DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Now Hark, Little May
by Louisa May Alcott

"Now hark, little May,
If you want to do right,
Under your pillow
Just look every night.
If you have been good
All through the day,
A gift you will find,
Useful or gay;
But if you have been
Cross, selfish, or wild,
A bad thing will come
For the naughty child.
So try, little dear,
And soon you will see
How easy and sweet
To grow good it will be."
"Ha, ha, you can't see,
Although I am here;
But listen to what
I say in your ear.
Tell no one of this.
Because, if you do,
My fun will be spoilt,
And so will yours too.
But if you are good,
And patient, and gay,
A real fairy will come
To see little May."
My Nannie's Awa.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "There'll never be peace."
I.
Now in her green mantle blythe nature arrays,
And listens the lambkins that bleat o'er the braes,
While birds warble welcome in ilka green shaw;
But to me it's delightless - my Nannie's awa!
II.
The snaw-drap and primrose our woodlands adorn,
And violets bathe in the weet o' the morn;
They pain my sad bosom, sae sweetly they blaw,
They mind me o' Nannie - and Nanny's awa!
III.
Thou lav'rock that springs frae the dews of the lawn,
The shepherd to warn o' the gray-breaking dawn,
And thou mellow mavis that hails the night fa',
Give over for pity - my Nannie's awa!
IV.
Come autumn sae pensive, in yellow and gray,
And soothe me with tidings o' nature's decay:
The dark dreary winter, and wild driving snaw,
Alane can delight me - now Nannie's awa!
He Imploreth Mercy Upon Those Condemned With Fashionable Folly To Marry, And Illustrateth Their Condition.
by Horatio Alger, Jr.

Now heaven in mercy be kind to the wretch,
Who marries for money or fashion or folly;
He'd better accept of the noose of Jack Ketch
Than such a "help-meet;" or at once marry Dolly
The cook, or with Bridget, the maid of the broom;
With one he'd be sure to get coffee and meat,
And never hear whining of nothing to eat,
And 't other would make up his bed and his room;
And if he was blest with a child now and then,
As happens sometimes with your fashionable wives,
Who're coupled to bipeds, in nature called men,
He'd need no insurance to warrant their lives;
And need no expense of a grand "bridal tour,"
Or visit each season at "watering places,"
Where fashion at people well known to be poor,
In money or station, will make ugly faces;
Where women, though married, with roues will flirt;
Where widows, though widows in fresh sable weeds,
Spread nets that entangle like old Nessus' shirt
And finish with Burdell and Cunningham deeds;
Where daughters when fading are taken to spend
A month at the springs, or a week in salt water;
Where bachelors flirting on Ellen attend,
Are whispered by mamma, "engaged to my daughter."
The God Called Poetry.
by Robert von Ranke Graves

Now I begin to know at last,
These nights when I sit down to rhyme,
The form and measure of that vast
God we call Poetry, he who stoops
And leaps me through his paper hoops
A little higher every time.
Tempts me to think I'll grow a proper
Singing cricket or grass-hopper
Making prodigious jumps in air
While shaken crowds about me stare
Aghast, and I sing, growing bolder
To fly up on my master's shoulder
Rustling the thick strands of his hair.
He is older than the seas,
Older than the plains and hills,
And older than the light that spills
From the sun's hot wheel on these.
He wakes the gale that tears your trees,
He sings to you from window sills.
At you he roars, or he will coo,
He shouts and screams when hell is hot,
Riding on the shell and shot.
He smites you down, he succours you,
And where you seek him, he is not.
To-day I see he has two heads
Like Janus, calm, benignant, this;
That, grim and scowling:    his beard spreads
From chin to chin"    this god has power
Immeasurable at every hour:
He first taught lovers how to kiss,
He brings down sunshine after shower,
Thunder and hate are his also,
He is YES and he is NO.
The black beard spoke and said to me,
"Human frailty though you be,
Yet shout and crack your whip, be harsh!
They'll obey you in the end:
Hill and field, river and marsh
Shall obey you, hop and skip
At the terrour of your whip,
To your gales of anger bend."
The pale beard spoke and said in turn
"True:    a prize goes to the stern,
But sing and laugh and easily run
Through the wide airs of my plain,
Bathe in my waters, drink my sun,
And draw my creatures with soft song;
They shall follow you along
Graciously with no doubt or pain."
Then speaking from his double head
The glorious fearful monster said
"I am YES and I am NO,
Black as pitch and white as snow,
Love me, hate me, reconcile
Hate with love, perfect with vile,
So equal justice shall be done
And life shared between moon and sun.
Nature for you shall curse or smile:
A poet you shall be, my son."
Short Days.
by W. M. MacKeracher

Now is the Sun, erst spendthrift of his rays
And lavish of his largesses of light,
Become a miser in his latter days,
An avaricious dotard, alter'd quite.
Is he the same that all the summer long
Strew'd with ungrudging hand his gleaming gold?
Can such ill grace to high estate belong?
Can bright be dim? can warm so soon be cold?
Ay, but he goes his parsimonious way,
And hoards his shining treasures from the view,
And garners up his riches 'gainst the day
When Earth, the prodigal, shall beg anew;
Then to her need he'll give no niggard dole,
But wealth incalculable, heart and soul.
Mechanophilus
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Now first we stand and understand,
And sunder false from true,
And handle boldly with the hand,
And see and shape and do.
Dash back that ocean with a pier,
Strow yonder mountain flat,
A railway there, a tunnel here,
Mix me this Zone with that!
Bring me my horse'my horse? my wings
That I may soar the sky,
For Thought into the outward springs,
I find her with the eye.
O will she, moonlike, sway the main,
And bring or chase the storm,
Who was a shadow in the brain,
And is a living form?
Far as the Future vaults her skies,
From this my vantage ground
To those still-working energies
I spy nor term nor bound.
As we surpass our fathers' skill,
Our sons will shame our own;
A thousand things are hidden still
And not a hundred known.
And had some prophet spoken true
Of all we shall achieve,
The wonders were so wildly new,
That no man would believe.
Meanwhile, my brothers, work, and wield
The forces of to-day,
And plow the present like a field,
And garner all you may!
You, what the cultured surface grows,
Dispense with careful hands:
Deep under deep for ever goes,
Heaven over heaven expands.
The Aurora Borealis
by George MacDonald

Now have I grown a sharpness and an edge
Unto my future nights, and I will cut
Sheer through the ebon gates that yet will shut
On every set of day; or as a sledge
Drawn over snowy plains; where not a hedge
Breaks this Aurora's dancing, nothing but
The one cold Esquimaux' unlikely hut
That swims in the broad moonlight! Lo, a wedge
Of the clean meteor hath been brightly driven
Right home into the fastness of the north!
Anon it quickeneth up into the heaven!
And I with it have clomb and spreaded forth
Upon the crisp and cooling atmosphere!
My soul is all abroad: I cannot find it here!
The Marching Morrows.
by Bliss Carman (William)

Now gird thee well for courage,
My knight of twenty year,
Against the marching morrows
That fill the world with fear!
The flowers fade before them;
The summer leaves the hill;
Their trumpets range the morning,
And those who hear grow still.
Like pillagers of harvest,
Their fame is far abroad,
As gray remorseless troopers
That plunder and maraud.
The dust is on their corselets;
Their marching fills the world;
With conquest after conquest
Their banners are unfurled.
They overthrow the battles
Of every lord of war,
From world-dominioned cities
Wipe out the names they bore.
Sohrab, Rameses, Roland,
Ramoth, Napoleon, Tyre,
And the Romeward Huns of Attila--
Alas, for their desire!
By April and by autumn
They perish in their pride,
And still they close and gather
Out of the mountain-side.
The tanned and tameless children
Of the wild elder earth,
With stature of the northlights,
They have the stars for girth.
There's not a hand to stay them,
Of all the hearts that brave;
No captain to undo them,
No cunning to off-stave.
Yet fear thou not! If haply
Thou be the kingly one,
They'll set thee in their vanguard
To lead them round the sun.
The Little Lady Of The Bullock Cart
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Now is the time when India is gay
With wedding parties; and the radiant throngs
Seem like a scattered rainbow taking part
In human pleasures.    Dressed in bright array,
They fling upon the bride their wreaths of songs - 
The Little Lady of the Bullock Cart.
Here is the temple ready for the rite:
The large-eyed bullocks halt; and waiting arms
Lift down the bride.    All India's curious art
Speaks in the gems with which she is bedight.
And in the robes which hide her sweet alarms - 
The Little Lady of the Bullock Cart.
This is her day of days:    her splendid hour
When joy is hers, though love is all unknown.
It has not dawned upon her childish heart.
But human triumph, in a temporal power,
Has crowned her queen upon a one-day throne - 
The Little Lady of the Bullock Cart.
Ah, Little Lady!    What will be your fate?
So long, so long, the outward-reaching years:
So brief the joy of this elusive part;
So frail the shoulders for the loads that wait:
So bitter salt the virgin widow's tears - 
O Little Lady of the Bullock cart.
May-Day.
by John Clare

Now happy swains review the plains,
And hail the first of May;
Now linnets sing to welcome spring,
And every soul is gay.
Hob, joyful soul, high rears the pole,
With wild-flower wreaths entwin'd;
Then tiptoe round the maidens bound,
All sorrow lags behind.
Branches of thorn their doors adorn,
With every flowret lin'd
That earliest spring essays to bring,
Or searching maids can find.
All swains resort to join the sport,
E'en age will not disdain,
But oft will throng to hear the song,
And view the jocund train.
I often too had us'd to go,
The rural mirth to share,
But what, alas l time brought to pass,
Soon made me absent there.
My Colin died the village pride,
O hapless misery!
Then sports adieu, with him they flew,
For he was all to me.
And May no more shall e'er restore
To me those joys again,
There's no relief but urging grief,
For memory wakens pain.
To think how he, so dear to me,
Had us'd to join the play;
And O so dear such pleasures were,
He gloried in the day.
But now, sad scene, he's left the green,
And Lubin here to mourn:
Then flowers may spring, and birds may sing,
And May-day may return;
But never more can they restore
Their rural sports to me--
No, no, adieu! with him they flew,
For he was all to me.
In February
by George MacDonald

Now in the dark of February rains,
Poor lovers of the sunshine, spring is born,
The earthy fields are full of hidden corn,
And March's violets bud along the lanes;
Therefore with joy believe in what remains.
And thou who dost not feel them, do not scorn
Our early songs for winter overworn,
And faith in God's handwriting on the plains.
"Hope" writes he, "Love" in the first violet,
"Joy," even from Heaven, in songs and winds and trees;
And having caught the happy words in these
While Nature labours with the letters yet,
Spring cannot cheat us, though her hopes be broken,
Nor leave us, for we know what God hath spoken.
To His Dear Valentine, Mistress Margaret Falconbridge.
by Robert Herrick

Now is your turn, my dearest, to be set
A gem in this eternal coronet:
'Twas rich before, but since your name is down
It sparkles now like Ariadne's crown.
Blaze by this sphere for ever: or this do,
Let me and it shine evermore by you.
Voices
by Walt Whitman

Now I make a leaf of Voices, for I have found nothing mightier than they are,
And I have found that no word spoken, but is beautiful, in its place.
O what is it in me that makes me tremble so at voices?
Surely, whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her I shall follow,
As the water follows the moon, silently, with fluid steps, anywhere around the globe.
All waits for the right voices;
Where is the practis'd and perfect organ? Where is the develop'd Soul?
For I see every word utter'd thence, has deeper, sweeter, new sounds, impossible on less terms.
I see brains and lips closed, tympans and temples unstruck,
Until that comes which has the quality to strike and to unclose,
Until that comes which has the quality to bring forth what lies slumbering, forever ready, in all words.
Sonnet: On A Stolen Kiss
by George Wither

Now gentle sleep hath clos'd up those eyes,
Which waking kept my boldest thoughts in awe,
And free access unto that sweet lip lies
From whence I long the rosy breath to draw.
Methinks no wrong it were if I should steal,
From those two melting rubies, one poor kiss.
None sees the theft that would the thief reveal,
Nor rob I her of aught which she can miss.
Nay, should I twenty kisses take away,
There would be little sign I had done so.
Why then should I this robbery delay?
Oh, she may wake, and therewith angry grow.
Well, if she do, I'll back restore that one,
And twenty hundred thousand more for loan.
Count Eberhard, The Groaner Of Wurtemberg. A War Song.
by Friedrich Schiller

Now hearken, ye who take delight
In boasting of your worth!
To many a man, to many a knight,
Beloved in peace and brave in fight,
The Swabian land gives birth.
Of Charles and Edward, Louis, Guy,
And Frederick, ye may boast;
Charles, Edward, Louis, Frederick, Guy
None with Sir Eberhard can vie
Himself a mighty host!
And then young Ulerick, his son,
Ha! how he loved the fray!
Young Ulerick, the Count's bold son,
When once the battle had begun,
No foot's-breadth e'er gave way.
The Reutlingers, with gnashing teeth,
Saw our bright ranks revealed
And, panting for the victor's wreath,
They drew the sword from out the sheath,
And sought the battle-field.
He charged the foe, but fruitlessly,
Then, mail-clad, homeward sped;
Stern anger filled his father's eye,
And made the youthful warrior fly,
And tears of anguish shed.
Now, rascals, quake! This grieved him sore,
And rankled in his brain;
And by his father's beard he swore,
With many a craven townsman's gore
To wash out this foul stain.
Ere long the feud raged fierce and loud,
Then hastened steed and man
To Doeffingen in thronging crowd,
While joy inspired the youngster proud,
And soon the strife began.
Our army's signal-word that day
Was the disastrous fight;
It spurred us on like lightning's ray,
And plunged us deep in bloody fray,
And in the spears' black night.
The youthful Count his ponderous mace
With lion's rage swung round;
Destruction stalked before his face,
While groans and howlings filled the place
And hundreds bit the ground.
Woe! Woe! A heavy sabre-stroke
Upon his neck descended;
The sight each warrior's pity woke
In vain! In vain! No word he spoke
His course on earth was ended.
Loud wept both friend and foeman then,
Checked was the victor's glow;
The count cheered thus his knights again
"My son is like all other men,
March, children, 'gainst the foe!"
With greater fury whizzed each lance,
Revenge inflamed the blood;
O'er corpses moved the fearful dance
The townsmen fled in random chance
O'er mountain, vale, and flood.
Then back to camp, with trumpet's bray,
We hied in joyful haste;
And wife and child, with roundelay,
With clanging cup and waltzes gay,
Our glorious triumph graced.
And our old Count, what now does he?
His son lies dead before him;
Within his tent all woefully
He sits alone in agony,
And drops one hot tear o'er him.
And so, with true affection warm,
The Count our lord we love;
Himself a mighty hero-swarm
The thunders rest within his arm
He shines like star above!
Farewell, then, ye who take delight
In boasting of your worth!
To many a man, to many a knight,
Beloved in peace, and brave in fight,
The Swabian land gives birth!
Lament Of Mary, Queen Of Scots, On The Approach Of Spring.
by Robert Burns

I.
Now Nature hangs her mantle green
On every blooming tree,
And spreads her sheets o' daisies white
Out o'er the grassy lea:
Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams,
And glads the azure skies;
But nought can glad the weary wight
That fast in durance lies.
II.
Now lav'rocks wake the merry morn,
Aloft on dewy wing;
The merle, in his noontide bow'r,
Makes woodland echoes ring;
The mavis wild wi' mony a note,
Sings drowsy day to rest:
In love and freedom they rejoice,
Wi' care nor thrall opprest.
III.
Now blooms the lily by the bank,
The primrose down the brae;
The hawthorn's budding in the glen,
And milk-white is the slae;
The meanest hind in fair Scotland
May rove their sweets amang;
But I, the Queen of a' Scotland,
Maun lie in prison strang!
IV.
I was the Queen o' bonnie France,
Where happy I hae been;
Fu' lightly rase I in the morn,
As blythe lay down at e'en:
And I'm the sov'reign o' Scotland,
And mony a traitor there;
Yet here I lie in foreign bands
And never-ending care.
V.
But as for thee, thou false woman!
My sister and my fae,
Grim vengeance yet shall whet a sword
That thro' thy soul shall gae!
The weeping blood in woman's breast
Was never known to thee;
Nor th' balm that draps on wounds of woe
Frae woman's pitying e'e.
VI.
My son! my son! may kinder stars
Upon thy fortune shine;
And may those pleasures gild thy reign,
That ne'er wad blink on mine!
God keep thee frae thy mother's faes,
Or turn their hearts to thee:
And where thou meet'st thy mother's friend
Remember him for me!
VII.
O! soon, to me, may summer suns
Nae mair light up the morn!
Nae mair, to me, the autumn winds
Wave o'er the yellow corn!
And in the narrow house o' death
Let winter round me rave;
And the next flow'rs that deck the spring
Bloom on my peaceful grave!
Upon Patrick, A Footman. Epig.
by Robert Herrick

Now Patrick with his footmanship has done,
His eyes and ears strive which should fastest run.
Mentem Mortalia Tangunt
by Manmohan Ghose

Now lonely is the wood:
No flower now lingers, none!
The virgin sisterhood
Of roses, all are gone;
Now Autumn sheds her latest leaf;
And in my heart is grief.
Ah me, for all earth rears,
The appointed bound is placed!
After a thousand years
The great oak falls at last:
And thou, more lovely, canst not stay,
Sweet rose, beyond thy day.
Our life is not the life
Of roses and of leaves;
Else wherefore this deep strife,
This pain, our soul conceives?
The fall of ev'n such short-lived things
To us some sorrow brings.
And yet, plant, bird, and fly
Feel no such hidden fire.
Happy they live; and die
Happy, with no desire.
They in their brief life have fulfill'd
All Nature in them will'd.
And were we also made
Of like terrestrial mould
We should not be afraid,
Nor feel the grave so cold;
But, all oblivious of our fate,
Live sweetly out our date.
For the great mother loves
Her children far too well;
These longings that she moves
Their own fulfilment tell:
She would not burden us with aught
We really needed not.
O, not in vain she gave
To the wild birds their wings!
They spread them forth, and have
Heaven for their wanderings.
But we, to whom no wings are given
Why seek we for a Heaven?
And, when far o'er us fly
Those voyagers of the air,
Why must we gaze, and sigh,
O would that I were there?
Why are we restless, ill content,
Tied to one element?
'Tis not that in our tears
Some happier life we crave;
Our happiest, sweetest years
Mysterious moments have:
The sense of our brief human lot
Clings to us, haunts our thought.
O then this pleasant earth
Seems but an alien thing:
Faint grows her busy mirth;
Far hence our thoughts take wing:
For some enduring home we cry!
She cannot satisfy,
Or bind us: only ties
Immortal found can bless;
Only in loving eyes
We see our happiness;
Only upon a loving breast
Our souls find any rest.
Why thirsts the spirit so
For life? what moves it thus?
'Tis her voice; yes, I know,
'Tis Nature cries in us:
'Tis no unholy strife of ours
Against forbidding powers.
What though we gaze with fear,
So blank death seems to be;
What though no land appear
Beyond that lonely sea;
Still in our hearts her cry doth stay;
She will find out a way.
So in the chrysalis
Slumber those lovely wings;
So from the shell it is
The dazzling pearl she brings:
Her glorious works she works alone,
Unfathom'd and unknown!
The Decline Of The West
by Rudyard Kipling

Now it is not good for the Christian's health to hustle the Aryan brown,
For the Christian riles, and the Aryan smiles, and he weareth the Christian down;
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear: "A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the East."
Summer.
by Marietta Holley

Now sinks the Summer sun into the sea;
Sure never such a sunset shone as this,
That on its golden wing has borne such bliss;
Dear Love to thee and me.
Ah, life was drear and lonely, missing thee,
Though what my loss I did not then divine;
But all is past - the sweet words, thou art mine,
Make bliss for thee and me.
How swells the light breeze o'er the blossoming lea,
Sure never winds swept past so sweet and low,
No lonely, unblest future waiteth now;
Dear Love for thee and me.
Look upward o'er the glowing West, and see,
Surely the star of evening never shone
With such a holy radiance - oh, my own,
Heaven smiles on thee and me.
Un Rencontre
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Now ought we to laugh or to weep -
Was it comical, or was it grave?
When we who had waded breast deep
In passion's most turbulent wave
Met out on an isle in Time's ocean,
With never one thrill of emotion.
We had parted in sorrow and tears;
Our letters were frequent and wet;
We wrote about pitiless years,
And we swore we could never forget.
An angel you called me alway,
And I thought you a god gone astray.
We met in an everyday style;
Unmoved by a tremor or start;
Shook hands, smiled a commonplace smile;
(With a happy new love in each heart),
And I thought you the homeliest man
As you awkwardly picked up my fan!
And I know (or I haven't a doubt)
Though you did not say so to my face,
That you thought I was growing too stout:
I, once your ideal of grace.
And ere the encounter was o'er
Each voted the other a bore.
What a proof that fond passion can die,
In this prosaic meeting we had!
Now, ought we to laugh or to cry -
Was it sorrowful, or was it sad?
'Tis a puzzle not worthy our time,
So let's give it up -with this rhyme.
Immigration
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

[Mr. Jordan was sent to England by the Queensland Government in 1858, 1859, and 1860 to lecture on the advantages of immigration, and told the most extraordinary tales about the place.]
(Air: 'Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.')
Now Jordan's land of promise is the burden of my song.
Perhaps you've heard him lecture, and blow about it strong;
To hear him talk you'd think it was a heaven upon earth,
But listen and I'll tell you now the plain unvarnished truth.
Here mutton, beef, and damper are all you'll get to eat,
From Monday morn till Sunday night, all through the blessed week.
And should the flour bag run short, then mutton, beef, and tea
Will be your lot, and whether or not, 'twill have to do, you'll see.
Here snakes and all vile reptiles crawl around you as you walk,
But these you never hear about in Mr. Jordan's talk;
Mosquitoes, too, and sandflies, they will tease you all the night,
And until you get quite colonised you'll be a pretty sight.
Here are boundless plains where it seldom rains, and you'll maybe die of thirst;
But should you so dispose your bones, you'll scarcely be the first,
For there's many a strong and stalwart man come out to make his pile,
Who never leaves the fatal shore of this thrice accursed isle.
To sum it up in few short words, the place is only fit
For those who were sent out here, for from this they cannot flit.
But any other men who come a living here to try,
Will vegetate a little while and then lie down and die.