id
stringlengths
10
10
poem
stringlengths
49
7.92k
title
stringlengths
3
117
author
stringlengths
4
57
label
int64
0
14
label_name
stringclasses
15 values
epf-000484
I come weary, In search of an inn— Ah! These wisteria flowers!
[I come weary,]
Matsuo Bashō
11
haiku
epf-001337
If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England's, breathing English air, ...
The Soldier
Rupert Brooke
0
sonnet
epf-000079
When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her though I know she lies, That she might think me some untutor’d youth, Unlearned in the world’s false subtleties. Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young, Although she knows my days are past the best, Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue: On both...
When my love swears that she is made of truth (Sonnet 138)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000045
I might!—unhappy word—O me, I might, And then would not, or could not, see my bliss; Till now wrapt in a most infernal night, I find how heav'nly day, wretch! I did miss. Heart, rend thyself, thou dost thyself but right; No lovely Paris made thy Helen his, No force, no fraud robb'd thee of thy delight, Nor Fortune of t...
Astrophil and Stella 33: I might!—unhappy word—O me, I might
Sir Philip Sidney
0
sonnet
epf-000667
Since all that beat about in Nature's range, Or veer or vanish; why should'st thou remain The only constant in a world of change, O yearning Thought! that liv'st but in the brain? Call to the Hours, that in the distance play, The faery people of the future day— Fond Thought! not one of all that shining swarm Will breat...
Constancy to an Ideal Object
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1
couplet
epf-000190
As a decrepit father takes delight To see his active child do deeds of youth, So I, made lame by fortune’s dearest spite, Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth. For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit, Or any of these all, or all, or more, Entitled in thy parts do crowned sit, I make my love engrafted to this...
As a decrepit father takes delight (Sonnet 37)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-001077
A Bird, came down the Walk -  He did not know I saw - He bit an Angle Worm in halves And ate the fellow, raw,    And then, he drank a Dew From a convenient Grass - And then hopped sidewise to the Wall To let a Beetle pass -   He glanced with rapid eyes, That hurried all abroad - They looked like frightened Beads, I tho...
A Bird, came down the Walk - (359)
Emily Dickinson
2
common measure
epf-001432
A light, serene, ethereal glory rests Its beams effulgent on each crestling wave; The silver touches of the moonlight wave The deep bare bosom that the breeze molests; While lingering whispers deepen as the wavy crests Roll with weird rhythm, now gay, now gently grave; And floods of lambent light appear the sea to pave...
Moonlight on Manila Bay
Fernando M. Maramág
0
sonnet
epf-001058
What may the woman labour to confess? There is about her mouth a nervous twitch. 'Tis something to be told, or hidden:—which? I get a glimpse of hell in this mild guess. She has desires of touch, as if to feel That all the household things are things she knew. She stops before the glass. What sight in view? A face that...
Modern Love: XXII
George Meredith
0
sonnet
epf-000540
Here lies, whom hound did ne’er pursue,     Nor swifter greyhound follow, Whose foot ne’er tainted morning dew,     Nor ear heard huntsman’s hallo’, Old Tiney, surliest of his kind,     Who, nursed with tender care, And to domesticate bounds confined,     Was still a wild jack-hare. Though duly from my hand he took  ...
Epitaph on a Hare
William Cowper
4
elegy
epf-000472
Well then; the promis'd hour is come at last; The present age of wit obscures the past: Strong were our sires; and as they fought they writ, Conqu'ring with force of arms, and dint of wit; Theirs was the giant race, before the Flood; And thus, when Charles return'd, our empire stood. Like Janus he the stubborn soil man...
To my Dear Friend Mr. Congreve on his Comedy Call'd the Double Dealer
John Dryden
1
couplet
epf-000942
To have known him, to have loved him After loneness long; And then to be estranged in life, And neither in the wrong; And now for death to set his seal— Ease me, a little ease, my song! By wintry hills his hermit-mound The sheeted snow-drifts drape, And houseless there the snow-bird flits Beneath the fir...
Monody
Herman Melville
4
elegy
epf-000601
Ye flowery banks o' bonie Doon,          How can ye blume sae fair? How can ye chant, ye little birds,          And I sae fu' o' care? Thou'll break my heart, thou bonie bird,          That sings upon the bough; Thou minds me o' the happy days,          When my fause love was true. Thou'll break my heart, thou bonie ...
Ye Flowery Banks (Bonie Doon)
Robert Burns
2
common measure
epf-001179
O my good! O my beautiful! Atrocious fanfare where I won’t stumble! enchanted rack whereon I am stretched! Hurrah for the amazing work and the marvelous body, for the first time! It began amid the laughter of children, it will end with it. This poison will remain in all our veins even when, as the trumpets turn back, w...
Morning of Drunkenness
Arthur Rimbaud
9
prose poem
epf-001026
This was the woman; what now of the man? But pass him. If he comes beneath a heel, He shall be crushed until he cannot feel, Or, being callous, haply till he can. But he is nothing:—nothing? Only mark The rich light striking out from her on him! Ha! what a sense it is when her eyes swim Across the man she singles, leav...
Modern Love: III
George Meredith
0
sonnet
epf-001255
You come to fetch me from my work to-night  When supper's on the table, and we'll see  If I can leave off burying the white  Soft petals fallen from the apple tree.  (Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,  Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;)  And go along with you ere you lose sight  Of what you cam...
Putting in the Seed
Robert Frost
0
sonnet
epf-000107
If thy soul check thee that I come so near, Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy ‘Will,’ And will, thy soul knows, is admitted there; Thus far for love my love-suit, sweet, fulfil. ‘Will’ will fulfil the treasure of thy love, Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one. In things of a great receipt with ease we prov...
If thy soul check thee that I come so near (Sonnet 136)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000189
How can my Muse want subject to invent, While thou dost breathe, that pour’st into my verse Thine own sweet argument, too excellent For ever vulgar paper to rehearse? O, give thyself the thanks, if aught in me Worthy perusal stand against thy sight; For who’s so dumb that cannot write to thee, When thou thyself dost gi...
How can my Muse want subject to invent (Sonnet 38)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000013
The longë love that in my thought doth harbour And in mine hert doth keep his residence, Into my face presseth with bold pretence And therein campeth, spreading his banner. She that me learneth to love and suffer And will that my trust and lustës negligence Be rayned by reason, shame, and reverence, With his hardiness ...
The Long Love that in my Thought doth Harbour
Sir Thomas Wyatt
0
sonnet
epf-000655
Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books; Or surely you'll grow double: Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks; Why all this toil and trouble? The sun above the mountain's head, A freshening lustre mellow Through all the long green fields has spread, His first sweet evening yellow. Books! 'tis a dull and endless strif...
The Tables Turned
William Wordsworth
2
common measure
epf-001164
To catch the spirit in its wayward flight Through mazes manifold, what task supreme! For when to floods has grown the quiet stream, Much human skill must aid its rage to fight; And when wild winds invade the solemn night, Seems not man’s vaunted power but a dream? And still more futile, ay, we e’en must deem This quest...
Self-Mastery
Henrietta Cordelia Ray
0
sonnet
epf-000763
When I have fears that I may cease to be    Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain, Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,    Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain; When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,    Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace    Their shad...
When I have Fears That I May Cease to Be
John Keats
0
sonnet
epf-001067
I never hear that one is dead Without the chance of Life Afresh annihilating me That mightiest Belief, Too mighty for the Daily mind That tilling it’s abyss, Had Madness, had it once or, Twice The yawning Consciousness, Beliefs are Bandaged, like the Tongue When Terror were it told In any Tone commensurate Would stri...
I never hear that one is dead (1325)
Emily Dickinson
12
quatrain
epf-001177
One fine morning, in the country of a very gentle people, a magnificent man and woman were shouting in the public square. “My friends, I want her to be queen!” “I want to be queen!” She was laughing and trembling. He spoke to their friends of revelation, of trials completed. They swooned against each other.       In fa...
Royalty
Arthur Rimbaud
9
prose poem
epf-000033
By that he ended had his ghostly sermon, The fox was well induc'd to be a parson, And of the priest eftsoons gan to inquire, How to a benefice he might aspire. "Marry, there" (said the priest) "is art indeed: Much good deep learning one thereout may read; For that the ground-work is, and end of all, How to obtain a ben...
Prosopopoia: or Mother Hubbard's Tale
Edmund Spenser
1
couplet
epf-000813
When our two souls stand up erect and strong, Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher, Until the lengthening wings break into fire At either curvéd point, — what bitter wrong Can the earth do to us, that we should not long Be here contented ? Think. In mounting higher, The angels would press on us, and aspire To ...
Sonnets from the Portuguese 22: When our two souls stand up erect and strong
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
0
sonnet
epf-000427
I had eight birds hatcht in one nest, Four Cocks were there, and Hens the rest. I nurst them up with pain and care, No cost nor labour did I spare Till at the last they felt their wing, Mounted the Trees and learned to sing. Chief of the Brood then took his flight To Regions far and left me quite. My mournful chirps I ...
In Reference to her Children, 23 June 1659
Anne Bradstreet
1
couplet
epf-000211
Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye That thou consumes thyself in single life? Ah! if thou issueless shall hap to die, The world will wail thee, like a makeless wife; The world will be thy widow and still weep That thou no form of thee hast left behind, When every private widow well may keep By children’s eyes her husb...
Is it for fear to we a widow's eye (Sonnet 9)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000308
For God’s sake hold your tongue, and let me love,          Or chide my palsy, or my gout, My five gray hairs, or ruined fortune flout,          With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve,                 Take you a course, get you a place,                 Observe his honor, or his grace, Or the king's real, or...
The Canonization
John Donne
1
couplet
epf-000731
From the forests and highlands          We come, we come; From the river-girt islands,          Where loud waves are dumb                 Listening to my sweet pipings. The wind in the reeds and the rushes,          The bees on the bells of thyme, The birds on the myrtle bushes,          The cicale above in the lime, A...
Hymn of Pan
Percy Bysshe Shelley
10
pastoral
epf-000037
If all the world and love were young, And truth in every Shepherd’s tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move, To live with thee, and be thy love. Time drives the flocks from field to fold, When Rivers rage and Rocks grow cold, And Philomel becometh dumb, The rest complains of cares to come. The flowers do fade, a...
The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd
Sir Walter Raleigh
10
pastoral
epf-000581
My mother groand! my father wept. Into the dangerous world I leapt: Helpless, naked, piping loud;  Like a fiend hid in a cloud. Struggling in my fathers hands:  Striving against my swaddling bands:  Bound and weary I thought best To sulk upon my mothers breast.
Infant Sorrow
William Blake
1
couplet
epf-000103
In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes, For they in thee a thousand errors note; But ’tis my heart that loves what they despise, Who in despite of view is pleased to dote; Nor are mine ears with thy tongue’s tune delighted, Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone, Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited To an...
In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes (Sonnet 141)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-001099
I The clearest eyes in all the world they read        With sense more keen and spirit of sight more true        Than burns and thrills in sunrise, when the dew Flames, and absorbs the glory round it shed, As they the light of ages quick and dead,        Closed now, forsake us: yet the shaft that slew        Can slay no...
A Sequence of Sonnets on the Death of Robert Browning
Algernon Charles Swinburne
0
sonnet
epf-000543
Toll for the brave— The brave! that are no more: All sunk beneath the wave, Fast by their native shore. Eight hundred of the brave, Whose courage well was tried, Had made the vessel heel And laid her on her side; A land-breeze shook the shrouds, And she was overset; Down went the Royal George, With all h...
On the Loss of the Royal George
William Cowper
4
elegy
epf-001364
God! How I hate you, you young cheerful men, Whose pious poetry blossoms on your graves As soon as you are in them, nurtured up By the salt of your corruption, and the tears Of mothers, local vicars, college deans, And flanked by prefaces and photographs From all you minor poet friends—the fools— Who paint their senti...
“God! How I hate you, you young cheerful men”
Arthur Graeme West
6
blank verse
epf-001065
In this short Life that only lasts an hour How much - how little - is within our power
In this short Life that only lasts an hour (1292)
Emily Dickinson
1
couplet
epf-000619
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour: England hath need of thee: she is a fen Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen, Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, Have forfeited their ancient English dower Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; Oh! raise us up, return to us again; And give us manners, vi...
London, 1802
William Wordsworth
0
sonnet
epf-000842
Up from the meadows rich with corn, Clear in the cool September morn, The clustered spires of Frederick stand Green-walled by the hills of Maryland. Round about them orchards sweep, Apple- and peach-tree fruited deep, Fair as a garden of the Lord To the eyes of the famished rebel horde, On that pleasant morn of the...
Barbara Frietchie
John Greenleaf Whittier
1
couplet
epf-000723
And like a dying lady, lean and pale, Who totters forth, wrapp'd in a gauzy veil, Out of her chamber, led by the insane And feeble wanderings of her fading brain, The moon arose up in the murky East, A white and shapeless mass.
The Waning Moon
Percy Bysshe Shelley
1
couplet
epf-000937
In placid hours well-pleased we dream Of many a brave unbodied scheme. But form to lend, pulsed life create, What unlike things must meet and mate: A flame to melt—a wind to freeze; Sad patience—joyous energies; Humility—yet pride and scorn; Instinct and study; love and hate; Audacity—reverence. These must mate, And fu...
Art
Herman Melville
14
ars poetica
epf-001330
For this she starred her eyes with salt And scooped her temples thin, Until her face shone pure of fault From the forehead to the chin. In coldest crucibles of pain Her shrinking flesh was fired And smoothed into a finer grain To make it more desired. Pain left her lips more clear than glass; It colored and cooled he...
Epitaph
Elinor Wylie
4
elegy
epf-001197
I know not how thou singest, my master! I ever listen in silent amazement. The light of thy music illumines the world. The life breath of thy music runs from sky to sky. The holy stream of thy music breaks through all stony obstacles and rushes on. My heart longs to join in thy song, but vainly struggles for a voice....
Gitanjali 3
Rabindranath Tagore
9
prose poem
epf-000334
Where dost thou careless lie, Buried in ease and sloth? Knowledge that sleeps doth die; And this security, It is the common moth That eats on wits and arts, and oft destroys them both. Are all th' Aonian springs Dried up? lies Thespia waste? Doth Clarius' harp want strings, That not a nymph now sings? Or droop they as...
An Ode to Himself
Ben Jonson
7
ode
epf-000042
Fly, fly, my friends, I have my death wound, fly! See there that boy, that murd'ring boy, I say, Who, like a thief, hid in dark bush doth lie Till bloody bullet get him wrongful prey. So tyrant he no fitter place could spy, Nor so fair level in so secret stay, As that sweet black which veils the heav'nly eye; There him...
Astrophil and Stella 20: Fly, fly, my friends, I have my death wound, fly
Sir Philip Sidney
0
sonnet
epf-001145
O mother-heart! when fast the arrows flew, Like blinding lightning, smiting as they fell, One after one, one after one, what knell Could fitly voice thy anguish! Sorrow grew To throes intensest, when thy sad soul knew Thy youngest, too, must go. Was it not well, Avengers wroth, just one to spare? Ay, tell T...
Niobe
Henrietta Cordelia Ray
0
sonnet
epf-000943
Wild, wild the storm, and the sea high running, Steady the roar of the gale, with incessant undertone muttering, Shouts of demoniac laughter fitfully piercing and pealing, Waves, air, midnight, their savagest trinity lashing, Out in the shadows there milk-white combs careering, On beachy slush and sand spirts of snow f...
Patroling Barnegat
Walt Whitman
0
sonnet
epf-000060
If he from heaven that filched that living fire Condemned by Jove to endless torment be, I greatly marvel how you still go free, That far beyond Prometheus did aspire. The fire he stole, although of heavenly kind, Which from above he craftily did take, Of liveless clods, us living men to make, He did bestow in temper o...
Idea 14: If he from heaven that filched that living fire
Michael Drayton
0
sonnet
epf-000553
On the fleet streams, the Sun, that late arose,    In amber radiance plays; the tall young grass    No foot hath bruised; clear morning, as I pass,    Breathes the pure gale, that on the blossom blows; And, as with gold yon green hill’s summit glows,    The lake inlays the vale with molten glass:    Now is the year’s s...
Sonnet 91: On the fleet streams, the Sun, that late arose
Anna Seward
0
sonnet
epf-000062
Methinks I see some crooked mimic jeer And tax my muse with this fantastic grace, Turning my papers, asks "what have we here?" Making withall some filthy antic face. I fear no censure, nor what thou canst say, Nor shall my spirit one jot of vigour lose. Think'st thou my wit shall keep the pack-horse way That ev'ry dudg...
Idea 31: Methinks I see some crooked mimic jeer
Michael Drayton
0
sonnet
epf-000780
Like a loose island on the wide expanse, Unconscious floating on the fickle sea, Herself her all, she lives in privacy; Her waking life as lonely as a trance, Doom’d to behold the universal dance, And never hear the music which expounds The solemn step, coy slide, the merry bounds. The vague, mute language of the count...
To a Deaf and Dumb Little Girl
Hartley Coleridge
0
sonnet
epf-000057
As I in hoary winter’s night stood shivering in the snow, Surpris’d I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow; And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near, A pretty Babe all burning bright did in the air appear; Who, scorched with excessive heat, such floods of tears did shed As though his floods s...
The Burning Babe
Robert Southwell SJ
1
couplet
epf-000849
Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!    Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes. Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart,    Vulture, whose wings are dull realities? How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,    Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies...
Sonnet—To Science
Edgar Allan Poe
0
sonnet
epf-000317
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
10
pastoral
epf-001000
Ye Sons of Great Britain! come join with me And sing in praise of the gallant British Armie, That behaved right manfully in the Soudan, At the great battle of Omdurman. ’Twas in the year of 1898, and on the 2nd of September, Which the Khalifa and his surviving followers will long remember, Because Sir Herbert Kitchene...
The Battle of Omdurman
Knight of the White Elephant of Burmah William McGonagall
1
couplet
epf-000847
Strong Son of God, immortal Love,    Whom we, that have not seen thy face,    By faith, and faith alone, embrace, Believing where we cannot prove;   Thine are these orbs of light and shade;    Thou madest Life in man and brute;    Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot Is on the skull which thou hast made.   Thou wilt not...
In Memoriam A. H. H.
Lord Tennyson Alfred
4
elegy
epf-000759
O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute!    Fair plumed Syren! Queen of far away!    Leave melodizing on this wintry day, Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute: Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute,    Betwixt damnation and impassion'd clay    Must I burn through; once more humbly assay The bitter-sweet of this ...
On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again
John Keats
0
sonnet
epf-000236
When icicles hang by the wall    And Dick the shepherd blows his nail And Tom bears logs into the hall    And milk comes frozen home in pail, When blood is nipp'd and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl,                         Tu-whit; Tu-who, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. When all a...
Love's Labour's Lost, Act V, Scene 2 [Winter]
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000246
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste: Then can I drown an eye, unus'd to flow, For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe, An...
Sonnet 30: When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-001397
All night we danced upon our windy hill, Your dress a cloud of tangled midnight hair, And love was much too much for me to wear My leaves; the killer roared above his kill, But you danced on, and when some star would spill Its red and white upon you whirling there, I sensed a hidden beauty in the air; Though you danced...
The Dance of Love
Countee Cullen
0
sonnet
epf-000746
They talk of short-lived pleasure–be it so–    Pain dies as quickly: stern, hard-featured pain Expires, and lets her weary prisoner go.    The fiercest agonies have shortest reign;    And after dreams of horror, comes again The welcome morning with its rays of peace.    Oblivion, softly wiping out the stain, Makes the ...
Mutation
William Cullen Bryant
0
sonnet
epf-000493
Stella this Day is thirty four, (We won't dispute a Year or more) However Stella, be not troubled, Although thy Size and Years are doubled, Since first I saw Thee at Sixteen The brightest Virgin of the Green, So little is thy Form declin'd Made up so largely in thy Mind. Oh, would it please the Gods to split Thy Beauty...
On Stella's Birth-day
Jonathan Swift
1
couplet
epf-001169
“I was witness of all the adornments with which he surrounded himself in spirit; garments, cloths, furniture; I lent him weapons, a different face. I saw all that touched him, just as he would have liked to create it for himself. When his spirit seemed to me apathetic, I followed him far in strange and complicated acti...
From “A Season in Hell [Delirium I]”
Arthur Rimbaud
9
prose poem
epf-000091
The little love-god lying once asleep Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand, Whilst many nymphs that vow’d chaste life to keep Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand The fairest votary took up that fire Which many legions of true hearts had warm’d; And so the general of hot desire What sleeping by a virgin hand ...
The little love-god lying once asleep (Sonnet 154)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000625
Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room; And hermits are contented with their cells; And students with their pensive citadels; Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom, Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom, High as the highest Peak of Furness-fells, Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells: In truth t...
Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent’s Narrow Room
William Wordsworth
0
sonnet
epf-001057
In our old shipwrecked days there was an hour, When in the firelight steadily aglow, Joined slackly, we beheld the red chasm grow Among the clicking coals. Our library-bower That eve was left to us: and hushed we sat As lovers to whom Time is whispering. From sudden-opened doors we heard them sing: The nodding elders m...
Modern Love: XVI
George Meredith
0
sonnet
epf-001351
(To have been read before the statue of Lafayette and Washington in Paris, on Decoration Day, May 30, 1916) I Ay, it is fitting on this holiday, Commemorative of our soldier dead, When—with sweet flowers of our New England May Hiding the lichened stones by fifty years made gray— Their graves in every town are garland...
Ode in Memory of the American Volunteers Fallen for France
Alan Seeger
7
ode
epf-000270
Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate, Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving. O, but with mine compare thou thine own state, And thou shalt find it merits not reproving; Or if it do, not from those lips of thine, That have profaned their scarlet ornaments And sealed false bonds of love as oft as mine, Robbed oth...
Sonnet 142: Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000624
O Friend! I know not which way I must look For comfort, being, as I am, opprest, To think that now our life is only drest For show; mean handy-work of craftsman, cook, Or groom! — We must run glittering like a brook In the open sunshine, or we are unblest: The wealthiest man among us is the best: No grandeur now in nat...
Written in London. September, 1802
William Wordsworth
0
sonnet
epf-000720
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying King; Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow Through public scorn,—mud from a muddy spring; Rulers who neither see nor feel nor know, But leechlike to their fainting country cling Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow. A people starved and stabbed in th' untille...
England in 1819
Percy Bysshe Shelley
0
sonnet
epf-000845
Up from the meadows rich with corn, Clear in the cool September morn, The clustered spires of Frederick stand Green-walled by the hills of Maryland. Round about them orchards sweep, Apple- and peach-tree fruited deep, Fair as a garden of the Lord To the eyes of the famished rebel horde, On that pleasant morn of the...
Barbara Frietchie
John Greenleaf Whittier
4
elegy
epf-000014
My galley, chargèd with forgetfulness, Thorough sharp seas in winter nights doth pass 'Tween rock and rock; and eke mine en'my, alas, That is my lord, steereth with cruelness; And every owre a thought in readiness, As though that death were light in such a case. An endless wind doth tear the sail apace Of forced sighs ...
My Galley, Charged with Forgetfulness
Sir Thomas Wyatt
0
sonnet
epf-000096
Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not, When I against myself with thee partake? Do I not think on thee, when I forgot Am of myself, all tyrant, for thy sake? Who hateth thee that I do call my friend? On whom frown’st thou that I do fawn upon? Nay, if thou lour’st on me, do I not spend Revenge upon myself with presen...
Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not (Sonnet 149)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-001293
When my parched lips upon thy princely brow,     Placid as tropic mead, as glacier cold, Imprinted a last farewell, where wert thou­—     Where didst thy soul its loveliness unfold? Can’t be that in some undiscovered sphere     The Muses sing their souls to thine in bliss? Can’t be that when I kiss thy forehead here  ...
In Memory of E. M. EL—K.
Ameen Rihani
4
elegy
epf-000471
Creator Spirit, by whose aid The world's foundations first were laid, Come, visit ev'ry pious mind; Come, pour thy joys on human kind; From sin, and sorrow set us free; And make thy temples worthy Thee. O, Source of uncreated Light, The Father's promis'd Paraclete! Thrice Holy Fount, thrice Holy Fire, Our hearts ...
Veni, Creator Spiritus
John Dryden
1
couplet
epf-000650
Oh! pleasant exercise of hope and joy! For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood Upon our side, we who were strong in love! Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!—Oh! times, In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways Of custom, law, and statute, took at once The attraction of a co...
The French Revolution as It Appeared to Enthusiasts at Its Commencement
William Wordsworth
6
blank verse
epf-001219
Praised be the moon of books! that doth above A world of men, the fallen Past behold, And fill the spaces else so void and cold To make a very heaven again thereof; As when the sun is set behind a grove, And faintly unto nether ether rolled, All night his whiter image and his mould Grows beautiful with looking on her l...
In the Reading-Room of the British Museum
Louise Imogen Guiney
0
sonnet
epf-001423
⁠If the unfortunate fate engulfing me, The ending of my history of grief, The closing of my span of years so brief, Mother, should wake a single pang in thee, Weep not. No saddening thought to me devote; I calmly go to a death that is glory-filled, My lyre before it is forever stilled Breathes out to thee its last and ...
Plácido’s Farewell to His Mother
Gabriel de la Concepción Valdés
0
sonnet
epf-000983
Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece, Long since, saw Byron's struggle cease. But one such death remain'd to come; The last poetic voice is dumb— We stand to-day by Wordsworth's tomb. When Byron's eyes were shut in death, We bow'd our head and held our breath. He taught us little; but our soul Had felt him like the thu...
Memorial Verses April 1850
Matthew Arnold
4
elegy
epf-000739
Thine is a strain to read among the hills, The old and full of voices — by the source Of some free stream, whose gladdening presence fills The solitude with sound; for in its course Even such is thy deep song, that seems a part Of those high scenes, a fountain from the heart. Or its calm spirit fitly may be taken To t...
To Wordsworth
Felicia Dorothea Hemans
7
ode
epf-001379
Such glorious faith as fills your limpid eyes,        Dear little friend of mine, I never knew. All-innocent are you, and yet all-wise.        (For heaven’s sake, stop worrying that shoe!) You look about, and all you see is fair;        This mighty globe was made for you alone. Of all the thunderous ages, you’re the he...
Verse for a Certain Dog
Dorothy Parker
7
ode
epf-000855
From childhood’s hour I have not been As others were—I have not seen As others saw—I could not bring My passions from a common spring— From the same source I have not taken My sorrow—I could not awaken My heart to joy at the same tone— And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone— Then—in my childhood—in the dawn Of a most stormy lif...
“Alone”
Edgar Allan Poe
1
couplet
epf-000365
Lord, with what care hast thou begirt us round!       Parents first season us; then schoolmasters       Deliver us to laws; they send us bound To rules of reason, holy messengers, Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow-dogging sin,       Afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes,       Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in, Bibl...
Sin (I)
George Herbert
0
sonnet
epf-001250
Leisure, thou goddess of a bygone age,    When hours were long and days sufficed to hold     Wide-eyed delights and pleasures uncontrolled By shortening moments, when no gaunt presage Of undone duties, modern heritage,     Haunted our happy minds; must thou withhold     Thy presence from this over-busy world, And beari...
Leisure
Amy Lowell
0
sonnet
epf-001312
Is Life itself but many ways of thought, Does thinking furl the poets’ pleiades, Is in His slightest convolution wrought These mantled worlds and their men-freighted seas? He thinks—and being comes to ardent things: The splendor of the day-spent sun, love’s birth,— Or dreams a little, while creation swings The circle o...
Substitution
Anne Spencer
14
ars poetica
epf-001291
Long is his course, O master of our woes, And joys, and tears, our passions and desires, In nature’s school—in hell-begotten fires; Dread is the agony and fell the throes Which with the Night and Storm he undergoes, While Treason in his robes herself attires, And Love beneath adultery’s sheet expires, And mocked Sincer...
Written After Reading King Lear
Ameen Rihani
0
sonnet
epf-000128
O, never say that I was false of heart, Though absence seem’d my flame to qualify, As easy might I from myself depart As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie: That is my home of love: if I have ranged, Like him that ravels I return again, Just to the time, not with the time exchanged, So that myself bring water f...
O, never say that I was false of heart (Sonnet 109)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-001302
Always at dusk, the same tearless experience, The same dragging of feet up the same well-worn path To the same well-worn rock; The same crimson or gold dropping away of the sun The same tints—rose, saffron, violet, lavender, grey Meeting, mingling, mixing mistily; Before me the same blue black cedar rising jaggedly to ...
The Eyes of My Regret
Angelina Weld Grimké
0
sonnet
epf-000374
Can we not force from widow'd poetry, Now thou art dead (great Donne) one elegy To crown thy hearse? Why yet dare we not trust, Though with unkneaded dough-bak'd prose, thy dust, Such as th' unscissor'd churchman from the flower Of fading rhetoric, short-liv'd as his hour, Dry as the sand that measures it, should lay U...
An Elegy upon the Death of the Dean of Paul's, Dr. John Donne
Thomas Carew
4
elegy
epf-001185
The song that I came to sing remains unsung to this day. I have spent my days in stringing and in unstringing my instrument. The time has not come true, the words have not been rightly set; only there is the agony of wishing in my heart. The blossom has not opened; only the wind is sighing by. I have not seen his f...
Gitanjali 13
Rabindranath Tagore
9
prose poem
epf-000240
Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove, That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields, Woods, or steepy mountain yields. And we will sit upon the Rocks, Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks, By shallow Rivers to whose falls Melodious birds sing Madrigals. And I will make thee beds of Roses ...
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
Christopher Marlowe
10
pastoral
epf-000120
That you were once unkind befriends me now, And for that sorrow which I then did feel Needs must I under my transgression bow, Unless my nerves were brass or hammer’d steel. For if you were by my unkindness shaken As I by yours, you’ve pass’d a hell of time, And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken To weigh how once I su...
That you were once unkind befriends me now (Sonnet 120)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-001070
There's a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons – That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes – Heavenly Hurt, it gives us – We can find no scar, But internal difference – Where the Meanings, are – None may teach it – Any – 'Tis the seal Despair – An imperial affliction Sent us of the Air – When it comes, t...
There's a certain Slant of light, (320)
Emily Dickinson
2
common measure
epf-000332
Let it not your wonder move, Less your laughter, that I love. Though I now write fifty years, I have had, and have, my peers; Poets, though divine, are men, Some have lov'd as old again. And it is not always face, Clothes, or fortune, gives the grace; Or the feature, or the youth. But the language and the truth, With t...
A Celebration of Charis: I. His Excuse for Loving
Ben Jonson
1
couplet
epf-000283
God’s name is bare of honour in our hearing, And even worn out with our blasphemous swearing. Between the infant and the aged, both The first and last they utter, is an oath. Oh hellish manners of our profane age. Jehovah’s fear is scoffed upon the stage, The Mimicking jester, names it every day; Unless God is b...
Book 6, Epigram 7: In prophanationem nominis Dei. 
Thomas Bastard
1
couplet
epf-000257
When in the chronicle of wasted time I see descriptions of the fairest wights, And beauty making beautiful old rhyme In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights, Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, I see their antique pen would have express'd Even such a beauty as you ...
Sonnet 106: When in the chronicle of wasted time
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-001127
Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee; Not untwist — slack they may be — these last strands of man In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can; Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be. But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay ...
Carrion Comfort
Gerard Manley Hopkins
0
sonnet
epf-001003
She yields: my Lady in her noblest mood Has yielded: she, my golden-crownëd rose! The bride of every sense! more sweet than those Who breathe the violet breath of maidenhood. O visage of still music in the sky! Soft moon! I feel thy song, m y fairest friend! True harmony within can apprehend Dumb harmony without. And h...
Modern Love: XXXIX
George Meredith
0
sonnet
epf-001303
The burden of hard hitting. Slug away       Like Honus Wagner or like Tyrus Cobb. Else fandom shouteth: “Who said you could play?       Back to the jasper league, you minor slob!”       Swat, hit, connect, line out, get on the job. Else you shall feel the brunt of fandom’s ire       Biff, bang it, clout it, hit it on t...
A Ballad of Baseball Burdens
Franklin Pierce Adams
3
ballad
epf-001242
Pray why are you so bare, so bare,    Oh, bough of the old oak-tree; And why, when I go through the shade you throw,    Runs a shudder over me? My leaves were green as the best, I trow,    And sap ran free in my veins, But I saw in the moonlight dim and weird    A guiltless victim's pains. I bent me down to hear his ...
The Haunted Oak
Paul Laurence Dunbar
3
ballad