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epf-000674
I Ye Clouds! that far above me float and pause, Whose pathless march no mortal may control! Ye Ocean-Waves! that, wheresoe'er ye roll, Yield homage only to eternal laws! Ye Woods! that listen to the night-birds singing, Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined. Save when your own imperious branches swing...
France: An Ode
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
7
ode
epf-001100
Kneel down, fair Love, and fill thyself with tears, Girdle thyself with sighing for a girth Upon the sides of mirth, Cover thy lips and eyelids, let thine ears Be filled with rumour of people sorrowing; Make thee soft raiment out of woven sighs Upon the flesh to cleave, Set pains therein and many a grievous thing, And ...
A Ballad of Death
Algernon Charles Swinburne
3
ballad
epf-001187
Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads! Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut? Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee! He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the path-maker is breaking stones. He is with them in sun and in...
Gitanjali 11
Rabindranath Tagore
9
prose poem
epf-000025
“And if I did, what then? Are you aggriev’d therefore? The sea hath fish for every man, And what would you have more?”    Thus did my mistress once, Amaze my mind with doubt; And popp’d a question for the nonce To beat my brains about.    Whereto I thus replied: “Each fisherman can wish That all the seas at every tid...
And If I Did, What Then?
George Gascoigne
2
common measure
epf-000215
Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend Upon thyself thy beauty’s legacy? Nature’s bequest gives nothing but doth lend, And being frank she lends to those are free. Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse The bounteous largess given thee to give? Profitless usurer, why dost thou use So great a sum of sums, yet c...
Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend (Sonnet 4)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000265
From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty’s rose might never die, But as the riper should by time decease, 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 fo...
Sonnet 1: From fairest creatures we desire increase
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000205
Who will believe my verse in time to come, If it were fill’d with your most high deserts? Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb Which hides your life and shows not half your parts. If I could write the beauty of your eyes And in fresh numbers number all your graces The age to come would say ‘This poet lies; Suc...
Who will believe my verse in time to come (Sonnet 17)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000222
Tired 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 a...
Tired with all these, for restful death I cry (Sonnet 66)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000214
Those hours, that with gentle work did frame The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell, Will play the tyrants to the very same And that unfair which fairly doth excel; For never-resting time leads summer on To hideous winter and confounds him there; Sap check’d with frost and lusty leaves quite gone, Beauty o’ersnow’d...
Those hours, that with gentle work did frame (Sonnet 5)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000369
Can we not force from widow'd poetry, Now thou art dead (great Donne) one elegy To crown thy hearse? Why yet dare we not trust, Though with unkneaded dough-bak'd prose, thy dust, Such as th' unscissor'd churchman from the flower Of fading rhetoric, short-liv'd as his hour, Dry as the sand that measures it, should lay U...
An Elegy upon the Death of the Dean of Paul's, Dr. John Donne
Thomas Carew
1
couplet
epf-000157
Why is my verse so barren of new pride, So far from variation or quick change? Why with the time do I not glance aside To new-found methods and to compounds strange? Why write I still all one, ever the same, And keep invention in a noted weed, That every word doth almost tell my name, Showing their birth and where they...
Why is my verse so barren of new pride (Sonnet 76)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000966
You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it—it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk. But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk. And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the ...
Be Drunk
Charles Baudelaire
9
prose poem
epf-001295
Time sitting on the throne of Memory Bade all her subject Days, the past had known Arise and say what thing gave them renown Unforgetable, ‘Rising from the sea, I gave the Genoese his dream to be;’ ‘I saw the Corsican’s Guards swept down;’ ‘Colonies I made free from a tyrant’s crown;’— So each Day told its immortality....
October XXIX, 1795
William Stanley Braithwaite
0
sonnet
epf-001260
I used to think The mind essential in the body, even As stood the body essential in the mind: Two inseparable things, by nature equal And similar, and in creation’s song Halving the total scale: it is not so. Unlike and cross like driftwood sticks they come Churned in the giddy trough: a chunk of pine, A slab of rosewo...
I Used to Think
Trumbull Stickney
0
sonnet
epf-001207
I am only waiting for love to give myself up at last into his hands. That is why it is so late and why I have been guilty of such omissions. They come with their laws and their codes to bind me fast; but I evade them ever, for I am only waiting for love to give myself up at last into his hands. People blame me and ca...
Gitanjali 17
Rabindranath Tagore
9
prose poem
epf-001104
One, who is not, we see: but one, whom we see not, is: Surely this is not that: but that is assuredly this. What, and wherefore, and whence? for under is over and under: If thunder could be without lightning, lightning could be without thunder. Doubt is faith in the main: but faith, on the whole, is doubt: We cannot ...
The Higher Pantheism in a Nutshell
Algernon Charles Swinburne
1
couplet
epf-001206
Clouds heap upon clouds and it darkens. Ah, love, why dost thou let me wait outside at the door all alone? In the busy moments of the noontide work I am with the crowd, but on this dark lonely day it is only for thee that I hope. If thou showest me not thy face, if thou leavest me wholly aside, I know not how I am to...
Gitanjali 18
Rabindranath Tagore
9
prose poem
epf-000491
Fair tree! for thy delightful shade 'Tis just that some return be made; Sure some return is due from me To thy cool shadows, and to thee. When thou to birds dost shelter give, Thou music dost from them receive; If travellers beneath thee stay Till storms have worn themselves away, That time in praising thee they spend ...
The Tree
Countess of Winchilsea Anne Finch
1
couplet
epf-001087
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves       Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves,       And the mome raths outgrabe. “Beware the Jabberwock, my son!       The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun       The frumious Bandersnatch!” He took his vorpal sword in han...
Jabberwocky
Lewis Carroll
3
ballad
epf-000088
I come no more to make you laugh: things now, That bear a weighty and a serious brow, Sad, high, and working, full of state and woe, Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow, We now present. Those that can pity, here May, if they think it well, let fall a tear; The subject will deserve it. Such as give Their money out...
Henry VIII, Prologue [I come no more to make you laugh]
William Shakespeare
8
dramatic monologue
epf-000234
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste: Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe, An...
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought (Sonnet 30)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000193
Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day And make me travel forth without my cloak, To let base clouds o’ertake me in my way, Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke? ’Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break, To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face, For no man well of such a salve can speak That heals the ...
Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day (Sonnet 34)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000771
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains          My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains          One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,          But being too happy in thine happiness,—                 That thou, light-winged...
Ode to a Nightingale
John Keats
7
ode
epf-000889
We deemed the secret lost, the spirit gone, Which spake in Greek simplicity of thought, And in the forms of gods and heroes wrought Eternal beauty from the sculptured stone,— A higher charm than modern culture won With all the wealth of metaphysic lore, Gifted to analyze, dissect, explore. A many-colored light flows fr...
Flaxman
Margaret Fuller
0
sonnet
epf-001147
Thou two-faced year, Mother of Change and Fate, Didst weep when Spain cast forth with flaming sword, The children of the prophets of the Lord, Prince, priest, and people, spurned by zealot hate. Hounded from sea to sea, from state to state, The West refused them, and the East abhorred. No anchorage the known world coul...
1492
Emma Lazarus
0
sonnet
epf-000465
On her Son H.P. at St. Syth’s Church where her body also lies interred What on Earth deserves our trust? Youth and Beauty both are dust. Long we gathering are with pain, What one moment calls again. Seven years childless marriage past, A Son, a son is born at last: So exactly lim’d and fair, Full of good Spirits, Meen...
Epitaph
Katherine Philips
1
couplet
epf-000593
Chorus Ca' the yowes to the knowes, Ca' them where the heather grows Ca' them where the burnie rows,       My bonie dearie. Hark! the mavis' evening sang Sounding Cluden's woods amang, Then a-fauldin let us gang,       My bonie dearie. We'll gae down by Cluden side, Thro' the hazels spreading wide, O'er the waves tha...
Ca' the Yowes to the Knowes
Robert Burns
3
ballad
epf-000475
from An Evening's Love You charm'd me not with that fair face       Though it was all divine: To be another's is the grace,       That makes me wish you mine.    The Gods and Fortune take their part       Who like young monarchs fight; And boldly dare invade that heart       Which is another's right.    First mad wi...
Song: “You charm'd me not with that fair face”
John Dryden
2
common measure
epf-000476
from An Evening's Love Calm was the even, and clear was the sky,       And the new budding flowers did spring, When all alone went Amyntas and I       To hear the sweet nightingale sing; I sate, and he laid him down by me;       But scarcely his breath he could draw; For when with a fear, he began to draw near,       ...
Song: Calm was the even, and clear was the sky
John Dryden
2
common measure
epf-001195
I ask for a moment’s indulgence to sit by thy side. The works that I have in hand I will finish afterwards. Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite, and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil. To-day the summer has come at my window with its sighs and murmurs; and the be...
Gitanjali 5
Rabindranath Tagore
9
prose poem
epf-000603
Evening! as slow thy placid shades descend,       Veiling with gentlest hush the landscape still,       The lonely battlement, the farthest hill And wood, I think of those who have no friend; Who now, perhaps, by melancholy led,       From the broad blaze of day, where pleasure flaunts,       Retiring, wander to the ri...
Evening
William Lisle Bowles
0
sonnet
epf-000021
Ah, silly Pug, wert thou so sore afraid? Mourn not, my Wat, nor be thou so dismayed. It passeth fickle Fortune’s power and skill To force my heart to think thee any ill. No Fortune base, thou sayest, shall alter thee? And may so blind a witch so conquer me? No, no, my Pug, though Fortune were not blind, Assure thyself ...
Ah, Silly Pug, wert thou so Sore Afraid
Queen Elizabeth I
1
couplet
epf-000576
Twas on a Holy Thursday their innocent faces clean  The children walking two & two in red & blue & green  Grey-headed beadles walkd before with wands as white as snow, Till into the high dome of Pauls they like Thames waters flow  O what a multitude they seemd these flowers of London town  Seated in companies they sit...
Holy Thursday: 'Twas on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean
William Blake
1
couplet
epf-001095
Blow back the breath of the bird,     Scatter the song through the air, There was music you never heard,     And cannot hear anywhere.   It was not the sob of the vain     In the old, old dark so sweet, (I shall never hear it again,)     Nor the coming of fairy feet.   It was music and music alone,     Not a...
The Old Slave-Music
Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt
12
quatrain
epf-000492
Now hardly here and there a hackney-coach Appearing, show'd the ruddy morn's approach. Now Betty from her master's bed had flown, And softly stole to discompose her own. The slip-shod 'prentice from his master's door Had par'd the dirt, and sprinkled round the floor. Now Moll had whirl'd her mop with dext'rous airs, Pr...
A Description of the Morning
Jonathan Swift
1
couplet
epf-000481
translated from the Japanese by William George Aston The cry of the cicada Gives us no sign That presently it will die.
[The cry of the cicada]
Matsuo Bashō
11
haiku
epf-000560
written in the churchyard at Middleton in Sussex Press’d by the Moon, mute arbitress of tides,     While the loud equinox its pow’r combines,     The sea no more its swelling surge confines, But o’er the shrinking land sublimely rides. The wild blasts, rising from the Western cave,     Drives the huge billows from the...
Sonnet XLIV
Charlotte Smith
0
sonnet
epf-001175
These are the letters which Endymion wrote     To one he loved in secret, and apart.     And now the brawlers of the auction mart Bargain and bid for each poor blotted note, Ay! for each separate pulse of passion quote     The merchant’s price. I think they love not art     Who break the crystal of a poet’s heart That ...
On the Sale By Auction of Keats' Love Letters
Oscar Wilde
0
sonnet
epf-000071
Cassius speaks to Brutus I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus, As well as I do know your outward favor. Well, honor is the subject of my story. I cannot tell what you and other men Think of this life; but, for my single self, I had as lief not be as live to be In awe of such a thing as I myself. I was born free as ...
Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene II [I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus]
William Shakespeare
8
dramatic monologue
epf-000803
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 ...
The Face of All the World (Sonnet 7)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
0
sonnet
epf-000423
Proem. Although great Queen, thou now in silence lie, Yet thy loud Herald Fame, doth to the sky Thy wondrous worth proclaim, in every clime, And so has vow’d, whilst there is world or time. So great’s thy glory, and thine excellence, The sound thereof raps every human sense That men account it no impiety To say thou we...
In Honour of that High and Mighty Princess, Queen Elizabeth
Anne Bradstreet
1
couplet
epf-001448
I 'The wind doth blow today, my love, And a few small drops of rain; I never had but one true-love; In cold grave she was lain. II 'I'll do as much for my true-love As any young man may; I'll sit and mourn all at her grave For a twelvemonth and a day.' III The twelvemonth and a day being up, The dead beg...
The Unquiet Grave
Anonymous
3
ballad
epf-000877
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more.          Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the underworld, S...
from The Princess: Tears, Idle Tears
Lord Tennyson Alfred
6
blank verse
epf-000056
Muses that sing love's sensual empery, And lovers kindling your enraged fires At Cupid's bonfires burning in the eye, Blown with the empty breath of vain desires; You that prefer the painted cabinet Before the wealthy jewels it doth store ye, That all your joys in dying figures set, And stain the living substance of yo...
A Coronet for his Mistress, Philosophy
George Chapman
0
sonnet
epf-001369
Gazing upon him now, severe and dead, It seemed a curious thing that she had lain Beside him many a night in that cold bed, And that had been which would not be again. From his desirous body the great heat Was gone at last, it seemed, and the taut nerves Loosened forever. Formally the sheet Set forth for her to-day tho...
Sonnet from an Ungrafted Tree, XVII
Edna St. Vincent Millay
0
sonnet
epf-001005
Along the garden terrace, under which A purple valley (lighted at its edge By smoky torch-flame on the long cloud-ledge Whereunder dropped the chariot), glimmers rich, A quiet company we pace, and wait The dinner-bell in prae-digestive calm. So sweet up violet banks the Southern balm Breathes round, we care not if the ...
Modern Love: XXXVII
George Meredith
0
sonnet
epf-000995
It was biting cold, and the falling snow, Which filled a poor little match girl’s heart with woe, Who was bareheaded and barefooted, as she went along the street, Crying, “Who’ll buy my matches? for I want pennies to buy some meat!” When she left home she had slippers on; But, alas! poor child, now they were gone. For...
The Little Match Girl
Knight of the White Elephant of Burmah William McGonagall
1
couplet
epf-000418
Know you fair, on what you look; Divinest love lies in this book, Expecting fire from your eyes, To kindle this his sacrifice. When your hands untie these strings, Think you’have an angel by th’ wings. One that gladly will be nigh, To wait upon each morning sigh. To flutter in the balmy air Of your well-perfumed prayer...
On Mr. G. Herbert's Book
Richard Crashaw
1
couplet
epf-000986
A Story of Holland The good dame looked from her cottage       At the close of the pleasant day, And cheerily called to her little son       Outside the door at play: “Come, Peter, come! I want you to go,       While there is light to see, To the hut of the blind old man who lives       Across the dike, for me; And ta...
A Leak in the Dike
Phoebe Cary
3
ballad
epf-001334
At evening, sitting on this terrace, When the sun from the west, beyond Pisa, beyond the mountains of Carrara Departs, and the world is taken by surprise ... When the tired flower of Florence is in gloom beneath the glowing Brown hills surrounding ... When under the arches of the Ponte Vecchio A green light enters ag...
Bat
D. H. Lawrence
5
free verse
epf-000457
Hark how the Mower Damon sung, With love of Juliana stung! While everything did seem to paint The scene more fit for his complaint. Like her fair eyes the day was fair, But scorching like his am’rous care. Sharp like his scythe his sorrow was, And withered like his hopes the grass. ‘Oh what unusual heats are here, Whi...
Damon the Mower
Andrew Marvell
10
pastoral
epf-000610
All the time I pray to Buddha I keep on     killing mosquitoes.
[all the time I pray to Buddha]
Kobayashi Issa
11
haiku
epf-000137
The forward violet thus did I chide: Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells, If not from my love’s breath? The purple pride Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells In my love’s veins thou hast too grossly dyed. The lily I condemned for thy hand, And buds of marjoram had stol’n thy hair: The ro...
The forward violet thus did I chide: (Sonnet 99)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000184
When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see, For all the day they view things unrespected; But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee, And darkly bright are bright in dark directed. Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright, How would thy shadow’s form form happy show To the clear day with thy much clearer l...
When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see (Sonnet 43)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000824
In the long, sleepless watches of the night,    A gentle face — the face of one long dead —    Looks at me from the wall, where round its head    The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light. Here in this room she died; and soul more white    Never through martyrdom of fire was led    To its repose; nor can in books be re...
The Cross of Snow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
0
sonnet
epf-000534
I.1.          Awake, Æolian lyre, awake, And give to rapture all thy trembling strings. From Helicon's harmonious springs A thousand rills their mazy progress take: The laughing flowers, that round them blow, Drink life and fragrance as they flow. Now the rich stream of music winds along Deep, majestic, smooth, and str...
The Progress of Poesy: A Pindaric Ode
Thomas Gray
7
ode
epf-001015
Distraction is the panacea, Sir! I hear my oracle of Medicine say. Doctor! that same specific yesterday I tried, and the result will not deter A second trial. Is the devil’s line Of golden hair, or raven black, composed? And does a cheek, like any sea-shell rosed, Or clear as widowed sky, seem most divine? No matter, s...
Modern Love: XXVII
George Meredith
0
sonnet
epf-001148
I see it as it looked one afternoon In August,— by a fresh soft breeze o’erblown. The swiftness of the tide, the light thereon, A far-off sail, white as a crescent moon. The shining waters with pale currents strewn, The quiet fishing-smacks, the Eastern cove, The semi-circle of its dark, green grove. The luminous grass...
Long Island Sound
Emma Lazarus
0
sonnet
epf-001283
Oblong, its jutted ends rounding into circles, The old sunken basin lies with its flat, marble lip An inch below the terrace tiles. Over the stagnant water Slide reflections: The blue-green of coned yews; The purple and red of trailing fuchsias Dripping out of marble urns; Bright squares of sky Ribbed by the wake of a ...
The Broken Fountain
Amy Lowell
5
free verse
epf-001284
I I wandered through a house of many rooms. It grew darker and darker, Until, at last, I could only find my way By passing my fingers along the wall. Suddenly my hand shot through an open window, And the thorn of a rose I could not see Pricked it so sharply That I cried aloud.       II I dug a grave under an oak-tree. ...
Dreams in War Time
Amy Lowell
5
free verse
epf-000984
Strew on her roses, roses, And never a spray of yew! In quiet she reposes; Ah, would that I did too! Her mirth the world required; She bathed it in smiles of glee. But her heart was tired, tired, And now they let her be. Her life was turning, turning, In mazes of heat and sound. But for peace her ...
Requiescat
Matthew Arnold
4
elegy
epf-000964
I am weary of the working,    Weary of the long day’s heat; To thy comfortable bosom,    Wilt thou take me, spirit sweet? Weary of the long, blind struggle    For a pathway bright and high,— Weary of the dimly dying    Hopes that never quite all die. Weary searching a bad cipher    For a good that must be meant; Disc...
To Solitude
Alice Cary
7
ode
epf-000487
An ancient pond! With a sound from the water Of the frog as it plunges in.
[An ancient pond!]
Matsuo Bashō
11
haiku
epf-001299
In the cold I will rise, I will bathe In waters of ice; myself Will shiver, and shrive myself, Alone in the dawn, and anoint Forehead and feet and hands; I will shutter the windows from light, I will place in their sockets the four Tall candles and set them a-flame In the grey of the dawn; and myself Will lay myself st...
The Lonely Death
Adelaide Crapsey
5
free verse
epf-000322
No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace          As I have seen in one autumnal face. Young beauties force our love, and that's a rape,          This doth but counsel, yet you cannot scape. If 'twere a shame to love, here 'twere no shame;          Affection here takes reverence's name. Were her first years the gold...
Elegy IX: The Autumnal
John Donne
4
elegy
epf-000233
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 ruined 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...
That time of year thou mayst in me behold (Sonnet 73)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000029
Most glorious Lord of life, that on this day, Didst make thy triumph over death and sin: And having harrow'd hell, didst bring away Captivity thence captive, us to win: This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin, And grant that we for whom thou diddest die, Being with thy dear blood clean wash'd from sin, May live for ...
Amoretti LXVIII: Most Glorious Lord of Life
Edmund Spenser
0
sonnet
epf-000200
Mine eye hath play’d the painter and hath stell’d Thy beauty’s form in table of my heart; My body is the frame wherein ’tis held, And perspective it is best painter’s art. For through the painter must you see his skill, To find where your true image pictured lies; Which in my bosom’s shop is hanging still, That hath hi...
Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd (Sonnet 24)
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-000989
A Story of Holland The good dame looked from her cottage       At the close of the pleasant day, And cheerily called to her little son       Outside the door at play: “Come, Peter, come! I want you to go,       While there is light to see, To the hut of the blind old man who lives       Across the dike, for me; And ta...
A Leak in the Dike
Phoebe Cary
2
common measure
epf-000996
All hail to the Rev. George Gilfillan of Dundee, He is the greatest preacher I did ever hear or see. He is a man of genius bright, And in him his congregation does delight, Because they find him to be honest and plain, Affable in temper, and seldom known to complain. He preaches in a plain straightforward way, The peop...
An Address to the Rev. George Gilfillan
Knight of the White Elephant of Burmah William McGonagall
1
couplet
epf-001403
Whyfore must minstrels unattended sing And utter sounds by no one understood? The shy doves coo their music to the wood And wild—as soon responsive echoes sing: Perfuméd flowers impetuously will fling Such exhalations like to harmony; The moaning waves, the blood-red clouds on high, In our soul’s sympathy are wantoning...
Sonnet [Whyfore must minstrels unattended sing]
Luis G. Dato
0
sonnet
epf-001133
I remember a house where all were good    To me, God knows, deserving no such thing:    Comforting smell breathed at very entering, Fetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet wood. That cordial air made those kind people a hood    All over, as a bevy of eggs the mothering wing    Will, or mild nights the new morsels o...
In the Valley of the Elwy
Gerard Manley Hopkins
0
sonnet
epf-001263
Goaded and harassed in the factory    That tears our life up into bits of days    Ticked off upon a clock which never stays, Shredding our portion of Eternity, We break away at last, and steal the key    Which hides a world empty of hours; ways    Of space unroll, and Heaven overlays The leafy, sun-lit earth of Fantasy...
The Matrix
Amy Lowell
0
sonnet
epf-000929
I have no Brother,—they who meet me now Offer a hand with their own wills defiled, And, while they wear a smooth unwrinkled brow, Know not that Truth can never be beguiled; Go wash the hand that still betrays thy guilt; Before the spirit’s gaze what stain can hide? Abel’s red blood upon the earth is spilt, And by thy t...
Thy Brother’s Blood
Jones Very
0
sonnet
epf-000675
Late, late yestreen I saw the new Moon, With the old Moon in her arms; And I fear, I fear, my Master dear! We shall have a deadly storm. (Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence) I Well! If the Bard was weather-wise, who made        The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence,        This night, so tranquil now, will not go henc...
Dejection: An Ode
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
7
ode
epf-000268
Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan For that deep wound it gives my friend and me: Is’t not enough to torture me alone, But slave to slavery my sweet’st friend must be? Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken, And my next self thou harder hast engrossed; Of him, myself, and thee I am forsaken, A torment thr...
Sonnet 133: Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan
William Shakespeare
0
sonnet
epf-001074
“Faith” is a fine invention For Gentlemen who see! But Microscopes are prudent In an Emergency!
“Faith” is a fine invention (202)
Emily Dickinson
2
common measure
epf-000273
(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
8
dramatic monologue
epf-001028
By this he knew she wept with waking eyes: That, at his hand's light quiver by her head, The strange low sobs that shook their common bed Were called into her with a sharp surprise, And strangled mute, like little gaping snakes, Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay Stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away With muf...
Modern Love: I
George Meredith
0
sonnet
epf-000027
This holy season, fit to fast and pray, Men to devotion ought to be inclin'd: Therefore I likewise on so holy day, For my sweet saint some service fit will find. Her temple fair is built within my mind, In which her glorious image placed is, On which my thoughts do day and night attend, Like sacred priests that never t...
Amoretti XXII: This Holy Season
Edmund Spenser
0
sonnet
epf-001046
Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been; I am also call'd No-more, Too-late, Farewell; Unto thine ear I hold the dead-sea shell Cast up thy Life's foam-fretted feet between; Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seen Which had Life's form and Love's, but by my spell Is now a shaken shadow into...
The House of Life: 97. A Superscription
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
0
sonnet
epf-000302
Show me dear Christ, thy spouse so bright and clear. What! is it she which on the other shore Goes richly painted? or which, robb'd and tore, Laments and mourns in Germany and here? Sleeps she a thousand, then peeps up one year? Is she self-truth, and errs? now new, now outwore? Doth she, and did she, and shall she eve...
Holy Sonnets: Show me dear Christ, thy spouse so bright and clear
John Donne
0
sonnet
epf-000069
Brutus speaks It must be by his death. And for my part I know no personal cause to spurn at him, But for the general. He would be crowned: How that might change his nature, there’s the question. It is the bright day that brings forth the adder, And that craves wary walking. Crown him that, And then I grant we put a st...
Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene I [It must be by his death. And for my part]
William Shakespeare
8
dramatic monologue
epf-000544
(excerpt) Thou know’st my praise of nature most sincere, And that my raptures are not conjur’d up To serve occasions of poetic pomp, But genuine, and art partner of them all. How oft upon yon eminence our pace Has slacken’d to a pause, and we have borne The ruffling wind, scarce conscious that it blew, While admiratio...
from The Task, Book I: The Sofa
William Cowper
6
blank verse
epf-000766
A Poetic Romance (excerpt) BOOK I A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing A flowery band to bind us to t...
from Endymion
John Keats
1
couplet
epf-001239
Seven dog-days we let pass Naming Queens in Glenmacnass, All the rare and royal names Wormy sheepskin yet retains, Etain, Helen, Maeve, and Fand, Golden Deirdre's tender hand, Bert, the big-foot, sung by Villon, Cassandra, Ronsard found in Lyon. Queens of Sheba, Meath and Connaught, Coifed with crown, or gaudy bonnet, ...
Queens
J. M. Synge
1
couplet
epf-000561
Reflections on Some Drawings of Plants I can in groups these mimic flowers compose,   These bells and golden eyes, embathed in dew; Catch the soft blush that warms the early Rose,   Or the pale Iris cloud with veins of blue; Copy the scallop’d leaves, and downy stems,   And bid the pencil’s varied shades arrest Spring...
Sonnet XCI [I can in groups these mimic flowers compose]
Charlotte Smith
0
sonnet
epf-000390
Hence vain deluding Joys,       The brood of Folly without father bred, How little you bested,       Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys; Dwell in some idle brain,       And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess, As thick and numberless       As the gay motes that people the sunbeams, Or likest hovering dreams, ...
Il Penseroso
John Milton
1
couplet
epf-001289
The faint shadow of the morning moon? Nay, the snow falling on the earth. The mist of blossoming flowers? Nay, poetry smiling up the sky.
[The faint shadow of the morning moon?]
Yone Noguchi
11
haiku
epf-000965
Or the true feelings of those slaves who say they   would not be free. The following shows their               feelings when they are free.    Air—“Pop Goes the Weasel” Old master always said,    Jack will never leave me: He has a noble head,    He will not deceive me. I will treat him every day    Kindly and clever, T...
“No, Master, Never!”
Joshua McCarter Simpson
8
dramatic monologue
epf-000741
The rolls and harrows lie at rest beside The battered road; and spreading far and wide Above the russet clods, the corn is seen Sprouting its spiry points of tender green, Where squats the hare, to terrors wide awake, Like some brown clod the harrows failed to break. Opening their golden caskets to the sun, The butterc...
The Skylark
John Clare
1
couplet
epf-000330
Here lies, to each her parents’ ruth, Mary, the daughter of their youth; Yet all heaven’s gifts being heaven’s due, It makes the father less to rue. At six months’ end she parted hence With safety of her innocence; Whose soul heaven’s queen, whose name she bears, In comfort of her mother’s tears, Hath placed amongst he...
On My First Daughter
Ben Jonson
1
couplet
epf-000573
O thou bright jewel in my aim I strive To comprehend thee. Thine own words declare Wisdom is higher than a fool can reach. I cease to wonder, and no more attempt Thine height t’explore, or fathom thy profound. But, O my soul, sink not into despair, Virtue is near thee, and with gentle hand Would now embrace thee, hover...
On Virtue
Phillis Wheatley
6
blank verse
epf-000764
Old Meg she was a Gipsy,        And liv'd upon the Moors: Her bed it was the brown heath turf,        And her house was out of doors. Her apples were swart blackberries,        Her currants pods o' broom; Her wine was dew of the wild white rose,        Her book a churchyard tomb. Her Brothers were the craggy hills,  ...
Meg Merrilies
John Keats
3
ballad
epf-000841
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
1
couplet
epf-000736
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
2
common measure
epf-001344
Hand trembling towards hand; the amazing lights Of heart and eye. They stood on supreme heights. Ah, the delirious weeks of honeymoon! Soon they returned, and, after strange adventures, Settled at Balham by the end of June. Their money was in Can. Pacs. B. Debentures, And in Antofagastas. Still he went Cityward daily;...
Sonnet Reversed
Rupert Brooke
0
sonnet
epf-000649
There was a Boy; ye knew him well, ye cliffs And islands of Winander! many a time, At evening, when the earliest stars began To move along the edges of the hills, Rising or setting, would he stand alone, Beneath the trees, or by the glimmering lake; And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands Pressed closely palm to...
There was a Boy
William Wordsworth
6
blank verse
epf-001338
Christ was your lord and captain all your life, He fails the world but you he did not fail, He led you through all forms of grief and strife Intact, a man full-armed, he let prevail Nor outward malice nor the worse-fanged snake That coils in one’s own brain against your calm, That great rich jewel well guarded for his ...
To his Father
Robinson Jeffers
0
sonnet
epf-000436
Where the remote Bermudas ride In th’ ocean’s bosom unespy’d, From a small boat, that row’d along, The list’ning winds receiv’d this song. What should we do but sing his praise That led us through the wat’ry maze Unto an isle so long unknown, And yet far kinder than our own? Where he the huge sea-monsters wracks,...
Bermudas
Andrew Marvell
1
couplet