DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Dead King
by Rudyard Kipling

Who in the Realm to-day lays down dear life for the sake of a land more dear?
And, unconcerned for his own estate, toils till the last grudged sands have run?
Let him approach. It is proven here
Our King asks nothing of any man more than Our King himself has done.
For to him, above all, was Life good, above all he commanded
Her abundance full-handed.
The peculiar treasure of Kings was his for the taking:
All that men come to in dreams he inherited waking:,
His marvel of world-gathered armies, one heart and all races;
His seas 'neath his keels when his war-castles foamed to their places;
The thundering foreshores that answered his heralded landing;
The huge lighted cities adoring, the assemblies upstanding;
The Councils of Kings called in haste to learn how he was minded,
The Kingdoms, the Powers, and the Glories he dealt with unblinded.
To him came all captains of men, all achievers of glory,
Hot from the press of their battles they told him their story.
They revealed him their lives in an hour and, saluting, departed,
Joyful to labour afresh, he had made them new-hearted.
And, since he weighed men from his youth, and no lie long deceived him,
He spoke and exacted the truth, and the basest believed him.
And God poured him an exquisite wine that was daily renewed to him,
In the clear-welling love of his peoples that daily accrued to him.
Honour and service we gave him, rejoicingly fearless;
Faith absolute, trust beyond speech and a friendship as peerless,
And since he was Master and Servant in all that we asked him,
We leaned hard on his wisdom in all things, knowing not how we tasked him.
For on him each new day laid command, every tyrannous hour,
To confront, or confirm, or make smooth some dread issue of power;
To deliver true judgment aright at the instant, unaided,
In the strict, level, ultimate phrase that allowed or dissuaded;
To foresee, to allay, to avert from us perils unnumbered,
To stand guard on our gates when he guessed that the watchmen had slumbered;
To win time, to turn hate, to woo folly to service and, mightily schooling
His strength to the use of his Nations, to rule as not ruling.
These were the works of our King; Earth's peace was the proof of them.
God gave him great works to fulfil, and to us the behoof of them.
We accepted his toil as our right, none spared, none excused him.
When he was bowed by his burden his rest was refused him.
We troubled his age with our weakness, the blacker our shame to us!
Hearing his People had need of him, straightway he came to us.
As he received so he gave, nothing grudged, naught denying;
Not even the last gasp of his breath when he strove for us, dying.
For our sakes, without question, he put from him all that he cherished.
Simply as any that serve him he served and he perished.
All that Kings covet was his, and he flung it aside for us.
Simply as any that die in his service he died for us!
Who in the Realm to-day has choice of the easy road or the hard to tread?
And, much concerned for his own estate, would sell his soul to remain in the sun?
Let him depart nor look on Our dead.
Our King asks nothing of any man more than Our King himself has done.
The Sea And The Hills
by Rudyard Kipling

Who hath desired the Sea?, the sight of salt wind-hounded,
The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber win hounded?
The sleek-barrelled swell before storm, grey, foamless, enormous, and growing,
Stark calm on the lap of the Line or the crazy-eyed hurricane blowing,
His Sea in no showing the same his Sea and the same 'neath each showing:
His Sea as she slackens or thrills?
So and no otherwise, so and no otherwise, hillmen desire their Hills!
Who hath desired the Sea?, the immense and contemptuous surges?
The shudder, the stumble, the swerve, as the star-stabbing bow-sprit emerges?
The orderly clouds of the Trades, the ridged, roaring sapphire thereunder,
Unheralded cliff-haunting flaws and the headsail's low-volleying thunder,
His Sea in no wonder the same his Sea and the same through each wonder:
His Sea as she rages or stills?
So and no otherwise, so and no otherwise, hillmen desire their Hills.
Who hath desired the Sea? Her menaces swift as her mercies?
The in-rolling walls of the fog and the silver-winged breeze that disperses?
The unstable mined berg going South and the calvings and groans that de clare it,
White water half-guessed overside and the moon breaking timely to bare it,
His Sea as his fathers have dared, his Sea as his children shall dare it:
His Sea as she serves him or kills?
So and no otherwise, so and no otherwisc, hillmen desire their Hills.
Who hath desired the Sea? Her excellent loneliness rather
Than forecourts of kings, and her outermost pits than the streets where men gather
Inland, among dust, under trees, inland where the slayer may slay him,
Inland, out of reach of her arms, and the bosom whereon he must lay him
His Sea from the first that betrayed, at the last that shall never betray him:
His Sea that his being fulfils?
So and no otherwise, so and no otherwise, hillmen desire their Hills.
Keeping Tryst
by Nora Pembroke (Margaret Moran Dixon McDougall)

Who is the maid with silken hair
By clear Maine Water roaming?
For the fairy Queen is not so fair
As she in the lonely gloaming
It is sweet Mysie of Bellee,
John Millar's lovely daughter;
She is waiting where the old elm tree
Droops over the sweet Maine Water.
"The trysting time has come and past,
The day is fast declining;
Oh my true love, are you coming fast,
For the star of love is shining?"
"The moon is bright, the ford is safe,
The market folks crossed over;
Oh, come to me, it is wearing late,
And I wait for thee, my lover.
"I fear me there will be a storm,
The clouds, with murky fingers,
Are muffling the stars o'er far Galgorm,
Where my own true lover lingers."
She turned her from the trysting tree,
So sadly home returning,
Saying "He has broken tryst with me,
And his ship sails in the morning."
She took three steps from that sad place,
Where doubt of him had found her;
And he stood before her face to face,
And he drew his arm around her.
"I thought, without one last farewell,
We had for ever parted;
And I could not of the anguish tell
That had left me broken hearted.
"My love I'm going far away;
Whatever may betide us,
Our loving hearts are one for aye,
Though the roaring seas divide us."
He broke a ring between them two;
He made a vow to bind him
To death, and beyond it to be true
To her he had left behind him.
Years passed, the maiden secretly
Watched on with anxious wonder,
For some love message; but treachery
Kept the two fond hearts asunder.
She lived in hope that he would write,
And some love token send her;
Her step grew feeble, her face grew white,
And her eyes got unearthly splendour.
And lovers they besieged her sore;
For love that she had given
To one who would come to her no more;
So she faded into heaven.
They made her grave where robins sing;
Trees whisper requiems daily;
They laid her down with her broken ring;
In her grave at Kirk ma Rielly.
Word went out of the maiden's death,
Who for true love departed;
It found him who mourned her broken faith,
And mourned her as false, falsehearted.
He turned as cold as cold, cold clay,
And fell struck down with sorrow;
"I know how my dear love died to-day,
I will die for her to-morrow.
"My love is dead so sweet and fair,
Blighted and broken hearted,
I'll keep my tryst, and together dead,
We'll rest who were falsely parted.
"Gold that my darling could not save,
That made my love derided,
Shall carry me home and dig my grave,
We'll not be in death divided."
They made his grave on Erin's breast,
Where the birds sing requiems daily;
And laid him beside his love to rest,
In the grave-yard of Kirk ma Bielly.
Who Goes Amid The Green Wood
by James Joyce

Who goes amid the green wood
With springtide all adorning her?
Who goes amid the merry green wood
To make it merrier?
Who passes in the sunlight
By ways that know the light footfall?
Who passes in the sweet sunlight
With mien so virginal?
The ways of all the woodland
Gleam with a soft and golden fire,
For whom does all the sunny woodland
Carry so brave attire?
O, it is for my true love
The woods their rich apparel wear,
O, it is for my own true love,
That is so young and fair.
The Thief And Cordelier. A Ballad
by Matthew Prior

To the tune of King John and the Abbot of Canterbury.
Who has e'er been at Paris must needs know the Greve,
The fatal retreat of th' unfortunate brave,
Where honour and justice most oddly contribute
To ease heroes' pains by a halter and gibbet.
Derry down, down, hey derry down.
There death breaks the shackles which force had put on,
And the hangman completes what the judge but begun;
There the Squire of the Pad and the Knight of the Post
Find their pains no more baulk'd and their hopes no more cross'd.
Derry down, down, hey derry down.
Great claims are there made, and great secrets are known,
And the king, and the law, and the thief, has his own;
But my hearers cry out, What a deuce dost thou ail?
Cut off thy reflections, and give us thy tale.
Derry down, down, hey derry down.
'Twas there then in civil respect to harsh laws,
And for want of false witness to back a bad cause,
A Norman, though late, was obliged to appear,
And who to assist but a grave cordelier?
Derry down, down, hey derry down.
The Squire, whose good grace was to open the scene,
Seem'd not in great haste that the show should begin,
Now fitted the halter, now traversed the cart,
And often took leave, but was loath to depart.
Derry down, down, hey derry down.
What frightens you thus, my good son? says the priest?
You murder'd, are sorry, and have been confest.
O Father! my sorrow will scarce save my bacon,
For 'twas not that I murder'd but that I was taken.
Derry down, down, hey derry down.
Pough! pr'ythee ne'er trouble thy head with such fancies;
Rely on the aid you shall have from Saint Francis;
If the money you promis'd be brought to the chest,
You have only to die, let the Church do the rest.
Derry down, down, hey derry down.
And what will folks say if they see you afraid?
It reflects upon me as I knew not my trade:
Courage, Friend, for to-day is your period of sorrow,
And things will go better believe me to-morrow.
Derry down, down, hey derry down.
To-morrow, our hero reply'd, in a fright,
He that's hang'd before noon ought to think of to-night;
Tell your beads, quoth the priest, and be fairly truss'd up,
For you surely to-night shall in Paradise sup.
Derry down, down, hey derry down.
Alas! quoth the Squire, howe'er sumptuous the treat,
Parbleu! I shall have little stomach to eat;
I should therefore esteem it great favour and grace
Would you be so kind as to go in my place.
Derry down, down, hey derry down.
That I would, quoth the Father, and thank you to boot,
But our actions, you know, with our must suit;
The feast I proposed to you I cannot taste,
For this night, by our Order, is marked for a fast.
Derry down, down, hey derry down.
Then turning about to the hangman, he said,
Despatch me, I pr'ythee, this troublesome blade,
For thy cord and my cord both equally tie,
And we live by the gold for which other men die.
Derry down, down, hey derry down.
Bobs" Of Kandahar
by Thomas O'Hagan

"The body of 'Bobs' then lay in state until five o'clock, when it was interred in a crypt near-by those containing the bodies of Nelson and Wellington." - Press Despatch.
Who is he that cometh to join our mighty dead?
Is it "Bobs" of Kandahar the Empire's armies led?
Give him place, O Nation great! within your storied walls;
Within our heart his name shall rest, his ashes in St. Paul's.
Soldier of the Empire, Bobs of Kandahar!
Lay him near the hero of glorious Trafalgar!
Death has ta'en the shining sword he aye in duty drew;
Lay him near the Iron Duke of fateful Waterloo!
Soldier of the Empire, well thy work was done,
Fit thy sun had setting within sound and roar of gun;
Thy soul had vision of the years fraught with danger's woe,
And counsell'd arm'd wisdom against a subtle foe;
Now thy task has ended, the splendor of thy sun,
Sheds its setting glory on the greater life begun,
From where the Maple stands in pride to India's torrid star,
Now, mourn an Empire's people for "Bobs" of Kandahar!
For Lady Aileen Mary Roberts.
The Heart Courageous
by Virna Sheard

Who hath a heart courageous
Will fight with right good cheer;
For well may he his foes out-face
Who owns no foe called Fear!
Who hath a heart courageous
Will fight as knight of old
For that which he doth count his own - 
Against the world to hold.
Who hath a heart courageous
Will fight both night and day,
Against the Host Invisible - 
That holds his soul at bay,
Who hath a heart courageous
Rests with tranquillity,
For Time he counts not as his foe,
Nor Death his enemy.
The Virgin Mother
by George William Russell

Who is that goddess to whom men should pray
But her from whom their hearts have turned away,
Out of whose virgin being they were born,
Whose mother nature they have named in scorn
Calling its holy substance common clay.
Yet from this so despised earth was made
The milky whiteness of those queens who swayed
Their generations with a light caress,
And from some image of whose loveliness
The heart built up high heaven when it prayed.
Lover, your heart, the heart on which it lies,
Your eyes that gaze, and those alluring eyes,
Your lips, the lips they kiss, alike had birth
Within this dark divinity of earth,
Within this mother being you despise.
Ah, when I think this earth on which we tread
Hath borne these blossoms of the lovely dead,
And made the living heart I love to beat,
I look with sudden awe beneath my feet
As you with erring reverence overhead.
Who Is The Maid? St. Jerome's Love. (Air.--Beethoven.)
by Thomas Moore

Who is the Maid my spirit seeks,
Thro' cold reproof and slander's blight?
Has she Love's roses on her cheeks?
Is hers an eye of this world's light?
No--wan and sunk with midnight prayer
Are the pale looks of her I love;
Or if at times a light be there,
Its beam is kindled from above.
I chose not her, my heart's elect,
From those who seek their Maker's shrine
In gems and garlands proudly decked,
As if themselves were things divine.
No--Heaven but faintly warms the breast
That beats beneath a broidered veil;
And she who comes in glittering vest
To mourn her frailty, still is frail.
Not so the faded form I prize
And love, because its bloom is gone;
The glory in those sainted eyes
Is all the grace her brow puts on.
And ne'er was Beauty's dawn so bright,
So touching as that form's decay,
Which, like the altar's trembling light,
In holy lustre wastes away.
A Friend In Need
by Dora Sigerson Shorter

Who has room for a friend
Who has money to spend,
And a goblet of gold
For your fingers to hold,
At the wave of whose hand
Leap the salmon to land,
Drop the birds of the air,
Fall the stag and the hare.
Who has room for a friend
Who has money to lend?
We have room for a friend!
Who has room for a friend
Who has nothing to lend,
When the goblet of gold
Is as far from his hold
As the fleet-footed hare,
Or the birds of the air.
Who has room for a friend
Who has nothing to spend?
We know not such a friend.
His Lady Friend
by Ringgold Wilmer Lardner

Who is Sylvia? What is she
That early every morning
You desert your family
And rush to see her, scorning
Your once cherished ma and me?
Are her playthings such a treat?
I will steal 'em from her;
Better that than not to meet
My son and heir all summer,
Save when he comes home to eat.
Or is she herself the one
And only real attraction?
Has your little heart begun
To get that sort of action?
Better wait a few years, son.
Voices
by Walter De La Mare

Who is it calling by the darkened river
Where the moss lies smooth and deep,
And the dark trees lean unmoving arms,
Silent and vague in sleep,
And the bright-heeled constellations pass
In splendour through the gloom;
Who is it calling o'er the darkened river
In music, "Come!"?
Who is it wandering in the summer meadows
Where the children stoop and play
In the green faint-scented flowers, spinning
The guileless hours away?
Who touches their bright hair? who puts
A wind-shell to each cheek,
Whispering betwixt its breathing silences,
"Seek! seek!"?
Who is it watching in the gathering twilight
When the curfew bird hath flown
On eager wings, from song to silence,
To its darkened nest alone?
Who takes for brightening eyes the stars,
For locks the still moonbeam,
Sighs through the dews of evening peacefully
Falling, "Dream!"?
From The High Priest Of Apollo To A Virgin Of Delphi.[1]
by Thomas Moore

Cum digno digna.....
SULPICIA.
"Who is the maid, with golden hair,
"With eye of fire, and foot of air,
"Whose harp around my altar swells,
"The sweetest of a thousand shells?"
'Twas thus the deity, who treads
The arch of heaven, and proudly sheds
Day from his eyelids--thus he spoke,
As through my cell his glories broke.
Aphelia is the Delphic fair[2]
With eyes of fire and golden hair,
Aphelia's are the airy feet.
And hers the harp divinely sweet;
For foot so light has never trod
The laurelled caverns of the god.
Nor harp so soft hath ever given
A sigh to earth or hymn to heaven.
"Then tell the virgin to unfold,
"In looser pomp, her locks of gold,
"And bid those eyes more fondly shine
"To welcome down a Spouse Divine;
"Since He, who lights the path of years--
"Even from the fount of morning's tears
"To where his setting splendors burn
"Upon the western sea-maid's urn--
"Doth not, in all his course, behold
"Such eyes of fire, such hair of gold.
"Tell her, he comes, in blissful pride,
"His lip yet sparkling with the tide
"That mantles in Olympian bowls,--
"The nectar of eternal souls!
"For her, for her he quits the skies,
"And to her kiss from nectar flies.
"Oh, he would quit his star-throned height,
"And leave the world to pine for light,
"Might he but pass the hours of shade,
"Beside his peerless Delphic maid,
"She, more than earthly woman blest,
"He, more than god on woman's breast!"
There is a cave beneath the steep,[3]
Where living rills of crystal weep
O'er herbage of the loveliest hue
That ever spring begemmed with dew:
There oft the greensward's glossy tint
Is brightened by the recent print
Of many a faun and naiad's feet,--
Scarce touching earth, their step so fleet,--
That there, by moonlight's ray, had trod,
In light dance, o'er the verdant sod.
"There, there," the god, impassioned, said,
"Soon as the twilight tinge is fled,
"And the dim orb of lunar souls
"Along its shadowy pathway rolls--
"There shall we meet,--and not even He,
"The God who reigns immortally,
"Where Babel's turrets paint their pride
"Upon the Euphrates' shining tide,[4]--
"Not even when to his midnight loves
"In mystic majesty he moves,
"Lighted by many an odorous fire,
"And hymned by all Chaldaea's choir,--
"E'er yet, o'er mortal brow, let shine
"Such effluence of Love Divine,
"As shall to-night, blest maid, o'er thine."
Happy the maid, whom heaven allows
To break for heaven her virgin vows!
Happy the maid!--her robe of shame
Is whitened by a heavenly flame,
Whose glory, with a lingering trace,
Shines through and deifies her race!
Song
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

To the tune of "Wilhelmus van Nassau," &c.
Who hath his fancy pleased,
With fruits of happy sight,
Let here his eyes be raised
On Nature's sweetest light;
A light which doth dissever,
And yet unite the eyes;
A light which, dying, never
Is cause the looker dies.
She never dies, but lasteth
In life of lover's heart;
He ever dies that wasteth
In love his chiefest part.
Thus is her life still guarded,
In never dying faith;
Thus is his death rewarded,
Since she lives in his death.
Look then and die, the pleasure
Doth answer well the pain;
Small loss of mortal treasure,
Who may immortal gain.
Immortal be her graces,
Immortal is her mind;
They, fit for heavenly places,
This heaven in it doth bind.
But eyes these beauties see not,
Nor sense that grace descries;
Yet eyes deprived be not
From sight of her fair eyes:
Which, as of inward glory
They are the outward seal,
So may they live still sorry,
Which die not in that weal.
But who hath fancies pleased,
With fruits of happy sight,
Let here his eyes be raised
On Nature's sweetest light.
Valentines - II. To A Baby Boy
by Eugene Field

Who I am I shall not say,
But I send you this bouquet
With this query, baby mine:
"Will you be my valentine?"
See these roses blushing blue,
Very like your eyes of hue;
While these violets are the red
Of your cheeks. It can be said
Ne'er before was babe like you.
And I think it is quite true
No one e'er before to-day
Sent so wondrous a bouquet
As these posies aforesaid--
Roses blue and violets red!
Sweet, repay me sweets for sweets--
'Tis your lover who entreats!
Smile upon me, baby mine--
Be my little valentine!
The Smokes Of Melancholy
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

I.
Who hath e'er felt the change of love,
And known those pangs that losers prove,
May paint my face without seeing me,
And write the state how my fancies be,
The loathsome buds grown on Sorrow's tree.
But who by hearsay speaks, and hath not fully felt
What kind of fires they be in which those spirits melt,
Shall guess, and fail, what doth displease,
Feeling my pulse, miss my disease.
II.
O no!    O no! trial only shows
The bitter juice of forsaken woes;
Where former bliss, present evils do stain;
Nay, former bliss adds to present pain,
While remembrance doth both states contain.
Come, learners, then to me, the model of mishap,
Ingulphed in despair, slid down from Fortune's lap;
And, as you like my double lot,
Tread in my steps, or follow not.
III.
For me, alas!    I am full resolved
Those bands, alas! shall not be dissolved;
Nor break my word, though reward come late;
Nor fail my faith in my failing fate;
Nor change in change, though change change my state:
But always own myself, with eagle-eyed Truth, to fly
Up to the sun, although the sun my wings do fry;
For if those flames burn my desire,
Yet shall I die in Phoenix' fire.
Astrophel and Stella - Sonnet LVII
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

Who hauing made, with many fights, his owne
Each sence of mine, each gift, each pow'r of mind;
Growne now his slaues, he forst them out to find
The thorowest words fit for Woes selfe to grone,
Hoping that when they might finde Stella alone,
Before she could prepare to be vnkind,
Her soule, arm'd but with such a dainty rind,
Should soone be pierc'd with sharpnesse of the mone.
She heard my plaints, and did not onely heare,
But them, so sweet is she, most sweetly sing,
With that faire breast making Woes darknesse cleare.
A pretie case; I hoped her to bring
To feele my griefe; and she, with face and voyce,
So sweets my paines that my paines me reioyce.
Nursery Rhyme. CCLXXVIII. Games.
by Unknown

[A game of the Fox. In a children's game, where all the little actors are seated in a circle, the following stanza is used as question and answer.]
Who goes round my house this night?
None but cruel Tom!
Who steals all the sheep at night?
None but this poor one.
Who Is A Christian?
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Who is a Christian in this Christian land
Of many churches and of lofty spires?
Not he who sits in soft upholstered pews
Bought by the profits of unholy greed,
And looks devotion, while he thinks of gain.
Not he who sends petitions from the lips
That lie to-morrow in the street and mart.
Not he who fattens on another's toil,
And flings his unearned riches to the poor,
Or aids the heathen with a lessened wage,
And builds cathedrals with an increased rent.
Christ, with Thy great, sweet, simple creed of love,
How must Thou weary of Earth's 'Christian' clans,
Who preach salvation through Thy saving blood
While planning slaughter of their fellow men.
Who is a Christian?    It is one whose life
Is built on love, on kindness and on faith;
Who holds his brother as his other self;
Who toils for justice, equity and PEACE,
And hides no aim or purpose in his heart
That will not chord with universal good.
Though he be pagan, heretic or Jew,
That man is Christian and beloved of Christ.