DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Toronto
by Paul Cameron Brown

In Toronto, trendy bars absolutely must have a theme
or at least end in "S". It's an unspoken rule. In-spots
(notice the "S" again) recall the Lost Generation:
Garbo's, Hector's, Lucille's; though less thematically
inclined imbibers can indulge at plain sounding
Sammy's/Charlies...
The really jaded seek refuge at the Parrot or Madcaps
which more than suffice: while those seeking purity in
their draught can take consolation at the common
Brunswick or Molley's.
There's even a Barbary Coast for privateers.
While on the subject of Exotica, Magoos or the Kon
Tiki infuse that Tahitian feeling. For the medic middle
of the road cum professional, it'a basic Malloneys,
Eroticism is both underlying and apparently felt in the
lush decor of Hemingways or, in the obviously
suggestive supple Fingers.
Money could be added to Kissinger's aphorism power
is the ultimate aphrodisiac, Certainly, the jaded or
those otherwise afflicted with ennui and creeping
malaise have a whole city as their ripe oyster. And
what was that Montrealers say of Toronto?
Quennelles. Lady of the Gold Horse wilh Diamond
Eyes. A bottle of Napoleon brandy for the Count and
two Persian lions carved in wood.
Salads Nicoise.
Dinners at Pre Catalan in the Bois, a Toronto
equivalent. A girl named Chantilly burning charcoal
in the forest. I drank a cocktail with the girl of the
white polo coat. Or as the cynic said,my pipe is the
tent, the tobacco the days of my life.
To Miss  -  -
by Thomas Frederick Young

In tracing here these lines, my friend,
Which spring from friendly heart,
I here record an earnest wish,
For thee, before we part:
May health and happiness serene,
Long, long with thee abide,
May youthful joys no sorrow bring,
Nor future woes betide.
And when thy youthful beauty leaves,
And youthful thoughts thy breast,
May thou in calm old age still live,
In happiness and rest.
Port Stanley.
by James McIntyre

In winter time 'tis sad and dreary
For to gaze on stormy Erie,
But here in summer time this port
It is a fashionable resort,
For then it is always cheery
For to gaze upon Lake Erie.
Or on the steamer you can sail
All independent of the gale,
Or here the youth can ply the oar
And view the fast receding shore,
And be happy with his dearie
On the bosom of Lake Erie.
No one here need ever weary
On the borders of Lake Erie,
With quadrille parties at Stanley
And games and sports all so manly,
Or bathe in waves with friends near thee,
You fear no storms of Lake Erie.
The Sea Maid
by John Le Gay Brereton

In what pearl-paven mossy cave
By what green sea
Art thou reclining, virgin of the wave,
In realms more full of splendid mystery
Than that strong northern flood whence came
The rise and fall of music in thy name
Thy waiting name, Oithona!
The magic of the sea's own change
In depth and height,
From where the eternal order'd billows range
To unknown regions of sleep-weary night,
Fills, like a wonder-waking spell
Whispered by lips of some lone-murmuring shell,
Thy dreaming soul, Oithona.
In gladness of thy reverie
What gracious form
Will fly the errand of our love to thee,
By ways with winged messengers aswarm
Through dawn of opalescent skies,
To say the time is come and bid thee rise
And be our child, Oithona?
In Vision I Roamed
by Thomas Hardy

In vision I roamed the flashing Firmament,
So fierce in blazon that the Night waxed wan,
As though with an awed sense of such ostent;
And as I thought my spirit ranged on and on
In footless traverse through ghast heights of sky,
To the last chambers of the monstrous Dome,
Where stars the brightest here to darkness die:
Then, any spot on our own Earth seemed Home!
And the sick grief that you were far away
Grew pleasant thankfulness that you were near?
Who might have been, set on some outstep sphere,
Less than a Want to me, as day by day
I lived unware, uncaring all that lay
Locked in that Universe taciturn and drear.
1866.
The Bird's Nest. (From The Villager's Verse-Book.)
by William Lisle Bowles

In yonder brake there is a nest;
But come not, George, too nigh,
Lest the poor mother, frightened thence,
Should leave her young, and fly!
Think with what pain, for many a day,
Soft moss and straw she brought;
And let our own dear mother's care
Be present to our thought.
And think how must her heart deplore,
And droop with grief and pain,
If those she reared, and nursed, and loved,
She ne'er should see again.
Kubla Khan
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me
That with music loud and long
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Port Burwell.
by James McIntyre

The following lines were given at a concert when Port Burwell was a busy port and there had been a race on the ice the day before.
In winter time who here resort,
To pay a visit to your busy port,
They must be clad in fur well,
For it blows cold at Burwell;
But when you wish to trot your horse
You make Lake Erie your race course,
And we believe at every heat
All other horses you do beat.
Winter and Summer
by Oliver Herford

In Winter when the air is chill,
And winds are blowing loud and shrill,
All snug and warm I sit and purr,
Wrapped in my overcoat of fur.
In Summer quite the other way,
I find it very hot all day,
But Human People do not care,
For they have nice thin clothes to wear.
And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the world is like a stew,
And I am much too warm to purr,
I have to wear my Winter Fur?
The Descent Of Dullness
by Alexander Pope

[From the 'Dunciad', Book IV]
In vain, in vain--the all-composing Hour
Resistless falls: the Muse obeys the Pow'r.
She comes! she comes! the sable Throne behold
Of Night prim'val and of Chaos old!
Before her, Fancy's gilded clouds decay,
And all its varying Rain-bows die away.
Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires,
The meteor drops, and in a flash expires.
As one by one, at dread Medea's strain,
The sick'ning stars fade off th' ethereal plain;
As Argus' eyes by Hermes' wand opprest,
Clos'd one by one to everlasting rest;
Thus at her felt approach, and secret might,
Art after Art goes out, and all is Night.
See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled,
Mountains of Casuistry heap'd o'er her head!
Philosophy, that lean'd on Heav'n before,
Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more.
Physic of Metaphysic begs defence,
And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense!
See Mystery to Mathematics fly!
In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die.
Religion blushing veils her sacred fires,
And unawares Morality expires.
For public Flame, nor private, dares to shine;
Nor human Spark is left, nor Glimpse divine!
Lo! thy dread Empire, CHAOS! is restor'd;
Light dies before thy uncreating word;
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall,
And universal Darkness buries All.
A Phantom
by Charles Baudelaire

I. The Blackness
In vaults of fathomless obscurity
Where Destiny has sentenced me for life;
Where cheerful rosy beams may never shine;
Where, living with that sullen hostess, Night,
I am an artist that a mocking God
Condemns, alas! to paint the gloom itself;
Where like a cook with ghoulish appetite
I boil and devour my own heart,
Sometimes there sprawls, and stretches out, and glows
A splendid ghost, of a surpassing charm,
And when this vision growing in my sight
In oriental languor, like a dream,
Is fully formed, I know the phantom's name:
Yes, it is She! though black, yet full oflight.
II. The Perfume
During your lifetime, reader, have you breathed,
Slow-savouring to the point of dizziness,
That grain of incense which fills up a church,
Or the pervasive musk of a sachet?
Magical charm, in which the past restored
Intoxicates us with its presence here!
So from the body of his well-beloved
The lover plucks remembrance's bright bloom.
Out of the phantom's dense, resilient locks,
Living sachet, censer of the alcove,
Would rise an alien and tawny scent,
And all her clothes, of muslin or of plush,
Redolent as they were with her pure youth,
Released the soft perfume of thickest fur.
III. The Frame
Just as the frame adds to the painter's art,
Although the brush itself be highly praised,
A something that is captivating, strange,
Setting it off from all in nature else,
So jewels and metals, gildings, furnishings
Exactly fit her rich and rare appeal;
Nothing offends her perfect clarity,
And all would seem a frame for her display.
And one could say at times that she believed
Everything loved her, in that she would bathe
Freely, voluptuously, her nudity
In kisses of the linen and the silk,
And with each charming movement, slow or quick,
Display a cunning monkey's childlike grace.
IV. The Portrait
Disease and Death make only dust and ash
Of all the fire that blazed so bright for us.
Of those great eyes so tender and so warm,
Of this mouth where my heart has drowned itself,
Of kisses puissant as a healing balm,
Of transports more intense than flaring light,
What now remains? Appalling, o my soul!
Only a fading sketch in three pale tones,
Like me, dying away in solitude,
And which Time, that maleficent old man,
Each day rubs over with his churlish wing ...
Time, you black murderer of Life and Art,
You'll never kill her in my memory -
Not She, who was my pleasure and my pride!
To A Friend.
by Thomas Frederick Young

In years to come, when looking o'er
These lines I've penn'd for thee,
I trust that thou shalt ne'er have cause
To think unkind of me.
And if you have, let memory
Try hard to blunt the dart,
And tho' I may deserve the blame,
Let kindness soothe the smart.
Amherst Island
by Paul Cameron Brown

In winter, you were
a flash of light,
tundra against
Arctic floor
Warm breath
stirred yr
summer's breast
and I saw
windblown hair
the colour of kelp
transfix
the lavender print
of a scalp strewn
shore
Later,
tiny bits
from
a calico dress
became domiciled wings
off butterflies,
miniature bitterns
ever more shadowy
strewn across the Barrens,
an unbridled strength from that
Faraway isle released to orchestrate sunlight
amongst all colonies that flower - 
a statuesque Red Admiral,
Banded Purple,
feckless Comma
all aswirl to the
pipes of a Devil's Paintbrush,
stranded drumfish, sage,
and tubercular ragwort
The Best Pipe
by Robert Fuller Murray

In vain you fervently extol,
In vain you puff, your cutty clay.
A twelvemonth smoked and black as coal,
'Tis redolent of rank decay
And bones of monks long passed away--
A fragrance I do not admire;
And so I hold my nose and say,
Give me a finely seasoned briar.
Macleod, whose judgment on the whole
Is faultless, has been led astray
To nurse a high-born meerschaum bowl,
For which he sweetly had to pay.
Ah, let him nurse it as he may,
Before the colour mounts much higher,
The grate shall be its fate one day.
Give me a finely seasoned briar.
The heathen Turk of Istamboul,
In oriental turban gay,
Delights his unbelieving soul
With hookahs, bubbling in a way
To fill a Christian with dismay
And wake the old Crusading fire.
May no such pipe be mine, I pray;
Give me a finely seasoned briar.
Clay, meerschaum, hookah, what are they
That I should view them with desire?
Both now, and when my hair is grey,
Give me a finely seasoned briar.
A Spot
by Thomas Hardy

In years defaced and lost,
Two sat here, transport-tossed,
Lit by a living love
The wilted world knew nothing of:
Scared momently
By gaingivings,
Then hoping things
That could not be.
Of love and us no trace
Abides upon the place;
The sun and shadows wheel,
Season and season sereward steal;
Foul days and fair
Here, too, prevail,
And gust and gale
As everywhere.
But lonely shepherd souls
Who bask amid these knolls
May catch a faery sound
On sleepy noontides from the ground:
"O not again
Till Earth outwears
Shall love like theirs
Suffuse this glen!"
The High-Born Ladye.
by Thomas Moore

In vain all the Knights to the Underwald wooed her,
Tho' brightest of maidens, the proudest was she;
Brave chieftains they sought, and young minstrels they sued her,
But worthy were none of the high-born Ladye.
"Whosoever I wed," said this maid, so excelling,
"That Knight must the conqueror of conquerors be;
"He must place me in halls fit for monarchs to dwell in:--
"None else shall be Lord of the high-born Ladye!
Thus spoke the proud damsel, with scorn looking round her
On Knights and on Nobles of highest degree;
Who humbly and hopelessly left as they found her,
And worshipt at distance the high-born Ladye.
At length came a Knight, from a far land to woo her,
With plumes on his helm like the foam of the sea;
His visor was down--but, with voice that thrilled thro her,
He whispered his vows to the high-born Ladye.
"Proud maiden! I come with high spousals to grace thee,
"In me the great conqueror of conquerors see;
"Enthroned in a hall fit for monarchs I'll place thee,
"And mine, thou'rt for ever, thou high-born Ladye!"
The maiden she smiled, and in jewels arrayed her,
Of thrones and tiaras already dreamt she;
And proud was the step, as her bridegroom conveyed her
In pomp to his home, of that highborn Ladye.
"But whither," she, starting, exclaims, "have you, led me?
"Here's naught but a tomb and a dark cypress tree;
"Is this the bright palace in which thou wouldst wed me?"
With scorn in her glance said the high-born Ladye.
"Tis the home," he replied, "of earth's loftiest creatures"--
Then lifted his helm for the fair one to see;
But she sunk on the ground--'twas a skeleton's features
And Death was the Lord of the high-born Ladye!
Klopstock And Wieland.
by Friedrich Schiller

(WHEN THEIR MINIATURES WERE HANGING SIDE BY SIDE.)
In truth, when I have crossed dark Lethe's river,
The man upon the right I'll love forever,
For 'twas he first that wrote for me.
For all the world the left man wrote, full clearly,
And so we all should love him dearly;
Come, left man! I must needs kiss thee!
The Vale Of Thames.
by James McIntyre

In vale of Thames oft' times are seen
The cattle graze 'mong sweetest green,
Or there contented with their fate
The gentle cows do ruminate.
And enjoy a double pleasure
In re-chewing hidden treasure,
The cow is a kindly creature,
Kind and pleasant in each feature.
About her is a homely charm,
And her the dog should not alarm,
But let all safe guard her from harm,
The gentlest creature on the farm.
Granite.
by Joseph Victor von Scheffel

In unterirdischer Kammer
Sprach grollend der alte Granit:
'Da droben den w'ss'rigen Jammer
Den mach' ich jetzt l'nger nicht mit.'
In his lair subterranean, grumbling
Old Granite said: 'One thing is sure,
That slopping and slippery tumbling
Up yonder, no more I'll endure.
So wearily wallows the water
His billows of brine o'er the land,
'Stead of prouder and fairer and better
All is turning to slime and to sand.
'That would be a nice limestony cover,
A sweet geological swash,
If the coat of the wide world all over
Were one sedimentary wash.
By and by 'twill be myth and no true thing
What were hills - what was high or was low.
The deuce take their drifting and smoothing;
Hurrah! far eruption I go!'
So he spoke, and to aid him, pro rata,
The brave-hearted Porphyry flew,
The weak-hearted crystalline strata
He scornfully shattered in two.
With flashing and crashing and bellow,
As though the world's end were to dread,
Even Graywack, that decent old fellow,
In terror stood up on his head.
Also Stonecoal and Limestone and Trias
Fast vanished, internally mined.
Loud wailed in the Jura, the Lias,
That the wild fire had scorched him behind.
And Limestone, the marl-plot of chalkers,
Said later, in deep earnest chimes,
'Was there no one, to stop, 'mong you talkers,
This wild revolution betimes?'
But upwards through strata and fountains
Passed the conquering hero with heat,
Until from the sunniest mountains
He gazed on the world at his feet.
Then he shouted with yodling and singing,
'Hurrah! 'Twas courageously done,
Even we can be doing and bringing
What it only needs pluck to be won.'
Translated From The German Of Joseph Victor Scheffel By Charles G. Leland.
Nature's Labels. A Fragment.
by Thomas Moore

In vain we fondly strive to trace
The soul's reflection in the face;
In vain we dwell on lines and crosses,
Crooked mouth or short proboscis;
Boobies have looked as wise and bright
As Plato or the Stagirite:
And many a sage and learned skull
Has peeped through windows dark and dull.
Since then, though art do all it can,
We ne'er can reach the inward man,
Nor (howsoe'er "learned Thebans" doubt)
The inward woman, from without,
Methinks 'twere well if nature could
(And Nature could, if Nature would)
Some pithy, short descriptions write
On tablets large, in black and white,
Which she might hang about our throttles,
Like labels upon physic-bottles;
And where all men might read--but stay--
As dialectic sages say,
The argument most apt and ample
For common use is the example.
For instance, then, if Nature's care
Had not portrayed, in lines so fair,
The inward soul of Lucy Lindon.
This is the label she'd have pinned on.
LABEL FIRST.
Within this form there lies enshrined
The purest, brightest gem of mind.
Though Feeling's hand may sometimes throw
Upon its charms the shade of woe,
The lustre of the gem, when veiled,
Shall be but mellowed, not concealed.
*             *             *             *             *
Now, sirs, imagine, if you're able,
That Nature wrote a second label,
They're her own words--at least suppose so--
And boldly pin it on Pomposo.
LABEL SECOND.
When I composed the fustian brain
Of this redoubted Captain Vain.
I had at hand but few ingredients,
And so was forced to use expedients.
I put therein some small discerning,
A grain of sense, a grain of learning;
And when I saw the void behind,
I filled it up with--froth and wind!
Epigrams.
by Edmund Spenser

I*.
[* In the folio of 1611, these four short pieces are appended to the Sonnets. The second and third are translated from Marot's Epigrams, Liv. III. No. 5, De Diane, and No. 24, De Cupido et de sa Dame. C.]
In youth, before I waxed old,
The blynd boy, Venus baby,
For want of cunning, made me bold
In bitter hyve to grope for honny:
But when he saw me stung and cry,
He tooke his wings and away did fly.
II.
As Diane hunted on a day,
She chaunst to come where Cupid lay,
His quiver by his head:
One of his shafts she stole away,
And one of hers did close convay,
Into the others stead:
With that Love wounded my Loves hart,
But Diane, beasts with Cupids dart.
III.
I saw, in secret to my dame
How little Cupid humbly came,
And said to her, "All hayle, my mother!"
But when he saw me laugh, for shame
His face with bashfull blood did flame,
Not knowing Venus from the other.
"Then, never blush, Cupid," quoth I,
"For many have err'd in this beauty."
IV.
Upon a day, as Love lay sweetly slumbring
All in his mothers lap,
A gentle Bee, with his loud trumpet murm'ring,
About him flew by hap.
Whereof when he was wakened with the noyse,
And saw the beast so small,
"Whats this," quoth he, "that gives so great a voyce,
That wakens men withall?"
In angry wize he flies about,
And threatens all with corage stout.
To whom his mother, closely* smiling, sayd,
'Twixt earnest and 'twixt game:
"See! thou thy selfe likewise art lyttle made,
If thou regard the same.
And yet thou suffrest neyther gods in sky,
Nor men in earth, to rest:
But when thou art disposed cruelly,
Theyr sleepe thou doost molest.
Then eyther change thy cruelty,
Or give lyke leave unto the fly."
[* Closely, secretly.]
Nathelesse, the cruell boy, not so content,
Would needs the fly pursue,
And in his hand, with heedlesse hardiment,
Him caught for to subdue.
But when on it he hasty hand did lay,
The Bee him stung therefore.
"Now out, alas," he cryde, "and welaway!
I wounded am full sore.
The fly, that I so much did scorne,
Hath hurt me with his little horne."
Unto his mother straight he weeping came,
And of his griefe complayned;
Who could not chuse but laugh at his fond game,
Though sad to see him pained.
"Think now," quoth she, "my son, how great the smart
Of those whom thou dost wound:
Full many thou hast pricked to the hart,
That pitty never found.
Therefore, henceforth some pitty take,
When thou doest spoyle of lovers make."
She tooke him streight full pitiously lamenting,
She wrapt him softly, all the while repenting
That he the fly did mock.
She drest his wound, and it embaulmed well
With salve of soveraigne might;
And then she bath'd him in a dainty well,
The well of deare delight.
Who would not oft be stung as this,
To be so bath'd in Venus blis?
The wanton boy was shortly wel recured
Of that his malady;
But he soone after fresh again enured*
His former cruelty.
And since that time he wounded hath my selfe
With his sharpe dart of love,
And now forgets the cruell carelesse elfe
His mothers heast** to prove.
So now I languish, till he please
My pining anguish to appease.
[* Enured, practised.]
[** Heast, command.]