DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
Behold! we have gathered together our battleships near and afar;
Their decks they are cleared for action, their guns they are shotted for war:
From the East to the West there is hurry, in the North and the South a peal
Of hammers in fort and shipyard, and the clamor and clang of steel;
And the roar and the rush of engines, and clanking of derrick and crane - 
Thou art weighed in the Scales and found wanting, the balance of God, O Spain!
II.
Behold! I have stood on the mountains, and this was writ in the sky: - 
"She is weighed in the Scales and found wanting, the balance God holds on high!"
The balance He once weighed Babylon, the Mother of Harlots, in:
One scale holds thy pride and thy power and empire, begotten of sin;
Heavy with woe and torture, the crimes of a thousand years,
Mortared and welded together with fire and blood and tears;
In the other, for justice and mercy, a blade with never a stain,
Is laid the Sword of Liberty, and the balance dips, O Spain!
III.
Summon thy vessels together! great is thy need for these! - 
Cristobal Colon, Vizcaya, Oquendo, and Maria Terese - 
Let them be strong and many, for a vision I had by night,
That the ancient wrongs thou hast done the world came howling to the fight;
From the New-World shores they gathered, Inca and Aztec slain,
To the Cuban shot but yesterday, and our own dead seamen, Spain!
IV.
Summon thy ships together, gather a mighty fleet!
For a strong young Nation is arming, that never hath known defeat.
Summon thy ships together, there on thy blood-stained sands!
For a shadowy army gathers with manacled feet and hands,
A shadowy host of sorrows and shames, too black to tell,
That reach, with their horrible wounds, for thee to drag thee down to Hell;
A myriad phantoms and spectres, thou warrest against in vain - 
Thou art weighed in the Scales and found wanting, the balance of God, O Spain!
A Study From The Antique.
by Thomas Moore

Behold, my love, the curious gem
Within this simple ring of gold;
'Tis hallow'd by the touch of them
Who lived in classic hours of old.
Some fair Athenian girl, perhaps,
Upon her hand this gem displayed,
Nor thought that time's succeeding lapse
Should see it grace a lovelier maid.
Look, dearest, what a sweet design!
The more we gaze, it charms the more;
Come--closer bring that cheek to mine,
And trace with me its beauties o'er.
Thou seest, it is a simple youth
By some enamored nymph embraced--
Look, as she leans, and say in sooth
Is not that hand most fondly placed?
Upon his curled head behind
It seems in careless play to lie,
Yet presses gently, half inclined
To bring the truant's lip more nigh.
Oh happy maid! Too happy boy!
The one so fond and little loath,
The other yielding slow to joy--
Oh rare, indeed, but blissful both.
Imagine, love, that I am he,
And just as warm as he is chilling;
Imagine, too, that thou art she,
But quite as coy as she is willing:
So may we try the graceful way
In which their gentle arms are twined,
And thus, like her, my hand I lay
Upon thy wreathed locks behind:
And thus I feel thee breathing sweet,
As slow to mine thy head I move;
And thus our lips together meet,
And thus,--and thus,--I kiss thee, love.
*             *             *             *             *
There's not a look, a word of thine,
My soul hath e'er forgot;
Thou ne'er hast bid a ringlet shine,
Nor given thy locks one graceful twine
Which I remember not.
There never yet a murmur fell
From that beguiling tongue,
Which did not, with a lingering spell,
Upon thy charmed senses dwell,
Like songs from Eden sung.
Ah! that I could, at once, forget
All, all that haunts me so--
And yet, thou witching girl,--and yet,
To die were sweeter than to let
The loved remembrance go.
No; if this slighted heart must see
Its faithful pulse decay,
Oh let it die, remembering thee,
And, like the burnt aroma, be
Consumed in sweets away.
The Fox & The Mosquitoes
by Walter Crane

Being plagued with Mosquitoes one day,
Said old Fox, "pray don't send them away,
For a hungrier swarm
Would work me more harm;
I had rather the full ones should stay."
There Were Politicians In 'sop's Time
The Fold
by Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell

Behold,
The time is now! Bring back, bring back
Thy flocks of fancies, wild of whim.
Oh lead them from the mountain-track -
Thy frolic thoughts untold.
Oh bring them in - the fields grow dim -
And let me be the fold.
Behold,
The time is now! Call in, O call
Thy posturing kisses gone astray
For scattered sweets. Gather them all
To shelter from the cold.
Throng them together, close and gay,
And let me be the fold!
The Solitary Reaper
by William Wordsworth

Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.
No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.
Will no one tell me what she sings? 
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?
Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending; 
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.
Behold!  I Am Not One That Goes To Lectures.'
by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

By W. W.
Behold! I am not one that goes to Lectures or the pow-wow of Professors.
The elementary laws never apologise: neither do I apologise.
I find letters from the Dean dropt on my table--and every one is signed by the Dean's name--
And I leave them where they are; for I know that as long as I stay up
Others will punctually come for ever and ever.
I am one who goes to the river,
I sit in the boat and think of 'life' and of 'time.'
How life is much, but time is more; and the beginning is everything,
But the end is something.
I loll in the Parks, I go to the wicket, I swipe.
I see twenty-two young men from Foster's watching me, and the trousers of the twenty-two young men,
I see the Balliol men en masse watching me.--The Hottentot that loves his mother, the untutored Bedowee, the Cave-man that wears only his certificate of baptism, and the shaggy Sioux that hangs his testamur with his scalps.
I see the Don who ploughed me in Rudiments watching me: and the wife of the Don who ploughed me in Rudiments watching me.
I see the rapport of the wicket-keeper and umpire.    I cannot see that I am out.
Oh! you Umpires!
I am not one who greatly cares for experience, soap, bull-dogs, cautions, majorities, or a graduated Income-Tax,
The certainty of space, punctuation, sexes, institutions, copiousness, degrees, committees, delicatesse, or the fetters of rhyme--
For none of these do I care: but least for the fetters of rhyme.
Myself only I sing.    Me Imperturbe!    Me Prononce!
Me progressive and the depth of me progressive,
And the bathos, Anglice bathos
Of me chanting to the Public the song of Simple Enumeration.
Verses On Two Celebrated Modern Poets
by Jonathan Swift

Behold, those monarch oaks, that rise
With lofty branches to the skies,
Have large proportion'd roots that grow
With equal longitude below:
Two bards that now in fashion reign,
Most aptly this device explain:
If this to clouds and stars will venture,
That creeps as far to reach the centre;
Or, more to show the thing I mean,
Have you not o'er a saw-pit seen
A skill'd mechanic, that has stood
High on a length of prostrate wood,
Who hired a subterraneous friend
To take his iron by the end;
But which excell'd was never found,
The man above or under ground.
The moral is so plain to hit,
That, had I been the god of wit,
Then, in a saw-pit and wet weather,
Should Young and Philips drudge together.
Dancing Adairs
by Conrad Potter Aiken

Behold me, in my chiffon, gauze, and tinsel,
Flitting out of the shadow into the spotlight,
And into the shadow again, without a whisper!
Firefly's my name, I am evanescent.
Firefly's your name. You are evanescent.
But I follow you    as remorselessly as darkness,
And shut you in and enclose you, at last, and always,
Till you are lost, as a voice is lost in silence.
Till I am lost, as a voice is lost in silence. . .
Are you the one who would close so cool about me?
My fire sheds into and through you and beyond you:
How can your fingers hold me? I am elusive.
How can my fingers hold you? You are elusive?
Yes, you are flame, but I surround and love you,
Always extend beyond you, cool, eternal,
To take you into my heart's great void of silence.
You shut me into your heart's great void of silence. . .
O sweet and soothing end for a life of whirling!
Now I am still, whose life was mazed with motion.
Now I sink into you, for love of sleep.
Epigram[1]
by Jonathan Swift

Behold! a proof of Irish sense;
Here Irish wit is seen!
When nothing's left that's worth defence,
We build a magazine.
An Appointment
by William Butler Yeats

Being out of heart with government
I took a broken root to fling
Where the proud, wayward squirrel went,
Taking delight that he could spring;
And he, with that low whinnying sound
That is like laughter, sprang again
And so to the other tree at a bound.
Nor the tame will, nor timid brain,
Bred that fierce tooth and cleanly limb
And threw him up to laugh on the bough;
No government appointed him.
A Botticelli Madonna I The Wondering Angels
by Ethel Allen Murphy

Behold! the Tabernacle of God's Will
This woman's form enshrineth.    What is this,
More glorious than all our age-long bliss,
Which shines within the shadow of her sill?
How shall we lift this strangeness which doth fill
Her human heart to breaking,--we who miss
In our immortal joy, the enlight'ning kiss
Of sorrow's bitter lips whence comforts thrill?
How shall we sing to her of joys to come,
To her who bears upon her breast the sum
Of death's dread gloom and heaven's undying light?
Lean close, ah, close, about her from above,--
Behold upon the mildness of her love
Enthroned the terrors of His Holy Might!
Being His Mother.
by James Whitcomb Riley

Being his mother - when he goes away
I would not hold him overlong, and so
Sometimes my yielding sight of him grows O
So quick of tears, I joy he did not stay
To catch the faintest rumor of them!    Nay,
Leave always his eyes clear and glad, although
Mine own, dear Lord, do fill to overflow;
Let his remembered features, as I pray,
Smile ever on me!    Ah! what stress of love
Thou givest me to guard with Thee thiswise:
Its fullest speech ever to be denied
Mine own - being his mother!    All thereof
Thou knowest only, looking from the skies
As when not Christ alone was crucified.
Lines On Shakspeare
by Thomas Oldham

(Supposed To Be Written Near His Tomb.)
Behold! this marble tablet bears inscribed
The name of Shakspeare!
What a glorious theme
For never-ending praise! His drama's page,
Like a clear mirror, to our wondering view
Displays the living image of the world,
And all the different characters of men:
Still, in the varying scenes, or sad, or gay,
We take a part; we weep; we laugh; we feel
All the strong sympathies of real life.
To him alone, of mortals, Fancy lent
Her magic wand, potent to conjure up
Ideal Forms, distinctly character'd,
Exciting fear, or wonder, or delight.
The works of Shakspeare! are they not a fane,
Majestic as the canopy of heaven,
Embracing all created things, a fane
His superhuman genius has upraised,
To Nature consecrate? The Goddess there
For ever dwells, and from her sanctuary,
By Shakspeare's voice, her poet and high-priest,
Reveals her awful mysteries to man,
And with her power divine rules every heart.
At Shakspeare's name, then, bow down all ye sons
Of learning, and of art! ye men, endow'd
With talent, taste! ye nobler few who feel
The genuine glow of genius! bow down all
In admiration! with deep feeling own
Your littleness, your insignificance;
And with one general voice due homage pay
To Nature's Poet, Fancy's best-loved Child!
The Sparrow's Nest
by William Wordsworth

Behold, within the leafy shade,
Those bright blue eggs together laid!
On me the chance-discovered sight
Gleamed like a vision of delight.
I started, seeming to espy
The home and sheltered bed,
The Sparrow's dwelling, which, hard by
My Father' house, in wet or dry
My sister Emmeline and I
Together visited.
She looked at it and seemed to fear it;
Dreading, tho' wishing, to be near it:
Such heart was in her, being then
A little Prattler among men.
The Blessing of my later year
Was with me when a boy:
She gave me eyes, she gave me ears;
And humble care, and delicate fears;
A heart, the fountain of sweet tears;
And love, and thought, and joy.
Talking (And Singing) Of The Nordic Man
by Hilaire Belloc

I
Behold, my child, the Nordic man,
And be as like him, as you can;
His legs are long, his mind is slow,
His hair is lank and made of tow.
II
And here we have the Alpine Race:
Oh! What a broad and foolish face!
His skin is of a dirty yellow.
He is a most unpleasant fellow.
III
The most degraded of them all
Mediterranean we call.
His hair is crisp, and even curls,
And he is saucy with the girls.
On The Banks Of A Rocky Stream
by William Wordsworth

Behold an emblem of our human mind
Crowded with thoughts that need a settled home,
Yet, like to eddying balls of foam
Within this whirlpool, they each other chase
Round and round, and neither find
An outlet nor a resting-place!
Stranger, if such disquietude be thine,
Fall on thy knees and sue for help divine.
Sonnet XXIV. Translation.
by Anna Seward

Behold the Day an image of the Year!
The Year an image of our life's short span!
Morn, like the Spring, with growing light began,
Spring, like our Youth, with joy, and beauty fair;
Noon picturing Summer; - Summer's ardent sphere
Manhood's gay portrait. - Eve, like Autumn, wan,
Autumn resembling faded age in Man;
Night, with its silence, and its darkness drear,
Emblem of Winter's frore and gloomy reign,
When torpid lie the vegetative Powers;
Winter, so shrunk, so cold, reminds us plain
Of the mute Grave, that o'er the dim Corse lours;
There shall the Weary rest, nor ought remain
To the pale Slumberer of Life's checker'd hours.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part I. - XXVI - Alfred
by William Wordsworth

Behold a pupil of the monkish gown,
The pious Alfred, King to Justice dear!
Lord of the harp and liberating spear;
Mirror of Princes! Indigent Renown
Might range the starry ether for a crown
Equal to 'his' deserts, who, like the year,
Pours forth his bounty, like the day doth cheer,
And awes like night with mercy-tempered frown.
Ease from this noble miser of his time
No moment steals; pain narrows not his cares.
Though small his kingdom as a spark or gem,
Of Alfred boasts remote Jerusalem,
And Christian India, through her widespread clime,
In sacred converse gifts with Alfred shares.
Behold The Earth
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Behold the earth swung in among the stars
Fit home for gods if men were only kind - 
Do thou thy part to shape it to those ends,
By shaping thine own life to perfectness.
Seek nothing for thyself or thine own kin
That robs another of one hope or joy,
Let no man toil in poverty and pain
To give thee unearned luxury and ease.
Feed not the hungry servitor with stones,
That idle guests may fatten on thy bread.
Look for the good in stranger and in foe,
Nor save thy praises for the cherished few;
And let the weakest sinner find in thee
An impetus to reach receding heights.
Behold the earth swung in among the stars - 
Fit home for gods; wake thou the God within
And by the broad example of thy love
Communicate Omnipotence to men.
All men are unawakened gods:    be thine
The voice to rouse them from unhappy sleep
Sonnet XXXII. Subject Of The Preceding Sonnet Continued.
by Anna Seward

Behold him now his genuine colours wear,
That specious False-One, by whose cruel wiles
I lost thy amity; saw thy dear smiles
Eclips'd; those smiles, that us'd my heart to cheer,
Wak'd by thy grateful sense of many a year
When rose thy youth, by Friendship's pleasing toils
Cultur'd; - but DYING! - O! for ever fade
The angry fires. - Each thought, that might upbraid
Thy broken faith, which yet my soul deplores,
Now as eternally is past and gone
As are the interesting, the happy hours,
Days, years, we shar'd together. They are flown!
Yet long must I lament thy hapless doom,
Thy lavish'd life and early-hasten'd tomb.
The Grand Army Passes
by Helen Leah Reed

Behold a long procession passing proudly,
And yet no glittering pomp adorns its way,
Only the emblems of our States and Nation,
Only the flags that floated on the day
These men, our men, trod upon fields of glory; - 
The tattered flags that this Grand Army bore
For the Republic - flags that furled and faded
To their old vividness our hearts restore.
The line of veterans once firm and crowded,
The long, long line is wavering and thin;
With faltering steps Old Age speaks mutely to them
Youth marched abreast when they were mustered in.
Oh, Comrades of the Campfire and the Council,
Oh, Comrades who in peril won your fight!
Honor to you and to your dead companions,
You risked your all for Liberty and Right!
Fraternity and Charity your watchwords,
And Loyalty to this our own dear Land!
Our flag you have, the brazen star, the eagle
Undying symbols for your gallant band.
Look at them, youths and maidens, as they pass you,
While old-time war-tunes break upon the air,
And staring crowds applaud; read ye the message
That from the past these veterans nobly bear,
"Our gift - the gift of Freedom to the Nation,
Our great Republic would entrust to you,
Cherish it fondly, keeping it untarnished,
That, in the Future, looming on our view,
You with the World may share your gift of Freedom."
This is the message that our youth must con,
While the Grand Army, answering its last roll-call
And laying down life's weapons, passes on.
David Belasco
by Oliver Herford

Behold Belasco in his den,
Wielding the scissors, paste and pen,
And writing with consummate skill
A play by W. De Mille.
Outside The Ball-Room.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Ainsi l'H'tel de Ville illumine.")
[VI., May, 1833.]
Behold the ball-room flashing on the sight,
From step to cornice one grand glare of light;
The noise of mirth and revelry resounds,
Like fairy melody on haunted grounds.
But who demands this profuse, wanton glee,
These shouts prolonged and wild festivity - 
Not sure our city - web, more woe than bliss,
In any hour, requiring aught but this!
Deaf is the ear of all that jewelled crowd
To sorrow's sob, although its call be loud.
Better than waste long nights in idle show,
To help the indigent and raise the low - 
To train the wicked to forsake his way,
And find th' industrious work from day to day!
Better to charity those hours afford,
Which now are wasted at the festal board!
And ye, O high-born beauties! in whose soul
Virtue resides, and Vice has no control;
Ye whom prosperity forbids to sin,
So fair without - so chaste, so pure within - 
Whose honor Want ne'er threatened to betray,
Whose eyes are joyous, and whose heart is gay;
Around whose modesty a hundred arms,
Aided by pride, protect a thousand charms;
For you this ball is pregnant with delight;
As glitt'ring planets cheer the gloomy night: - 
But, O, ye wist not, while your souls are glad,
How millions wander, homeless, sick and sad!
Hazard has placed you in a happy sphere,
And like your own to you all lots appear;
For blinded by the sun of bliss your eyes
Can see no dark horizon to the skies.
Such is the chance of life! Each gallant thane,
Prince, peer, and noble, follow in your train; - 
They praise your loveliness, and in your ear
They whisper pleasing things, but insincere;
Thus, as the moths enamoured of the light,
Ye seek these realms of revelry each night.
But as ye travel thither, did ye know
What wretches walk the streets through which you go.
Sisters, whose gewgaws glitter in the glare
Of your great lustre, all expectant there,
Watching the passing crowd with avid eye,
Till one their love, or lust, or shame may buy;
Or, with commingling jealousy and rage,
They mark the progress of your equipage;
And their deceitful life essays the while
To mask their woe beneath a sickly smile!
G.W.M. REYNOLDS.
Behold The Hour.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "Oran-gaoil."
I.
Behold the hour, the boat arrive;
Thou goest, thou darling of my heart!
Sever'd from thee can I survive?
But fate has will'd, and we must part.
I'll often greet this surging swell,
Yon distant isle will often hail:
"E'en here I took the last farewell;
There, latest mark'd her vanish'd sail."
II.
Along the solitary shore
While flitting sea-fowl round me cry,
Across the rolling, dashing roar,
I'll westward turn my wistful eye:
Happy, thou Indian grove, I'll say,
Where now my Nancy's path may be!
While thro' thy sweets she loves to stray,
O tell me, does she muse on me?
A Clown's Prelude.
by Charles Hamilton Musgrove

Behold! I cover up this trail of tears
A moment's weakness left upon my cheek,
And hush my heart a little ere I speak
Lest the false note ring true on other ears;
The music rises and the empty cheers
Proclaim the harlequin, and lo! I stand
The painted fool again and kiss my hand
With jocund air to Folly's worshippers.
So day by day life's bitter bread is earned
With lips that smile and frame the mirthless joke,
And frailer grows the soul that once was strong,--
The joyless soul of one whose trade has turned
Life's tragic mantle to a jester's cloak,
Life's diapason to a jester's song.
The Patriotic League
by Henry Lawson

Behold! the biased foes of Right
Are conscious of their danger,
They're startled by the dawning light,
So very long a stranger.
And fearing for their rotting laws,
Whose reign is nearly ended,
To study out the People's cause
At last they've condescended.
'And this they call the 'People's Cause',
Why this is insurrection!
They would revoke the very laws
We made for our protection!
An equal right with us they claim!
They'll rob us by and by, sir!
We'll form a league and steal a name
And tell another lie, sir.'
They took to gloss a base intrigue
A name that was demotic.
They stole a name and formed a league
And called it 'Patriotic'.
They've resurrected ancient lies,
The world had most forgotten,
The liars think the world will rise
To back a Cause that's rotten.
I know their creed, and know it well,
Too mean are its creators
To hope for heaven, or fear the hell
They'd make for agitators.
Old as the hills, and quite as dense
Though shaking like a jelly.
Time honoured to magnificence,
Religion of the Belly!
The Sonnets LVII - Being your slave what should I do but tend
by William Shakespeare

Being your slave what should I do but tend,
Upon the hours, and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend;
Nor services to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,
When you have bid your servant once adieu;
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
Save, where you are, how happy you make those.
So true a fool is love, that in your will,
Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.
The Golf Walk
by Ellis Parker Butler

Behold, my child, this touching scene,
The golfer on the golfing-green;
Pray mark his legs' uncanny swing,
The golf-walk is a gruesome thing!
See how his arms and shoulders ride
Above his legs in haughty pride,
While over bunker, hill and lawn
His feet, relentless, drag him on.
And does the man walk always so?
Nay! nay I my child, and eke, oh! no!
It is a gait he only knows
When he has on his golfing clothes.
Blame not the man for that strange stride
He could not help it if he tried;
It is his timid feet that try
From his obstreperous clothes to fly.