DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part I. - XXIV - Saxon Monasteries, And Lights And Shades Of The Religion
by William Wordsworth

By such examples moved to unbought pains,
The people work like congregated bees;
Eager to build the quiet Fortresses
Where Piety, as they believe, obtains
From Heaven a 'general' blessing; timely rains
Or needful sunshine; prosperous enterprise,
Justice and peace: bold faith! yet also rise
The sacred Structures for less doubtful gains.
The Sensual think with reverence of the palms
Which the chaste Votaries seek, beyond the grave
If penance be redeemable, thence alms
Flow to the poor, and freedom to the slave;
And if full oft the Sanctuary save
Lives black with guilt, ferocity it calms.
Thoughts
by Abram Joseph Ryan

By sound of name, and touch of hand,
Thro' ears that hear, and eyes that see,
We know each other in this land,
How little must that knowledge be?
How souls are all the time alone,
No spirit can another reach;
They hide away in realms unknown,
Like waves that never touch a beach.
We never know each other here,
No soul can here another see --
To know, we need a light as clear
As that which fills eternity.
For here we walk by human light,
But there the light of God is ours,
Each day, on earth, is but a night;
Heaven alone hath clear-faced hours.
I call you thus -- you call me thus --
Our mortal is the very bar
That parts forever each of us,
As skies, on high, part star from star.
A name is nothing but a name
For that which, else, would nameless be;
Until our souls, in rapture, claim
Full knowledge in eternity.
By Her White Bed.
by James Whitcomb Riley

By her white bed I muse a little space:
She fell asleep - not very long ago, - 
And yet the grass was here and not the snow - 
The leaf, the bud, the blossom, and - her face! - 
Midsummer's heaven above us, and the grace
Of Lovers own day, from dawn to afterglow;
The fireflies' glimmering, and the sweet and low
Plaint of the whip-poor-wills, and every place
In thicker twilight for the roses' scent.
Then night. - She slept - in such tranquility,
I walk atiptoe still, nor dare to weep,
Feeling, in all this hush, she rests content - 
That though God stood to wake her for me, she
Would mutely plead: "Nay, Lord!    Let him so sleep."
Xenophanes
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

By fate, not option, frugal Nature gave
One scent to hyson and to wall-flower,
One sound to pine-groves and to waterfalls,
One aspect to the desert and the lake.
It was her stern necessity: all things
Are of one pattern made; bird, beast and flower,
Song, picture, form, space, thought and character
Deceive us, seeming to be many things,
And are but one. Beheld far off, they part
As God and devil; bring them to the mind,
They dull its edge with their monotony.
To know one element, explore another,
And in the second reappears the first.
The specious panorama of a year
But multiplies the image of a day,--
A belt of mirrors round a taper's flame;
And universal Nature, through her vast
And crowded whole, an infinite paroquet,
Repeats one note.
Dysthanatos - Sonnets
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Ad generem Cereris sine c'de et vulnere pauci
Descendunt reges, aut sicc' morte tyranni.
By no dry death another king goes down
The way of kings. Yet may no free man's voice,
For stern compassion and deep awe, rejoice
That one sign more is given against the crown,
That one more head those dark red waters drown
Which rise round thrones whose trembling equipoise
Is propped on sand and bloodshed and such toys
As human hearts that shrink at human frown.
The name writ red on Polish earth, the star
That was to outshine our England's in the far
East heaven of empire where is one that saith
Proud words now, prophesying of this White Czar?
'In bloodless pangs few kings yield up their breath,
Few tyrants perish by no violent death,'
Hyla Brook
by Robert Lee Frost

By June our brook's run out of song and speed.
Sought for much after that, it will be found
Either to have gone groping underground
(And taken with it all the Hyla breed
That shouted in the mist a month ago,
Like ghost of sleigh-bells in a ghost of snow),
Or flourished and come up in jewel-weed,
Weak foliage that is blown upon and bent
Even against the way its waters went.
Its bed is left a faded paper sheet
Of dead leaves stuck together by the heat,
A brook to none but who remember long.
This as it will be seen is other far
Than with brooks taken otherwhere in song.
We love the things we love for what they are.
To A Friend In The City, From Her Friend In The Country.
by Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow

By especial request I take up my pen,
To write a few lines to my dear Mrs. N.;
And though nothing of depth she has right to expect;
Yet the will for the deed she will not reject
The task, on reflection, is a heavy one quite,
As here in the country we've no news to write;
For what is to us very new, rich, and rare,
To you in the city is stale and thread bare.
Should I write of Hungary, Kossuth, or the Swede,
They are all out of date, antiquated indeed.
I might ask you with me the New Forest to roam,
But it's stript of its foliage, quite leafless become;
N.P. Willis and rival have each had their day,
And of rappings and knockings there's nought new to say.
Yet do not mistake me, or think I would choose,
A home in the city, the country to lose;
The music of birds, with rich fruits and sweet flowers,
We all in the country lay claim to as ours.
A bird that's imprisoned, I hate to hear sing,
Let me catch its glad note as it soars on the wing;
Its carol so sweet as it's floating along,
It seems the Creator to praise in its song.
With the sweetest of poets I often exclaim,
"God made the country," - let the pride of man claim
The town with its buildings, its spires, and its domes,
But leave us in the country our sweet quiet homes.
The scenery around us is lovely to view,
It charmed when a child, and at three-score charms too.
Then leave me the country with its birds, fruits, and flowers,
And the town, with its pleasures and crowds, may be yours.
E'en in winter the country has right to the claim
Of charms equal to summer; to be sure, not the same.
See winter, stern monarch, as borne on the gale,
He comes armed cap-a-pie in his white coat of mail;
Behold what a change he hath wrought in one night,
He has robed the whole country in pure spotless white.
He fails not to visit us once every year,
But finds us prepared for him - meets with good cheer,
And a most cordial welcome from all of us here.
When with us he's quite civil and very polite,
In manners most courtly, and dignified quite;
But I'm told were he goes unexpected he's rough,
Chills all by his presence, and savage enough.
Hark, hear how it storms! blowing high and yet higher;
But then we've books, music, and a brilliant wood fire,
Where logs piled on logs give one warmth e'en to see;
Oh! these evenings in winter are charming to me.
In good keeping these logs are with wind and the hail,
Everything in the country is on a grand scale.
You have nought in the city I think can compare,
To the bright glowing hearth from a good country fire.
To be sure, now and then, one is cheered by the sight
Of wood fire in the city, but when at its height
Compared to our fires, Lilliputianal quite.
But here I will stop, for I think it quite time
To have done with my boasting, and finish my rhyme.
M.A.H.T. BIGELOW.
Weston, April 6, 1852.
P.S. And now, my dear friend, it is certainly fair,
Your city advantages you should compare
With ours in the country, let me know what they are.
To Hon. Malcom Cameron.
by Nora Pembroke (Margaret Moran Dixon McDougall)

By many a bard the Cameron clan is sung,
Their march, their charge, their war cry, their array;
Their laurels that from bloody fields have sprung,
Where they have kept the sternest foes at bay.
The flowing tartan and the eagle plume,
The gathering, and the glories of the clan,
Let others sing, we will not so presume,
We bring our humble tribute to the man.
The man with heart benevolent and kind,
The man with earnest and persuasive tongue;
Would there were many like him heart and mind
To combat with this fashionable wrong;
Who longs to remedy these human ills,
Feeling God made of one blood all the earth;
Whose sympathies have passed his native hills,
And spread beyond the clan that gave him birth.
Is it not sad when in high places so
No sense of honour or of shame remains;
Men who make laws while reeling to and fro,
Statesmen with swaying step and muddled brains!
For scenes disgrace our new-built palace walls,
And Canada on some reformer waits;
Shall vice within the Legislative Halls
Be rampant as the lions on the gates?
Oh for a man of action and of prayer,
Who feels this sin a national disgrace;
A man who has the strength to do and dare
The pluck and courage of the Celtic race.
If thou art he, thou'rt welcome to the van,
To battle for the right in time of need;
To win fresh laurels for the Cameron clan,
And thousands bid thee heartily God speed.
Virtue Best United.
by Robert Herrick

By so much, virtue is the less,
By how much, near to singleness.
Wood An Insect.
by Jonathan Swift

By long observation I have understood,
That two little vermin are kin to Will Wood.
The first is an insect they call a wood-louse,
That folds up itself in itself for a house,
As round as a ball, without head, without tail,
Enclosed cap ' pie, in a strong coat of mail.
And thus William Wood to my fancy appears
In fillets of brass roll'd up to his ears;
And over these fillets he wisely has thrown,
To keep out of danger, a doublet of stone.[1]
The louse of the wood for a medicine is used
Or swallow'd alive, or skilfully bruised.
And, let but our mother Hibernia contrive
To swallow Will Wood, either bruised or alive,
She need be no more with the jaundice possest,
Or sick of obstructions, and pains in her chest.
The next is an insect we call a wood-worm,
That lies in old wood like a hare in her form;
With teeth or with claws it will bite or will scratch,
And chambermaids christen this worm a death-watch;
Because like a watch it always cries click;
Then woe be to those in the house who are sick:
For, as sure as a gun, they will give up the ghost,
If the maggot cries click when it scratches the post;
But a kettle of scalding hot-water injected
Infallibly cures the timber affected;
The omen is broken, the danger is over;
The maggot will die, and the sick will recover.
Such a worm was Will Wood, when he scratch'd at the door
Of a governing statesman or favourite whore;
The death of our nation he seem'd to foretell,
And the sound of his brass we took for our knell.
But now, since the Drapier has heartily maul'd him,
I think the best thing we can do is to scald him;
For which operation there's nothing more proper
Than the liquor he deals in, his own melted copper;
Unless, like the Dutch, you rather would boil
This coiner of raps[2] in a caldron of oil.
Then choose which you please, and let each bring a fagot,
For our fear's at an end with the death of the maggot.
The Roman Gravemounds
by Thomas Hardy

By Rome's dim relics there walks a man,
Eyes bent; and he carries a basket and spade;
I guess what impels him to scrape and scan;
Yea, his dreams of that Empire long decayed.
"Vast was Rome," he must muse, "in the world's regard,
Vast it looms there still, vast it ever will be;"
And he stoops as to dig and unmine some shard
Left by those who are held in such memory.
But no; in his basket, see, he has brought
A little white furred thing, stiff of limb,
Whose life never won from the world a thought;
It is this, and not Rome, that is moving him.
And to make it a grave he has come to the spot,
And he delves in the ancient dead's long home;
Their fames, their achievements, the man knows not;
The furred thing is all to him nothing Rome!
"Here say you that Caesar's warriors lie? -
But my little white cat was my only friend!
Could she but live, might the record die
Of Caesar, his legions, his aims, his end!"
Well, Rome's long rule here is oft and again
A theme for the sages of history,
And the small furred life was worth no one's pen;
Yet its mourner's mood has a charm for me.
November 1910.
The Charming Girl Of Somerset.
by George W. Doneghy

By magic spell was I entranced
When on me first thy brown eyes glanced,
And sunbeams played at hide and seek
Thro' silken ringlets on thy dimpling cheek,
And like some glorious halo shed
Their radiance o'er thy shapely head--
And seemed as if they loved to dwell
Where'er thy airy footsteps fell!
And in my dreams I see thee now--
The pearly teeth--the arching brow--
The form that mocks the sculptor's art
To add one curve that could impart
More beauty and more witching grace,
Or chisel out a sweeter face!
Blest be the hour when first I met
This charming girl of Somerset!
Exile
by Ernest Christopher Dowson

By the sad waters of separation
Where we have wandered by divers ways,
I have but the shadow and imitation
Of the old memorial days.
In music I have no consolation,
No roses are pale enough for me;
The sound of the waters of separation
Surpasseth roses and melody.
By the sad waters of separation
Dimly I hear from an hidden place
The sigh of mine ancient adoration:
Hardly can I remember your face.
If you be dead, no proclamation
Sprang to me over the waste, gray sea:
Living, the waters of separation
Sever for ever your soul from me.
No man knoweth our desolation;
Memory pales of the old delight;
While the sad waters of separation
Bear us on to the ultimate night.
Desmond's Song.
by Thomas Moore

[1]
By the Feal's wave benighted,
No star in the skies,
To thy door by Love lighted,
I first saw those eyes.
Some voice whispered o'er me,
As the threshold I crost,
There was ruin before me,
If I loved, I was lost.
Love came, and brought sorrow
Too soon in his train;
Yet so sweet, that to-morrow
'Twere welcome again.
Though misery's full measure
My portion should be,
I would drain it with pleasure,
If poured out by thee.
You, who call it dishonor
To bow to this flame,
If you've eyes, look but on her,
And blush while you blame.
Hath the pearl less whiteness
Because of its birth?
Hath the violet less brightness
For growing near earth?
No--Man for his glory
To ancestry flies;
But Woman's bright story
Is told in her eyes.
While the Monarch but traces
Thro' mortals his line,
Beauty, born of the Graces,
Banks next to Divine!
The Hawthorn
by Victor James Daley

By the road, near her father's dwelling,
There groweth a hawthorn tree:
Its blossoms are fair and fragrant
As the love that I cast from me.
It is all a-bloom this morning
In the sunny silentness,
And grows by the roadside, radiant
As a bride in her bridal dress.
But ah me! at sight of its blossoms
No pleasant memories start:
I see but the thorns beneath them,
And the thorns they pierce my heart.
The Pool
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

By the pool that I see in my dreams, dear love,
I have sat with you time and again;
And listened beneath the dank leaves, dear love,
To the sibilant sound of the rain.
And the pool, it is silvery bright, dear love,
And as pure as the heart of a maid,
As sparkling and dimpling, it darkles and shines
In the depths of the heart of the glade.
But, oh, I 've a wish in my soul, dear love,
(The wish of a dreamer, it seems,)
That I might wash free of my sins, dear love,
In the pool that I see in my dreams.
By The Hoof Of The Wild Goat
by Rudyard Kipling

"To Be Filed For Reference", Plain Tales From the Hills
By the Hoof of the Wild Goat uptossed
From the cliff where she lay in the Sun
Fell the Stone
To the Tarn where the daylight is lost,
So she fell from the light of the Sun
And alone!
Now the fall was ordained from the first
With the Goat and the Cliff and the Tarn,
But the Stone
Knows only her life is accursed
As she sinks from the light of the Sun
And alone!
Oh Thou Who hast builded the World,
Oh Thou Who hast lighted the Sun,
Oh Thou Who hast darkened the Tarn,
Judge Thou
The sin of the Stone that was hurled
By the goat from the light of the Sun,
As she sinks in the mire of the Tarn,
Even now, even now, even now!
By The Bivouac's Fitful Flame
by Walt Whitman

By the bivouac's fitful flame,
A procession winding around me, solemn and sweet and slow;--but first I note,
The tents of the sleeping army, the fields' and woods' dim outline,
The darkness, lit by spots of kindled fire--the silence;
Like a phantom far or near an occasional figure moving;
The shrubs and trees, (as I lift my eyes they seem to be stealthily watching me;)
While wind in procession thoughts, O tender and wondrous thoughts,
Of life and death--of home and the past and loved, and of those that are far away;
A solemn and slow procession there as I sit on the ground,
By the bivouac's fitful flame.
Our Hearts For You
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

By the grace of God and the courage
Of the peoples far and wide,
By the toil and sweat of those who lived,
And the blood of those who died,
We have won the fight, we have saved the Right,
For the Lord was on our side.
We have come through the valley of shadows,
We have won to the light again,
We have smitten to earth the evil thing,
And our sons have proved them men.
But not alone by our might have we won,
For the Lord fought in our van.
When the night was at its darkest,
And never a light could we see,--
When earth seemed like to be enslaved
In a monstrous tyranny;--
Then the flaming sword of our Over-Lord
Struck home for liberty.
All the words in the world cannot tell you
What brims in our hearts for you;
For the lives you gave our lives to save
We offer our hearts to you;
We can never repay, we can only pray,--
God fulfil our hearts for you!
By The Hearth-Stone
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

By the hearth-stone
She sits alone,
The long night bearing:
With eyes that gleam
Into the dream
Of the firelight staring.
Low and more low
The dying glow
Burns in the embers;
She nothing heeds
And nothing needs---
Only remembers.
Mean Things Overcome Mighty.
by Robert Herrick

By the weak'st means things mighty are o'erthrown.
He's lord of thy life who contemns his own.
The City Dead-House
by Walt Whitman

By the City Dead-House, by the gate,
As idly sauntering, wending my way from the clangor,
I curious pause for lo! an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute brought;
Her corpse they deposit unclaim'd it lies on the damp brick pavement;
The divine woman, her body I see the Body I look on it alone,
That house once full of passion and beauty all else I notice not;
Nor stillness so cold, nor running water from faucet, nor odors morbific impress me;
But the house alone that wondrous house that delicate fair house that ruin!
That immortal house, more than all the rows of dwellings ever built!
Or white-domed Capitol itself, with majestic figure surmounted or all the old high-spired cathedrals;
That little house alone, more than them all poor, desperate house!
Fair, fearful wreck! tenement of a Soul! itself a Soul!
Unclaim'd, avoided house! take one breath from my tremulous lips;
Take one tear, dropt aside as I go, for thought of you,
Dead house of love! house of madness and sin, crumbled! crush'd!
House of life erewhile talking and laughing but ah, poor house! dead, even then;
Months, years, an echoing, garnish'd house but dead, dead, dead.
Concord Hymn
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

SUNG AT THE COMPLETION OF THE BATTLE MONUMENT, JULY 4, 1837
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.
Our Army Of The Dead.
by Will Carleton

By the edge of the Atlantic, where the waves of Freedom roar,
And the breezes of the ocean chant a requiem to the shore,
On the Nation's eastern hill-tops, where its corner-stone was laid,
On the mountains of New England, where our fathers toiled and prayed,
Mid old Key-stone's rugged riches, which the miner's hand await,
Mid the never-ceasing commerce of the busy Empire State,
With the country's love and honor on each brave, devoted head,
Is a band of noble heroes--is our Army of the Dead.
On the lake-encircled homestead of the thriving Wolverine,
On the beauteous Western prairies, with their carpeting of green,
By the sweeping Mississippi, long our country's pride and boast,
On the rugged Rocky Mountains, and the weird Pacific coast,
In the listless, sunny Southland, with its blossoms and its vines,
On the bracing Northern hill-tops, and amid their murmuring pines,
Over all our happy country--over all our Nation spread,
Is a band of noble heroes--is our Army of the Dead.
Not with musket, and with saber, and with glad heart beating fast;
Not with cannon that had thundered till the bloody war was past;
Not with voices that are shouting with the vim of victory's note;
Not with armor gayly glistening, and with flags that proudly float;
Not with air of martial vigor, nor with steady, soldier tramp,
Come they grandly marching to us--for the boys are all in camp.
With forgetfulness upon it--each within his earthy bed,
Waiting for his marching orders--is our Army of the Dead.
Fast asleep the boys are lying, in their low and narrow tents,
And no battle-cry can wake them, and no orders call them hence;
And the yearnings of the mother, and the anguish of the wife,
Can not with their magic presence call the soldier back to life;
And the brother's manly sorrow, and the father's mournful pride,
Can not give back to his country him who for his country died.
They who for the trembling Nation in its hour of trial bled,
Lie, in these its years of triumph, with our Army of the Dead.
When the years of Earth are over, and the cares of Earth are done,
When the reign of Time is ended, and Eternity begun,
When the thunders of Omniscience on our wakened senses roll,
And the sky above shall wither, and be gathered like a scroll;
When, among the lofty mountains, and across the mighty sea,
The sublime celestial bugler shall ring out the reveille,
Then shall march with brightest laurels, and with proud, victorious tread,
To their station up in heaven, our Grand Army of the Dead!
The Hermit.
by George W. Doneghy

By the waters of a river, where the rocks like giants stand,
There a stranger, young and favored, built a home with his own hand.
Hewed the logs and reared the roof-tree, where for years alone he dwelt,
Wanderer from the sunny Southland, and from pangs his heart had felt.
Legend says high-born and wealthy, seeking there in Nature's wilds
To forget a maiden fickle, basking in a rival's smiles.
Where the music of the wild birds, echoed from the cliffs around,
Blended with the voice of waters, flowing past with silvery sound;
Where in Springtime wild flowers blooming shed their incense day and night,
And the rugged cliff-sides wearing robes of dogwood, snowy white;
Where in Summer old trees spreading overhead a leafy roof
Flung their shadows, deep and cooling, 'gainst the burning sunbeams proof;
Where in Winter wild winds raving whistled 'round his lonely home,
And the swollen torrent rushing struck the rocks with sullen tone--
He a sunnier clime forsaking for the "dark and bloody ground,"
Where the forest stretched unbroken--there the wanderer rest had found.
All of human-kind deserting, where no din of toil and strife
Ever came to break the stillness--there he spent a hermit's life.
All his frugal wants supplying from the storehouse Nature gave,
Nevermore his footsteps bending toward where Hope had found its grave.
Striving to forget the false one, dwelling 'neath her sunny skies,
Who had left the arrow rankling in his heart with honied lies.
Long ago she was forgotten, and at last surcease had come--
For his heart was stilled forever, and his lips were sealed and dumb.
Long he lay beside the river, flowing sweetly there to-day,
Where was found a bleaching skeleton, and a rude hut in decay.
There where briars in tangled network sway above a little mound,
Rest the bones of Southern stranger, in the "dark and bloody ground!"