DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Midlands
by John Drinkwater

Black in the summer night my Cotswold hill
Aslant my window sleeps, beneath a sky
Deep as the bedded violets that fill
March woods with dusky passion. As I lie
Abed between cool walls I watch the host
Of the slow stars lit over Gloucester plain,
And drowsily the habit of these most
Beloved of English lands moves in my brain,
While silence holds dominion of the dark,
Save when the foxes from the spinneys bark.
I see the valleys in their morning mist
Wreathed under limpid hills in moving light,
Happy with many a yeoman melodist:
I see the little roads of twinkling white
Busy with fieldward teams and market gear
Of rosy men, cloth-gaitered, who can tell
The many-minded changes of the year,
Who know why crops and kine fare ill or well;
I see the sun persuade the mist away,
Till town and stead are shining to the day.
I see the wagons move along the rows
Of ripe and summer-breathing clover-flower,
I see the lissom husbandman who knows
Deep in his heart the beauty of his power,
As, lithely pitched, the full-heaped fork bids on
The harvest home. I hear the rickyard fill
With gossip as in generations gone,
While wagon follows wagon from the hill.
I think how, when our seasons all are sealed,
Shall come the unchanging harvest from the field.
I see the barns and comely manors planned
By men who somehow moved in comely thought,
Who, with a simple shippon to their hand,
As men upon some godlike business wrought;
I see the little cottages that keep
Their beauty still where since Plantagenet
Have come the shepherds happily to sleep,
Finding the loaves and cups of cider set;
I see the twisted shepherds, brown and old,
Driving at dusk their glimmering sheep to fold.
And now the valleys that upon the sun
Broke from their opal veils, are veiled again,
And the last light upon the wolds is done,
And silence falls on flock and fields and men;
And black upon the night I watch my hill,
And the stars shine, and there an owly wing
Brushes the night, and all again is still,
And, from this land of worship that I sing,
I turn to sleep, content that from my sires
I draw the blood of England's midmost shires.
The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - The Present.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Convien al secol nostro.
Black robes befit our age. Once they were white;
Next many-hued; now dark as Afric's Moor,
Night-black, infernal, traitorous, obscure,
Horrid with ignorance and sick with fright.
For very shame we shun all colours bright,
Who mourn our end--the tyrants we endure,
The chains, the noose, the lead, the snares, the lure--
Our dismal heroes, our souls sunk in night.
Black weeds again denote that extreme folly
Which makes us blind, mournful, and woe-begone:
For dusk is dear to doleful melancholy;
Nathless fate's wheel still turns: this raiment dun
We shall exchange hereafter for the holy
Garments of white in which of yore we shone.
Birds Of Passage.
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

FLIGHT THE FIRST
. . come i gru van cantando lor lai,
Facendo in aer di se lunga riga. -- DANTE
BIRDS OF PASSAGE
Black shadows fall
From the lindens tall,
That lift aloft their massive wall
Against the southern sky;
And from the realms
Of the shadowy elms
A tide-like darkness overwhelms
The fields that round us lie.
But the night is fair,
And everywhere
A warm, soft vapor fills the air,
And distant sounds seem near,
And above, in the light
Of the star-lit night,
Swift birds of passage wing their flight
Through the dewy atmosphere.
I hear the beat
Of their pinions fleet,
As from the land of snow and sleet
They seek a southern lea.
I hear the cry
Of their voices high
Falling dreamily through the sky,
But their forms I cannot see.
O, say not so!
Those sounds that flow
In murmurs of delight and woe
Come not from wings of birds.
They are the throngs
Of the poet's songs,
Murmurs of pleasures, and pains, and wrongs,
The sound of winged words.
This is the cry
Of souls, that high
On toiling, beating pinions, fly,
Seeking a warmer clime,
From their distant flight
Through realms of light
It falls into our world of night,
With the murmuring sound of rhyme.
The Monastery Croft.
by Madison Julius Cawein

1
Big-stomached, like friars
Who ogle a nun,
Quaff deep to their bellies' desires
From the old abbey's tun,
Grapes fatten with fires
Warm-filtered from moon and from sun.
2
As a novice who muses,
Lips a rosary tell,
While her thoughts are - a love she refuses?
Nay! mourns as not well:
The ripe apple looses
Its holding to rot where it fell.
Nursery Rhyme. CCCCLXII. Love And Matrimony.
by Unknown

Birds of a feather flock together,
And so will pigs and swine;
Rats and mice will have their choice,
And so will I have mine.
The Three Drinkers.
by Robert von Ranke Graves

Blacksmith Green had three strong sons,
With bread and beef did fill 'em,
Now John and Ned are perished and dead,
But plenty remains of William.
John Green was a whiskey drinker,
The Land of Cakes supplied him,
Till at last his soul flew out by the hole
That the fierce drink burned inside him.
Ned Green was a water drinker,
And, Lord, how Ned would fuddle!
He rotted away his mortal clay
Like an old boot thrown in a puddle.
Will Green was a wise young drinker,
Shrank from whiskey or water,
But he made good cheer with headstrong beer,
And married an alderman's daughter.
Bide Thi Time.
by John Hartley

Bide thi time! it's sure to come,
Tho' it may seem tardy, - 
Thine's a better fate nor some:
If tha's but a humble home,
Yet thart strong an hardy;
Then cheer up an ne'er repine,
Be content, an bide thi time.
Bide thi time! if fortun's blind,
Rail not at her givin;
If tha thinks shoo's ovver kind
To thi neighbor, nivver mind,
If tha gets a livin;
Woll thi life is in its prime,
Be content, an bide thi time.
Bide thi time! for ther's a endin
To a loin, haivver long:
Things at th' warst mun start o' mendin;
Ther's noa wind but what's befriendin
One or other, tho' its strong:
Remember, poverty's noa crime - 
Be content, an bide thi time.
Bide thi time! tho none are near thee
To stretch out a helpin hand;
Let noa darken'd prospect fear thee,
Ther's a promise yet should cheer thee
As tha nears a breeter land:
Tho thi rooad is hard to climb,
Be content, an bide thi time.
Bide thi time! "I will not leave thee
Nor forsake thee," He hath said.
Let not worldly smiles deceive thee,
Trust in Him - He will relieve thee - 
He that gives thy daily bread:
Fill'd with faith and love sublime,
Still contented, bide thi time.
After The Club-Dance
by Thomas Hardy

Black'on frowns east on Maidon,
And westward to the sea,
But on neither is his frown laden
With scorn, as his frown on me!
At dawn my heart grew heavy,
I could not sip the wine,
I left the jocund bevy
And that young man o' mine.
The roadside elms pass by me, -
Why do I sink with shame
When the birds a-perch there eye me?
They, too, have done the same!
The Bondman.
by Robert Herrick

Bind me but to thee with thine hair,
And quickly I shall be
Made by that fetter or that snare
A bondman unto thee.
Or if thou tak'st that bond away,
Then bore me through the ear,
And by the law I ought to stay
For ever with thee here.
To The Lark
by John Clare

Bird of the morn,
When roseate clouds begin
To show the opening dawn
Thou gladly sing'st it in,
And o'er the sweet green fields and happy vales
Thy pleasant song is heard, mixed with the morning gales.
Bird of the morn,
What time the ruddy sun
Smiles on the pleasant corn
Thy singing is begun,
Heartfelt and cheering over labourers' toil,
Who chop in coppice wild and delve the russet soil.
Bird of the sun,
How dear to man art thou!
When morning has begun
To gild the mountain's brow,
How beautiful it is to see thee soar so blest,
Winnowing thy russet wings above thy twitchy nest.
Bird of the Summer's day,
How oft I stand to hear
Thee sing thy airy lay,
With music wild and clear,
Till thou becom'st a speck upon the sky,
Small as the clods that crumble where I lie.
Thou bird of happiest song,
The Spring and Summer too
Are thine, the months along,
The woods and vales to view.
If climes were evergreen thy song would be
The sunny music of eternal glee.
The Poacher. - A Serious Ballad.
by Thomas Hood

But a bold pheasantry, their country's pride
When once destroyed can never be supplied.
GOLDSMITH.
Bill Blossom was a nice young man,
And drove the Bury coach;
But bad companions were his bane,
And egg'd him on to poach.
They taught him how to net the birds,
And how to noose the hare;
And with a wiry terrier,
He often set a snare.
Each "shiny night" the moon was bright,
To park, preserve, and wood
He went, and kept the game alive,
By killing all he could.
Land-owners, who had rabbits, swore
That he had this demerit - 
Give him an inch of warren, he
Would take a yard of ferret.
At partridges he was not nice;
And many, large and small,
Without Hall's powder, without lead,
Were sent to Leaden Hall.
He did not fear to take a deer
From forest, park, or lawn;
And without courting lord or duke,
Used frequently to fawn.
Folks who had hares discovered snares - 
His course they could not stop:
No barber he, and yet he made
Their hares a perfect crop.
To pheasant he was such a foe,
He tried the keepers' nerves;
They swore he never seem'd to have
Jam satis of preserves.
The Shooter went to beat, and found
No sporting worth a pin,
Unless he tried the covers made
Of silver, plate, or tin.
In Kent the game was little worth,
In Surrey not a button;
The Speaker said he often tried
The Manors about Button.
No county from his tricks was safe;
In each he tried his lucks,
And when the keepers were in Beds,
He often was at Bucks.
And when he went to Bucks, alas!
They always came to Herts;
And even Oxon used to wish
That he had his deserts.
But going to his usual Hants,
Old Cheshire laid his plots:
He got entrapp'd by legal Berks,
And lost his life in Notts.
Linden Lane
by Michael Earls

HOLY CROSS: MAY, 1917
(For Major Joseph W. O'Connor, '03)
Birds are merry and the buds
Come along with May:
Lonely is the linden land
For lads that went today.
What calls the May of song
But the fair young spring?
Heard our boys another tune
Sterner voices sing.
Bugles blew by land and sea,
And the tocsin drum;
See, brave hearts go down the hill,
Shouting, "Hail, we come."
From the towers that show the Cross,
Staunch the Flag waved out,
And the royal Purple shook
Joyous with the shout.
Heigh-ho! And a lusty cheer,
Down the linden lane:
The pine grove looked but cannot tell
If they'll come home again.
Few may take the homeward road
When the war is done:
Where they fall or when they come,
Hail, to the cause they won.
Till the buds and the merry birds
Come another May,
Cross and Flag aloft shall bless
Brave lads who went today.
After The German. A Sophomore Soliloquy.
by George Augustus Baker, Jr.

Blackboard, with ruler and rubber before me,
Chalk loosely held in my hand,
Sun-gilded motes in the air all around me,
Listlessly dreaming I stand.
What do I care for the problem I've written
In characters gracefully slight,
As the festal-robed beauties whose fairy feet flitted
Through the maze of the German last night!
What do I care for the lever of friction,
For sine, or co-ordinate plane,
When fairy musicians are playing the "Mabel,"
And waltzes each nerve in my brain!
On my coat's powdered chalk, not the dust of the diamond
That only last night sparkled there,
By the galop's wild whirl shower'd down on my shoulder
From turbulent tresses of hair.
In my ear is the clatter of chalk against blackboard,
Not music's voluptuous swell;
Alas! this is life, so pass mortal pleasures,
And, thank goodness, there goes the bell!
Song
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Bird of my lady's bower,
Sing her a song;
Tell her that every hour,
All the day long,
Thoughts of her come to me,
Filling my brain
With the warm ecstasy
Of love's refrain.
Little bird! happy bird!
Being so near,
Where e'en her slightest word
Thou mayest hear,
Seeing her glancing eyes,
Sheen of her hair,
Thou art in paradise,--
Would I were there.
I am so far away,
Thou art so near;
Plead with her, birdling gay,
Plead with my dear.
Rich be thy recompense,
Fine be thy fee,
If through thine eloquence
She hearken me.
The Wood Thrush
by Madison Julius Cawein

Bird, with the voice of gold,
Dropping wild bar on bar,
To which the flowers unfold,
Star upon gleaming star,
Here in the forest old:
Bird, with the note as clear,
Cool as a bead of dew,
To which the buds, that hear,
Open deep eyes of blue,
Prick up a rosy ear:
Shut in your house of leaves,
Bubbles of song you blow,
Showered whence none perceives,
Taking the wood below
Till its green bosom heaves.
Music of necromance,
Circles of silvering sound,
Wherein the fairies dance,
Weaving an elfin round,
Till the whole wood's a-trance.
Till, with the soul, one hears
Footsteps of mythic things:
Fauns, with their pointed ears,
Piping to haunted springs,
And the white nymph that nears.
Dryads, that rustle from
Trunks of unclosing trees,
Glimmering shapes that come
Clothed on with bloom and breeze,
Stealthily venturesome.
Spirits of light and air,
Bodied of dawn and dusk,
Peeping from blossoms there,
Windows of dew and musk,
Starry with firefly hair.
Moth-winged and bee-like forms,
Rippling with flower-tints,
Waving their irised arms,
Weaving of twilight glints
Wonders and wildwood charms.
Myths of the falling foam,
Tossing their hair of spray,
Driving the minnows home,
Shepherding them the way,
Safe from the water-gnome.
Or from the streaming stone
Drawing with liquid strokes
Many a crystal tone,
Music their joy evokes,
Filling the forest lone.
Art thou a voice or bird,
Lost in the world of trees?
Or but a dream that's heard
Telling of mysteries,
Saying an unknown word?
Art thou a sprite? or sound
Blown on a flute of fays?
Going thy wildwood round,
Haunting the woodland ways,
Making them holy ground.
Art thou a dream that Spring
Utters? a hope, her soul
Voices? whose pulses sing
On to some fairer goal,
Wild as a heart or wing.
Art thou the gold and green
Voice of the ancient wood?
Syllabling soft, between
Silence and solitude,
All that it dreams unseen...
Bird, like a wisp, a gleam,
Lo! you have led me far
Would I were what you seem,
Or what you really are,
Bird with the voice of dream!
Black Sheep
by Theodosia Garrison

"Black Sheep, Black Sheep,
Have you any wool?"
"That I have, my Master,
Three bags full."
One is for the mother who prays for me at night--
A gift of broken promises to count by candle-light.
One is for the tried friend who raised me when I fell--
A gift of weakling's tinsel oaths that strew the path to hell.
And one is for the true love--the heaviest of all--
That holds the pieces of a faith a careless hand let fall.
Black Sheep, Black Sheep,
Have you ought to say?
A word to each, my Master,
Ere I go my way.
A word unto my mother to bid her think o' me
Only as a little lad playing at her knee.
A word unto my tried friend to bid him see again
Two laughing lads in Springtime a-racing down the glen.
A word unto my true love--a single word--to pray
If one day I cross her path to turn her eyes away.
Sunset And Shore
by George Parsons Lathrop

Birds that like vanishing visions go winging,
White, white in the flame of the sunset's burning,
Fly with the wild spray the billows are flinging,
Blend, blend with the nightfall, and fade, unreturning!
Fire of the heaven, whose splendor all-glowing
Soon, soon shall end, and in darkness must perish;
Sea-bird and flame-wreath and foam lightly blowing; - 
Soon, soon tho' we lose you, your beauty we cherish.
Visions may vanish, the sweetest, the dearest;
Hush'd, hush'd be the voice of love's echo replying;
Spirits may leave us that clung to us nearest: - 
Love, love, only love dwells with us undying!
Take Care, Take Care
by John Frederick Freeman

Bind up, bind up your dark bright hair
And hide the smouldering sunken fire.
Let it be held no more than fair,
Nor yourself guess how rare, how rare
Its movement, colour and deep fire.
Your eyes they have their consciousness,
Your lips their grave reflective smile,
Your hands their cunning for distress:
Your hair has only beauteousness
And hid flame for its only guile.
That glowing hair on shoulders white
Is pride past sum: take care, take care!
Even to dream of wish'd delight
Too much perturbs the ebb of night--
Bind up, bind up your burning hair!
Billy Pringle
by Walter Crane

Billy Pringle had a little pig,
When it was young it was not very big,
When it was old it lived in clover,
Now it's dead and that's all over.
Billy Pringle he lay down and died,
Betty Pringle she lay down and cried,
So there was an end of one, two, and three,
Billy Pringle he, Betty Pringle she, and the piggy wiggy wee.
Amour 45
by Michael Drayton

Blacke pytchy Night, companyon of my woe,
The Inne of care, the Nurse of drery sorrow,
Why lengthnest thou thy darkest howres so,
Still to prolong my long tyme lookt-for morrow?
Thou Sable shadow, Image of dispayre,
Portraite of hell, the ayres black mourning weed,
Recorder of reuenge, remembrancer of care,
The shadow and the vaile of euery sinfull deed.
Death like to thee, so lyue thou still in death,
The graue of ioy, prison of dayes delight.
Let heauens withdraw their sweet Ambrozian breath,
Nor Moone nor stars lend thee their shining light;
For thou alone renew'st that olde desire,
Which still torments me in dayes burning fire.
Nursery Rhyme. CXIV. Scholastic.
by Unknown

Birch and green holly, boys,
Birch and green holly.
If you get beaten, boys,
'Twill be your own folly.
Sooeep'
by Walter De La Mare

Black as a chimney is his face,
And ivory white his teeth,
And in his brass-bound cart he rides,
The chestnut blooms beneath.
'Sooeep, Sooeep!' he cries, and brightly peers
This way and that, to see
With his two light-blue shining eyes
What custom there may be.
And once inside the house, he'll squat,
And drive his rods on high,
Till twirls his sudden sooty brush
Against the morning sky.
Then, 'mid his bulging bags of soot,
With half the world asleep,
His small cart wheels him off again,
Still hoarsely bawling, 'Sooeep!'
The Battle
by Madison Julius Cawein

Black clouds hung low and heavy,
Above the sunset glare;
And in the garden dimly
We wandered here and there.
So full of strife, of trouble
The night was dark, afraid,
Like our own love, so merely
For tears and sighings made.
That when it came to parting,
And I must mount and go,
With all my soul I wished it
That God would lay me low.
Sephina
by Walter De La Mare

Black lacqueys at the wide-flung door
Stand mute as men of wood.
Gleams like a pool the ballroom floor, 
A burnished solitude.
A hundred waxen tapers shine
From silver sconces; softly pine
'Cello, fiddle, mandoline,
To music deftly wooed, 
And dancers in cambric, satin, silk,
With glancing hair and cheeks like milk,
Wreathe, curtsey, intertwine.
The drowse of roses lulls the air
Wafted up the marble stair.
Like warbling water clucks the talk.
From room to room in splendour walk
Guests, smiling in the 'ry sheen;
Carmine and azure, white and green,
They stoop and languish, pace and preen
Bare shoulder, painted fan,
Gemmed wrist and finger, neck of swan;
And still the pluckt strings warble on;
Still from the snow-bowered, link-lit street
The muffled hooves of horses beat;
And harness rings; and foam-fleckt bit
Clanks as the slim heads toss and stare
From deep, dark eyes. Smiling, at ease,
Mount to the porch the pomped grandees
In lonely state, by twos, and threes,
Exchanging languid courtesies,
While torches fume and flare.
And now the banquet calls. A blare
Of squalling trumpets clots the air.
And, flocking out, streams up the rout;
And lilies nod to velvet's swish;
And peacocks prim on gilded dish,
Vast pies thick-glazed, and gaping fish,
Towering confections crisp as ice,
Jellies aglare like cockatrice,
With thousand savours tongues entice.
Fruits of all hues barbaric gloom, 
Pomegranate, quince and peach and plum,
Mandarine, grape, and cherry clear
Englobe each glassy chandelier,
Where nectarous flowers their sweets distil, 
Jessamine, tuberose, chamomill,
Wild-eye narcissus, anemone,
Tendril of ivy and vinery.
Now odorous wines the goblets fill;
Gold-cradled meats the menials bear
From gilded chair to gilded chair:
Now roars the talk like crashing seas,
Foams upward to the painted frieze,
Echoes and ebbs. Still surges in,
To yelp of hautboy and violin,
Plumed and bedazzling, rosed and rare,
Dance-bemused, with cheek aglow,
Stooping the green-twined portal through,
Sighing with laughter, debonair,
That concourse of the proud and fair, 
And lo! 'La, la!
Mamma ... Mamma!'
Falls a small cry in the dark and calls, 
'I see you standing there!'
Fie, fie, Sephina! not in bed!
Crouched on the staircase overhead,
Like ghost she gloats, her lean hand laid
On alabaster balustrade,
And gazes on and on
Down on that wondrous to and fro
Till finger and foot are cold as snow,
And half the night is gone;
And dazzled eyes are sore bestead;
Nods drowsily the sleek-locked head;
And, vague and far, spins, fading out,
That rainbow-coloured, reeling rout,
And, with faint sighs, her spirit flies
Into deep sleep....
Come, Stranger, peep!
Was ever cheek so wan?
Birth and Death
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Birth and death, twin-sister and twin-brother,
Night and day, on all things that draw breath,
Reign, while time keeps friends with one another
Birth and death.
Each brow-bound with flowers diverse of wreath,
Heaven they hail as father, earth as mother,
Faithful found above them and beneath.
Smiles may lighten tears, and tears may smother
Smiles, for all that joy or sorrow saith:
Joy nor sorrow knows not from each other
Birth and death.
Lines Written At Fredensborg, The Deserted Palace Of The Late Queen Dowager Juliana Maria [A].
by John Carr (Sir)

Bless'd are the steps of Virtue's queen!
Where'er she moves fresh roses bloom;
And, when she droops, kind Nature pours
Her genuine tears in gentle show'rs,
That love to dew the willow green
That over-canopies her tomb.
But, ah! no willing mourner here
Attends to tell the tale of woe:
Why is yon statue prostrate thrown?
Why has the grass green'd o'er the stone?
Why, 'gainst the spider'd casement drear,
So sullen seems the wind to blow?
How mournful was the lonely bird,
Within yon dark neglected grove!
Say, was it fancy? From its throat
Issu'd a strange and cheerless note;
'Twas not so sad as grief I heard,
Nor yet so wildly sweet as love.
In the deep gloom of yonder dell
Ambition's blood-stain'd victims sigh'd;
While Time beholds, without a tear,
Fell Desolation hov'ring near,
Whose angry blushes seem to tell.
Here Juliana shudd'ring died!
Alone
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Blessings there are of cradle and of clan,
Blessings that fall of priests' and princes' hands;
But never blessing full of lives and lands,
Broad as the blessing of a lonely man.
Though that old king fell from his primal throne,
And ate among the cattle, yet this pride
Had found him in the deepest grass, and cried
An 'Ecce Homo' with the trumpets blown.
And no mad tyrant, with almighty ban,
Who in strong madness dreams himself divine,
But hears through fumes of flattery and of wine
The thunder of this blessing name him man.
Let all earth rot past saints' and seraphs' plea,
Yet shall a Voice cry through its last lost war,
'This is the world, this red wreck of a star,
That a man blessed beneath an alder-tree.'
Installation Ode.
by Harriet Annie Wilkins

Blest Ruler, at whose word
The universe was stirred,
And there was light;
Look now with gracious love
From Thy bright home above,
Direct in every move,
Each proved, Sir Knight.
In mysteries well skilled,
Their hearts with courage filled,
Behold they stand;
Strengthen their faith in thee,
Let hope their anchor be,
And heaven-born charity
Mark their command.
Endure with holy light
Each suppliant, Sir Knight;
May each one prove
Faithful in watch and word;
Strong the oppressed, to guard
And win the just reward
Of Faith and Love.