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

Amor che nel pensier mio vive e regna.
THE COURAGE AND TIMIDITY OF LOVE.
The long Love that in my thought I harbour,
And in my heart doth keep his residence,
Into my face press'th with bold pretence,
And there camp'th displaying his bann'r.
She that me learns to love and to suff'r,
And wills that my trust, and lust's negligence
Be rein'd by reason, shame, and reverence,
With his hardiness takes displeasure.
Wherewith Love to the heart's forest he fleeth,
Leaving his enterprise with pain and cry,
And there him hideth, and not appear'th.
What may I do, when my master fear'th,
But in the field with him to live and die?
For good is the life, ending faithfully.
WYATT.
Love, that liveth and reigneth in my thought,
That built its seat within my captive breast;
Clad in the arms wherein with me he fought,
Oft in my face he doth his banner rest.
She, that me taught to love, and suffer pain;
My doubtful hope, and eke my hot desire
With shamefaced cloak to shadow and restrain,
Her smiling grace converteth straight to ire.
And coward love then to the heart apace
Taketh his flight; whereas he lurks, and plains
His purpose lost, and dare not show his face.
For my lord's guilt thus faultless bide I pains.
Yet from my lord shall not my foot remove:
Sweet is his death, that takes his end by love.
SURREY.
Love in my thought who ever lives and reigns,
And in my heart still holds the upper place,
At times come forward boldly in my face,
There plants his ensign and his post maintains:
She, who in love instructs us and its pains,
Would fain that reason, shame, respect should chase
Presumptuous hope and high desire abase,
And at our daring scarce herself restrains,
Love thereon to my heart retires dismay'd,
Abandons his attempt, and weeps and fears,
And hiding there, no more my friend appears.
What can the liege whose lord is thus afraid,
More than with him, till life's last gasp, to dwell?
For who well loving dies at least dies well.
MACGREGOR.
The Covenant. - Ezekiel xxxvi.25-28.
by William Cowper

The Lord proclaims his grace abroad!
Behold, I change your hearts of stone;
Each shall renounce his idol-god,
And serve, henceforth, the Lord alone.
My grace, a flowing stream, proceeds
To wash your filthiness away;
Ye shall abhor your former deeds,
And learn my statutes to obey.
My truth the great design ensures,
I give myself away to you;
You shall be mine, I will be yours,
Your God unalterably true.
Yet not unsought, or unimplored,
The plenteous grace shall I confer;[1]
No - your whole hearts shall seek the Lord,
I'll put a praying spirit there.
From the first breath of life divine,
Down to the last expiring hour,
The gracious work shall all be mine,
Begun and ended in my power.
The Loving One Writes.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The look that thy sweet eyes on mine impress
The pledge thy lips to mine convey, the kiss, 
He who, like me, hath knowledge sure of this,
Can he in aught beside find happiness?
Removed from thee, friend-sever'd, in distress,
These thoughts I vainly struggle to dismiss:
They still return to that one hour of bliss,
The only one; then tears my grief confess.
But unawares the tear makes haste to dry:
He loves, methinks, e'en to these glades so still, 
And shalt not thou to distant lands extend?
Receive the murmurs of his loving sigh;
My only joy on earth is in thy will,
Thy kindly will tow'rd me; a token send!
Ghazal Of Mira
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

The lover to his lass: I have fallen before your door.
I came to ask for alms and have lost my all,
I had a copper-shod quarter-staff but the dogs attacked me,
And not a strand of her hair came the way of my lips.
The lover to his lass: I have fallen before your door.
The lamp burns and I must play the green moth.
I have stolen her scented rope of flowers,
But the women caught me and built a little gaol
About my heart with your old playthings.
The lover to his lass: I have fallen before your door.
Mira is a mountain goat that climbs to die
Upon the top peak in the rocks of grief;
It is the hour; make haste.
The lover to his lass: I have fallen before your door.
From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century).
To C. M.
by Robert William Service

The lonely sunsets flare forlorn
Down valleys dreadly desolate;
The lordly mountains soar in scorn,
As still as death, as stern as fate.
The lonely sunsets flame and die;
The giant valleys gulp the night;
The monster mountains scrape the sky,
Where eager stars are diamond-bright.
So gaunt against the gibbous moon,
Piercing the silence velvet-piled,
A lone wolf howls his ancient rune,
The fell arch-spirit of the Wild.
O outcast land! O leper land!
Let the lone wolf-cry all express -
The hate insensate of thy hand,
Thy heart's abysmal loneliness.
Love Song Of Alcharisi. (Translations From The Hebrew Poets Of Medaeval Spain.)
by Emma Lazarus

I.
The long-closed door, oh open it again, send me back once more my fawn that had fled.
On the day of our reunion, thou shalt rest by my side, there wilt thou shed over me the streams of thy delicious perfume.
Oh beautiful bride, what is the form of thy friend, that thou say to me, Release him, send him away?
He is the beautiful-eyed one of ruddy glorious aspect - that is my friend, him do thou detain.
II.
Hail to thee, Son of my friend, the ruddy, the bright-colored one! Hail to thee whose temples are like a pomegranate.
Hasten to the refuge of thy sister, and protect the son of Isaiah against the troops of the Ammonites.
What art thou, O Beauty, that thou shouldst inspire love? that thy voice should ring like the voices of the bells upon the priestly garments?
The hour wherein thou desireth my love, I shall hasten to meet thee. Softly will I drop beside thee like the dew upon Hermon.
Moses Ben Esra (About 1100).
Winter.
by Archibald Lampman

The long days came and went; the riotous bees
Tore the warm grapes in many a dusty-vine,
And men grew faint and thin with too much ease,
And Winter gave no sign:
But all the while beyond the northmost woods
He sat and smiled and watched his spirits play
In elfish dance and eery roundelay,
Tripping in many moods
With snowy curve and fairy crystal shine.
But now the time is come: with southward speed
The elfin spirits pass: a secret sting
Hath fallen and smitten flower and fruit and weed,
And every leafy thing.
The wet woods moan: the dead leaves break and fall;
In still night-watches wakeful men have heard
The muffled pipe of many a passing bird,
High over hut and hall,
Straining to southward with unresting wing.
And then they come with colder feet, and fret
The winds with snow, and tuck the streams to sleep
With icy sheet and gleaming coverlet,
And fill the valleys deep
With curv'd drifts, and a strange music raves
Among the pines, sometimes in wails, and then
In whistled laughter, till affrighted men
Draw close, and into caves
And earthy holes the blind beasts curl and creep.
And so all day above the toiling heads
Of men's poor chimneys, full of impish freaks,
Tearing and twisting in tight-curl'd shreds
The vain unnumbered reeks,
The Winter speeds his fairies forth and mocks
Poor bitten men with laughter icy cold,
Turning the brown of youth to white and old
With hoary-woven locks,
And grey men young with roses in their cheeks.
And after thaws, when liberal water swells
The bursting eaves, he biddeth drip and grow
The curly horns of ribb'd icicles
In many a beard-like row.
In secret moods of mercy and soft dole,
Old warp'd wrecks and things of mouldering death
That summer scorns and man abandoneth
His careful hands console
With lawny robes and draperies of snow.
And when night comes, his spirits with chill feet,
Winged with white mirth and noiseless mockery,
Across men's pallid windows peer and fleet,
And smiling silverly
Draw with mute fingers on the frosted glass
Quaint fairy shapes of ic'd witcheries,
Pale flowers and glinting ferns and frigid trees
And meads of mystic grass,
Graven in many an austere phantasy.
But far away the Winter dreams alone,
Rustling among his snow-drifts, and resigns
Cold fondling ears to hear the cedars moan
In dusky-skirted lines
Strange answers of an ancient runic call;
Or somewhere watches with his antique eyes,
Gray-chill with frosty-lidded reveries,
The silvery moonshine fall
In misty wedges through his girth of pines.
Poor mortals haste and hide away: creep soon
Into your icy beds: the embers die;
And on your frosted panes the pallid moon
Is glimmering brokenly.
Mutter faint prayers that spring will come e'erwhile,
Scarring with thaws and dripping days and nights
The shining majesty of him that smites
And slays you with a smile
Upon his silvery lips, of glinting mockery.
Tarry Ye Not In Egypt.
by A. H. Laidlaw

The Lord is wroth with Pharaoh's men,
Tarry ye not in Egypt!
He hath raised His strong arm to smite furrow and fen,
And he'll smite them and smite them again and again.
Tarry ye not,
Tarry ye not,
Tarry ye not in Egypt!
The Lord is wroth with Pharaoh's men,
He hath raised His strong arm to smite furrow and fen,
And he'll smite them and smite them again and again,
So tarry no longer in Egypt.
The Lord hath set His sign in the sky,
Tarry ye not in Egypt!
And all the first-born in the land shall die,
The fathers shall perish, the mothers shall sigh.
Tarry ye not,
Tarry ye not,
Tarry ye not in Egypt!
The Lord hath set His sign in the sky,
And all the first-born in the land shall die;
The fathers shall perish, the mothers shall sigh,
So tarry no longer in Egypt!
The Lord hath hardened the heart of the King,
Tarry ye not in Egypt!
So the creatures that crawl and the insects that sting
Will add terror to life and bring death on the wing.
Tarry ye not,
Tarry ye not,
Tarry ye not in Egypt!
The Lord hath hardened the heart of the King,
So the creatures that crawl and the insects that sting
Will add terror to life and bring death on the wing,
So tarry no longer in Egypt!
There is blood on the river and blood on the door,
Tarry ye not in Egypt!
The land shall be red on the sea and the shore,
And the blood of the Ruler shall reign nevermore.
Tarry ye not,
Tarry ye not,
Tarry ye not in Egypt!
There is blood on the river and blood on the door,
The land shall be red on the sea and the shore,
And the blood of the Ruler shall reign nevermore,
So tarry no longer in Egypt!
The Lovely Lass Of Inverness.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "Lass of Inverness."
I.
The lovely lass o' Inverness,
Nae joy nor pleasure can she see;
For e'en and morn, she cries, alas!
And ay the saut tear blin's her e'e:
Drumossie moor, Drumossie day
A waefu' day it was to me!
For there I lost my father dear,
My father dear, and brethren three.
II.
Their winding sheet the bluidy clay,
Their graves are growing green to see:
And by them lies the dearest lad
That ever blest a woman's e'e!
Now wae to thee, thou cruel lord,
A bluidy man I trow thou be;
For mony a heart thou host made sair,
That ne'er did wrong to thine or thee.
To My Honoured Friend Dr Charleton
by John Dryden

On His Learned And Useful Works; But More Particularly His Treatise Of Stonehenge,[1] By Him Restored To The True Founder.
The longest tyranny that ever sway'd,
Was that wherein our ancestors betray'd
Their free-born reason to the Stagyrite,
And made his torch their universal light.
So truth, while only one supplied the state,
Grew scarce, and dear, and yet sophisticate.
Still it was bought, like empiric wares, or charms,
Hard words seal'd up with Artistotle's arms.
Columbus was the first that shook his throne,
And found a temperate in a torrid zone,
The feverish air fann'd by a cooling breeze,
The fruitful vales set round with shady trees:
And guiltless men, who danced away their time,
Fresh as their groves, and happy as their clime.
Had we still paid that homage to a name,
Which only God and nature justly claim,
The western seas had been our utmost bound,
Where poets still might dream the sun was drown'd:
And all the stars that shine in southern skies,
Had been admired by none but savage eyes.
Among the asserters of free reason's claim,
Our nation's not the least in worth or fame.
The world to Bacon does not only owe
Its present knowledge, but its future too.
Gilbert[2] shall live, till loadstones cease to draw,
Our British fleets the boundless ocean awe.
And noble Boyle, not less in nature seen,
Than his great brother read in states and men.
The circling streams, once thought but pools, of blood
(Whether life's fuel, or the body's food)
From dark oblivion Harvey's[3] name shall save;
While Ent[4] keeps all the honour that he gave.
Nor are you, learned friend, the least renown'd,
Whose fame, not circumscribed with English ground,
Flies like the nimble journeys of the light;
And is, like that, unspent too in its flight.
Whatever truths have been, by art or chance,
Redeem'd from error, or from ignorance,
Thin in their authors, like rich veins of ore,
Your works unite, and still discover more.
Such is the healing virtue of your pen,
To perfect cures on books, as well as men.
Nor is this work the least: you well may give
To men new vigour, who make stones to live.
Through you, the Danes, their short dominion lost,
A longer conquest than the Saxons boast.
Stonehenge, once thought a temple, you have found
A throne, where kings, our earthly gods, were crown'd;
Where by their wondering subjects they were seen,
Joy'd with their stature, and their princely mien.
Our sovereign here above the rest might stand,
And here be chose again to rule the land.
These ruins[5] shelter'd once his sacred head,
When he from Worcester's fatal battle fled;
Watch'd by the genius of this royal place,
And mighty visions of the Danish race.
His refuge then was for a temple shown:
But, he restored, 'tis now become a throne.
Nursery Rhyme. CII. Proverbs.
by Unknown

The mackerel's cry,
Is never long dry.
The Land God Forgot
by Robert William Service

The lonely sunsets flare forlorn
Down valleys dreadly desolate;
The lordly mountains soar in scorn
As still as death, as stern as fate.
The lonely sunsets flame and die;
The giant valleys gulp the night;
The monster mountains scrape the sky,
Where eager stars are diamond-bright.
So gaunt against the gibbous moon,
Piercing the silence velvet-piled,
A lone wolf howls his ancient rune -
The fell arch-spirit of the Wild.
O outcast land! O leper land!
Let the lone wolf-cry all express
The hate insensate of thy hand,
Thy heart's abysmal loneliness.
"He Giveth His Beloved Sleep"
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

The long day passes with its load of sorrow:
In slumber deep
I lay me down to rest until tomorrow,
Thank God for sleep.
Thank God for all respite from weary toiling,
From cares that creep
Across our lives like evil shadows, spoiling
God's kindly sleep.
We plough and sow, and, as the hours grow later,
We strive to reap,
And build our barns, and hope to build them greater
Before we sleep.
We toil and strain and strive with one another
In hopes to heap
Some greater share of profit than our brother
Before we sleep.
What will it profit that with tears or laughter
Our watch we keep?
Beyond it all there lies the Great Hereafter!
Thank God for sleep!
For, at the last, beseeching Christ to save us
We turn with deep
Heartfelt thanksgiving unto God, who gave us
The Gift of Sleep.
Low Tide At St. Andrews
by Emily Pauline Johnson

(NEW BRUNSWICK)
The long red flats stretch open to the sky,
Breathing their moisture on the August air.
The seaweeds cling with flesh-like fingers where
The rocks give shelter that the sands deny;
And wrapped in all her summer harmonies
St. Andrews sleeps beside her sleeping seas.
The far-off shores swim blue and indistinct,
Like half-lost memories of some old dream.
The listless waves that catch each sunny gleam
Are idling up the waterways land-linked,
And, yellowing along the harbour's breast,
The light is leaping shoreward from the west.
And naked-footed children, tripping down,
Light with young laughter, daily come at eve
To gather dulse and sea clams and then heave
Their loads, returning laden to the town,
Leaving a strange grey silence when they go, - 
The silence of the sands when tides are low.
Experience
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The lords of life, the lords of life,--
I saw them pass
In their own guise,
Like and unlike,
Portly and grim,--
Use and Surprise,
Surface and Dream,
Succession swift and spectral Wrong,
Temperament without a tongue,
And the inventor of the game
Omnipresent without name;--
Some to see, some to be guessed,
They marched from east to west:
Little man, least of all,
Among the legs of his guardians tall,
Walked about with puzzled look.
Him by the hand dear Nature took,
Dearest Nature, strong and kind,
Whispered, 'Darling, never mind!
To-morrow they will wear another face,
The founder thou; these are thy race!'
Death Of Ta-Te-Psin.
by Hanford Lennox Gordon

The long winter wanes. On the wings
of the spring come the geese and the mallards;
On the bare oak the red-robin sings,
and the crocus peeps up on the prairies,
And the bobolink pipes, but he brings
of the blue-eyed, brave White Chief no tidings.
With the waning of winter, alas,
waned the life of the aged Ta-t'-psin;
Ere the wild pansies peeped from the grass,
to the Land of the Spirits he journeyed;
Like a babe in its slumber he passed,
or the snow from the hill-tops of April;
And the dark-eyed Winona, at last,
stood alone by the graves of her kindred.
When their myriad mouths opened the trees
to the sweet dew of heaven and the raindrops,
And the April showers fell on the leas,
on his mound fell the tears of Winona.
Round her drooping form gathered the years
and the spirits unseen of her kindred,
As low, in the midst of her tears,
at the grave of her father she chanted
E-y'-tan-han e-y'y-wah-k'-y'y!
E-y'-tan-han e-y'y-wah-k'-y'y!
E-y'-tan-han e-y'y-wah-k'-y'y!
Ma-k'h kin h'y-chay-dan t'y-han wan-k'y.
T'-way ne kt'y snee e-y'y-chen e-w'h ch'y.
E-y'-tan-han e-y'y-wah-k'-y'y!
E-y'-tan-han e-y'y-wah-k'-y'y!
Ma-k'h kin h'y-chay-dan t'y-han wan-k'y.
TRANSLATION
Sore is my sorrow!
Sore is my sorrow!
Sore is my sorrow!
The earth alone lasts.
I speak as one dying;
Sore is my sorrow!
Sore is my sorrow!
The earth alone lasts.
Still hope, like a star in the night
gleaming oft through the broken clouds somber,
Cheered the heart of Winona, and bright
on her dreams beamed the face of the Frenchman.
As the thought of a loved one and lost,
sad and sweet were her thoughts of the White Chief;
In the moon's mellow light, like a ghost,
walked Winona alone by the Ha-Ha,
Ever wrapped in a dream. Far away 
to the land of the sunrise she wandered;
On the blue-rolling T'nka-Med'[BR]
in the midst of her dreams, she beheld him 
In his white-winged canoe, like a bird,
to the land of Dakotas returning,
And often in fancy she heard
the dip of his oars on the river.
On the dark waters glimmered the moon,
but she saw not the boat of the Frenchman.
On the somber night bugled the loon,
but she heard not the song of the boatmen.
The moon waxed and waned, but the star
of her hope never waned to the setting;
Through her tears she beheld it afar,
like a torch on the eastern horizon.
"He will come, he is coming," she said;
"he will come, for my White Eagle promised,"
And low to the bare earth the maid
bent her ear for the sound of his footsteps,
"He is gone, but his voice in my ear
still remains like the voice of the robin;
He is far, but his footsteps I hear;
he is coming; my White Chief is coming!"
But the moon waxed and waned. Nevermore
will the eyes of Winona behold him.
Far away on the dark, rugged shore
of the blue Gitchee G'mee he lingers.
No tidings the rising sun brings;
no tidings the star of the evening;
But morning and evening she sings,
like a turtle-dove widowed and waiting:
Ak' u, ak' u, ak' u;
Ma c'nt' mas'eca.
Ak' u, ak' u, ak' u;
Ma c'nt' mas'ca.
Come again, come again, come again;
For my heart is sad.
Come again, come again, come again;
For my heart is sad.
The World Of Dying Love
by Paul Cameron Brown

The long finger of blackness is holding its head for us.
Dingy bue is its shade,
comatose in movement, hazarding a slow swiftness,
it inches toward us.
Relief comes fitfully.
The dragon alone, an upstart
crowned with drunken spending,
has horse colours as ribbons with his eyes.
It cradles a breast of trembling bone.
Misercorde, Misercorde.
I dreamt I saw skeletal slackness
dangling;
the poverty of touch is a casket
with love in rumbling sockets.
Craziness is the passion of the engulfed,
dribbling pleasantly.
Presentations extended beyond and into themselves.
Slackness schemes with invalid awareness
in a brothel of hope.
By An Evolutionist
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Lord let the house of a brute to the soul of a man,
And the man said, 'Am I your debtor?'
And the Lord''Not yet; but make it as clean as you can,
And then I will let you a better.'
I.
If my body come from brutes, my soul uncertain or a fable,
Why not bask amid the senses while the sun of morning shines,
I, the finer brute rejoicing in my hounds, and in my stable,
Youth and health, and birth and wealth, and choice of women and of wines?
II.
What hast thou done for me, grim Old Age, save breaking my bones on the rack?
Would I had past in the morning that looks so bright from afar!
OLD AGE
Done for thee? starved the wild beast that was linkt with thee eighty years back.
Less weight now for the ladder-of-heaven that hangs on a star.
I.
If my body come from brutes, tho' somewhat finer than their own,
I am heir, and this my kingdom. Shall the royal voice be mute?
No, but if the rebel subject seek to drag me from the throne,
Hold the sceptre, Human Soul, and rule thy province of the brute.
II.
I have climb'd to the snows of Age, and I gaze at a field in the Past.
Where I sank with the body at times in the sloughs of a low desire,
But I hear no yelp of the beast, and the Man is quiet at last,
As he stands on the heights of his life with a glimpse of a height that is higher.
Sonnet CLXXIV.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

I' dolci colli ov' io lasciai me stesso.
HE LEAVES VAUCLUSE, BUT HIS SPIRIT REMAINS THERE WITH LAURA.
The loved hills where I left myself behind,
Whence ever 'twas so hard my steps to tear,
Before me rise; at each remove I bear
The dear load to my lot by Love consign'd.
Often I wonder inly in my mind,
That still the fair yoke holds me, which despair
Would vainly break, that yet I breathe this air;
Though long the chain, its links but closer bind.
And as a stag, sore struck by hunter's dart,
Whose poison'd iron rankles in his breast,
Flies and more grieves the more the chase is press'd,
So I, with Love's keen arrow in my heart,
Endure at once my death and my delight,
Rack'd with long grief, and weary with vain flight.
MACGREGOR.
Those gentle hills which hold my spirit still
(For though I fly, my heart there must remain),
Are e'er before me, whilst my burthen's pain,
By love bestow'd, I bear with patient will.
I marvel oft that I can yet fulfil
That yoke's sweet duties, which my soul enchain,
I seek release, but find the effort vain;
The more I fly, the nearer seems my ill.
So, like the stag, who, wounded by the dart,
Its poison'd iron rankling in his side,
Flies swifter at each quickening anguish'd throb,--
I feel the fatal arrow at my heart;
Yet with its poison, joy awakes its tide;
My flight exhausts me--grief my life doth rob!
WOLLASTON.