DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Fragments From Euripides.
by Samuel Rogers

Dear is that valley to the murmuring bees.
The small birds build there; and, at summer-noon,
Oft have I heard a child, gay among flowers,
As in the shining grass she sate conceal'd,
Sing to herself.
*            *            *            *            *
There is a streamlet issuing from a rock.
The village-girls, singing wild madrigals,
Dip their white vestments in its waters clear,
And hang them to the sun. There first I saw her.
Her dark and eloquent eyes, mild, full of fire,
'Twas heav'n to look upon; and her sweet voice,
As tuneable as harp of many strings,
At once spoke joy and sadness to my soul!
Wordsworth
by John Greenleaf Whittier

Written on a blank leaf of his memoirs.
Dear friends, who read the world aright,
And in its common forms discern
A beauty and a harmony
The many never learn!
Kindred in soul of him who found
In simple flower and leaf and stone
The impulse of the sweetest lays
Our Saxon tongue has known,
Accept this record of a life
As sweet and pure, as calm and good,
As a long day of blandest June
In green field and in wood.
How welcome to our ears, long pained
By strife of sect and party noise,
The brook-like murmur of his song
Of nature's simple joys!
The violet' by its mossy stone,
The primrose by the river's brim,
And chance-sown daffodil, have found
Immortal life through him.
The sunrise on his breezy lake,
The rosy tints his sunset brought,
World-seen, are gladdening all the vales
And mountain-peaks of thought.
Art builds on sand; the works of pride
And human passion change and fall;
But that which shares the life of God
With Him surviveth all.
An Italian Song.
by Samuel Rogers

Dear is my little native vale,
The ring-dove builds and murmurs there;
Close by my cot she tells her tale
To every passing villager.
The squirrel leaps from tree to tree,
And shells his nuts at liberty.
In orange-groves and myrtle-bowers,
That breathe a gale of fragrance round,
I charm the fairy-footed hours
With my lov'd lute's romantic sound;
Or crowns of living laurel weave,
For those that win the race at eve.
The shepherd's horn at break of day,
The ballet danc'd in twilight glade,
The canzonet and roundelay
Sung in the silent green-wood shade;
These simple joys, that never fail,
Shall bind me to my native vale.
Translations. - Friend And Foe. (From Schiller.)
by George MacDonald

In these epigrams I have altered the form, which in the original is the elegiac distich.
Dear is my friend, but my foe too
Is friendly to my good;
My friend the thing shows I can do,
My foe, the thing I should.
Dear Is The Memory Of Our Wedded Lives
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,
And dear the last embraces of our wives
And their warm tears; but all hath suffer'd change;
For surely now our household hearths are cold,
Our sons inherit us, our looks are strange,
And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.
Or else the island princes over-bold
Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings
Before them of the ten years' war in Troy,
And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.
Is there confusion in the little isle?
Let what is broken so remain.
The Gods are hard to reconcile;
'T is hard to settle order once again.
There is confusion worse than death,
Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,
Long labor unto aged breath,
Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars
And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars.
If
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Dear love, if you and I could sail away,
With snowy pennons to the winds unfurled,
Across the waters of some unknown bay,
And find some island far from all the world;
If we could dwell there, evermore alone,
While unrecorded years slip by apace,
Forgetting and forgotten and unknown
By aught save native song-birds of the place;
If Winter never visited that land,
And Summer's lap spilled o'er with fruits and flowers,
And tropic trees cast shade on every hand,
And twined boughs formed sleep-inviting bowers;
If from the fashions of the world set free,
And hid away from all its jealous strife,
I lived alone for you, and you for me - 
Ah! then, dear love, how sweet were wedded life.
But since we dwell here in the crowded way,
Where hurrying throngs rush by to seek for gold,
And all is commonplace and work-a-day
As soon as love's young honeymoon grows old;
Since fashion rules and nature yields to art,
And life is hurt by daily jar and fret,
'Tis best to shut such dreams down in the heart
And go our ways alone, love, and forget.
Friendship.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Dear friend, I pray thee, if thou wouldst be proving
Thy strong regard for me,
Make me no vows. Lip-service is not loving;
Let thy faith speak for thee.
Swear not to me that nothing can divide us - 
So little such oaths mean.
But when distrust and envy creep beside us
Let them not come between.
Say not to me the depths of thy devotion
Are deeper than the sea;
But watch, lest doubt or some unkind emotion
Embitter them for me.
Vow not to love me ever and forever,
Words are such idle things;
But when we differ in opinions, never
Hurt me by little stings.
I'm sick of words: they are so lightly spoken,
And spoken, are but air.
I'd rather feel thy trust in me unbroken
Than list thy words so fair.
If all the little proofs of trust are heeded,
If thou art always kind,
No sacrifice, no promise will be needed
To satisfy my mind.
To J W
by Nora Pembroke (Margaret Moran Dixon McDougall)

Dear Jane you say you will gather flowers
To win if you may a verse from me
Can you bring to me those brillant hours
When life was gladdened by poesy?
Bring me the rose with pearls on her breast,
Dropped down as tears from early skies,
Pale lilies gather among the rest
And little daisies, with starry eyes
The heart's-ease bring for many a day
In vain for that flow'ret fair I sought
Turn not your gathering hand away
From the wee blue flower, forget me not
Unless inspiration on them rest
In vain you tempt me to rise and sing
The passage bird that sang in my breast
Has fled away with my life's young spring
My harp on a lonely grave is laid,
Untuned, unstrung, it will lie there long,
If you bring flowers alone dear maid
Without bringing the spirit of song
But accept the friendship that can spring
Out of this romantic heart of mine,
Devoted, true and unwithering,
And for ever thine, for ever thine
In A Copy Of Mr. Swinburne's Tristram Of Lyonesse
by Richard Le Gallienne

Dear Heart, what thing may symbolise for us
A love like ours, what gift, whate'er it be,
Hold more significance 'twixt thee and me
Than paltry words a truth miraculous;
Or the poor signs that in astronomy
Tell giant splendours in their gleaming might:
Yet love would still give such, as in delight
To mock their impotence - so this for thee.
This song for thee! our sweetest honeycomb
Of lovesome thought and passion-hearted rhyme,
Builded of gold and kisses and desire,
By that wild poet who so many a time
Our hungering lips have blessed, until a fire
Burnt speech up and the wordless hour had come.
An Ode To Mr. Howard
by Matthew Prior

Dear Howard, from the soft assaults of love
Poets and painters never are secure;
Can I untouch'd the fair one's passions move,
Or thou draw beauty, and not feel its power?
To great Appelles when young Ammon brought
The darling idol of his captive heart;
And the pleased nymph with kind attention sat,
To have her charms recorded by his art:
The amorous master own'd her potent eyes:
Sigh'd when he look'd, and trembled as he drew:
Each flowing line confirm'd his first surprise,
And, as the piece advanced, the passion grew.
While Philip's son, while Venus' son, was near,
What different tortures does his bosom feel?
Great was the rival, and the god severe:
Nor could he hide his flame, nor durst reveal.
The prince, renown'd in bounty as in arms,
With pity saw the ill-conceal'd distress;
Quitted his title to Campaspe's charms,
And gave the fair one to the friend's embrace.
Thus the more beauteous Cloe sat to thee,
Good Howard, emulous of the Grecian art:
But happy thou, from Cupid's arrow free,
And flames that pierced thy predecessor's heart!
Had thy poor breast received an equal pain;
Had I been vested with the monarch's power;
Thou must have sigh'd, unlucky youth, in vain;
Nor from my bounty hadst thou found a cure.
Though, to convince thee that the friend did feel
A kind concern for thy ill-fated care,
I would have sooth'd thy flame I could not heal;
Given thee the world; though I withheld the fair.
Dear Harp Of My Country.
by Thomas Moore

Dear Harp of my Country! in darkness I found thee,
The cold chain of silence had hung o'er thee long,[1]
When proudly, my own Island Harp, I unbound thee,
And gave all thy chords to light, freedom, and song!
The warm lay of love and the light note of gladness
Have wakened thy fondest, thy liveliest thrill;
But, so oft hast thou echoed the deep sigh of sadness,
That even in thy mirth it will steal from thee still.
Dear Harp of my country! farewell to thy numbers,
This sweet wreath of song is the last we shall twine!
Go, sleep with the sunshine of Fame on thy slumbers,
Till touched by some hand less unworthy than mine;
If the pulse of the patriot, soldier, or lover,
Have throbbed at our lay, 'tis thy glory alone;
I was but as the wind, passing heedlessly over,
And all the wild sweetness I waked was thy own.
Self-Acquaintance.
by William Cowper

Dear Lord! accept a sinful heart,
Which of itself complains,
And mourns, with much and frequent smart,
The evil it contains.
There fiery seeds of anger lurk,
Which often hurt my frame;
And wait but for the tempter's work,
To fan them to a flame.
Legality holds out a bribe
To purchase life from thee;
And discontent would fain prescribe
How thou shalt deal with me.
While unbelief withstands thy grace,
And puts the mercy by;
Presumption, with a brow of brass,
Says, 'Give me, or I die.'
How eager are my thoughts to roam
In quest of what they love!
But ah! when duty calls them home,
How heavily they move!
Oh, cleanse me in a Saviour's blood,
Transform me by thy power,
And make me thy beloved abode,
And let me rove no more.
Dear Heart, Why Will You Use Me So?
by James Joyce

Dear heart, why will you use me so?
Dear eyes that gently me upbraid,
Still are you beautiful, but O,
How is your beauty raimented!
Through the clear mirror of your eyes,
Through the soft sigh of kiss to kiss,
Desolate winds assail with cries
The shadowy garden where love is.
And soon shall love dissolved be
When over us the wild winds blow,
But you, dear love, too dear to me,
Alas! why will you use me so?
To Governor Swain
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Dear Governor, if my skiff might brave
The winds that lift the ocean wave,
The mountain stream that loops and swerves
Through my broad meadow's channelled curves
Should waft me on from bound to bound
To where the River weds the Sound,
The Sound should give me to the Sea,
That to the Bay, the Bay to thee.
It may not be; too long the track
To follow down or struggle back.
The sun has set on fair Naushon
Long ere my western blaze is gone;
The ocean disk is rolling dark
In shadows round your swinging bark,
While yet the yellow sunset fills
The stream that scarfs my spruce-clad hills;
The day-star wakes your island deer
Long ere my barnyard chanticleer;
Your mists are soaring in the blue
While mine are sparks of glittering dew.
It may not be; oh, would it might,
Could I live o'er that glowing night!
What golden hours would come to life,
What goodly feats of peaceful strife, - 
Such jests, that, drained of every joke,
The very bank of language broke, - 
Such deeds, that Laughter nearly died
With stitches in his belted side;
While Time, caught fast in pleasure's chain,
His double goblet snapped in twain,
And stood with half in either hand, - 
Both brimming full, - but not of sand!
It may not be; I strive in vain
To break my slender household chain, - 
Three pairs of little clasping hands,
One voice, that whispers, not commands.
Even while my spirit flies away,
My gentle jailers murmur nay;
All shapes of elemental wrath
They raise along my threatened path;
The storm grows black, the waters rise,
The mountains mingle with the skies,
The mad tornado scoops the ground,
The midnight robber prowls around, - 
Thus, kissing every limb they tie,
They draw a knot and heave a sigh,
Till, fairly netted in the toil,
My feet are rooted to the soil.
Only the soaring wish is free! - 
And that, dear Governor, flies to thee!
PITTSFIELD, 1851.
Premonition
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Dear heart, good-night!
Nay, list awhile that sweet voice singing
When the world is all so bright,
And the sound of song sets the heart a-ringing,
Oh, love, it is not right--
Not then to say, "Good-night."
Dear heart, good-night!
The late winds in the lake weeds shiver,
And the spray flies cold and white.
And the voice that sings gives a telltale quiver--
"Ah, yes, the world is bright,
But, dearest heart, good-night!"
Dear heart, good-night!
And do not longer seek to hold me!
For my soul is in affright
As the fearful glooms in their pall enfold me.
See him who sang how white
And still; so, dear, good-night.
Dear heart, good-night!
Thy hand I 'll press no more forever,
And mine eyes shall lose the light;
For the great white wraith by the winding river
Shall check my steps with might.
So, dear, good-night, good-night!
With A Copy Of "In Memoriam."
by George MacDonald

TO E.M. II.
Dear friend, you love the poet's song,
And here is one for your regard.
You know the "melancholy bard,"
Whose grief is wise as well as strong;
Already something understand
For whom he mourns and what he sings,
And how he wakes with golden strings
The echoes of "the silent land;"
How, restless, faint, and worn with grief,
Yet loving all and hoping all,
He gazes where the shadows fall,
And finds in darkness some relief;
And how he sends his cries across,
His cries for him that comes no more,
Till one might think that silent shore
Full of the burden of his loss;
And how there comes sublimer cheer--
Not darkness solacing sad eyes,
Not the wild joy of mournful cries,
But light that makes his spirit clear;
How, while he gazes, something high,
Something of Heaven has fallen on him,
His distance and his future dim
Broken into a dawning sky!
Something of this, dear friend, you know;
And will you take the book from me
That holds this mournful melody,
And softens grief to sadness so?
Perhaps it scarcely suits the day
Of joyful hopes and memories clear,
When love should have no thought of fear,
And only smiles be round your way;
Yet from the mystery and the gloom,
From tempted faith and conquering trust,
From spirit stronger than the dust,
And love that looks beyond the tomb,
What can there be but good to win,
But hope for life, but love for all,
But strength whatever may befall?--
So for the year that you begin,
For all the years that follow this
While a long happy life endures,
This hope, this love, this strength be yours,
And afterwards a larger bliss!
May nothing in this mournful song
Too much take off your thoughts from time,
For joy should fill your vernal prime,
And peace your summer mild and long.
And may his love who can restore
All losses, give all new good things,
Like loving eyes and sheltering wings
Be round us all for evermore!
Prelude To A Volume Printed In Raised Letters For The Blind
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Dear friends, left darkling in the long eclipse
That veils the noonday, - you whose finger-tips
A meaning in these ridgy leaves can find
Where ours go stumbling, senseless, helpless, blind.
This wreath of verse how dare I offer you
To whom the garden's choicest gifts are due?
The hues of all its glowing beds are ours,
Shall you not claim its sweetest-smelling flowers?
Nay, those I have I bring you, - at their birth
Life's cheerful sunshine warmed the grateful earth;
If my rash boyhood dropped some idle seeds,
And here and there you light on saucy weeds
Among the fairer growths, remember still
Song comes of grace, and not of human will:
We get a jarring note when most we try,
Then strike the chord we know not how or why;
Our stately verse with too aspiring art
Oft overshoots and fails to reach the heart,
While the rude rhyme one human throb endears
Turns grief to smiles, and softens mirth to tears.
Kindest of critics, ye whose fingers read,
From Nature's lesson learn the poet's creed;
The queenly tulip flaunts in robes of flame,
The wayside seedling scarce a tint may claim,
Yet may the lowliest leaflets that unfold
A dewdrop fresh from heaven's own chalice hold.
Burdened.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

"Genius, a man's weapon, a woman's burden." - Lamartine.
Dear God! there is no sadder fate in life,
Than to be burdened so that you can not
Sit down contented with the common lot
Of happy mother and devoted wife.
To feel your brain wild and your bosom rife
With all the sea's commotion; to be fraught
With fires and frenzies which you have not sought,
And weighed down with the wide world's weary strife.
To feel a fever alway in your breast,
To lean and hear half in affright, half shame.
A loud-voiced public boldly mouth your name,
To reap your hard-sown harvest in unrest,
And know, however great your meed of fame,
You are but a weak woman at the best.
Quia Multum Amavi
by Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde

Dear Heart, I think the young impassioned priest
When first he takes from out the hidden shrine
His God imprisoned in the Eucharist,
And eats the bread, and drinks the dreadful wine,
Feels not such awful wonder as I felt
When first my smitten eyes beat full on thee,
And all night long before thy feet I knelt
Till thou wert wearied of Idolatry.
Ah! hadst thou liked me less and loved me more,
Through all those summer days of joy and rain,
I had not now been sorrow's heritor,
Or stood a lackey in the House of Pain.
Yet, though remorse, youth's white-faced seneschal,
Tread on my heels with all his retinue,
I am most glad I loved thee think of all
The suns that go to make one speedwell blue!
Burdened
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

"Genius, a man's weapon, a woman's burden." - Lamartine.
Dear God! there is no sadder fate in life
Than to be burdened so that you can not
Sit down contented with the common lot
Of happy mother and devoted wife.
To feel your brain wild and your bosom rife
With all the sea's commotion; to be fraught
With fires and frenzies which you have not sought,
And weighed down with the wild world's weary strife;
To feel a fever always in your breast;
To lean and hear, half in affright, half shame,
A loud-voiced public boldly mouth your name;
To reap your hard-sown harvest in unrest,
And know, however great your meed of fame,
You are but a weak woman at the best.
Epistle From Henry Of Exeter To John Of Tuam.
by Thomas Moore

Dear John, as I know, like our brother of London,
You've sipt of all knowledge, both sacred and mundane,
No doubt, in some ancient Joe Miller, you've read
What Cato, that cunning old Roman, once said--
That he ne'er saw two reverend sooth-say ers meet,
Let it be where it might, in the shrine or the street,
Without wondering the rogues, mid their solemn grimaces,
Didn't burst out a laughing in each other's faces.
What Cato then meant, tho' 'tis so long ago,
Even we in the present times pretty well know;
Having soothsayers also, who--sooth to say, John--
Are no better in some points than those of days gone,
And a pair of whom, meeting (between you and me),
Might laugh in their sleeves, too--all lawn tho' they be.
But this, by the way--my intention being chiefly
In this, my first letter, to hint to you briefly,
That, seeing how fond you of Tuum[1] must be,
While Meum's at all times the main point with me,
We scarce could do better than form an alliance,
To set these sad Anti-Church times at defiance:
You, John, recollect, being still to embark,
With no share in the firm but your title and mark;
Or even should you feel in your grandeur inclined
To call yourself Pope, why, I shouldn't much mind;
While my church as usual holds fast by your Tuum,
And every one else's, to make it all Suum.
Thus allied, I've no doubt we shall nicely agree,
As no twins can be liker, in most points, than we;
Both, specimens choice of that mixt sort of beast,
(See Rev. xiii. I) a political priest:
Both mettlesome chargers, both brisk pamphleteers,
Ripe and ready for all that sets men by the ears;
And I, at least one, who would scorn to stick longer
By any given cause than I found it the stronger,
And who, smooth in my turnings, as if on a swivel,
When the tone ecclesiastic won't do, try the civil.
In short (not to bore you, even jure divino)
We've the same cause in common, John--all but the rhino;
And that vulgar surplus, whate'er it may be,
As you're not used to cash, John, you'd best leave to me.
And so, without form--as the postman won't tarry--
I'm, dear Jack of Tuain,
Yours,
EXETER HARRY.
Dorothy.
by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

Dear little Dorothy, she is no more!
I have wandered world-wide, from shore to shore,
I have seen as great beauties as ever were wed;
But none can console me for Dorothy dead.
Dear little Dorothy! How strange it seems
That her face is less real than the faces of dreams;
That the love which kept true, and the lips which so spoke,
Are more lost than my heart, which died not when it broke!
Kneeling With Herrick
by James Whitcomb Riley

Dear Lord, to Thee my knee is bent -
Give me content -
Full-pleasured with what comes to me,
Whate'er it be:
An humble roof - a frugal board,
And simple hoard;
The wintry fagot piled beside
The chimney wide,
While the enwreathing flames up-sprout
And twine about
The brazen dogs that guard my hearth
And household worth:
Tinge with the ember's ruddy glow
The rafters low;
And let the sparks snap with delight,
As fingers might
That mark deft measures of some tune
The children croon:
Then, with good friends, the rarest few
Thou boldest true,
Ranged round about the blaze, to share
My comfort there, -
Give me to claim the service meet
That makes each seat
A place of honor, and each guest
Loved as the rest.
If.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Dear love, if you and I could sail away,
With snowy pennons to the winds unfurled,
Across the waters of some unknown bay,
And find some island far from all the world;
If we could dwell there, ever more alone,
While unrecorded years slip by apace,
Forgetting and forgotten and unknown
By aught save native song-birds of the place;
If Winter never visited that land,
And Summer's lap spilled o'er with fruits and flowers,
And tropic trees cast shade on every hand,
And twin'd boughs formed sleep-inviting bowers;
If from the fashions of the world set free,
And hid away from all its jealous strife,
I lived alone for you, and you for me - 
Ah! then, dear love, how sweet were wedded life.
But since we dwell here in the crowded way,
Where hurrying throngs rush by to seek for gold,
And all is common-place and work-a-day,
As soon as love's young honeymoon grows old;
Since fashion rules and nature yields to art,
And life is hurt by daily jar and fret,
'Tis best to shut such dreams down in the heart
And go our ways alone, love, and forget.
An Ode, Or Psalm To God.
by Robert Herrick

Dear God,
If Thy smart rod
Here did not make me sorry,
I should not be
With Thine or Thee
In Thy eternal glory.
But since
Thou didst convince
My sins by gently striking;
Add still to those
First stripes new blows,
According to Thy liking.
Fear me,
Or scourging tear me;
That thus from vices driven,
I may from hell
Fly up to dwell
With Thee and Thine in heaven.
Friendship
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Dear friend, I pray thee, if thou wouldst be proving
Thy strong regard for me,
Make me no vows.    Lip-service is not loving;
Let thy faith speak for thee.
Swear not to me that nothing can divide us - 
So little such oaths mean.
But when distrust and envy creep beside us
Let them not come between.
Say not to me the depths of thy devotion
Are deeper than the sea;
But watch, lest doubt or some unkind emotion
Embitter them for me.
Vow not to love me ever and for ever,
Words are such idle things;
But when we differ in opinions, never
Hurt me by little stings.
I'm sick of words:    they are so lightly spoken,
And spoken, are but air.
I'd rather feel thy trust in me unbroken
Than list thy words so fair.
If all the little proofs of trust are heeded,
If thou art always kind,
No sacrifice, no promise will be needed
To satisfy my mind.