DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Vengeance
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

Aischa was mine,
My tender cousin,
My blond lover;
And you knew our love,
Uncle without bowels,
Foul old man.
For a few weights of gold
You sold her to the blacks,
And they will drive a stinking trade
At the dark market;
Your slender daughter,
The free child of our hills.
She will go to serve the bed
Of a fat man with no God,
A guts that cannot walk,
A belly hiding his own feet,
A rolling paunch
Between itself and love.
She was slim and quick
Like the antelope of our hills
When he comes down in the summer-time
To bathe in the pools of Tereck,
Her stainless flesh
Was all moonlight.
Her long silk hair
Was of so fine a gold
And of so honey-like a brown
That bees flew there,
And her red lips
Were flowers in sunlight.
She was fair, alas, she was fair,
So that her beauty goes
To a garden of dying flowers,
Made one with the girls that mourn
And wither for light and love
Behind the harem bars.
And you have dirty dreams
That she will be Sultane,
And you will drink and boast
And roll about,
The grinning ancestor
Of little kings.
Hugging your very wicked gold
Within a greasy belt,
You paddle exulting like a bald ape
That glories to defile,
Unmindful of two hot young streams
Of tears.
You stole this dirty gold,
For this gold means
Your daughter's freedom
And your nephew's love,
Two fresh and lovely things
Groaning within your belt.
The sunny playing of our childhood
At the green foot of Elbours,
The starry playing of our youth
Beyond the flowery fences,
These sigh their lost delights
Within your belt.
Give me the gold;
Damn you, give me the gold....
You kill my mercy
When you kill my love....
Hold up your trembling sword;
For this is death.
*             *             *             *             *
I take the belt from the dead loins
That put away my love,
And turn my sweet white horse
After the caravan....
With dirty gold and clean steel
I'll set Aischa free.
Ballad of the Caucasus.
De Critters' Dance
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Ain't nobody nevah tol' you not a wo'd a-tall,
'Bout de time dat all de critters gin dey fancy ball?
Some folks tell it in a sto'y, some folks sing de rhyme,
'Peahs to me you ought to hyeahed it, case hit 's ol' ez time.
Well, de critters all was p'osp'ous, now would be de chance
Fu' to tease ol' Pa'son Hedgehog, givin' of a dance;
Case, you know, de critters' preachah was de stric'est kin',
An' he nevah made no 'lowance fu' de frisky min'.
So dey sont dey inbitations, Raccoon writ 'em all,
"Dis hyeah note is to inbite you to de Fancy Ball;
Come erlong an' bring yo' ladies, bring yo' chillun too,
Put on all yo' bibs an' tuckahs, show whut you kin do."
W'en de night come, dey all gathahed in a place dey knowed,
Fu' enough erway f'om people, nigh enough de road,
All de critters had ersponded, Hop-Toad up to Baih,
An' I 's hyeah to tell you, Pa'son Hedgehog too, was daih.
Well, dey talked an' made dey 'bejunce, des lak critters do,
An' dey walked an' p'omenaded 'roun' an' thoo an' thoo;
Jealous ol' Mis' Fox, she whispah, "See Mis' Wildcat daih,
Ain't hit scan'lous, huh a-comin' wid huh shouldahs baih?"
Ol' man T'utle was n't honin' fu' no dancin' tricks,
So he stayed by ol' Mis' Tu'tle, talkin' politics;
Den de ban' hit 'mence a-playin' critters all to place,
Fou' ercross an' fou' stan' sideways, smilin' face to face.
'Fessah Frog, he play de co'net, Cricket play de fife,
Slews o' Grasshoppahs a-fiddlin' lak to save dey life;
Mistah Crow, 'he call de figgers, settin' in a tree,
Huh, uh! how dose critters sasshayed was a sight to see.
Mistah Possom swing Mis' Rabbit up an' down de flo',
Ol' man Baih, he ain't so nimble, an' it mek him blow;
Raccoon dancin' wid Mis' Squ'il squeeze huh little han',
She say, "Oh, now ain't you awful, quit it, goodness lan'!"
Pa'son Hedgehog groanin' awful at his converts' shines,
'Dough he peepin' thoo his fingahs at dem movin' lines,
'Twell he cain't set still no longah w'en de fiddles sing,
Up he jump, an' bless you, honey, cut de pigeon-wing.
Well, de critters lak to fainted jes' wid dey su'prise.
Sistah Fox, she vowed she was n't gwine to b'lieve huh eyes;
But dey could n't be no 'sputin' 'bout it any mo':
Pa'son Hedgehog was a-cape'in' all erroun' de flo.'
Den dey all jes' capahed scan'lous case dey did n't doubt,
Dat dey still could go to meetin'; who could tu'n 'em out?
So wid dancin' an' uligion, dey was in de fol',
Fu' a-dancin' wid de Pa'son couldn't hu't de soul.
The Fairy Rade.
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
Ai me! why stood I on the bent
When Summer wept o'er dying June!
I saw the Fairy Folk ride faint
Aneath the moon.
II.
The haw-trees hedged the russet lea
Where cuckoo-buds waxed rich with gold;
The wealthy corn rose yellowly
Endlong the wold.
III.
Betwixt the haw-trees and the mead
"The Fairy Rade" came glimmering on;
A creamy cavalcade did speed
O'er the green lawn.
IV.
The night was ringing with their reins;
Loud laughed they till the cricket hushed;
The whistles on their coursers' manes
Shrill music gushed.
V.
The whistles tagged their horses' manes
All crystal clear; on these a wind
Forever played, and waked the plains
Before, behind.
VI.
These flute-notes and the Fairy song
Took the dim holts with many a qualm,
And eke their silver bridles rung
A far-off psalm.
VII.
All rid upon pale ouphen steeds
With flying tails, uncouthly seen;
Each wore a scarf athwart his weeds
Of freshest green.
VIII.
And aye a beam of silver light
Fairer than moonshine danced aboon,
And shook their locks - a glimmering white
Not of the moon.
IX.
Small were they that the hare-bell's blue
Had helmeted each tiny head;
Save one damsel, who, tall as two,
The Faeries led.
X.
Long tresses floated from a tire
Of diamond sparks, which cast a light,
And o'er her white sark shook, in fire
Rippling the night.
XI.
I would have thrown me 'neath her feet,
And told her all my dole and pain,
There while her rein was jingling sweet
O'er all the plain.
XII.
Alas! a black and thwarting cock
Crew from the thatch with long-necked cry - 
The Elfin queen and her wee flock
In the night did die.
Davids Lamentation For Saul And Jonathan.
by Anne Bradstreet

2. Sam. I. 19.
Alas slain is the Head of Israel,
Illustrious Saul whose beauty did excell,
Upon thy places mountainous and high,
How did the Mighty fall, and falling dye?
In Gath let not this things be spoken on,
Nor published in streets of Askalon,
Lest daughters of the Philistines rejoice,
Lest the uncircumcis'd lift up their voice.
O Gilbo Mounts, let never pearled dew,
Nor fruitful showres your barren tops bestrew,
Nor fields of offrings ever on you grow,
Nor any pleasant thing e're may you show;
For there the Mighty Ones did soon decay,
The shield of Saul was vilely cast away.
There had his dignity so sore a foyle,
As if his head ne're felt the sacred oyl.
Sometimes from crimson blood of gastly slain,
The bow of Jonathan ne're turn'd in vain:
Nor from the fat, and spoils of Mighty men
With bloodless sword did Saul turn back agen.
Pleasant and lovely, were they both in life,
And in their death were founnd no parting strife.
Swifter then swiftest Eagles so were they,
Stronger then Lions ramping for their prey.
O Israels Dames, o'reflow your beauteous eyes
For valiant Saul, who on mount Gilbo lyes,
Who cloathed you in Cloath of richest Dye,
And choice delights, full of variety,
On your array put ornaments of gold,
Which made you yet more beauteous to behold.
O! how in Battle did the mighty fall
In midst of strength not succoured at all.
O lovely Jonathan! how wast thou slain?
In places high, full low thou didst remain.
Distress'd for thee I am, dear Jonathan,
Thy love was wonderfull, surpassing man,
Exceeding all the love that's Feminine,
So pleasant hast thou been, dear brother mine.
How are the mighty fall'n into decay?
And warlike weapons perished away?
Fragment: 'Alas! This Is Not What I Thought Life Was'.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Alas! this is not what I thought life was.
I knew that there were crimes and evil men,
Misery and hate; nor did I hope to pass
Untouched by suffering, through the rugged glen.
In mine own heart I saw as in a glass
The hearts of others ... And when
I went among my kind, with triple brass
Of calm endurance my weak breast I armed,
To bear scorn, fear, and hate, a woful mass!
To A Faded Flower
by Edward Smyth Jones

To a violet that faded on my coat at Natchez, Miss. March 8th, 1902.
Alas! thou lovely floweret wee,
Fate blew a blighting breath
Upon the delicate form of thee, - 
Thou'st met untimely death!
Thou blowest, blushest nevermore,
To drink the dews of night;
Thy sweet though short-lived life is o'er,
Thou seest no more the light.
'Twas vain! aye, vain! the selfish strife
That drooped thy purple crest;
Some swain or maiden took thy life,
To deck a love-lorn breast.
Ah, floweret wee, the God who made
All in the earth and sky,
Decreed that thou should blow and fade, - 
All else should live and die!
Now, he who wails the floweret's fate,
And all the rest of man,
Must meet that fate, aye soon or late,
And scale their measured span.
We are but flowers that blush and blow,
As flight of years rolls on,
With time and tide's cold ebb and flow - 
'Tis said - "He's dead and gone!"
For as the maid clips off the stems
Where once the flowers have been,
So angels pluck earth's rarest gems,
Immortal souls of men!
The flower fadeth into air,
From whence its life is given - 
But man's soul shining rich and rare
Ascendeth into heaven.
Sonnet LXXVI.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Ahi bella libert', come tu m' hai.
HE DEPLORES HIS LOST LIBERTY AND THE UNHAPPINESS OF HIS PRESENT STATE.
Alas! fair Liberty, thus left by thee,
Well hast thou taught my discontented heart
To mourn the peace it felt, ere yet Love's dart
Dealt me the wound which heal'd can never be;
Mine eyes so charm'd with their own weakness grow
That my dull mind of reason spurns the chain;
All worldly occupation they disdain,
Ah! that I should myself have train'd them so.
Naught, save of her who is my death, mine ear
Consents to learn; and from my tongue there flows
No accent save the name to me so dear;
Love to no other chase my spirit spurs,
No other path my feet pursue; nor knows
My hand to write in other praise but hers.
MACGREGOR.
Alas, sweet Liberty! in speeding hence,
Too well didst thou reveal unto my heart
Its careless joy, ere Love ensheathed his dart,
Of whose dread wound I ne'er can lose the sense
My eyes, enamour'd of their grief intense,
Did in that hour from Reason's bridle start,
Thus used to woe, they have no wish to part;
Each other mortal work is an offence.
No other theme will now my soul content
Than she who plants my death, with whose blest name
I make the air resound in echoes sweet:
Love spurs me to her as his only bent,
My hand can trace nought other but her fame,
No other spot attracts my willing feet.
WOLLASTON.
The End Of The Chapter
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Ah, yes, the chapter ends to-day;
We even lay the book away;
But oh, how sweet the moments sped
Before the final page was read!
We tried to read between the lines
The Author's deep-concealed designs;
But scant reward such search secures;
You saw my heart and I saw yours.
The Master,--He who penned the page
And bade us read it,--He is sage:
And what he orders, you and I
Can but obey, nor question why.
We read together and forgot
The world about us. Time was not.
Unheeded and unfelt, it fled.
We read and hardly knew we read.
Until beneath a sadder sun,
We came to know the book was done.
Then, as our minds were but new lit,
It dawned upon us what was writ;
And we were startled. In our eyes,
Looked forth the light of great surprise.
Then as a deep-toned tocsin tolls,
A voice spoke forth: "Behold your souls!"
I do, I do. I cannot look
Into your eyes: so close the book.
But brought it grief or brought it bliss,
No other page shall read like this!
All Alone.
by Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney

Alas! they have left me all alone
By the receding tide;
But oh! the countless multitudes
Upon the other side!
The loved, the lost, the cherished ones,
Who dwelt with us awhile,
To scatter sunbeams on our path,
And make the desert smile.
The other side! how fair it is!
Its loveliness untold,
Its "every several gate a pearl,"
Its streets are paved with gold.
Its sun shall never more go down,
For there is no night there!
And oh! what heavenly melodies
Are floating through the air!
How sweet to join the ransomed ones
On the other side the flood,
And sing a song of praise to Him
Who washed us in His blood.
Ten thousand times ten thousand
Are hymning the new song!
O Father, join Thy weary child
To that triumphant throng!
But oh! I would be patient,
"My times are in Thy hand,"
"And glory, glory dwelleth
In Immanuel's land."
Alas! What Boots The Long Laborious Quest
by William Wordsworth

Alas! what boots the long laborious quest
Of moral prudence, sought through good and ill;
Or pains abstruse, to elevate the will,
And lead us on to that transcendent rest
Where every passion shall the sway attest
Of Reason, seated on her sovereign hill;
What is it but a vain and curious skill,
If sapient Germany must lie deprest,
Beneath the brutal sword? Her haughty Schools
Shall blush; and may not we with sorrow say,
A few strong instincts and a few plain rules,
Among the herdsmen of the Alps, have wrought
More for mankind at this unhappy day
Then all the pride of intellect and thought?
Sonnet LXXXVI.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Lasso! quante fiate Amor m' assale.
WHEN LOVE DISTURBS HIM, HE CALMS HIMSELF BY THINKING OF THE EYES AND WORDS OF LAURA.
Alas! how ceaselessly is urged Love's claim,
By day, by night, a thousand times I turn
Where best I may behold the dear lights burn
Which have immortalized my bosom's flame.
Thus grow I calm, and to such state am brought,
At noon, at break of day, at vesper-bell,
I find them in my mind so tranquil dwell,
I neither think nor care beside for aught.
The balmy air, which, from her angel mien,
Moves ever with her winning words and wise,
Makes wheresoe'er she breathes a sweet serene
As 'twere a gentle spirit from the skies,
Still in these scenes some comfort brings to me,
Nor elsewhere breathes my harass'd heart so free.
MACGREGOR.
Lines To A Reviewer.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Alas, good friend, what profit can you see
In hating such a hateless thing as me?
There is no sport in hate where all the rage
Is on one side: in vain would you assuage
Your frowns upon an unresisting smile,
In which not even contempt lurks to beguile
Your heart, by some faint sympathy of hate.
Oh, conquer what you cannot satiate!
For to your passion I am far more coy
Than ever yet was coldest maid or boy
In winter noon. Of your antipathy
If I am the Narcissus, you are free
To pine into a sound with hating me.
The Lost Elixir.
by Henry Austin Dobson

"One drop of ruddy human blood puts more life into the veins of a poem than all the delusive 'aurum potabile' that can be distilled out of the choicest library."--Lowell.
Ah, yes, that "drop of human blood!"--
We had it once, may be,
When our young song's impetuous flood
First poured its ecstasy;
But now the shrunk poetic vein
Yields not that priceless drop again.
We toil,--as toiled we not of old;
Our patient hands distil
The shining spheres of chemic gold
With hard-won, fruitless skill;
But that red drop still seems to be
Beyond our utmost alchemy.
Perchance, but most in later age,
Time's after-gift, a tear,
Will strike a pathos on the page
Beyond all art sincere;
But that "one drop of human blood"
Has gone with life's first leaf and bud.
The Golden Journey
by William Vaughn Moody

All day he drowses by the sail
With dreams of her, and all night long
The broken waters are at song
Of how she lingers, wild and pale,
When all the temple lights are dumb,
And weaves her spells to make him come.
The wide sea traversed, he will stand
With straining eyes, until the shoal
Green water from the prow shall roll
Upon the yellow strip of sand--
Searching some fern-hid tangled way
Into the forest old and grey.
Then he will leap upon the shore,
And cast one look up at the sun,
Over his loosened locks will run
The dawn breeze, and a bird will pour
Its rapture out to make life seem
Too sweet to leave for such a dream.
But all the swifter will he go
Through the pale, scattered asphodels,
Down mote-hung dusk of olive dells,
To where the ancient basins throw
Fleet threads of blue and trembling zones
Of gold upon the temple stones.
There noon keeps just a twilight trace;
Twixt love and hate, and death and birth,
No man may choose; nor sobs nor mirth
May enter in that haunted place.
All day the fountain sphynx lets drip
Slow drops of silence from her lip.
To hold the porch-roof slender girls
Of milk-white marble stand arow;
Doubt never blurs a single brow,
And never the noon's faintness curls
From their expectant hush of pride
The lips the god has glorified.
But these things he will barely view,
Or if he stay to heed them, still
But as the lark the lights that spill
From out the sun it soars unto,
Where, past the splendors and the heats,
The sun's heart's self forever beats.
For wide the brazen doors will swing
Soon as his sandals touch the pave;
The anxious light inside will wave
And tremble to a lunar ring
About the form that lieth prone
Before the dreadful altar-stone.
She will not look or speak or stir,
But with drowned lips and cheeks death-white
Will lie amid the pool of light,
Until, grown faint with thirst of her,
He shall bow down his face and sink
Breathless beneath the eddying brink.
Then a swift music will begin,
And as the brazen doors shut slow,
There will be hurrying to and fro,
And lights and calls and silver din,
While through the star-freaked swirl of air
The god's sweet cruel eyes will stare.
Lament For The Loss Of Lord Bathurst's Tail.
by Thomas Moore

[1]
All in again--unlookt for bliss!
Yet, ah! one adjunct still we miss;--
One tender tie, attached so long
To the same head, thro' right and wrong.
Why, Bathurst, why didst thou cut off
That memorable tail of thine?
Why--as if one was not enough--
Thy pig-tie with thy place resign,
And thus at once both cut and run?
Alas! my Lord, 'twas not well done,
'Twas not, indeed,--tho' sad at heart,
From office and its sweets to part,
Yet hopes of coming in again,
Sweet Tory hopes! beguiled our pain;
But thus to miss that tail of thine,
Thro' long, long years our rallying sign--
As if the State and all its powers
By tenancy in tail were ours--
To see it thus by scissors fall,
This was "the unkindest cut of all!"
It seemed as tho' the ascendant day
Of Toryism had past away,
And proving Samson's story true,
She lost her vigor with her queue.
Parties are much like fish, 'tis said--
The tail directs them, not the head;
Then how could any party fail,
That steered its course by Bathurst's tail?
Not Murat's plume thro' Wagram's fight
E'er shed such guiding glories from it,
As erst in all true Tories sight,
Blazed from our old Colonial comet!
If you, my Lord, a Bashaw were,
(As Wellington will be anon)
Thou mightst have had a tail to spare;
But no! alas! thou hadst but one,
And that--like Troy, or Babylon,
A tale of other times--is gone!
Yet--weep ye not, ye Tories true--
Fate has not yet of all bereft us;
Though thus deprived of Bathurst's queue,
We've Ellenborough's curls still left us:--
Sweet curls, from which young Love, so vicious,
His shots, as from nine-pounders, issues;
Grand, glorious curls, which in debate
Surcharged with all a nation's fate,
His Lordship shakes, as Homer's God did,[2]
And oft in thundering talk comes near him;
Except that there the speaker nodded
And here 'tis only those who hear him.
Long, long, ye ringlets, on the soil
Of that fat cranium may ye flourish,
With plenty of Macassar oil
Thro' many a year your growth to nourish!
And ah! should Time too soon unsheath
His barbarous shears such locks to sever,
Still dear to Tories even in death,
Their last loved relics we'll bequeath,
A hair-loom to our sons for ever.
The Faithful Lover
by Richard Le Gallienne

All beauty is but thee in echo-shapes,
No lovely thing but echoes some of thee,
Vainly some touch of thy perfection apes,
Sighing as fair as thou thyself to be;
Therefore, be not disquieted that I
On other forms turn oft my wandering gaze,
Nor deem it anywise disloyalty:
Nay! 'tis the pious fervour of my eye,
That seeks thy face in every other face.
As in the mirrored salon of a queen,
Flashes from glass to glass, as she walks by,
In sweet reiteration still - the queen!
So is the world for thee to walk in, sweet;
But to see thee is all things to have seen.
And, as the moon in every crystal lake,
Walking the heaven with little silver feet,
Sees each bright copy her reflection take,
And every dew-drop holds its little glass,
To catch her loveliness as she doth pass,
So do all things make haste to copy thee.
I, then, to see thee thus over and over,
Am wistful too all lovely shapes to see,
For each thus makes me more and more thy lover.
A Frosty Night.
by Robert von Ranke Graves

Mother
Alice, dear, what ails you,
Dazed and white and shaken?
Has the chill night numbed you?
Is it fright you have taken?
Alice
Mother, I am very well,
I felt never better,
Mother, do not hold me so,
Let me write my letter.
Mother
Sweet, my dear, what ails you?
Alice
No, but I am well;
The night was cold and frosty,
There's no more to tell.
Mother
Ay, the night was frosty,
Coldly gaped the moon,
Yet the birds seemed twittering
Through green boughs of June.
Soft and thick the snow lay,
Stars danced in the sky.
Not all the lambs of May-day
Skip so bold and high.
Your feet were dancing, Alice,
Seemed to dance on air,
You looked a ghost or angel
In the starlight there.
Your eyes were frosted starlight,
Your heart fire and snow.
Who was it said, "I love you"?
Alice
Mother, let me go!
Montreal.
by W. M. MacKeracher

(Written in Winter.)
All clad in rich hiemal robes
By blasts of Boreas plied,
The sovereign City of the North
Sits in majestic pride;
Beside St. Lawrence' noble stream,
Hard by his hidden tide,
She sits, and rears her head aloft
Upon Mount Royal's side.
A crown she wears of richest gems,
Of purest crystal bright,
That sparkle like a maiden's eyes
Which dazzle with delight;
Not gems that glitter best beneath
The courtly lamps by night;
But those whose brilliancy appears
By morning's purer light.
Her sceptre is not mineral
Up-gathered from the dust,
Nor gold, nor silver, long profaned
By man's accurs'd lust,
Nor substance base enough to feel
The vitiating rust,
But is a crystalled branch of oak
Just riven by the gust.
"I sit a queen," she proudly says,
"From the Atlantic Main
To where the Rockies to the sky
Their shaggy summits strain,
From where St. Lawrence speeds along
The ocean wave to gain
To where in darkness sleeps the heaven,
Unwaked by Phoebus' wain."
Consolation
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

All are not taken; there are left behind
Living Belov'ds, tender looks to bring
And make the daylight still a happy thing,
And tender voices, to make soft the wind:
But if it were not so, if I could find
No love in all this world for comforting,
Nor any path but hollowly did ring
Where 'dust to dust' the love from life disjoin'd;
And if, before those sepulchres unmoving
I stood alone (as some forsaken lamb
Goes bleating up the moors in weary dearth)
Crying 'Where are ye, O my loved and loving?'
I know a voice would sound, 'Daughter, I am.
Can I suffice for Heaven and not for earth?'