DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Ode - Inscribed To W.H. Channing
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Though loath to grieve
The evil time's sole patriot,
I cannot leave
My honied thought
For the priest's cant,
Or statesman's rant.
If I refuse
My study for their politique,
Which at the best is trick,
The angry Muse
Puts confusion in my brain.
But who is he that prates
Of the culture of mankind,
Of better arts and life?
Go, blindworm, go,
Behold the famous States
Harrying Mexico
With rifle and with knife!
Or who, with accent bolder,
Dare praise the freedom-loving mountaineer?
I found by thee, O rushing Contoocook!
And in thy valleys, Agiochook!
The jackals of the negro-holder.
The God who made New Hampshire
Taunted the lofty land
With little men;--
Small bat and wren
House in the oak:--
If earth-fire cleave
The upheaved land, and bury the folk,
The southern crocodile would grieve.
Virtue palters; Right is hence;
Freedom praised, but hid;
Funeral eloquence
Rattles the coffin-lid.
What boots thy zeal,
O glowing friend,
That would indignant rend
The northland from the south?
Wherefore? to what good end?
Boston Bay and Bunker Hill
Would serve things still;--
Things are of the snake.
The horseman serves the horse,
The neatherd serves the neat,
The merchant serves the purse,
The eater serves his meat;
'T is the day of the chattel,
Web to weave, and corn to grind;
Things are in the saddle,
And ride mankind.
There are two laws discrete,
Not reconciled,--
Law for man, and law for thing;
The last builds town and fleet,
But it runs wild,
And doth the man unking.
'T is fit the forest fall,
The steep be graded,
The mountain tunnelled,
The sand shaded,
The orchard planted,
The glebe tilled,
The prairie granted,
The steamer built.
Let man serve law for man;
Live for friendship, live for love,
For truth's and harmony's behoof;
The state may follow how it can,
As Olympus follows Jove.
Yet do not I implore
The wrinkled shopman to my sounding woods,
Nor bid the unwilling senator
Ask votes of thrushes in the solitudes.
Every one to his chosen work;--
Foolish hands may mix and mar;
Wise and sure the issues are.
Round they roll till dark is light,
Sex to sex, and even to odd;--
The over-god
Who marries Right to Might,
Who peoples, unpeoples,--
He who exterminates
Races by stronger races,
Black by white faces,--
Knows to bring honey
Out of the lion;
Grafts gentlest scion
On pirate and Turk.
The Cossack eats Poland,
Like stolen fruit;
Her last noble is ruined,
Her last poet mute:
Straight, into double band
The victors divide;
Half for freedom strike and stand;--
The astonished Muse finds thousands at her side.
How Thomas A Maid From A Dragon Released
by Guy Wetmore Carryl

Though Philip the Second
Of France was reckoned
No coward, his breath came short
When they told him a dragon
As big as a wagon
Was waiting below in the court!
A dragon so long, and so wide, and so fat,
That he couldn't get in at the door to chat:
The king couldn't leave him
Outside and grieve him,
He had to receive him
Upon the mat,
The dragon bowed nicely,
And very concisely
He stated the reason he'd called:
He made the disclosure
With frigid composure.
King Philip was simply appalled!
He demanded for eating, a fortnight apart,
The monarch's ten daughters, all dear to his heart.
"And now you'll produce," he
Concluded, "the juicy
And succulent Lucie
By way of start!"
King Philip was pliant,
And far from defiant
--"And servile," no doubt you retort!--
But if you struck a snag on
A bottle-green dragon,
Who filled up two-thirds of your court,
And curled up his tail on your new tin roof,
And made your piazza groan under his hoof,
Would you threaten and thunder,
Or just knuckle under
Completely, I wonder,
If put to proof?
By way of a truce, he
Brought out little Lucie
And watched her conducted away,
But all of the others
Were out with their brothers!
Thus gaining a little delay,
He promised through heralds sent west and east,
His crown, and his kingdom, and last, not least,
His daughter so sightly
To any one knightly
Who'd come and politely
Wipe out that beast!
For love of the charmer,
Arrayed in his armor,
Each suitor for glory who yearned,
Would gallantly hasten,
The dragon to chasten,
But none of them ever returned!
When the dragon had eaten some sixteen score
He hung up this sign on his cavern door,
Whereat he lay pronely
In majesty lonely:
+------------------------------+
There's Standing Room Only
For Three Knights More!
+------------------------------+
A slim adolescent,
His beard only crescent,
Rode up at this stage of the game
To where the old sinner
Lay gorged with his dinner,
And breathing out torrents of flame.
He gathered a tip from the flaunting sign,
And took his position the fourth in line,
Until, as foreboded,
By food incommoded,
The dragon exploded
At half-past nine.
The king was delighted
At first when he sighted
The victor, but then in dismay
Regretted his promise.
The stripling was Thomas,
His Majesty's valet-de-pied!
He asked him at once: "Will you compromise?"
But Thomas looked straight in his master's eyes,
And answered severely:
"I see your game clearly,
And scorn it sincerely.
Hand out the prize!"
Not long did he linger
Before on the finger
Of Lucie he fitted a ring:
A month or two later
They made him dictator,
In place of the elderly king:
He was lauded by pulpit, and boomed by press,
And no one had ever a chance to guess,
Beholding this hero
Who ruled like a Nero,
His valor was zero,
Or something less.
The Moral: And still from Nice to Calais
Discretion's the better part of--
--valets!
Were These The First Discoverers Of America?
by John Campbell

Milicete Legend Of The Ouangond', Or River St. John.
Though the ebbing ocean listens
To Ugond''s throbbing roar,
Calm the conquering flood-tide glistens
Where the river raved before. [1]
So the sea-brought strangers, stronger
Than their Indian foes of old,
Conquered, till were heard no longer
War-songs through the forests rolled.
Yet the land's wild stream, begotten
Where its Red Sons fought and died,
With traditions unforgotten
Strives to stem Oblivion's tide;
Tells the mighty, who, like ocean,
Whelm the native stream, how they
First in far dim days' commotion,
Wrestling, fought for empire's sway.
Hear the sad cascade, ere ever
Sinks in rising tides its moan,
True may be the tale, though never
By the victor ocean known.
Now the chant rings softly, finding
Freedom as the sea retires;
Loudly now, through spray-tears blinding
Throb and thunder silver lyres;
Silenced when the strong sea-water
To its great' heart, limitless,
Rising, takes the valley's daughter,
Soothes the song of her distress.
America To Russia (Songs Of Welcome And Farewell)
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Though watery deserts hold apart
The worlds of East and West,
Still beats the selfsame human heart
In each proud Nation's breast.
Our floating turret tempts the main
And dares the howling blast
To clasp more close the golden chain
That long has bound them fast.
In vain the gales of ocean sweep,
In vain the billows roar
That chafe the wild and stormy steep
Of storied Elsinore.
She comes! She comes! her banners dip
In Neva's flashing tide,
With greetings on her cannon's lip,
The storm-god's iron bride!
Peace garlands with the olive-bough
Her thunder-bearing tower,
And plants before her cleaving prow
The sea-foam's milk-white flower.
No prairies heaped their garnered store
To fill her sunless hold,
Not rich Nevada's gleaming ore
Its hidden caves infold,
But lightly as the sea-bird swings
She floats the depths above,
A breath of flame to lend her wings,
Her freight a people's love!
When darkness hid the starry skies
In war's long winter night,
One ray still cheered our straining eyes,
The far-off Northern light.
And now the friendly rays return
From lights that glow afar,
Those clustered lamps of Heaven that burn
Around the Western Star.
A nation's love in tears and smiles
We bear across the sea,
O Neva of the banded isles,
We moor our hearts in thee!
Melmillo
by Walter De La Mare

Three and thirty birds there stood
In an elder in a wood;
Called Melmillo - flew off three,
Leaving thirty in a tree;
Called Melmillo - nine now gone,
And the boughs held twenty-one;
Called Melmillo - eighteen
Left but three to nod and preen;
Called Melmillo - three - two - one - 
Now of birds were feathers none.
Then stole slim Melmillo in
To that wood all dusk and green,
And with lean long palms outspread
Softly a strange dance did tread;
Not a note of music she
Had for echoing company;
All the birds were flown to rest
In the hollow of her breast;
In the wood thorn, elder, willow - 
Danced alone - lone danced Melmillo.
Once Seen And No More.
by Robert Herrick

Thousands each day pass by, which we,
Once past and gone, no more shall see.
Silence
by James Whitcomb Riley

Thousands of thousands of hushed years ago,
Out on the edge of Chaos, all alone
I stood on peaks of vapor, high upthrown
Above a sea that knew nor ebb nor flow,
Nor any motion won of winds that blow,
Nor any sound of watery wail or moan,
Nor lisp of wave, nor wandering undertone
Of any tide lost in the night below.
So still it was, I mind me, as I laid
My thirsty ear against mine own faint sigh
To drink of that, I sipped it, half afraid
'Twas but the ghost of a dead voice spilled by
The one starved star that tottered through the shade
And came tiptoeing toward me down the sky.
A Portrait
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Thoughtful in youth, but not austere in age;
Calm, but not cold, and cheerful though a sage;
Too true to flatter and too kind to sneer,
And only just when seemingly severe;
So gently blending courtesy and art
That wisdom's lips seemed borrowing friendship's heart.
Taught by the sorrows that his age had known
In others' trials to forget his own,
As hour by hour his lengthened day declined,
A sweeter radiance lingered o'er his mind.
Cold were the lips that spoke his early praise,
And hushed the voices of his morning days,
Yet the same accents dwelt on every tongue,
And love renewing kept him ever young.
Doubt And Prayer
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Tho' Sin too oft, when smitten by Thy rod,
Rail at 'Blind Fate' with many a vain 'Alas''
From sin thro' sorrow into Thee we pass
By that same path our true forefathers trod;
And let not Reason fail me, nor the sod
Draw from my death Thy living flower and grass,
Before I learn that Love, which is, and was
My Father, and my Brother, and my God!
Steel me with patience! soften me with grief!
Let blow the trumpet strongly while I pray,
Till this embattled wall of unbelief
My prison, not my fortress, fall away!
Then, if Thou willest, let my day be brief,
So Thou wilt strike Thy glory thro' the day.
Nursery Rhyme. CCXLVIII. Charms.
by Unknown

Three crooked cripples went through Cripplegate, and through
Cripplegate went three crooked cripples.
A Christmas Carol 1
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Three damsels in the queen's chamber,
The queen's mouth was most fair;
She spake a word of God's mother
As the combs went in her hair.
Mary that is of might,
Bring us to thy Son's sight.
They held the gold combs out from her,
A span's length off her head;
She sang this song of God's mother
And of her bearing-bed.
Mary most full of grace,
Bring us to thy Son's face.
When she sat at Joseph's hand,
She looked against her side;
And either way from the short silk band
Her girdle was all wried.
Mary that all good may,
Bring us to thy Son's way.
Mary had three women for her bed,
The twain were maidens clean;
The first of them had white and red,
The third had riven green.
Mary that is so sweet,
Bring us to thy Son's feet.
She had three women for her hair,
Two were gloved soft and shod;
The third had feet and fingers bare,
She was the likest God.
Mary that wieldeth land,
Bring us to thy Son's hand.
She had three women for her ease,
The twain were good women:
The first two were the two Maries,
The third was Magdalen.
Mary that perfect is,
Bring us to thy Son's kiss.
Joseph had three workmen in his stall,
To serve him well upon;
The first of them were Peter and Paul,
The third of them was John.
Mary, God's handmaiden,
Bring us to thy Son's ken.
'If your child be none other man's,
But if it be very mine,
The bedstead shall be gold two spans,
The bedfoot silver fine.'
Mary that made God mirth,
Bring us to thy Son's birth.
'If the child be some other man's,
And if it be none of mine,
The manger shall be straw two spans,
Betwixen kine and kine.'
Mary that made sin cease,
Bring us to thy Son's peace.
Christ was born upon this wise,
It fell on such a night,
Neither with sounds of psalteries,
Nor with fire for light.
Mary that is God's spouse,
Bring us to thy Son's house.
The star came out upon the east
With a great sound and sweet:
Kings gave gold to make him feast
And myrrh for him to eat.
Mary, of thy sweet mood,
Bring us to thy Son's good.
He had two handmaids at his head,
One handmaid at his feet;
The twain of them were fair and red,
The third one was right sweet.
Mary that is most wise,
Bring us to thy Son's eyes. Amen.
God
by Walt Whitman

Thought of the Infinite - the All!
Be thou my God.
Lover Divine, and Perfect Comrade!
Waiting, content, invisible yet, but certain,
Be thou my God.
Thou - thou, the Ideal Man!
Fair, able, beautiful, content, and loving,
Complete in Body, and dilate in Spirit,
Be thou my God.
O Death - (for Life has served its turn;)
Opener and usher to the heavenly mansion!
Be thou my God.
Aught, aught, of mightiest, best, I see, conceive, or know,
(To break the stagnant tie - thee, thee to free, O Soul,)
Be thou my God.
Or thee, Old Cause, when'er advancing;
All great Ideas, the races' aspirations,
All that exalts, releases thee, my Soul!
All heroisms, deeds of rapt enthusiasts,
Be ye my Gods!
Or Time and Space!
Or shape of Earth, divine and wondrous!
Or shape in I myself - or some fair shape, I, viewing, worship,
Or lustrous orb of Sun, or star by night:
Be ye my Gods.
The Meeting (At The Student Meeting Of 1869)
by Bj'rnstjerne Martinius Bj'rnson

(See Note 38)
Thoughts toward one another coursing
To their pole must run,
Hearts that meet, all bonds are forcing,
Like the springtime sun.
Though to-day too heavy sorrow
Dull the mind of youth,
Higher on the meeting's morrow
Roll the tides of truth.
Though each man with courage fired
Hundreds forward bore,
Though a thousand died inspired,
There is need of more.
May a Northern Spring come blowing
Over wood and field,
Wake the hundred thousands, knowing
Meeting-hour revealed!
Hail! A Northern day is written
In the brightening sky;
Darksome dread, that erst had smitten,
Flees, now dawn is nigh.
After Gjallar-horn blasts hollow,
Tears and shame and blood,
As so often, now shall follow
Full the spirit's flood.
In our people's life deep-seated
This is felt each day:
Who grows stronger when defeated,
Victor stands for aye.
Our Spring-meeting's fullness swells now,
Bearing prophecy
Of the Spring whose hope upwells now:
Hail, the Northern three!
Three blind mice
by Helen Beatrix Potter

Three blind mice, three blind mice,
See how they run!
They all run after the farmer's wife,
And she cut off their tails with a carving knife,
Did you ever see such a thing in your life
As three blind mice!
Love, Not Duty
by Arthur Hugh Clough

Thought may well be ever ranging,
And opinion ever changing,
Task-work be, though ill begun,
Dealt with by experience better;
By the law and by the letter
Duty done is duty done
Do it, Time is on the wing!
Hearts, 'tis quite another thing,
Must or once for all be given,
Or must not at all be given;
Hearts, 'tis quite another thing!
To bestow the soul away
Is an idle duty-play!
Why, to trust a life-long bliss
To caprices of a day,
Scarce were more depraved than this!
Men and maidens, see you mind it;
Show of love, where'er you find it,
Look if duty lurk behind it!
Duty-fancies, urging on
Whither love had never gone!
Loving if the answering breast
Seem not to be thus possessed,
Still in hoping have a care;
If it do, beware, beware!
But if in yourself you find it,
Above all things mind it, mind it!
Three Children
by Walter Crane

1.
Three children sliding on the ice,
All on a summer's day,
As it fell out, they all fell in,
The rest they ran away.
2.
Now, had these children been at home,
Or sliding on dry ground,
Ten thousand pounds to one penny,
They had not all been drowned.
3.
You parents all that children have,
And you that have got none,
If you would have them safe abroad,
Pray keep them safe at home.
On The Ladies Of Pixton
by Hilaire Belloc

Three Graces; and the mother were a Grace,
But for profounder meaning in her face.
Nursery Rhyme. CCCLXIII. Paradoxes.
by Unknown

[The following was sung to the tune of Chevy Chase. It was taken from a poetical tale in the 'Choyce Poems,' 12mo, London, 1662, the music to which may be seen in D'Urfey's 'Pills to Purge Melancholy,' 1719, vol. iv, p. 1.]
Three children sliding on the ice
Upon a summer's day,
As it fell out, they all fell in,
The rest they ran away.
Now had these children been at home,
Or sliding on dry ground,
Ten thousand pounds to one penny,
They had not all been drown'd.
You parents all that children have,
And you that have got none,
If you would have them safe abroad,
Pray keep them safe at home.
Sonnet.
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

Though thou return unto the former things,
Fields, woods, and gardens, where thy feet have strayed
In other days, and not a bough, branch, blade
Of tree, or meadow, but the same appears
As when thou lovedst them in former years,
They shall not seem the same; the spirit brings
Change from the inward, though the outward be
E'en as it was, when thou didst weep to see
It last, and spak'st that prophecy of pain,
"Farewell!    I shall not look on ye again!"
And so thou never didst - no, though e'en now
Thine eyes behold all they so loved of yore,
The Thou that did behold them then, no more
Lives in this world, it is another Thou.
Prefatory. to Proverbial Philosophy
by Martin Farquhar Tupper

Thoughts, that have tarried in my mind, and peopled its inner chambers,
The sober children of reason, or desultory train of fancy;
Clear-running wine of conviction, with the scum and the lees of speculation;
Corn from the sheaves of science, with stubble from mine own garner:
Searchings after Truth, that have tracked her secret lodes.
And come up again to the surface-world, with a know-ledge grounded deeper;
Arguments of high scope, that have soared to the key-stone of heaven.
And thence have swooped to their certain mark, as the falcon to its quarry;
The fruits I have gathered of prudence, the ripened harvest of my musings.
These commend I unto thee, docile scholar of Wisdom,
These I give to thy gentle heart, thou lover of the right.
What, though a guilty man renew that hallowed theme.
Aud strike with feebler hand the harp of Sirach's son?
What, though a youthful tongue take up that ancient parable.
And utter faintly forth dark sayings as of old?
Sweet is the virgin honey, though the wild bee have stored it in a reed;
And bright the jewelled band, that circleth an Ethiop's arm;
Pure are the grains of gold in the turbid stream of Ganges,
And fair the living flowers, that spring from the dull cold sod.
Wherefore, thou gentle student, bend thine ear to my speech.
For I also am as thou art; om* hearts can commune together:
To meanest matters will I stoop, for mean is the lot of mortal;
I will rise to noblest themes, for the soul hath an heritage of glory:
The passions of puny man; the majestic characters of God;
The feverish shadows of time, and the mighty substance of eternity.
Commend thy mind unto candour, and grudge not as though thou hadst a teacher,
Nor scorn angelic Truth for the sake of her evil herald;
Heed not him, but hear his words, and care not whence they come;
The viewless winds might whisper them, the billows roar them forth,
The mean unconscious sedge sigh them in the ear of evening,
Or the mind of pride conceive, and the mouth of folly speak them.
Lo now, I stand not forth laying hold on spear and buckler,
I come a man of peace, to comfort, not to combat;
With soft persuasive speech to charm thy patient ear,
Giving the hand of fellowship, acknowledging the heart of sympathy:
Let us walk together as friends in the shaded paths of meditation.
Nor Judgment set his seal until he hath poised his balance;
That the chastenings of mild reproof may meet unwitting error,
And Charity not be a stranger at the board that is spread for brothers.
Transcribed from Proverbial Philosophy by Mick Puttock (Spelling, punctuation and grammer left mostly unchanged from the 25th edition)
Nursery Rhyme. CLXXII. Songs.
by Unknown

[The original of the following is to be found in 'Deuteromelia, or the second part of Musicks Melodie,' 4to, Lond. 1609, where the music is also given.]
Three blind mice, see how they run!
They all ran after the farmer's wife,
Who cut off their tails with the carving-knife,
Did you ever see such fools in your life?
Three blind mice.
Stanzas
by Aldous Leonard Huxley

Thought is an unseen net wherein our mind
Is taken and vainly struggles to be free:
Words, that should loose our spirit, do but bind
New fetters on our hoped-for liberty:
And action bears us onward like a stream
Past fabulous shores, scarce seen in our swift course;
Glorious - and yet its headlong currents seem
Backwaters of some nobler purer force.
There are slow curves, more subtle far than thought,
That stoop to carry the grace of a girl's breast;
And hanging flowers, so exquisitely wrought
In airy metal, that they seem possessed
Of souls; and there are distant hills that lift
The shoulder of a goddess towards the light;
And arrowy trees, sudden and sharp and swift,
Piercing the spirit deeply with delight.
Would I might make these miracles my own!
Like a pure angel, thinking colour and form,
Hardening to rage in a flame of chiselled stone,
Spilling my love like sunlight, golden and warm
On noonday flowers, speaking the song of birds
Among the branches, whispering the fall of rain,
Beyond all thought, past action and past words,
I would live in beauty, free from self and pain.
Sonnet XXI.
by Fernando Ant'nio Nogueira Pessoa

Thought was born blind, but Thought knows what is seeing.
Its careful touch, deciphering forms from shapes,
Still suggests form as aught whose proper being
Mere finding touch with erring darkness drapes.
Yet whence, except from guessed sight, does touch teach
That touch is but a close and empty sense?
How does mere touch, self-uncontented, reach
For some truer sense's whole intelligence?
The thing once touched, if touch be now omitted,
Stands yet in memory real and outward known,
So the untouching memory of touch is fitted
With sense of a sense whereby far things are shown
So, by touch of untouching, wrongly aright,
Touch' thought of seeing sees not things but Sight.
Translations. - Expectation And Fulfilment. (From Schiller.)
by George MacDonald

In these epigrams I have altered the form, which in the original is the elegiac distich.
Thousand-masted, mighty float,
Out to sea Youth's navy goes:
Silent, in his one saved boat,
Age into the harbour rows.