DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Wolf And The Hunter.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
Thou lust of gain, - foul fiend, whose evil eyes
Regard as nought the blessings of the skies,
Must I for ever battle thee in vain?
How long demandest thou to gain
The meaning of my lessons plain?
Will constant getting never cloy?
Will man ne'er slacken to enjoy?
Haste, friend; thou hast not long to live:
Let me the precious word repeat,
And listen to it, I entreat;
A richer lesson none can give - 
The sovereign antidote for sorrow - 
ENJOY! - 'I will.' - But when? - 'To-morrow. - '
Ah! death may take you on the way,
Why not enjoy, I ask, to-day?
Lest envious fate your hopes ingulf,
As once it served the hunter and the wolf.
The former, with his fatal bow,
A noble deer had laid full low:
A fawn approach'd, and quickly lay
Companion of the dead,
For side by side they bled.
Could one have wished a richer prey?
Such luck had been enough to sate
A hunter wise and moderate.
Meantime a boar, as big as e'er was taken,
Our archer tempted, proud, and fond of bacon.
Another candidate for Styx,
Struck by his arrow, foams and kicks.
But strangely do the shears of Fate
To cut his cable hesitate.
Alive, yet dying, there he lies,
A glorious and a dangerous prize.
And was not this enough? Not quite,
To fill a conqueror's appetite;
For, ere the boar was dead, he spied
A partridge by a furrow's side - 
A trifle to his other game.
Once more his bow he drew;
The desperate boar upon him came,
And in his dying vengeance slew:
The partridge thank'd him as she flew.
Thus much is to the covetous address'd;
The miserly shall have the rest.
A wolf, in passing, saw that woeful sight.
'O Fortune,' cried the savage, with delight,
'A fane to thee I'll build outright!
'Four carcasses! how rich! But spare - 
'I'll make them last - such luck is rare,'
(The miser's everlasting plea.)
'They'll last a month for - let me see - 
One, two, three, four - the weeks are four
If I can count - and some days more.
Well, two days hence
And I'll commence.
Meantime, the string upon this bow
I'll stint myself to eat;
For by its mutton-smell I know
'Tis made of entrails sweet.'
His entrails rued the fatal weapon,
Which, while he heedlessly did step on,
The arrow pierced his bowels deep,
And laid him lifeless on the heap.
Hark, stingy souls! insatiate leeches!
Our text this solemn duty teaches, - 
Enjoy the present; do not wait
To share the wolf's or hunter's fate.
The True Knowledge
by Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde

[Greek text which cannot be reproduced]
Thou knowest all; I seek in vain
What lands to till or sow with seed
The land is black with briar and weed,
Nor cares for falling tears or rain.
Thou knowest all; I sit and wait
With blinded eyes and hands that fail,
Till the last lifting of the veil
And the first opening of the gate.
Thou knowest all; I cannot see.
I trust I shall not live in vain,
I know that we shall meet again
In some divine eternity.
To Mary In Heaven.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "Death of Captain Cook."
I.
Thou lingering star, with less'ning ray,
That lov'st to greet the early morn,
Again thou usherest in the day
My Mary from my soul was torn.
O Mary! dear departed shade!
Where is thy place of blissful rest?
Seest thou thy lover lowly laid?
Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?
II.
That sacred hour can I forget,
Can I forget the hallow'd grove,
Where by the winding Ayr we met,
To live one day of parting love!
Eternity cannot efface
Those records dear of transports past;
Thy image at our last embrace;
Ah! little thought we 'twas our last!
III.
Ayr, gurgling, kiss'd his pebbled shore,
O'erhung with wild woods, thick'ning green;
The fragrant birch, and hawthorn, hoar,
Twin'd am'rous round the raptured scene;
The flow'rs sprang wanton to be prest,
The birds sang love on every spray,
Till too, too soon, the glowing west
Proclaim'd the speed of winged day.
IV.
Still o'er these scenes my mem'ry wakes,
And fondly broods with miser care!
Time but th' impression stronger makes,
As streams their channels deeper wear.
My Mary, dear departed shade!
Where is thy place of blissful rest?
Seest thou thy lover lowly laid?
Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?
The Riddlers
by Walter De La Mare

"Thou solitary!" the Blackbird cried,
"I, from the happy Wren,
Linnet and Blackcap, Woodlark, Thrush,
Perched all upon a sweetbrier bush,
Have come at cold of midnight-tide
To ask thee, Why and when
Grief smote thy heart so thou dost sing
In solemn hush of evening,
So sorrowfully, lovelorn Thing - 
Nay, nay, not sing, but rave, but wail,
Most melancholic Nightingale?
Do not the dews of darkness steep
All pinings of the day in sleep?
Why, then, when rocked in starry nest
We mutely couch, secure, at rest,
Doth thy lone heart delight to make
Music for sorrow's sake?"
A Moon was there. So still her beam,
It seemed the whole world lay in dream,
Lulled by the watery sea.
And from her leafy night-hung nook
Upon this stranger soft did look
The Nightingale: sighed he: - 
"'Tis strange, my friend; the Kingfisher
But yestermorn conjured me here
Out of his green and gold to say
Why thou, in splendour of the noon,
Wearest of colour but golden shoon,
And else dost thee array
In a most sombre suit of black?
'Surely,' he sighed, 'some load of grief,
Past all our thinking - and belief - 
Must weigh upon his back!'
Do, then, in turn, tell me, If joy
Thy heart as well as voice employ
Why dost thou now most Sable, shine
In plumage woefuller far than mine?
Thy silence is a sadder thing
Than any dirge I sing!"
Thus, then, these two small birds, perched there,
Breathed a strange riddle both did share
Yet neither could expound.
And we - who sing but as we can,
In the small knowledge of a man - 
Have we an answer found?
Nay, some are happy whose delight
Is hid even from themselves from sight;
And some win peace who spend
The skill of words to sweeten despair
Of finding consolation where
Life has but one dark end;
Who, in rapt solitude, tell o'er
A tale as lovely as forlore,
Into the midnight air.
The Man Of Songs.
by George MacDonald

"Thou wanderest in the land of dreams,
O man of many songs!
To thee what is, but looks and seems;
No realm to thee belongs!"
"Seest thou those mountains, faint and far,
O spirit caged and tame?"
"Blue clouds like distant hills they are,
And like is not the same."
"Nay, nay; I know each mountain well,
Each cliff, and peak, and dome!
In that cloudland, in one high dell,
Nesteth my little home."
Crutches
by Robert Herrick

Thou see'st me, Lucia, this year droop;
Three zodiacs fill'd more, I shall stoop;
Let crutches then provided be
To shore up my debility:
Then, while thou laugh'st, I'll sighing cry,
A ruin underpropt am I:
Don will I then my beadsman's gown;
And when so feeble I am grown
As my weak shoulders cannot bear
The burden of a grasshopper;
Yet with the bench of aged sires,
When I and they keep termly fires,
With my weak voice I'll sing, or say
Some odes I made of Lucia;
Then will I heave my wither'd hand
To Jove the mighty, for to stand
Thy faithful friend, and to pour down
Upon thee many a benison.
The Captive Lion
by William Henry Davies

Thou that in fury with thy knotted tail
Hast made this iron floor thy beaten drum;
That now in silence walkst thy little space, 
Like a sea-captain, careless what may come:
What power has brought thy majesty to this,
Who gave those eyes their dull and sleepy look;
Who took their lightning out, and from thy throat
The thunder when the whole wide forest shook?
It was that man who went again, alone,
Into thy forest dark, Lord, he was brave!
That man a fly has killed, whose bones are left
Unburied till an earthquake digs his grave.
1492.
by Emma Lazarus

Thou two-faced year, Mother of Change and Fate,
Didst weep when Spain cast forth with flaming sword,
The children of the prophets of the Lord,
Prince, priest, and people, spurned by zealot hate.
Hounded from sea to sea, from state to state,
The West refused them, and the East abhorred.
No anchorage the known world could afford,
Close-locked was every port, barred every gate.
Then smiling, thou unveil'dst, O two-faced year,
A virgin world where doors of sunset part,
Saying, "Ho, all who weary, enter here!
There falls each ancient barrier that the art
Of race or creed or rank devised, to rear
Grim bulwarked hatred between heart and heart!"
1883.
Piscataqua River
by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Thou singest by the gleaming isles,
By woods, and fields of corn,
Thou singest, and the sunlight smiles
Upon my birthday morn.
But I within a city, I,
So full of vague unrest,
Would almost give my life to lie
An hour upon upon thy breast.
To let the wherry listless go,
And, wrapt in dreamy joy,
Dip, and surge idly to and fro,
Like the red harbor-buoy;
To sit in happy indolence,
To rest upon the oars,
And catch the heavy earthy scents
That blow from summer shores;
To see the rounded sun go down,
And with its parting fires
Light up the windows of the town
And burn the tapering spires;
And then to hear the muffled tolls
From steeples slim and white,
And watch, among the Isles of Shoals,
The Beacon's orange light.
O River! flowing to the main
Through woods, and fields of corn,
Hear thou my longing and my pain
This sunny birthday morn;
And take this song which fancy shapes
To music like thine own,
And sing it to the cliffs and capes
And crags where I am known!
Epigram 1. - To Stella.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

FROM THE GREEK OF PLATO.
Thou wert the morning star among the living,
Ere thy fair light had fled; -
Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving
New splendour to the dead.
Love.
by Thomas Frederick Young

Thou source of bliss, thou cause of woe,
Disturber of the mind of man,
Wilt thou still calmly onward go,
A sightless leader of the van?
In court and camp wilt thou still rule,
And nation's destinies still sway;
Make wise men act as doth the fool,
And blindly follow thee, away?
Thou siren nymph, ethereal sprite,
Thou skilful charmer of mankind,
Oh, when wilt thou lead man aright,
And when will they thy cords unbind?
Thy potent spells have still their force,
And reason's dictates still are scorn'd,
And reason runs a shackl'd course,
While life, with love, is still adorn'd.
Thou fond inmate of maiden's breast,
Thou lighter up of manly heart;
Thou surely hast some high behest,
And we shall surely never part.
We'll never part, but oh, thou friend
And cheerer of life's dreary way.
May reason guide us to the end,
And may she ever with thee stay.
To My Ill Reader.
by Robert Herrick

Thou say'st my lines are hard,
And I the truth will tell -
They are both hard and marr'd
If thou not read'st them well.
The Quarrel
by Richard Le Gallienne

Thou shall not me persuade
This love of ours
Can in a moment fade,
Like summer flowers;
That a swift word or two,
In angry haste,
Our heaven shall undo,
Our hearts lay waste.
For a poor flash of pride,
A cold word spoken,
Love shall not be denied,
Or long troth broken.
Yea; wilt thou not relent?
Be mine the wrong,
No more the argument,
Dear love, prolong.
The summer days go by,
Cease that sweet rain,
Those angry crystals dry,
Be friends again.
So short a time at best
Is ours to play,
Come, take me to thy breast - 
Ah! that's the way.
Thou That Sleepest Not Afraid. (Hymn)
by Jean Ingelow

"Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light."
Thou that sleepest not afraid,
Men and angels thee upbraid;
Rise, cry, cry to God aloud,
Ere the swift hours weave thy shroud:
O, for Jesus' sake,
Wake!
Thee full ill doth it beseem
Through the dark to drowse and dream;
In the dead-time of the night
Here is One can give thee light:
O, for Jesus' sake,
Wake!
The year passeth - it and all
God shall take and shall let fall
Soon, into the whelming sea
Of His wide eternity:
O, for Jesus' sake,
Wake!
Noiseless as the flakes of snow
The last moments falter and go;
The time-angel sent this way
Sweeps them like a drift away:
O, for Jesus' sake,
Wake!
Loved and watch'd of heaven, for whom
The crowned Saviour there makes room,
Sleeper, hark! He calls thee, rise,
Lift thy head, and raise thine eyes!
Now, for Jesus' sake,
Wake!
David's Lament for Jonathan
by Mary Hannay Foott

Thou wast hard pressed, yet God concealed this thing
From me; and thou wast wounded very sore,
And beaten down, O son of Israel's king,
Like wheat on threshing-flour.
Thou, that from courtly and from wise for friend
Didst choose me, and in spite of ban and sneer,
Rebuke and ridicule, until the end
Didst ever hold me dear!
All night thy body on the mountain lay:
At morn the heathen nailed thee to their wall.
Surely their deaf gods hear the songs to-day
O'er the slain House of Saul!
Oh! if that witch were here thy father sought,
Methinks I e'en could call thee from thy place,
To shift thy mangled image from my thought,
Seeing thy soul's calm face.
I sorrowed for the words the prophet spoke,
That set me rival to thy father's line;
But o'er thy spirit no repining broke
For what had else been thine.
Thou wast not like to me, so rude, so hot;
The world was not in thine, as in my sight,
Like the proud giant who from Israel sought
A champion to fight.
I thought to ask, nor looked to be denied,
Of God, that in my days there might ascend
His House; not from my hands, so redly dyed,
But thine, pure-hearted friend.
My friend, within God's House thou dwellest now;
Thy wounds are healed, thou need'st no Gilead-balm;
Defeated and degraded, yet thy brow
Is crowned, with death and calm.
O God, this is Thy black and bitter sea
Which buffets so and blinds my struggling soul:
Out of the depths I cry, O God, to Thee,
Whose grief-waves o'er me roll.
God give to me the spirit that was his,
The patience, that he needs no more to blend
With the wild eagerness that mars my bliss;
I would be like my friend.
Through the dark valley soon, to where he stands,
God summon me! Till then the sword shall shine
That comes from his dead grasp into my hands:
His children be as mine!
Otho.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

1.
Thou wert not, Cassius, and thou couldst not be,
Last of the Romans, though thy memory claim
From Brutus his own glory - and on thee
Rests the full splendour of his sacred fame:
Nor he who dared make the foul tyrant quail
Amid his cowering senate with thy name,
Though thou and he were great - it will avail
To thine own fame that Otho's should not fail.
2.
'Twill wrong thee not - thou wouldst, if thou couldst feel,
Abjure such envious fame - great Otho died
Like thee - he sanctified his country's steel,
At once the tyrant and tyrannicide,
In his own blood - a deed it was to bring
Tears from all men - though full of gentle pride,
Such pride as from impetuous love may spring,
That will not be refused its offering.
NOTE:
_13 bring cj. Garnett; buy 1839, 1st edition; wring cj. Rossetti.
No Shipwreck Of Virtue. To A Friend.
by Robert Herrick

Thou sail'st with others in this Argus here;
Nor wreck or bulging thou hast cause to fear;
But trust to this, my noble passenger;
Who swims with virtue, he shall still be sure
(Ulysses-like) all tempests to endure,
And 'midst a thousand gulfs to be secure.
Thou Shalt Hear The Fool's Judgment....' - Pushkin
by Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

'Thou shalt hear the fool's judgment....' You always told the truth, O great singer of ours. You spoke it this time, too.
'The fool's judgment and the laughter of the crowd' ... who has not known the one and the other?
All that one can, and one ought to bear; and who has the strength, let him despise it!
But there are blows which pierce more cruelly to the very heart.... A man has done all that he could; has worked strenuously, lovingly, honestly....
And honest hearts turn from him in disgust; honest faces burn with indignation at his name. 'Be gone! Away with you!' honest young voices scream at him. 'We have no need of you, nor of your work. You pollute our dwelling-places. You know us not and understand us not.... You are our enemy!'
What is that man to do? Go on working; not try to justify himself, and not even look forward to a fairer judgment.
At one time the tillers of the soil cursed the traveller who brought the potato, the substitute for bread, the poor man's daily food.... They shook the precious gift out of his outstretched hands, flung it in the mud, trampled it underfoot.
Now they are fed with it, and do not even know their benefactor's name.
So be it! What is his name to them? He, nameless though he be, saves them from hunger.
Let us try only that what we bring should be really good food.
Bitter, unjust reproach on the lips of those you love.... But that, too, can be borne....
'Beat me! but listen!' said the Athenian leader to the Spartan.
'Beat me! but be healthy and fed!' we ought to say.
February 1878.
The Ship of Earth.
by Sidney Lanier

"Thou Ship of Earth, with Death, and Birth, and Life, and Sex aboard,
And fires of Desires burning hotly in the hold,
I fear thee, O! I fear thee, for I hear the tongue and sword
At battle on the deck, and the wild mutineers are bold!
"The dewdrop morn may fall from off the petal of the sky,
But all the deck is wet with blood and stains the crystal red.
A pilot, GOD, a pilot! for the helm is left awry,
And the best sailors in the ship lie there among the dead!"
Lament IX
by Jan Kochanowski

Thou shouldst be purchased, Wisdom, for much gold
If all they say of thee is truly told:
That thou canst root out from the mind the host
Of longings and canst change a man almost
Into an angel whom no grief can sap,
Who is not prone to fear nor evil hap.
Thou seest all things human as they are - 
Trifles. Thou bearest in thy breast a star
Fixed and tranquil, and dost contemplate
Death unafraid, still calm, inviolate.
Of riches, one thing thou dost hold the measure:
Proportion to man's needs - not gold nor treasure;
Thy searching eyes have power to behold
The beggar housed beneath the roof of gold,
Nor dost thou grudge the poor man fame as blest
If he but hearken him to thy behest.
Oh, hapless, hapless man am I, who sought
If I might gain thy thresholds by much thought,
Cast down from thy last steps after so long,
But one amid the countless, hopeless throng!
Psal. LXXX.
by John Milton

Thou Shepherd that dost Israel keep
Give ear in time of need,
Who leadest like a flock of sheep
Thy loved Josephs seed,
That sitt'st between the Cherubs bright
Between their wings out-spread
Shine forth, and from thy cloud give light,
And on our foes thy dread.
In Ephraims view and Benjamins,
And in Manasse's sight
Awake*1 thy strength, come, and be seen
To save us by thy might.
Turn us again, thy grace divine
To us O God vouchsafe;
Cause thou thy face on us to shine
And then we shall be safe.
Lord God of Hosts, how long wilt thou,
How long wilt thou declare
Thy *2smoaking wrath, and angry brow
Against thy peoples praire.
Thou feed'st them with the bread of tears,
Their bread with tears they eat,
And mak'st them*3 largely drink the tears
Wherewith their cheeks are wet.
A strife thou mak'st us and a prey
To every neighbour foe,
Among themselves they *3laugh, they play,
And *flouts at us they throw.
Return us, and thy grace divine,
O God of Hosts vouchsafe
Cause thou thy face on us to shine,
And then we shall be safe.
A Vine from Aegypt thou hast brought,
Thy free love made it thine,
And drov'st out Nations proud and haut
To plant this lovely Vine.
Thou did'st prepare for it a place
And root it deep and fast
That it began to grow apace,
And fill'd the land at last.
With her green shade that cover'd all,
The Hills were over-spread
Her Bows as high as Cedars tall
Advanc'd their lofty head.
Her branches on the western side
Down to the Sea she sent,
And upward to that river wide
Her other branches went.
Why hast thou laid her Hedges low
And brok'n down her Fence,
That all may pluck her, as they go,
With rudest violence?
The tusked Boar out of the wood
Up turns it by the roots,
Wild Beasts there brouze, and make their food
Her Grapes and tender Shoots.
Return now, God of Hosts, look down
From Heav'n, thy Seat divine,
Behold us, but without a frown,
And visit this thy Vine.
Visit this Vine, which thy right hand
Hath set, and planted long,
And the young branch, that for thy self
Thou hast made firm and strong.
But now it is consum'd with fire,
And cut with Axes down,
They perish at thy dreadfull ire,
At thy rebuke and frown.
Upon the man of thy right hand
Let thy good hand be laid,
Upon the Son of Man, whom thou
Strong for thyself hast made.
So shall we not go back from thee
To wayes of sin and shame,
Quick'n us thou, then gladly wee
Shall call upon thy Name.
Return us, and thy grace divine
Lord God of Hosts voutsafe,
Cause thou thy face on us to shine,
And then we shall be safe.
Sonet 23 To The Spheares
by Michael Drayton

Thou which do'st guide this little world of loue,
Thy planets mansions heere thou mayst behold,
My brow the spheare where Saturne still doth moue,
Wrinkled with cares: and withered, dry, and cold;
Mine eyes the Orbe where Iupiter doth trace,
Which gently smile because they looke on thee,
Mars in my swarty visage takes his place,
Made leane with loue, where furious conflicts bee.
Sol in my breast with his hote scorching flame,
And in my hart alone doth Venus raigne:
Mercury my hands the Organs of thy fame,
And Luna glides in my fantastick braine;
The starry heauen thy prayse by me exprest,
Thou the first moouer, guiding all the rest.
Epitaph On Lord Stratford de Redcliffe
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Thou third great Canning, stand among our best
And noblest, now thy long day's work hath ceased,
Here silent in our Minster of the West
Who wert the voice of England in the East.
Music Of Summer
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
Thou sit'st among the sunny silences
Of terraced hills and woodland galleries,
Thou utterance of all calm melodies,
Thou lutanist of Earth's most affluent lute,
Where no false note intrudes
To mar the silent music, branch and root,
Charming the fields ripe, orchards and deep woods,
To song similitudes
Of flower and seed and fruit.
II.
Oft have I seen thee, in some sensuous air,
Bewitch the broad wheat-acres everywhere.,
To imitated gold of thy deep hair:
The peach, by thy red lips' delicious trouble,
Blown into gradual dyes
Of crimson; and beheld thy magic double
Dark-blue with fervid influence of thine eyes
The grapes' rotundities,
Bubble by purple bubble.
III.
Deliberate uttered into life intense,
Out of thy soul's melodious eloquence
Beauty evolves its just pre'minence:
The lily, from some pensive-smitten chord
Drawing significance
Of purity, a visible hush stands: starred
With splendor, from thy passionate utterance,
The rose writes its romance
In blushing word on word.
IV.
As star by star Day harps in Evening,
The inspiration of all things that sing
Is in thy hands and from their touch takes wing:
All brooks, all birds, whom song can never sate,
The leaves, the wind and rain,
Green frogs and insects, singing soon and late,
Thy sympathies inspire, thy heart's refrain,
Whose sounds invigorate
With rest life's weary brain.
V.
And as the Night, like some mysterious rune,
Its beauty makes emphatic with the moon,
Thou lutest us no immaterial tune:
But where dim whispers haunt the cane and corn,
By thy still strain made strong,
Earth's awful avatar, in whom is born
Thy own deep music, labors all night long
With growth, assuring Morn
Assumes with onward song.
To Perenna.
by Robert Herrick

Thou say'st I'm dull; if edgeless so I be,
I'll whet my lips, and sharpen love on thee.
Translations From Catullus. Carm. 70.
by Thomas Moore

dicebas quondam, etc.
To Lesbia.
Thou told'st me, in our days of love,
That I had all that heart of thine;
That, even to share the couch of Jove,
Thou wouldst not, Lesbia, part from mine.
How purely wert thou worshipt then!
Not with the vague and vulgar fires
Which Beauty wakes in soulless men,--
But loved, as children by their sires.
That flattering dream, alas, is o'er;--
I know thee now--and tho' these eyes
Doat on thee wildly as before,
Yet, even in doating, I despise.
Yes, sorceress--mad as it may seem--
With all thy craft, such spells adorn thee,
That passion even outlives esteem.
And I at once adore--and scorn thee.
Light And Color.
by Friedrich Schiller

Thou that art ever the same, with the changeless One take up thy dwelling!
Color, thou changeable one, kindly descends upon man!