DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
A Night-Storm.
by Thomas Gent

Let this rough fragment lend its mossy seat;
Let Contemplation hail this lone retreat:
Come, meek-eyed goddess, through the midnight gloom,
Born of the silent awe which robes the tomb!
This gothic front, this antiquated pile,
The bleak wind howling through each mazy aisle;
Its high gray towers, faint peeping through the shade,
Shall hail thy presence, consecrated maid!
Whether beneath some vaulted abbey's dome,
Where ev'ry footstep sounds in every tomb;
Where Superstition, from the marble stone,
Gives every sound, a pilgrim-spirit's groan:
Pensive thou readest by the moon's full glare
The sculptured children of Affection's tear;
Or in the church-yard lone thou sitt'st to weep
O'er some sad wreck, beneath the tufty heap--
Perchance some victim to Seduction's spell,
Who yielded, wept, and then neglected fell!
But hither come, on yon swoln arch to gaze,
And view the vivid flash eruptive blare;
Light those high walls with transitory gleam,
Illume the air, and sparkle in the stream.
Ah! look, where yonder tempest-shaken cloud,
Awful and black as the chaosian shroud,
Breaks, like the waves which lash the sandy shore,
And speaks its mission in a feeble row.
Thus Meditation hears: "Aspiring height!
Of old, the splendid mansions of the great;
Thy fate (tremendous) lours upon the blast,
And waits to write on thy remains:--'tis past!
Oft have the genii of the hoary blade
Around thy walls their hell-born demons led;
Yet hast thou triumph'd o'er each monster's car,
And braved the ills of pestilential war:
Oft hast thou seen the circling seasons roll
In fond succession round thy native pole;
Defied the hoary matron of the ring,
And seen her sicken in the lap of Spring.
But, ah! no more thy time-clad head shall rise
To dare the tempest, while it shakes the skies;
Nor one small wreck invade the fair concave,
Nor shout above its crumbling basis, Save!
When rising zephyr from thy ruin brings
A world of atoms on its fairy wings."
Din horrible! as though the rebel train
Had sprung from chaos, fought, and fall'n again,
Raves the high bolt: how yon old structure fell;
How every cranny trembled with the yell
Of frighted owls, whose secret haunts forlorn
Were from their kindred vaults and windings torn;
Of bold Antiquity's rough pencil born.
Thrice Fancy leads the dismal echo round,
And paints the spectre gliding o'er the ground.
From ev'ry turret, ev'ry vanquish'd tower,
In heaps confused the broken fragments pour;
And, as they plunge toward the pebbly grave,
Like wizard wand, draw circles in the wave.
Meand'ring stream! thy liquid jaws extend,
Anoint with Lethe now thy fallen friend.
Again the heralds of the thunder fly,
In forky squadrons, from the trembling sky!
Again the thunder its harsh menace swells,
And light-wing'd echoes hail the humbled cells!
Weep, weep, ye clouds! with heav'n-bespangled tears;
And, ah! if pity rules your sacred spheres,
Invoke the thunder to withstay its rage,
Disarm its fury, and its wrath assuage.
But now, Aurora, from the Ocean's verge,
Trims her gray lamp, to light the mournful dirge.
She comes, to light the ruinated heap:
But lights, to wake the pensive soul to weep!
Science Of Music.
by Friedrich Schiller

Let the creative art breathe life, and the bard furnish spirit;
But the soul is expressed by Polyhymnia alone.
The Right Road.
by Thomas Osborne Davis

I.
Let the feeble-hearted pine,
Let the sickly spirit whine,
But work and win be thine,
While you've life.
God smiles upon the bold--
So, when your flag's unrolled,
Bear it bravely till you're cold
In the strife.
II.
If to rank or fame you soar,
Out your spirit frankly pour--
Men will serve you and adore,
Like a king.
Woo your girl with honest pride,
Till you've won her for your bride--
Then to her, through time and tide,
Ever cling.
III.
Never under wrongs despair;
Labour long, and everywhere,
Link your countrymen, prepare,
And strike home.
Thus have great men ever wrought,
Thus must greatness still be sought,
Thus laboured, loved, and fought
Greece and Rome.
How M'Ginnis Went Missing
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

Let us cease our idle chatter,
Let the tears bedew our cheek,
For a man from Tallangatta
Has been missing for a week.
Where the roaring flooded Murray
Covered all the lower land,
There he started in a hurry
With a bottle in his hand.
And his fate is bid for ever,
But the public seem to think
That he slumbered by the river,
'Neath the influence of drink.
And they scarcely seem to wonder
That the river, wide and deep,
Never woke him with its thunder,
Never stirred him in his sleep.
And the crashing logs came sweeping
And their tumult filled the air,
Then M'Ginnis murmured, sleeping,
"'Tis a wake in ould Kildare."
So the river rose and found him
Sleeping softly by the stream.
And the cruel waters drowned him
Ere he wakened from his dream.
And the blossom-tufted wattle,
Blooming brightly on the lea,
Saw M'Ginnis and the bottle
Going drifting out to sea.
It May Be
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Let us be silent for a little while;
Let us be still and listen.    We may hear
Echoes from other worlds not far a way.
City on city rising, steeple out-topping steeple,
Gaining and hoarding and spending, and armies on battle bent,
People and people and people, and ever more human people - 
This is not all of creation, this is not all that was meant!
Earth on its orbit spinning,
This is not end or beginning;
That is but one of a trillion spheres out into the ether hurled:
We move in a zone of wonder,
And over our planet and under
Are infinite orders of beings and marvels of world on world.
There may be moving among us curious people and races,
Folk of the fourth dimension, folk of the vast star spaces.
They may be trying to reach us,
They may be longing to teach us
Things we are longing to know.
If it is so,
Voices like these are not heard in earth's riot,
Let us be quiet.
Classes with classes disputing, nation warring with nation,
Building and owning and seeking to lead - this is not all!
Endless the works of creation,
There may be waiting our call
Beings in numberless legions,
Dwellers in rarefied regions,
Journeying Godward like us,
Alist for a word to be spoken,
Awatch for a sign or a token.
If it be thus,
How they must grieve at our riotous noise
And the things we call duties and joys!
Let us be silent for a little while;
Let us be still and listen.    We may hear
Echoes from other worlds not far away.
The Sonnets XXV - Let those who are in favour with their stars
by William Shakespeare

Let those who are in favour with their stars
Of public honour and proud titles boast,
Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars
Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most.
Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread
But as the marigold at the sun's eye,
And in themselves their pride lies buried,
For at a frown they in their glory die.
The painful warrior famoused for fight,
After a thousand victories once foil'd,
Is from the book of honour razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd:
Then happy I, that love and am belov'd,
Where I may not remove nor be remov'd.
An Eclipse
by Dora Sigerson Shorter

Let there be an end
And all be done;
Pass over, fair eclipse,
That hides the sun.
Dear face that shades the light
And shadows me,
Begone, and give me peace,
And set me free.
Poppy And Mandragora
by Madison Julius Cawein

Let us go far from here!
Here there is sadness in the early year:
Here sorrow waits where joy went laughing late:
The sicklied face of heaven hangs like hate
Above the woodland and the meadowland;
And Spring hath taken fire in her hand
Of frost and made a dead bloom of her face,
Which was a flower of marvel once and grace,
And sweet serenity and stainless glow.
Delay not. Let us go.
Let us go far away
Into the sunrise of a fairer May:
Where all the nights resign them to the moon,
And drug their souls with odor and soft tune,
And tell their dreams in starlight: where the hours
Teach immortality with fadeless flowers;
And all the day the bee weights down the bloom,
And all the night the moth shakes strange perfume,
Like music, from the flower-bells' affluence.
Let us go far from hence.
Why should we sit and weep,
And yearn with heavy eyelids still to sleep?
Forever hiding from our hearts the hate, - 
Death within death, - life doth accumulate,
Like winter snows along the barren leas
And sterile hills, whereon no lover sees
The crocus limn the beautiful in flame;
Or hyacinth and jonquil write the name
Of Love in fire, for each passer-by.
Why should we sit and sigh?
We will not stay and long,
Here where our souls are wasting for a song;
Where no bird sings; and, dim beneath the stars,
No silvery water strikes melodious bars;
And in the rocks and forest-covered hills
No quick-tongued echo from her grotto fills
With eery syllables the solitude - 
The vocal image of the voice that wooed - 
She, of wild sounds the airy looking-glass.
Our souls are tired, alas!
What should we say to her? - 
To Spring, who in our hearts makes no sweet stir:
Who looks not on us nor gives thought unto:
Too busy with the birth of flowers and dew,
And vague gold wings within the chrysalis;
Or Love, who will not miss us; had no kiss
To give your soul or the sad soul of me,
Who bound our hearts to her in poesy,
Long since, and wear her badge of service still. - 
Have we not served our fill?
We will go far away.
Song will not care, who slays our souls each day
With the dark daggers of denying eyes,
And lips of silence! ... Had she sighed us lies,
Not passionate, yet falsely tremulous,
And lent her mouth to ours in mockery; thus
Smiled from calm eyes as if appreciative;
Then, then our love had taught itself to live
Feeding itself on hope, and recompense.
But no! - So let us hence.
So be the Bible shut
Of all her Beauty, and her wisdom but
A clasp for memory! We will not seek
The light that came not when the soul was weak
With longing, and the darkness gave no sign
Of star-born comfort. Nay! why kneel and whine
Sad psalms of patience and hosannas of
Old hope and dreary canticles of love? - 
Let us depart, since, as we long supposed,
For us God's book was closed.
Thanksgiving.
by James Whitcomb Riley

Let us be thankful - not only because
Since last our universal thanks were told
We have grown greater in the world's applause,
And fortune's newer smiles surpass the old - 
But thankful for all things that come as alms
From out the open hand of Providence: - 
The winter clouds and storms - -the summer calms - 
The sleepless dread - the drowse of indolence.
Let us be thankful - thankful for the prayers
Whose gracious answers were long, long delayed,
That they might fall upon us unawares,
And bless us, as in greater need, we prayed.
Let us be thankful for the loyal hand
That love held out in welcome to our own,
When love and only love could understand
The need of touches we had never known.
Let us be thankful for the longing eyes
That gave their secret to us as they wept,
Yet in return found, with a sweet surprise,
Love's touch upon their lids, and, smiling, slept.
And let us, too, be thankful that the tears
Of sorrow have not all been drained away,
That through them still, for all the coming years,
We may look on the dead face of To-day.
Let Joy Alone Be Remembered Now.
by Thomas Moore

Let thy joys alone be remembered now,
Let thy sorrows go sleep awhile;
Or if thought's dark cloud come o'er thy brow,
Let Love light it up with his smile,
For thus to meet, and thus to find,
That Time, whose touch can chill
Each flower of form, each grace of mind,
Hath left thee blooming still,
Oh, joy alone should be thought of now,
Let our sorrows go sleep awhile;
Or, should thought's dark cloud come o'er thy brow,
Let Love light it up with his smile.
When the flowers of life's sweet garden fade,
If but one bright leaf remain,
Of the many that once its glory made,
It is not for us to complain.
But thus to meet and thus to wake
In all Love's early bliss;
Oh, Time all other gifts may take,
So he but leaves us this!
Then let joy alone be remembered now,
Let our sorrows go sleep awhile;
Or if thought's dark cloud come o'er the brow,
Let Love light it up with his smile!
To A Sexton
by William Wordsworth

Let thy wheel-barrow alone
Wherefore, Sexton, piling still
In thy bone-house bone on bone?
'Tis already like a hill
In a field of battle made,
Where three thousand skulls are laid;
These died in peace each with the other,
Father, sister, friend, and brother.
Mark the spot to which I point!
From this platform, eight feet square,
Take not even a finger-joint:
Andrew's whole fire-side is there.
Here, alone, before thine eyes,
Simon's sickly daughter lies,
From weakness now, and pain defended,
Whom he twenty winters tended.
Look but at the gardener's pride
How he glories, when he sees
Roses, lilies, side by side,
Violets in families!
By the heart of Man, his tears,
By his hopes and by his fears,
Thou, too heedless, art the Warden
Of a far superior garden.
Thus then, each to other dear,
Let them all in quiet lie,
Andrew there, and Susan here,
Neighbours in mortality.
And, should I live through sun and rain
Seven widowed years without my Jane,
O Sexton, do not then remove her,
Let one grave hold the Loved and Lover!
Love's Burial.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Let us clear a little space,
And make Love a burial place.
He is dead, dear, as you see,
And he wearies you and me,
Growing heavier, day by day,
Let us bury him, I say.
Wings of dead white butterflies,
These shall shroud him, as he lies
In his casket rich and rare,
Made of finest maiden-hair.
With the pollen of the rose
Let us his white eye-lids close.
Put the rose thorn in his hand,
Shorn of leaves - you understand.
Let some holy water fall
On his dead face, tears of gall - 
As we kneel by him and say,
"Dreams to dreams," and turn away.
Those grave diggers, Doubt, Distrust,
They will lower him to the dust.
Let us part here with a kiss,
You go that way, I go this.
Since we buried Love to-day
We will walk a separate way.
On The Road
by Madison Julius Cawein

Let us bid the world good-by,
Now while sun and cloud's above us,
While we've nothing to deny,
Nothing but our selves to love us:
Let us fancy, I and you,
All the dreams we dreamed came true.
We have gone but half the road,
Rugged road of root and bowlder;
Made the best of Life's dark load,
Cares, that helped us to grow older:
We, my dear, have done our best
Let us stop awhile and rest.
Let us, by this halfway stile,
Put away the world's desire,
And sit down, a little while,
With our hearts, and light a fire:
Sing the songs that once we sung
In the days when we were young.
Haply they will bring again,
From the Lands of Song and Story,
To our sides the elfin train
Of the dreams we dreamed of glory,
That are one now with the crew
Of the deeds we did not do.
Here upon the road of Life
Let us rest us; take our pleasure:
Free from care and safe from strife,
Count again our only treasure
Love, that helped us on our way,
Our companion night and day.
Odes Of Anacreon - Ode XXXVIII.
by Thomas Moore

Let us drain the nectared bowl,
Let us raise the song of soul
To him, the god who loves so well
The nectared bowl, the choral swell;
The god who taught the sons of earth
To thread the tangled dance of mirth;
Him, who was nurst with infant Love,
And cradled in the Paphian grove;
Him, that the Snowy Queen of Charms
So oft has fondled in her arms.
Oh 'tis from him the transport flows,
Which sweet intoxication knows;
With him, the brow forgets its gloom,
And brilliant graces learn to bloom.
Behold!--my boys a goblet bear,
Whose sparkling foam lights up the air.
Where are now the tear, the sigh?
To the winds they fly, they fly!
Grasp the bowl; in nectar sinking,
Man of sorrow, drown thy thinking!
Say, can the tears we lend to thought
In life's account avail us aught?
Can we discern with all our lore,
The path we've yet to journey o'er?
Alas, alas, in ways so dark,
'Tis only wine can strike a spark!
Then let me quaff the foamy tide,
And through the dance meandering glide;
Let me imbibe the spicy breath
Of odors chafed to fragrant death;
Or from the lips of love inhale
A more ambrosial, richer gale!
To hearts that court the phantom Care,
Let him retire and shroud him there;
While we exhaust the nectared bowl,
And swell the choral song of soul
To him, the god who loves so well
The nectared bowl, the choral swell!
Let Them Go
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Let the dream go.    Are there not other dreams
In vastness of clouds hid from thy sight
That yet shall gild with beautiful gold gleams,
And shoot the shadows through and through with light?
What matters one lost vision of the night?
Let the dream go!!
Let the hope set.    Are there not other hopes
That yet shall rise like new stars in thy sky?
Not long a soul in sullen darkness gropes
Before some light is lent it from on high;
What folly to think happiness gone by!
Let the hope set!
Let the joy fade.    Are there not other joys,
Like frost-bound bulbs, that yet shall start and bloom?
Severe must be the winter that destroys
The hardy roots locked in their silent tomb.
What cares the earth for her brief time of gloom
Let the joy fade!
Let the love die.    Are there not other loves
As beautiful and full of sweet unrest,
Flying through space like snowy-pinioned doves?
They yet shall come and nestle in thy breast,
And thou shalt say of each, "Lo, this is best!"
Let the love die!
Progress.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Let there be many windows to your soul,
That all the glory of the universe
May beautify it. Not the narrow pane
Of one poor creed can catch the radiant rays
That shine from countless sources. Tear away
The blinds of superstition; let the light
Pour through fair windows broad as Truth itself
And high as God.
Why should the spirit peer
Through some priest-curtained orifice, and grope
Along dim corridors of doubt, when all
The splendor from unfathomed seas of space
Might bathe it with the golden waves of Love?
Sweep up the debris of decaying faiths;
Sweep down the cobwebs of worn-out beliefs,
And throw your soul wide open to the light
Of Reason and of Knowledge. Tune your ear
To all the wordless music of the stars
And to the voice of Nature, and your heart
Shall turn to truth and goodness as the plant
Turns to the sun. A thousand unseen hands
Reach down to help you to their peace-crowned heights.
And all the forces of the firmament
Shall fortify your strength. Be not afraid
To thrust aside half-truths and grasp the whole.
To The Poet.
by Friedrich Schiller

Let thy speech be to thee what the body is to the loving;
Beings it only can part, beings it only can join.
The Marionettes
by Walter De La Mare

Let the foul Scene proceed:
There's laughter in the wings;
'Tis sawdust that they bleed,
But a box Death brings.
How rare a skill is theirs
These extreme pangs to show,
How real a frenzy wears
Each feigner of woe!
Gigantic dins uprise!
Even the gods must feel
A smarting of the eyes
As these fumes upsweal.
Strange, such a Piece is free,
While we Spectators sit,
Aghast at its agony,
Yet absorbed in it!
Dark is the outer air,
Cold the night draughts blow
Mutely we stare, and stare
At the frenzied Show.
Yet heaven hath its quiet shroud
Of deep, immutable blue - 
We cry "An end!" We are bowed
By the dread, "'Tis true!"
While the Shape who hoofs applause
Behind our deafened ear,
Hoots - angel-wise - "the Cause!"
And affright even fear.
The "Medical Spring."
by George W. Doneghy

I.
Let tipplers all boast of the pleasure divine
That is found in old whisky, in beer and in wine--
But what are all those to a feller who knows
Where the "Medical Spring" in its purity flows,
And has knelt at its brink and just drank his fill
Of the clear, sparkling fluid, from Nature's own still?
II.
How often I've strayed on a hot Summer's day
Where it gurgles and gushes, then flows on its way
With a ripple as sweet as the music that died
When the tones of loved voices are to us denied,
And mirrored my face in the "Medical Spring,"
Where the beetling old cliffs their cool shadows fling!
III.
Not riches, nor honors, nor place do I crave,
Ere they lay me at last to rest in the grave,
But oh, let me hear its music once more,
And drink from its depths while I kneel on its shore--
Then bear me away on the Death Angel's wing
While my lips are yet moist from the "Medical Spring!"
The Library
by John Greenleaf Whittier

"Let there be light!" God spake of old,
And over chaos dark and cold,
And through the dead and formless frame
Of nature, life and order came.
Faint was the light at first that shone
On giant fern and mastodon,
On half-formed plant and beast of prey,
And man as rude and wild as they.
Age after age, like waves, o'erran
The earth, uplifting brute and man;
And mind, at length, in symbols dark
Its meanings traced on stone and bark.
On leaf of palm, on sedge-wrought roll,
On plastic clay and leathern scroll,
Man wrote his thoughts; the ages passed,
And to! the Press was found at last!
Then dead souls woke; the thoughts of men
Whose bones were dust revived again;
The cloister's silence found a tongue,
Old prophets spake, old poets sung.
And here, to-day, the dead look down,
The kings of mind again we crown;
We hear the voices lost so long,
The sage's word, the sibyl's song.
Here Greek and Roman find themselves
Alive along these crowded shelves;
And Shakespeare treads again his stage,
And Chaucer paints anew his age.
As if some Pantheon's marbles broke
Their stony trance, and lived and spoke,
Life thrills along the alcoved hall,
The lords of thought await our call
Song And Structure.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Let the Greek his plastic clay
Mould in human fashion,
While his own creation may
Wake his glowing passion;
But it is our joy to court
Great Euphrates' torrent,
Here and there at will to sport
In the Wat'ry current.
Quench'd I thus my spirit's flame,
Songs had soon resounded;
Water drawn by bards whose fame
Pure is, may be rounded.*
Let Them Go.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Let the dream go. Are there not other dreams
In vastness of clouds hid from thy sight
That yet shall gild with beautiful gold gleams,
And shoot the shadows through and through with light?
What matters one lost vision of the night?
Let the dream go!
Let the hope set. Are there not other hopes
That yet shall rise like new stars in thy sky?
Not long a soul in sullen darkness gropes
Before some light is lent it from on high;
What folly to think happiness gone by!
Let the hope set!
Let the joy fade. Are there not other joys,
Like frost-bound bulbs, that yet shall start and bloom?
Severe must be the winter that destroys
The hardy roots locked in their silent tomb.
What cares the earth for her brief time of gloom?
Let the joy fade!
Let the love die. Are there not other loves
As beautiful and full of sweet unrest,
Flying through space like snowy-pinioned doves?
They yet shall come and nestle in thy breast,
And thou shalt say of each, "Lo, this is best!"
Let the love die!