DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Lines Written In A Fine Winter'S Day, At The Shooting-Box Of My Friend, W. Cope, Esq. Near Orpington, Kent.
by John Carr (Sir)

Tho' leafless are the woods, tho' flow'rs no more,
In beauty blushing, spread their fragrant store,
Yet still 'tis sweet to quit the crowded scene,
And rove with Nature, tho' no longer green;
For Winter bids her winds so softly blow,
That, cold and famine scorning, even now
The feather'd warblers still delight the ear,
And all of Summer, but her leaves, is here.
Here, on this winding garden's sloping bound,
'Tis sweet to listen to each rustic sound,
The distant dog-bark, and the rippling rill,
Or catch the sparkling of the water-mill.
The tranquil scene each tender feeling moves;
As the eye rests on Holwood's naked groves,
A tear bedims the sight for Chatham's son,
For him whose god-like eloquence could stun,
Like some vast cat'ract, Faction's clam'rous tongue,
Or by its sweetness charm, like Virgil's song,
For him, whose mighty spirit rous'd afar
Europe's plum'd legions to the hallow'd war;
But who, ah! hapless tale! could not inspire
Their recreant chiefs with his heroic fire;
Who, as they pass'd the tyrant Conqu'ror's yoke,
Felt, as the bolt of Heav'n, the ruthless stroke;
And having long, in vain, the tempest brav'd,
Could breathe no longer in a world enslav'd.
Bad Dreams III
by Robert Browning

This was my dream: I saw a Forest
Old as the earth, no track nor trace
Of unmade man. Thou, Soul, explorest,
Though in a trembling rapture, space
Immeasurable! Shrubs, turned trees,
Trees that touch heaven, support its frieze
Studded with sun and moon and star:
While, oh, the enormous growths that bar
Mine eye from penetrating past
Their tangled twins where lurks, nay, lives
Royally lone, some brute-type cast
I' the rough, time cancels, man forgives.
On, Soul! I saw a lucid City
Of architectural device
Every way perfect. Pause for pity,
Lightning! nor leave a cicatrice
On those bright marbles, dome and spire,
Structures palatial, streets which mire
Dares not defile, paved all too fine
For human footstep's smirch, not thine,
Proud solitary traverser,
My Soul, of silent lengths of way,
With what ecstatic dread, aver,
Lest life start sanctioned by thy stay!
All, but the last sight was the hideous!
A City, yes, a Forest, true,
But each devouring each. Perfidious
Snake-plants had strangled what I knew
Was a pavilion once: each oak
Held on his horns some spoil he broke
By surreptitiously beneath
Upthrusting: pavements, as with teeth,
Griped huge weed widening crack and split
In squares and circles stone-work erst.
Oh, Nature, good! Oh, Art, no whit
Less worthy! Both in one, accurst!
In Imitation Of E. Of Dorset : Artemisia
by Alexander Pope

Tho' Artemisia talks, by fits,
Of councils, classics, fathers, wits;
Reads Malbranche, Boyle, and Locke;
Yet in some things methinks she fails,
'Twere well if she would pare her nails,
And wear a cleaner smock.
Haughty and huge as High-Dutch bride,
Such nastiness, and so much pride
Are oddly join'd by fate:
On her large squab you find her spread,
Like a fat corpse upon a bed,
That lies and stinks in state.
She wears no colours (sign of grace)
On any part except her face;
All white and black beside:
Dauntless her look, her gesture proud,
Her voice theatrically loud,
And masculine her stride.
So have I seen, in black and white
A prating thing, a Magpye hight,
Majestically stalk;
A stately, worthless animal,
That plies the tongue, and wags the tail,
All flutter, pride, and talk.
Lines To Mrs. B ---- , At Bristol Hot Wells
by John Carr (Sir)

Tho' nought, amid these darkened groves,
But various groups of death appear,
Scar'd at the sight, tho' fly the Loves,
And Sickness saddens all the year,
Yet, Clara, where you deign to stay,
Your sense and manners charm us so,
E'en sick'ning Sorrow's self looks gay,
And smiles amid the wreck of woe.
Life
by Unknown

This world that we're a-livin' in
Is mighty hard to beat,
For you get a thorn with every rose -
But ain't the roses sweet!
Tho' 'Tis All But A Dream. (French Air.)
by Thomas Moore

Tho' 'tis all but a dream at the best,
And still, when happiest, soonest o'er,
Yet, even in a dream, to be blest
Is so sweet, that I ask for no more.
The bosom that opes
With earliest hopes,
The soonest finds those hopes untrue:
As flowers that first
In spring-time burst
The earliest wither too!
Ay--'tis all but a dream, etc.
Tho' by friendship we oft are deceived,
And find love's sunshine soon o'ercast,
Yet friendship will still be believed.
And love trusted on to the last.
The web 'mong the leaves
The spider weaves
Is like the charm Hope hangs o'er men;
Tho' often she sees
'Tis broke by the breeze,
She spins the bright tissue again.
Ay--'tis all but a dream, etc.
The Prince's Day.[1]
by Thomas Moore

Tho' dark are our sorrows, to-day we'll forget them,
And smile thro' our tears, like a sunbeam in showers:
There never were hearts, if our rulers would let them,
More formed to be grateful and blest than ours.
But just when the chain
Has ceased to pain,
And hope has enwreathed it round with flowers,
There comes a new link
Our spirits to sink--
Oh! the joy that we taste, like the light of the poles,
Is a flash amid darkness, too brilliant to stay;
But, tho' 'twere the last little spark in our souls,
We must light it up now, on our Prince's Day.
Contempt on the minion, who calls you disloyal!
Tho' fierce to your foe, to your friends you are true;
And the tribute most high to a head that is royal,
Is love from a heart that loves liberty too.
While cowards, who blight
Your fame, your right,
Would shrink from the blaze of the battle array,
The Standard of Green
In front would be seen,--
Oh, my life on your faith! were you summoned this minute,
You'd cast every bitter remembrance away,
And show what the arm of old Erin has in it,
When roused by the foe, on her Prince's Day.
He loves the Green Isle, and his love is recorded
In hearts, which have suffered too much to forget;
And hope shall be crowned, and attachment rewarded,
And Erin's gay jubilee shine out yet.
The gem may be broke
By many a stroke,
But nothing can cloud its native ray:
Each fragment will cast
A light, to the last,--
And thus, Erin, my country tho' broken thou art,
There's a lustre within thee that ne'er will decay;
A spirit, which beams thro' each suffering part,
And now smiles at all pain on the Prince's Day.
Try a Smile.
by John Hartley

This world's full o' trubbles fowk say, but aw daat it,
Yo'll find as mich pleasure as pain;
Some grummel at times when they might do withaat it,
An oft withaat reason complain.
A fraan on a face nivver adds to its beauty,
Then let us forget for a while
Theas small disappointments, an mak it a duty,
To try the effect ov a smile.
Though the sun may be claaded he'll shine aght agean,
If we nobbut have patience an wait,
An its sewer to luk breeter for th' shadda ther's been;
Then let's banish all fooilish consait,
If we'd nivver noa sorrow joys on us wod pall,
Soa awr hearts let us all reconcile
To tak things as they come, makkin th' best on 'em all,
An cheer up a faint heart wi' a smile.
Ode
by Robert Southey

(Written on the FIRST of DECEMBER, 1793.)
Tho' now no more the musing ear
Delights to listen to the breeze
That lingers o'er the green wood shade,
I love thee Winter! well.
Sweet are the harmonies of Spring,
Sweet is the summer's evening gale,
Pleasant the autumnal winds that shake
The many-colour'd grove.
And pleasant to the sober'd soul
The silence of the wintry scene,
When Nature shrouds her in her trance
Not undelightful now to roam
The wild heath sparkling on the sight;
Not undelightful now to pace
The forest's ample rounds;
And see the spangled branches shine,
And mark the moss of many a hue
That varies the old tree's brown bark,
Or o'er the grey stone spreads.
The cluster'd berries claim the eye
O'er the bright hollies gay green leaves,
The ivy round the leafless oak
Clasps its full foliage close.
So VIRTUE diffident of strength
Clings to RELIGION'S firmer aid,
And by RELIGION'S aid upheld
Endures calamity.
Nor void of beauties now the spring,
Whose waters hid from summer sun
Have sooth'd the thirsty pilgrim's ear
With more than melody.
The green moss shines with icey glare,
The long grass bends its spear-like form,
And lovely is the silvery scene
When faint the sunbeams smile.
Reflection too may love the hour
When Nature, hid in Winter's grave,
No more expands the bursting bud
Or bids the flowret bloom.
For Nature soon in Spring's best charms
Shall rise reviv'd from Winter's grave.
Again expand the bursting bud,
And bid the flowret bloom.
It may be Soa.
by John Hartley

This world's made up ov leet an shade,
But some things strange aw mark;
One class live all on th' sunny side,
Wol others dwell i'th' dark.
Wor it intended some should grooap,
Battlin with th' world o' care,
Wol others full ov joy an hooap
Have happiness to spare?
It may be soa, - aw'll net contend,
Opinions should be free; - 
Aw'm nobbut spaikin as a friend, - 
But it seems that way to me.
Should one class wear ther lives away,
To mak another great;
Wol all their share will hardly pay,
For grub enuff to ait?
An is it reight at some should dress
I' clooas bedeckt wi' gold,
Wol others havn't rags enuff,
To keep ther limbs throo th' cold?
It may be soa, - aw'll net contend, &c,
When gazin at th' fine palaces,
Whear live the favoured few;
Aw cant help wonderin sometimes
If th' inmates nobbut knew,
At th' buildins next to their's i' size
Are workhaases for th' poor,
An if they'd net feel some surprise
At th' misery raand ther door?
It may be soa, - aw'll net contend, &c.
Sometimes aw wonder what chaps think
When shiverin wi' th' cold,
Abaat th' brass at they've spent i' drink,
Whear th' landlords caant ther gold.
They couldn't get a shillin lent,
To buy a bit o' breead,
Whear all ther wages have been spent, - 
They'd get kickt aght asteead.
It may be soa, - aw'll net contend, &c.
Aw wonder if they'll leearn some day,
At th' best friend they can find,
When th' shop's shut daan, an stopt ther pay,
Is ther own purse snugly lined?
Aw wonder, will th' time ivver come,
When th' darkest day is done,
When they can sing of Home Sweet Home.
An know they've getten one?
It may be soa, aw hooap it will,
For then we'st all be free;
When ivvery man's his own best friend, - 
Gooid by to poverty.
Savantism
by Walt Whitman

Thither, as I look, I see each result and glory retracing itself and nestling close, always obligated;
Thither hours, months, years thither trades, compacts, establishments, even the most minute;
Thither every-day life, speech, utensils, politics, persons, estates;
Thither we also, I with my leaves and songs, trustful, admirant,
As a father, to his father going, takes his children along with him.
Phantoms
by Madison Julius Cawein

This was her home; one mossy gable thrust
Above the cedars and the locust trees:
This was her home, whose beauty now is dust,
A lonely memory for melodies
The wild birds sing, the wild birds and the bees.
Here every evening is a prayer: no boast
Or ruin of sunset makes the wan world wroth;
Here, through the twilight, like a pale flower's ghost,
A drowsy flutter, flies the tiger-moth;
And dusk spreads darkness like a dewy cloth.
In vagabond velvet, on the placid day,
A stain of crimson, lolls the butterfly;
The south wind sows with ripple and with ray
The pleasant waters; and the gentle sky
Looks on the homestead like a quiet eye.
Their melancholy quaver, lone and low,
When day is done, the gray tree-toads repeat:
The whippoorwills, far in the afterglow,
Complain to silence: and the lightnings beat,
In one still cloud, glimmers of golden heat.
He comes not yet: not till the dusk is dead,
And all the western glow is far withdrawn;
Not till, a sleepy mouth love's kiss makes red,
The baby bud opes in a rosy yawn,
Breathing sweet guesses at the dreamed-of dawn.
When in the shadows, like a rain of gold,
The fireflies stream steadily; and bright
Along the moss the glowworm, as of old,
A crawling sparkle like a crooked light
In smoldering vellum scrawls a square of night,
Then will he come; and she will lean to him,
She, the sweet phantom, memory of that place,
Between the starlight and his eyes; so dim
With suave control and soul-compelling grace,
He cannot help but speak her, face to face.
Nooan So Bad.
by John Hartley

This world is net a paradise,
Tho' railly aw dooant see,
What fowk should growl soa mich abaat; - 
Its gooid enuff for me.
It's th' only world aw've ivver known,
An them 'at grummel soa,
An praich abaat a better land,
Seem varry looath to goa.
Ther's some things 'at awm apt to think,
If aw'd been th' engineer,
Aw might ha changed, - but its noa use, - 
Aw connot interfere.
We're foorced to tak it as it is;
What faults we think we see;
It mayn't be what it owt to be, - 
But its gooid enuff for me.
Then if we connot alter things,
Its folly to complain;
To hunt for faults an failins,
Allus gooas agean my grain.
When ther's soa monny pleasant things,
Why should we hunt for pain,
If troubles come, we needn't freeat,
For sunshine follows rain.
If th' world gooas cruckt, - what's that to us?
We connot mak it straight;
But aw've come to this conclusion,
'At its th' fowk 'at isn't reight.
If ivverybody 'ud try to do
Ther best wi' th' means they had,
Aw think 'at they'd agree wi' me, - 
This world is nooan soa bad.
Le Jardin Des Tuileries
by Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde

This    winter air is keen and cold,
And keen and cold this winter sun,
But round my chair the children run
Like little things of dancing gold.
Sometimes about the painted kiosk
The mimic soldiers strut and stride,
Sometimes the blue-eyed brigands hide
In the bleak tangles of the bosk.
And sometimes, while the old nurse cons
Her book, they steal across the square,
And launch their paper navies where
Huge Triton writhes in greenish bronze.
And now in mimic flight they flee,
And now they rush, a boisterous band -
And, tiny hand on tiny hand,
Climb up the black and leafless tree.
Ah! cruel tree! if I were you,
And children climbed me, for their sake
Though it be winter I would break
Into spring blossoms white and blue!
This World Is Not Conclusion;
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

This world is not conclusion;
A sequel stands beyond,
Invisible, as music,
But positive, as sound.
It beckons and it baffles;
Philosophies don't know,
And through a riddle, at the last,
Sagacity must go.
To guess it puzzles scholars;
To gain it, men have shown
Contempt of generations,
And crucifixion known.
Sonnet CLII.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Questa Fenice dell' aurata piuma.
HE COMPARES HER TO THE PHOENIX.
This wondrous Phoenix with the golden plumes
Forms without art so rare a ring to deck
That beautiful and soft and snowy neck,
That every heart it melts, and mine consumes:
Forms, too, a natural diadem which lights
The air around, whence Love with silent steel
Draws liquid subtle fire, which still I feel
Fierce burning me though sharpest winter bites;
Border'd with azure, a rich purple vest,
Sprinkled with roses, veils her shoulders fair:
Rare garment hers, as grace unique, alone!
Fame, in the opulent and odorous breast
Of Arab mountains, buries her sole lair,
Who in our heaven so high a pitch has flown.
MACGREGOR.
This Was In The White Of The Year,
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

This was in the white of the year,
That was in the green,
Drifts were as difficult then to think
As daisies now to be seen.
Looking back is best that is left,
Or if it be before,
Retrospection is prospect's half,
Sometimes almost more.
To Dick, On His Sixth Birthday
by Sara Teasdale

Tho' I am very old and wise,
And you are neither wise nor old,
When I look far into your eyes,
I know things I was never told:
I know how flame must strain and fret
Prisoned in a mortal net;
How joy with over-eager wings,
Bruises the small heart where he sings;
How too much life, like too much gold,
Is sometimes very hard to hold....
All that is talking'I know
This much is true, six years ago
An angel living near the moon
Walked thru the sky and sang a tune
Plucking stars to make his crown
And suddenly two stars fell down,
Two falling arrows made of light.
Six years ago this very night
I saw them fall and wondered why
The angel dropped them from the sky
But when I saw your eyes I knew
The angel sent the stars to you.
Animal Magnetism.
by Thomas Moore

Tho' famed was Mesmer, in his day,
Nor less so, in ours, is Dupotet,
To say nothing of all the wonders done
By that wizard, Dr. Elliotson,
When, standing as if the gods to invoke, he
Up waves his arm, and--down drops Okey![1]
Tho' strange these things, to mind and sense,
If you wish still stranger things to see--
If you wish to know the power immense
Of the true magnetic influence,
Just go to her Majesty's Treasury,
And learn the wonders working there--
And I'll be hanged if you don't stare!
Talk of your animal magnetists,
And that wave of the hand no soul resists,
Not all its witcheries can compete
With the friendly beckon towards Downing Street,
Which a Premier gives to one who wishes
To taste of the Treasury loaves and fishes.
It actually lifts the lucky elf,
Thus acted upon, above himself;--
He jumps to a state of clairvoyance,
And is placeman, statesman, all, at once!
These effects, observe (with which I begin),
Take place when the patient's motioned in;
Far different of course the mode of affection,
When the wave of the hand's in the out direction;
The effects being then extremely unpleasant,
As is seen in the case of Lord Brougham, at present;
In whom this sort of manipulation,
Has lately produced such inflammation,
Attended with constant irritation,
That, in short--not to mince his situation--
It has workt in the man a transformation
That puzzles all human calculation!
Ever since the fatal day which saw
That "pass" performed on this Lord of Law--
A pass potential, none can doubt,
As it sent Harry Brougham to the right about--
The condition in which the patient has been
Is a thing quite awful to be seen.
Not that a casual eye could scan
This wondrous change by outward survey;
It being, in fact, the interior man
That's turned completely topsy-turvy:--
Like a case that lately, in reading o'er 'em,
I found in the Acta Eruditorum,
Of a man in whose inside, when disclosed,
The whole order of things was found transposed;
By a lusus naturae, strange to see,
The liver placed where the heart should be,
And the spleen (like Brougham's, since laid on the shelf)
As diseased and as much out of place as himself.
In short, 'tis a case for consultation,
If e'er there was one, in this thinking nation;
And therefore I humbly beg to propose,
That those savans who mean, as the rumor goes,
To sit on Miss Okey's wonderful case,
Should also Lord Parry's case embrace;
And inform us, in both these patients' states,
Which ism it is that predominates,
Whether magnetism and somnambulism,
Or, simply and solely, mountebankism.
The Three Doctors.
by Thomas Moore

doctoribus loetamur tribus.
1826.
Tho' many great Doctors there be,
There are three that all Doctors out-top,
Doctor Eady, that famous M. D.,
Doctor Southey, and dear Doctor Slop.[1]
The purger, the proser, the bard--
All quacks in a different style;
Doctor Southey writes books by the yard.
Doctor Eady writes puffs by the mile![2]
Doctor Slop, in no merit outdone
By his scribbling or physicking brother,
Can dose us with stuff like the one.
Ay, and doze us with stuff like the other.
Doctor Eady good company keeps
With "No Popery" scribes, on the walls;
Doctor Southey as gloriously sleeps
With "No Popery" scribes on the stalls.
Doctor Slop, upon subjects divine,
Such bedlamite slaver lets drop,
Taat if Eady should take the mad line,
He'll be sure of a patient in Slop.
Seven millions of Papists, no less,
Doctor Southey attacks, like a Turk;
Doctor Eady, less bold, I confess,
Attacks but his maid-of-all-work
Doctor Southey, for his grand attack,
Both a laureate and pensioner is;
While poor Doctor Eady, alack,
Has been had up to Bow-street for his!
And truly, the law does so blunder,
That tho' little blood has been spilt, he
May probably suffer as, under
The Chalking Act, known to be guilty.
So much for the merits sublime
(With whose catalogue ne'er should I stop)
Of the three greatest lights of our time,
Doctor Eady and Southey and Slop!
Should you ask me, to which of the three
Great Doctors the preference should fall,
As a matter of course I agree
Doctor Eady must go to the wall.
But as Southey with laurels is crowned,
And Slop with a wig and a tail is,
Let Eady's bright temples be bound
With a swingeing "Corona Muralis!"[3]
The Winds
by Madison Julius Cawein

Those hewers of the clouds, the Winds, - that lair
At the four compass-points, - are out to-night;
I hear their sandals trample on the height,
I hear their voices trumpet through the air:
Builders of storm, God's workmen, now they bear,
Up the steep stair of sky, on backs of might,
Huge tempest bulks, while, - sweat that blinds heir sight, - 
The rain is shaken from tumultuous hair:
Now, sweepers of the firmament, they broom,
Like gathered dust, the rolling mists along
Heaven's floors of sapphire; all the beautiful blue
Of skyey corridor and celestial room
Preparing, with large laughter and loud song,
For the white moon and stars to wander through.
Those Evening Bells. (Air.--The Bells Of St. Petersburgh.)
by Thomas Moore

Those evening bells! those evening bells!
How many a tale their music tells,
Of youth and home and that sweet time
When last I heard their soothing chime.
Those joyous hours are past away:
And many a heart, that then was gay.
Within the tomb now darkly dwells,
And hears no more those evening bells.
And so 'twill be when I am gone:
That tuneful peal will still ring on,
While other bards shall walk these dells,
And sing your praise, sweet evening bells!