DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
To A Bride.
by Nathaniel Parker Willis

Pass thou on! for the vow is said
That is never broken;
The hand of blessing hath, trembling, laid
On snowy forehead and simple braid,
And the word is spoken
By lips that never their words betray'd.
Pass thou on! for thy human all
Is richly given,
And the voice that claim'd its holy thrall
Must be sweeter for life than music's fall,
And, this side Heaven,
Thy lip may never that trust recal.
Pass thou on! yet many an eye
Will droop and glisten;
And the hushing heart in vain will try
To still its pulse as thy step goes by
And we "vainly listen
For thy voice of witching melody."
Pass thou on! yet a sister's tone
In its sweetness lingers,
Like some twin echo sent back alone,
Or the bird's soft note when its mate hath flown,
And a sister's fingers
Will again o'er the thrilling harp be thrown.
And our eyes will rest on their foreheads fair,
And our hearts awaken
Whenever we come where their voices are - 
But oh, we shall think how musical were,
Ere of thee forsaken,
The mingled voices we listed there.
Pass on! there is not of our blessings one
That may not perish - 
Like visiting angels whose errand is done,
They are never at rest till their home is won,
And we may not cherish
The beautiful gift of thy light - Pass on!
To A. H. J.
by Violet Jacob

Past life, past tears, far past the grave,
The tryst is set for me,
Since, for our all, your all you gave
On the slopes of Picardy.
On Angus, in the autumn nights,
The ice-green light shall lie,
Beyond the trees the Northern Lights
Slant on the belts of sky.
But miles on miles from Scottish soil
You sleep, past war and scaith,
Your country's freedman, loosed from toil,
In honour and in faith.
For Angus held you in her spell,
Her Grampians, faint and blue,
Her ways, the speech you knew so well,
Were half the world to you.
Yet rest, my son; our souls are those
Nor time nor death can part,
And lie you proudly, folded close
To France's deathless heart.
Nursery Rhyme. DCXLI. Relics.
by Unknown

Parson Darby wore a black gown,
And every button cost half-a-crown;
From port to port, and toe to toe,
Turn the ship and away we go!
Verse
by Walter Savage Landor

Past ruin'd Ilion Helen lives,
Alcestis rises from the shades;
Verse calls them forth; 'tis verse that gives
Immortal youth to mortal maids.
Soon shall Oblivion's deepening veil
Hide all the peopled hills you see,
The gay, the proud, while lovers hail
These many summers you and me.
Sonnet CLXXVI.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Voglia mi sprona; Amor mi guida e scorge.
HE DESCRIBES HIS STATE, SPECIFYING THE DATE OF HIS ATTACHMENT.
Passion impels me, Love escorts and leads,
Pleasure attracts me, habits old enchain,
Hope with its flatteries comforts me again,
And, at my harass'd heart, with fond touch pleads.
Poor wretch! it trusts her still, and little heeds
The blind and faithless leader of our train;
Reason is dead, the senses only reign:
One fond desire another still succeeds.
Virtue and honour, beauty, courtesy,
With winning words and many a graceful way,
My heart entangled in that laurel sweet.
In thirteen hundred seven and twenty, I
--'Twas April, the first hour, on its sixth day--
Enter'd Love's labyrinth, whence is no retreat.
MACGREGOR.
By will impell'd, Love o'er my path presides;
By Pleasure led, o'ercome by Habit's reign,
Sweet Hope deludes, and comforts me again;
At her bright touch, my heart's despair subsides.
It takes her proffer'd hand, and there confides.
To doubt its blind disloyal guide were vain;
Each sense usurps poor Reason's broken rein;
On each desire, another wilder rides!
Grace, virtue, honour, beauty, words so dear,
Have twined me with that laurell'd bough, whose power
My heart hath tangled in its lab'rinth sweet:
The thirteen hundred twenty-seventh year,
The sixth of April's suns--in that first hour,
My entrance mark'd, whence I see no retreat.
WOLLASTON.
Wirers
by Siegfried Loraine Sassoon

"Pass it along, the wiring party's going out" - 
And yawning sentries mumble, "Wirers going out,"
Unravelling; twisting; hammering stakes with muffled thud,
They toil with stealthy haste and anger in their blood.
The Boche sends up a flare. Black forms stand rigid there,
Stock-still like posts; then darkness, and the clumsy ghosts
Stride hither and thither, whispering, tripped by clutching snare
Of snags and tangles.
Ghastly dawn with vaporous coasts
Gleams desolate along the sky, night's misery ended.
Young Hughes was badly hit; I heard him carried away,
Moaning at every lurch; no doubt he'll die to-day.
But we can say the front-line wire's been safely mended.
Pan, Echo, And The Satyr. From The Greek Of Moschus.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Pan loved his neighbour Echo - but that child
Of Earth and Air pined for the Satyr leaping;
The Satyr loved with wasting madness wild
The bright nymph Lyda, and so three went weeping.
As Pan loved Echo, Echo loved the Satyr,
The Satyr, Lyda; and so love consumed them. -
And thus to each - which was a woeful matter -
To bear what they inflicted Justice doomed them;
For, inasmuch as each might hate the lover,
Each, loving, so was hated. - Ye that love not
Be warned - in thought turn this example over,
That when ye love, the like return ye prove not.
Unrequited
by Madison Julius Cawein

Passion? not hers! who held me with pure eyes:
One hand among the deep curls of her brow,
I drank the girlhood of her gaze with sighs:
She never sighed, nor gave me kiss or vow.
So have I seen a clear October pool,
Cold, liquid topaz, set within the sere
Gold of the woodland, tremorless and cool,
Reflecting all the heartbreak of the year.
Sweetheart? not she! whose voice was music-sweet;
Whose face loaned language to melodious prayer.
Sweetheart I called her. When did she repeat
Sweet to one hope, or heart to one despair!
So have I seen a wildflower's fragrant head
Sung to and sung to by a longing bird;
And at the last, albeit the bird lay dead,
No blossom wilted, for it had not heard.
Upon Paske, A Draper.
by Robert Herrick

Paske, though his debt be due upon the day
Demands no money by a craving way;
For why, says he, all debts and their arrears
Have reference to the shoulders, not the ears.
The End Of His Work.
by Robert Herrick

Part of the work remains; one part is past:
And here my ship rides, having anchor cast.
Nursery Rhyme. CLXIX. Songs.
by Unknown

[Song on the bells of Derby on foot-ball morning, a custom now discontinued:]
Pancakes and fritters,
Say All Saints and St. Peters;
When will the ball come,
Say the bells of St. Alkmun;
At two they will throw,
Says Saint Werabo;
O! very well,
Says little Michel.
Mary McNeely
by Edgar Lee Masters

Passer-By,
To love is to find your own soul
Through the soul of the beloved one.
When the beloved one withdraws itself from your soul
Then you have lost your soul.
It is written: "l have a friend,
But my sorrow has no friend."
Hence my long years of solitude at the home of my father,
Trying to get myself back,
And to turn my sorrow into a supremer self.
But there was my father with his sorrows,
Sitting under the cedar tree,
A picture that sank into my heart at last
Bringing infinite repose.
Oh, ye souls who have made life
Fragrant and white as tube roses
From earth's dark soil,
Eternal peace!
To A Fighter, Dead.
by Margaret Steele Anderson

Pass, pass, you fiery spirit! Never bland
And halting never! Hosted round to-night,
At the great wall, with spears of lifted light,
Held by embattled seraphim, who stand
To greet their friend, their comrade, and their own!
Doubtless, spirit made for burning war.
Doubtless your God has need of you afar.
To lead, for Him, some heav'nly fight and lone.
And therefore knights you, thus, before the throne!
The Seven Ages of Wise
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

Parliament's a stage,
And all the Politicians merely players!
They have their exits and entrances,
And Wise doth in his time play many parts,
His acts being seven changes.
First the Runner,
With spiked shoe he spurns the cinder track,
And just for once runs straight.
The next the Student,
Burning the midnight oil with Adam Smith
For Cobden Medals.
Next the youthful member,
With shining morning face, creeping between
Two seasoned leaders into place and power
Before his whiskers grow.
The next the bravo.
Jealous of greater men, he cries, "Ha, Ha!
Beware Bernardo's dagger!", and would strike
His friend i' th' back.
Then come a sudden change.
Once more a child, he comes with quick-turned coat,
New friends, new doctrines, and new principles,
Lets Friedman loose, and wrecks the Government.
Then leads the horny-handed sons of toil
By many a specious promise to their doom
In Arbitration Courts.
Last scene of all,
That ends this strange, disastrous history.
He aims at Judgeships and Commissionerships,
But, failing, passes on to mere oblivion.
Sans place, sans power, sans pay, sans everything.
Destiny.
by Emma Lazarus

1856.
Paris, from throats of iron, silver, brass,
Joy-thundering cannon, blent with chiming bells,
And martial strains, the full-voiced paean swells.
The air is starred with flags, the chanted mass
Throngs all the churches, yet the broad streets swarm
With glad-eyed groups who chatter, laugh, and pass,
In holiday confusion, class with class,
And over all the spring, the sun-floods warm!
In the Imperial palace that March morn,
The beautiful young mother lay and smiled;
For by her side just breathed the Prince, her child,
Heir to an empire, to the purple born,
Crowned with the Titan's name that stirs the heart
Like a blown clarion - one more Bonaparte.
The Void
by Charles Baudelaire

Pascal had his Void that went with him day and night.
Alas! It's all Abyss, action, longing, dream,
the Word! And I feel Panic's storm-wind stream
through my hair, and make it stand upright.
Above, below, around, the desert, the deep,
the silence, the fearful compelling spaces...
With his knowing hand, in my dark, God traces
a multi-formed nightmare without release.
I fear sleep as one fears a deep hole,
full of vague terror. Where to, who knows?
I see only infinity at every window,
and my spirit haunted by vertigo's stress
envies the stillness of Nothingness.
Ah! Never to escape from Being and Number!
Saint Distaff's Day, Or The Morrow After Twelfth Day.
by Robert Herrick

Partly work and partly play
Ye must on S. Distaff's day:
From the plough soon free your team,
Then come home and fodder them.
If the maids a-spinning go,
Burn the flax and fire the tow;
Scorch their plackets, but beware
That ye singe no maidenhair.
Bring in pails of water, then,
Let the maids bewash the men.
Give S. Distaff all the right,
Then bid Christmas sport good-night;
And next morrow everyone
To his own vocation.
To God.
by Robert Herrick

Pardon me, God, once more I Thee entreat,
That I have placed Thee in so mean a seat
Where round about Thou seest but all things vain,
Uncircumcis'd, unseason'd and profane.
But as Heaven's public and immortal eye
Looks on the filth, but is not soil'd thereby,
So Thou, my God, may'st on this impure look,
But take no tincture from my sinful book:
Let but one beam of glory on it shine,
And that will make me and my work divine.
Passing Events.
by John Hartley

Passing events, - tell, what are they I pray?
Are they some novelty? - Nay, nay, nay!
Ever since the world its course began,
Since the breath of life was breathed into man,
Still rolling on with the wane of time,
Through every nation, in every clime;
In every spot where man has his home,
Ever they long for events to come.
Hours or days or years it may be,
Before hopes realization they see;
And no sooner it comes than it hastes away,
And others rush after no longer to stay.
And there scarcely is time to know its in sight,
E'er its found to be leaving with marvellous flight,
And what had been longed for with eager intent,
Is chronicled but as a passing event.
Hope's joys are uncertain; - anxiety rules,
Expectancy's paradise, peopled by fools;
And the present has oft so much bustle and care,
That the joys spread around we have no time to share.
He is surer of peace who leaves future to fate,
And the present joy snatches before it's too late;
But he's safest by far, who in mem'ry holds fast,
The sweet tastes and joys of events that are past.
Sonnets From The Portuguese XXXVII
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make
Of all that strong divineness which I know
For thine and thee, an image only so
Formed of the sand, and fit to shift and break.
It is that distant years which did not take
Thy sovranty, recoiling with a blow,
Have forced my swimming brain to undergo
Their doubt and dread, and blindly to forsake
Thy purity of likeness and distort
Thy worthiest love to a worthless counterfeit.
As if a shipwrecked Pagan, safe in port,
His guardian sea-god to commemorate,
Should set a sculptured porpoise, gills a-snort
And vibrant tail, within the temple-gate.
Song.
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

Pass thy hand through my hair, lore;
One little year ago,
In a curtain bright and rare, love,
It fell golden o'er my brow.
But the gold has passed away, love,
And the drooping curls are thin,
And cold threads of wintry gray, love,
Glitter their folds within:
How should this be, in one short year?
It is not age - can it be care?
Fasten thine eyes on mine, love;
One little year ago,
Midsummer's sunny shine, love,
Had not a warmer glow.
But the light is there no more, love,
Save in melancholy gleams,
Like wan moonlight wand'ring o'er, love,
Dim lands in troubled dreams:
How should this be, in one short year?
It is not age - can it be care?
Lay thy cheek to my cheek, love,
One little year ago
It was ripe, and round, and sleek, love,
As the autumn peaches grow.
But the rosy hue has fled, love,
Save a flush that goes and comes,
Like a flow'r born from the dead, love,
And blooming over tombs:
How should this be, in one short year?
It is not age - can it be care?
Responsibilities
by William Butler Yeats

Pardon, old fathers, if you still remain
Somewhere in ear-shot for the story's end,
Old Dublin merchant "free of the ten and four"
Or trading out of Galway into Spain;
Old country scholar, Robert Emmet's friend,
A hundred-year-old memory to the poor;
Merchant and scholar who have left me blood
That has not passed through any huckster's loin,
Soldiers that gave, whatever die was cast:
A Butler or an Armstrong that withstood
Beside the brackish waters of the Boyne
James and his Irish when the Dutchman crossed;
Old merchant skipper that leaped overboard
After a ragged hat in Biscay Bay;
You most of all, silent and fierce old man,
Because the daily spectacle that stirred
My fancy, and set my boyish lips to say,
"Only the wasteful virtues earn the sun";
Pardon that for a barren passion's sake,
Although I have come close on forty-nine,
I have no child, I have nothing but a book,
Nothing but that to prove your blood and mine.
Griggsby's Station
by James Whitcomb Riley

Pap's got his patent-right, and rich is all creation;
But where's the peace and comfort that we all had before?
Le's go a-visitin' back to Griggsby's Station -
Back where we ust to be so happy and so pore!
The likes of us a-livin' here! It's jest a mortal pity
To see us in this great big house, with cyarpets on the stairs,
And the pump right in the kitchen! And the city! City! City
And nothin' but the city all around us ever'wheres!
Climb clean above the roof and look from the steeple,
And never see a robin, nor a beech or ellum tree!
And right here in ear-shot of at least a thousan' people,
And none that neighbors with us or we want to go and see!
Le's go a-visitin' back to Griggsby's Station -
Back where the latch-strings a-hangin' from the door,
And ever' neighbor round the place is dear as a relation -
Back where we ust to be so happy and so pore!
I want to see the Wiggenses, the whole kit-and-bilin',
A-drivin' up from Shallor Ford to stay the Sunday through;
And I want to see 'em hitchin' at their son-in-law's and pilin'
Out there at 'Lizy Ellen's like they ust to do!
I want to see the piece-quilts the Jones girls is makin';
And I want to pester Laury 'bout their freckled hired hand,
And joke her 'bout the widower she come purt' nigh a-takin',
Till her Pap got his pension 'lowed in time to save his land.
Le's go a-visitin' back to Griggsby's Station -
Back where they's nothin' aggervatin' any more,
Shet away safe in the woods around the old location -
Back where we ust to be so happy and so pore!
I want to see Marindy and he'p her with her sewin',
And hear her talk so lovin' of her man that's dead and gone,
And stand up with Emanuel to show me how he's growin',
And smile as I have saw her 'fore she putt her mournin' on.
And I want to see the Samples, on the old lower eighty,
Where John, our oldest boy, he was tuk and burried - for
His own sake and Katy's, and I want to cry with Katy
As she reads all his letters over, writ from The War.
What's in all this grand life and high situation,
And nary pink nor hollyhawk a-bloomin' at the door?
Le's go a-visitin' back to Griggsby's Station -
Back where we ust to be so happy and so pore!
Upon Parrat.
by Robert Herrick

Parrat protests 'tis he, and only he
Can teach a man the art of memory:
Believe him not; for he forgot it quite,
Being drunk, who 'twas that can'd his ribs last night.
Introductory Rhymes
by William Butler Yeats

Pardon, old fathers, if you still remain
Somewhere in ear-shot for the story's end,
Old Dublin merchant 'free of ten and four'
Or trading out of Galway into Spain;
And country scholar, Robert Emmet's friend,
A hundred-year-old memory to the poor;
Traders or soldiers who have left me blood
That has not passed through any huxter's loin,
Pardon, and you that did not weigh the cost,
Old Butlers when you took to horse and stood
Beside the brackish waters of the Boyne
Till your bad master blenched and all was lost;
You merchant skipper that leaped overboard
After a ragged hat in Biscay Bay,
You most of all, silent and fierce old man
Because you were the spectacle that stirred
My fancy, and set my boyish lips to say
'Only the wastful virtues earn the sun';
Pardon that for a barren passion's sake,
Although I have come close on forty-nine
I have no child, I have nothing but a book,
Nothing but that to prove your blood and mine.
Them Old Cheery Words
by James Whitcomb Riley

Pap he allus ust to say,
"Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
Liked to hear him that-a-way,
In his old split-bottomed cheer
By the fireplace here at night -
Wood all in, - and room all bright,
Warm and snug, and folks all here:
"Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
Me and 'Lize, and Warr'n and Jess
And Eldory home fer two
Weeks' vacation; and, I guess,
Old folks tickled through and through,
Same as we was, - "Home onc't more
Fer another Chris'mus - shore!"
Pap 'u'd say, and tilt his cheer, -
"Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
Mostly Pap was ap' to be
Ser'ous in his "daily walk,"
As he called it; giner'ly
Was no hand to joke er talk.
Fac's is, Pap had never be'n
Rugged-like at all - and then
Three years in the army had
Hepped to break him purty bad.
Never flinched! but frost and snow
Hurt his wownd in winter. But
You bet Mother knowed it, though! -
Watched his feet, and made him putt
On his flannen; and his knee,
Where it never healed up, he
Claimed was "well now - mighty near -
Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
"Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
Pap 'u'd say, and snap his eyes ...
Row o' apples sputter'n' here
Round the hearth, and me and 'Lize
Crackin' hicker'-nuts; and Warr'n
And Eldory parchin' corn;
And whole raft o' young folks here.
"Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
Mother tuk most comfort in
Jest a-heppin' Pap: She'd fill
His pipe fer him, er his tin
O' hard cider; er set still
And read fer him out the pile
O' newspapers putt on file
Whilse he was with Sherman - (She
Knowed the whole war-history!)
Sometimes he'd git het up some. -
"Boys," he'd say, "and you girls, too,
Chris'mus is about to come;
So, as you've a right to do,
Celebrate it! Lots has died,
Same as Him they crucified,
That you might be happy here.
Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
Missed his voice last Chris'mus - missed
Them old cheery words, you know.
Mother belt up tel she kissed
All of us - then had to go
And break down! And I laughs: "Here!
'Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
"Them's his very words," sobbed she,
"When he asked to marry me."
"Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
"Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
Over, over, still I hear,
"Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
Yit, like him, I'm goin' to smile
And keep cheerful all the while:
Allus Chris'mus There - And here
"Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
To A Friend - On The Banks Of The Derwent
by William Wordsworth

Pastor and Patriot! at whose bidding rise
These modest walls, amid a flock that need,
For one who comes to watch them and to feed,
A fixed Abode, keep down presageful sighs.
Threats, which the unthinking only can despise,
Perplex the Church; but be thou firm, be true
To thy first hope, and this good work pursue,
Poor as thou art. A welcome sacrifice
Dost Thou prepare, whose sign will be the smoke
Of thy new hearth; and sooner shall its wreaths,
Mounting while earth her morning incense breathes,
From wandering fiends of air receive a yoke,
And straightway cease to aspire, than God disdain
This humble tribute as ill-timed or vain.
Peace Should Not Come
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Peace should not come along this foul, earth way.
Peace should not come, until we cleanse the path.
God waited for us; now in awful wrath
He pours the blood of men out day by day
To purify the highroad for her feet.
Why, what would Peace do, in a world where hearts
Are filled with thoughts like poison-pointed darts?
It were not meet, surely it were not meet
For Peace to come, and with her white robes hide
These industries of death - these guns and swords, - 
These uniformed, hate-filled, destructive hordes, - 
These hideous things, that are each nation's pride.
So long as men believe in armed might
Let arms be brandished.    Let not Peace be sought
Until the race-heart empties out all thought
Of blows and blood, as arguments for Right.
The world has never had enough of war,
Else war were not.    Now let the monster stand,
Until he slays himself with his own hand;
Though no man knows what he is fighting for.
Then in the place where wicked cannons stood
Let Peace erect her shrine of Brotherhood.
Peek-A-Boo
by William F. Kirk

"Peek-a-boo!" say little Olaf.
"Yu can't find me. Ay ban hid."
Den ay used to look all over
For my little blue-eyed kid.
Op in attic, down in cellar,
Back of chairs on parlor floor;
Den he used to laugh, and tal me,
"Ay ban back of kitchen door."
"Peek-a-boo!" he used to tal me.
"Shut yure eyes, and don't you peek!"
Den ay feel his arms around me
And his kisses on my cheek.
"Now ay'm hiding, dad," he tal me!
"Maybe, ef you look some more,
Yu skol find yure little Olaf - 
Ay ban back of kitchen door."
"Peek-a-boo!" ay hear him calling,
Lak he called long time ago.
Var ban little Olaf hiding?
Maybe anyel fallers know.
Tousand times ay look to find him
Hiding back of kitchen door,
But ay only see some shadows:
Ay can't find him any more.
The Transvaal
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Patience, long sick to death, is dead. Too long
Have sloth and doubt and treason bidden us be
What Cromwell's England was not, when the sea
To him bore witness given of Blake how strong
She stood, a commonweal that brooked no wrong
From foes less vile than men like wolves set free
Whose war is waged where none may fight or flee
With women and with weanlings. Speech and song
Lack utterance now for loathing. Scarce we hear
Foul tongues that blacken God's dishonoured name
With prayers turned curses and with praise found shame
Defy the truth whose witness now draws near
To scourge these dogs, agape with jaws afoam,
Down out of life. Strike, England, and strike home.