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epf-000113 | How oft, when thou, my music, music play’st,
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway’st
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,
At the woo... | How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st (Sonnet 128) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000704 | Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds;
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in ... | A Visit from St. Nicholas | Clement Clarke Moore | 1 | couplet |
epf-001069 | Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of victory
As he defeated – dying –
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear! | Success is counted sweetest (112) | Emily Dickinson | 2 | common measure |
epf-000289 | Follow your saint, follow with accents sweet;
Haste you, sad notes, fall at her flying feet.
There, wrapp'd in cloud of sorrow, pity move,
And tell the ravisher of my soul I perish for her love:
But if she scorns my never-ceasing pain,
Then burst with sighing in her sight and ne'er return again.
All that I sung still... | Follow Your Saint | Thomas Campion | 1 | couplet |
epf-000381 | I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs
By the known rules of ancient liberty,
When straight a barbarous noise environs me
Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes and dogs:
As when those hinds that were transform'd to frogs
Rail'd at Latona's twin-born progeny
Which after held the sun a... | Sonnet 12: I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs | John Milton | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000652 | —Brook and road
Were fellow-travellers in this gloomy Pass,
And with them did we journey several hours
At a slow step. The immeasurable height
Of woods decaying, never to be decayed,
The stationary blasts of waterfalls,
And in the narrow rent, at every turn,
Winds thwarting winds bewildered and forlorn,
The torrents sh... | The Simplon Pass | William Wordsworth | 6 | blank verse |
epf-001132 | Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!
O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!
The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!
Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves'-eyes!
The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies!
Wind-beat whitebeam! airy abeles set on a flare!
Flake-d... | The Starlight Night | Gerard Manley Hopkins | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000620 | Another year!—another deadly blow!
Another mighty Empire overthrown!
And We are left, or shall be left, alone;
The last that dare to struggle with the Foe.
'Tis well! from this day forward we shall know
That in ourselves our safety must be sought;
That by our own right hands it must be wrought;
That we must stand unpro... | November, 1806 | William Wordsworth | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001020 | I am not of those miserable males
Who sniff at vice, and, daring not to snap,
Do therefore hope for heaven. I take the hap
Of all my deeds. The wind that fills my sails,
Propels; but I am helmsman. Am I wrecked,
I know the devil has sufficient weight
To bear: I lay it not on him, or fate.
Besides, he’s damned. That man... | Modern Love: XX | George Meredith | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000500 | Ye poets ragged and forlorn,
Down from your garrets haste;
Ye rhymers, dead as soon as born,
Not yet consign'd to paste;
I know a trick to make you thrive;
O, 'tis a quaint device:
Your still-born poems shall revive,
And scorn to wrap up spice.
Get all your verses printed fair,
The... | Advice to the Grub Street Verse-writers | Jonathan Swift | 2 | common measure |
epf-001249 | ’T is you that are the music, not your song.
The song is but a door which, opening wide,
Lets forth the pent-up melody inside,
Your spirit’s harmony, which clear and strong
Sing but of you. Throughout your whole life long
Your songs, your thoughts, your doings, each divide
This perfect beauty; waves within a ti... | Listening | Amy Lowell | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000437 | (excerpt)
Holland, that scarce deserves the name of land,
As but th’ off-scouring of the British sand;
And so much earth as was contributed
By English pilots when they heav’d the lead;
Or what by th’ ocean’s slow alluvion fell,
Of shipwrack’d cockle and the mussel-shell;
This indigested vomit of the sea
Fell to the Du... | The Character of Holland | Andrew Marvell | 1 | couplet |
epf-001400 | Don't worry if your job is small,
And your rewards are few.
Remember that the mighty oak,
Was once a nut like you. | Don't Worry if Your Job Is Small | Anonymous | 3 | ballad |
epf-001233 | (A Reincarnation Phantasy)
This was the story never told
By one who cared not for the world’s gold.
One of the idle and wise,
A beggar with unfathomable eyes.
One who had nothing but dreams to give
To men who are eager to labour and live.
For the world in its wisdom deep and dim
Had taken all pleasure and treasure ... | The Vagrant’s Romance | Eva Gore-Booth | 1 | couplet |
epf-000175 | So am I as the rich, whose blessed key
Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,
The which he will not every hour survey,
For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.
Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,
Since, seldom coming, in the long year set,
Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,
Or captain j... | So am I as the rich, whose blessed key (Sonnet 52) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000340 | Would you believe, when you this monsieur see,
That his whole body should speak French, not he?
That so much scarf of France, and hat, and feather,
And shoe, and tie, and garter should come hether,
And land on one whose face durst never be
Toward the sea farther than Half-Way Tree?
That he, untraveled, should be French... | On English Monsieur | Ben Jonson | 5 | free verse |
epf-000373 | Now that the winter's gone, the earth hath lost
Her snow-white robes, and now no more the frost
Candies the grass, or casts an icy cream
Upon the silver lake or crystal stream;
But the warm sun thaws the benumbed earth,
And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth
To the dead swallow; wakes in hollow tree
The drowsy cucko... | The Spring | Thomas Carew | 10 | pastoral |
epf-001323 | so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens | The Red Wheelbarrow | William Carlos Williams | 5 | free verse |
epf-000857 | 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,
... | The Bear Hunt | Abraham Lincoln | 3 | ballad |
epf-000840 | Blessings on thee, little man,
Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!
With thy turned-up pantaloons,
And thy merry whistled tunes;
With thy red lip, redder still
Kissed by strawberries on the hill;
With the sunshine on thy face,
Through thy torn brim’s jaunty grace;
From my heart I give thee joy,—
I was once a barefoot boy!
... | The Barefoot Boy | John Greenleaf Whittier | 1 | couplet |
epf-001435 | How many scenes, O sun,
Hast thou not shone upon!
How many tears, O light,
Have dropped before thy sight!
How many heart-felt sighs,
How many piercing cries,
How many deeds of woe,
Dost thy bright light not know!
How many broken hearts,
That are pierced by sorrow’s darts
How many maddened brains,
That are wild with pas... | Ode to the Sun | Eloise Bibb Thompson | 7 | ode |
epf-001094 | So, because you chose to follow me into the subtle sadness of night,
And to stand in the half-set moon with the weird fall-light on your glimmering hair,
Till your presence hid all of the earth and all of the sky from my sight,
And to give me a little scarlet bud, that was dying of frost, to wear,
Say, must y... | Giving Back the Flower | Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt | 12 | quatrain |
epf-000440 | Luxurious man, to bring his vice in use,
Did after him the world seduce;
And from the fields the flow’rs and plants allure,
Where nature was most plain and pure.
He first enclos’d within the garden’s square
A dead and standing pool of air;
And a more luscious earth for them did knead,
Which stupefie... | The Mower | Andrew Marvell | 1 | couplet |
epf-000873 | It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd gre... | Ulysses | Lord Tennyson Alfred | 6 | blank verse |
epf-000146 | When thou shalt be disposed to set me light
And place my merit in they of scorn,
Upon thy side against myself I’ll fight
And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn.
With mine own weakness being best acquainted,
Upon thy part I can set down a story
Of faults conceal’d, wherein I am attainted,
That thou in losing ... | When thou shalt be disposed to set me light (Sonnet, 88) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000622 | Once did She hold the gorgeous east in fee;
And was the safeguard of the west: the worth
Of Venice did not fall below her birth,
Venice, the eldest Child of Liberty.
She was a maiden City, bright and free;
No guile seduced, no force could violate;
And, when she took unto herself a Mate,
She must espouse the everlasting... | On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic | William Wordsworth | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000412 | I tell thee, Dick, where I have been,
Where I the rarest things have seen;
Oh, things without compare!
Such sights again cannot be found
In any place on English ground,
Be it at wake, or fair.
At Charing-Cross, hard by the way,
Where we (thou know’st) do sell our hay,
There is a house with stairs;
And t... | from A Ballad Upon A Wedding | Sir John Suckling | 3 | ballad |
epf-001063 | Three sang of love together: one with lips
Crimson, with cheeks and bosom in a glow,
Flushed to the yellow hair and finger tips;
And one there sang who soft and smooth as snow
Bloomed like a tinted hyacinth at a show;
And one was blue with famine after love,
Who like a harpstring snapped rang harsh and low
... | A Triad | Christina Rossetti | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000380 | How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stol'n on his wing my three-and-twentieth year!
My hasting days fly on with full career,
But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th.
Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth
That I to manhood am arriv'd so near;
And inward ripeness ... | Sonnet 7: How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth | John Milton | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000591 | Ye banks, and braes, and streams around
The castle o' Montgomery,
Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,
Your waters never drumlie!
There Simmer first unfald her robes,
And there the langest tarry:
For there I took the last Fareweel
O' my sweet Highland Mary.
How sweetly bloom'... | Highland Mary | Robert Burns | 3 | ballad |
epf-001420 | translated by H. D.
Birds from Parnassus,
swift
you dart
from the loftiest peaks;
you hover, dip,
you sway and perch
undaunted on the gold-set cornice;
you eagle,
god’s majestic legate,
who tear, who strike
song-birds in mid-flight,
my arrow whistles toward you,
swift
be off;
ah drift,
ah drift
so soft, so light,
you... | The Bird-Choros of Ion | Euripides | 8 | dramatic monologue |
epf-000902 | Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,
And did he stop and speak to you?
And did you speak to him again?
How strange it seems, and new!
But you were living before that,
And you are living after,
And the memory I started at—
My starting moves your laughter!
I crossed a moor, with a name of its own
And a ... | Memorabilia | Robert Browning | 3 | ballad |
epf-001384 | little tree
little silent Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower
who found you in the green forest
and were you very sorry to come away?
see i will comfort you
because you smell so sweetly
i will kiss your cool bark
and hug you safe and tight
just as your mother would,
only don't be afra... | [little tree] | E. E. Cummings | 5 | free verse |
epf-000885 | Oft, when my lips I open to rehearse
Thy wondrous spell of wisdom, and of power,
And that my voice, and thy immortal verse,
On listening ears, and hearts, I mingled pour,
I shrink dismayed – and awful doth appear
The vain presumption of my own weak deed;
Thy glorious spirit seems to mine so near,
That suddenly I trembl... | To Shakespeare | Frances Anne Kemble | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000821 | The young Endymion sleeps Endymion's sleep;
The shepherd-boy whose tale was left half told!
The solemn grove uplifts its shield of gold
To the red rising moon, and loud and deep
The nightingale is singing from the steep;
It is midsummer, but the air is cold;
Can it be death? Alas, beside t... | Keats | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001135 | 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 a... | Felix Randal | Gerard Manley Hopkins | 4 | elegy |
epf-000938 | Since as in night's deck-watch ye show,
Why, lads, so silent here to me,
Your watchmate of times long ago?
Once, for all the darkling sea,
You your voices raised how clearly,
Striking in when tempest sung;
Hoisting up the storm-sail cheerly,
Life is storm–let storm! you rung.
Taking things as fated merely,
Childlike th... | John Marr and Other Sailors | Herman Melville | 3 | ballad |
epf-000830 | Somewhat back from the village street
Stands the old-fashioned country-seat.
Across its antique portico
Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw;
And from its station in the hall
An ancient timepiece says to all, —
"Forever — never!
Never — forever!"
Half-way up the stairs it stands,
And points and beckons wi... | The Old Clock on the Stairs | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | 1 | couplet |
epf-001313 | And the weaver said, Speak to us of Clothes.
And he answered:
Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful.
And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find in them a harness and a chain.
Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of yo... | On Clothes | Kahlil Gibran | 9 | prose poem |
epf-000462 | With what deep murmurs through time’s silent stealth
Doth thy transparent, cool, and wat’ry wealth
Here flowing fall,
And chide, and call,
As if his liquid, loose retinue stay’d
Ling’ring, and were of this steep place afraid;
The common pass
Where, clear as glass,
All must descend
Not to an end,
But quicken’d by this d... | The Water-fall | Henry Vaughan | 1 | couplet |
epf-001134 | Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves an... | Spring | Gerard Manley Hopkins | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000053 | My true-love hath my heart and I have his,
By just exchange one for the other given:
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss;
There never was a bargain better driven.
His heart in me keeps me and him in one;
My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides:
He loves my heart, for once it was his own;
I cherish his becau... | Song from Arcadia: “My True Love Hath My Heart” | Sir Philip Sidney | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000643 | Jam non consilio bonus, sed more eo perductus, ut non tantum recte facere possim, sed nisi recte facere non possim"
"I am no longer good through deliberate intent, but by long habit have reached a point where I am not only able to do right, but am unable to do anything but what is right."
(Seneca, Letters 120.10)
St... | Ode to Duty | William Wordsworth | 7 | ode |
epf-000076 | Like as the waves make towards the pebbled 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... | Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore (Sonnet 60) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000882 | Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
O, well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the stately ship... | Break, Break, Break | Lord Tennyson Alfred | 2 | common measure |
epf-000061 | An evil spirit, your beauty, haunts me still,
Wherewith, alas, I have been long possess'd,
Which ceaseth not to tempt me to each ill,
Nor gives me once but one poor minute's rest.
In me it speaks, whether I sleep or wake;
And when by means to drive it out I try,
With greater torments then it me doth take,
And tortures ... | Idea 20: An evil spirit, your beauty, haunts me still | Michael Drayton | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000073 | To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I ey’d,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold,
Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn’d,
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn’d... | To me, fair friend, you never can be old (Sonnet 104) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001236 | In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;
“But I like it
“Because it is bitter,
“And because it is my heart.” | In the Desert | Stephen Crane | 5 | free verse |
epf-001301 | Rise up, rise up,
And, as the trumpet blowing
Chases the dreams of men,
As the dawn glowing
The stars that left unlit
The land and water,
Rise up and scatter
The dew that covers
The print of last night’s lovers—
Scatter it, scatter it!
While you are listening
To the clear horn,
Forget, men, everything
On this earth new... | The Trumpet | Edward Thomas | 5 | free verse |
epf-000271 | My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
Th’ uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic di... | Sonnet 147: My love is as a fever, longing still | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000331 | Thy praise or dispraise is to me alike:
One doth not stroke me, nor the other strike. | To Fool or Knave | Ben Jonson | 1 | couplet |
epf-000758 | Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen ... | “Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art” | John Keats | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001352 | Two evils, monstrous either one apart,
Possessed me, and were long and loath at going:
A cry of Absence, Absence, in the heart,
And in the wood the furious winter blowing.
Think not, when fire was bright upon my bricks
And past the tight boards hardly a wind could enter,
I glowed like them, the simple burning sticks,
... | Winter Remembered | John Crowe Ransom | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001098 | O heart of hearts, the chalice of love's fire,
Hid round with flowers and all the bounty of bloom;
O wonderful and perfect heart, for whom
The lyrist liberty made life a lyre;
O heavenly heart, at whose most dear desire
Dead love, living and singing, cleft his tomb,
And with him risen and re... | Cor Cordium | Algernon Charles Swinburne | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001107 | I
Ere frost-flower and snow-blossom faded and fell, and the splendour of winter had passed out of sight,
The ways of the woodlands were fairer and stranger than dreams that fulfil us in sleep with delight;
The breath of the mouths of the winds had hardened on tree-tops and branches that glittered and swayed
Such wonder... | March: An Ode | Algernon Charles Swinburne | 7 | ode |
epf-000698 | I loved him not; and yet, now he is gone,
I feel I am alone.
I check’d him while he spoke; yet, could he speak,
Alas! I would not check.
For reasons not to love him once I sought,
And wearied all my thought
To vex myself and him: I now would give
My love could he but live
Who lately ... | The Maid’s Lament | Walter Savage Landor | 8 | dramatic monologue |
epf-000032 | Men call you fair, and you do credit it,
For that your self ye daily such do see:
But the true fair, that is the gentle wit,
And vertuous mind, is much more prais'd of me.
For all the rest, how ever fair it be,
Shall turn to naught and lose that glorious hue:
But only that is permanent and free
From frail corruption, t... | Amoretti LXXIX: Men Call you Fair | Edmund Spenser | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001373 | “Son,” said my mother,
When I was knee-high,
“You’ve need of clothes to cover you,
And not a rag have I.
“There’s nothing in the house
To make a boy breeches,
Nor shears to cut a cloth with
Nor thread to take stitches.
“There’s nothing in the house
But a loaf-end of rye,
And a harp with a woman’s head
... | The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver | Edna St. Vincent Millay | 3 | ballad |
epf-000795 | Well I recall my Father’s wife,
The day he brought her home.
His children looked for years of strife,
And troubles sure to come—
Ungraciously we welcomed her,
A thing to scorn and blame;
And swore we never would confer
On her, a Mother’s name
I see her yet—a girl in years,
With eyes so bl... | The Step Mother | Susanna Moodie | 3 | ballad |
epf-000908 | Among these latter busts we count by scores,
Half-emperors and quarter-emperors,
Each with his bay-leaf fillet, loose-thonged vest,
Loric and low-browed Gorgon on the breast,—
One loves a baby face, with violets there,
Violets instead of laurel in the hair,
As those were all the little locks could bear.
Now read here.... | Protus | Robert Browning | 1 | couplet |
epf-000609 | Even with insects—
some can sing,
some can’t. | [even with insects] | Kobayashi Issa | 11 | haiku |
epf-000595 | 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 | 3 | ballad |
epf-000712 | On this Day I Complete my Thirty-Sixth Year
'Tis time this heart should be unmoved,
Since others it hath ceased to move:
Yet though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love!
My days are in the yellow leaf;
The flowers and fruits of Love are gone;
The worm—the canker,... | January 22nd, Missolonghi | Lord Byron (George Gordon) | 3 | ballad |
epf-000299 | This is my play's last scene; here heavens appoint
My pilgrimage's last mile; and my race,
Idly, yet quickly run, hath this last pace,
My span's last inch, my minute's latest point;
And gluttonous death will instantly unjoint
My body and my soul, and I shall sleep a space;
But my'ever-waking part shall see that face
Wh... | Holy Sonnets: This is my play's last scene | John Donne | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000694 | I loved him not; and yet, now he is gone,
I feel I am alone.
I check’d him while he spoke; yet, could he speak,
Alas! I would not check.
For reasons not to love him once I sought,
And wearied all my thought
To vex myself and him: I now would give
My love could he but live
Who lately ... | The Maid’s Lament | Walter Savage Landor | 1 | couplet |
epf-000999 | Greenland’s icy mountains are fascinating and grand,
And wondrously created by the Almighty’s command;
And the works of the Almighty there’s few can understand:
Who knows but it might be a part of Fairyland?
Because there are churches of ice, and houses glittering like glass,
And for scenic grandeur there’s nothing ca... | Greenland’s Icy Mountains | Knight of the White Elephant of Burmah William McGonagall | 1 | couplet |
epf-001446 | Thetis goes to the palace of Vulcan to obtain new arms for her son.
"Thee, welcome, goddess! what occasion calls
(So long a stranger) to these honour'd walls?
'Tis thine, fair Thetis, the command to lay,
And Vulcan's joy and duty to obey."
To whom the mournful mother thus replies:
(The crystal drops stood trembling i... | The Iliad, Book XVIII, [The Shield of Achilles] | Homer | 13 | ekphrasis |
epf-001158 | Sing me a song of a lad that is gone,
Say, could that lad be I?
Merry of soul he sailed on a day
Over the sea to Skye.
Mull was astern, Rum on the port,
Eigg on the starboard bow;
Glory of youth glowed in his soul;
Where is that glory now?
Sing me a song of a lad that is gone,
Say, could that lad be I?... | Sing me a Song of a Lad that is Gone | Robert Louis Stevenson | 2 | common measure |
epf-000767 | Ever let the Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home:
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;
Then let winged Fancy wander
Through the thought still spread beyond her:
Open wide the mind's cage-door,
She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar.
O sweet Fancy! let her loose;
Summer's joys are spoil... | Fancy | John Keats | 1 | couplet |
epf-000182 | The other two, slight air and purging fire,
Are both with thee, wherever I abide;
The first my thought, the other my desire,
These present-absent with swift motion slide.
For when these quicker elements are gone
In tender embassy of love to thee,
My life, being made of four, with two alone
Sinks down to death, oppress’... | The other two, slight air and purging fire (Sonnet 45) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001117 | I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
The land's sharp features seemed to be
... | The Darkling Thrush | Thomas Hardy | 2 | common measure |
epf-000230 | When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With wha... | When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes (Sonnet 29) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000286 | Nature which headlong into life doth throw us,
With our feet forward to our grave doth bring us,
What is less ours, than this our borrowed breath,
We stumble into life, we go to death.
| Book 7, Epigram 47: De Hominis Ortu & Sepultura. | Thomas Bastard | 1 | couplet |
epf-000626 | The power of Armies is a visible thing,
Formal and circumscribed in time and space;
But who the limits of that power shall trace
Which a brave People into light can bring
Or hide, at will,—for freedom combating
By just revenge inflamed? No foot may chase,
No eye can follow, to a fatal place
That power, that spirit, whe... | The Power of Armies is a Visible Thing | William Wordsworth | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000218 | From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decrease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel.
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy f... | From fairest creatures we desire increase (Sonnet 1) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001292 | Though cribbed and gyved, thou canst within thy
walls
Unfold a wondrous wealth of worlds unseen,
And flood the soul’s abyss with moon-light sheen,
As well as darken passions’ gilded halls ;
Thy fourteen outlets are so many falls
From which gush out the prisoned joy, or
spleen—
The silvery casca... | To The Sonnet | Ameen Rihani | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001091 | And did young Stephen sicken,
And did young Stephen die?
And did the sad hearts thicken,
And did the mourners cry?
No; such was not the fate of
Young Stephen Dowling Bots;
Though sad hearts round him thickened,
'Twas not from sickness' shots.
No whooping-cough did rack his frame,
Nor measles drear, wit... | Ode to Stephen Dowling Bots, Dec'd. | Mark Twain | 2 | common measure |
epf-001404 | Upon these deeps in days remotely old,
A daring band of Malays flung their sails
Intrepidly. On tempests, storms, and gales,
On ocean furies, full their valor told,
Each gust a grave, each grave a tale unscrolled,
A covert pathos of the tongueless wave
For utterance suspiring. O the brave
Unnumbered dead that slumber i... | Sonnet [Upon these deeps in days remotely old] | Luis G. Dato | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000555 | Behold the gloomy tyrant’s awful form
Binding the captive earth in icy chains;
His chilling breath sweeps o’er the watery plains,
Howls in the blast, and swells the rising storm.
See from its centre bends the rifted tower,
Threat’ning the lowly vale with frowning pride,
O’er the scared flocks that seek its sheltering ... | Winter | Anne Hunter | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000410 | Dost see how unregarded now
That piece of beauty passes?
There was a time when I did vow
To that alone;
But mark the fate of faces;
The red and white works now no more on me
Than if it could not charm, or I not see.
And yet the face continues good,
And I have still desires,
Am still the selfsam... | Sonnet 1: Dost see how unregarded now | Sir John Suckling | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001309 | In losing you I lost my sun and moon
And all the stars that blessed my lonely night.
I lost the hope of Spring, the joy of June,
The Autumn’s peace, the Winter’s firelight.
I lost the zest of living, the sweet sense
Expectant of your step, your smile, your kiss;
I lost all hope and fear and keen suspense
For this cold ... | Loss | Winifred M. Letts | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000907 | Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles,
Miles and miles
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
Half-asleep
Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop
As they crop—
Was the site once of a city great and gay,
(So they say)
Of our country's very capital, its prince
Ages since
Held... | Love among the Ruins | Robert Browning | 1 | couplet |
epf-000793 | Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemat... | The Snow-Storm | Ralph Waldo Emerson | 6 | blank verse |
epf-000869 | 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 has... | In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: [Prelude] | Lord Tennyson Alfred | 4 | elegy |
epf-000005 | Pla ce bo,
Who is there, who?
Di le xi,
Dame Margery;
Fa, re, my, my,
Wherfore and why, why?
For the sowle of Philip Sparowe,
That was late slayn at Carowe,
Among the Nones Blake,
For that swete soules sake,
And for all sparowes soules,
Set in our bederolles,
Pater noster qui,
With an Ave Mari,
And with the corner of a... | The Book of Phillip Sparrow | John Skelton | 1 | couplet |
epf-000125 | Your love and pity doth the impression fill
Which vulgar scandal stamp’d upon my brow;
For what care I who calls me well or ill,
So you o’er-green my bad, my good allow?
You are my all the world, and I must strive
To know my shames and praises from your tongue;
None else to me, nor I to none alive,
That my steel’d sens... | Your love and pity doth the impression fill (Sonnet 112) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000761 | Standing aloof in giant ignorance,
Of thee I hear and of the Cyclades,
As one who sits ashore and longs perchance
To visit dolphin-coral in deep seas.
So thou wast blind;—but then the veil was rent,
For Jove uncurtain'd Heaven to let thee live,
And Neptune made for thee a spumy tent,
And Pan made sing for t... | To Homer | John Keats | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000911 | Christ God who savest man, save most
Of men Count Gismond who saved me!
Count Gauthier, when he chose his post,
Chose time and place and company
To suit it; when he struck at length
My honour, 't was with all his strength.
And doubtlessly, ere he could draw
All points to one, he must have schemed!
That misera... | Count Gismond—Aix in Provence | Robert Browning | 8 | dramatic monologue |
epf-000800 | 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 takes... | Sonnet VI | Elizabeth Barrett Browning | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000542 | Obscurest night involv'd the sky,
Th' Atlantic billows roar'd,
When such a destin'd wretch as I,
Wash'd headlong from on board,
Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,
His floating home for ever left.
No braver chief could Albion boast
Than he with whom he went,
Nor ever ship left Albion's coast... | The Castaway | William Cowper | 4 | elegy |
epf-001045 | This is that blessed Mary, pre-elect
God's Virgin. Gone is a great while, and she
Dwelt young in Nazareth of Galilee.
Unto God's will she brought devout respect,
Profound simplicity of intellect,
And supreme patience. From her mother's knee
Faithful and hopeful; wise in charity;
Strong in grave peac... | Mary's Girlhood (for a Picture) | Dante Gabriel Rossetti | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001345 | In your arms was still delight,
Quiet as a street at night;
And thoughts of you, I do remember,
Were green leaves in a darkened chamber,
Were dark clouds in a moonless sky.
Love, in you, went passing by,
Penetrative, remote, and rare,
Like a bird in the wide air,
And, as the bird, it left no trace
In the heaven of your... | Retrospect | Rupert Brooke | 1 | couplet |
epf-000931 | ’Tis to yourself I speak; you cannot know
Him whom I call in speaking such an one,
For thou beneath the earth lie buried low,
Which he alone as living walks upon;
Thou mayst at times have heard him speak to you,
And often wished perchance that you were he;
And I must ever wish that it were true,
For then thou couldst h... | Yourself | Jones Very | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001419 | I.
Life goes by moving,
Up and down a chain of moods
Wanting what’s nothing.
II.
My soul is the wind
Dashing down fields of Autumn:
O, too swift to sing.
III.
Listen to the rain
Falling broken on the ground:
Pity the sky once.
IV.
Knowing not at all
Who stands above me seeing:
Tears of gratitude.
V
The nightingale ... | Japanese Hokku | Lewis Grandison Alexander | 11 | haiku |
epf-000714 | Dear Doctor, I have read your play,
Which is a good one in its way,
Purges the eyes, and moves the bowels,
And drenches handkerchiefs like towels
With tears that, in a flux of grief,
Afford hysterical relief
To shatter'd nerves and quicken'd pulses,
Which your catastrophe convulses.
I like your moral and machinery;
You... | Dear Doctor, I have Read your Play | Lord Byron (George Gordon) | 1 | couplet |
epf-000118 | Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
Full character’d with lasting memory,
Which shall above that idle rank remain
Beyond all date, even to eternity;
Or at the least, so long as brain and heart
Have faculty by nature to subsist;
Till each to razed oblivion yield his part
Of thee, thy record never can be miss’d.
Th... | Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain (Sonnet 122) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000441 | The wanton troopers riding by
Have shot my fawn, and it will die.
Ungentle men! they cannot thrive
To kill thee. Thou ne’er didst alive
Them any harm, alas, nor could
Thy death yet do them any good.
I’m sure I never wish’d them ill,
Nor do I for all this, nor will;
But if my simple pray’rs may yet
Prevail with Heaven t... | The Nymph Complaining for the Death of her Fawn | Andrew Marvell | 1 | couplet |
epf-000556 | The Muses are turned gossips; they have lost
The buskined step, and clear high-sounding phrase,
Language of gods. Come, then, domestic Muse,
In slip-shod measure loosely prattling on,
Of farm or orchard, pleasant curds and cream,
Or droning flies, or shoes lost in the mire
By little whimpering boy, with rueful face —
C... | Washing Day | Anna Lætitia Barbauld | 6 | blank verse |
epf-000838 | Of all the rides since the birth of time,
Told in story or sung in rhyme, —
On Apuleius’s Golden Ass,
Or one-eyed Calender’s horse of brass,
Witch astride of a human back,
Islam’s prophet on Al-Borák, —
The strangest ride that ever was sped
Was Ireson’s, out from Marblehead!
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
... | Skipper Ireson’s Ride | John Greenleaf Whittier | 3 | ballad |
epf-001010 | Full faith I have she holds that rarest gift
To beauty, Common Sense. To see her lie
With her fair visage an inverted sky
Bloom-covered, while the underlids uplift,
Would almost wreck the faith; but when her mouth
(Can it kiss sweetly? sweetly!) would address
The inner me that thirsts for her no less,
And has so long b... | Modern Love: XXXII | George Meredith | 0 | sonnet |
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