DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Sonnet CXXXVII.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Pi' volte gi' dal bel sembiante umano.
LOVE UNMANS HIS RESOLUTION.
Oft as her angel face compassion wore,
With tears whose eloquence scarce fails to move,
With bland and courteous speech, I boldly strove
To soothe my foe, and in meek guise implore:
But soon her eyes inspire vain hopes no more;
For all my fortune, all my fate in love,
My life, my death, the good, the ills I prove,
To her are trusted by one sovereign power.
Hence 'tis, whene'er my lips would silence break,
Scarce can I hear the accents which I vent,
By passion render'd spiritless and weak.
Ah! now I find that fondness to excess
Fetters the tongue, and overpowers intent:
Faint is the flame that language can express!
NOTT.
Oft have I meant my passion to declare,
When fancy read compliance in her eyes;
And oft with courteous speech, with love-lorn sighs,
Have wish'd to soften my obdurate fair:
But let that face one look of anger wear,
The intention fades; for all that fate supplies,
Or good, or ill, all, all that I can prize,
My life, my death, Love trusts to her dear care.
E'en I can scarcely hear my amorous moan,
So much my voice by passion is confined;
So faint, so timid are my accents grown!
Ah! now the force of love I plainly see;
What can the tongue, or what the impassion'd mind?
He that could speak his love, ne'er loved like me.
ANON. 1777.
To His Valentine On St. Valentine's Day.
by Robert Herrick

Oft have I heard both youths and virgins say
Birds choose their mates, and couple too this day;
But by their flight I never can divine
When I shall couple with my valentine.
Homer's Hymn To The Sun.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Offspring of Jove, Calliope, once more
To the bright Sun, thy hymn of music pour;
Whom to the child of star-clad Heaven and Earth
Euryphaessa, large-eyed nymph, brought forth;
Euryphaessa, the famed sister fair
Of great Hyperion, who to him did bear
A race of loveliest children; the young Morn,
Whose arms are like twin roses newly born,
The fair-haired Moon, and the immortal Sun,
Who borne by heavenly steeds his race doth run
Unconquerably, illuming the abodes
Of mortal Men and the eternal Gods.
Fiercely look forth his awe-inspiring eyes,
Beneath his golden helmet, whence arise
And are shot forth afar, clear beams of light;
His countenance, with radiant glory bright,
Beneath his graceful locks far shines around,
And the light vest with which his limbs are bound,
Of woof aethereal delicately twined,
Glows in the stream of the uplifting wind.
His rapid steeds soon bear him to the West;
Where their steep flight his hands divine arrest,
And the fleet car with yoke of gold, which he
Sends from bright Heaven beneath the shadowy sea.
Parisian Dream
by Charles Baudelaire

for Constantin Guys
Of this strange, awe-inspiring scene
Such as on earth one never sees,
Today the image once again,
Obscure and distant, captures me.
Sleep is so full of miracles!
By whimsy odd and singular
I've banished from these spectacles
Nature and the irregular.
And, happy with my artistry,
I painted into my tableau
The ravishing monotony
Of marble, metal, water-flow.
Babel of endless stairs, arcades,
It was a palace multifold
Replete with pools and bright cascades
Falling in dull or burnished gold;
And the more weighty waterfalls
Like crystal screens resplendent there
Along the metal rampart walls
Seemed to suspend themselves in air;
The sleeping pools - there were no trees
Gathered around them colonnades,
And in them naiads' at their ease
Could cast the narcissistic gaze.
Sheets of blue water, emptying
Between the green and rosy quays
From multitudes of openings,
Poured to the world's last boundaries;
Magical waves, to please the eye,
Splashed on unheard-of stones, and vast
Reflectors stood there, dazzled by
The world they mirrored in their glass!
Insouciant and taciturn,
Some Ganges, in the firmament,
Poured out the treasure of their urns
Into the gulfs of diamond.
Architect of my magic show,
I then required, for my mood,
Through a jewelled conduit to flow
An ocean I had first subdued.
And all, even the colour black,
Seemed polished, sparkling, clear and clean;
The liquid kept its glow intact
Within the solid crystal beam.
No star from anywhere, no sign
Of moon or sunshine, bright or dim,
Illuminate this scene of mine
Glowing with fire from within!
Over the pageantry appears
To hover (awful novelty
For eyes, but nothing for the ear!)
A silence of eternity.
Open, my ardent eyes could see
The horror of my wretched hole;
I felt my cursed cares to be
A needle entering my soul;
The clock proclaimed the time was noon
In accents brutal and perverse,
And from the misty sky a gloom
Poured through the torpid universe.
Virtues Of A Diamond Ring.
by James McIntyre

Of the strange virtues of a ring,
In simple strains we now will sing,
Brave warrior of ancient France,
Where danger was he did advance.
But he at last was struck by ball
And on the battle field did fall,
They dug for him a shallow grave
And slightly cover'd warrior brave.
But his servant man with warm heart,
Loathed with his master thus to part,
So he moved soil from where he lay
And found a lump of lifeless clay.
He turned away in sad despair,
That could not be his master fair,
That famed brave youth of noble birth,
Now all stained o'er with blood and earth.
As he begins to move away
The moon reflects on brilliant ray,
From diamond ring on dead man's finger
The servant now doth fondly linger.
For he knows it's his master's ring,
And hopes to life he may him bring,
In finger he discovers heat
And hopes his heart it still may beat.
Though surgeons they pronounce him dead,
For long he bathes his breast and head,
And slowly master did restore
To fight more brave than he had before.
And now this tale to close we bring,
Of warrior saved by a ring,
Full oft again to fight for king,
His praise his countrymen they sing.
To Nannette Falk-Auerbach.
by Sidney Lanier

Oft as I hear thee, wrapt in heavenly art,
The massive message of Beethoven tell
With thy ten fingers to the people's heart
As if ten tongues told news of heaven and hell, -
Gazing on thee, I mark that not alone,
Ah, not alone, thou sittest: there, by thee,
Beethoven's self, dear living lord of tone,
Doth stand and smile upon thy mastery.
Full fain and fatherly his great eyes glow:
He says, "From Heaven, my child, I heard thee call
(For, where an artist plays, the sky is low):
Yea, since my lonesome life did lack love's all,
In death, God gives me thee: thus, quit of pain,
Daughter, Nannette! in thee I live again."
Baltimore, 1878.
A Farewell
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

Oft have I mused, but now at length I find
Why those that die, men say, they do depart:
Depart:    a word so gentle to my mind,
Weakly did seem to paint Death's ugly dart.
But now the stars, with their strange course, do bind
Me one to leave, with whom I leave my heart;
I hear a cry of spirits faint and blind,
That parting thus, my chiefest part I part.
Part of my life, the loathed part to me,
Lives to impart my weary clay some breath;
But that good part wherein all comforts be,
Now dead, doth show departure is a death:
Yea, worse than death, death parts both woe and joy,
From joy I part, still living in annoy.
* * *
Finding those beams, which I must ever love,
To mar my mind, and with my hurt to please,
I deemed it best, some absence for to prove,
If farther place might further me to ease.
My eyes thence drawn, where lived all their light,
Blinded forthwith in dark despair did lie,
Like to the mole, with want of guiding sight,
Deep plunged in earth, deprived of the sky.
In absence blind, and wearied with that woe,
To greater woes, by presence, I return;
Even as the fly, which to the flame doth go,
Pleased with the light, that his small corse doth burn:
Fair choice I have, either to live or die
A blinded mole, or else a burned fly.
He Heeded Not
by George MacDonald

Of whispering trees the tongues to hear,
And sermons of the silent stone;
To read in brooks the print so clear
Of motion, shadowy light, and tone--
That man hath neither eye nor ear
Who careth not for human moan.
Yea, he who draws, in shrinking haste,
From sin that passeth helpless by;
The weak antennae of whose taste
From touch of alien grossness fly--
Shall, banished to the outer waste,
Never in Nature's bosom lie.
But he whose heart is full of grace
To his own kindred all about,
Shall find in lowest human face,
Blasted with wrong and dull with doubt,
More than in Nature's holiest place
Where mountains dwell and streams run out.
Coarse cries of strife assailed my ear,
In suburb-ways, one summer morn;
A wretched alley I drew near
Whence on the air the sounds were borne--
Growls breaking into curses clear,
And shrill retorts of keener scorn.
Slow from its narrow entrance came,
His senses drowned with revels dire,
Scarce fit to answer to his name,
A man unconscious save of ire;
Fierce flashes of dull, fitful flame
Broke from the embers of his fire.
He cast a glance of stupid hate
Behind him, every step he took,
Where followed him, like following fate,
An aged crone, with bloated look:
A something checked his listless gait;
She neared him, rating till she shook.
Why stood he still to be disgraced?
What hindered? Lost in his employ,
His eager head high as his waist,
Half-buttressed him a tiny boy,
An earnest child, ill-clothed, pale-faced,
Whose eyes held neither hope nor joy.
Perhaps you think he pushed, and pled
For one poor coin to keep the peace
With hunger! or home would have led
And given him up to sleep's release:
Well he might know the good of bed
To make the drunken fever cease!
Not so; like unfledged, hungry bird
He stood on tiptoe, reaching higher,
But no expostulating word
Did in his anxious soul aspire;
With humbler care his heart was stirred,
With humbler service to his sire.
He, sleepless-pale and wrathful red,
Though forward leaning, held his foot
Lest on the darling he should tread:
A misty sense had taken root
Somewhere in his bewildered head
That round him kindness hovered mute.
The words his simmering rage did spill
Passed o'er the child like breeze o'er corn;
Safer than bee whose dodging skill
And myriad eyes the hail-shower scorn,
The boy, absorbed in loving will,
Buttoned his father's waistcoat worn.
Over his calm, unconscious face
No motion passed, no change of mood;
Still as a pool in its own place,
Unsunned within a thick-leaved wood,
It kept its quiet shadowy grace,
As round it all things had been good.
Was the boy deaf--the tender palm
Of him that made him folded round
The little head to keep it calm
With a hitherto to every sound--
And so nor curse nor shout nor psalm
Could thrill the globe thus grandly bound?
Or came in force the happy law
That customed things themselves erase?
Or was he too intent for awe?
Did love take all the thinking place?
I cannot tell; I only saw
An earnest, fearless, hopeless face.
Saved!
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Of tribulation these are they
Denoted by the white;
The spangled gowns, a lesser rank
Of victors designate.
All these did conquer; but the ones
Who overcame most times
Wear nothing commoner than snow,
No ornament but palms.
Surrender is a sort unknown
On this superior soil;
Defeat, an outgrown anguish,
Remembered as the mile
Our panting ankle barely gained
When night devoured the road;
But we stood whispering in the house,
And all we said was "Saved"!
The Vision
by Edgar Lee Masters

Of that dear vale where you and I have lain
Scanning the mysteries of life and death
I dreamed, though how impassable the space
Of time between the present and the past!
This was the vision that possessed my mind;
I thought the weird and gusty days of March
Had eased themselves in melody and peace.
Pale lights, swift shadows, lucent stalks, clear streams,
Cool, rosy eves behind the penciled mesh
Of hazel thickets, and the huge feathered boughs
Of walnut trees stretched singing to the blast;
And the first pleasantries of sheep and kine;
The cautioned twitterings of hidden birds;
The flight of geese among the scattered clouds;
Night's weeping stars and all the pageantries
Of awakened life had blossomed into May,
Whilst she with trailing violets in her hair
Blew music from the stops of watery stems,
And swept the grasses with her viewless robes,
Which dreaming men thought voices, dreaming still.
Now as I lay in vision by the stream
That flows amidst our well beloved vale,
I looked throughout the vista stretched between
Two ranging hills; one meadowed rich in grass;
The other wooded, thick and quite obscure
With overgrowth, rank in the luxury
Of all wild places, but ever growing sparse
Of trees or saplings on the sudden slope
That met the grassy level of the vale; - 
But still within the shadow of those woods,
Which sprinkled all beneath with fragrant dew,
There grew all flowers, which tempted little paths
Between them, up and on into the wood.
Here, as the sun had left his midday peak
The incommunicable blue of heaven blent
With his fierce splendor, filling all the air
With softened glory, while the pasturage
Trembled with color of the poppy blooms
Shook by the steps of the swift-sandaled wind.
Nor any sound beside disturbed the dream
Of Silence slumbering on the drowsy flowers.
Then as I looked upon the widest space
Of open meadow where the sunlight fell
In veils of tempered radiance, I saw
The form of one who had escaped the care
And equal dullness of our common day.
For like a bright mist rising from the earth
He made appearance, growing more distinct
Until I saw the stole, likewise the lyre
Grasped by the fingers of the modeled hand.
Yea, I did see the glory of his hair
Against the deep green bay-leaves filleting
The ungathered locks. And so throughout the vale
His figure stood distinct and his own shade
Was the sole shadow. Deeming this approach
Augur of good, as if in hidden ways
Of loveliness the gods do still appear
The counselors of men, and even where
Wonder and meditation wooed us oft,
I cried, "Apollo" - and his form dissolved,
As if the nymphs of echo, who took up
The voice and bore it to the hollow wood,
By that same flight had startled the great god
To vanishment. And thereupon I woke
And disarrayed the figment of my thought.
For of the very air, magic with hues,
Blent with the distant objects, I had formed
The splendid apparition, and so knew
It was, alas! a dream within a dream!
The Book Of Urizen: Preludium
by William Blake

Of the primeval Priests assum'd power,
When Eternals spurn'd back his religion;
And gave him a place in the north,
Obscure, shadowy, void, solitary.
Eternals I hear your call gladly,
Dictate swift winged words, & fear not
To unfold your dark visions of torment.
Vagabondia.
by Bliss Carman (William)

Off with the fetters
That chafe and restrain!
Off with the chain!
Here Art and Letters,
Music and wine,
And Myrtle and Wanda,
The winsome witches,
Blithely combine.
Here are true riches,
Here is Golconda,
Here are the Indies,
Here we are free--
Free as the wind is,
Free, as the sea.
Free!
Houp-la!
What have we
To do with the way
Of the Pharisee?
We go or we stay
At our own sweet will;
We think as we say,
And we say or keep still
At our own sweet will,
At our own sweet will.
Here we are free
To be good or bad,
Sane or mad,
Merry or grim
As the mood may be,--
Free as the whim
Of a spook on a spree,--
Free to be oddities,
Not mere commodities,
Stupid and salable,
Wholly available,
Ranged upon shelves;
Each with his puny form
In the same uniform,
Cramped and disabled;
We are not labelled,
We are ourselves.
Here is the real,
Here the ideal;
Laughable hardship
Met and forgot,
Glory of bardship--
World's bloom and world's blot;
The shock and the jostle,
The mock and the push,
But hearts like the throstle
A-joy in the bush;
Wits that would merrily
Laugh away wrong,
Throats that would verily
Melt Hell in Song.
What though the dimes be
Elusive as rhymes be,
And Bessie, with finger
Uplifted, is warning
That breakfast next morning
(A subject she's scorning)
Is mighty uncertain!
What care we? Linger
A moment to kiss--
No time's amiss
To a vagabond's ardor--
Thee finish the larder
And pull down the curtain.
Unless ere the kiss come,
Black Richard or Bliss come,
Or Tom with a flagon,
Or Karl with a jag on--
Then up and after
The joy of the night
With the hounds of laughter
To follow the flight
Of the fox-foot hours
That double and run
Through brakes and bowers
Of folly and fun.
With the comrade heart
For a moment's play,
And the comrade heart
For a heavier day,
And the comrade heart
Forever and aye.
For the joy of wine
Is not for long;
And the joy of song
Is a dream of shine;
But the comrade heart
Shall outlast art
And a woman's love
The fame thereof.
But wine for a sign
Of the love we bring!
And song for an oath
That Love is king!
And both, and both
For his worshipping!
Then up and away
Till the break of day,
With a heart that's merry,
And a Tom-and-Jerry,
And a derry-down-derry--
What's that you say.
You highly respectable
Buyers and sellers?
We should be decenter?
Not as we please inter
Custom, frugality,
Use and morality
In the delectable
Depths of wine-cellars?
Midnights of revel,
And noondays of song!
Is it so wrong?
Go to the Devil!
I tell you that we,
While you are smirking
And lying and shirking
life's duty of duties,
Honest sincerity,
We are in verity
Free!
Free to rejoice
In blisses and beauties!
Free as the voice
Of the wind as it passes!
Free as the bird
In the weft of the grasses!
Free as the word
Of the sun to the sea--
Free!
Musings
by Nancy Rebecca Campbell Glass

"Childhood and youth are vanity."
Often o'er life's pathway straying
Come sweet strains of long ago,
To the chords of memory playing
Music sweet and music low.
When upon the gray rock musing
'Neath the tree by childhood's home,
In the wild bird's note so soothing
Tenderly these strains will come.
Gazing on the deep fringed mountain,
Distance robing it in blue,
Quaffing the familiar fountain,
Each repeats the story too.
Wandering by the streamlet flowing
Where we played in hours of glee,
Hear its murmurs coming, going,
Tell of joys that used to be.
Wandering in the leafy wildwood
Sometimes in our leisure hours,
In the sunny days of childhood
How much fairer seemed its flowers!
Watching from the hill the sunset
'Neath the spreading chestnut tree,
Youthful dreams and visions come yet
Through the years so magically.
Yet how vain these memories olden
If they do not teach the truth
That within the city golden
Only, dwells perpetual youth.
Mother's Way
by Abram Joseph Ryan

Oft within our little cottage,
As the shadows gently fall,
While the sunlight touches softly
One sweet face upon the wall,
Do we gather close together,
And in hushed and tender tone
Ask each other's full forgiveness
For the wrong that each has done.
Should you wonder why this custom
At the ending of the day,
Eye and voice would quickly answer:
"It was once our mother's way."
If our home be bright and cheery,
If it holds a welcome true,
Opening wide its door of greeting
To the many -- not the few;
If we share our father's bounty
With the needy day by day,
'Tis because our hearts remember
This was ever mother's way.
Sometimes when our hands grow weary,
Or our tasks seem very long;
When our burdens look too heavy,
And we deem the right all wrong;
Then we gain a new, fresh courage,
And we rise to proudly say:
"Let us do our duty bravely --
This was our dear mother's way."
Then we keep her memory precious,
While we never cease to pray
That at last, when lengthening shadows
Mark the evening of our day,
They may find us waiting calmly
To go home our mother's way.
Sonnet.
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

Oft let me wander hand in hand with Thought,
In woodland paths, and lone sequester'd shades,
What time the sunny banks and mossy glades,
With dewy wreaths of early violets wrought,
Into the air their fragrant incense fling,
To greet the triumph of the youthful Spring.
Lo, where she comes! 'scaped from the icy lair
Of hoary Winter; wanton, free, and fair!
Now smile the heavens again upon the earth,
Bright hill, and bosky dell, resound with mirth,
And voices, full of laughter and wild glee,
Shout through the air pregnant with harmony;
And wake poor sobbing Echo, who replies
With sleepy voice, that softly, slowly dies.
Inscriptions - In A Garden Of Sir George Beaumont, Bart.
by William Wordsworth

Oft is the medal faithful to its trust
When temples, columns, towers, are laid in dust;
And 'tis a common ordinance of fate
That things obscure and small outlive the great:
Hence, when yon mansion and the flowery trim
Of this fair garden, and its alleys dim,
And all its stately trees, are passed away,
This little Niche, unconscious of decay,
Perchance may still survive. And be it known
That it was scooped within the living stone,
Not by the sluggish and ungrateful pains
Of labourer plodding for his daily gains,
But by an industry that wrought in love;
With help from female hands, that proudly strove
To aid the work, what time these walks and bowers
Were shaped to cheer dark winter's lonely hours.
Often When Warring
by Thomas Hardy

Often when warring for he wist not what,
An enemy-soldier, passing by one weak,
Has tendered water, wiped the burning cheek,
And cooled the lips so black and clammed and hot;
Then gone his way, and maybe quite forgot
The deed of grace amid the roar and reek;
Yet larger vision than loud arms bespeak
He there has reached, although he has known it not.
For natural mindsight, triumphing in the act
Over the throes of artificial rage,
Has thuswise muffled victory's peal of pride,
Rended to ribands policy's specious page
That deals but with evasion, code, and pact,
And war's apology wholly stultified.
1915.
Oh Banquet Not.
by Thomas Moore

Oh banquet not in those shining bowers,
Where Youth resorts, but come to me:
For mine's a garden of faded flowers,
More fit for sorrow, for age, and thee.
And there we shall have our feast of tears,
And many a cup in silence pour;
Our guests, the shades of former years,
Our toasts to lips that bloom no more.
There, while the myrtle's withering boughs
Their lifeless leaves around us shed,
We'll brim the bowl to broken vows,
To friends long lost, the changed, the dead.
Or, while some blighted laurel waves
Its branches o'er the dreary spot,
We'll drink to those neglected graves,
Where valor sleeps, unnamed, forgot.
Oft, In The Stilly Night. (Scotch Air.)
by Thomas Moore

Oft in the stilly night,
Ere Slumber's chain has bound me,
Fond Memory brings the light
Of other days around me;
The smiles, the tears,
Of boyhood's years,
The words of love then spoken;
The eyes that shone,
Now dimmed and gone,
The cheerful hearts now broken!
Thus, in the stilly night,
Ere Slumber's chain has bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.
When I remember all
The friends, so linked together,
I've seen around me fall,
Like leaves in wintry weather;
I feel like one,
Who treads alone,
Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed!
Thus, in the stilly night,
Ere Slumber's chain has bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.
Homer Clapp
by Edgar Lee Masters

Often Aner Clute at the gate
Refused me the parting kiss,
Saying we should be engaged before that;
And just with a distant clasp of the hand
She bade me good-night, as I brought her home
From the skating rink or the revival.
No sooner did my departing footsteps die away
Than Lucius Atherton,
(So I learned when Aner went to Peoria)
Stole in at her window, or took her riding
Behind his spanking team of bays
Into the country.
The shock of it made me settle down
And I put all the money I got from my father's estate
Into the canning factory, to get the job
Of head accountant, and lost it all.
And then I knew I was one of Life's fools,
Whom only death would treat as the equal
Of other men, making me feel like a man.