DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
On The Use Of Poetry
by Mark Akenside

Not for themselves did human kind
Contrive the parts by heaven assign'd
On life's wide scene to play:
Not Scipio's force, nor C'sar's skill
Can conquer glory's arduous hill,
If fortune close the way.
Yet still the self-depending soul,
Though last and least in fortune's roll,
His proper sphere commands;
And knows what nature's seal bestow'd,
And sees, before the throne of God,
The rank in which he stands.
Who train'd by laws the future age,
Who rescu'd nations from the rage
Of partial, factious power,
My heart with distant homage views;
Content if thou, celestial Muse,
Did'st rule my natal hour.
Nor far beneath the hero's feet,
Nor from the legislator's seat
Stands far remote the bard.
Though not with public terrors crown'd,
Yet wider shall his rule be found,
More lasting his award.
Lycurgus fashion'd Sparta's fame,
And Pompey to the Roman name
Gave universal sway:
Where are they? Homer's reverend page
Holds empire to the thirtieth age,
And tongues and climes obey.
And thus when William's acts divine
No longer shall from Bourbon's line
Draw one vindictive vow;
When Sidney shall with Cato rest,
And Russel move the patriot's breast
No more than Brutus now;
Yet then shall Shakespeare's powerful art
O'er every passion, every heart,
Confirm his awful throne:
Tyrants shall bow before his laws;
And freedom's, glory's, virtue's cause,
Their dread assertor own.
The River Duddon - A Series Of Sonnets, 1820. - XXXII - Not Hurled Precipitous From Steep To Steep
by William Wordsworth

Not hurled precipitous from steep to steep;
Lingering no more 'mid flower-enameled lands
And blooming thickets; nor by rocky bands
Held; but in radiant progress toward the Deep
Where mightiest rivers into powerless sleep
Sink, and forget heir nature, 'now' expands
Majestic Duddon, over smooth flat sands
Gliding in silence with unfettered sweep!
Beneath an ampler sky a region wide
Is opened round him: hamlets, towers, and towns,
And blue-topped hills, behold him from afar;
In stately mien to sovereign Thames allied
Spreading his bosom under Kentish downs,
With commerce freighted, or triumphant war.
The Reformers
by Rudyard Kipling

Not in the camp his victory lies
Or triumph in the market-place,
Who is his Nation's sacrifice
To turn the judgement from his race.
Happy is he who, bred and taught
By sleek, sufficing Circumstance,
Whose Gospel was the apparelled thought,
Whose Gods were Luxury and Chance,
Seese, on the threshold of his days,
The old life shrivel like a scroll,
And to unheralded dismays
Submits his body and his soul;
The fatted shows wherein he stood
Foregoing, and the idiot pride,
That he may prove with his own blood
All that his easy sires denied,
Ultimate issues, primal springs,
Demands, abasements, penalties,
The imperishable plinth of things
Seen and unseen, that touch our peace.
For, though ensnaring ritual dim
His vision through the after-years,
Yet virtue shall go out of him,
Example profiting his peers.
With great things charged he shall not hold
Aloof till great occasion rise,
But serve, full-harnessed, as of old,
The Days that are the Destinies.
He shall forswear and put away
The idols of his sheltered house;
And to Necessity shall pay
Unflinching tribute of his vows.
He shall not plead another's act,
Nor bind him in another's oath
To weigh the Word above the Fact,
Or make or take excuse for sloth.
The yoke he bore shall press him still,
And, long-ingrained effort goad
To find, to fasion, and fulfil
The cleaner life, the sterner code.
Not in the camp his victory lies,
The world (unheeding his return)
Shall see it in his children's eyes
And from his grandson's lips shall learn!
Sonnet.
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

Suggested by Sir Thomas Lawrence observing that we never dream of ourselves younger than we are.
Not in our dreams, not even in our dreams,
May we return to that sweet land of youth,
That home of hope, of innocence, and truth,
Which as we farther roam but fairer seems.
In that dim shadowy world, where the soul strays
When she has laid her mortal charge to rest,
We oft behold far future hours and days,
But ne'er live o'er the past, the happiest,
How oft will fancy's wild imaginings
Bear us in sleep to times and worlds unseen!
But ah! not e'en unfettered fancy's wings
Can lead us back to aught that we have been,
Or waft us to that smiling, sunny shore,
Which e'en in slumber we may tread no more.
To Henry George In America.
by Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Not for the thought that burns on keen and clear,
Heat that the heat has turned from red to white,
The passion of the lone remembering night
One with the patience day must see and hear - 
Not for the shafts the lying foemen fear,
Shot from the soul's intense self-centring light - 
But for the heart of love divine and bright,
We praise you, worker, thinker, poet, seer!
Man of the People, - faithful in all parts,
The veins' last drop, the brain's last flickering dole,
You on whose forehead beams the aureole
That hope and "certain hope" alone imparts - 
Us have you given your perfect heart and soul;
Wherefore receive as yours our souls and hearts!
Lawn Tennis in the Temple Gardens
by James Williams

Not in contempt but to our sport inclined
Smile on us, shades of Judges short and tall
Portrayed on windows of the Temple Hall;
There was a time that ye grave thoughts resigned,
Then, warm with sack, the Serjeants' hearts waxed kind,
In mirth Lords Keepers danced the galliard all,
Not in contempt.
Of pleasures past the shadows here we find,
Gay strife on brighter swards we thus recall,
Where maiden laughter winged the flying ball;
Declare us, fair ones, with a merry mind
Not in contempt.
By The Barrows
by Thomas Hardy

Not far from Mellstock - so tradition saith -
Where barrows, bulging as they bosoms were
Of Multimammia stretched supinely there,
Catch night and noon the tempest's wanton breath,
A battle, desperate doubtless unto death,
Was one time fought. The outlook, lone and bare,
The towering hawk and passing raven share,
And all the upland round is called "The He'th."
Here once a woman, in our modern age,
Fought singlehandedly to shield a child -
One not her own - from a man's senseless rage.
And to my mind no patriots' bones there piled
So consecrate the silence as her deed
Of stoic and devoted self-unheed.
Henry Fielding.
by Henry Austin Dobson

(To James Russell Lowell.)
Not from the ranks of those we call
Philosopher or Admiral,--
Neither as LOCKE was, nor as BLAKE,
Is that Great Genius for whose sake
We keep this Autumn festival.
And yet in one sense, too, was he
A soldier--of humanity;
And, surely, philosophic mind
Belonged to him whose brain designed
That teeming COMIC EPOS where,
As in CERVANTES and MOLI'RE,
Jostles the medley of Mankind.
Our ENGLISH NOVEL'S pioneer!
His was the eye that first saw clear
How, not in natures half-effaced
By cant of Fashion and of Taste,--
Not in the circles of the Great,
Faint-blooded and exanimate,--
Lay the true field of Jest and Whim,
Which we to-day reap after him.
No:--he stepped lower down and took
The piebald PEOPLE for his Book!
Ah, what a wealth of Life there is
In that large-laughing page of his!
What store and stock of Common-Sense,
Wit, Wisdom, Books, Experience!
How his keen Satire flashes through,
And cuts a sophistry in two!
How his ironic lightning plays
Around a rogue and all his ways!
Ah, how he knots his lash to see
That ancient cloak, Hypocrisy!
Whose are the characters that give
Such round reality?--that live
With such full pulse? Fair SOPHY yet
Sings Bobbing Joan at the spinet;
We see AMELIA cooking still
That supper for the recreant WILL;
We hear Squire WESTERN'S headlong tones
Bawling "Wut ha?--wut ha?" to JONES.
Are they not present now to us,--
The Parson with his 'schylus?
SLIPSLOP the frail, and NORTHERTON,
PARTRIDGE, and BATH, and HARRISON?--
Are they not breathing, moving,--all
The motley, merry carnival
That FIELDING kept, in days agone?
He was the first who dared to draw
Mankind the mixture that he saw;
Not wholly good nor ill, but both,
With fine intricacies of growth.
He pulled the wraps of flesh apart,
And showed the working human heart;
He scorned to drape the truthful nude
With smooth, decorous platitude!
He was too frank, may be; and dared
Too boldly. Those whose faults he bared,
Writhed in the ruthless grasp that brought
Into the light their secret thought.
Therefore the TARTUFFE-throng who say
"Couvrez ce sein," and look that way,--
Therefore the Priests of Sentiment
Rose on him with their garments rent.
Therefore the gadfly swarm whose sting
Plies ever round some generous thing,
Buzzed of old bills and tavern-scores,
Old "might-have-beens" and "heretofores";--
Then, from that garbled record-list,
Made him his own Apologist.
And was he? Nay,--let who has known
Nor Youth nor Error, cast the stone!
If to have sense of Joy and Pain
Too keen,--to rise, to fall again,
To live too much,--be sin, why then,
This was no pattern among men.
But those who turn that later page,
The Journal of his middle-age,
Watch him serene in either fate,--
Philanthropist and Magistrate;
Watch him as Husband, Father, Friend,
Faithful, and patient to the end;
Grieving, as e'en the brave may grieve,
But for the loved ones he must leave:
These will admit--if any can--
That 'neath the green Estrella trees,
No Artist merely, but a MAN,
Wrought on our noblest island-plan,
Sleeps with the alien Portuguese.
The River Duddon - A Series Of Sonnets, 1820. - I
by William Wordsworth

Not envying Latian shades, if yet they throw
A grateful coolness round that crystal Spring,
Blandusia, prattling as when long ago
The Sabine Bard was moved her praise to sing;
Careless of flowers that in perennial blow
Round the moist marge of Persian fountains cling;
Heedless of Alpine torrents thundering
Through ice-built arches radiant as heaven's bow;
I seek the birthplace of a native Stream.
All hail, ye mountains! hail, thou morning light!
Better to breathe at large on this clear height
Than toil in needless sleep from dream to dream:
Pure flow the verse, pure, vigorous, free, and bright,
For Duddon, long-loved Duddon, is my theme!
A Song Of The Pen
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

Not for the love of women toil we, we of the craft,
Not for the people's praise;
Only because our goddess made us her own and laughed,
Claiming us all our days,
Claiming our best endeavour, body and heart and brain
Given with no reserve,
Niggard is she towards us, granting us little gain:
Still, we are proud to serve.
Not unto us is given choice of the tasks we try,
Gathering grain or chaff;
One of her favoured servants toils at an epic high,
One, that a child may laugh.
Yet if we serve her truly in our appointed place,
Freely she doth accord
Unto her faithful servants always this saving grace,
Work is its own reward!
The Monument of Giordano Bruno
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

I
Not from without us, only from within,
Comes or can ever come upon us light
Whereby the soul keeps ever truth in sight.
No truth, no strength, no comfort man may win,
No grace for guidance, no release from sin,
Save of his own soul's giving. Deep and bright
As fire enkindled in the core of night
Burns in the soul where once its fire has been
The light that leads and quickens thought, inspired
To doubt and trust and conquer. So he said
Whom Sidney, flower of England, lordliest head
Of all we love, loved: but the fates required
A sacrifice to hate and hell, ere fame
Should set with his in heaven Giordano's name.
II
Cover thine eyes and weep, O child of hell,
Grey spouse of Satan, Church of name abhorred.
Weep, withered harlot, with thy weeping lord,
Now none will buy the heaven thou hast to sell
At price of prostituted souls, and swell
Thy loveless list of lovers. Fire and sword
No more are thine: the steel, the wheel, the cord,
The flames that rose round living limbs, and fell
In lifeless ash and ember, now no more
Approve thee godlike. Rome, redeemed at last
From all the red pollution of thy past,
Acclaims the grave bright face that smiled of yore
Even on the fire that caught it round and clomb
To cast its ashes on the face of Rome.
Preference.
by Charlotte Bronte

Not in scorn do I reprove thee,
Not in pride thy vows I waive,
But, believe, I could not love thee,
Wert thou prince, and I a slave.
These, then, are thine oaths of passion?
This, thy tenderness for me?
Judged, even, by thine own confession,
Thou art steeped in perfidy.
Having vanquished, thou wouldst leave me!
Thus I read thee long ago;
Therefore, dared I not deceive thee,
Even with friendship's gentle show.
Therefore, with impassive coldness
Have I ever met thy gaze;
Though, full oft, with daring boldness,
Thou thine eyes to mine didst raise.
Why that smile? Thou now art deeming
This my coldness all untrue,
But a mask of frozen seeming,
Hiding secret fires from view.
Touch my hand, thou self-deceiver;
Nay-be calm, for I am so:
Does it burn? Does my lip quiver?
Has mine eye a troubled glow?
Canst thou call a moment's colour
To my forehead, to my cheek?
Canst thou tinge their tranquil pallor
With one flattering, feverish streak?
Am I marble?    What! no woman
Could so calm before thee stand?
Nothing living, sentient, human,
Could so coldly take thy hand?
Yes, a sister might, a mother:
My good-will is sisterly:
Dream not, then, I strive to smother
Fires that inly burn for thee.
Rave not, rage not, wrath is fruitless,
Fury cannot change my mind;
I but deem the feeling rootless
Which so whirls in passion's wind.
Can I love?    Oh, deeply, truly,
Warmly, fondly, but not thee;
And my love is answered duly,
With an equal energy.
Wouldst thou see thy rival?    Hasten,
Draw that curtain soft aside,
Look where yon thick branches chasten
Noon, with shades of eventide.
In that glade, where foliage blending
Forms a green arch overhead,
Sits thy rival, thoughtful bending
O'er a stand with papers spread,
Motionless, his fingers plying
That untired, unresting pen;
Time and tide unnoticed flying,
There he sits, the first of men!
Man of conscience, man of reason;
Stern, perchance, but ever just;
Foe to falsehood, wrong, and treason,
Honour's shield, and virtue's trust!
Worker, thinker, firm defender
Of Heaven's truth, man's liberty;
Soul of iron, proof to slander,
Rock where founders tyranny.
Fame he seeks not, but full surely
She will seek him, in his home;
This I know, and wait securely
For the atoning hour to come.
To that man my faith is given,
Therefore, soldier, cease to sue;
While God reigns in earth and heaven,
I to him will still be true!
France.
by Toru Dutt

Not dead,--oh no,--she cannot die!
Only a swoon, from loss of blood!
Levite England passes her by,
Help, Samaritan! None is nigh;
Who shall stanch me this sanguine flood?
Range the brown hair, it blinds her eyne,
Dash cold water over her face!
Drowned in her blood, she makes no sign,
Give her a draught of generous wine.
None heed, none hear, to do this grace.
Head of the human column, thus
Ever in swoon wilt thou remain?
Thought, Freedom, Truth, quenched ominous,
Whence then shall Hope arise for us,
Plunged in the darkness all again!
No, she stirs!--There's a fire in her glance,
Ware, oh ware of that broken sword!
What, dare ye for an hour's mischance,
Gather around her, jeering France,
Attila's own exultant horde?
Lo, she stands up,--stands up e'en now,
Strong once more for the battle-fray,
Gleams bright the star, that from her brow
Lightens the world. Bow, nations, bow,
Let her again lead on the way!
Madrigale I.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Non al suo amante pi' Diana piacque.
ANYTHING THAT REMINDS HIM OF LAURA RENEWS HIS TORMENTS.
Not Dian to her lover was more dear,
When fortune 'mid the waters cold and clear,
Gave him her naked beauties all to see,
Than seem'd the rustic ruddy nymph to me,
Who, in yon flashing stream, the light veil laved,
Whence Laura's lovely tresses lately waved;
I saw, and through me felt an amorous chill,
Though summer burn, to tremble and to thrill.
MACGREGOR.
Sir John Franklin
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Not here! the white North has thy bones; and thou,
Heroic sailor-soul,
Art passing on thine happier voyage now
Toward no earthly pole.
The Prayer Of The Romans.
by John Milton Hay

Not done, but near its ending,
Is the work that our eyes desired;
Not yet fulfilled, but near the goal,
Is the hope that our worn hearts fired.
And on the Alban Mountains,
Where the blushes of dawn increase,
We see the flash of the beautiful feet
Of Freedom and of Peace!
How long were our fond dreams baffled! -
Novara's sad mischance,
The Kaiser's sword and fetter-lock,
And the traitor stab of France;
Till at last came glorious Venice,
In storm and tempest home;
And now God maddens the greedy kings,
And gives to her people Rome.
Lame Lion of Caprera!
Red-shirts of the lost campaigns!
Not idly shed was the costly blood
You poured from generous veins.
For the shame of Aspromonte,
And the stain of Mentana's sod,
But forged the curse of kings that sprang
From your breaking hearts to God!
We lift our souls to Thee, O Lord
Of Liberty and of Light!
Let not earth's kings pollute the work
That was done in their despite;
Let not Thy light be darkened
In the shade of a sordid crown,
Nor pampered swine devour the fruit
Thou shook'st with an earthquake down!
Let the People come to their birthright,
And crosier and crown pass away
Like phantasms that flit o'er the marshes
At the glance of the clean, white day.
And then from the lava of AEtna
To the ice of the Alps let there be
One freedom, one faith without fetters,
One republic in Italy free!
Not Heaving From My Ribb'd Breast Only
by Walt Whitman

Not heaving from my ribb'd breast only;
Not in sighs at night, in rage, dissatisfied with myself;
Not in those long-drawn, ill-supprest sighs;
Not in many an oath and promise broken;
Not in my wilful and savage soul's volition;
Not in the subtle nourishment of the air;
Not in this beating and pounding at my temples and wrists;
Not in the curious systole and diastole within, which will one day cease;
Not in many a hungry wish, told to the skies only;
Not in cries, laughter, defiances, thrown from me when alone, far in the wilds;
Not in husky pantings through clench'd teeth;
Not in sounded and resounded words - chattering words, echoes, dead words;
Not in the murmurs of my dreams while I sleep,
Nor the other murmurs of these incredible dreams of every day;
Nor in the limbs and senses of my body, that take you and dismiss you continually - Not there;
Not in any or all of them, O adhesiveness! O pulse of my life!
Need I that you exist and show yourself, any more than in these songs.
Odes From Horace. - To Melpomene. Book The Fourth, Ode The Third.
by Anna Seward

Not he, O MUSE! whom thy auspicious eyes
In his primeval hour beheld,
Shall victor in the Isthmian Contest rise;
Nor o'er the long-resounding field
Impetuous steeds his kindling wheels shall roll,
Gay in th' Olympic Race, and foremost at the goal.
Nor in the Capitol, triumphant shown,
The victor-laurel on his brow,
For Cities storm'd, and vaunting Kings o'erthrown; - 
But Tibur's streams, that warbling flow,
And groves of fragrant gloom, resound his strains,
Whose sweet 'olian grace high celebration gains.
Now that his name, her noblest Bards among,
Th' imperial City loudly hails,
That proud distinction guards his rising song,
When Envy's carping tongue assails;
In sullen silence now she hears his praise,
Nor sheds her canker'd spots upon his springing bays.
O MUSE! who rulest each melodious lay
That floats along the gilded shell,
Who the mute tenant of the watry way
Canst teach, at pleasure, to excel
The softest note harmonious Sorrow brings,
When the expiring Swan her own sad requiem sings.
Thine be the praise, that pointing Romans guide
The Stranger's eye, with proud desire
That well he note the Man, whom Crowds decide
Should boldly string the Latian lyre. - 
Ah! when I charm, if still to charm be mine,
Nymph of the warbling shell, be all the glory THINE!
On Seeing 'The House Of Julia' At Herculaneum
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Not great Vesuvius, in all his ire,
Nor all the centuries, could hide your shame.
There is the little window where you came,
With eyes that woke the demon of desire,
And lips like rose leaves, fashioned out of fire;
And from the lava leaps the molten flame
Of your old sins.    The walls cry out your name - 
Your face seems rising from the funeral pyre.
There must have dwelt, within your fated town,
Full many a virtuous dame, and noble wife
Who made your beauty seem as star to sun;
How strange the centuries have handed down
Your name, fair Julia, of immoral life,
And left the others to oblivion.
To The River Arve.
by William Cullen Bryant

Supposed To Be Written At A Hamlet Near The Foot Of Mont Blanc.
Not from the sands or cloven rocks,
Thou rapid Arve! thy waters flow;
Nor earth, within her bosom, locks
Thy dark unfathomed wells below.
Thy springs are in the cloud, thy stream
Begins to move and murmur first
Where ice-peaks feel the noonday beam,
Or rain-storms on the glacier burst.
Born where the thunder and the blast,
And morning's earliest light are born,
Thou rushest swoln, and loud, and fast,
By these low homes, as if in scorn:
Yet humbler springs yield purer waves;
And brighter, glassier streams than thine,
Sent up from earth's unlighted caves,
With heaven's own beam and image shine.
Yet stay; for here are flowers and trees;
Warm rays on cottage roofs are here,
And laugh of girls, and hum of bees,
Here linger till thy waves are clear.
Thou heedest not, thou hastest on;
From steep to steep thy torrent falls,
Till, mingling with the mighty Rhone,
It rests beneath Geneva's walls.
Rush on, but were there one with me
That loved me, I would light my hearth
Here, where with God's own majesty
Are touched the features of the earth.
By these old peaks, white, high, and vast,
Still rising as the tempests beat,
Here would I dwell, and sleep, at last,
Among the blossoms at their feet.
Song Of A Man Who Has Come Through
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me!
A fine wind is blowing the new direction of Time.
If only I let it bear me, carry me, if only it carry me!
If only I am sensitive, subtle, oh, delicate, a winged gift!
If only, most lovely of all, I yield myself and am borrowed
By the fine, fine wind that takes its course through the chaos of the world
Like a fine, an exquisite chisel, a wedge-blade inserted;
If only I am keen and hard like the sheer tip of a wedge
Driven by invisible blows,
The rock will split, we shall come at the wonder, we shall find the Hesperides.
Oh, for the wonder that bubbles into my soul,
I would be a good fountain, a good well-head,
Would blur no whisper, spoil no expression.
What is the knocking?
What is the knocking at the door in the night?
It is somebody wants to do us harm.
No, no, it is the three strange angels.
Admit them, admit them.
War In The North
by Michael Earls

Not from Mars and not from Thor
Comes the war, the welcome war,
Many months we waited for
To free us from the bondage
Of Winter's gloomy reign:
Valor to our hope is bound,
Songs of courage loud resound,
Vowed is Spring to win her ground
Through all our northern country,
From Oregon to Maine.
All our loyal brave allies
In the Southlands mobilize,
Faith is sworn to our emprise,
The scouting breezes whisper
That help is sure today:
Vanguards of the springtime rains
Cannonade the hills and plains,
Freeing them from Winter's chains,
So birds and buds may flourish
Around the throne of May.
Hark! and hear the clarion call
Bluebirds give by fence and wall!
Look! The darts of sunlight fall,
And red shields of the robins
Ride boldly down the leas;
Hail! The cherry banners shine,
Onward comes the battle line,--
On! White dogwood waves the sign,
And exile troops of blossoms
Are sailing meadow seas.