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epf-000297 | Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art 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... | Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud | John Donne | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000737 | Heigho! the lark and the owl!
One flies the morning, and one lulls the night:
Only the nightingale, poor fond soul,
Sings like the fool through darkness and light.
"A widow bird sate mourning for her love
Upon a wintry bough;
The frozen wind crept on above,
T... | Archy's Song from Charles I (A Widow Bird Sate Mourning) | Percy Bysshe Shelley | 2 | common measure |
epf-000772 | Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the haz... | To Autumn | John Keats | 7 | ode |
epf-001405 | From Asia’s teeming highlands, coasts and bays,
They ploughed the outmost rim of ocean foam,
In pathless deeps envisioning a home
Where suns perennial drop unslanted rays.
They ventured from the people-trodden ways,
And in their light, swift-wingéd barangays,
The seas below, aloft the flaming skies,
They found the ocea... | Argonauts | Luis G. Dato | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001380 | It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
L... | Strange Meeting | Wilfred Owen | 1 | couplet |
epf-001214 | High-hearted Surrey! I do love your ways,
Venturous, frank, romantic, vehement,
All with inviolate honor sealed and blent,
To the axe-edge that cleft your soldier-bays:
I love your youth, your friendships, whims, and frays;
Your strict, sweet verse, with its imperious bent,
Heard as in dreams from some old harper’s ten... | A Salutation | Louise Imogen Guiney | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000232 | From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him,
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odor and in hue,
Could make me any summer's story tell,
Or from their... | From you have I been absent in the spring (Sonnet 98) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000363 | Immortal Heat, O let Thy greater flame
Attract the lesser to it; let those fires
Which shall consume the world first make it tame,
And kindle in our hearts such true desires.
As may consume our lusts, and make Thee way:
Then shall our hearts pant Thee, then shall our brain
All her invention on Thine altar l... | Love (II) | George Herbert | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000477 | Why should a foolish marriage vow,
Which long ago was made,
Oblige us to each other now
When passion is decay'd?
We lov'd, and we lov'd, as long as we could,
Till our love was lov'd out in us both:
But our marriage is dead, when the pleasure is fled:
'Twas pleasure first made it an oath.
If I have ... | Marriage a-la-Mode | John Dryden | 2 | common measure |
epf-001315 | I've fond anticipation of a day
O'erfilled with pure diversion presently,
For I must read a lady poesy
The while we glide by many a leafy bay,
Hid deep in rushes, where at random play
The glossy black winged May-flies, or whence flee
Hush-throated nestlings in alarm,
Whom we have idly frighted with our boat's long swa... | The Uses of Poetry | William Carlos Williams | 14 | ars poetica |
epf-000420 | (excerpt)
....
O heart, the equal poise of love’s both parts,
Big alike with wounds and darts,
Live in these conquering leaves; live all the same,
And walk through all tongues one triumphant flame;
Live here, great heart, and love and die and kill,
And bleed and wound, and yield and conquer still.
Let this immortal l... | The Flaming Heart | Richard Crashaw | 1 | couplet |
epf-000439 | How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the palm, the oak, or bays,
And their uncessant labours see
Crown’d from some single herb or tree,
Whose short and narrow verged shade
Does prudently their toils upbraid;
While all flow’rs and all trees do close
To weave the garlands of repose.
Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,... | The Garden | Andrew Marvell | 1 | couplet |
epf-000987 | Oh, but to fade, and live we know not where,
To be a cold obstruction and to groan!
This sensible, warm woman to become
A prudish clod; and the delighted spirit
To live and die alone, or to reside
With married sisters, and to have the care
Of half a dozen children, not your own;
And driven, for no one wants you,
Round ... | Shakesperian Readings | Phoebe Cary | 6 | blank verse |
epf-000833 | 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 | 4 | elegy |
epf-000154 | Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,
My verse alone had all thy gentle grace,
But now my gracious numbers are decay’d
And my sick Muse doth give another place.
I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument
Deserves the travail of a worthier pen,
Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent
He robs thee of and pays it thee again.
... | Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid (Sonnet 79) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000006 | Tell you I chyll,
If that ye wyll
A whyle be styll,
Of a comely gyll
That dwelt on a hyll:
But she is not gryll,
For she is somwhat sage
And well worne in age;
For her vysage
It would aswage
A mannes courage.
Her lothely lere
Is nothynge clere,
But ugly of chere,
Droupy and drowsy,
Scurvy and lowsy;
Her face all bowsy... | The Tunning of Elenor Rumming | John Skelton | 1 | couplet |
epf-000851 | It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was... | Annabel Lee | Edgar Allan Poe | 3 | ballad |
epf-000954 | Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windows—through doors—burst like a ruthless force,
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation,
Into the school where the scholar is studying,
Leave not the bridegroom quiet—no happiness must he have now with his bride,
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploug... | Beat! Beat! Drums! | Walt Whitman | 5 | free verse |
epf-000495 | Let me thy Properties explain,
A rotten Cabin, dropping Rain;
Chimnies with Scorn rejecting Smoak;
Stools, Tables, Chairs, and Bed-steds broke:
Here Elements have lost their Vses,
Air ripens not, nor Earth produces:
In vain we make poor Sheelah toil,
Fire will not roast, nor Water boil.
Thro' all the Vallies, Hills, an... | To Quilca, a Country House not in Good Repair | Jonathan Swift | 1 | couplet |
epf-000574 | Memory, hither come,
And tune your merry notes;
And, while upon the wind,
Your music floats,
I'll pore upon the stream,
Where sighing lovers dream,
And fish for fancies as they pass
Within the watery glass.
I'll drink of the clear stream,
And hear the linnet's song;
And ... | Song: Memory, hither come | William Blake | 1 | couplet |
epf-000717 | It lieth, gazing on the midnight sky,
Upon the cloudy mountain peak supine;
Below, far lands are seen tremblingly;
Its horror and its beauty are divine.
Upon its lips and eyelids seems to lie
Loveliness like a shadow, from which shrine,
Fiery and lurid, struggling underneath,
The agonies of anguish and of death.
... | On the Medusa of Leonardo Da Vinci in the Florentine Gallery | Percy Bysshe Shelley | 13 | ekphrasis |
epf-000343 | How love came in I do not know,
Whether by the eye, or ear, or no;
Or whether with the soul it came
(At first) infused with the same;
Whether in part ’tis here or there,
Or, like the soul, whole everywhere,
This troubles me: but I as well
As any other this can tell:
That when from hence she does depart
The outlet then ... | Of Love: A Sonnet | Robert Herrick | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000150 | I never saw that you did painting need
And therefore to your fair no painting set;
I found, or thought I found, you did exceed
The barren tender of a poet’s debt;
And therefore have I slept in your report,
That you yourself being extant well might show
How far a modern quill doth come too short,
Speaking of worth, what... | I never saw that you did painting need (Sonnet 83) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000280 | I met a courtier riding on the plain,
Well-mounted on a brave and gallant steed;
I sat upon a jade, and spurred to my pain
My lazy beast, whose tired sides did bleed:
He saw my case, and then of courtesy
Did rein his horse, and drew the bridle in,
Because I did desire his company:
But he corvetting way of me did... | Book 2, Epigram 22 | Thomas Bastard | 1 | couplet |
epf-000696 | There is delight in singing, tho’ none hear
Beside the singer; and there is delight
In praising, tho’ the praiser sit alone
And see the prais’d far off him, far above.
Shakspeare is not our poet, but the world’s,
Therefore on him no speech! and brief for thee,
Browning! Since Chaucer was alive and hale,
No man hath wal... | To Robert Browning | Walter Savage Landor | 7 | ode |
epf-001348 | I stood beside his sepulchre whose fame,
Hurled over Europe once on bolt and blast,
Now glows far off as storm-clouds overpast
Glow in the sunset flushed with glorious flame.
Has nature marred his mould? Can Art acclaim
No hero now, no man with whom men side
As with their hearts’ high needs personified?
There are will ... | At the Tomb of Napoleon Before the Elections in America—November, 1912 | Alan Seeger | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000669 | Like a lone Arab, old and blind,
Some caravan had left behind,
Who sits beside a ruin'd well,
Where the shy sand-asps bask and swell;
And now he hangs his ag{'e}d head aslant,
And listens for a human sound—in vain!
And now the aid, which Heaven alone can grant,
Upturns his eyeless face from Heaven to gain;—
Even thus, ... | Love's Apparition and Evanishment: An Allegoric Romance | Samuel Taylor Coleridge | 1 | couplet |
epf-001226 | We sat together at one summer's end,
That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,
And you and I, and talked of poetry.
I said, "A line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought,
Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.
Better go down upon your marrow-bones
And scrub a kitchen pavement,... | Adam's Curse | W. B. Yeats | 14 | ars poetica |
epf-001047 | Not in thy body is thy life at all
But in this lady's lips and hands and eyes;
Through these she yields thee life that vivifies
What else were sorrow's servant and death's thrall.
Look on thyself without her, and recall
The waste remembrance and forlorn surmise
That liv'd but in a dead-drawn breath ... | The House of Life: 36. Life-in-Love | Dante Gabriel Rossetti | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001184 | My desires are many and my cry is pitiful, but ever didst thou save me by hard refusals; and this strong mercy has been wrought into my life through and through.
Day by day thou art making me worthy of the simple, great gifts that thou gavest to me unasked—this sky and the light, this body and the life and the mind—sa... | Gitanjali 14 | Rabindranath Tagore | 9 | prose poem |
epf-000004 | Ways apt and new to sing of love I’d find,
Forcing from her hard heart full many a sigh,
And re-enkindle in her frozen mind
Desires a thousand, passionate and high;
O’er her fair face would see each swift change pass,
See her fond eyes at length where pity reigns,
As one who sorrows when too late, alas!
For his own err... | Sonnet 101 [Ways apt and new to sing of love I’d find] | Petrarch | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000204 | Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws,
And burn the long-lived phœnix in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate’er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets... | Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws (Sonnet 19) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000972 | from Sonnets, Third Series
IV
Thin little leaves of wood fern, ribbed and toothed,
Long curved sail needles of the green pitch pine,
With common sandgrass, skirt the horizon line,
And over these the incorruptible blue!
Here let me gently lie and softly view
All world asperities, lightly touched and smoo... | “Thin little leaves of wood fern, ribbed and toothed” | Frederick Goddard Tuckerman | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001367 | I cannot but remember
When the year grows old—
October—November—
How she disliked the cold!
She used to watch the swallows
Go down across the sky,
And turn from the window
With a little sharp sigh.
And often when the brown leaves
Were brittle on the ground,
And the wind in the chimney
Made a melancholy so... | When the Year Grows Old | Edna St. Vincent Millay | 7 | ode |
epf-000254 | That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's s... | Sonnet 73: That time of year thou mayst in me behold | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001272 | In the brown water,
Thick and silver-sheened in the sunshine,
Liquid and cool in the shade of the reeds,
A pike dozed.
Lost among the shadows of stems
He lay unnoticed.
Suddenly he flicked his tail,
And a green-and-copper brightness
Ran under the water.
Out from under the reeds
Came the olive-green light,
And... | The Pike | Amy Lowell | 5 | free verse |
epf-000117 | No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:
Thy pyramids built up with newer might
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;
They are but dressings of a former sight.
Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire
What thou dost foist upon us that is old,
And rather make them born to our desire
Than think that we be... | No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change: (Sonnet 123) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000382 | Methought I saw my late espoused saint
Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave,
Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave,
Rescu'd from death by force, though pale and faint.
Mine, as whom wash'd from spot of child-bed taint
Purification in the old Law did save,
And such as ... | Sonnet 23: Methought I saw my late espoused saint | John Milton | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000305 | (excerpt)
OF THE PROGRESS OF THE SOUL
Wherein,
by occasion of the religious death of Mistress
Elizabeth Drury, the incommodities of the soul in this her life, and her
exaltation in the next, are contemplated
THE SECOND ANNIVERSARY
Forget this rotten world, and unto thee
Let thine own times as an old story be.
Be not ... | Of the Progress of the Soul: The Second Anniversary | John Donne | 1 | couplet |
epf-000794 | Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,
Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,
And marching single in an endless file,
Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.
To each they offer gifts after his will,
Bread, kingdoms, stars, or sky that holds them all.
I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp,
Forgot my morning wi... | Days | Ralph Waldo Emerson | 6 | blank verse |
epf-000660 | 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 | 2 | common measure |
epf-001167 | To those fair isles where crimson sunsets burn,
We send a backward glance to gaze on thee,
Brave Toussaint! thou was surely born to be
A hero; thy proud spirit could but spurn
Each outrage on the race. Couldst thou unlearn
The lessons taught by instinct? Nay! and we
Who share the zeal that would make all men free,
Must... | Toussaint L’Ouverture | Henrietta Cordelia Ray | 7 | ode |
epf-001378 | What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling... | Anthem for Doomed Youth | Wilfred Owen | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000119 | ’Tis better to be vile than vile esteem’d,
When not to be receives reproach of being,
And the just pleasure lost which is so deem’d
Not by our feeling but by others’ seeing:
For why should others’ false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
Which in their wills ... | Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd (Sonnet 121) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000724 | The fitful alternations of the rain,
When the chill wind, languid as with pain
Of its own heavy moisture, here and there
Drives through the gray and beamless atmosphere. | The Fitful Alternations of the Rain | Percy Bysshe Shelley | 1 | couplet |
epf-000341 | Long have I long’d to see my love againe,
Still have I wisht, but never could obtaine it;
Rather than all the world (if I might gaine it)
Would I desire my love’s sweet precious gaine.
Yet in my soule I see him everie day,
See him, and see his still sterne countenaunce,
But (ah) what is of long continuance,
Whe... | Sonnet 16 | Richard Barnfield | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000448 | Alas, how pleasant are their days
With whom the infant Love yet plays!
Sorted by pairs, they still are seen
By fountains cool, and shadows green.
But soon these flames do lose their light,
Like meteors of a summer’s night:
Nor can they to that region climb,
To make impression upon time.
’Twas in a shipwreck, when the ... | The Unfortunate Lover | Andrew Marvell | 1 | couplet |
epf-001450 | Earth took of earth, earth with woe,
Earth other earth to the earth added;
Earth laid earth in an earthen grave.
Then had earth of earth enough earth. | Earth Upon Earth | Anonymous | 5 | free verse |
epf-000080 | Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west w... | Full many a glorious morning have I seen (Sonnet 33) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000743 | I hid my love when young till I
Couldn't bear the buzzing of a fly;
I hid my love to my despite
Till I could not bear to look at light:
I dare not gaze upon her face
But left her memory in each place;
Where'er I saw a wild flower lie
I kissed and bade my love good-bye.
I met her in the greenest dells,
Where dewdrops p... | I Hid my Love | John Clare | 1 | couplet |
epf-001241 | Amid my books I lived the hurrying years,
Disdaining kinship with my fellow man;
Alike to me were human smiles and tears,
I cared not whither Earth's great life-stream ran,
Till as I knelt before my mouldered shrine,
God made me look into a woman's eyes;
And I, who thought all earthly wisdom mine,
Knew in a... | Unsolved | John McCrae | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000583 | I heard an Angel singing
When the day was springing
Mercy Pity Peace
Is the worlds release
Thus he sung all day
Over the new mown hay
Till the sun went down
And haycocks looked brown
I heard a Devil curse
Over the heath & the furze
Mercy could be no more
If there was nobody poor
And pity no more could be
If ... | I Heard an Angel | William Blake | 1 | couplet |
epf-000036 | 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 | 1 | couplet |
epf-000442 | Had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the flood,
And you should, if you please, ref... | To His Coy Mistress | Andrew Marvell | 1 | couplet |
epf-000048 | No more, my dear, no more these counsels try;
Oh, give my passions leave to run their race;
Let Fortune lay on me her worst disgrace;
Let folk o'ercharg'd with brain against me cry;
Let clouds bedim my face, break in mine eye;
Let me no steps but of lost labour trace;
Let all the earth with scorn recount my case,
But d... | Astrophil and Stella 64: No more, my dear, no more these counsels try | Sir Philip Sidney | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000224 | Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight:
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait,
On purpose laid to make th... | Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame (Sonnet 129) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001037 | ’T was merry Christmas when he came,
Our little boy beneath the sod;
And brighter burned the Christmas flame,
And merrier sped the Christmas game,
Because within the house there lay
A shape as tiny as a fay—
The Christmas gift of God!
In wreaths and garlands on the walls
The holly hung its ruby balls,
... | Our Willie | Henry Timrod | 1 | couplet |
epf-000272 | (from Macbeth)
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil a... | Song of the Witches: “Double, double toil and trouble” | William Shakespeare | 1 | couplet |
epf-000339 | Playwright, convict of public wrongs to men,
Takes private beatings and begins again.
Two kinds of valor he doth show at once:
Active in ’s brain, and passive in his bones. | On Playwright | Ben Jonson | 5 | free verse |
epf-000368 | Give me more love or more disdain;
The torrid, or the frozen zone,
Bring equal ease unto my pain;
The temperate affords me none;
Either extreme, of love, or hate,
Is sweeter than a calm estate.
Give me a storm; if it be love,
Like Danae in that golden show'r
I swim in pleasure; if it prove
Disdain,... | Mediocrity in Love Rejected | Thomas Carew | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000730 | Emily,
A ship is floating in the harbour now,
A wind is hovering o'er the mountain's brow;
There is a path on the sea's azure floor,
No keel has ever plough'd that path before;
The halcyons brood around the foamless isles;
The treacherous Ocean has forsworn its wiles;
The merry mariners are bold and free:
Say, my heart... | from Epipsychidion | Percy Bysshe Shelley | 10 | pastoral |
epf-000075 | Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
My sinful earth these rebel powers array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? Is th... | Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth (Sonnet 146) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000131 | 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 ... | When in the chronicle of wasted time (Sonnet 106) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000227 | Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be take... | Let me not to the marriage of true minds (Sonnet 116) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000284 | Fishing, if I a fisher may protest,
Of pleasures is the sweetest, of sports the best,
Of exercises the most excellent.
Of recreations the most innocent.
But now the sport is marred, and what, ye, why?
Fishes decrease, and fishers multiply.
| Book 6, Epigram 14: De Piscatione. | Thomas Bastard | 1 | couplet |
epf-001251 | Lovely Antiques, breathing in every line
The perfume of an age long passed away,
Wafting us back to 1829,
Museum pieces of a by-gone day,
You should not languish in the public press
Where modern thought might reach and do you harm,
And vulgar youth insult your hoariness,
Missing the flavor of your old world charm;
You ... | To The Times Editorials | Alice Duer Miller | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000228 | How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December’s bareness every where!
And yet this time remov’d was summer’s time;
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,
Like widow’d wo... | How like a winter hath my absence been (Sonnet 97) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000114 | In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty’s name;
But now is black beauty’s successive heir,
And beauty slander’d with a bastard shame:
For since each hand hath put on nature’s power,
Fairing the foul with art’s false borrow’d face,
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,
But it pro... | In the old age black was not counted fair (Sonnet 127) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001415 | I love to do my homework,
It makes me feel so good.
I love to do exactly
As my teacher says I should.
I love to do my homework,
I never miss a day.
I even love the men in white
Who are taking me away. | I Love to Do My Homework | Anonymous | 3 | ballad |
epf-000158 | So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife
As ’twixt a miser and his wealth is found;
Now proud as an enjoyer and anon
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure,
Now counting best to be with you alone,
Then better’d that... | So are you to my thoughts as food to life (Sonnet 75) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001422 | To-day, after a year, on the sacred fifth day, Nature has flung away her worn raiment, and with new jewels, see, with fresh buds and new shoots she has begemmed herself and smiles. The birds wing their way, singing with joy; ah, how lovely! The black bee hums as if with sound of “Ulu! ulu!” he wished good fortune to Na... | Basanta Panchami | Pankajini Basu | 9 | prose poem |
epf-000547 | (excerpt)
Hark! ’tis the twanging horn! o’er yonder bridge,
That with its wearisome but needful length
Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon
Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright;
He comes, the herald of a noisy world,
With spatter’d boots, strapp’d waist, and frozen locks,
News from all nations lumb’ring ... | from The Task, Book IV: The Winter Evening | William Cowper | 6 | blank verse |
epf-001194 | Pluck this little flower and take it, delay not! I fear lest it droop and drop into the dust.
It may not find a place in thy garland, but honour it with a touch of pain from thy hand and pluck it. I fear lest the day end before I am aware, and the time of offering go by.
Though its colour be not deep and its smell be... | Gitanjali 6 | Rabindranath Tagore | 9 | prose poem |
epf-000783 | “The English Garden.”—Mason
The cold transparent ham is on my fork—
It hardly rains—and hark the bell!—ding-dingle—
Away! Three thousand feet at gravel work,
Mocking a Vauxhall shower!—Married and Single
Crush—rush;—Soak’d Silks with wet white Satin mingle.
Hengler! Madame! round whom all bright sparks lurk
Calls a... | Sonnet to Vauxhall | Thomas Hood | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000326 | Donne, the delight of Phoebus and each Muse
Who, to thy one, all other brains refuse;
Whose every work of thy most early wit
Came forth example, and remains so yet;
Longer a-knowing than most wits do live;
And which no affection praise enough can give!
To it, thy language, letters, arts, best life,
Which might with hal... | To John Donne | Ben Jonson | 1 | couplet |
epf-001350 | Tonight a shimmer of gold lies mantled o’er
Smooth lovely Ocean. Through the lustrous gloom
A savor steals from linden trees in bloom
And gardens ranged at many a palace door.
Proud walls rise here, and, where the moonbeams pour
Their pale enchantment down the dim coast-line,
Terrace and lawn, trim hedge and flowering ... | On the Cliffs, Newport | Alan Seeger | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001418 | Three students once tarried over the Rhine,
And into Frau Wirthin’s turned to dine.
“Say, hostess, have you good beer and wine?
And where is that pretty daughter of thine?”
“My beer and wine is fresh and clear.
My daughter lies on her funeral bier.”
They softly tipped into the room;
She lay there in the silent gloom... | From the German of Uhland | Ludwig Uhland | 3 | ballad |
epf-000893 | That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will 't please you sit and look at her? I said
'Frà Pandolf' by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and pas... | My Last Duchess | Robert Browning | 8 | dramatic monologue |
epf-000623 | The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For thi... | The World Is Too Much With Us | William Wordsworth | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001109 | Back to the flower-town, side by side,
The bright months bring,
New-born, the bridegroom and the bride,
Freedom and spring.
The sweet land laughs from sea to sea,
Filled full of sun;
All things come back to her, being free;
All things but one.
In many a tender wheaten plot
... | In Memory of Walter Savage Landor | Algernon Charles Swinburne | 4 | elegy |
epf-000386 | To Mr. Lawrence
Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son,
Now that the fields are dank, and ways are mire,
Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire
Help waste a sullen day; what may be won
From the hard season gaining? Time will run
On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire
The fr... | Sonnet 10: Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son | John Milton | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000229 | Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck,
And yet methinks I have astronomy;
But not to tell of good or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality;
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
Pointing to each his thunder, rain, and wind,
Or say with princes if it shall go well
By oft predict that I in heaven ... | Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck (Sonnet 14) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001163 | Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes.
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this bru... | The Man with the Hoe | Edwin Markham | 13 | ekphrasis |
epf-001224 | For thee the sun doth daily rise, and set
Behind the curtain of the hills of sleep,
And my soul, passing through the nether deep,
Broods on thy love, and never can forget.
For thee the garlands of the wood are wet,
For thee the daisies up the meadow’s sweep
Stir in the sidelong light, and for thee weep
The drooping... | Sonnet XLIV [For Thee the Sun Doth Daily Rise, and Set] | George Santayana | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001286 | Is he native to this realm? No,
his wide nature grew out of both worlds.
They more adeptly bend the willow's branches
who have experience of the willow's roots.
When you go to bed, don't leave bread or milk
on the table: it attracts the dead—
But may he, this quiet conjurer, may he
beneath the mildness of the eyelid
... | Sonnet 6 | Rainer Maria Rilke | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000969 | from Sonnets, Second Series
XVIII
And Change, with hurried hand, has swept these scenes:
The woods have fallen; across the meadow-lot
The hunter’s trail and trap-path is forgot;
And fire has drunk the swamps of evergreens!
Yet for a moment let my fancy plant
These autumn hills again,—the wild dove’s hau... | “And Change, with hurried hand, has swept these scenes” | Frederick Goddard Tuckerman | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000677 | 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 | 10 | pastoral |
epf-000347 | Dull to myself, and almost dead to these
My many fresh and fragrant mistresses;
Lost to all music now, since everything
Puts on the semblance here of sorrowing.
Sick is the land to th' heart, and doth endure
More dangerous faintings by her desp'rate cure.
But if that golden age would come again
And Charles here rule, a... | The Bad Season Makes the Poet Sad | Robert Herrick | 1 | couplet |
epf-001082 | Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.
But is there for the night a resting-place?
A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss that inn.
Shall I m... | Up-Hill | Christina Rossetti | 3 | ballad |
epf-001259 | You say, Columbus with his argosies
Who rash and greedy took the screaming main
And vanished out before the hurricane
Into the sunset after merchandise,
Then under western palms with simple eyes
Trafficked and robbed and triumphed home again:
You say this is the glory of the brain
And human life no other use than this?... | You Say, Columbus with his Argosies | Trumbull Stickney | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001248 | He shudders—feeling on the shaven spot
The probing wind, that stabs him to a thought
Of storm-drenched fields in a white foam of light,
And roads of his hill-town that leap to sight
Like threads of tortured silver. . .while the guards—
Monstrous deft dolls that move as on a string,
In wonted haste to finish with this t... | Electrocution | Lola Ridge | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001234 | XVIII
In Heaven,
Some little blades of grass
Stood before God.
“What did you do?”
Then all save one of the little blades
Began eagerly to relate
The merits of their lives.
This one stayed a small way behind
Ashamed.
Presently God said:
“And what did you do?”
The little blade answered: “Oh, my lord,
“Memory is bitter t... | In Heaven | Stephen Crane | 5 | free verse |
epf-000155 | So oft I invoke thee for my Muse
And found such fair assistance in my verse
As every alien pen hath got my use
And under thee their posey disperse.
Thine eyes that taught the dumb on high to sing
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly
Have added feathers to the learned’s wing
And given grace a double majesty.
Yet be most pro... | So oft I invoke thee for my Muse (Sonnet 78) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000658 | I travelled among unknown men,
In lands beyond the sea;
Nor, England! did I know till then
What love I bore to thee.
'Tis past, that melancholy dream!
Nor will I quit thy shore
A second time; for still I seem
To love thee more and more.
Among thy mountains did I feel
The joy of my desire;
And... | I Travelled among Unknown Men | William Wordsworth | 2 | common measure |
epf-000167 | Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye
And all my soul and all my every part;
And for this sin there is no remedy,
It is so grounded inward in my heart.
Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,
No shape so true, no truth of such account;
And for myself mine own worth do define,
As I all other in all worths surmount.
... | Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye (Sonnet 62) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001159 | Alone it stands in Poesy’s fair land,
A temple by the muses set apart;
A perfect structure of consummate art,
By artists builded and by genius planned.
Beyond the reach of the apprentice hand,
Beyond the ken of the unturtored heart,
Like a fine carving in a common mart,
Only the favored few will understand.... | The Sonnet | Ella Wheeler Wilcox | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001449 | The soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings
With green hath clad the hill and eke the vale;
The nightingale with feathers new she sings;
And turtle to her make hath told her tale.
Summer is come, for every spray now springs;
The hart hath hung his old head on the pale;
The buck in brake his winter coat he flings;... | Sonnet 7 [The soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings] | Henry Howard | 0 | sonnet |
epf-000168 | Is it thy will thy image should keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Dost thou desire my slumber should be broken,
While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?
Is it thy spirit that thou send’st from thee
So far from home into my deeds to pry,
To find out shames and idle hours in me,
The scope and tenour of t... | Is it thy will thy image should keep open (Sonnet 61) | William Shakespeare | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001030 | I scarcely grieve, O Nature! at the lot
That pent my life within a city’s bounds,
And shut me from thy sweetest sights and sounds.
Perhaps I had not learned, if some lone cot
Had nursed a dreamy childhood, what the mart
Taught me amid its turmoil; so my youth
Had missed full many a stern but wholesome truth.
Here, too,... | Sonnet: I Scarcely Grieve | Henry Timrod | 0 | sonnet |
epf-001243 | This is the debt I pay
Just for one riotous day,
Years of regret and grief,
Sorrow without relief.
Pay it I will to the end —
Until the grave, my friend,
Gives me a true release —
Gives me the clasp of peace.
Slight was the thing I bought,
Small was the debt I thought,
Poor was the loan at best —
God! but the interes... | The Debt | Paul Laurence Dunbar | 1 | couplet |
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