DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
On The Death Of A Favourite Old Spaniel.
by Robert Southey

And they have drown'd thee then at last! poor Phillis!
The burthen of old age was heavy on thee.
And yet thou should'st have lived! what tho' thine eye
Was dim, and watch'd no more with eager joy
The wonted call that on thy dull sense sunk
With fruitless repetition, the warm Sun
Would still have cheer'd thy slumber, thou didst love
To lick the hand that fed thee, and tho' past
Youth's active season, even Life itself
Was comfort. Poor old friend! most earnestly
Would I have pleaded for thee: thou hadst been
Still the companion of my childish sports,
And, as I roam'd o'er Avon's woody clifts,
From many a day-dream has thy short quick bark
Recall'd my wandering soul. I have beguil'd
Often the melancholy hours at school,
Sour'd by some little tyrant, with the thought
Of distant home, and I remember'd then
Thy faithful fondness: for not mean the joy,
Returning at the pleasant holydays,
I felt from thy dumb welcome. Pensively
Sometimes have I remark'd thy slow decay,
Feeling myself changed too, and musing much
On many a sad vicissitude of Life!
Ah poor companion! when thou followedst last
Thy master's parting footsteps to the gate
That clos'd for ever on him, thou didst lose
Thy truest friend, and none was left to plead
For the old age of brute fidelity!
But fare thee well! mine is no narrow creed,
And HE who gave thee being did not frame
The mystery of life to be the sport
Of merciless man! there is another world
For all that live and move--a better one!
Where the proud bipeds, who would fain confine
INFINITE GOODNESS to the little bounds
Of their own charity, may envy thee!
The Spell
by Madison Julius Cawein

"We have the receipt of fern seed: we walk invisible."
- HENRY IV
And we have met but twice or thrice! - 
Three times enough to make me love! - 
I praised your hair once; then your glove;
Your eyes; your gown; - you were like ice;
And yet this might suffice, my love,
And yet this might suffice.
St. John hath told me what to do:
To search and find the ferns that grow
The fern seed that the faeries know;
Then sprinkle fern seed in my shoe,
And haunt the steps of you, my dear,
And haunt the steps of you.
You'll see the poppy pods dip here;
The blow-ball of the thistle slip,
And no wind breathing - but my lip
Next to your anxious cheek and ear,
To tell you I am near, my love,
To tell you I am near.
On wood-ways I shall tread your gown - 
You'll know it is no brier! - then
I'll whisper words of love again,
And smile to see your quick face frown:
And then I'll kiss it down, my dear,
And then I'll kiss it down.
And when at home you read or knit, - 
Who'll know it was my hands that blotted
The page? - or all your needles knotted?
When in your rage you cry a bit:
And loud I laugh at it, my love,
And loud I laugh at it.
The secrets that you say in prayer
Right so I'll hear: and, when you sing,
The name you speak; and whispering
I'll bend and kiss your mouth and hair,
And tell you I am there, my dear,
And tell you I am there.
Would it were true what people say! - 
Would I _could_ find that elfin seed!
Then should I win your love, indeed,
By being near you night and day - 
There is no other way, my love,
There is no other way.
Meantime the truth in this is said:
It is my soul that follows you;
It needs no fern seed in the shoe, - 
While in the heart love pulses red,
To win you and to wed, my dear,
To win you and to wed.
To The Citizens[1]
by Jonathan Swift

And shall the Patriot who maintain'd your cause,
From future ages only meet applause?
Shall he, who timely rose t'his country's aid,
By her own sons, her guardians, be betray'd?
Did heathen virtues in your hearts reside,
These wretches had been damn'd for parricide.
Should you behold, whilst dreadful armies threat
The sure destruction of an injured state,
Some hero, with superior virtue bless'd,
Avert their rage, and succour the distress'd;
Inspired with love of glorious liberty,
Do wonders to preserve his country free;
He like the guardian shepherd stands, and they
Like lions spoil'd of their expected prey,
Each urging in his rage the deadly dart,
Resolved to pierce the generous hero's heart;
Struck with the sight, your souls would swell with grief,
And dare ten thousand deaths to his relief,
But, if the people he preserved should cry,
He went too far, and he deserved to - die,
Would not your soul such treachery detest,
And indignation boil within your breast,
Would not you wish that wretched state preserved,
To feel the tenfold ruin they deserved?
If, then, oppression has not quite subdued
At once your prudence and your gratitude,
If you yourselves conspire not your undoing,
And don't deserve, and won't draw down your ruin,
If yet to virtue you have some pretence,
If yet ye are not lost to common sense,
Assist your patriot in your own defence;
That stupid cant, "he went too far," despise,
And know that to be brave is to be wise:
Think how he struggled for your liberty,
And give him freedom, whilst yourselves are free.
M. B.
The Lost Master
by Robert William Service

"And when I come to die," he said,
"Ye shall not lay me out in state,
Nor leave your laurels at my head,
Nor cause your men of speech orate;
No monument your gift shall be,
No column in the Hall of Fame;
But just this line ye grave for me:
'He played the game.'"
So when his glorious task was done,
It was not of his fame we thought;
It was not of his battles won,
But of the pride with which he fought;
But of his zest, his ringing laugh,
His trenchant scorn of praise or blame:
And so we graved his epitaph,
"He played the game."
And so we, too, in humbler ways
Went forth to fight the fight anew,
And heeding neither blame nor praise,
We held the course he set us true.
And we, too, find the fighting sweet;
And we, too, fight for fighting's sake;
And though we go down in defeat,
And though our stormy hearts may break,
We will not do our Master shame:
We'll play the game, please God,
We'll play the game.
To Himselfe And The Harpe
by Michael Drayton

And why not I, as hee
That's greatest, if as free,
(In sundry strains that striue,
Since there so many be)
Th' old Lyrick kind reuiue?
I will, yea, and I may;
Who shall oppose my way?
For what is he alone,
That of himselfe can say,
Hee's Heire of Helicon?
APOLLO, and the Nine,
Forbid no Man their Shrine,
That commeth with hands pure;
Else be they so diuine,
They will not him indure.
For they be such coy Things,
That they care not for Kings,
And dare let them know it;
Nor may he touch their Springs,
That is not borne a Poet.
[1]The Phocean it did proue,
Whom when foule Lust did moue,
Those Mayds vnchast to make,
Fell, as with them he stroue,
His Neck and iustly brake.
That instrument ne'r heard,
Strooke by the skilfull Bard,
It strongly to awake;
But it th' infernalls skard,
And made Olympus quake.
[2]As those Prophetike strings
Whose sounds with fiery Wings,
Draue Fiends from their abode,
Touch'd by the best of Kings,
That sang the holy Ode.
[3]So his, which Women slue,
And it int' Hebrus threw,
Such sounds yet forth it sent,
The Bankes to weepe that drue,
As downe the streame it went.
[4]That by the Tortoyse shell,
To MAYAS Sonne it fell,
The most thereof not doubt
But sure some Power did dwell,
In Him who found it out.
[5]The Wildest of the field,
And Ayre, with Riuers t' yeeld,
Which mou'd; that sturdy Glebes,
And massie Oakes could weeld,
To rayse the pyles of Thebes.
And diuersly though Strung,
So anciently We sung,
To it, that Now scarce knowne,
If first it did belong
To Greece, or if our Owne.
[6]The Druydes imbrew'd,
With Gore, on Altars rude
With Sacrifices crown'd,
In hollow Woods bedew'd,
Ador'd the Trembling sound.
[7]Though wee be All to seeke,
Of PINDAR that Great Greeke,
To Finger it aright,
The Soule with power to strike,
His hand retayn'd such Might.
[8]Or him that Rome did grace
Whose Ayres we all imbrace,
That scarcely found his Peere,
Nor giueth PHOEBVS place,
For Strokes diuinely cleere.
[9]The Irish I admire,
And still cleaue to that Lyre,
As our Musike's Mother,
And thinke, till I expire,
APOLLO'S such another.
As Britons, that so long
Haue held this Antike Song,
And let all our Carpers
Forbeare their fame to wrong,
Th' are right skilfull Harpers.
[10]Southerne, I long thee spare,
Yet wish thee well to fare,
Who me pleased'st greatly,
As first, therefore more rare,
Handling thy Harpe neatly.
To those that with despight
Shall terme these Numbers slight,
Tell them their Iudgement's blind,
Much erring from the right,
It is a Noble kind.
[11]Nor is 't the Verse doth make,
That giueth, or doth take,
'Tis possible to clyme,
To kindle, or to slake,
Although in SKELTON'S Ryme.
The Swan
by Charles Baudelaire

Andromache, I think of you! The stream,
The poor, sad mirror where in bygone days
Shone all the majesty of your widowed grief,
The lying Simo's flooded by your tears,
Made all my fertile memory blossom forth
As I passed by the new-built Carrousel.
Old Paris is no more (a town, alas,
Changes more quickly than man's heart may change);
Yet in my mind I still can see the booths;
The heaps of brick and rough-hewn capitals;
The grass; the stones all over-green with moss;
The d'bris, and the square-set heaps of tiles.
There a menagerie was once outspread;
And there I saw, one morning at the hour
When toil awakes beneath the cold, clear sky,
And the road roars upon the silent air,
A swan who had escaped his cage, and walked
On the dry pavement with his webby feet,
And trailed his spotless plumage on the ground.
And near a waterless stream the piteous swan
Opened his beak, and bathing in the dust
His nervous wings, he cried (his heart the while
Filled with a vision of his own fair lake):
"O water, when then wilt thou come in rain?
Lightning, when wilt thou glitter?"
Sometimes yet
I see the hapless bird - strange, fatal myth
Like him that Ovid writes of, lifting up
Unto the cruelly blue, ironic heavens,
With stretched, convulsive neck a thirsty face,
As though he sent reproaches up to God!
II.
Paris may change; my melancholy is fixed.
New palaces, and scaffoldings, and blocks,
And suburbs old, are symbols all to me
Whose memories are as heavy as a stone.
And so, before the Louvre, to vex my soul,
The image came of my majestic swan
With his mad gestures, foolish and sublime,
As of an exile whom one great desire
Gnaws with no truce. And then I thought of you,
Andromache! torn from your hero's arms;
Beneath the hand of Pyrrhus in his pride;
Bent o'er an empty tomb in ecstasy;
Widow of Hector - wife of Helenus!
And of the negress, wan and phthisical,
Tramping the mud, and with her haggard eyes
Seeking beyond the mighty walls of fog
The absent palm-trees of proud Africa;
Of all who lose that which they never find;
Of all who drink of tears; all whom grey grief
Gives suck to as the kindly wolf gave suck;
Of meagre orphans who like blossoms fade.
And one old Memory like a crying horn
Sounds through the forest where my soul is lost . . .
I think of sailors on some isle forgotten;
Of captives; vanquished . . . and of many more.
Highgate
by Paul Cameron Brown

Angel Inn,
come off a sign
blown sideways
in the sugar and ices
night.
Old St. Joseph's
Cathedral, bottom
of the hill, here
Andrew Marvell
of "coy mistress"
fame sports a plaque
remembering "time's
winged chariot" and
farther (further!) up
a quaint pub gives accolades
(Kudos, too) to the fact, 1666
nefariously was the plague year
in London - Parliament Hill,
a brief arm stretch away,
posited strangled chickens
and other assorted heirlooms
in vain attempt for poesy
to thwart poxy.
A stone's throw
off in Hampstead Heath
guns (Big Berthas) could
be heard from the Somme,
German derigibles dropped
incendiaries, the wounded entrained
at Charing Cross and a rascallion
(John Keats by name) drained
a draught at Jack Straw's
Castle near the Spaniards
while Turpin's hanged corpse
was soon to resemble good
English oaker casks
at the Flask.
Remember - Forget
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

1855
And what shall be the song to-night,
If song there needs must be?
If every year that brings us here
Must steal an hour from me?
Say, shall it ring a merry peal,
Or heave a mourning sigh
O'er shadows cast, by years long past,
On moments flitting by?
Nay, take the first unbidden line
The idle hour may send,
No studied grace can mend the face
That smiles as friend on friend;
The balsam oozes from the pine,
The sweetness from the rose,
And so, unsought, a kindly thought
Finds language as it flows.
The years rush by in sounding flight,
I hear their ceaseless wings;
Their songs I hear, some far, some near,
And thus the burden rings
"The morn has fled, the noon has past,
The sun will soon be set,
The twilight fade to midnight shade;
Remember-and Forget!"
Remember all that time has brought - 
The starry hope on high,
The strength attained, the courage gained,
The love that cannot die.
Forget the bitter, brooding thought, - 
The word too harshly said,
The living blame love hates to name,
The frailties of the dead!
We have been younger, so they say,
But let the seasons roll,
He doth not lack an almanac
Whose youth is in his soul.
The snows may clog life's iron track,
But does the axle tire,
While bearing swift through bank and drift
The engine's heart of fire?
I lift a goblet in my hand;
If good old wine it hold,
An ancient skin to keep it in
Is just the thing, we 're told.
We 're grayer than the dusty flask, - 
We 're older than our wine;
Our corks reveal the "white top" seal,
The stamp of '29.
Ah, Boys! we clustered in the dawn,
To sever in the dark;
A merry crew, with loud halloo,
We climbed our painted bark;
We sailed her through the four years' cruise,
We 'll sail her to the last,
Our dear old flag, though but a rag,
Still flying on her mast.
So gliding on, each winter's gale
Shall pipe us all on deck,
Till, faint and few, the gathering crew
Creep o'er the parting wreck,
Her sails and streamers spread aloft
To fortune's rain or shine,
Till storm or sun shall all be one,
And down goes TWENTY-NINE!
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part II. - XIX - Abuse Of Monastic Power
by William Wordsworth

And what is Penance with her knotted thong;
Mortification with the shirt of hair,
Wan cheek, and knees indurated with prayer,
Vigils, and fastings rigorous as long;
If cloistered Avarice scruple not to wrong
The pious, humble, useful Secular,
And rob the people of his daily care,
Scorning that world whose blindness makes her strong?
Inversion strange! that, unto One who lives
For self, and struggles with himself alone,
The amplest share of heavenly favour gives;
That to a Monk allots, both in the esteem
Of God and man, place higher than to him
Who on the good of others builds his own!
Major Bellenden's Song
by Walter Scott (Sir)

And what though winter will pinch severe
Through locks of grey and a cloak that's old?
Yet keep up thy heart, bold cavalier,
For a cup of sack shall fence the cold.
For time will rust the brightest blade,
And years will break the strongest bow;
Was ever wight so starkly made,
But time and years would overthrow?
Wash Lowry's Reminiscence
by James Whitcomb Riley

And you're the poet of this concern?
I've seed your name in print
A dozen times, but I'll be dern
I'd 'a' never 'a' took the hint
O' the size you are - fer I'd pictured you
A kind of a tallish man -
Dark-complected and sallor too,
And on the consumpted plan.
'Stid o' that you're little and small,
With a milk-and-water face -
'Thout no snap in your eyes at all,
Er nothin' to suit the case!
Kind o'look like a - I don't know -
One o' these fair-ground chaps
That runs a thingamajig to blow,
Er a candy-stand perhaps.
'Ll I've allus thought that poetry
Was a sort of a - some disease -
Fer I knowed a poet once, and he
Was techy and hard to please,
And moody-like, and kindo' sad
And didn't seem to mix
With other folks - like his health was bad,
Er his liver out o' fix.
Used to teach fer a livelihood -
There's folks in Pipe Crick yit
Remembers him - and he was good
At cipherin' I'll admit -
And posted up in G'ography
But when it comes to tact,
And gittin' along with the school, you see,
He fizzled, and that's a fact!
Boarded with us fer fourteen months
And in all that time I'll say
We never catched him a-sleepin' once
Er idle a single day.
But shucks!    It made him worse and worse
A-writin' rhymes and stuff,
And the school committee used to furse
'At the school warn't good enough.
He warn't as strict as he ought to been,
And never was known to whip,
Or even to keep a scholard in
At work at his penmanship;
'Stid o' that he'd learn 'em notes,
And have 'em every day,
Spilin' hymns and a-splittin' th'oats
With his "Do-sol-fa-me-ra!"
Tel finally it was jest agreed
We'd have to let him go,
And we all felt bad - we did indeed,
When we come to tell him so;
Fer I remember, he turned so white,
And smiled so sad, somehow,
I someway felt it wasn't right,
And I'm shore it wasn't now!
He hadn't no complaints at all -
He bid the school adieu,
And all o' the scholards great and small
Was mighty sorry too!
And when he closed that afternoon
They sung some lines that he
Had writ a purpose, to some old tune
That suited the case, you see.
And then he lingered and delayed
And wouldn't go away -
And shet himself in his room and stayed
A-writin' from day to day;
And kep' a-gittin' stranger still,
And thinner all the time,
You know, as any feller will
On nothin' else but rhyme.
He didn't seem adzactly right,
Er like he was crossed in love,
He'd work away night after night,
And walk the floor above;
We'd hear him read and talk, and sing
So lonesome-like and low,
My woman's cried like ever'thing -
'Way in the night, you know.
And when at last he tuck to bed
He'd have his ink and pen;
"So's he could coat the muse" he said,
"He'd die contented then";
And jest before he past away
He read with dyin' gaze
The epitaph that stands to-day
To show you where he lays.
And ever sence then I've allus thought
That poetry's some disease,
And them like you that's got it ought
To watch their q's and p's ;
And leave the sweets of rhyme, to sup
On the wholesome draughts of toil,
And git your health recruited up
By plowin' in rougher soil.
Peggy's the Lady of the Hall
by John Clare

And will she leave the lowly clowns
For silk and satins gay,
Her woollen aprons and drab gowns
For lady's cold array?
And will she leave the wild hedge rose,
The redbreast and the wren,
And will she leave her Sunday beaus
And milk shed in the glen?
And will she leave her kind friends all
To be the Lady of the Hall?
The cowslips bowed their golden drops,
The white thorn white as sheets;
The lamb agen the old ewe stops,
The wren and robin tweets.
And Peggy took her milk pails still,
And sang her evening song,
To milk her cows on Cowslip Hill
For half the summer long.
But silk and satins rich and rare
Are doomed for Peggy still to wear.
But when the May had turned to haws,
The hedge rose swelled to hips,
Peggy was missed without a cause,
And left us in eclipse.
The shepherd in the hovel milks,
Where builds the little wren,
And Peggy's gone, all clad in silks--
Far from the happy glen,
From dog-rose, woodbine, clover, all
To be the Lady of the Hall.
The Song Of Empedocles
by Matthew Arnold

And you, ye stars,
Who slowly begin to marshal,
As of old, in the fields of heaven,
Your distant, melancholy lines!
Have you, too, survived yourselves?
Are you, too, what I fear to become?
You, too, once lived;
You too moved joyfully
Among august companions,
In an older world, peopled by Gods,
In a mightier order,
The radiant, rejoicing, intelligent Sons of Heaven.
But now, ye kindle
Your lonely, cold-shining lights,
Unwilling lingerers
In the heavenly wilderness,
For a younger, ignoble world;
And renew, by necessity,
Night after night your courses,
In echoing, unneared silence,
Above a race you know not, 
Uncaring and undelighted,
Without friend and without home;
Weary like us, though not
Weary with our weariness.
Scene in the Trojan War.
by W. M. MacKeracher

(Translated from Homer.)
And when th'opposing ranks in conflict closed,
Shield rang on shield and rattled lance on lance,
And clashed the might of brazen mail'd men.
And 'midst the din of steel encount'ring steel
The exultation and the groans arose
Of warriors slaying, warriors being slain;
And soon the earth flowed red with heroes' blood,
And such the raging of the mingled host
As wintry torrents, bursting from the hills,
Hurl in one basin their impetuous flood,
From mighty springs within the hollow rock;
And the lone shepherd hears the distant roar.
England To America
by Katharine Lee Bates

And what of thee, O Lincoln's Land? What gloom
Is darkening above the Sunset Sea?
Vowed Champion of Liberty, deplume
Thy war-crest, bow thy knee,
Before God answer thee.
What talk is thine of rebels? Didst thou turn,
My very child, thy vaunted sword on me,
To scoff to-day at patriot fires that burn
In hearts unbound to thee,
Flames of the Sunset Sea?
The Philosopher And The Stars
by Matthew Arnold

A long pause, during which EMPEDOCLES remains motionless, plunged in thought. The night deepens. He moves forward and gazes round him, and proceeds:
And you, ye stars,
Who slowly begin to marshal,
As of old, in the fields of heaven,
Your distant, melancholy lines!
Have you, too, survived yourselves?
Are you, too, what I fear to become?
You, too, once lived!
You too moved joyfully
Among august companions
In an older world, peopled by Gods,
In a mightier order,
The radiant, rejoicing, intelligent Sons of Heaven
But now, you kindle
Your lonely, cold-shining lights,
Unwilling lingerers
In the heavenly wilderness,
For a younger, ignoble world;
And renew, by necessity,
Night after night your courses,
In echoing unnear'd silence,
Above a race you know not.
Uncaring and undelighted.
Without friend and without home;
Weary like us, though not
Weary with our weariness.
Birth-Day Ode, 1796.
by Robert Southey

And wouldst thou seek the low abode
Where PEACE delights to dwell?
Pause Traveller on thy way of life!
With many a snare and peril rife
Is that long labyrinth of road:
Dark is the vale of years before
Pause Traveller on thy way!
Nor dare the dangerous path explore
Till old EXPERIENCE comes to lend his leading ray.
Not he who comes with lanthorn light
Shall guide thy groping pace aright
With faltering feet and slow;
No! let him rear the torch on high
And every maze shall meet thine eye,
And every snare and every foe;
Then with steady step and strong,
Traveller, shalt thou march along.
Tho' POWER invite thee to her hall,
Regard not thou her tempting call
Her splendors meteor glare;
Tho' courteous Flattery there await
And Wealth adorn the dome of State,
There stalks the midnight spectre CARE;
PEACE, Traveller! does not sojourn there.
If FAME allure thee, climb not thou
To that steep mountain's craggy brow
Where stands her stately pile;
For far from thence does PEACE abide,
And thou shall find FAME'S favouring smile
Cold as the feeble Sun on Heclas snow-clad side,
And Traveller! as thou hopest to find
That low and loved abode,
Retire thee from the thronging road
And shun the mob of human kind.
Ah I hear how old EXPERIENCE schools,
"Fly fly the crowd of Knaves and Fools
"And thou shalt fly from woe;
"The one thy heedless heart will greet
"With Judas smile, and thou wilt meet
"In every Fool a Foe!"
So safely mayest thou pass from these,
And reach secure the home of PEACE,
And FRIENDSHIP find thee there.
No happier state can mortal know,
No happier lot can Earth bestow
If LOVE thy lot shall share.
Yet still CONTENT with him may dwell
Whom HYMEN will not bless,
And VIRTUE sojourn in the cell
Of HERMIT HAPPINESS.
Angel Of Charity. (Air.--Handel)
by Thomas Moore

Angel of Charity, who, from above,
Comest to dwell a pilgrim here,
Thy voice is music, thy smile is love,
And Pity's soul is in thy tear.
When on the shrine of God were laid
First-fruits of all most good and fair,
That ever bloomed in Eden's shade,
Thine was the holiest offering there.
Hope and her sister, Faith, were given
But as our guides to yonder sky;
Soon as they reach the verge of heaven,
There, lost in perfect bliss, they die.
But, long as Love, Almighty Love,
Shall on his throne of thrones abide,
Thou, Charity, shalt dwell above,
Smiling for ever by His side!