slow offence
Of my dull bearer when from thee I speed:
From where thou art why should I haste me thence?
Till I return, of posting is no need.
O, what excuse will my poor beast then find,
When swift extremity can seem but slow?
Then should I spur, though mounted on the wind;
In winged speed ... | Thus can my love excuse the slow offence (Sonnet 51) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001428 | The New Year comes—fling wide, fling wide the door
Of Opportunity! the spirit free
To scale the utmost heights of hopes to be,
To rest on peaks ne’er reached by man before!
The boundless infinite let us explore,
To search out undiscovered mystery,
Undreamed of in our poor philosophy!
The bounty of the gods upon us pour... | The New Year | Carrie Williams Clifford | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001166 | To those fair isles where crimson sunsets burn,
We send a backward glance to gaze on thee,
Brave Toussaint! thou was surely born to be
A hero; thy proud spirit could but spurn
Each outrage on the race. Couldst thou unlearn
The lessons taught by instinct? Nay! and we
Who share the zeal that would make all men free,
Must... | Toussaint L’Ouverture | Henrietta Cordelia Ray | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000853 | Once it smiled a silent dell
Where the people did not dwell;
They had gone unto the wars,
Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
Nightly, from their azure towers,
To keep watch above the flowers,
In the midst of which all day
The red sun-light lazily lay.
Now each visitor shall confess
The sad valley’s restlessness.
Nothing ... | The Valley of Unrest | Edgar Allan Poe | 1 | couplet |
epf-000387 | On the Lord General Fairfax at the Siege of Colchester
Fairfax, whose name in arms through Europe rings
Filling each mouth with envy, or with praise,
And all her jealous monarchs with amaze
And rumours loud, that daunt remotest kings;
Thy firm unshak'n virtue ever brings
Victory home, though ne... | Sonnet 15: Fairfax, whose name in arms through Europe rings | John Milton | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000002 | I’d sing of Love in such a novel fashion
that from her cruel side I would draw by force
a thousand sighs a day, kindling again
in her cold mind a thousand high desires;
I’d see her lovely face transform quite often
her eyes grow wet and more compassionate,
like one who feels regret, when it’s too late,
for causing som... | Sonnet 131 [I’d sing of Love in such a novel fashion] | Petrarch | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001173 | I
He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
And murdered in her bed.
He walked amongst the Trial Men
In a suit of shabby grey;
A cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed lig... | The Ballad of Reading Gaol | Oscar Wilde | 3 | ballad |
epf-001431 | Sadly mourns the fair princess, while her golden bees,
Clustering together in the stillness of the sun,
Murmur faintly like the waves of enchanted seas.
Knight and Squire around her are striving, every one,
Vainly striving to awake on her cheek the blush,
Soft as on an evening cloud the last sunset flush.
Sadly mourns... | Homage to Darío | Arturo Giménez Pastor | 4 | elegy |
epf-001068 | Glass was the Street - in Tinsel Peril
Tree and Traveller stood.
Filled was the Air with merry venture
Hearty with Boys the Road.
Shot the lithe Sleds like Shod vibrations
Emphacized and gone
It is the Past’s supreme italic
Makes the Present mean - | Glass was the Street - in Tinsel Peril (1518) | Emily Dickinson | 12 | quatrain |
epf-001162 | Somebody’s baby was buried to-day—
The empty white hearse from the grave rumbled back,
And the morning somehow seemed less smiling and gay
As I paused on the walk while it crossed on its way,
And a shadow seemed drawn o’er the sun’s golden track.
Somebody’s baby was laid out to rest,
White as a snowd... | The Little White Hearse | Ella Wheeler Wilcox | 4 | elegy |
epf-000600 | O my Luve is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune.
So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ t... | A Red, Red Rose | Robert Burns | 2 | common measure |
epf-000250 | Like as the waves make towards the pebbl'd shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gav... | Sonnet 60: Like as the waves make towards the pebbl'd shore | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001140 | I
A dream of interlinking hands, of feet
Tireless to spin the unseen, fairy woof
Of the entangling waltz. Bright eyebeams meet,
Gay laughter echoes from the vaulted roof.
Warm perfumes rise; the soft unflickering glow
Of branching lights sets off the changeful charms
Of glancing gems, rich stuffs, the dazzling snow
Of... | Chopin | Emma Lazarus | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000078 | Like as, to make our appetite more keen,
With eager compounds we our palate urge;
As, to prevent our maladies unseen,
We sicken to shun sickness when we purge;
Even so, being full of your ne’er-cloying sweetness,
To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;
And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness
To be diseas’d, ere... | Like as, to make our appetite more keen (Sonnet 118) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000430 | Here Follows Some Verses Upon the Burning
of Our house, July 10th. 1666. Copied Out of
a Loose Paper.
In silent night when rest I took,
For sorrow near I did not look,
I wakened was with thund’ring noise
And piteous shrieks of dreadful voice.
That fearful sound of “fire” and “fire,”
Let no man know is my Desire.
I, st... | Verses upon the Burning of our House, July 10th, 1666 | Anne Bradstreet | 1 | couplet |
epf-000756 | To one who has been long in city pent,
'Tis very sweet to look into the fair
And open face of heaven,—to breathe a prayer
Full in the smile of the blue firmament.
Who is more happy, when, with heart's content,
Fatigued he sinks into some pleasant lair
Of wavy grass, and reads a debon... | To One Who Has Been Long in City Pent | John Keats | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000920 | Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith "A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!''
Not that, amassing flowers,
Youth sighed "Which rose make ours,
Which lily leave and then as best recall?"
No... | Rabbi Ben Ezra | Robert Browning | 8 | dramatic monologue |
epf-000141 | But do thy worst to steal thyself away,
For term of life thou art assured mine,
And life no longer than thy love will stay,
For it depends upon that love of thine.
Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,
When in the least of them my life hath end.
I see a better state to me belongs
Than that which on thy humour do... | But do thy worst to steal thyself away (Sonnet 92) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000166 | Against my love shall be, as I am now,
With Time’s injurious hand crush’d and o’er-worn;
When hours have drain’d his blood and fill’d his brow
With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
Hath travell’d on to age’s steepy night,
And all those beauties whereof now he’s king
Are vanishing or vanish’d out of sight,
Ste... | Against my love shall be, as I am now (Sonnet 63) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000223 | Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor ga... | Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea (Sonnet 65) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001122 | On ear and ear two noises too old to end
Trench—right, the tide that ramps against the shore;
With a flood or a fall, low lull-off or all roar,
Frequenting there while moon shall wear and wend.
Left hand, off land, I hear the lark ascend,
His rash-fresh re-winded new-skeinèd score
In crisps of curl... | The Sea and the Skylark | Gerard Manley Hopkins | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000762 | O soft embalmer of the still midnight,
Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,
Our gloom-pleas'd eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine:
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close
In midst of this thine hymn my willing eyes,
Or wait the "Amen," ere thy poppy throws
... | To Sleep | John Keats | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000809 | Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore
Alone upon the threshold of my door
Of individual life, I shall command
The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
Serenely in the sunshine as before,
Without the sense of that which I forbore, ..
Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
Doom ta... | Sonnets from the Portuguese 6: Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand | Elizabeth Barrett Browning | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000411 | Of thee, kind boy, I ask no red and white,
To make up my delight;
No odd becoming graces,
Black eyes, or little know-not-whats in faces;
Make me but mad enough, give me good store
Of love for her I count;
I ask no more,
’Tis love in love that makes the sport.
There’s no such thing as that we beauty call,
... | Sonnet II: Of thee, kind boy, I ask no red and white | Sir John Suckling | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000099 | Those lips that Love’s own hand did make
Breathed forth the sound that said ‘I hate’
To me that languish’d for her sake;
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet
Was used in giving gentle doom,
And taught it thus anew to greet;
‘I hate’ she alter’d with... | Those lips that Love’s own hand did make (Sonnet 145) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001075 | I never hear the word “Escape”
Without a quicker blood,
A sudden expectation –
A flying attitude!
I never hear of prisons broad
By soldiers battered down,
But I tug childish at my bars
Only to fail again! | I never hear the word “Escape” (144) | Emily Dickinson | 2 | common measure |
epf-000249 | What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
Since every one hath, every one, one shade,
And you, but one, can every shadow lend.
Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit
Is poorly imitated after you;
On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,
And you in Grecian tires are painted... | Sonnet 53: What is your substance, whereof are you made | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000171 | Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
Whilsts I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Not think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid you... | Being your slave, what should I do but tend (Sonnet 57) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000812 | Beloved, my Beloved, when I think
That thou wast in the world a year ago,
What time I sate alone here in the snow
And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink
No moment at thy voice ... but, link by link,
Went counting all my chains, as if that so
They never could fall off at any blow
Struck by thy possible hand ... wh... | Sonnets from the Portuguese 20: Beloved, my Beloved, when I think | Elizabeth Barrett Browning | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000722 | Emily,
A ship is floating in the harbour now,
A wind is hovering o'er the mountain's brow;
There is a path on the sea's azure floor,
No keel has ever plough'd that path before;
The halcyons brood around the foamless isles;
The treacherous Ocean has forsworn its wiles;
The merry mariners are bold and free:
Say, my heart... | from Epipsychidion | Percy Bysshe Shelley | 1 | couplet |
epf-000188 | O, how thy worth with manners may I sing,
When thou art all the better part of me?
What can mine own praise to mine own self bring?
And what is ’t but mine own when I praise thee?
Even for this let us divided live,
And our dear love lose name of single one,
That by this separation I may give
That due to thee which thou... | O, how thy worth with manners may I sing (Sonnet 39) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000748 | O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung
By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,
And pardon that thy secrets should be sung
Even into thine own soft-conched ear:
Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see
The winged Psyche with awaken’d eyes?
I wander'd in a forest thoughtlessly,
A... | Ode to Psyche | John Keats | 7 | ode |
epf-001183 | I am here to sing thee songs. In this hall of thine I have a corner seat.
In thy world I have no work to do; my useless life can only break out in tunes without a purpose.
When the hour strikes for thy silent worship at the dark temple of midnight, command me, my master, to stand before thee to sing.
When in the mor... | Gitanjali 15 | Rabindranath Tagore | 9 | prose poem |
epf-001394 | We shall not always plant while others reap
The golden increment of bursting fruit,
Not always countenance, abject and mute,
That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap;
Not everlastingly while others sleep
Shall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute,
Not always bend to some more subtle brute;
We were not made ... | From the Dark Tower | Countee Cullen | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000708 | It flows through old hushed Egypt and its sands,
Like some grave mighty thought threading a dream,
And times and things, as in that vision, seem
Keeping along it their eternal stands,—
Caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands
That roamed through the young world, the glory extreme
Of high Sesostris, and ... | A Thought of the Nile | Leigh Hunt | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001054 | From child to youth; from youth to arduous man;
From lethargy to fever of the heart;
From faithful life to dream-dower'd days apart;
From trust to doubt; from doubt to brink of ban;—
Thus much of change in one swift cycle ran
Till now. Alas, the soul!—how soon must she
Accept her primal immortality,—
The flesh resume i... | The House of Life: 66. The Heart of the Night | Dante Gabriel Rossetti | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001360 | The darkness crumbles away.
It is the same old druid Time as ever,
Only a live thing leaps my hand,
A queer sardonic rat,
As I pull the parapet’s poppy
To stick behind my ear.
Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew
Your cosmopolitan sympathies.
Now you have touched this English hand
You will do the same to a Germ... | Break of Day in the Trenches | Isaac Rosenberg | 5 | free verse |
epf-001290 | Maybe my soul’s all right.
But my body’s all wrong,
All bent and twisted,
All this that hurts me so.
My soul keeps trying, trying
To straighten my body up.
It hangs on my skeleton, frantic,
Flapping its terrified wings.
Look here, look at my hands,
They look like little wet toads
After a... | Song of the Little Cripple at the Street Corner | Rainer Maria Rilke | 8 | dramatic monologue |
epf-000208 | When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silver’d o’er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier w... | When I do count the clock that tells the time (Sonnet 12) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000726 | Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory—
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the belovèd's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on. | Music when Soft Voices Die (To --) | Percy Bysshe Shelley | 1 | couplet |
epf-000195 | Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,
Which I by lacking have supposed dead,
And there reigns love and all love’s loving parts,
And all those friends which I thought buried.
How many a holy and obsequious tear
Hath dear religious love stol’n from mine eye
As interest of the dead, which now appear
But things removed th... | Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts (Sonnet 31) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000392 | Hail native language, that by sinews weak
Didst move my first endeavouring tongue to speak,
And mad'st imperfect words with childish trips,
Half unpronounc'd, slide through my infant lips,
Driving dumb Silence from the portal door,
Where he had mutely sate two years before:
Here I salute thee and thy pardon ask,
That n... | from At a Vacation Exercise | John Milton | 1 | couplet |
epf-000817 | How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right;
I love thee purely... | Sonnets from the Portuguese 43: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways | Elizabeth Barrett Browning | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000041 | You that do search for every purling spring
Which from the ribs of old Parnassus flows,
And every flower, not sweet perhaps, which grows
Near thereabouts, into your poesy wring;
Ye that do dictionary's method bring
Into your rimes, running in rattling rows;
You that poor Petrarch's long-deceased woes
With new-born sigh... | Astrophil and Stella 15: You that do search for every purling spring | Sir Philip Sidney | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000306 | Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines, and silver hooks.
There will the river whispering run
Warm'd by thy eyes, more than the sun;
And there the 'enamour'd fish will stay,
Begging themselves they may betray.
When thou wilt swim ... | The Bait | John Donne | 1 | couplet |
epf-000375 | That which her slender waist confin’d,
Shall now my joyful temples bind;
No monarch but would give his crown,
His arms might do what this has done.
It was my heaven’s extremest sphere,
The pale which held that lovely deer,
My joy, my grief, my hope, my love,
Did all within this circle move.
A narrow compass, and yet ... | On a Girdle | Edmund Waller | 1 | couplet |
epf-000207 | O, that you were yourself! But, love, you are
No longer yours than you yourself here live:
Against this coming end you should prepare,
And your sweet semblance to some other give.
So should that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination; then you were
Yourself again after yourself’s decrease,
When your sweet... | O, that you were yourself! But, love, you are (Sonnet 13) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
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