DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The City In The Sea
by Edgar Allan Poe

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers and tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
No rays from the holy Heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently 
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free 
Up domes up spires up kingly halls 
Up fanes up Babylon-like walls 
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers 
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.
There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol's diamond eye 
Not the gaily-jewelled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass 
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea 
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.
But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide 
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow 
The hours are breathing faint and low 
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.
Living And Dying.
by Pamela S. Vining, (J. C. Yule)

Living for Christ, I die; - how strange, that I,
Thus dying, live, - and yet, thus living, die!
Living for Christ, I die;-yet wondrous thought,
In that same death a deathless life is wrought; - 
Living, I die to Earth, to self, to sin; - 
Oh, blessed death, in which such life I win!
Dying for Christ, I live! - death cannot be
A terror, then, to one from death set free'
Living for Christ, rich blessings I attain,
Yet, dying for Him, mine is greater gain
Life for my Lord, is death to sin and strife,
Yet death for Him is everlas'ing life!
Dying for Christ, I live! - and yet, not I,
But He lives in me, who did for me die.
I die to live, - He lives to die no more,
Who, in His death my own death-sentence bore
"To live is Christ," if Christ within me reign,
To die more blessed, since "to die is gain!"
The Beginner
by Rudyard Kipling

Lo! What is this that I make, sudden, supreme, unrehearsed, 
This that my clutch in the crowd pressed at a venture has raised?
Forward and onward I sprang when I thought (as I ought) I reversed,
And a cab like martagon opes and I sit in the wreckage dazed.
And someone is taking my name, and the driver is rending the air
With cries for my blood and my gold, and a snickering news-boy brings
My cap, wheel-pashed from the kerb. I must run her home for repair,
Where she leers with her bonnet awry, flat on the nether springs!
Gold Leaves
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Lo! I am come to autumn,
When all the leaves are gold;
Grey hairs and golden leaves cry out
The year and I are old.
In youth I sought the prince of men,
Captain in cosmic wars,
Our Titan, even the weeds would show
Defiant, to the stars.
But now a great thing in the street
Seems any human nod,
Where shift in strange democracy
The million masks of God.
In youth I sought the golden flower
Hidden in wood or wold,
But I am come to autumn,
When all the leaves are gold.
Memorials Of A Tour On The Continent, 1820 - XXXIII. - Sky-Prospect - From The Plain Of France
by William Wordsworth

Lo! in the burning west, the craggy nape
Of a proud Ararat! and, thereupon,
The Ark, her melancholy voyage done!
Yon rampant cloud mimics a lion's shape;
There, combats a huge crocodile agape
A golden spear to swallow! and that brown
And massy grove, so near yon blazing town,
Stirs and recedes, destruction to escape!
Yet all is harmless, as the Elysian shades
Where Spirits dwell in undisturbed repose
Silently disappears, or quickly fades:
Meek Nature's evening comment on the shows
That for oblivion take their daily birth
From all the fuming vanities of Earth!
The Book Of Urizen (Excerpts)
by William Blake

Lo, a shadow of horror is risen
In Eternity! Unknown, unprolific,
Self-clos'd, all-repelling: what demon
Hath form'd this abominable void,
This soul-shudd'ring vacuum? Some said
'It is Urizen.' But unknown, abstracted,
Brooding, secret, the dark power hid.
Times on times he divided and measur'd
Space by space in his ninefold darkness,
Unseen, unknown; changes appear'd
Like desolate mountains, rifted furious
By the black winds of perturbation.
For he strove in battles dire,
In unseen conflictions with shapes
Bred from his forsaken wilderness
Of beast, bird, fish, serpent and element,
Combustion, blast, vapour and cloud.
Dark, revolving in silent activity:
Unseen in tormenting passions:
An activity unknown and horrible,
A self-contemplating shadow,
In enormous labours occupied.
But Eternals beheld his vast forests;
Age on ages he lay, clos'd, unknown,
Brooding shut in the deep; all avoid
The petrific, abominable chaos.
His cold horrors silent, dark Urizen
Prepar'd; his ten thousands of thunders,
Rang'd in gloom'd array, stretch out across
The dread world; and the rolling of wheels,
As of swelling seas, sound in his clouds,
In his hills of stor'd snows, in his mountains
Of hail and ice; voices of terror
Are heard, like thunders of autumn
When the cloud blazes over the harvests
Epitaph On Napoleon
by Thomas Oldham

Lo! here, on this lone isle amid the deeps,
From his proud height of conquest, greatness hurl'd,
Buried in silent night, Napoleon sleeps!
Long Gallia's boast, the wonder of the world!
Though humbly born, Ambition claim'd her child;
Fate urged him on, his great career to fill;
On him, in war, in dangers, Fortune smiled;
And on his eagles Victory waited still.
By battles won, by policy profound,
Kings he dethroned, fill'd Europe with dismay:
England alone, of all the nations round,
His power opposed, disdaining to obey.
Forced by the flames of Moscow to retreat,
Half his vast host by cold, by famine, dies.
Famed Waterloo beheld his last defeat;
There sunk his glory's sun; ne'er more to rise.
Briton! from this sad spot ere thou depart,
Pause! while his shade complains in Fancy's ear;
'Had generous feeling warm'd thy Sovereign's heart,
Though Briton's foe, I had not perish'd here.'
Prince Charlie's Grandsons.
by James McIntyre

Oft' times these handsome gentlemen appeared in the garb of old Gaul.
Long 'ere Her Majesty the Queen
Had visited of Aberdeen,
'Ere she in castle did abide
'Mong glorious hills on the Dee side,
Or visited each Highland glen,
Or won the hearts of Highland men,
Here oft' was seen in celtic dress
Two Stewarts brave in Inverness,
Well worthy of the poet's lyre.
They claimed Prince Charlie as grandsire,
And that they also did combine
Stuart with Royal Polish line,
Their names Sobieskie, Stuart,
They won many a Highland heart,
But Royal order did go forth
To build Balmoral Castle North,
Then wondrous change was quickly seen,
All hearts were captured by the Queen.
The Royal Stuarts are owners of large estates on the banks of the Findhorn and their great rivals were near by the Royal Comyns. The Lion Hunter Gordon Comyn was of this stock. Professor J. S. Blockie has written a fine poem on the wars of the rival houses.
"Here where the dark water'd stream rushes free,
child of the mountain."
The Nemesis Of Suns
by Clark Ashton Smith

Lo, what are these, the gyres of sun and world,
Fulfilled with daylight by each toiling sun -
Lo, what are these but webs of radiance spun
Beneath the roof of Night, and torn or furled
By Night at will? All opposite powers upwhirled
Are less than chaff to this imperious one -
As wind-tossed chaff, until its sport be done,
Scattered, and lifted up, and downward hurled.
All gyres are held within the path unspanned
Of Night's aeonian compass - loosely pent
As with the embrace of lethal-tightening weight;
All suns are grasped within the hollow hand
Of Night, the godhead sole, omnipotent,
Whose other names are Nemesis and Fate.
Horace To Melpomene
by Eugene Field

Lofty and enduring is the monument I've reared,--
Come, tempests, with your bitterness assailing;
And thou, corrosive blasts of time, by all things mortal feared,
Thy buffets and thy rage are unavailing!
I shall not altogether die; by far my greater part
Shall mock man's common fate in realms infernal;
My works shall live as tributes to my genius and my art,--
My works shall be my monument eternal!
While this great Roman empire stands and gods protect our fanes,
Mankind with grateful hearts shall tell the story,
How one most lowly born upon the parched Apulian plains
First raised the native lyric muse to glory.
Assume, revered Melpomene, the proud estate I've won,
And, with thine own dear hand the meed supplying,
Bind thou about the forehead of thy celebrated son
The Delphic laurel-wreath of fame undying!
Bourke's Dream
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

Lonely and sadly one night in November
I laid down my weary head in search of repose
On my wallet of straw, which I long shall remember,
Tired and weary I fell into a doze.
Tired from working hard
Down in the labour yard,
Night brought relief to my sad, aching brain.
Locked in my prison cell,
Surely an earthly hell,
I fell asleep and began for to dream.
I dreamt that I stood on the green fields of Erin,
In joyous meditation that victory was won.
Surrounded by comrades, no enemy fearing.
'Stand,' was the cry, 'every man to his gun.'
On came the Saxons then,
Fighting our Fenian men,
Soon they'll reel back from our piked volunteers.
Loud was the fight and shrill,
Wexford and Vinegar Hill,
Three cheers for Father Murphy and the bold cavaliers.
I dreamt that I saw our gallant commander
Seated on his charger in gorgeous array.
He wore green trimmed with gold and a bright shining sabre
On which sunbeams of Liberty shone brightly that day.
'On,' was the battle cry,
'Conquer this day or die,
Sons of Hibernia, fight for Liberty!
Show neither fear nor dread,
Strike at the foeman's head,
Cut down horse, foot, and artillery!'
I dreamt that the night was quickly advancing,
I saw the dead and dying on the green crimson plain.
Comrades I once knew well in death's sleep reposing,
Friends that I once loved but shall ne'er see again.
The green flag was waving high,
Under the bright blue sky,
And each man was singing most gloriously.
'Come from your prison, Bourke,
We Irishmen have done our work,
God has been with us, and old Ireland is free.'
I dreamt I was homeward, back over the mountain track,
With joy my mother fainted and gave a loud scream.
With the shock I awoke, just as the day had broke,
And found myself an exile, and 'twas all but a dream.
Philomel.
by Eric Mackay

Lo, as a minstrel at the court of Love,
The nightingale, who knows his mate is nigh,
Thrills into rapture; and the stars above
Look down, affrighted, as they would reply.
There is contagion, and I know not why,
In all this clamour, all this fierce delight,
As if the sunset, when the day did swoon,
Had drawn some wild confession from the moon.
Have wrongs been done? Have crimes enacted been
To shame the weird retirement of the night?
O clamourous bird! O sad; sweet nightingale!
Withhold thy voice, and blame not Beauty's queen.
She may be pure, though dumb: and she is pale,
And wears a radiance on her brow serene.
The Lobster.
by Edwin C. Ranck

Lobsters haven't any feet,
But they have lots of claws;
Yet lobster meat is good to eat,
And this is strange, because--
A dog is never good to eat,
And yet a dog has paws,
And so have cats, and so have rats
And so have other kind of brats.
A lobster then, so to speak,
Is, my child, an awful freak;
For if you get him in a stew,
He'll blush quite red and glare at you.
Yet if you eat much lobster salad,
It will make you very pallid.
Middle Harbour
by John Le Gay Brereton

Lonely wonder, delight past hoping!
Sky-line broken by stirring trees,
Grey rocks hither and shoreward sloping,
Silent bracken about my knees.
Dusky scrub where the sunlight splashes,
Glimmer of waters barely seen
Here the hope that was dust and ashes
Leaps and flashes in flames of green.
Through the boughs that are still before me,
Misty blue of the harbour hills;
Mighty Spirit of Earth who bore me,
Here the peace of thy love distils.
Fools have harried me; hell has driven,
Bidding me toil for its fading shows:
Back I spring to your arms, forgiven,
Back to the truth that a dreamer knows.
Gold and glory and fleeting pleasure
Pass in dust or as melting cloud:
You can dower with eternal treasure
Heart uplifted and head unbowed.
Arms outstretched, and the hill-top hushes;
Long deep breath, and the whole scene fades;
Sweeping homeward, my soul outrushes,
My heart the heart of the world invades.
Fleshly trammels no longer bind me,
Joyous, forgetting that such things be;
Time and space have been left behind me,
Brother of stars, I am soaring, free.
Cramped no more, I exult, extended,
All I think of I hold within;
Secret surety of vision splendid
Makes me one with my lordly kin.
Out of the vast I return, and slowly
Into the prison of sense I glide,
Yet the splendour is gone not wholly,
Yet the love and the peace abide.
Soft wind rustles the leaves, and brightly
Wavers the light on the ferns and trees;
Water-ripples are laughing lightly,
Played upon by the sun and breeze.
There the robin, a friendly fellow,
Clings to a sapling stem and waits
Just where I noted his breast of yellow
Ere I ventured beyond the gates.
Only a moment, as clocks can reckon,
Dwells the soul at that height of heights;
Ah, but I know why the wood-gods beckon,
Why the stars are as beacon lights.
The Logicians Refuted
by Oliver Goldsmith

In Imitation Of Dean Swift
Logicians have but ill defin'd
As rational, the human kind;
Reason, they say, belongs to man,
But let them prove it if they can.
Wise Aristotle and Smiglecius,
By ratiocinations specious,
Have strove to prove with great precision,
With definition and division,
'Homo est ratione praeditum', 
But for my soul I cannot credit 'em;
And must in spite of them maintain,
That man and all his ways are vain;
And that this boasted lord of nature
Is both a weak and erring creature;
That instinct is a surer guide
Than reason-boasting mortals' pride;
And that brute beasts are far before 'em,
'Deus est anima brutorum'.
Who ever knew an honest brute
At law his neighbour prosecute,
Bring action for assault and battery,
Or friend beguile with lies and flattery?
O'er plains they ramble unconfin'd,
No politics disturb their mind;
They eat their meals, and take their sport,
Nor know who's in or out at court;
They never to the levee go
To treat as dearest friend, a foe;
They never importune his grace,
Nor ever cringe to men in place;
Nor undertake a dirty job,
Nor draw the quill to write for B b.
Fraught with invective they ne'er go
To folks at Pater-Noster-Row;
No judges, fiddlers, dancing-masters,
No pick-pockets, or poetasters,
Are known to honest quadrupeds;
No single brute his fellow leads.
Brutes never meet in bloody fray,
Nor cut each others' throats, for pay.
Of beasts, it is confess'd, the ape
Comes nearest us in human shape;
Like man he imitates each fashion,
And malice is his ruling passion;
But both in malice and grimaces
A courtier any ape surpasses.
Behold him humbly cringing wait
Upon a minister of state;
View him soon after to inferiors,
Aping the conduct of superiors;
He promises with equal air,
And to perform takes equal care.
He in his turn finds imitators;
At court, the porters, lacqueys, waiters,
Their master's manners still contract,
And footmen, lords and dukes can act.
Thus at the court both great an small
Behave alike for all ape all.
The Triumph Of The People
by Henry Lawson

Lo, the gods of Vice and Mammon from their pinnacles are hurled
By the workers' new religion, which is oldest in the world;
And the earth will feel her children treading firmly on the sod,
For the triumph of the People is the victory of God.
Not the victory of Churches, nor of Punishment and Wrath,
Not the triumph of the sceptic, throwing shadows on the path,
But of Christ and love and mercy o'er the Monarch and the Rod,
For the harvest of the Saviour is the aftermath of God.
O the Light of Revelation, since the reign of Care began,
Has been shining through the ages on the darkened eyes of man.
And the willing slave of Error, he is senseless as a clod,
For the simple Book of Nature is the written scroll of God.
Who will dare to say the sunlight on the pregnant Earth was shed
That the few might rest and fatten, while the many fight for bread?
Lo, there springs a common garden, where the foot of Greed hath trod,
For the victory of Labour was the prophecy of God.
Mother Earth, in coming seasons, shall fulfil her motherhood;
Then the children of her bosom never more shall want for food,
And oppression shall no longer grind the people iron-shod;
For the lifted hand of Labour is the upraised hand of God.
Rondel*
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

Long ago to thee I gave
Body, soul, and all I have---
Nothing in the world I keep:
All that in return I crave
Is that thou accept the slave
Long ago to thee I gave---
Body, soul, and all I have.
Had I more to share or save,
I would give as give the brave,
Stooping not to part the heap;
Long ago to thee I gave
Body, soul, and all I have---
Nothing in the world I keep.
Fragments
by William Butler Yeats

I
Locke sank into a swoon;
The Garden died;
God took the spinning-jenny
Out of his side.
II
Where got I that truth?
Out of a medium's mouth.
Out of nothing it came,
Out of the forest loam,
Out of dark night where lay
The crowns of Nineveh.
Our Mountain Cemetery.
by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

Lonely and silent and calm it lies
'Neath rosy dawn or midnight skies;
So densely peopled, yet so still,
The murmuring voice of mountain rill,
The plaint the wind 'mid branches wakes,
Alone the solemn silence breaks.
Whatever changes the seasons bring, - 
The birds, the buds of joyous spring,
The glories that come with the falling year
The snows and storms of winter drear, - 
Are all unmarked in this lone spot,
Its shrouded inmates feel them not.
Thoughts full of import, earnest and deep,
Must the feeling heart in their spirit steep,
Here, where Death's footprints meet the sight:
The long chill rows of tombstones white,
The graves so thickly, widely spread,
Within this city of the Dead.
Say, who could tell what aching sighs,
What tears from heavy, grief-dimmed eyes,
Have here been shed in silent woe,
Mourning the cold, still form below;
Or o'er past harshness, coldness, hate,
Grieving, alas! too late - too late!
Oh, man, vain dreamer of this life,
Seeking 'mid restless toil and strife
For wealth, for happiness, for fame,
Thirsting to make thyself a name,
See, unto what thy course doth tend,
Of all thy toils - there is the end.
Woman, of grace or beauty proud,
Seeking alone gay fashion's crowd, - 
Thine aim, admiring looks to win,
E'en at the price of folly or sin,
That beauty now to thee so dear,
Would'st thou know its fate? Look around thee, here.
But not alone such lessons stern
May we within the grave-yard learn:
'Tis here the servant wise and good,
Who loyal to his trust hath stood,
Will joyously at length lay down
The heavy cross to receive the crown.
And hope, sweet messenger of God,
Poised lightly 'bove the charnel sod,
With upturned brow and radiant eyes,
Pointing unto the distant skies,
Whispers: "Oh, weary child of care,
Look up! thy heavenly home is there!"
The Sun And The Frogs.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
Long from the monarch of the stars
The daughters of the mud received
Support and aid; nor dearth nor wars,
Meanwhile, their teeming nation grieved.
They spread their empire far and wide
Through every marsh, by every tide.
The queens of swamps - I mean no more
Than simply frogs (great names are cheap) - 
Caball'd together on the shore,
And cursed their patron from the deep,
And came to be a perfect bore.
Pride, rashness, and ingratitude,
The progeny of fortune good,
Soon brought them to a bitter cry, - 
The end of sleep for earth and sky.
Their clamours, if they did not craze,
Would truly seem enough to raise
All living things to mutiny
Against the power of Nature's eye.
The sun,[2] according to their croak,
Was turning all the world to smoke.
It now behoved to take alarm,
And promptly powerful troops to arm.
Forthwith in haste they sent
Their croaking embassies;
To all their states they went,
And all their colonies.
To hear them talk, the all
That rides upon this whirling ball,
Of men and things, was left at stake
Upon the mud that skirts a lake!
The same complaint, in fens and bogs,
Still ever strains their lungs;
And yet these much-complaining frogs
Had better hold their tongues;
For, should the sun in anger rise,
And hurl his vengeance from the skies,
That kingless, half-aquatic crew
Their impudence would sorely rue.
The Rhyme Of The Beast
by Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

Lo, the Beast that rioteth,
Sick with hate and coveting --
To the sons of men he saith,
I will show you a new thing.
This, the Earth, which was the Lord's,
Prodigal of rose and vine,
I will desolate with swords
Till it own that it is mine.
Every brow must bear my brand
Every wrist must wear my steel,
Every throat be for my hand,
Every neck be for my heel.
I will thrust into your souls
Unnamed terrors and despairs --
Populate the air with ghouls
And the sea with murderers.
While I prove that war is war,
Saints shall mourn and angels weep,
Star commiserate with star,
Deep cry out to shuddering deep;
Tigers marvel in their lust
At the tale of blood and pain,
Pity move the insensate dust,
And the very stones complain.
I will twist the tongue of Truth
Till her speech be nought but lies,
I will kill the faith of Youth,
And the hope in Age's eyes.
Not the altar, nor the tomb,
Nor the Sufferer on the Tree,
Nor the babe within the womb
Shall be sacred unto me.
I will rend and rage and cog,
Rob and ravish till I die;
I will be the Supreme Hog,
And the world shall be my sty.
Lo, All The Age Is Rank With Wrong.
by Freeman Edwin Miller

Lo, all the age is rank with wrong!
The nations kneel to monstrous might,
And horrid cries that haunt the night,
Have hushed the notes of happy song;
Mankind the deepest truth has missed,
The best emotions have grown dim;
We praise the God that dwelt in Christ,
But crucify the man in him.
Laws, noble, good, and great at first,
With plan perverted, bind again
The regal rights of mind and men
And prove of tyrants far the worst;
With blinded eyes is Nature made,
And knows her constant purpose crossed,
While crafty Jacob plies his trade
And Esau finds his blessing lost.
Earth yields her fruits in ample store;
Her children all are heirs that trace
Their lineage through the royal race,
And all her wealth is theirs--and more;
But one with cunning hand controls
The portions that his brothers fed,
While thousands--just and worthy souls--
In aimless anguish cry for bread!
No royal blood by caste or creed,
No pride of place, no gild of gold
Can warm the weak, accursed with cold,
Or light the awful nights of need;
Labor alone can blessings bring
To crown the brows of freedom's brave;
The toiler is the truest king,
The idler is the only slave!
But laugh, O, Labor, dry thy tears!
A better day is drawing nigh;
Hope brightens all the somber sky;
The golden age of Love is near!
Behold! But yonder stands a Star!
The ancient lies are downward hurled;
A man--a child--is greater far
Than all the wealth of all the world!