DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
April
by John Greenleaf Whittier

'The spring comes slowly up this way.'
- Christabel.
'T is the noon of the spring-time, yet never a bird
In the wind-shaken elm or the maple is heard;
For green meadow-grasses wide levels of snow,
And blowing of drifts where the crocus should blow;
Where wind-flower and violet, amber and white,
On south-sloping brooksides should smile in the light,
O'er the cold winter-beds of their late-waking roots
The frosty flake eddies, the ice-crystal shoots;
And, longing for light, under wind-driven heaps,
Round the boles of the pine-wood the ground-laurel creeps,
Unkissed of the sunshine, unbaptized of showers,
With buds scarcely swelled, which should burst into flowers
We wait for thy coming, sweet wind of the south!
For the touch of thy light wings, the kiss of thy mouth;
For the yearly evangel thou bearest from God,
Resurrection and life to the graves of the sod!
Up our long river-valley, for days, have not ceased
The wail and the shriek of the bitter northeast,
Raw and chill, as if winnowed through ices and snow,
All the way from the land of the wild Esquimau,
Until all our dreams of the land of the blest,
Like that red hunter's, turn to the sunny southwest.
O soul of the spring-time, its light and its breath,
Bring warmth to this coldness, bring life to this death;
Renew the great miracle; let us behold
The stone from the mouth of the sepulchre rolled,
And Nature, like Lazarus, rise, as of old!
Let our faith, which in darkness and coldness has lain,
Revive with the warmth and the brightness again,
And in blooming of flower and budding of tree
The symbols and types of our destiny see;
The life of the spring-time, the life of the whole,
And, as sun to the sleeping earth, love to the soul
An Echo From Horace
by Richard Le Gallienne

Lusisti est, et edisti, atque bibisti; Tempus abire, tibi est.
Take away the dancing girls, quench the lights, remove
Golden cups and garlands sere, all the feast; away
Lutes and lyres and Lalage; close the gates, above
Write upon the lintel this; Time is done for play!
Thou hast had thy fill of love, eaten, drunk; the show
Ends at last, 'twas long enough - time it is to go.
Thou hast played - ah! heart, how long! - past all count were they,
Girls of gold and ivory, bosomed deep, all snow,
Leopard swift, and velvet loined, bronze for hair, wild clay
Turning at a touch to flame, tense as a strung bow.
Cruel as the circling hawk, tame at last as dove, - 
Thou hast had thy fill and more than enough of love.
Thou hast eaten; peacock's tongues, - fed thy carp with slaves, - 
Nests of Asiatic birds, brought from far Cathay,
Umbrian boars, and mullet roes snatched from stormy waves;
Half thy father's lands have gone one strange meal to pay;
For a morsel on thy plate ravished sea and shore;
Thou hast eaten - 'tis enough, thou shalt eat no more.
Thou hast drunk - how hast thou drunk! mighty vats, whole seas;
Vineyards purpling half a world turned to gold thy throat,
Falernian, true Massic, the gods' own vintages,
Lakes thou hast swallowed deep enough galleys tall to float;
Wildness, wonder, wisdom, all, drunkenness divine,
All that dreams within the grape, madness too, were thine.
Time it is to go and sleep - draw the curtains close - 
Tender strings shall lull thee still, mellow flutes be blown,
Still the spring shall shower down on thy couch the rose,
Still the laurels crown thine head, where thou dreamest alone.
Thou didst play, and thou didst eat, thou hast drunken deep,
Time at last it is to go, time it is to sleep.
The Wedding Morning
by Thomas Hardy

Tabitha dressed for her wedding:-
"Tabby, why look so sad?"
" O I feel a great gloominess spreading, spreading,
Instead of supremely glad! . . .
"I called on Carry last night,
And he came whilst I was there,
Not knowing I'd called. So I kept out of sight,
And I heard what he said to her:
"' Ah, I'd far liefer marry
YOU, Dear, to-morrow!' he said,
'But that cannot be.' O I'd give him to Carry,
And willingly see them wed,
"But how can I do it when
His baby will soon be born?
After that I hope I may die. And then
She can have him. I shall not mourn!'
The Hudson - After A Lecture At Albany
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

'T was a vision of childhood that came with its dawn,
Ere the curtain that covered life's day-star was drawn;
The nurse told the tale when the shadows grew long,
And the mother's soft lullaby breathed it in song.
"There flows a fair stream by the hills of the West," - 
She sang to her boy as he lay on her breast;
"Along its smooth margin thy fathers have played;
Beside its deep waters their ashes are laid."
I wandered afar from the land of my birth,
I saw the old rivers, renowned upon earth,
But fancy still painted that wide-flowing stream
With the many-hued pencil of infancy's dream.
I saw the green banks of the castle-crowned Rhine,
Where the grapes drink the moonlight and change it to wine;
I stood by the Avon, whose waves as they glide
Still whisper his glory who sleeps at their side.
But my heart would still yearn for the sound of the waves
That sing as they flow by my forefathers' graves;
If manhood yet honors my cheek with a tear,
I care not who sees it, - no blush for it here!
Farewell to the deep-bosomed stream of the West!
I fling this loose blossom to float on its breast;
Nor let the dear love of its children grow cold,
Till the channel is dry where its waters have rolled!
December, 1854.
T Was Later When The Summer Went
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

'T WAS later when the summer went
Than when the cricket came,
And yet we knew that gentle clock
Meant nought but going home.
'T was sooner when the cricket went
Than when the winter came,
Yet that pathetic pendulum
Keeps esoteric time.
Song.
by Thomas Moore

Take back the sigh, thy lips of art
In passion's moment breathed to me;
Yet, no--it must not, will not part,
'Tis now the life-breath of my heart,
And has become too pure for thee.
Take back the kiss, that faithless sigh
With all the warmth of truth imprest;
Yet, no--the fatal kiss may lie,
Upon thy lip its sweets would die,
Or bloom to make a rival blest.
Take back the vows that, night and day,
My heart received, I thought, from thine;
Yet, no--allow them still to stay,
They might some other heart betray,
As sweetly as they've ruined mine.
Stepping Westward
by William Wordsworth

"What, you are stepping westward?" "Yea."
'T would be a wildish destiny,
If we, who thus together roam
In a strange land, and far from home,
Were in this place the guests of Chance:
Yet who would stop, or fear to advance,
Though home or shelter he had none,
With such a sky to lead him on?
The dewy ground was dark and cold;
Behind, all gloomy to behold;
And stepping westward seemed to be
A kind of heavenly destiny:
I liked the greeting; 't was a sound
Of something without place or bound;
And seemed to give me spiritual right
To travel through that region bright.
The voice was soft, and she who spake
Was walking by her native lake:
The salutation had to me
The very sound of courtesy:
Its power was felt; and while my eye
Was fixed upon the glowing sky,
The echo of the voice enwrought
A human sweetness with the thought
Of travelling through the world that lay
Before me in my endless way.
Resurrection.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

'T was a long parting, but the time
For interview had come;
Before the judgment-seat of God,
The last and second time
These fleshless lovers met,
A heaven in a gaze,
A heaven of heavens, the privilege
Of one another's eyes.
No lifetime set on them,
Apparelled as the new
Unborn, except they had beheld,
Born everlasting now.
Was bridal e'er like this?
A paradise, the host,
And cherubim and seraphim
The most familiar guest.
The Spirit.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

'T is whiter than an Indian pipe,
'T is dimmer than a lace;
No stature has it, like a fog,
When you approach the place.
Not any voice denotes it here,
Or intimates it there;
A spirit, how doth it accost?
What customs hath the air?
This limitless hyperbole
Each one of us shall be;
'T is drama, if (hypothesis)
It be not tragedy!
A Recipe.
by William Schwenck Gilbert

Take a pair of sparkling eyes,
Hidden, ever and anon,
In a merciful eclipse 
Do not heed their mild surprise 
Having passed the Rubicon.
Take a pair of rosy lips;
Take a figure trimly planned 
Such as admiration whets
(Be particular in this);
Take a tender little hand,
Fringed with dainty fingerettes,
Press it in parenthesis; 
Take all these, you lucky man 
Take and keep them, if you can.
Take a pretty little cot 
Quite a miniature affair 
Hung about with trellised vine,
Furnish it upon the spot
With the treasures rich and rare
I've endeavored to define.
Live to love and love to live
You will ripen at your ease,
Growing on the sunny side 
Fate has nothing more to give.
You're a dainty man to please
If you are not satisfied.
Take my counsel, happy man:
Act upon it, if you can!
Valentines From A Hyperbolist
by Arthur Macy

Take all the love that e'er was told
Since first the world began,
Increase it twenty thousand-fold
(If mathematics can),
Add all the love the world shall see
Till Gabriel's final call,
And when compared with mine 'twill be
Infinitesimal.
Unwarned.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

'T is sunrise, little maid, hast thou
No station in the day?
'T was not thy wont to hinder so, --
Retrieve thine industry.
'T is noon, my little maid, alas!
And art thou sleeping yet?
The lily waiting to be wed,
The bee, dost thou forget?
My little maid, 't is night; alas,
That night should be to thee
Instead of morning! Hadst thou broached
Thy little plan to me,
Dissuade thee if I could not, sweet,
I might have aided thee.
His Last Sail
by Frederic William Moorman

GRANDFATHER
T' watter is blue i' t' offin',
An' blue is t' sky aboon;
Swallows are settin' sou'ard,
An' wanin' is t' harvist moon.
Ower lang I've bin cowerin' idle
I' my neuk by t' fire-side;
I'll away yance mair i' my coble,
I'll away wi' t' ebbin' tide.
MALLY
Nay, Gransir, thoo moant gan sailin',
Thoo mun bide at yam to-neet;
At eighty-two thoo sudn't think
O' t' Whitby fishin' fleet.
North cone's up on t' flagstaff,
There's a cap-full o' wind i' t' bay;
T' waves wap loud on t' harbour bar,
Thoo can hardlins fish to-day.
GRANDFATHER
It's leansome here i' t' hoose, lass,
When t' fisher-folk's at sea,
Watchin' yon eldin(1) set i' t' fire
Bleeze up, dwine doon, an' dee.
An' t' sea-gulls they coom flyin'
Aboon our red roof-tiles;
They call me doon the chimley,
An' laugh at other whiles.
"There's mack'rel oot at sea, lad,"
Is what I hear 'em say;
"Their silver scales are glestrin' breet,
Look oot across the bay;
But mack'rel's not for thee, lad,
For thoo's ower weak to sail."
My een wi' saut tears daggle(2)
When I hear their mockin' tale.
MALLY
Dean't mind their awfish(3) skreekin',
They 'tice folk to their death;
Then ride aboon yon billows
An' gloor at them beneath.
They gloor at eenless corpses
Slow driftin' wi' the tide,
Deep doon amang the weedy wrack,
Wheer t' scaly fishes glide.
GRANDFATHER
I'd fain lig wi' my kinsfolk,
Fore-elders, brothers, sons,
Wheer t' star-fish shine like twinklin' leets,
An' t' spring-tide watter runs.
T' kirkyard's good for farm-folk,
That ploo an' milk their kye,
But I could sleep maist soondly
Wheer t' ships gan sailin' by.
T' grave is whisht(4) an' foulsome,
But clean is t' saut sea-bed;
Thoo can hark to t' billows dancin'
To t' tune o' t' tide owerhead.
Yon wreaths o' floors i' t' kirkyard
Sean wither an' fade away,
But t' sea-tang wreaths round a droon'd man's head
Will bide while Judgment Day.
Sae fettle(5) my owd blue coble,
I kessen'd her "Mornin' Star,"
An' I'll away through t' offin'
Wheer t' skooals o' mack'rel are.
Thoo can look for my boat i' t' harbour,
When thoo's said thy mornin' psalm;
Mebbe I'll fill my fish-creel full--
Mebbe I'll nean coom yam.
Recipe For A Multi-Millionaire:
by Unknown

Take a boy with bare feet as a starter
Add thrift and sobriety, mixed -
Flavor with quarts of religion,
And see that the tariff is fixed.
- Life.
The Gray Chief
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

For The Meeting Of The Massachusetts Medical Society, 1859
'T is sweet to fight our battles o'er,
And crown with honest praise
The gray old chief, who strikes no more
The blow of better days.
Before the true and trusted sage
With willing hearts we bend,
When years have touched with hallowing age
Our Master, Guide, and Friend.
For all his manhood's labor past,
For love and faith long tried,
His age is honored to the last,
Though strength and will have died.
But when, untamed by toil and strife,
Full in our front he stands,
The torch of light, the shield of life,
Still lifted in his hands,
No temple, though its walls resound
With bursts of ringing cheers,
Can hold the honors that surround
His manhood's twice-told years!
The Old Bridge At Florence
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Taddeo Gaddi built me.    I am old,
Five centuries old.    I plant my foot of stone
Upon the Arno, as St. Michael's own
Was planted on the dragon.    Fold by fold
Beneath me as it struggles.    I behold
Its glistening scales.    Twice hath it overthrown
My kindred and companions.    Me alone
It moveth not, but is by me controlled,
I can remember when the Medici
Were driven from Florence; longer still ago
The final wars of Ghibelline and Guelf.
Florence adorns me with her jewelry;
And when I think that Michael Angelo
Hath leaned on me, I glory in myself.
Hom[oe]Opathic Soup
by Unknown

Take a robin's leg
(Mind, the drumstick merely);
Put it in a tub
Filled with water nearly;
Set it out of doors,
In a place that's shady;
Let it stand a week
(Three days if for a lady);
Drop a spoonful of it
In a five-pail kettle,
Which may be made of tin
Or any baser metal;
Fill the kettle up,
Set it on a boiling,
Strain the liquor well,
To prevent its oiling;
One atom add of salt,
For the thickening one rice kernel,
And use to light the fire
"The Hom[oe]opathic Journal."
Let the liquor boil
Half an hour, no longer,
(If 'tis for a man
Of course you'll make it stronger).
Should you now desire
That the soup be flavoury,
Stir it once around,
With a stalk of savoury.
When the broth is made,
Nothing can excell it:
Then three times a day
Let the patient smell it.
If he chance to die,
Say 'twas Nature did it:
If he chance to live,
Give the soup the credit.
Retrospect.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

'T was just this time last year I died.
I know I heard the corn,
When I was carried by the farms, --
It had the tassels on.
I thought how yellow it would look
When Richard went to mill;
And then I wanted to get out,
But something held my will.
I thought just how red apples wedged
The stubble's joints between;
And carts went stooping round the fields
To take the pumpkins in.
I wondered which would miss me least,
And when Thanksgiving came,
If father'd multiply the plates
To make an even sum.
And if my stocking hung too high,
Would it blur the Christmas glee,
That not a Santa Claus could reach
The altitude of me?
But this sort grieved myself, and so
I thought how it would be
When just this time, some perfect year,
Themselves should come to me.
Rococo
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Take hands and part with laughter;
Touch lips and part with tears;
Once more and no more after,
Whatever comes with years.
We twain shall not remeasure
The ways that left us twain;
Nor crush the lees of pleasure
From sanguine grapes of pain.
We twain once well in sunder,
What will the mad gods do
For hate with me, I wonder,
Or what for love with you?
Forget them till November,
And dream there's April yet;
Forget that I remember,
And dream that I forget.
Time found our tired love sleeping,
And kissed away his breath;
But what should we do weeping,
Though light love sleep to death?
We have drained his lips at leisure,
Till there's not left to drain
A single sob of pleasure,
A single pulse of pain.
Dream that the lips once breathless
Might quicken if they would;
Say that the soul is deathless;
Dream that the gods are good;
Say March may wed September,
And time divorce regret;
But not that you remember,
And not that I forget.
We have heard from hidden places
What love scarce lives and hears:
We have seen on fervent faces
The pallor of strange tears:
We have trod the wine-vat's treasure,
Whence, ripe to steam and stain,
Foams round the feet of pleasure
The blood-red must of pain.
Remembrance may recover
And time bring back to time
The name of your first lover,
The ring of my first rhyme;
But rose-leaves of December
The frosts of June shall fret,
The day that you remember,
The day that I forget.
The snake that hides and hisses
In heaven we twain have known;
The grief of cruel kisses,
The joy whose mouth makes moan;
The pulse's pause and measure,
Where in one furtive vein
Throbs through the heart of pleasure
The purpler blood of pain.
We have done with tears and treasons
And love for treason's sake;
Room for the swift new seasons,
The years that burn and break,
Dismantle and dismember
Men's days and dreams, Juliette;
For love may not remember,
But time will not forget.
Life treads down love in flying,
Time withers him at root;
Bring all dead things and dying,
Reaped sheaf and ruined fruit,
Where, crushed by three days' pressure,
Our three days' love lies slain;
And earlier leaf of pleasure,
And latter flower of pain.
Breathe close upon the ashes,
It may be flame will leap;
Unclose the soft close lashes,
Lift up the lids, and weep.
Light love's extinguished ember,
Let one tear leave it wet
For one that you remember
And ten that you forget.
Recipe For An Editor:
by Unknown

Take a personal hatred of authors,
Mix this with a fiendish delight
In refusing all efforts of genius
And maiming all poets on sight.
- Life.
Juliet And Her Romeo
by Richard Le Gallienne

(With Mr. Dicksee's Picture)
Take 'this of Juliet and her Romeo,'
Dear Heart of mine, for though yon budding sky
Yearns o'er Verona, and so long ago
That kiss was kissed; yet surely Thou and I,
Surely it is, whom morning tears apart,
As ruthless men tear tendrilled ivy down:
Is not Verona warm within thy gown,
And Mantua all the world save where thou art?
O happy grace of lovers of old time,
Living to love like gods, and dead to live
Symbols and saints for us who follow them;
Even bitter Death must sweets to lovers give:
See how they wear their tears for diadem,
Throned on the star of an unshaken rhyme.
Take Hence The Bowl. (Neapolitan Air.)
by Thomas Moore

Take hence the bowl;--tho' beaming
Brightly as bowl e'er shone,
Oh, it but sets me dreaming
Of happy days now gone.
There, in its clear reflection,
As in a wizard's glass,
Lost hopes and dead affection,
Like shades, before me pass.
Each cup I drain brings hither
Some scene of bliss gone by;--
Bright lips too bright to wither,
Warm hearts too warm to die.
Till, as the dream comes o'er me
Of those long vanished years,
Alas, the wine before me
Seems turning all to tears!
Ballad Of Fisher's Boarding-House
by Rudyard Kipling

'T was Fultah Fisher's boarding-house,
Where sailor-men reside,
And there were men of all the ports
From Mississip to Clyde,
And regally they spat and smoked,
And fearsomely they lied.
They lied about the purple Sea
That gave them scanty bread,
They lied about the Earth beneath,
The Heavens overhead,
For they had looked too often on
Black rum when that was red.
They told their tales of wreck and wrong,
Of shame and lust and fraud,
They backed their toughest statements with
The Brimstone of the Lord,
And crackling oaths went to and fro
Across the fist-banged board.
And there was Hans the blue-eyed Dane,
Bull-throated, bare of arm,
Who carried on his hairy chest
The maid Ultruda's charm
The little silver crucifix
That keeps a man from harm.
And there was Jake Without-the-Ears,
And Pamba the Malay,
And Carboy Gin the Guinea cook,
And Luz from Vigo Bay,
And Honest Jack who sold them slops
And harvested their pay.
And there was Salem Hardieker,
A lean Bostonian he
Russ, German, English, Halfbreed, Finn,
Yank, Dane, and Portugee,
At Fultah Fisher's boarding-house
They rested from the sea.
Now Anne of Austria shared their drinks,
Collinga knew her fame,
From Tarnau in Galicia
To Juan Bazaar she came,
To eat the bread of infamy
And take the wage of shame.
She held a dozen men to heel
Rich spoil of war was hers,
In hose and gown and ring and chain,
From twenty mariners,
And, by Port Law, that week, men called
Her Salem Hardieker's.
But seamen learnt what landsmen know
That neither gifts nor gain
Can hold a winking Light o' Love
Or Fancy's flight restrain,
When Anne of Austria rolled her eyes
On Hans the blue-eyed Dane.
Since Life is strife, and strife means knife,
From Howrah to the Bay,
And he may die before the dawn
Who liquored out the day,
In Fultah Fisher's boarding-house
We woo while yet we may.
But cold was Hans the blue-eyed Dane,
Bull-throated, bare of arm,
And laughter shook the chest beneath
The maid Ultruda's charm
The little silver crucifix
That keeps a man from harm.
"You speak to Salem Hardieker;
"You was his girl, I know.
"I ship mineselfs to-morrow, see,
"Und round the Skaw we go,
"South, down the Cattegat, by Hjelm,
"To Besser in Saro."
When love rejected turns to hate,
All ill betide the man.
"You speak to Salem Hardieker"
She spoke as woman can.
A scream a sob "He called me names!"
And then the fray began.
An oath from Salem Hardieker,
A shriek upon the stairs,
A dance of shadows on the wall,
A knife-thrust unawares
And Hans came down, as cattle drop,
Across the broken chairs.
. . . . . .
In Anne of Austria's trembling hands
The weary head fell low:
"I ship mineselfs to-morrow, straight
"For Besser in Saro;
"Und there Ultruda comes to me
"At Easter, und I go
"South, down the Cattegat What's here?
"There are no lights to guide!"
The mutter ceased, the spirit passed,
And Anne of Austria cried
In Fultah Fisher's boarding-house
When Hans the mighty died.
Thus slew they Hans the blue-eyed Dane,
Bull-throated, bare of arm,
But Anne of Austria looted first
The maid Ultruda's charm
The little silver crucifix
That keeps a man from harm.
The Banks Of Ivory
by John Clare

'T was on the banks of Ivory, 'neath the hawthorn-scented shade,
Early one summer's morning, I met a lovely maid;
Her hair hung o'er her shoulders broad, her eyes like suns did shine,
And on the banks of Ivory, O I wished the maid was mine.
Her face it wore the beauty of heaven's own broken mould;
The world's first charm seemed living still; her curls like hanks of gold
Hung waving, and her eyes glittered timid as the dew,
When by the banks of Ivory I swore I loved her true.
"Kind sir," she said, "forsake me, while it is no pain to go,
For often after kissing and such wooing there comes woe;
And woman's heart is feeble; O I wish it were a stone;
So by the banks of Ivory I'd rather walk alone.
For learned seems your gallant speech, and noble is your trim,
And thus to court an humble maid is just to please your whim;
So go and seek some lady fair, as high in pedigree,
Nor stoop so low by Ivory to flatter one like me."
"In sooth, fair maid, you mock at me, for truth ne'er harboured ill;
I will not wrong your purity; to love is all my will:
My hall looks over yonder groves; its lady you shall be,
For on the banks of Ivory I'm glad I met with thee."
He put his hands unto his lips, and whistled loud and shrill,
And thirty six well-armed men came at their master's will,
Said he "I've flattered maids full long, but now the time is past,
And the bonny hills of Ivory a lady own at last.
My steed's back ne'er was graced for a lady's seat before;
Fear not his speed; I'll guard thee, love, till we ride o'er the moor,
To seek the priest, and wed, and love until the day we die."
So she that was but poor before is Lady Ivory.
Take Heart
by Madison Julius Cawein

Take heart again. Joy may be lost awhile.
It is not always Spring.
And even now from some far Summer Isle
Hither the birds may wing.