DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Farewell
by John Kendall (Dum-Dum)

'Farewell. What a subject! How sweet
It looks to the careless observer!
So simple; so easy to treat
With tenderness, mark you, and fervour.
Farewell. It's a poem; the song
Of nightingales crying and calling!'
O Reader, you're utterly wrong.
It's not. It's appalling!
And yet when she asked me to send
Some trifle of verse to remind her
Of days that had come to an end,
And one she was leaving behind her,
It looked, as we stood on the shore,
A theme so entirely delightsome
That I, like a lunatic, swore
(Quite calmly) to write some.
I've toiled with unwavering pluck;
I've struggled if ever a man did;
Infringed every postulate, stuck
At nothing, - nay, once, to be candid,
I shifted the cadence - designed
A fresh but unauthorised fare-well;
'Twas plausible, too, but I find
The thing doesn't wear well.
I know that it shouldn't be hard;
That dozens, who claim to be poets,
Could scribble off stuff by the yard
And fare very well; and I know it's
A theme that the Masters of Rhyme
Have written some excellent verse on,
Which proves, as I take it, that I'm
Not that sort of person.
But that we can leave. It remains
To state that my present appearance
Is something too awful, my brains
Are tending to wild incoherence;
My mental condition's absurd;
My thoughts are at sixes and sevens,
Inextrica - lord! what a word!
Inextri - good heavens!
My dear, you can do what you like, - 
Forgive, or despise, or abuse me - 
But frankly, I'm going on strike,
And really you'll have to excuse me.
Indeed it's my only resource,
For, sure as I stuck to my promise, I'd
Be booked in a week for a course
Of sui-cum-homicide.
Aedh Gives His Beloved Certain Rhymes
by William Butler Yeats

Fasten your hair with a golden pin,
And bind up every wandering tress;
I bade my heart build these poor rhymes:
It worked at them, day out, day in,
Building a sorrowful loveliness
Out of the battles of old times.
You need but lift a pearl-pale hand,
And bind up your long hair and sigh;
And all men's hearts must burn and beat;
And candle-like foam on the dim sand,
And stars climbing the dew-dropping sky,
Live but to light your passing feet.
Nursery Rhyme. CCLXXII. Gaffers And Gammers.
by Unknown

Father Short came down the lane,
Oh! I'm obliged to hammer and smite
From four in the morning till eight at night,
For a bad master, and a worse dame.
Sonnet CCXXIII.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Qual donna attende a gloriosa fama.
THE EYES OF LAURA ARE THE SCHOOL OF VIRTUE.
Feels any fair the glorious wish to gain
Of sense, of worth, of courtesy, the praise?
On those bright eyes attentive let her gaze
Of her miscall'd my love, but sure my foe.
Honour to gain, with love of God to glow,
Virtue more bright how native grace displays,
May there be learn'd; and by what surest ways
To heaven, that for her coming pants, to go.
The converse sweet, beyond what poets write,
Is there; the winning silence, and the meek
And saint-like manners man would paint in vain.
The matchless beauty, dazzling to the sight,
Can ne'er be learn'd; for bootless 'twere to seek
By art, what by kind chance alone we gain.
ANON., OX., 1795.
Sleep On!
by William Schwenck Gilbert

Fear no unlicensed entry,
Heed no bombastic talk,
While guards the British Sentry
Pall Mall and Birdcage Walk.
Let European thunders
Occasion no alarms,
Though diplomatic blunders
May cause a cry "To arms!"
Sleep on, ye pale civilians;
All thunder-clouds defy:
On Europe's countless millions
The Sentry keeps his eye!
Should foreign-born rapscallions
In London dare to show
Their overgrown battalions,
Be sure I'll let you know.
Should Russians or Norwegians
Pollute our favoured clime
With rough barbaric legions,
I'll mention it in time.
So sleep in peace, civilians,
The Continent defy;
While on its countless millions
The Sentry keeps his eye !
Fickle Summer
by Robert Fuller Murray

Fickle Summer's fled away,
Shall we see her face again?
Hearken to the weeping rain,
Never sunbeam greets the day.
More inconstant than the May,
She cares nothing for our pain,
Nor will hear the birds complain
In their bowers that once were gay.
Summer, Summer, come once more,
Drive the shadows from the field,
All thy radiance round thee fling,
Be our lady as of yore;
Then the earth her fruits shall yield,
Then the morning stars shall sing.
Secrecy Protested.
by Thomas Carew

Fear not, dear love, that I'll reveal
Those hours of pleasure we two steal;
No eye shall see, nor yet the sun
Descry, what thou and I have done.
No ear shall hear our love, but we
Silent as the night will be;
The god of love himself (whose dart
Did first wound mine and then thy heart),
Shall never know that we can tell
What sweets in stol'n embraces dwell.
This only means may find it out;
If, when I die, physicians doubt
What caused my death, and there to view
Of all their judgements which was true,
Rip up my heart, oh! then, I fear,
The world will see thy picture there.
Daniel Defoe
by Walter Savage Landor

Few will acknowledge what they owe
To persecuted, brave Defoe.
Achilles, in Homeric song,
May, or he may not, live so long
As Crusoe; few their strength had tried
Without so staunch and safe a guide.
What boy is there who never laid
Under his pillow, half afraid,
That precious volume, lest the morrow
For unlearnt lessons might bring sorrow?
But nobler lessons he has taught
Wide-awake scholars who fear'd naught:
A Rodney and a Nelson may
Without him not have won the day.
John D. Rockefeller
by Oliver Herford

Few faces interest me less
Than Rockefeller's, I confess.
'Twould vastly better suit my whim
To draw his bank account, than him.
Grumbo Gigas.
by Jacob Bigelow

Fee! faw! fum!
I smell the blood of an Englishman.
Dead or alive, I will have some.
Fe! fau! fum!
Sanguinem odoror Anglicum.
Seu vivum seu mortuum,
Bibendum est mihi aliquantum.
The Fly & The Humble Bee
by Walter Crane

Fiddle-de-dee, Fiddle-de-dee,
The fly has married the humble bee.
Says the fly, says he,
"Will you marry me,
And live with me,
Sweet humble bee?"
Says the bee, says she,
"I'll live under your wing,
"And you'll never know
"That I carry a sting."
Fiddle-de-dee, &c.
So when the parson
Had joined the pair,
They both went out
To take the air,
Fiddle-de-dee, &c.
And the flies did buzz,
And the bells did ring--
Did ever you hear
So merry a thing?
Fiddle-de-dee, &c.
And then to think
That of all the flies
The humble bee
Should carry the prize.
Fiddle-de-dee, &c.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part II. - XLII - Gunpowder Plot
by William Wordsworth

Fear hath a hundred eyes that all agree
To plague her beating heart; and there is one
(Nor idlest that!) which holds communion
With things that were not, yet were 'meant' to be.
Aghast within its gloomy cavity
That eye (which sees as if fulfilled and done
Crimes that might stop the motion of the sun)
Beholds the horrible catastrophe
Of an assembled Senate unredeemed
From subterraneous Treason's darkling power:
Merciless act of sorrow infinite!
Worse than the product of that dismal night,
When gushing, copious as a thunder-shower,
The blood of Huguenots through Paris streamed.
Lovely Dames
by William Henry Davies

Few are my books, but my small few have told
Of many a lovely dame that lived of old;
And they have made me see those fatal charms
Of Helen, which brought Troy so many harms;
And lovely Venus, when she stood so white
Close to her husband's forge in its red light.
I have seen Dian's beauty in my dreams,
When she had trained her looks in all the streams
She crossed to Latmos and Endymion;
And Cleopatra's eyes, that hour they shone
The brighter for a pearl she drank to prove
How poor it was compared to her rich love:
But when I look on thee, love, thou dost give
Substance to those fine ghosts, and make them live.
Fear
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Fear is the twin of Faith's sworn foe, Distrust.
If one breaks in your heart the other must.
Fear is the open enemy of Good.
It means the God in man misunderstood.
Who walks with Fear adown life's road will meet
His boon companions, Failure and Defeat.
But look the bully boldly in the eyes,
With mien undaunted, and he turns and flies.
Lines Traced Under An Image Of Amor Threatening
by Herman Melville

Fear me, virgin whosoever
Taking pride from love exempt,
Fear me, slighted. Never, never
Brave me, nor my fury tempt:
Downy wings, but wroth they beat
Tempest even in reason's seat.
To A Youthful Friend.
by George Gordon Byron

1.
Few years have pass'd since thou and I
Were firmest friends, at least in name,
And Childhood's gay sincerity
Preserved our feelings long the same. 
2.
But now, like me, too well thou know'st 
What trifles oft the heart recall;
And those who once have loved the most
Too soon forget they lov'd at all. 
3.
And such the change the heart displays,
So frail is early friendship's reign, 
A month's brief lapse, perhaps a day's,
Will view thy mind estrang'd again.
4.
If so, it never shall be mine
To mourn the loss of such a heart;
The fault was Nature's fault, not thine,
Which made thee fickle as thou art.
5.
As rolls the Ocean's changing tide,
So human feelings ebb and flow;
And who would in a breast confide
Where stormy passions ever glow?
6.
It boots not that, together bred,
Our childish days were days of joy:
My spring of life has quickly fled;
Thou, too, hast ceas'd to be a boy.
7.
And when we bid adieu to youth,
Slaves to the specious World's controul,
We sigh a long farewell to truth;
That World corrupts the noblest soul.
8.
Ah, joyous season! when the mind [1]
Dares all things boldly but to lie;
When Thought ere spoke is unconfin'd,
And sparkles in the placid eye.
9.
Not so in Man's maturer years,
When Man himself is but a tool;
When Interest sways our hopes and fears,
And all must love and hate by rule.
10.
With fools in kindred vice the same, 
We learn at length our faults to blend;
And those, and those alone, may claim
The prostituted name of friend.
11.
Such is the common lot of man:
Can we then 'scape from folly free?
Can we reverse the general plan,
Nor be what all in turn must be?
12.
No; for myself, so dark my fate
Through every turn of life hath been;
Man and the World so much I hate,
I care not when I quit the scene.
13.
But thou, with spirit frail and light,
Wilt shine awhile, and pass away;
As glow-worms sparkle through the night,
But dare not stand the test of day.
14.
Alas! whenever Folly calls
Where parasites and princes meet,
(For cherish'd first in royal halls,
The welcome vices kindly greet,)
15.
Ev'n now thou'rt nightly seen to add
One insect to the fluttering crowd;
And still thy trifling heart is glad
To join the vain and court the proud.
16.
There dost thou glide from fair to fair,
Still simpering on with eager haste,
As flies along the gay parterre,
That taint the flowers they scarcely taste.
17.
But say, what nymph will prize the flame
Which seems, as marshy vapours move,
To flit along from dame to dame,
An ignis-fatuus gleam of love?
18.
What friend for thee, howe'er inclin'd,
Will deign to own a kindred care?
Who will debase his manly mind,
For friendship every fool may share?
19.
In time forbear; amidst the throng
No more so base a thing be seen;
No more so idly pass along;
Be something, any thing, but - mean.
Hunger
by George MacDonald

Father, I cry to thee for bread
With hungred longing, eager prayer;
Thou hear'st, and givest me instead
More hunger and a half-despair.
0 Lord, how long? My days decline,
My youth is lapped in memories old;
I need not bread alone, but wine--
See, cup and hand to thee I hold!
And yet thou givest: thanks, O Lord,
That still my heart with hunger faints!
The day will come when at thy board
I sit, forgetting all my plaints.
If rain must come and winds must blow,
And I pore long o'er dim-seen chart,
Yet, Lord, let not the hunger go,
And keep the faintness at my heart.
Haec Olim Meminisse
by Madison Julius Cawein

Febrile perfumes as of faded roses
In the old house speak of love to-day,
Love long past; and where the soft day closes,
Down the west gleams, golden-red, a ray.
Pointing where departed splendor perished,
And the path that night shall walk, and hang,
On blue boughs of heaven, gold, long cherished
Fruit Hesperian, that the ancients sang.
And to him, who sits there dreaming, musing,
At the window in the twilight wan,
Like old scent of roses interfusing,
Comes a vision of a day that's gone.
And he sees Youth, walking brave but dimly
'Mid the roses, in the afterglow;
And beside him, like a star seen slimly,
Love, who used to meet him long-ago.
And again he seems to hear the flowers
Whispering faintly of what no one knows
Of the dreams they dreamed there for long hours,
Youth and Love, between their hearts a rose.
Youth is dead; and Love, oh, where departed!
Like the last streak of the dying day,
Somewhere yonder, in a world uncharted,
Calling him, with memories, away.
Thanksgiving.
by Hanford Lennox Gordon

[Nov. 26, 1857, during the great financial depression.]
Father, our thanks are due to thee
For many a blessing given,
By thy paternal love and care,
From the bounty-horn of heaven.
We know that still that horn is filled
With blessings for our race,
And we calmly look thro' winter's storm
To thy benignant face.
Father, we raise our thanks to Thee, 
Who seldom thanked before;
And seldom bent the stubborn knee
Thy goodness to adore:
But Father, thou hast blessings poured
On all our wayward days
And now thy mercies manifold
Have filled our hearts with praise
The winter-storm may rack and roar;
We do not fear its blast;
And we'll bear with faith and fortitude
The lot that thou hast cast.
But Father, Father, O look down
On the poor and homeless head
And feed the hungry thousands
That cry to thee for bread.
Thou givest us our daily bread;
We would not ask for more;
But, Father, give their daily bread
To the multitudes of poor.
In all the cities of the land
The naked and hungry are;
O feed them with thy manna, Lord,
And clothe them with thy care.
Thou dost not give a serpent, Lord,
We will not give a stone;
For the bread and meat thou givest us
Are not for us alone.
And while a loaf is given to us
From thy all-bounteous horn
We'll cheerfully divide that loaf
With the hungry and forlorn.
For The S.S. Concert, In The Wayland Orthodox Church.
by Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow

Feed my lambs! the Saviour said,
Near two thousand years ago;
If we truly love the Lord,
By obedience, love we'll show.
What was said to Peter then,
In that distant age and clime,
Sure is binding on us now,
Here and to the end of time.
If our Shepherd then we love,
His commandments we'll obey;
Let us true disciples prove,
Feed his lambs as best we may.
Twice twelve years have passed this day,[2]
Since our Sabbath School commenced;
Countless lessons have been learned,
Much instruction been dispensed.
Let us up and doing be,
Sow the seed all times and hours;
Cast our bread on water even,
Tax with vigor all our powers.
May the teachers now engaged,
Courage take, and persevere;
They'll not fail of their reward,
Though they may not meet it here.
God is faithful, who hath said,
(Let the thought allay your fears,)
"They with joy shall surely reap,
Who have sown in prayers and tears."
Then sow the seed with prayers and tears;
Never doubt, but faithful be;
Though thou reapest not for years,
A rich harvest thou wilt see.
Happy faces now we miss,
Who were wont these seats to fill;
Loved and lovely passed away,
Yet they're fresh in memory still.
Soon their earthly race was run,
In the morning called away;
Others soon may follow them,
May all hear the Saviour say,
"Well done, faithful servant; thou
Hast o'er few things faithful been,
I will make the ruler now
Over many - enter in."
The Tailor
by Walter De La Mare

Few footsteps stray when dusk droops o'er
The tailor's old stone-lintelled door:
There sits he stitching half asleep,
Beside his smoky tallow dip.
'Click, click,' his needle hastes, and shrill
Cries back the cricket 'neath the sill.
Sometimes he stays, and o'er his thread
Leans sidelong his old tousled head;
Or stoops to peer with half-shut eye
When some strange footfall echoes by;
Till clearer gleams his candle's spark
Into the dusty summer dark.
Then from his crosslegs he gets down,
To find how dark the evening's grown;
And hunched-up in his door he'll hear
The cricket whistling crisp and clear;
And so beneath the starry grey
Will mutter half a seam away.
Triolet
by George MacDonald

Few in joy's sweet riot
Able are to listen:
Thou, to make me quiet,
Quenchest the sweet riot,
Tak'st away my diet,
Puttest me in prison--
Quenchest joy's sweet riot
That the heart may listen.
Nursery Rhyme. CCCCXVII. Jingles.
by Unknown

Feedum, fiddledum fee,
The cat's got into the tree.
Pussy, come down,
Or I'll crack your crown,
And toss you into the sea.
Felix Randal
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Felix Randal the farrier, O he is 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 and all; though a heavenlier heart began some
Months earlier, since I had our sweet reprieve and ransom
Tendered to him. Ah well, God rest him all road ever he offended!
This seeing the sick endears them to us, us too it endears.
My tongue had taught thee comfort, touch had quenched thy tears,
Thy tears that touched my heart, child, Felix, poor Felix Randal;
How far from then forethought of, all thy more boisterous years,
When thou at the random grim forge, powerful amidst peers,
Didst fettle for the great grey drayhorse his bright and battering sandal!
To Mr C.,[1] St James's Place.
by Alexander Pope

Few words are best; I wish you well:
Bethel, I'm told, will soon be here;
Some morning walks along the Mall,
And evening friends, will end the year.
If in this interval, between
The falling leaf and coming frost,
You please to see, on Twit'nam green,
Your friend, your poet, and your host:
For three whole days you here may rest
From office business, news, and strife;
And (what most folks would think a jest)
Want nothing else except your wife.
Hymn For A Sick Girl
by George MacDonald

Father, in the dark I lay,
Thirsting for the light,
Helpless, but for hope alway
In thy father-might.
Out of darkness came the morn,
Out of death came life,
I, and faith, and hope, new-born,
Out of moaning strife!
So, one morning yet more fair,
I shall, joyous-brave,
Sudden breathing loftier air,
Triumph o'er the grave.
Though this feeble body lie
Underneath the ground,
Wide awake, not sleeping, I
Shall in him be found.
But a morn yet fairer must
Quell this inner gloom--
Resurrection from the dust
Of a deeper tomb!
Father, wake thy little child;
Give me bread and wine
Till my spirit undefiled
Rise and live in thine.
Finland
by Robert von Ranke Graves

Feet and faces tingle
In that frore land:
Legs wobble and go wingle,
You scarce can stand.
The skies are jewelled all around,
The ploughshare snaps in the iron ground,
The Finn with face like paper
And eyes like a lighted taper
Hurls his rough rune
At the wintry moon
And stamps to mark the tune.
Gow's Watch : Act IV. Scene 4.
by Rudyard Kipling

The Head of the Bargi Pass, in snow. Gow and Ferdinand with their Captains.
GOW (to Ferdinand). The Queen's host would be delivered me to-day, but that these Mountain Men have sent battalia to hold the Pass. They're shod, helmed and torqued with soft gold. For the rest, naked. By no argument can I persuade 'em their gilt carcasses against my bombards avail not. What's to do, Fox?
FERDINAND. Fatherless folk go furthest. These loud pagans
Are doubly fatherless. Consider; they came
Over the passes, out of all man's world,
Adullamites, unable to endure
Its ancient pinch and belly-ache, full of revenges
Or wilfully forgetful. The land they found
Was manless-her raw airs uncloven by speech,
Earth without wheel-track, hoof-mark, hearth or ploughshare
Since God created; nor even a cave where men,
When night was a new thing, had hid themselves.
GOW. Excellent. Do I fight them, or let go?
FERDINAND. Unused earth, air and water for their spoil,
And none to make comparison of their deeds.
No unbribed dead to judge, accuse 'em or comfort,
Their present all their future and their past.
What should they know of reason, litters of folk,
New whelped to emptiness?
GOW. Nothing. They bar my path.
FERDINAND. Turn it, then, turn it.
Give them their triumph. They'll be wiser anon,
Some thirty generations hence.
GOW. Amen! I'm no disposed murderer. (To the Mountain Men) Most magnificent Se'ors! Lords of all Suns, Moons, Firmaments, Sole Architects of Yourselves and this present Universe! Yon Philosopher in the hairy cloak bids me wait only a thousand years, till ye've sorted yourselves more to the likeness of mankind.
THE PRIEST OF THE MOUNTAIN MEN. There are none beside ourselves to lead the world!
GOW. That is common knowledge. I supplicate you to allow us the head of the Pass, that we may better reach the Queen's host yonder. Ye will not? Why?
THE PRIEST. Because it is our will. There is none other law for all the earth.
GOW. (That a few feet of snow on a nest of rocky mountains should have hatched this dream-people!) (To Priest) Ye have reason in nature, all you've known of it . . . But, a thousand years, I fear they will not suffice.
THE PRIEST. Go you back! We hold the passes into and out of the world. Do you defy us?
FERDINAND. (To Gow) I warned you. There's none like them under Heaven. Say it!
GOW. Defy your puissance, Se'ors? Not I. We'll have our bombards away, all, by noon; and our poor hosts with them. And you, Se'ors, shall have your triumph upon us.
FERDINAND. Ah! That touches! Let them shout and blow their horns half a day and they'll not think of aught else!
GOW. Fall to your riots then! Se'ors, ye have won. We'll leave you the head of the Pass, for thirty generations. (Loudly) The mules to the bombards and away!
FERDINAND. Most admirably you spoke to my poor text.
GOW. Maybe the better, Fox, because the discourse has drawn them to the head of the Pass. Meantime, our main body has taken the lower road, with all the Artillery.
FERDINAND. Had you no bombards here, then?
GOW. None, Innocence, at all! None, except your talk and theirs
Fear Not That, While Around Thee.
by Thomas Moore

Fear not that, while around thee
Life's varied blessings pour,
One sigh of hers shall wound thee,
Whose smile thou seek'st no more.
No, dead and cold for ever
Let our past love remain;
Once gone, its spirit never
Shall haunt thy rest again.
May the new ties that bind thee
Far sweeter, happier prove,
Nor e'er of me remind thee,
But by their truth and love.
Think how, asleep or waking,
Thy image haunts me yet;
But, how this heart is breaking
For thy own peace forget.
Johnnie Sayre
by Edgar Lee Masters

Father, thou canst never know
The anguish that smote my heart
For my disobedience, the moment I felt
The remorseless wheel of the engine
Sink into the crying flesh of my leg.
As they carried me to the home of widow Morris
I could see the school-house in the valley
To which I played truant to steal rides upon the trains.
I prayed to live until I could ask your forgiveness - 
And then your tears, your broken words of comfort!
From the solace of that hour I have gained infinite happiness.
Thou wert wise to chisel for me:
"Taken from the evil to come."