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epf-000389
Hence loathed Melancholy, Of Cerberus, and blackest Midnight born, In Stygian cave forlorn,       'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy; Find out some uncouth cell,       Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings, And the night-raven sings;       There under ebon shades, and low-brow'd rocks, As...
L'Allegro
John Milton
1
couplet
epf-000488
Who thankless flees me, I with love pursue, Who loving follows me, I thankless flee; To him who spurns my love I bend the knee, His love who seeks me, cold I bid him rue; I find as diamond him I yearning woo, Myself a diamond when he yearns for me; Who slays my love I would victorious see, While slaying him who wills m...
Caprice
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
0
sonnet
epf-001073
Surgeons must be very careful When they take the knife! Underneath their fine incisions Stirs the Culprit - Life!
Surgeons must be very careful (156)
Emily Dickinson
2
common measure
epf-001327
O fan of white silk,             clear as frost on the grass-blade, You also are laid aside.
Fan-Piece for Her Imperial Lord
Ezra Pound
7
ode
epf-000084
Iago speaks to Roderigo O, sir, content you; I follow him to serve my turn upon him: We cannot all be masters, nor all masters Cannot be truly follow'd. You shall mark Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave, That, doting on his own obsequious bondage, Wears out his time, much like his master's ass, For nought but prov...
Othello, Act I, Scene I [O, sir, content you]
William Shakespeare
8
dramatic monologue
epf-000173
O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem By that sweet ornament which truth doth give! The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem For that sweet odour which doth in it live. The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye As the perfumed tincture of the roses, Hand on such thorns and play as wantonly When summer’s breath ...
O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem (Sonnet 54)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000181
Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war How to divide the conquest of thy sight; Mine eye my heart thy picture’s sight would bar, My heart mine eye the freedom of that right. My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,— A closet never pierced with crystal eyes— But the defendant doth that plea deny And says in him th...
Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war (Sonnet 46)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000352
Lord, Thou hast given me a cell          Wherein to dwell, A little house, whose humble roof          Is weather-proof: Under the spars of which I lie          Both soft, and dry; Where Thou my chamber for to ward          Hast set a guard Of harmless thoughts, to watch and keep          Me, while I sleep. Low is my po...
A Thanksgiving to God, for his House
Robert Herrick
1
couplet
epf-000640
She was a Phantom of delight When first she gleamed upon my sight; A lovely Apparition, sent To be a moment's ornament; Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair; Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair; But all things else about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful Dawn; A dancing Shape, an Image gay, To haunt, to startle, ...
She Was a Phantom of Delight
William Wordsworth
1
couplet
epf-000307
Our storm is past, and that storm's tyrannous rage, A stupid calm, but nothing it, doth 'suage. The fable is inverted, and far more A block afflicts, now, than a stork before. Storms chafe, and soon wear out themselves, or us; In calms, Heaven laughs to see us languish thus. As steady'as I can wish that my thoughts wer...
The Calm
John Donne
1
couplet
epf-001261
By such an all-embalming summer day As sweetens now among the mountain pines Down to the cornland yonder and the vines, To where the sky and sea are mixed in gray, How do all things together take their way Harmonious to the harvest, bringing wines And bread and light and whatsoe’er combines In the large wreath to make ...
Near Helikon
Trumbull Stickney
0
sonnet
epf-000123
Those lines that I before have writ do lie, Even those that said I could not love you dearer: Yet then my judgement knew no reason why My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer. But reckoning time, whose millon’d accidents Creep in ’twixt vows and change decrees of kings, Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp’st i...
Those lines that I before have writ do lie (Sonnet 115)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000235
To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir...
Hamlet, Act III, Scene I [To be, or not to be]
William Shakespeare
8
dramatic monologue
epf-001329
Withouten you No rose can grow; No leaf be green If never seen Your sweetest face; No bird have grace Or power to sing; Or anything Be kind, or fair, And you nowhere.
Little Elegy
Elinor Wylie
1
couplet
epf-000695
You smiled, you spoke, and I believed, By every word and smile deceived. Another man would hope no more; Nor hope I what I hoped before: But let not this last wish be vain; Deceive, deceive me once again!
You Smiled, You Spoke, and I Believed
Walter Savage Landor
1
couplet
epf-000628
Tax not the royal Saint with vain expense, With ill-matched aims the Architect who planned— Albeit labouring for a scanty band Of white-robed Scholars only—this immense And glorious Work of fine intelligence! Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore Of nicely-calculated less or more; So deemed the man who fash...
Inside of King's College Chapel, Cambridge
William Wordsworth
0
sonnet
epf-001353
Who shall invoke her, who shall be her priest, With single rites the common debt to pay? On some green headland fronting to the East Our fairest boy shall kneel at break of day. Naked, uplifting in a laden tray New milk and honey and sweet-tinctured wine, Not without twigs of clustering apple-spray To wreath a garland ...
Sonnet 16: Who shall invoke her, who shall be her priest
Alan Seeger
0
sonnet
epf-001064
It's a year almost that I have not seen her: Oh, last summer green things were greener, Brambles fewer, the blue sky bluer. It's surely summer, for there's a swallow: Come one swallow, his mate will follow, The bird race quicken and wheel and thicken. Oh happy swallow whose mate will follow O'er height, o'er hollow! ...
A Bird Song
Christina Rossetti
7
ode
epf-001050
Think thou and act; to-morrow thou shalt die Outstretch'd in the sun's warmth upon the shore, Thou say'st: "Man's measur'd path is all gone o'er: Up all his years, steeply, with strain and sigh, Man clomb until he touch'd the truth; and I, Even I, am he whom it was destin'd for." How should this be?...
The House of Life: 73. The Choice, III
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
0
sonnet
epf-000303
Since she whom I lov'd hath paid her last debt To nature, and to hers, and my good is dead, And her soul early into heaven ravished, Wholly in heavenly things my mind is set. Here the admiring her my mind did whet To seek thee, God; so streams do show the head; But though I have found thee, and thou my thirst hast fed,...
Holy Sonnets: Since she whom I lov'd hath paid her last debt
John Donne
0
sonnet
epf-001103
Vicisti, Galilæe. I have lived long enough, having seen one thing, that love hath an end; Goddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend. Thou art more than the day or the morrow, the seasons that laugh or that weep; For these give joy and sorrow; but thou, Proserpina, sleep. Sweet is the treading of wine, ...
Hymn to Proserpine (After the Proclamation in Rome of the Christian Faith)
Algernon Charles Swinburne
1
couplet
epf-000470
from Amphitryon Fair Iris I love and hourly I die, But not for a lip nor a languishing eye: She's fickle and false, and there I agree; For I am as false and as fickle as she: We neither believe what either can say; And, neither believing, we neither betray. 'Tis civil to swear and say things, of course; We mean not t...
Song: Fair Iris I love and hourly I die
John Dryden
1
couplet
epf-000846
The harp at Nature’s advent strung       Has never ceased to play; The song the stars of morning sung       Has never died away. And prayer is made, and praise is given,       By all things near and far; The ocean looketh up to heaven,       And mirrors every star. Its waves are kneeling on the strand,       As kneel...
The Worship of Nature
John Greenleaf Whittier
2
common measure
epf-001354
Apart sweet women (for whom Heaven be blessed), Comrades, you cannot think how thin and blue Look the leftovers of mankind that rest, Now that the cream has been skimmed off in you. War has its horrors, but has this of good— That its sure processes sort out and bind Brave hearts in one intrepid brotherhood And leave th...
Sonnet 9: On Returning to the Front after Leave
Alan Seeger
0
sonnet
epf-000197
Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed, The dear repose for limbs with travel tired; But then begins a journey in my head, To work my mind, when body’s work’s expired: For then my thoughts, from far where I abide, Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee, And keep my drooping eyelids open wide, Looking on darkness which the ...
Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed (Sonnet 27)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-001089
Methought a sweet sound from the street uprose,—       And as I pause, and strive again to hear, ‘St Patrick’s Day’ draws softly to its close,    And ‘Jordan’s’ waves flow sweetly to my ear, What though from humble source the chorus floats?    Music is music, and I listen still; I have ‘an ear’, — ay, two! — Even jews-...
Street Music
Elizabeth Akers Allen
0
sonnet
epf-000444
DORINDA When death shall part us from these kids, And shut up our divided lids, Tell me, Thyrsis, prithee do, Whither thou and I must go. THYRSIS To the Elysium. DORINDA                         Oh, where is’t? THYRSIS A chaste soul can never miss’t. DORINDA I know no way but to our home, Is our cell Elysium? THYRS...
A Dialogue between Thyrsis and Dorinda
Andrew Marvell
1
couplet
epf-000058
Oh, laud the Lord, the God of hosts commend,        Exalt his pow’r, advance his holiness:        With all your might lift his almightiness; Your greatest praise upon his greatness spend.   Make trumpet’s noise in shrillest notes ascend;        Make lute and lyre his loved fame express;        Him let the pipe, ...
Psalm 150
Mary Sidney Herbert Countess of Pembroke
0
sonnet
epf-000298
If poisonous minerals, and if that tree Whose fruit threw death on else immortal us, If lecherous goats, if serpents envious Cannot be damn'd, alas, why should I be? Why should intent or reason, born in me, Make sins, else equal, in me more heinous? And mercy being easy, and glorious To God, in his stern wrath why thre...
Holy Sonnets: If poisonous minerals, and if that tree
John Donne
0
sonnet
epf-001321
I chose the place where I would rest When death should come to claim me, With the red-rose roots to wrap my breast And a quiet stone to name me. But I am laid on a northern steep With the roaring tides below me, And only the frosts to bind my sleep, And only the winds to know me.
Exile
Marjorie Pickthall
2
common measure
epf-000070
Cassius speaks to Brutus Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus, and we petty men Walk under his huge legs and peep about To find ourselves dishonorable graves. Men at some time are masters of their fates. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings. “Brut...
Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene II [Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world]
William Shakespeare
8
dramatic monologue
epf-001332
The rain’s cold grains are silver-gray Sharp as golden sands, A bell is clanging, people sway Hanging by their hands. Supple hands, or gnarled and stiff, Snatch and catch and grope; That face is yellow-pale, as if The fellow swung from rope. Dull like pebbles, sharp like knives, Glances strike and glare, Fingers tang...
A Crowded Trolley Car
Elinor Wylie
2
common measure
epf-001114
I looked up from my writing,    And gave a start to see, As if rapt in my inditing,    The moon's full gaze on me. Her meditative misty head    Was spectral in its air, And I involuntarily said,    'What are you doing there?' 'Oh, I've been scanning pond and hole    And waterway hereabout For the body of one with a sun...
I Looked Up from My Writing
Thomas Hardy
12
quatrain
epf-001306
Molly Bloom's closing soliloquy ...and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask agai...
Ulysses [excerpt]
James Joyce
8
dramatic monologue
epf-000251
When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd The rich proud cost of outworn buried age; When sometime lofty towers I see down-ras'd And brass eternal slave to mortal rage; When I have seen the hungry ocean gain Advantage on the kingdom of the shore, And the firm soil win of the wat'ry main, Increasing store with loss a...
Sonnet 64: When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000587
Who has not waked to list the busy sounds Of summer’s morning, in the sultry smoke Of noisy London? On the pavement hot The sooty chimney-boy, with dingy face And tattered covering, shrilly bawls his trade, Rousing the sleepy housemaid. At the door The milk-pail rattles, and the tinkling bell Proclaims the dustman’s of...
London’s Summer Morning
Mary Robinson
6
blank verse
epf-000293
At the round earth's imagined corners, blow Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise From death, you numberless infinities Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go, All whom the flood did, and fire shall, o'erthrow, All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies, Despair, law, chance, hath slain, and you whose eyes, Shall...
At the round earth's imagined corners (Holy Sonnet 7)
John Donne
0
sonnet
epf-000269
O, call not me to justify the wrong That thy unkindness lays upon my heart; Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue; Use power with power, and slay me not by art. Tell me thou lov’st elsewhere; but in my sight, Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside; What need’st thou wound with cunning when thy might Is...
Sonnet 139: O, call not me to justify the wrong
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000031
One day I wrote her name upon the strand, But came the waves and washed it away: Again I wrote it with a second hand, But came the tide, and made my pains his prey. "Vain man," said she, "that dost in vain assay, A mortal thing so to immortalize; For I myself shall like to this decay, And eke my name be wiped out likew...
Amoretti LXXV: One Day I Wrote her Name
Edmund Spenser
0
sonnet
epf-000294
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so; For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow, And soonest our best men with t...
Death, be not proud (Holy Sonnet 10)
John Donne
0
sonnet
epf-000415
See here an easy feast that knows no wound, That under hunger’s teeth will needs be sound; A subtle harvest of unbounded bread, What would ye more? Here food itself is fed.
Divine Epigrams: On the Miracle of the Multiplied Loaves
Richard Crashaw
1
couplet
epf-000127
Alas, ’tis true I have gone here and there And made myself a motley to the view, Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, Made old offences of affections new; Most true it is that I have look’d on truth Askance and strangely: but, by all above, These blenches gave my heart another youth, And worse essay p...
Alas, 'tis true I have gone here and there (Sonnet 110)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000417
Love, thou are absolute sole lord Of life and death. To prove the word, We’ll now appeal to none of all Those thy old soldiers, great and tall, Ripe men of martyrdom, that could reach down With strong arms their triumphant crown; Such as could with lusty breath Speak loud into the face of death Their great Lord’s glori...
A Hymn to the Name and Honour of the Admirable Saint Teresa
Richard Crashaw
1
couplet
epf-000608
Under the evening moon the snail       is stripped to the waist.
[under the evening moon]
Kobayashi Issa
11
haiku
epf-000160
O, lest the world should task you to recite What merit lived in me, that you should love After my death, dear love, forget me quite, For you in me can nothing worthy prove; Unless you would devise some virtuous lie, To do more for me than mine own desert, And hang more praise upon deceased I That niggard truth love may...
O, lest the world should task you to recite (Sonnet 72)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-001358
The tired cars go grumbling by,         The moaning, groaning cars,     And the old milk carts go rumbling by         Under the same dull stars.     Out of the tenements, cold as stone,         Dark figures start for work;     I watch them sadly shuffle on,         ’Tis dawn, dawn in New York.         But I would be o...
When Dawn Comes to the City
Claude McKay
0
sonnet
epf-000020
When I was fair and young, then favor graced me. Of many was I sought their mistress for to be. But I did scorn them all and answered them therefore: Go, go, go, seek some other where; importune me no more. How many weeping eyes I made to pine in woe, How many sighing hearts I have not skill to show, But I the prouder...
When I Was Fair and Young
Queen Elizabeth I
1
couplet
epf-000709
Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!) Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, And saw, within the moonlight in his room, Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom, An angel writing in a book of gold:— Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, And to the presence in the room he said, "What writest thou?"—The vision...
Abou Ben Adhem
Leigh Hunt
1
couplet
epf-000509
But anxious cares the pensive nymph oppress'd, And secret passions labour'd in her breast. Not youthful kings in battle seiz'd alive, Not scornful virgins who their charms survive, Not ardent lovers robb'd of all their bliss, Not ancient ladies when refus'd a kiss, Not tyrants fierce that unrepenting die, Not Cynthia w...
The Rape of the Lock: Canto 4
Alexander Pope
1
couplet
epf-001333
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
2
common measure
epf-001451
Naangodinong                 Sometimes nimbabaazhawendaan      I go about pitying niyaa                                 myself babaamaajaayaan              while I am carried by the wind giizhigong                        across the sky
Song of the Thunders
Anonymous
5
free verse
epf-001105
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
1
couplet
epf-001402
I sit upon the white rocks by the bay, Against whose hollows numberless, the waves Will splash forevermore. The sunset laves The deep with light. There rise far away A mountain that has seemingly defied The very clouds unchanged. And near, portending That all created things will have an ending, These crumbled crags lie...
Manila Bay
Luis G. Dato
0
sonnet
epf-000529
When Learning’s triumph o’er her barb’rous foes First rear’d the stage, immortal Shakespear rose; Each change of many-colour’d life he drew, Exhausted worlds, and then imagin’d new: Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign, And panting Time toil’d after him in vain: His pow’rful strokes presiding Truth impress’d, And ...
Drury-lane Prologue Spoken by Mr. Garrick at the Opening of the Theatre in Drury-Lane, 1747
Samuel Johnson
1
couplet
epf-000651
Wisdom and Spirit of the universe! Thou Soul, that art the Eternity of thought! And giv'st to forms and images a breath And everlasting motion! not in vain, By day or star-light, thus from my first dawn Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me The passions that build up our human soul; Not with the mean and vulgar wor...
Influence of Natural Objects in Calling Forth and Strengthening the Imagination in Boyhood and Early Youth
William Wordsworth
6
blank verse
epf-000552
While one sere leaf, that parting Autumn yields,    Trembles upon the thin, and naked spray,    November, dragging on this sunless day,    Lours, cold and sullen, on the watery fields; And Nature to the waste dominion yields,    Stripped her last robes, with gold and purple gay —    So droops my life, of your soft beam...
Sonnet 84: While one sere leaf, that parting Autumn yields
Anna Seward
0
sonnet
epf-000016
Stand whoso list upon the slipper top    Of court’s estates, and let me here rejoice; And use me quiet without let or stop,    Unknown in court, that hath such brackish joys:       In hidden place, so let my days forth pass,    That when my years be done, withouten noise,       I may die agèd after the common trace, Fo...
Stand Whoso List
Sir Thomas Wyatt
0
sonnet
epf-000604
The castle clock had tolled midnight: With mattock and with spade, And silent, by the torches’ light, His corse in earth we laid. The coffin bore his name, that those Of other years might know, When earth its secrets should disclose, Whose bones were laid below. “Peace to the dead” no children sung, ...
On the Funeral of Charles the First at Night, in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor
William Lisle Bowles
3
ballad
epf-000697
Ianthe! you are call’d to cross the sea!          A path forbidden me! Remember, while the Sun his blessing sheds          Upon the mountain-heads, How often we have watcht him laying down          His brow, and dropt our own Against each other’s, and how faint and short          And sliding the support! What will succ...
Ianthe! You are Call’d to Cross the Sea
Walter Savage Landor
8
dramatic monologue
epf-000684
Hast thou a charm to stay the morning-star In his steep course? So long he seems to pause On thy bald awful head, O sovran BLANC, The Arve and Arveiron at thy base Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form! Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines, How silently! Around thee and above Deep is the air and dark, substa...
Hymn before Sun-rise, in the Vale of Chamouni
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
6
blank verse
epf-000829
In the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadow-lands Rise the blue Franconian mountains, Nuremberg, the ancient, stands. Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of art and song, Memories haunt thy pointed gables, like the rooks that round them throng: Memories of the Middle Ages, when the empero...
Nuremberg
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
1
couplet
epf-000252
Tir'd with all these, for restful death I cry, As, to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn, And gilded honour shamefully misplac'd, And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, And right perfection wrongfully disgrac'd, And strength by limping sway disabled, And...
Sonnet 66: Tir'd with all these, for restful death I cry
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000810
The face of all the world is changed, I think, Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink, Was caught up into love, and taught the whole Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole God ...
Sonnets from the Portuguese  7: The face of all the world is changed, I think
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
0
sonnet
epf-000613
Earth has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in th...
Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
William Wordsworth
0
sonnet
epf-000337
Wouldst thou hear what man can say In a little? Reader, stay. Underneath this stone doth lie As much beauty as could die; Which in life did harbour give To more virtue than doth live. If at all she had a fault, Leave it buried in this vault. One name was Elizabeth, Th' other let it sleep with death: Fitter, where it di...
Epitaph on Elizabeth, L. H.
Ben Jonson
4
elegy
epf-000699
Child of a day, thou knowest not The tears that overflow thy urn, The gushing eyes that read thy lot, Nor, if thou knewest, couldst return! And why the wish! the pure and blest Watch like thy mother o'er thy sleep. O peaceful night! O envied rest! Thou wilt not ever see her weep.
Child of a Day
Walter Savage Landor
4
elegy
epf-000300
I am a little world made cunningly Of elements and an angelic sprite, But black sin hath betray'd to endless night My world's both parts, and oh both parts must die. You which beyond that heaven which was most high Have found new spheres, and of new lands can write, Pour new seas in mine eyes, that so I might Drown my ...
Holy Sonnets: I am a little world made cunningly
John Donne
0
sonnet
epf-000047
Having this day my horse, my hand, my lance Guided so well that I obtain'd the prize, Both by the judgment of the English eyes And of some sent from that sweet enemy France; Horsemen my skill in horsemanship advance, Town folks my strength; a daintier judge applies His praise to sleight which from good use doth rise; S...
Astrophil and Stella 41: Having this day my horse, my hand, my lance
Sir Philip Sidney
0
sonnet
epf-001296
There are no handles upon a language Whereby men take hold of it And mark it with signs for its remembrance. It is a river, this language, Once in a thousand years Breaking a new course Changing its way to the ocean. It is mountain effluvia Moving to valleys And from nation to nation Crossing borders and mixing. Langua...
Languages
Carl Sandburg
14
ars poetica
epf-000676
[Addressed to Charles Lamb, of the India House, London] Well, they are gone, and here must I remain, This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost Beauties and feelings, such as would have been Most sweet to my remembrance even when age Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile, Friends, whom I never more may m...
This Lime-tree Bower my Prison
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
10
pastoral
epf-000671
As some vast Tropic tree, itself a wood, That crests its Head with clouds, beneath the flood Feeds its deep roots, and with the bulging flank Of its wide base controls the fronting bank, (By the slant current's pressure scoop'd away The fronting bank becomes a foam-piled bay) High in the Fork the uncouth Idol knits His...
Fragment 4: As some vast Tropic tree, itself a wood
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1
couplet
epf-000868
Dosn't thou 'ear my 'erse's legs, as they canters awaäy? Proputty, proputty, proputty—that's what I 'ears 'em saäy. Proputty, proputty, proputty—Sam, thou's an ass for thy paaïns: Theer's moor sense i' one o' 'is legs, nor in all thy braaïns. Woä—theer's a craw to pluck wi' tha, Sam; yon 's parson's 'ouse— Dosn't tho...
Northern Farmer: New Style
Lord Tennyson Alfred
8
dramatic monologue
epf-000185
That thou hast her, it is not all my grief, And yet it may be said I loved her dearly; That she hath thee, is of my wailing chief, A loss in love that ouches me more nearly. Loving offenders, thus I will excuse ye: Thou dost hove her, because thou know’st I love her; And for my sake even so doth she abuse me, Suffering...
That thou hast her, it is not all my grief (Sonnet 42)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000850
The skies they were ashen and sober;       The leaves they were crispéd and sere—       The leaves they were withering and sere; It was night in the lonesome October       Of my most immemorial year; It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,       In the misty mid region of Weir— It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,     ...
To -- -- --. Ulalume: A Ballad
Edgar Allan Poe
3
ballad
epf-000635
From Stirling castle we had seen The mazy Forth unravelled; Had trod the banks of Clyde, and Tay, And with the Tweed had travelled; And when we came to Clovenford, Then said my "winsome Marrow ," "Whate'er betide, we'll turn aside, And see the Braes of Yarrow." "Let Yarrow folk, frae Selkirk town, Who have been buying,...
Yarrow Unvisited
William Wordsworth
3
ballad
epf-001101
Bird of the bitter bright grey golden morn       Scarce risen upon the dusk of dolorous years, First of us all and sweetest singer born       Whose far shrill note the world of new men hears       Cleave the cold shuddering shade as twilight clears; When song new-born put off the old world's attire And felt its tune on...
A Ballad of François Villon, Prince of All Ballad-Makers
Algernon Charles Swinburne
3
ballad
epf-000090
Macbeth speaks to Seyton, his servant, after learning of Lady Macbeth's death She should have died hereafter; There would have been a time for such a word. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools...
Macbeth, Act V, Scene V [She should have died hereafter]
William Shakespeare
8
dramatic monologue
epf-000729
I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, From the seas and the streams; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noonday dreams. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken The sweet buds every one, When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, As she dances about the sun. I wie...
The Cloud
Percy Bysshe Shelley
10
pastoral
epf-000858
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
2
common measure
epf-001381
I will to the King,          And offer him consolation in his trouble,          For that man there has set his teeth to die,          And being one that hates obedience,          Discipline, and orderliness of life,           I cannot mourn him.                                                   W.B. YEATS             ...
S. I. W.
Wilfred Owen
1
couplet
epf-001129
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
0
sonnet
epf-001021
Not solely that the Future she destroys, And the fair life which in the distance lies For all men, beckoning out from dim rich skies: Nor that the passing hour’s supporting joys Have lost the keen-edged flavour, which begat Distinction in old times, and still should breed Sweet Memory, and Hope,—earth’s modest seed, An...
Modern Love: XII
George Meredith
0
sonnet
epf-000577
Piping down the valleys wild  Piping songs of pleasant glee  On a cloud I saw a child.  And he laughing said to me.  Pipe a song about a Lamb;  So I piped with merry chear,  Piper pipe that song again—  So I piped, he wept to hear. Drop thy pipe thy happy pipe  Sing thy songs of happy chear,  So I sung the same again...
Introduction to the Songs of Innocence
William Blake
1
couplet
epf-000566
In Virgynë the sweltrie sun gan sheene, And hotte upon the mees did caste his raie; The apple rodded from its palie greene, And the mole peare did bende the leafy spraie; The peede chelandri sunge the livelong daie; ’Twas nowe the pride, the manhode of the yeare, And eke the grounde was dighte in its moste defte aumere...
An Excelente Balade of Charitie
Thomas Chatterton
3
ballad
epf-001434
Dear, did we meet in some dim yesterday?     I half remember how the birds were mute     Among green leaves and tulip-tinted fruit, And on the grass, beside a stream, we lay In early twilight; faintly, far away,     Came lovely sounds adrift from silver lute,     With answered echoes of an airy flute, While Twilight wa...
With Music
Helen Hay Whitney
0
sonnet
epf-000077
A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted, Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion; A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted With shifting change, as is false women’s fashion: An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling, Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth; A man in hue all ‘hues’ in his control...
A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted (Sonnet 20)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000324
Wouldst thou hear what man can say In a little? Reader, stay. Underneath this stone doth lie As much beauty as could die; Which in life did harbour give To more virtue than doth live. If at all she had a fault, Leave it buried in this vault. One name was Elizabeth, Th' other let it sleep with death: Fitter, where it di...
Epitaph on Elizabeth, L. H.
Ben Jonson
1
couplet
epf-000790
Though loath to grieve The evil time's sole patriot, I cannot leave My honied thought For the priest's cant, Or statesman's rant. If I refuse My study for their politique, Which at the best is trick, The angry Muse Puts confusion in my brain. But who is he that prates Of the culture of mankind, Of better arts and lif...
Ode, Inscribed to William H. Channing
Ralph Waldo Emerson
7
ode
epf-000104
Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain; Lest sorrow lend me words and words express The manner of my pity-wanting pain. If I might teach thee wit, better it were, Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so; As testy sick men, when their deaths be near, No news but health...
Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press (Sonnet 140)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-001304
My pa he didn’t go to town       Last evening after tea, But got a book and settled down       As comfy as could be. I’ll tell you I was offul glad       To have my pa about To answer all the things I had       Been tryin’ to find out. And so I asked him why the world       Is round instead of square, And why the piggi...
Getting Information Out of Pa
Anonymous
3
ballad
epf-000327
Lucy, you brightness of our sphere, who are Life of the Muses' day, their morning star! If works, not th' author's, their own grace should look, Whose poems would not wish to be your book? But these, desir'd by you, the maker's ends Crown with their own. Rare poems ask rare friends. Yet satires, since the most of manki...
To Lucy, Countess of Bedford, with John Donne's Satires
Ben Jonson
1
couplet
epf-000605
The snow is melting and the village is flooded       with children.
[the snow is melting]
Kobayashi Issa
11
haiku
epf-000482
’Twas the new moon!  Since then I waited— And lo! to-night! [I have my reward!]
[’Twas the new moon!]
Matsuo Bashō
11
haiku
epf-001425
My heart is like an opal, flashing fire And flaming gleams of pointed light At thy approach; or lying cold and white When thou art gone; robbed of a dream’s desire Is left moon-white and dull; no darting flame Or sapphire gleam to mark a sweet suspense. But only still, benumbed indifference Unwaked at thy soft whisper ...
Sonnets from the Cherokee (I)
Ruth Muskrat Bronson
0
sonnet
epf-000350
From the dull confines of the drooping west To see the day spring from the pregnant east, Ravish'd in spirit, I come, nay more, I fly To thee, blest place of my nativity! Thus, thus with hallow'd foot I touch the ground, With thousand blessings by thy fortune crown'd. O fruitful genius! that bestowest here An everlasti...
His Return to London
Robert Herrick
1
couplet
epf-000740
Well, honest John, how fare you now at home? The spring is come, and birds are building nests; The old cock-robin to the sty is come, With olive feathers and its ruddy breast; And the old cock, with wattles and red comb, Struts with the hens, and seems to like some best, Then crows, and looks about for little crumbs, S...
To John Clare
John Clare
0
sonnet
epf-000788
Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home: Thou art not my friend, and I'm not thine. Long through thy weary crowds I roam; A river-ark on the ocean brine, Long I've been tossed like the driven foam; But now, proud world! I'm going home. Good-bye to Flattery's fawning face; To Grandeur with his wise grimace; To upstart We...
Good-Bye
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1
couplet
epf-000818
" Yes !" I answered you last night ; " No !" this morning, Sir, I say ! Colours, seen by candle-light, Will not look the same by day. When the tabors played their best, Lamps above, and laughs below — Love me sounded like a jest, Fit for Yes or fit for No ! Call me false, or call me free — Vow, whatever light may shi...
The Lady's Yes
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
3
ballad
epf-000523
DANCINDA. " NO, fair DANCINDA, no ; you strive in vain " To calm my care and mitigate my pain ; " If all my sighs, my cares, can fail to move, " Ah ! sooth me not with fruitless vows of love." Thus STREPHON spoke. DANCINDA thus reply'd : What must I do to gratify your pride ? Too well you know (ungrateful as thou art)...
Town Eclogues: Wednesday; The Tête à Tête
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
1
couplet
epf-000063
Dear, why should you command me to my rest When now the night doth summon all to sleep? Methinks this time becometh lovers best; Night was ordain'd together friends to keep. How happy are all other living things Which, though the day disjoin by sev'ral flight, The quiet ev'ning yet together brings, And each returns unt...
Idea 37: Dear, why should you command me to my rest
Michael Drayton
0
sonnet