DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The South.
by Emma Lazarus

Night, and beneath star-blazoned summer skies
Behold the Spirit of the musky South,
A creole with still-burning, languid eyes,
Voluptuous limbs and incense-breathing mouth:
Swathed in spun gauze is she,
From fibres of her own anana tree.
Within these sumptuous woods she lies at ease,
By rich night-breezes, dewy cool, caressed:
'Twixt cypresses and slim palmetto trees,
Like to the golden oriole's hanging nest,
Her airy hammock swings,
And through the dark her mocking-bird yet sings.
How beautiful she is!    A tulip-wreath
Twines round her shadowy, free-floating hair:
Young, weary, passionate, and sad as death,
Dark visions haunt for her the vacant air,
While movelessly she lies
With lithe, lax, folded hands and heavy eyes.
Full well knows she how wide and fair extend
Her groves bright-flowered, her tangled everglades,
Majestic streams that indolently wend
Through lush savanna or dense forest shades,
Where the brown buzzard flies
To broad bayou 'neath hazy-golden skies.
Hers is the savage splendor of the swamp,
With pomp of scarlet and of purple bloom,
Where blow warm, furtive breezes faint and damp,
Strange insects whir, and stalking bitterns boom - 
Where from stale waters dead
Oft looms the great-jawed alligator's head.
Her wealth, her beauty, and the blight on these, - 
Of all she is aware: luxuriant woods,
Fresh, living, sunlit, in her dream she sees;
And ever midst those verdant solitudes
The soldier's wooden cross,
O'ergrown by creeping tendrils and rank moss.
Was her a dream of empire? was it sin?
And is it well that all was borne in vain?
She knows no more than one who slow doth win,
After fierce fever, conscious life again,
Too tired, too weak, too sad,
By the new light to be stirred or glad.
From rich sea-islands fringing her green shore,
From broad plantations where swart freemen bend
Bronzed backs in willing labor, from her store
Of golden fruit, from stream, from town, ascend
Life-currents of pure health:
Her aims shall be subserved with boundless wealth.
Yet now how listless and how still she lies,
Like some half-savage, dusky Indian queen,
Rocked in her hammock 'neath her native skies,
With the pathetic, passive, broken mien
Of one who, sorely proved,
Great-souled, hath suffered much and much hath loved!
But look! along the wide-branched, dewy glade
Glimmers the dawn: the light palmetto-trees
And cypresses reissue from the shade,
And SHE hath wakened.    Through clear air she sees
The pledge, the brightening ray,
And leaps from dreams to hail the coming day.
Her Late Husband
by Thomas Hardy

(KING'S-HINTOCK, 182-.)
"No - not where I shall make my own;
But dig his grave just by
The woman's with the initialed stone -
As near as he can lie -
After whose death he seemed to ail,
Though none considered why.
"And when I also claim a nook,
And your feet tread me in,
Bestow me, under my old name,
Among my kith and kin,
That strangers gazing may not dream
I did a husband win."
"Widow, your wish shall be obeyed;
Though, thought I, certainly
You'd lay him where your folk are laid,
And your grave, too, will be,
As custom hath it; you to right,
And on the left hand he."
"Aye, sexton; such the Hintock rule,
And none has said it nay;
But now it haps a native here
Eschews that ancient way . . .
And it may be, some Christmas night,
When angels walk, they'll say:
"'O strange interment! Civilized lands
Afford few types thereof;
Here is a man who takes his rest
Beside his very Love,
Beside the one who was his wife
In our sight up above!'"
Shearers
by Henry Lawson

No church-bell rings them from the Track,
No pulpit lights their blindness,
'Tis hardship, drought and homelessness
That teach those Bushmen kindness:
The mateship born of barren lands,
Of toil and thirst and danger,
The camp-fare for the stranger set,
The first place to the stranger.
They do the best they can to-day,
Take no thought of the morrow;
Their way is not the old-world way,
They live to lend and borrow.
When shearing's done and cheques gone wrong,
They call it 'time to slither',
They saddle up and say 'So-long!'
And ride, the Lord knows whither.
And though he may be brown or black,
Or wrong man there or right man,
The mate that's honest to his mates
They call that man a 'white man'!
They tramp in mateship side by side,
The Protestant and 'Roman',
They call no biped lord or 'sir,'
And touch their hats to no man!
They carry in their swags, perhaps,
A portrait and a letter,
And, maybe, deep down in their hearts,
The hope of 'something better.'
Where lonely miles are long to ride,
And all days seem recurrent,
There's lots of time to think of men
They might have been, but weren't.
They turn their faces to the west
And leave the world behind them,
(Their drought-dried graves are seldom green
Where even mates can find them).
They know too little of the world
To rise to wealth or greatness:
But in this book of mine I pay
My tribute to their straightness.
In The Garden At Swainston
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Nightingales warbled without,
Within was weeping for thee;
Shadows of three dead men
Walk'd in the walks with me,
Shadows of three dead men, and thou wast one of the three.
Nightingales sang in his woods,
The Master was far away;
Nightingales warbled and sang
Of a passion that lasts but a day;
Still in the house in his coffin the Prince of courtesy lay.
Two dead men have I known
In courtesy like to thee;
Two dead men have I loved
With a love that ever will be;
Three dead men have I loved, and thou art last of the three.
Upon Nis.
by Robert Herrick

Nis he makes verses; but the lines he writes
Serve but for matter to make paper kites.
Quotations III
by Walter Savage Landor

"No ashes are lighter than those of incense, and few things burn out sooner."
"There is delight in singing, though none hear beside the singer."
"Many laws as certainly make bad men, as bad men make many laws."
"We cannot be contented because we are happy, and we cannot be happy because we are contented."
"A solitude is the audience-chamber of God."
Sonnet XXXV.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Il figliuol di Latona avea gi' nove.
THE GRIEF OF PHOEBUS AT THE LOSS OF HIS LOVE.
Nine times already had Latona's son
Look'd from the highest balcony of heaven
For her, who whilom waked his sighs in vain,
And sighs as vain now wakes in other breasts;
Then seeking wearily, nor knowing where
She dwelt, or far or near, and why delay'd,
He show'd himself to us as one, insane
For grief, who cannot find some loved lost thing:
And thus, for clouds of sorrow held aloof,
Saw not the fair face turn, which, if I live,
In many a page shall praised and honour'd be,
The misery of her loss so changed her mien
That her bright eyes were dimm'd, for once, with tears,
Thereon its former gloom the air resumed.
MACGREGOR.
No Difference I' Th' Dark.
by Robert Herrick

Night makes no difference 'twixt the priest and clerk;
Joan as my lady is as good i' th' dark.
Memory
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Night-dreams trace on Memory's wall
Shadows of the thoughts of day,
And thy fortunes, as they fall,
The bias of the will betray.
The Christian Tourists
by John Greenleaf Whittier

No aimless wanderers, by the fiend Unrest
Goaded from shore to shore;
No schoolmen, turning, in their classic quest,
The leaves of empire o'er.
Simple of faith, and bearing in their hearts
The love of man and God,
Isles of old song, the Moslem's ancient marts,
And Scythia's steppes, they trod.
Where the long shadows of the fir and pine
In the night sun are cast,
And the deep heart of many a Norland mine
Quakes at each riving blast;
Where, in barbaric grandeur, Moskwa stands,
A baptized Scythian queen,
With Europe's arts and Asia's jewelled hands,
The North and East between!
Where still, through vales of Grecian fable, stray
The classic forms of yore,
And beauty smiles, new risen from the spray,
And Dian weeps once more;
Where every tongue in Smyrna's mart resounds;
And Stamboul from the sea
Lifts her tall minarets over burial-grounds
Black with the cypress-tree!
From Malta's temples to the gates of Rome,
Following the track of Paul,
And where the Alps gird round the Switzer's home
Their vast, eternal wall;
They paused not by the ruins of old time,
They scanned no pictures rare,
Nor lingered where the snow-locked mountains climb
The cold abyss of air!
But unto prisons, where men lay in chains,
To haunts where Hunger pined,
To kings and courts forgetful of the pains
And wants of human-kind,
Scattering sweet words, and quiet deeds of good,
Along their way, like flowers,
Or pleading, as Christ's freemen only could,
With princes and with powers;
Their single aim the purpose to fulfil
Of Truth, from day to day,
Simply obedient to its guiding will,
They held their pilgrim way.
Yet dream not, hence, the beautiful and old
Were wasted on their sight,
Who in the school of Christ had learned to hold
All outward things aright.
Not less to them the breath of vineyards blown
From off the Cyprian shore,
Not less for them the Alps in sunset shone,
That man they valued more.
A life of beauty lends to all it sees
The beauty of its thought;
And fairest forms and sweetest harmonies
Make glad its way, unsought.
In sweet accordancy of praise and love,
The singing waters run;
And sunset mountains wear in light above
The smile of duty done;
Sure stands the promise, ever to the meek
A heritage is given;
Nor lose they Earth who, single-hearted, seek
The righteousness of Heaven
The River Path
by John Greenleaf Whittier

No bird-song floated down the hill,
The tangled bank below was still;
No rustle from the birchen stem,
No ripple from the water's hem.
The dusk of twilight round us grew,
We felt the falling of the dew;
For, from us, ere the day was done,
The wooded hills shut out the sun.
But on the river's farther side
We saw the hill-tops glorified,
A tender glow, exceeding fair,
A dream of day without its glare.
With us the damp, the chill, the gloom
With them the sunset's rosy bloom;
While dark, through willowy vistas seen,
The river rolled in shade between.
From out the darkness where we trod,
We gazed upon those hills of God,
Whose light seemed not of moon or sun.
We spake not, but our thought was one.
We paused, as if from that bright shore
Beckoned our dear ones gone before;
And stilled our beating hearts to hear
The voices lost to mortal ear!
Sudden our pathway turned from night;
The hills swung open to the light;
Through their green gates the sunshine showed,
A long, slant splendor downward flowed.
Down glade and glen and bank it rolled;
It bridged the shaded stream with gold;
And, borne on piers of mist, allied
The shadowy with the sunlit side!
'So,' prayed we, 'when our feet draw near
The river dark, with mortal fear,
'And the night cometh chill with dew,
O Father! let Thy light break through!
'So let the hills of doubt divide,
So bridge with faith the sunless tide!
'So let the eyes that fail on earth
On Thy eternal hills look forth;
'And in Thy beckoning angels know
The dear ones whom we loved below!'
The Minotaur
by Oliver Herford

No book of monsters is complete
Without the Minotaur of Crete.
Yet should I draw him you would quail,
So in his place I draw a veil.
O stars, that from Creation's birth
Have winked at everything on earth,
Who shine where poets fear to tread,
Relate the story in my stead!
*     *     *     *     *
Although it's comforting to know
That Theseus slew him long ago,
We need not boast, we too could do
With--well, a Theseus or two.
Night.
by John Clare

Night spreads upon the plain her ebon pall,
Day seems unable to wash out the stain;
A pausing truce kind nature gives to all,
And fairy nations now have leave to reign:
So may conjecturing Fancy think, and feign.
Doubtless in tiny legions, now unseen,
They venture from their dwellings once again:
From keck-stalk cavity, or hollow bean,
Or perfum'd bosom of pea-flower between,
They to the dark green rings now haste, to meet,
To dance, or pay some homage to their queen;
Or journey on, some pilgrim-friend to greet.
With rushy switch they urge some beetle's flight,
And ride to revel, ere 'tis morning-light.
Equity
by George MacDonald

No bird can sing in tune but that the Lord
Sits throned in equity above the heaven,
And holds the righteous balance always even;
No heart can true response to love afford
Wherein from one to eight not every chord
Is yet attuned by the spirits seven:
For tuneful no bird sings but that the Lord
Is throned in equity above high heaven.
Oh heart, by wrong unfilial scathed and scored,
And from thy humble throne with mazedness driven,
Take courage: when thy wrongs thou hast forgiven,
Thy rights in love thy God will see restored:
No bird could sing in tune but that the Lord
Sits throned in equity above the heaven.
Night
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

I
FROM THE ITALIAN OF GIOVANNI STROZZI
Night, whom in shape so sweet thou here may'st see
Sleeping, was by an Angel sculptured thus
In marble, and since she sleeps hath life like us:
Thou doubt'st? Awake her: she will speak to thee.
II
FROM THE ITALIAN OF MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI
Sleep likes me well, and better yet to know
I am but stone. While shame and grief must be,
Good hap is mine, to feel not, nor to see:
Take heed, then, lest thou wake me: ah, speak low.
Lexington
by John Greenleaf Whittier

No Berserk thirst of blood had they,
No battle-joy was theirs, who set
Against the alien bayonet
Their homespun breasts in that old day.
Their feet had trodden peaceful, ways;
They loved not strife, they dreaded pain;
They saw not, what to us is plain,
That God would make man's wrath his praise.
No seers were they, but simple men;
Its vast results the future hid
The meaning of the work they did
Was strange and dark and doubtful then.
Swift as their summons came they left
The plough mid-furrow standing still,
The half-ground corn grist in the mill,
The spade in earth, the axe in cleft.
They went where duty seemed to call,
They scarcely asked the reason why;
They only knew they could but die,
And death was not the worst of all!
Of man for man the sacrifice,
All that was theirs to give, they gave.
The flowers that blossomed from their grave
Have sown themselves beneath all skies.
Their death-shot shook the feudal tower,
And shattered slavery's chain as well;
On the sky's dome, as on a bell,
Its echo struck the world's great hour.
That fateful echo is not dumb
The nations listening to its sound
Wait, from a century's vantage-ground,
The holier triumphs yet to come,
The bridal time of Law and Love,
The gladness of the world's release,
When, war-sick, at the feet of Peace
The hawk shall nestle with the dove!
The golden age of brotherhood
Unknown to other rivalries
Than of the mild humanities,
And gracious interchange of good,
When closer strand shall lean to strand,
Till meet, beneath saluting flags,
The eagle of our mountain-crags,
The lion of our Motherland
Snow
by Walter De La Mare

No breath of wind,
No gleam of sun - 
Still the white snow
Swirls softly down - 
Twig and bough
And blade and thorn
All in an icy
Quiet, forlorn.
Whispering, nestling,
Through the air,
On sill and stone,
Roof - everywhere,
It heaps its powdery
Crystal flakes,
Of every tree
A mountain makes:
Till pale and faint
At shut of day,
Stoops from the West
One wintry ray.
Then, feathered in fire,
Where ghosts the moon,
A robin shrills
His lonely tune;
And from her dark-gnarled
Yew-tree lair
Flits she who had been
In hiding there.
My Heart
by George MacDonald

I.
Night, with her power to silence day,
Filled up my lonely room,
Quenching all sounds but one that lay
Beyond her passing doom,
Where in his shed a workman gay
Went on despite the gloom.
I listened, and I knew the sound,
And the trade that he was plying;
For backwards, forwards, bound on bound,
A shuttle was flying, flying--
Weaving ever--till, all unwound,
The weft go out a sighing.
II.
As hidden in thy chamber lowest
As in the sky the lark,
Thou, mystic thing, on working goest
Without the poorest spark,
And yet light's garment round me throwest,
Who else, as thou, were dark.
With body ever clothing me,
Thou mak'st me child of light;
I look, and, Lo, the earth and sea,
The sky's rejoicing height,
A woven glory, globed by thee,
Unknowing of thy might!
And when thy darkling labours fail,
And thy shuttle moveless lies,
My world will drop, like untied veil
From before a lady's eyes;
Or, all night read, a finished tale
That in the morning dies.
III.
Yet not in vain dost thou unroll
The stars, the world, the seas--
A mighty, wonder-painted scroll
Of Patmos mysteries,
Thou mediator 'twixt my soul
And higher things than these!
Thy holy ephod bound on me,
I pass into a seer;
For still in things thou mak'st me see,
The unseen grows more clear;
Still their indwelling Deity
Speaks plainer in mine ear.
Divinely taught the craftsman is
Who waketh wonderings;
Whose web, the nursing chrysalis
Round Psyche's folded wings,
To them transfers the loveliness
Of its inwoven things.
Yet joy when thou shalt cease to beat!--
For a greater heart beats on,
Whose better texture follows fleet
On thy last thread outrun,
With a seamless-woven garment, meet
To clothe a death-born son.
Nine O'Clock.
by Robert von Ranke Graves

I.
Nine of the clock, oh!
Wake my lazy head!
Your shoes of red morocco,
Your silk bed-gown:
Rouse, rouse, speck-eyed Mary
In your high bed!
A yawn, a smile, sleepy-starey,
Mary climbs down.
"Good-morning to my brothers,
Good-day to the Sun,
Halloo, halloo to the lily-white sheep
That up the mountain run."
II.
Good-night to the meadow, farewell to the nine o'clock Sun,
"He loves me not, loves me, he loves me not" (O jealous one!)
"He loves me, he loves me not, loves me", O soft nights of June,
A bird sang for love on the cherry-bough:    up swam the Moon.
Night-Piece. (Translations From The Hebrew Poets Of Medaeval Spain.)
by Emma Lazarus

Night, and the heavens beam serene with peace,
Like a pure heart benignly smiles the moon.
Oh, guard thy blessed beauty from mischance,
This I beseech thee in all tender love.
See where the Storm his cloudy mantle spreads,
An ashy curtain covereth the moon.
As if the tempest thirsted for the rain,
The clouds he presses, till they burst in streams.
Heaven wears a dusky raiment, and the moon
Appeareth dead - her tomb is yonder cloud,
And weeping shades come after, like the people
Who mourn with tearful grief a noble queen.
But look! the thunder pierced night's close-linked mail,
His keen-tipped lance of lightning brandishing;
He hovers like a seraph-conqueror. -
Dazed by the flaming splendor of his wings,
In rapid flight as in a whirling dance,
The black cloud-ravens hurry scared away.
So, though the powers of darkness chain my soul,
My heart, a hero, chafes and breaks its bonds.
Solomon Ben Judah Gabirol (Died Between 1070-80.)
Epithalamium. Another Version Of 'A Bridal Song'.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Night, with all thine eyes look down!
Darkness shed its holiest dew!
When ever smiled the inconstant moon
On a pair so true?
Hence, coy hour! and quench thy light,
Lest eyes see their own delight!
Hence, swift hour! and thy loved flight
Oft renew.
BOYS:
O joy! O fear! what may be done
In the absence of the sun?
Come along!
The golden gates of sleep unbar!
When strength and beauty meet together,
Kindles their image like a star
In a sea of glassy weather.
Hence, coy hour! and quench thy light,
Lest eyes see their own delight!
Hence, swift hour! and thy loved flight
Oft renew.
GIRLS:
O joy! O fear! what may be done
In the absence of the sun?
Come along!
Fairies! sprites! and angels, keep her!
Holiest powers, permit no wrong!
And return, to wake the sleeper,
Dawn, ere it be long.
Hence, swift hour! and quench thy light,
Lest eyes see their own delight!
Hence, coy hour! and thy loved flight
Oft renew.
BOYS AND GIRLS:
O joy! O fear! what will be done
In the absence of the sun?
Come along!
Scene From 'Tasso'.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

MADDALO, A COURTIER.
MALPIGLIO, A POET.
PIGNA, A MINISTER.
ALBANO, AN USHER.
MADDALO:
No access to the Duke! You have not said
That the Count Maddalo would speak with him?
PIGNA:
Did you inform his Grace that Signor Pigna
Waits with state papers for his signature?
MALPIGLIO:
The Lady Leonora cannot know
That I have written a sonnet to her fame,
In which I ... Venus and Adonis.
You should not take my gold and serve me not.
ALBANO:
In truth I told her, and she smiled and said,
'If I am Venus, thou, coy Poesy,
Art the Adonis whom I love, and he
The Erymanthian boar that wounded him.'
O trust to me, Signor Malpiglio,
Those nods and smiles were favours worth the zechin.
MALPIGLIO:
The words are twisted in some double sense
That I reach not: the smiles fell not on me.
PIGNA:
How are the Duke and Duchess occupied?
ALBANO:
Buried in some strange talk. The Duke was leaning,
His finger on his brow, his lips unclosed.
The Princess sate within the window-seat,
And so her face was hid; but on her knee
Her hands were clasped, veined, and pale as snow,
And quivering - young Tasso, too, was there.
MADDALO:
Thou seest on whom from thine own worshipped heaven
Thou drawest down smiles - they did not rain on thee.
MALPIGLIO:
Would they were parching lightnings for his sake
On whom they fell!
April Fooils (Prose)
by John Hartley

Niver try to mak a fooil ov onybody this month; ther's fooils enuff i'th world already. It's oft struck me what a varry slight difference ther is between a wise man and a fooil; one aims at summat an' hits it - tother aims at summat an' misses it; an' aw have known th' time when th' chap 'at's missed has been worth a dozen sich like as him 'at's hit. But th' world generally sets 'em daan to be wise men 'at happen to be lucky men, an' get hold o' lots o' brass. An' ha monny brains a chap has, if he can't spooart a pair o' kid gloves an' a daycent hat, he mun niver hope for owt better nor to tak his place amang th' fooils. Aw've monny a time thowt when aw've heared fowk settin a chap daan as a fooil; - talk prattley - may be if he wor weighed up he's a better man nor yo this minit; yo connot tell all 'at he may have had to struggle wi' -
Circumstances alter cases,
Th' same as nooases alter faces.
An' it's as weel to exercise a bit ov charity towards them 'at's set daan to be fooils. "Young fowk think old fowk fooils, an' old fowk's sure young uns is." An aw believe th' old fowk are oft varry near th' mark, - for th' experience of a life time is little moor nor livin to know what fooils we've been; an' if iver aw meet wi' a chap 'at can't remember iver makkin a fooil ov hissen, aw shall expect to hear tell on' him bein ta'en to th' blue slates directly. Poor Richard says, "Experience is a dear schooil, but fooils will leearn i' noa other;" an' who is ther 'at hasn't had to leearn i' that schooil? Its a hard maister, an' we're apt to think, when we're under him, 'at he's war wi' us nor onybody else; but when we've getten th' lessen off by heart we find th' advantage on it. But ov all th' fooils it has been my luck to meet wi,' them chaps 'at knows all are th' biggest. There's some fowk think they're born wi' all th' wit i'th world, an' noabody can taich 'em owt; whativer yo tell' em, they've allus "known that long enuff sin'," or else they've "just been think in soa." Aw once knew one o' that Sooart - one 'at had allus been thinkin soa. One day some mates o' mine an' me thowt we cud like a marlock wi' him, an soa we gooas up to him an says, "A'a Jooanas! whativer does ta think?" "Nay," he says, "whativer will yo say? What's up?" "Why," aw says, "Jim Hyn's dunkey's swallow'd th' grinelstooan." "Well, if aw hadn't just been thinkin soa," says Jooanas. "Well, but tha thowt wrang, owd boy, this time," aw says, "for it hasn't." "Why," he said, "aw hardly thowt it had." Soa he had us at booath ends. They say it taks a wise man to mak a fooil, but aw think ther's enuff withaat makkin ony moor, an aw niver knew a fooil i' my life at didn't think ivery body else a little bit war cracked nor hissen.