DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
My Harry Was A Gallant Gay.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "Highland's Lament."
I.
My Harry was a gallant gay,
Fu' stately strode he on the plain:
But now he's banish'd far away,
I'll never see him back again,
O for him back again!
O for him back again!
I wad gie a' Knockhaspie's land
For Highland Harry back again.
II.
When a' the lave gae to their bed,
I wander dowie up the glen;
I set me down and greet my fill,
And ay I wish him back again.
III.
O were some villains hangit high.
And ilka body had their ain!
Then I might see the joyfu' sight,
My Highland Harry back again.
O for him back again!
O for him back again!
I wad gie a' Knockhaspie's land
For Highland Harry back again.
To God: An Anthem Sung In The Chapel At Whitehall Before The King.
by Robert Herrick

Verse. My God, I'm wounded by my sin,
And sore without, and sick within.
Ver. Chor. I come to Thee, in hope to find
Salve for my body and my mind.
Verse. In Gilead though no balm be found
To ease this smart or cure this wound,
Ver. Chor. Yet, Lord, I know there is with Thee
All saving health, and help for me.
Verse. Then reach Thou forth that hand of Thine,
That pours in oil, as well as wine,
Ver. Chor. And let it work, for I'll endure
The utmost smart, so Thou wilt cure.
Life's Burying-Ground.
by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

My graveyard holds no once-loved human forms,
Grown hideous and forgotten, left alone,
But every agony my heart has known, - 
The new-born trusts that died, the drift of storms.
I visit every day the shadowy grove;
I bury there my outraged tender thought;
I bring the insult for the love I sought,
And my contempt, where I had tried to love.
His Ejaculation To God.
by Robert Herrick

My God! look on me with Thine eye
Of pity, not of scrutiny;
For if Thou dost, Thou then shalt see
Nothing but loathsome sores in me.
O then, for mercy's sake, behold
These my eruptions manifold,
And heal me with Thy look or touch;
But if Thou wilt not deign so much,
Because I'm odious in Thy sight,
Speak but the word, and cure me quite.
The Garden
by Sara Teasdale

My heart is a garden tired with autumn,
Heaped with bending asters and dahlias heavy and dark,
In the hazy sunshine, the garden remembers April,
The drench of rains and a snow-drop quick and clear as a spark;
Daffodils blowing in the cold wind of morning,
And golden tulips, goblets holding the rain,
The garden will be hushed with snow, forgotten soon, forgotten,
After the stillness, will spring come again?
A Change O' Deils
by Violet Jacob

"A change o' deils is lichtsome." - 
Scots Proverb.
My Grannie spent a merry youth,
She niver wantit for a joe,
An gin she tell't me aye the truth,
Richt little was't she kent na o'.
An' whiles afore she gae'd awa'
To bed her doon below the grass,
Says she, "Guidmen I've kistit[1] twa,
But a change o' deils is lichtsome, lass!"
Sae dinna think to maister me,
For Scotland's fu' o' brawlike chiels,
And aiblins[2] ither folk ye'll see
Are fine an' pleased to change their deils.
Aye, set yer bonnet on yer heid,
An' cock it up upon yer bree,
O' a' yer tricks ye'll hae some need
Afore ye get the best o' me!
Sma' wark to fill yer place I'd hae,
I'll seek a sweethe'rt i' the toon,
Or cast my he'rt across the Spey
An' tak' some pridefu' Hieland loon.
I ken a man has hoose an' land,
His airm is stoot, his een are blue,
A ring o' gowd is on his hand,
An' he's a bonnier man nor you!
But hoose an' gear an' land an' mair,
He'd gie them a' to get the preen
That preened the flowers in till my hair
Beside the may-bush yestre'en.
Jist tak' you tent, an' mind forbye,
The braw guid sense my Grannie had,
My Grannie's dochter's bairn am I,
And a change o' deils is lichtsome, lad!
To Giovanni Salzilli, a Roman Poet, in his Illness. Scazons.
by John Milton

My halting Muse, that dragg'st by choice along
Thy slow, slow step, in melancholy song!
And lik'st that pace expressive of thy cares
Not less than Diopeia's sprightlier airs
When in the dance she beats with measur'd tread
Heav'n's floor in front of Juno's golden bed,
Salute Salsillus, who to verse divine
Prefers, with partial love, such lays as mine.
Thus writes that Milton then, who wafted o'er
From his own nest on Albion's stormy shore
Where Eurus, fiercest of th'Aeolian band,
Sweeps with ungovern'd rage the blasted land,
Of late to more serene Ausonia came
To view her cities of illustrious name,
To prove, himself a witness of the truth,
How wise her elders, and how learn'd her Youth.
Much good, Salsillus! and a body free
From all disease, that Milton asks for thee,
Who now endur'st the languor, and the pains
That bile inflicts diffus'd through all thy veins,
Relentless malady! not mov'd to spare
By thy sweet Roman voice, and Lesbian air!
Health, Hebe's sister, sent us from the skies,
And thou, Apollo, whom all sickness flies,
Pythius, or Paean, or what name divine
Soe'er thou chuse, haste, heal a priest of thine!
Ye groves of Faunus, and ye hills that melt
With vinous dews, where meek Evander dwelt!
If aught salubrious in your confines grow,
Strive which shall soonest heal your poet's woe,
That, render'd to the Muse he loves, again
He may enchant the meadows with his strain.
Numa, reclin'd in everlasting ease
Amid the shade of dark embow'ring trees,
Viewing with eyes of unabated fire
His loved Aegeria, shall that strain admire:
So sooth'd, the tumid Tiber shall revere
The tombs of kings, nor desolate the year,
Shall curb his waters with a friendly rein,
And guide them harmless till they meet the main.
To Giovanni Salzilli, a Roman Poet, in his Illness. Scazons.[1]
by William Cowper

My halting Muse, that dragg'st by choice along
Thy slow, slow step, in melancholy song!
And lik'st that pace expressive of thy cares
Not less than Diopeia's[2] sprightlier airs
When in the dance she beats with measur'd tread
Heav'n's floor in front of Juno's golden bed,
Salute Salsillus, who to verse divine
Prefers, with partial love, such lays as mine.
Thus writes that Milton then, who wafted o'er
From his own nest on Albion's stormy shore
Where Eurus, fiercest of th'Aeolian band,
Sweeps with ungovern'd rage the blasted land,
Of late to more serene Ausonia came
To view her cities of illustrious name,
To prove, himself a witness of the truth,
How wise her elders, and how learn'd her Youth.
Much good, Salsillus! and a body free
From all disease, that Milton asks for thee,
Who now endur'st the languor, and the pains
That bile inflicts diffus'd through all thy veins,
Relentless malady! not mov'd to spare
By thy sweet Roman voice, and Lesbian air!
Health, Hebe's sister, sent us from the skies,
And thou, Apollo, whom all sickness flies,
Pythius, or Paean, or what name divine
Soe'er thou chuse, haste, heal a priest of thine!
Ye groves of Faunus, and ye hills that melt
With vinous dews, where meek Evander[3] dwelt!
If aught salubrious in your confines grow,
Strive which shall soonest heal your poet's woe,
That, render'd to the Muse he loves, again
He may enchant the meadows with his strain.
Numa, reclin'd in everlasting ease
Amid the shade of dark embow'ring trees,
Viewing with eyes of unabated fire
His loved Aegeria, shall that strain admire:
So sooth'd, the tumid Tiber shall revere
The tombs of kings, nor desolate the year,
Shall curb his waters with a friendly rein,
And guide them harmless till they meet the main.
Sonet 5
by Michael Drayton

My hart was slaine, and none but you and I,
Who should I thinke the murder should commit?
Since but your selfe, there was no creature by
But onely I, guiltlesse of murth'ring it.
It slew it selfe; the verdict on the view
Doe quit the dead and me not accessarie;
Well, well, I feare it will be prou'd by you,
The euidence so great a proofe doth carry.
But O, see, see, we need enquire no further,
Vpon your lips the scarlet drops are found,
And in your eye, the boy that did the murther,
Your cheekes yet pale since first they gaue the wound.
By this, I see, how euer things be past,
Yet heauen will still haue murther out at last.
Nursery Rhyme. CCXLVII. Charms.
by Unknown

My grandmother sent me a new-fashioned three cornered cambric country cut handkerchief. Not an old-fashioned three cornered cambric country cut handkerchief, but a new-fashioned three cornered cambric country cut handkerchief.
A Prayer
by Anne Bronte

My God (oh, let me call Thee mine,
Weak, wretched sinner though I be),
My trembling soul would fain be Thine;
My feeble faith still clings to Thee.
Not only for the Past I grieve,
The Future fills me with dismay;
Unless Thou hasten to relieve,
Thy suppliant is a castaway.
I cannot say my faith is strong,
I dare not hope my love is great;
But strength and love to Thee belong;
Oh, do not leave me desolate!
I know I owe my all to Thee;
Oh, TAKE the heart I cannot give!
Do Thou my strength, my Saviour be,
And MAKE me to Thy glory live.
A Letter To Her Husband
by Anne Bradstreet

Absent upon Public Employment
My head, my heart, mine eyes, my life, nay more,
My joy, my magazine, of earthly store,
If two be one, as surely thou and I,
How stayest thou there, whilst I at Ipswich lie?
So many steps, head from the heart to sever,
If but a neck, soon should we be together.
I, like the Earth this season, mourn in black,
My Sun is gone so far in's zodiac,
Whom whilst I 'joyed, nor storms, nor frost I felt,
His warmth such fridged colds did cause to melt.
My chilled limbs now numbed lie forlorn;
Return; return, sweet Sol, from Capricorn;
In this dead time, alas, what can I more
Than view those fruits which through thy heart I bore?
Which sweet contentment yield me for a space,
True living pictures of their father's face.
O strange effect! now thou art southward gone,
I weary grow the tedious day so long;
But when thou northward to me shalt return,
I wish my Sun may never set, but burn
Within the Cancer of my glowing breast,
The welcome house of him my dearest guest.
Where ever, ever stay, and go not thence,
Till nature's sad decree shall call thee hence;
Flesh of thy flesh, bone of thy bone,
I here, thou there, yet both but one.
The Sonnets XXII - My glass shall not persuade me I am old
by William Shakespeare

My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
So long as youth and thou are of one date;
But when in thee time's furrows I behold,
Then look I death my days should expiate.
For all that beauty that doth cover thee,
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:
How can I then be elder than thou art?
O! therefore love, be of thyself so wary
As I, not for myself, but for thee will;
Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.
Presume not on th;heart when mine is slain,
Thou gav'st me thine not to give back again.
Amour 22
by Michael Drayton

My hart, imprisoned in a hopeless Ile,
Peopled with Armies of pale iealous eyes,
The shores beset with thousand secret spyes,
Must passe by ayre, or else dye in exile.
He framd him wings with feathers of his thought,
Which by theyr nature learn'd to mount the skye;
And with the same he practised to flye,
Till he himself thys Eagles art had taught.
Thus soring still, not looking once below,
So neere thyne eyes celesteall sunne aspyred,
That with the rayes his wafting pyneons fired:
Thus was the wanton cause of his owne woe.
Downe fell he, in thy Beauties Ocean drenched,
Yet there he burnes in fire thats neuer quenched.
My Mother's Hand.
by Hattie Howard

My head is aching, and I wish
That I could feel tonight
One well-remembered, tender touch
That used to comfort me so much,
And put distress to flight.
There's not a soothing anodyne
Or sedative I know,
Such potency can ever hold
As that which lovingly controlled
My spirit long ago.
How oft my burning cheek as if
By Zephyrus was fanned,
And nothing interdicted pain
Or seemed to make me well again
So quick as mother's hand.
'Tis years and years since it was laid,
In her own gentle way,
On tangled curls of brown and jet
Above the downy coverlet
'Neath which the children lay.
As bright as blessed sunlight ray
The past comes back to me;
Her fingers turn the sacred page
For a little group of tender age
Who gather at her knee.
And when those hands together clasped
Devout and still were we;
To whom it seemed God then and there
Must surely answer such a prayer,
For none could pray as she.
O buried love with her that passed
Into the Silent Land!
O haunting vision of the night!
I see, encoffined, still, and white,
A mother's face and hand.
Fragment: 'My Head Is Wild With Weeping'.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

My head is wild with weeping for a grief
Which is the shadow of a gentle mind.
I walk into the air (but no relief
To seek, - or haply, if I sought, to find;
It came unsought); - to wonder that a chief
Among men's spirits should be cold and blind.
The Reef
by Aldous Leonard Huxley

My green aquarium of phantom fish,
Goggling in on me through the misty panes;
My rotting leaves and fields spongy with rains;
My few clear quiet autumn days--I wish
I could leave all, clearness and mistiness;
Sodden or goldenly crystal, all too still.
Yes, and I too rot with the leaves that fill
The hollows in the woods; I am grown less
Than human, listless, aimless as the green
Idiot fishes of my aquarium,
Who loiter down their dim tunnels and come
And look at me and drift away, nought seen
Or understood, but only glazedly
Reflected. Upwards, upwards through the shadows,
Through the lush sponginess of deep-sea meadows
Where hare-lipped monsters batten, let me ply
Winged fins, bursting this matrix dark to find
Jewels and movement, mintage of sunlight
Scattered largely by the profuse wind,
And gulfs of blue brightness, too deep for sight.
Free, newly born, on roads of music and air
Speeding and singing, I shall seek the place
Where all the shining threads of water race,
Drawn in green ropes and foamy meshes. There,
On the red fretted ramparts of a tower
Of coral rooted in the depths, shall break
An endless sequence of joy and speed and power:
Green shall shatter to foam; flake with white flake
Shall create an instant's shining constellation
Upon the blue; and all the air shall be
Full of a million wings that swift and free
Laugh in the sun, all power and strong elation.
Yes, I shall seek that reef, which is beyond
All isles however magically sleeping
In tideless seas, uncharted and unconned
Save by blind eyes; beyond the laughter and weeping
That brood like a cloud over the lands of men.
Movement, passion of colour and pure wings,
Curving to cut like knives--these are the things
I search for:--passion beyond the ken
Of our foiled violences, and, more swift
Than any blow which man aims against time,
The invulnerable, motion that shall rift
All dimness with the lightning of a rhyme,
Or note, or colour. And the body shall be
Quick as the mind; and will shall find release
From bondage to brute things; and joyously
Soul, will and body, in the strength of triune peace,
Shall live the perfect grace of power unwasted.
And love consummate, marvellously blending
Passion and reverence in a single spring
Of quickening force, till now never yet tasted,
But ever ceaselessly thirsted for, shall crown
The new life with its ageless starry fire.
I go to seek that reef, far down, far down
Below the edge of everyday's desire,
Beyond the magical islands, where of old
I was content, dreaming, to give the lie
To misery. They were all strong and bold
That thither came; and shall I dare to try?
The Gypsy's Selling Song.
by Jean Ingelow

My good man - he's an old, old man - 
And my good man got a fall,
To buy me a bargain so fast he ran
When he heard the gypsies call:
"Buy, buy brushes,
Baskets wrought o' rushes.
Buy them, buy them, take them, try them,
Buy, dames all."
My old man, he has money and land,
And a young, young wife am I.
Let him put the penny in my white hand
When he hears the gypsies cry:
"Buy, buy laces,
Veils to screen your faces.
Buy them, buy them, take and try them.
Buy, maids, buy."
Paraphrases From Scripture. PSALM lxxiv. 16, 17.
by Helen Maria Williams

The day is thine, the night also is thine; thou hast prepared the light and the sun.
Thou hast set all the borders of the earth; thou hast made summer and winter.
PSALM lxxiv. 16, 17.
My God! all nature owns thy sway,
Thou giv'st the night, and thou the day!
When all thy lov'd creation wakes,
When morning, rich in lustre breaks,
And bathes in dew the op'ning flower,
To thee we owe her fragrant hour;
And when she pours her choral song,
Her melodies to thee belong!
Or when, in paler tints array'd,
The evening slowly spreads her shade;
That soothing shade, that grateful gloom,
Can more than day's enliv'ning bloom
Still every fond, and vain desire,
And calmer, purer, thoughts inspire;
From earth the pensive spirit free,
And lead the soften'd heart to Thee.
In every scene thy hands have drest,
In every form by thee imprest,
Upon the mountain's awful head,
Or where the shelt'ring woods are spread;
In every note that swells the gale,
Or tuneful stream that cheers the vale,
The cavern's depth, or echoing grove,
A voice is heard of praise, and love.
As o'er thy work the seasons roll,
And sooth with change of bliss, the soul,
Oh never may their smiling train
Pass o'er the human scene in vain!
But oft as on the charm we gaze,
Attune the wond'ring soul to praise;
And be the joys that most we prize,
The joys that from thy favour rise!
Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.
A Prodigal
by Emily Pauline Johnson

My heart forgot its God for love of you,
And you forgot me, other loves to learn;
Now through a wilderness of thorn and rue
Back to my God I turn.
And just because my God forgets the past,
And in forgetting does not ask to know
Why I once left His arms for yours, at last
Back to my God I go.
Love in Exile.
by George Pope Morris

Adapted to a Hungarian melody.
My heart I gave you with my hand,
In brighter days than these,
In that down-trodden father-land
Beyond the distant seas,
Where you were all the world to me,
Devoted, fond, and true,
And I, in our prosperity,
Was all the world to you!
Robbed by a tyrant's iron sway,
We're banished from that land away!
Sad wanderers from our native home!
A ruler in a foe!
An exiled caravan we roam;
But hand in hand WE go!
And thus whatever fate betide
We bless our lot in life,
Since no misfortunes may divide
The husband and the wife!
Here we defy the tyrant's will,
We're happy in each other still!
The Hatband
by Arthur Macy

My hatband goes around my hat,
And while there's nothing strange in that,
It seems just like a lazy man
Who leaves off where he first began.
But then this fact is always true,
The band does what it ought to do,
And is more useful than the man,
Because it does the best it can.
The Solitary
by Sara Teasdale

My heart has grown rich with the passing of years,
I have less need now than when I was young
To share myself with every comer
Or shape my thoughts into words with my tongue.
It is one to me that they come or go
If I have myself and the drive of my will,
And strength to climb on a summer night
And watch the stars swarm over the hill.
Let them think I love them more than I do,
Let them think I care, though I go alone;
If it lifts their pride, what is it to me
Who am self-complete as a flower or a stone.
My Heart Is A-Breaking, Dear Tittie.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "Tam Glen."
I.
My heart is a-breaking, dear Tittie!
Some counsel unto me come len',
To anger them a' is a pity,
But what will I do wi' Tam Glen?
II.
I'm thinking wi' sic a braw fellow,
In poortith I might make a fen';
What care I in riches to wallow,
If I maunna marry Tam Glen?
III.
There's Lowrie the laird o' Dumeller,
"Gude day to you, brute!" he comes ben:
He brags and he blaws o' his siller,
But when will he dance like Tam Glen?
IV.
My minnie does constantly deave me,
And bids me beware o' young men;
They flatter, she says, to deceive me,
But wha can think so o' Tam Glen?
V.
My daddie says, gin I'll forsake him,
He'll gie me guid hunder marks ten:
But, if it's ordain'd I maun take him,
O wha will I get but Tam Glen?
VI.
Yestreen at the Valentine's dealing,
My heart to my mou' gied a sten;
For thrice I drew ane without failing,
And thrice it was written, Tam Glen.
VII.
The last Halloween I was waukin
My droukit sark-sleeve, as ye ken;
His likeness cam up the house staukin,
And the very grey breeks o' Tam Glen!
VIII.
Come counsel, dear Tittie! don't tarry
I'll gie you my bonnie black hen,
Gif ye will advise me to marry
The lad that I lo'e dearly, Tam Glen.
The Seven Sages
by William Butler Yeats

i(The First.) My great-grandfather spoke to Edmund Burke
In Grattan's house.
i(The Second.) My great-grandfather shared
A pot-house bench with Oliver Goldsmith once.
i(The Third.) My great-grandfather's father talked of music,
Drank tar-water with the Bishop of Cloyne.
i(The Fourth.) But mine saw Stella once.
i(The Fifth.) Whence came our thought?
i(The Sixth.) From four great minds that hated Whiggery.
i(The Fifth.) Burke was a Whig.
i(The Sixth.) Whether they knew or not,
Goldsmith and Burke, Swift and the Bishop of Cloyne
All hated Whiggery; but what is Whiggery?
A leveling, rancorous, rational sort of mind
That never looked out of the eye of a saint
Or out of drunkard's eye.
i(The Seventh.) All's Whiggery now,
But we old men are massed against the world.
i(The First.) American colonies, Ireland, France and India
Harried, and Burke's great melody against it.
i(The Second.) Oliver Goldsmith sang what he had seen,
Roads full of beggars, cattle in the fields,
But never saw the trefoil stained with blood,
The avenging leaf those fields raised up against it.
i(The Fourth.) The tomb of Swift wears it away.
i(The Third.) A voice
Soft as the rustle of a reed from Cloyne
That gathers volume; now a thunder-clap.
i(The Sixth.) What schooling had these four?
i(The Seventh.) They walked the roads
Mimicking what they heard, as children mimic;
They understood that wisdom comes of beggary.
Amour 44
by Michael Drayton

My hart the Anuile where my thoughts doe beate,
My words the hammers fashioning my desire,
My breast the forge, including all the heate,
Loue is the fuell which maintaines the fire:
My sighes the bellowes which the flame increaseth,
Filling mine eares with noise and nightly groning,
Toyling with paine my labour neuer ceaseth,
In greeuous passions my woes styll bemoning.
Myne eyes with teares against the fire stryuing,
With scorching gleed my hart to cynders turneth;
But with those drops the coles againe reuyuing,
Still more and more vnto my torment burneth.
With Sisiphus thus doe I role the stone,
And turne the wheele with damned Ixion.
Song Making
by Sara Teasdale

My heart cried like a beaten child
Ceaselessly all night long;
I had to take my own cries
And thread them into a song.
One was a cry at black midnight
And one when the first cock crew,
My heart was like a beaten child,
But no one ever knew.
Life, you have put me in your debt
And I must serve you long,
But oh, the debt is terrible
That must be paid in song.
Ephraim Repenting. - Jeremiah xxxi.18-20.
by William Cowper

My God, till I received thy stroke,
How like a beast was I!
So unaccustom'd to the yoke,
So backward to comply.
With grief my just reproach I bear,
Shame fills me at the thought;
How frequent my rebellions were!
What wickedness I wrought!
Thy merciful restraint I scorn'd,
And left the pleasant road;
Yet turn me, and I shall be turn'd,
Thou art the Lord my God.
'Is Ephraim banish'd from my thoughts,
Or vile in my esteem?
No,' saith the Lord, 'with all his faults,
I still remember him.
'Is he a dear and pleasant child?
Yes, dear and pleasant still;
Though sin his foolish heart beguiled,
And he withstood my will.
'My sharp rebuke has laid him low,
He seeks my face again;
My pity kindles at his woe,
He shall not seek in vain.'
Queen Elizabeth Speaks
by Alfred Joyce Kilmer (Joyce)

My hands were stained with blood, my heart was proud and cold,
My soul is black with shame . . . but I gave Shakespeare gold.
So after aeons of flame, I may, by grace of God,
Rise up to kiss the dust that Shakespeare's feet have trod.