Poetry Gutenberg

Hermann and Dorothea is an epic poem, an idyll, written by German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe between 1796 and 1797, and was to some extent suggested byJohann Heinrich Voss's Luise, an idyll in hexameters, which was first published in 1782-84. Goethe's work is set around 1792 at the beginning of the French Revolutionary Wars, when French...

Three Unpublished Poems includes three poems: A little grey curl To papa In memoriam

Amores, a book of poetry by D. H. Lawrence.

Lawrence’s Tortoises poems were first published as a group in New York in 1921, then included in the First English edition of Birds, Beasts and Flowers in 1923. This lovely Cheloniidae Press edition, edged in vellum over handmade paper-covered boards, is illustrated with eight wood engravings by Alan James Robinson. Number 71 of 200 copies signed by the artist on the colophon page, it is in...

New Poems - Poems by D. H. Lawrence, first published in October, 1918 and New Edition (Reset) in August, 1919.

The Rape of Lucrece (1594) is a narrative poem by William Shakespeare about the legendary Lucretia. In his previous narrative poem,Venus and Adonis (1593), Shakespeare had included a dedicatory letter to his patron, the Earl of Southampton, in which he promised to write a "graver work". Accordingly, The Rape of Lucrece lacks the humorous tone of...

Look! We Have Come Through! was first published in the United Kingdom in 1917 by Chatto and Windus, London; a US edition based on sheets from the Chatto edition was issued by B.W. Huebsch, New York, in 1918. A second, illustrated edition was issued by the Ark Press, Cornwall, in 1958, and this was in turn reissued in the USA in 1959 by The Rare Books Collection of the...

Venus and Adonis is a poem by William Shakespeare, written in 1592–1593, with a plot based on passages from Ovid's Metamorphoses. It is a complex, kaleidoscopic work, using constantly shifting tone and perspective to present contrasting views of the nature of love.  As Adonis is preparing to go hunting, Venus "seizeth on his sweating...

Bay - A book of poems by D. H. Lawrence. "WHERE the trees rise like cliffs, proud and blue-tinted in the distance, Between the cliffs of the trees, on the grey-green park Rests a still line of soldiers, red motionless range of guards Smouldering with darkened busbies beneath the bay-onets' slant rain. Colossal in nearness a blue police sits still on his horse Guarding the path;...

"A Lover's Complaint" is a narrative poem published as an appendix to the original edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets. It is given the title "A Lover's Complaint" in the book, which was published by Thomas Thorpe in 1609.  Although published as Shakespeare's work, the poem's authorship has become a matter of critical debate. The majority opinion is that it is by...

The Barrack-Room Ballads is the collective name given to a series of songs and poems by Rudyard Kipling, dealing with the late-Victorian British Army and mostly written in a vernacular dialect. The series contains some of Kipling's most well-known work, including the poems "Gunga Din", "Tommy" and "Danny Deever", and helped consolidate his early fame as a poet. The first poems were published in...

The Phoenix and the Turtle is an allegorical poem about the death of ideal love by William Shakespeare. It is widely considered to be one of his most obscure works and has led to many conflicting interpretations. It has also been called "the first great publishedmetaphysical poem". The title "The Phoenix and the Turtle" is a conventional label. As published, the poem was untitled....

A Song of the English was collected in The Seven Seas, published simultaneously in London and the USA on 30 October 1896: London, Methuen & Co. New York, D. Appleton & Co.(In 1892/3, Kipling had instructed Appleton & Co to use English spelling for any of his work that they published.) A separate edition of the poem, including the six subsidiary poems, was published by Hodder and...

The Ballad of Reading Gaol is a poem by Oscar Wilde, written in exile either in Berneval-le-Grand or in Dieppe, France, after his release from Reading Gaol (pronounced "redding jail") on 19 May 1897. Wilde had been incarcerated in Reading, after being convicted of homosexual offences in 1895 and sentenced to two years' hard labour in prison.  During...

Marmion is an epic poem by Walter Scott about the Battle of Flodden (1513). It was published in 1808. Scott started writing Marmion, his second major work, in November 1806. When Archibald Constable, the publisher, learnt of this, he offered a thousand guineas for the copyright unseen. William Miller and John Murray each agreed to take a 25% share in the project. Murray observed: "We both view...

Wilde’s Poems, a selection of which is given in this volume, were first published in volume form in 1881, and were reprinted four times before the end of 1882.  A new Edition with additional poems, including Ravenna, The Sphinx, and The Ballad of Reading Goal, was first published (limited issues on hand-made paper and Japanese...

The Years Between, a collection of poems written during the period from just after the Boer War till the aftermath of World War I, was originally published in 1919. It was the first volume of new poems by Kipling published since "The Five Nations" in 1903; including the first book appearance of Kipling's celebrated "The Female of the Species," with its awed refrain "The female of the species is...

Also known as the "Roman Elegies," Erotica Romana is von Goethe's literary tribute to human sexuality and eroticism. Written in 24 elegies to emulate classical Roman elegy writers such as Tibullus, Propertius, and Catullus, von Goethe creates a lyrical work of art that has often been subject to censorship. 

The Seven Seas is a book of poetry by Rudyard Kipling published 1896. Poems include The Lost Legion.