DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Grace Darling.
by Thomas Frederick Young

The steamer Forfarshire, one morn
Right gaily put to sea,
From Hull, in merry England,
To a Scottish town, Dundee.
The winds were fair, the waters calm,
And all on board were gay,
For sped the vessel quickly on,
Unharrass'd in her way.
All trim and neat the vessel look'd,
And strong, while, from on high
Her flag stream'd gaily, over those
Who deem'd no danger nigh.
So strong she look'd from stem to stern,
That all maintained that she
Would weather e'en the fiercest storm,
From Hull unto Dundee.
But bitterly deceiv'd were they,
When off North England's shore,
The vessel in a nor'-west gale,
Did labor more and more.
Her timbers creak'd, her engines mov'd
With weak, convulsive shocks,
And soon the ship, beyond control,
Rush'd madly on the rocks,
And then a lighthouse keeper saw
Her struggle with the waves,
And knew that soon, if came no help,
They'd find them wat'ry graves.
"What boat," he said, "could pass to them
O'er such a raging sea,
And e'en if I should venture out,
Oh! who would go with me"?
"Oh father, I will go with you,
Out o'er the raging sea;
To rescue them, come life, come death,
I'll work an oar with thee."
She went, and battling with the sea,
They reach'd the vessel's side,
And sav'd nine precious lives,
From sinking in the tide.
For those, who on the wreck remain'd,
Afraid to trust the waves,
In such a frail and loaded boat,
Soon found uncoffin'd graves.
All noble acts, unconsciously
Are done, with pure intent;
And thus, upon her errand bold,
This noble maiden went.
And when, from many mouths, she heard
Her praises told aloud,
'Twas but for simple duty done,
This modest maid felt proud.
And when, into her lone abode
Fam'd artists quickly came,
No swelling and self-conscious pride
Did animate her frame.
They knew rewards would scarcely do,
To tell what should be told,
And yet, they gave this modest girl
Five hundred pounds in gold.
But gold her peerless bravery
Could neither buy nor pay,
And yet, content, her lonely life
She liv'd from day to day.
A New Year's Eve
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Christina Rossetti died December 29, 1894
The stars are strong in the deeps of the lustrous night,
Cold and splendid as death if his dawn be bright;
Cold as the cast-off garb that is cold as clay,
Splendid and strong as a spirit intense as light.
A soul more sweet than the morning of new-born May
Has passed with the year that has passed from the world away.
A song more sweet than the morning's first-born song
Again will hymn not among us a new year's day.
Not here, not here shall the carol of joy grown strong
Ring rapture now, and uplift us, a spell-struck throng,
From dream to vision of life that the soul may see
By death's grace only, if death do its trust no wrong.
Scarce yet the days and the starry nights are three
Since here among us a spirit abode as we,
Girt round with life that is fettered in bonds of time,
And clasped with darkness about as is earth with sea.
And now, more high than the vision of souls may climb,
The soul whose song was as music of stars that chime,
Clothed round with life as of dawn and the mounting sun,
Sings, and we know not here of the song sublime.
No word is ours of it now that the songs are done
Whence here we drank of delight as in freedom won,
In deep deliverance given from the bonds we bore.
There is none to sing as she sang upon earth, not one.
We heard awhile: and for us who shall hear no more
The sound as of waves of light on a starry shore
Awhile bade brighten and yearn as a father's face
The face of death, divine as in days of yore.
The grey gloom quickened and quivered: the sunless place
Thrilled, and the silence deeper than time or space
Seemed now not all everlasting. Hope grew strong,
And love took comfort, given of the sweet song's grace.
Love that finds not on earth, where it finds but wrong,
Love that bears not the bondage of years in throng
Shone to show for her, higher than the years that mar,
The life she looked and longed for as love must long.
Who knows? We know not. Afar, if the dead be far,
Alive, if the dead be alive as the soul's works are,
The soul whose breath was among us a heavenward song
Sings, loves, and shines as it shines for us here a star.
Partial Fame
by Matthew Prior

The sturdy man, if he in love obtains,
In open pomp and triumph reigns:
The subtle woman, if she should succeed,
Disowns the honour of the deed.
Though he for all his boast is forced to yield,
Though she can always keep the field,
He vaunts his conquests, she conceals her shame:
How partial is the voice of Fame!
Famine And Harvest
by George Parsons Lathrop

[PLYMOUTH PLANTATION: 1622]
The strong and the tender,
The young and the old,
Unto Death we must render; - 
Our silver, our gold.
To break their long sleeping
No voice may avail:
They hear not our weeping - 
Our famished love's wail.
Yea, those whom we cherish
Depart, day by day.
Soon we, too, shall perish
And crumble to clay.
And the vine and the berry
Above us will bloom;
The wind shall make merry
While we lie in gloom.
Fear not! Though thou starvest,
Provision is made:
God gathers His harvest
When our hopes fade!
The Irishman's Song.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

The stars may dissolve, and the fountain of light
May sink into ne'er ending chaos and night,
Our mansions must fall, and earth vanish away,
But thy courage O Erin! may never decay.
See! the wide wasting ruin extends all around,
Our ancestors' dwellings lie sunk on the ground,
Our foes ride in triumph throughout our domains,
And our mightiest heroes lie stretched on the plains.
Ah! dead is the harp which was wont to give pleasure,
Ah! sunk is our sweet country's rapturous measure,
But the war note is waked, and the clangour of spears,
The dread yell of Sloghan yet sounds in our ears.
Ah! where are the heroes! triumphant in death,
Convulsed they recline on the blood sprinkled heath,
Or the yelling ghosts ride on the blast that sweeps by,
And 'my countrymen! vengeance!' incessantly cry.
OCTOBER, 1809.
Sweet Fern
by John Greenleaf Whittier

The subtle power in perfume found
Nor priest nor sibyl vainly learned;
On Grecian shrine or Aztec mound
No censer idly burned.
That power the old-time worships knew,
The Corybantes' frenzied dance,
The Pythian priestess swooning through
The wonderland of trance.
And Nature holds, in wood and field,
Her thousand sunlit censers still;
To spells of flower and shrub we yield
Against or with our will.
I climbed a hill path strange and new
With slow feet, pausing at each turn;
A sudden waft of west wind blew
The breath of the sweet fern.
That fragrance from my vision swept
The alien landscape; in its stead,
Up fairer hills of youth I stepped,
As light of heart as tread.
I saw my boyhood's lakelet shine
Once more through rifts of woodland shade;
I knew my river's winding line
By morning mist betrayed.
With me June's freshness, lapsing brook,
Murmurs of leaf and bee, the call
Of birds, and one in voice and look
In keeping with them all.
A fern beside the way we went
She plucked, and, smiling, held it up,
While from her hand the wild, sweet scent
I drank as from a cup.
O potent witchery of smell!
The dust-dry leaves to life return,
And she who plucked them owns the spell
And lifts her ghostly fern.
Or sense or spirit? Who shall say
What touch the chord of memory thrills?
It passed, and left the August day
Ablaze on lonely hills.
A Lullaby
by Eugene Field

The stars are twinkling in the skies,
The earth is lost in slumbers deep;
So hush, my sweet, and close thine eyes,
And let me lull thy soul to sleep.
Compose thy dimpled hands to rest,
And like a little birdling lie
Secure within thy cozy nest
Upon my loving mother breast,
And slumber to my lullaby,
So hushaby--O hushaby.
The moon is singing to a star
The little song I sing to you;
The father sun has strayed afar,
As baby's sire is straying too.
And so the loving mother moon
Sings to the little star on high;
And as she sings, her gentle tune
Is borne to me, and thus I croon
For thee, my sweet, that lullaby
Of hushaby--O hushaby.
There is a little one asleep
That does not hear his mother's song;
But angel watchers--as I weep--
Surround his grave the night-tide long.
And as I sing, my sweet, to you,
Oh, would the lullaby I sing--
The same sweet lullaby he knew
While slumb'ring on this bosom too--
Were borne to him on angel's wing!
So hushaby--O hushaby.
March.
by William Cullen Bryant

The stormy March is come at last,
With wind, and cloud, and changing skies,
I hear the rushing of the blast,
That through the snowy valley flies.
Ah, passing few are they who speak,
Wild stormy month! in praise of thee;
Yet, though thy winds are loud and bleak,
Thou art a welcome month to me.
For thou, to northern lands, again
The glad and glorious sun dost bring,
And thou hast joined the gentle train
And wear'st the gentle name of Spring.
And, in thy reign of blast and storm,
Smiles many a long, bright, sunny day,
When the changed winds are soft and warm,
And heaven puts on the blue of May.
Then sing aloud the gushing rills
And the full springs, from frost set free,
That, brightly leaping down the hills,
Are just set out to meet the sea.
The year's departing beauty hides
Of wintry storms the sullen threat;
But in thy sternest frown abides
A look of kindly promise yet.
Thou bring'st the hope of those calm skies,
And that soft time of sunny showers,
When the wide bloom, on earth that lies,
Seems of a brighter world than ours.
The River Duddon - A Series Of Sonnets, 1820. - XIX - The Stepping-Stones
by William Wordsworth

The struggling Rill insensibly is grown
Into a Brook of loud and stately march,
Crossed ever and anon by plank or arch;
And, for like use, lo! what might seem a zone
Chosen for ornament, stone matched with stone
In studied symmetry, with interspace
For the clear waters to pursue their race
Without restraint. How swiftly have they flown,
Succeeding, still succeeding! Here the Child
Puts, when the high-swoln Flood runs fierce and wild,
His budding courage to the proof; and here
Declining Manhood learns to note the sly
And sure encroachments of infirmity,
Thinking how fast time runs, life's end how near!
How Fear Came
by Rudyard Kipling

The stream is shrunk, the pool is dry,
And we be comrades, thou and I;
With fevered jowl and dusty flank
Each jostling each along the bank;
And, by one drouthy fear made still,
Forgoing thought of quest or kill.
Now 'neath his dam the fawn may see,
The lean Pack-Wolf as cowed as he,
And the tall buck, unflinching, note
The fangs that tore his father's throat.
The pools are shrunk, the streams are dry,
And we be playmates, thou and I,
Till yonder cloud, Good Hunting! Loose
The rain that breaks our Water Truce.
The Hundredth Year
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

"Drake, and Blake, and Nelson's mighty name."
The stars were faint in heaven
That saw the Old Year die,
The dream-white mist of Devon
Shut in the seaward sky:
Before the dawn's unveiling
I heard three voices hailing,
I saw three ships come sailing
With lanterns gleaming high.
The first he cried defiance--
A full-mouthed voice and bold--
"On God be our reliance,
Our hope the Spaniard's gold!
With a still, stern ambuscado,
With a roaring escalado,
We'll sack their Eldorado
And storm their dungeon hold!"
Then slowly spake the second--
A great sad voice and deep--
"When all your gold is reckoned,
There is but this to keep:
To stay the foe from fooling,
To learn the heathen schooling,
To live and die sea-ruling,
And home at last to sleep."
But the third matched in beauty
The dawn that flushed afar;
"O sons of England, Duty
Is England's morning star:
Then Fame's eternal splendour
Be theirs who well defend her,
And theirs who fain would bend her
The night of Trafalgar!"
Song Written For The Dinner Given To Charles Dickens By The Young Men Of Boston, February 1, 1842
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

The stars their early vigils keep,
The silent hours are near,
When drooping eyes forget to weep, - 
Yet still we linger here;
And what - the passing churl may ask - 
Can claim such wondrous power,
That Toil forgets his wonted task,
And Love his promised hour?
The Irish harp no longer thrills,
Or breathes a fainter tone;
The clarion blast from Scotland's hills,
Alas! no more is blown;
And Passion's burning lip bewails
Her Harold's wasted fire,
Still lingering o'er the dust that veils
The Lord of England's lyre.
But grieve not o'er its broken strings,
Nor think its soul hath died,
While yet the lark at heaven's gate sings,
As once o'er Avon's side;
While gentle summer sheds her bloom,
And dewy blossoms wave,
Alike o'er Juliet's storied tomb
And Nelly's nameless grave.
Thou glorious island of the sea!
Though wide the wasting flood
That parts our distant land from thee,
We claim thy generous blood;
Nor o'er thy far horizon springs
One hallowed star of fame,
But kindles, like an angel's wings,
Our western skies in flame!
The Stockmen Of Australia
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

The stockmen of Australia, what rowdy boys are they,
They will curse and swear an hurricane if you come in their way.
They dash along the forest on black, bay, brown, or grey,
And the stockmen of Australia, hard-riding boys are they.
Chorus: And the stockmen, &c.
By constant feats of horsemanship, they procure for us our grub,
And supply us with the fattest beef by hard work in the scrub.
To muster up the cattle they cease not night nor day,
And the stockmen of Australia, hard-riding boys are they.
Chorus: And the stockmen, &c.
Just mark him as he jogs along, his stockwhip on his knee,
His white mole pants and polished boots and jaunty cabbage- tree.
His horsey-pattern Crimean shirt of colours bright and gay,
And the stockmen of Australia, what dressy boys are they.
Chorus: And the stockmen, &c.
If you should chance to lose yourself and drop upon his camp,
He's there reclining on the ground, be it dry or be it damp.
He'll give you hearty welcome, and a stunning pot of tea,
For the stockmen of Australia, good-natured boys are they.
Chorus: For the stockmen, &c.
If down to Sydney you should go, and there a stockman meet,
Remark the sly looks cast on him as he roams through the street.
From the shade of lovely bonnets steal forth those glances gay,
For the stockmen of Australia, the ladies' pets are they.
Chorus: For the stockmen, &c.
Whatever fun is going on, the stockman will be there,
Be it theatre or concert, or dance or fancy fair.
To join in the amusements be sure he won't delay,
For the stockmen of Australia, light-hearted boys are they.
Chorus: For the stockmen, &c.
Then here's a health to every lass, and let the toast go round,
To as jolly a set of fellows as ever yet were found.
And all good luck be with them, for ever and to-day,
Here's to the stockmen of Australia'hip, hip, hooray!
Chorus: Here's to the stockmen, &c.
In Trafalgar Square.
by Francis William Lauderdale Adams

The stars shone faint through the smoky blue;
The church-bells were ringing;
Three girls, arms laced, were passing through,
Tramping and singing.
Their heads were bare; their short skirts swung
As they went along;
Their scarf-covered breasts heaved up, as they sung
Their defiant song.
It was not too clean, their feminine lay,
But it thrilled me quite
With its challenge to task-master villainous day
And infamous night,
With its threat to the robber rich, the proud,
The respectable free.
And I laughed and shouted to them aloud,
And they shouted to me!
"Girls, that's the shout, the shout we shall utter
When with rifles and spades,
We stand, with the old Red Flag aflutter,
On the barricades!"
Garrison
by John Greenleaf Whittier

The storm and peril overpast,
The hounding hatred shamed and still,
Go, soul of freedom! take at last
The place which thou alone canst fill.
Confirm the lesson taught of old
Life saved for self is lost, while they
Who lose it in His service hold
The lease of God's eternal day.
Not for thyself, but for the slave
Thy words of thunder shook the world;
No selfish griefs or hatred gave
The strength wherewith thy bolts were hurled.
From lips that Sinai's trumpet blew
We heard a tender under song;
Thy very wrath from pity grew,
From love of man thy hate of wrong.
Now past and present are as one;
The life below is life above;
Thy mortal years have but begun
Thy immortality of love.
With somewhat of thy lofty faith
We lay thy outworn garment by,
Give death but what belongs to death,
And life the life that cannot die!
Not for a soul like thine the calm
Of selfish ease and joys of sense;
But duty, more than crown or palm,
Its own exceeding recompense.
Go up and on! thy day well done,
Its morning promise well fulfilled,
Arise to triumphs yet unwon,
To holier tasks that God has willed.
Go, leave behind thee all that mars
The work below of man for man;
With the white legions of the stars
Do service such as angels can.
Wherever wrong shall right deny
Or suffering spirits urge their plea,
Be thine a voice to smite the lie,
A hand to set the captive free
On The Receipt Of A Hamper.
by William Cowper

(in the manner of homer.)
The straw-stuff'd hamper with his ruthless steel
He open'd, cutting sheer th' inserted cords
Which bound the lid and lip secure. Forth came
The rustling package first, bright straw of wheat,
Or oats, or barley; next a bottle green
Throat-full, clear spirits the contents, distill'd
Drop after drop odorous, by the art
Of the fair mother of his friend'the Rose.
Lord Arnaldos
by James Elroy Flecker

Quien hubiese tal ventura?
The strangest of adventures,
That happen by the sea,
Befell to Lord Arnaldos
On the Evening of St. John;
For he was out a hunting -
A huntsman bold was he! -
When he beheld a little ship
And close to land was she.
Her cords were all of silver,
Her sails of cramasy;
And he who sailed the little ship
Was singing at the helm;
The waves stood still to hear him,
The wind was soft and low;
The fish who dwell in darkness
Ascended through the sea,
And all the birds in heaven
Flew down to his mast-tree.
Then spake the Lord Arnaldos,
(Well shall you hear his words!)
"Tell me for God's sake, sailor,
What song may that song be?"
The sailor spake in answer,
And answer thus made he; -
"I only tell my song to those
Who sail away with me."
Malay Song
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

The Stars await, serene and white,
The unarisen moon;
Oh, come and stay with me to-night,
Beside the salt Lagoon!
My hut is small, but as you lie,
You see the lighted shore,
And hear the rippling water sigh
Beneath the pile-raised floor.
No gift have I of jewels or flowers,
My room is poor and bare:
But all the silver sea is ours,
And all the scented air
Blown from the mainland, where there grows
Th' "Intriguer of the Night,"
The flower that you have named Tube rose,
Sweet scented, slim, and white.
The flower that, when the air is still
And no land breezes blow,
From its pale petals can distil
A phosphorescent glow.
I see your ship at anchor ride;
Her "captive lightning" shine.
Before she takes to-morrow's tide,
Let this one night be mine!
Though in the language of your land
My words are poor and few,
Oh, read my eyes, and understand,
I give my youth to you!
In Absence.
by Sidney Lanier

I.
The storm that snapped our fate's one ship in twain
Hath blown my half o' the wreck from thine apart.
O Love! O Love! across the gray-waved main
To thee-ward strain my eyes, my arms, my heart.
I ask my God if e'en in His sweet place,
Where, by one waving of a wistful wing,
My soul could straightway tremble face to face
With thee, with thee, across the stellar ring -
Yea, where thine absence I could ne'er bewail
Longer than lasts that little blank of bliss
When lips draw back, with recent pressure pale,
To round and redden for another kiss -
Would not my lonesome heart still sigh for thee
What time the drear kiss-intervals must be?
II.
So do the mottled formulas of Sense
Glide snakewise through our dreams of Aftertime;
So errors breed in reeds and grasses dense
That bank our singing rivulets of rhyme.
By Sense rule Space and Time; but in God's Land
Their intervals are not, save such as lie
Betwixt successive tones in concords bland
Whose loving distance makes the harmony.
Ah, there shall never come 'twixt me and thee
Gross dissonances of the mile, the year;
But in the multichords of ecstasy
Our souls shall mingle, yet be featured clear,
And absence, wrought to intervals divine,
Shall part, yet link, thy nature's tone and mine.
III.
Look down the shining peaks of all my days
Base-hidden in the valleys of deep night,
So shalt thou see the heights and depths of praise
My love would render unto love's delight;
For I would make each day an Alp sublime
Of passionate snow, white-hot yet icy-clear,
- One crystal of the true-loves of all time
Spiring the world's prismatic atmosphere;
And I would make each night an awful vale
Deep as thy soul, obscure as modesty,
With every star in heaven trembling pale
O'er sweet profounds where only Love can see.
Oh, runs not thus the lesson thou hast taught? -
When life's all love, 'tis life: aught else, 'tis naught.
IV.
Let no man say, `He at his lady's feet
Lays worship that to Heaven alone belongs;
Yea, swings the incense that for God is meet
In flippant censers of light lover's songs.'
Who says it, knows not God, nor love, nor thee;
For love is large as is yon heavenly dome:
In love's great blue, each passion is full free
To fly his favorite flight and build his home.
Did e'er a lark with skyward-pointing beak
Stab by mischance a level-flying dove?
Wife-love flies level, his dear mate to seek:
God-love darts straight into the skies above.
Crossing, the windage of each other's wings
But speeds them both upon their journeyings.
Baltimore, 1874.
An Improvisation
by George MacDonald

The stars cleave the sky.
Yet for us they rest,
And their race-course high
Is a shining nest!
The hours hurry on.
But where is thy flight,
Soft pavilion
Of motionless night?
Earth gives up her trees
To the holy air;
They live in the breeze;
They are saints at prayer!
Summer night, come from God,
On your beauty, I see,
A still wave has flowed
Of eternity!
The Hope Of The Streets
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

The still sweet meadows shimmered: and I stood
And cursed them, bloom of hedge and bird of tree,
And bright and high beyond the hunch-backed wood
The thunder and the splendour of the sea.
Give back the Babylon where I was born,
The lips that gape give back, the hands that grope,
And noise and blood and suffocating scorn
An eddy of fierce faces--and a hope
That 'mid those myriad heads one head find place,
With brown hair curled like breakers of the sea,
And two eyes set so strangely in the face
That all things else are nothing suddenly.