DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Hills Of Lincoln.
by George W. Doneghy

I.
O the hills of old Lincoln!--I can see them to-day
As they stretch in dim distance far, far away,
And on Fancy's swift pinions my spirit hath flown
To rest 'mid the scenes which my childhood has known--
Where the old Hanging Fork, with its silvery gleam,
Glides away 'tween the meadows like thoughts in a dream,
And far to the south, with their outlines so blue,
The rugged knobs blend into heaven's own hue!
II.
O the hills of old Lincoln!--how fondly I gaze
On their wildwoods and thickets and deep-tangled ways
When memory's mirror presents them to view,
And I dream once again that I tread them anew,
While raptured I listen to the music of love
That the song-birds are singing in the tree-tops above,
And the soul drifts away in a swoon of delight,
Unanchored from care and from sorrow's cold blight!
III.
O the hills of old Lincoln!--my footsteps have trod
Up and down their green valleys, with shotgun and rod,
And it seems to me now that the years that have fled
Around their old summits a halo have shed
That guides the fond fancy unerringly there
When backward it wanders with childhood to share
Sweet scenes such as these, inurned in the heart,
And which from fond memory can never depart!
To Poesy.
by John Clare

O sweetly wild and 'witching Poesy!
Thou light of this world's hermitage I prove thee;
And surely none helps loving thee that knows thee,
A soul of feeling cannot help but love thee.
I would say how thy secret wonders move me,
Thou spell of loveliness!--but 'tis too much:
Had I the language of the gods above me
I might then venture thy wild harp to touch,
And sing of all thy thrilling pains and pleasures;
The flowers I meet in this world's wilderness;
The comforts rising from thy spell-bound treasures,
Thy cordial balm that softens my distress:
I would say all, but thou art far above me;
Words are too weak, expression can't be had;
I can but say I love, and dearly love thee,
And that thou cheer'st me when my soul is sad.
Teddy Bear
by Robert William Service

O Teddy Bear! with your head awry
And your comical twisted smile,
You rub your eyes - do you wonder why
You've slept such a long, long while?
As you lay so still in the cupboard dim,
And you heard on the roof the rain,
Were you thinking . . . what has become of him?
And when will he play again?
Do you sometimes long for a chubby hand,
And a voice so sweetly shrill?
O Teddy Bear! don't you understand
Why the house is awf'ly still?
You sit with your muzzle propped on your paws,
And your whimsical face askew.
Don't wait, don't wait for your friend . . . because
He's sleeping and dreaming too.
Aye, sleeping long. . . . You remember how
He stabbed our hearts with his cries?
And oh, the dew of pain on his brow,
And the deeps of pain in his eyes!
And, Teddy Bear! you remember, too,
As he sighed and sank to his rest,
How all of a sudden he smiled to you,
And he clutched you close to his breast.
I'll put you away, little Teddy Bear,
In the cupboard far from my sight;
Maybe he'll come and he'll kiss you there,
A wee white ghost in the night.
But me, I'll live with my love and pain
A weariful lifetime through;
And my Hope: will I see him again, again?
Ah, God! If I only knew!
To Sylvia.
by Giacomo Leopardi

O Sylvia, dost thou remember still
That period of thy mortal life,
When beauty so bewildering
Shone in thy laughing, glancing eyes,
As thou, so merry, yet so wise,
Youth's threshold then wast entering?
How did the quiet rooms,
And all the paths around,
With thy perpetual song resound,
As thou didst sit, on woman's work intent,
Abundantly content
With the vague future, floating on thy mind!
Thy custom thus to spend the day
In that sweet time of youth and May!
How could I, then, at times,
In those fair days of youth,
The only happy days I ever knew,
My hard tasks dropping, or my careless rhymes,
My station take, on father's balcony,
And listen to thy voice's melody,
And watch thy hands, as they would deftly fly
O'er thy embroidery!
I gazed upon the heaven serene,
The sun-lit paths, the orchards green,
The distant mountain here,
And there, the far-off sea.
Ah, mortal tongue cannot express
What then I felt of happiness!
What gentle thoughts, what hopes divine,
What loving hearts, O Sylvia mine!
In what bright colors then portrayed
Were human life and fate!
Oh, when I think of such fond hopes betrayed,
A feeling seizes me
Of bitterness and misery,
And tenfold is my grief renewed!
O Nature, why this treachery?
Why thus, with broken promises,
Thy children's hearts delude?
Thou, ere the grass was touched with winter's frost,
By fell disease attacked and overcome,
O tender plant, didst die!
The flower of thy days thou ne'er didst see;
Nor did thy soft heart move
Now of thy raven locks the tender praise,
Now of thy eyes, so loving and so shy;
Nor with thee, on the holidays,
Did thy companions talk of love.
So perished, too, erelong,
My own sweet hope;
So too, unto my years
Did Fate their youth deny.
Alas, alas the day,
Lamented hope, companion dear,
How hast thou passed away!
Is this that world? These the delights,
The love, the labors, the events,
Of which we once so fondly spoke?
And must all mortals wear this weary yoke?
Ah, when the truth appeared,
It better seemed to die!
Cold death, the barren tomb, didst thou prefer
To harsh reality.
The Seasons' Comfort
by Robert Laurence Binyon

O Summer sun, O moving trees!
O cheerful human noise, O busy glittering street!
What hour shall Fate in all the future find,
Or what delights, ever to equal these:
Only to taste the warmth, the light, the wind,
Only to be alive, and feel that life is sweet?
O That A Chariot Of Cloud Were Mine
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

O that a chariot of cloud were mine!
Of cloud which the wild tempest weaves in air,
When the moon over the ocean's line
Is spreading the locks of her bright gray hair.
O that a chariot of cloud were mine!
I would sail on the waves of the billowy wind
To the mountain peak and the rocky lake,
And the...
Amadis And Oriana
by Madison Julius Cawein

From "Beltenebros at Miraflores"
O sunset, from the springs of stars
Draw down thy cataracts of gold;
And belt their streams with burning bars
Of ruby on which flame is rolled:
Drench dingles with laburnum light;
Drown every vale in violet blaze:
Rain rose-light down; and, poppy-bright,
Die downward o'er the hills of haze,
And bring at last the stars of night!
The stars and moon! that silver world,
Which, like a spirit, faces west,
Her foam-white feet with light empearled,
Bearing white flame within her breast:
Earth's sister sphere of fire and snow,
Who shows to Earth her heart's pale heat,
And bids her mark its pulses glow,
And hear their crystal currents beat
With beauty, lighting all below.
O cricket, with thy elfin pipe,
That tinkles in the grass and grain;
And dove-pale buds, that, dropping, stripe
The glen's blue night, and smell of rain;
O nightingale, that so dost wail
On yonder blossoming branch of snow,
Thrill, fill the wild deer-haunted dale,
Where Oriana, walking slow,
Comes, thro' the moonlight, dreamy pale.
She comes to meet me! - Earth and air
Grow radiant with another light.
In her dark eyes and her dark hair
Are all the stars and all the night:
She comes! I clasp her! - and it is
As if no grief had ever been. - 
In all the world for us who kiss
There are no other women or men
But Oriana and Amadis.
L'Escargot D'Or
by Robert William Service

Chez Moi, Montparnasse,
April 1914. The same evening.
To-day is an anniversary. A year ago to-day I kicked over an office stool and came to Paris thinking to make a living by my pen. I was twenty then, and in my pocket I had twenty pounds. Of that, my ten sous are all that remain. And so to-night I am going to spend them, not prudently on bread, but prodigally on beer.
As I stroll down the Boul' Mich' the lingering light has all the exquisite tenderness of violet; the trees are in their first translucent green; beneath them the lamps are lit with purest gold, and from the Little Luxembourg comes a silver jangle of tiny voices. Taking the gay side of the street, I enter a cafe. Although it isn't its true name, I choose to call my cafe - 
L'Escargot D'Or
O Tavern of the Golden Snail!
Ten sous have I, so I'll regale;
Ten sous your amber brew to sip
(Eight for the bock and two the tip),
And so I'll sit the evening long,
And smoke my pipe and watch the throng,
The giddy crowd that drains and drinks,
I'll watch it quiet as a sphinx;
And who among them all shall buy
For ten poor sous such joy as I?
As I who, snugly tucked away,
Look on it all as on a play,
A frolic scene of love and fun,
To please an audience of One.
O Tavern of the Golden Snail!
You've stuff indeed for many a tale.
All eyes, all ears, I nothing miss:
Two lovers lean to clasp and kiss;
The merry students sing and shout,
The nimble garcons dart about;
Lo! here come Mimi and Musette
With: "S'il vous plait, une cigarette?"
Marcel and Rudolf, Shaunard too,
Behold the old rapscallion crew,
With flowing tie and shaggy head . . .
Who says Bohemia is dead?
Oh shades of Murger! prank and clown,
And I will watch and write it down.
O Tavern of the Golden Snail!
What crackling throats have gulped your ale!
What sons of Fame from far and near
Have glowed and mellowed in your cheer!
Within this corner where I sit
Banville and Copp'e clashed their wit;
And hither too, to dream and drain,
And drown despair, came poor Verlaine.
Here Wilde would talk and Synge would muse,
Maybe like me with just ten sous.
Ah! one is lucky, is one not?
With ghosts so rare to drain a pot!
So may your custom never fail,
O Tavern of the Golden Snail!
Margaret
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

I.
O sweet pale Margaret,
O rare pale Margaret,
What lit your eyes with tearful power,
Like moonlight on a falling shower?
Who lent you, love, your mortal dower
Of pensive thought and aspect pale,
Your melancholy sweet and frail
As perfume of the cuckoo-flower?
From the westward-winding flood,
From the evening-lighted wood,
From all things outward you have won
A tearful grace, as tho' you stood
Between the rainbow and the sun.
The very smile before you speak,
That dimples your transparent cheek,
Encircles all the heart, and feedeth
The senses with a still delight
Of dainty sorrow without sound,
Like the tender amber round,
Which the moon about her spreadeth,
Moving thro' a fleecy night.
II.
You love, remaining peacefully,
To hear the murmur of the strife,
But enter not the toil of life.
Your spirit is the calmed sea,
Laid by the tumult of the fight.
You are the evening star, alway
Remaining betwixt dark and bright:
Lull'd echoes of laborious day
Come to you, gleams of mellow light
Float by you on the verge of night.
III.
What can it matter, Margaret,
What songs below the waning stars
The lion-heart, Plantagenet,
Sang looking thro' his prison bars?
Exquisite Margaret, who can tell
The last wild thought of Chatelet,
Just ere the falling axe did part
The burning brain from the true heart,
Even in her sight he loved so well?
IV.
A fairy shield your Genius made
And gave you on your natal day.
Your sorrow, only sorrow's shade,
Keeps real sorrow far away.
You move not in such solitudes,
You are not less divine,
But more human in your moods,
Than your twin-sister, Adeline.
Your hair is darker, and your eyes
Touch'd with a somewhat darker hue,
And less a'rially blue,
But ever trembling thro' the dew
Of dainty-woeful sympathies.
V.
O sweet pale Margaret,
O rare pale Margaret,
Come down, come down, and hear me speak:
Tie up the ringlets on your cheek:
The sun is just about to set.
The arching lines are tall and shady,
And faint, rainy lights are seen,
Moving in the leavy beech.
Rise from the feast of sorrow, lady,
Where all day long you sit between
Joy and woe, and whisper each.
Or only look across the lawn,
Look out below your bower-eaves,
Look down, and let your blue eyes dawn
Upon me thro' the jasmine-leaves.
Tom Barbee's Pond.
by George W. Doneghy

I.
O sweet are the memories when backward we gaze
Through the vista of years to our schoolboy days,
When faces now vanished to the vision appear
And the music of voices long hushed we can hear,
As together we romped where the school-house stood,
Or joyfully wended our way through the wood
Where placidly lay, in the valley beyond,
The moss-covered waters of Tom Barbee's pond!
II.
Though scattered by Time o'er the face of the earth,
And sorrow and anguish have succeeded to mirth,
Still many there be whose mist-bedewed eye
Looks longingly back, while the breast heaves a sigh,
To that far-away time, when together we played
In the school-house yard, or on Saturdays strayed
Where the knots in our sleeves were tied tight as a bond,
As we splashed and we dived in Tom Barbee's pond!
III.
The "pleasures of memory" by Rogers were lined,
With rhythm as sweet as in verse you will find,
But could he e'er picture one-half of the joys
We had when we wandered as barefooted boys
Through the woods and the fields and the meadows out there,
With our sun-blistered backs and the burrs in our hair,
Or recall to the mind a remembrance more fond
Than bathing and swimming in Tom Barbee's pond?
O Tan-Faced Prairie Boy
by Walt Whitman

O tan-faced prairie-boy!
Before you came to camp, came many a welcome gift;
Praises and presents came, and nourishing food - till at last, among the recruits,
You came, taciturn, with nothing to give - we but look'd on each other,
When lo! more than all the gifts of the world, you gave me.
O Sun Of Real Peace
by Walt Whitman

O sun of real peace! O hastening light!
O free and extatic! O what I here, preparing, warble for!
O the sun of the world will ascend, dazzling, and take his height - and you too, O my Ideal, will surely ascend!
O so amazing and broad - up there resplendent, darting and burning!
O vision prophetic, stagger'd with weight of light! with pouring glories!
O lips of my soul, already becoming powerless!
O ample and grand Presidentiads! Now the war, the war is over!
New history! new heroes! I project you!
Visions of poets! only you really last! sweep on! sweep on!
O heights too swift and dizzy yet!
O purged and luminous! you threaten me more than I can stand!
(I must not venture - the ground under my feet menaces me - it will not support me:
O future too immense,) - O present, I return, while yet I may, to you.
The Sangamon River.
by Hattie Howard

O sunny Sangamon! thy name to me,
Soft-syllabled like some sweet melody,
Familiar is since adolescent years
As household phrases ringing in my ears;
Its measured cadence sounding to and fro
From the dim corridors of long ago.
There was a time in happy days gone by,
That rosy interval of youth, when I
The scholar ardent early learned to trace
Great tributaries to their starting place;
And thine some prairie hollow obsolete
Whose name how few remember or repeat.
Like thee, meandering, yet wafted back
From distant hearth and lonely bivouac,
From strange vicissitudes in other lands,
From half-wrought labors and unfinished plans
I come, in thy cool depths my brow to lave,
And rest a moment by thy silver wave.
But, ah! what means thy muddy, muggy hue?
I thought thee limpid as yon ether blue;
I thought an angel's wing might dip below
Thy sparkling surface and be white as snow;
And of thy current I had dared to drink
If not as one imbibing draughts of ink.
Has some rough element of horrid clay
That spoils the earth like lava beds, they say,
Come sliding down, as avalanches do,
And thy fair bosom percolated through?
Or some apothecary's compound vile
Polluted thee so many a murky mile?
Why not, proud State, beneficence insure,
Selling thy soil or giving to the poor?
For sad it is that dust of Illinois,
With coal and compost its conjoint alloy,
A morceau washed from Mississippi's mouth,
Should build up acres for our neighbors south.
River! I grieve, but not for loss of dirt - 
Once stainless, just because of what thou wert.
Thus on thy banks I linger and reflect
That, surely as all waterways connect,
Forever flowing onward to the sea,
Shall the great billow thy redemption be.
And now, dear Sangamon, farewell! I wait
On that Elysian scene to meditate
When, separated from the dregs of earth,
Life's stream shall sweeter be, of better worth;
And, like the ocean with its restless tide,
By its own action cleansed and purified.
The Little Lady
by James Whitcomb Riley

O The Little Lady's dainty
As the picture in a book,
And her hands are creamy-whiter
Than the water-lilies look;
Her laugh's the undrown'd music
Of the maddest meadow-brook. - 
Yet all in vain I praise The Little Lady!
Her eyes are blue and dewy
As the glimmering Summer-dawn, - 
Her face is like the eglantine
Before the dew is gone;
And were that honied mouth of hers
A bee's to feast upon,
He'd be a bee bewildered, Little Lady!
Her brow makes light look sallow;
And the sunshine, I declare,
Is but a yellow jealousy
Awakened by her hair - 
For O the dazzling glint of it
Nor sight nor soul can bear, - 
So Love goes groping for The Little Lady.
And yet she's neither Nymph nor Fay,
Nor yet of Angelkind: - 
She's but a racing school-girl, with
Her hair blown out behind
And tremblingly unbraided by
The fingers of the Wind,
As it wildly swoops upon The Little Lady.
Epitaphs III. O Thou Who Movest Onward With A Mind
by William Wordsworth

O thou who movest onward with a mind
Intent upon thy way, pause, though in haste!
'Twill be no fruitless moment. I was born
Within Savona's walls, of gentle blood.
On Tiber's banks my youth was dedicate
To sacred studies; and the Roman Shepherd
Gave to my charge Urbino's numerous flock.
Well did I watch, much laboured, nor had power
To escape from many and strange indignities;
Was smitten by the great ones of the world,
But did not fall; for Virtue braves all shocks,
Upon herself resting immoveably.
Me did a kindlier fortune then invite
To serve the glorious Henry, King of France,
And in his hands I saw a high reward
Stretched out for my acceptance, but Death came.
Now, Reader, learn from this my fate, how false,
How treacherous to her promise, is the world;
And trust in God, to whose eternal doom
Must bend the sceptred Potentates of earth.
A Prayer, Under The Pressure Of Violent Anguish.
by Robert Burns

O Thou Great Being! what Thou art
Surpasses me to know;
Yet sure I am, that known to Thee
Are all Thy works below.
Thy creature here before Thee stands,
All wretched and distrest;
Yet sure those ills that wring my soul
Obey Thy high behest.
Sure Thou, Almighty, canst not act
From cruelty or wrath!
O, free my weary eyes from tears,
Or close them fast in death!
But if I must afflicted be,
To suit some wise design;
Then, man my soul with firm resolves
To bear and not repine!
????? ?????? (Greek Poems)
by Arthur Hugh Clough

O thou whose image in the shrine
Of human spirits dwells divine;
Which from that precinct once conveyed,
To be to outer day displayed,
Doth vanish, part, and leave behind
Mere blank and void of empty mind,
Which wilful fancy seeks in vain
With casual shapes to fill again!
O Thou that in our bosom's shrine
Dost dwell, unknown because divine!
I thought to speak, I thought to say,
'The light is here,' 'behold the way,'
'The voice was thus,' and 'thus the word,'
And 'thus I saw,' and 'that I heard,'
But from the lips that half essayed
The imperfect utterance fell unmade.
O Thou, in that mysterious shrine
Enthroned, as I must say, divine!
I will not frame one thought of what
Thou mayest either be or not.
I will not prate of 'thus' and 'so,'
And be profane with 'yes' and 'no,'
Enough that in our soul and heart
Thou, whatso'er Thou may'st be, art.
Unseen, secure in that high shrine
Acknowledged present and divine,
I will not ask some upper air,
Some future day to place Thee there;
Nor say, nor yet deny, such men
And women saw Thee thus and then:
Thy name was such, and there or here
To him or her Thou didst appear.
Do only Thou in that dim shrine,
Unknown or known, remain, divine;
There, or if not, at least in eyes
That scan the fact that round them lies,
The hand to sway, the judgment guide,
In sight and sense Thyself divide:
Be Thou but there, in soul and heart,
I will not ask to feel Thou art.
The Dreamer
by Walter De La Mare

O thou who giving helm and sword,
Gav'st, too, the rusting rain,
And starry dark's all tender dews
To blunt and stain:
Out of the battle I am sped,
Unharmed, yet stricken sore;
A living shape amid whispering shades
On Lethe's shore.
No trophy in my hands I bring,
To this sad, sighing stream,
The neighings and the trumps and cries
Were but a dream.
Traitor to life, of life betrayed:
O, of thy mercy deep,
A dream my all, the all I ask
Is sleep.
Friendship
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

O thou most holy Friendship! wheresoe'er
Thy dwelling be'for in the courts of man
But seldom thine all-heavenly voice we hear,
Sweet'ning the moments of our narrow span;
And seldom thy bright foot-steps do we scan
Along the weary waste of life unblest,
For faithless is its frail and wayward plan,
And perfidy is man's eternal guest,
With dark suspicion link'd and shameless interest!'
'Tis thine, when life has reach'd its final goal,
Ere the last sigh that frees the mind be giv'n,
To speak sweet solace to the parting soul,
And pave the bitter path that leads to heav'n:
'Tis thine, whene'er the heart is rack'd and riv'n
By the hot shafts of baleful calumny,
When the dark spirit to despair is driv'n,
To teach its lonely grief to lean on thee,
And pour within thine ear the tale of misery.
But where art thou, thou comet of an age,
Thou ph'nix of a century? Perchance
Thou art but of those fables which engage
And hold the minds of men in giddy trance.
Yet, be it so, and be it all romance,
The thought of thine existence is so bright
With beautiful imaginings'the glance
Upon thy fancied being such delight,
That I will deem thee Truth, so lovely is thy might!
To Spring
by William Blake

O thou with dewy locks, who lookest down
Thro' the clear windows of the morning, turn
Thine angel eyes upon our western isle,
Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!
The hills tell each other, and the listening
Valleys hear; all our longing eyes are turned
Up to thy bright pavilions: issue forth,
And let thy holy feet visit our clime.
Come o'er the eastern hills, and let our winds
Kiss thy perfumed garments; let us taste
Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls
Upon our love-sick land that mourns for thee.
O deck her forth with thy fair fingers; pour
Thy soft kisses on her bosom; and put
Thy golden crown upon her languished head,
Whose modest tresses were bound up for thee.
A Prayer - In The Prospect Of Death.
by Robert Burns

O Thou unknown, Almighty Cause
Of all my hope and fear?
In whose dread presence, ere an hour
Perhaps I must appear!
If I have wander'd in those paths
Of life I ought to shun;
As something, loudly, in my breast,
Remonstrates I have done;
Thou know'st that Thou hast formed me,
With passions wild and strong;
And list'ning to their witching voice
Has often led me wrong.
Where human weakness has come short,
Or frailty stept aside,
Do Thou, All-Good! for such thou art,
In shades of darkness hide.
Where with intention I have err'd,
No other plea I have,
But, Thou art good; and goodness still
Delighteth to forgive.