DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Ballade To Our Lady Of Czestochowa
by Hilaire Belloc

I
Lady and Queen and Mystery manifold
And very Regent of the untroubled sky,
Whom in a dream St. Hilda did behold
And heard a woodland music passing by:
You shall receive me when the clouds are high
With evening and the sheep attain the fold.
This is the faith that I have held and hold,
And this is that in which I mean to die.
II
Steep are the seas and savaging and cold
In broken waters terrible to try;
And vast against the winter night the wold,
And harbourless for any sail to lie.
But you shall lead me to the lights, and I
Shall hymn you in a harbour story told.
This is the faith that I have held and hold,
And this is that in which I mean to die.
III
Help of the half-defeated, House of gold,
Shrine of the Sword, and Tower of Ivory;
Splendour apart, supreme and aureoled,
The Battler's vision and the World's reply.
You shall restore me, O my last Ally,
To vengence and the glories of the bold.
This is the faith that I have held and hold,
And this is that in which I mean to die.
Envoi
Prince of the degradations, bought and sold,
These verses, written in your crumbling sty,
Proclaim the faith that I have held and hold
And publish that in which I mean to die.
To A Cold Beauty.
by Thomas Hood

Lady, wouldst thou heiress be
To Winters cold and cruel part?
When he sets the rivers free,
Thou dost still lock up thy heart; - 
Thou that shouldst outlast the snow,
But in the whiteness of thy brow?
Scorn and cold neglect are made
For winter gloom and winter wind,
But thou wilt wrong the summer air,
Breathing it to words unkind, - 
Breath which only should belong
To love, to sunlight, and to song!
When the little buds unclose.
Red, and white, and pied, and blue,
And that virgin flow'r, the rose,
Opes her heart to hold the dew,
Wilt thou lock thy bosom up
With no jewel in its cup?
Let not cold December sit
Thus in Love's peculiar throne:
Brooklets are not prison'd now,
But crystal frosts are all agone,
And that which hangs upon the spray,
It is no snow, but flow'r of May!
The Death Of Admiral Blake
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

(August 7th, 1657)
Laden with spoil of the South, fulfilled with the glory of achievement,
And freshly crowned with never-dying fame,
Sweeping by shores where the names are the names of the victories of England,
Across the Bay the squadron homeward came.
Proudly they came, but their pride was the pomp of a funeral at midnight,
When dreader yet the lonely morrow looms;
Few are the words that are spoken, and faces are gaunt beneath the torchlight
That does but darken more the nodding plumes.
Low on the field of his fame, past hope lay the Admiral triumphant,
And fain to rest him after all his pain;
Yet for the love that he bore to his own land, ever unforgotten,
He prayed to see the western hills again.
Fainter than stars in a sky long gray with the coming of the daybreak,
Or sounds of night that fade when night is done,
So in the death-dawn faded the splendour and loud renown of warfare,
And life of all its longings kept but one.
"Oh! to be there for an hour when the shade draws in beside the hedgerows,
And falling apples wake the drowsy noon:
Oh! for the hour when the elms grow sombre and human in the twilight,
And gardens dream beneath the rising moon.
"Only to look once more on the land of the memories of childhood,
Forgetting weary winds and barren foam:
Only to bid farewell to the combe and the orchard and the moorland,
And sleep at last among the fields of home!"
So he was silently praying, till now, when his strength was ebbing faster,
The Lizard lay before them faintly blue;
Now on the gleaming horizon the white cliffs laughed along the coast-line,
And now the forelands took the shapes they knew.
There lay the Sound and the Island with green leaves down beside the water,
The town, the Hoe, the masts with sunset fired----
Dreams! ay, dreams of the dead! for the great heart faltered on the threshold,
And darkness took the land his soul desired.
To a Virtuous Young Lady
by John Milton

Lady! that in the prime of earliest youth
Wisely hast shunned the broad way and the green,
And with those few art eminently seen,
That labour up the Hill of Heavenly Truth,
The better part with Mary and with Ruth
Chosen thou hast, and they that overween,
And at thy growing virtues fret their spleen,
No anger find in thee, but pity and ruth.
Thy care is fixed, and zealously attends
To fill thy odorous Lamp with deeds of light.
And Hope that reaps not shame; therefore be sure,
Thou, when the Bridegroom with his feastful friends
Passes to bliss at the mid hour of night,
Hast gained thy entrance, Virgin wise and pure.
Sonnet.
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

Lady, whom my beloved loves so well!
When on his clasping arm thy head reclineth,
When on thy lips his ardent kisses dwell,
And the bright flood of burning light, that shineth
In his dark eyes, is poured into thine;
When thou shalt lie enfolded to his heart,
In all the trusting helplessness of love;
If in such joy sorrow can find a part,
Oh, give one sigh unto a doom like mine!
Which I would have thee pity, but not prove.
One cold, calm, careless, wintry look, that fell
Haply by chance on me, is all that he
E'er gave my love; round that, my wild thoughts dwell
In one eternal pang of memory.
Translations. - Milton's Italian Poems. Iii. Canzone.
by George MacDonald

Ladies, and youths that in their favour bask,
With mocking smiles come round me: Prithee, why,
Why dost thou with an unknown language cope,
Love-riming? Whence thy courage for the task?
Tell us--so never frustrate be thy hope,
And the best thought still to thy thinking fly!
Thus me they mock: Thee other streams, they cry,
Thee other shores, another sea demands
Upon whose verdant strands
Are budding, even this moment, for thy hair
Immortal guerdon, bays that will not die:
An over-burden on thy back why bear?--
Song, I will tell thee; thou for me reply:
My lady saith--and her word is my heart--
This is Love's mother-tongue, and fits his part.
Translations of the Italian Poems V.
by John Milton

Lady! It cannot be, but that thine eyes
Must be my sun, such radiance they display
And strike me ev'n as Phoebus him, whose way
Through torrid Libya's sandy desert lies.
Meantime, on that side steamy vapours rise
Where most I suffer. Of what kind are they,
New as to me they are, I cannot say,
But deem them, in the Lover's language sighs.
Some, though with pain, my bosom close conceals,
Which, if in part escaping thence, they tend
To soften thine, they coldness soon congeals.
While others to my tearful eyes ascend,
Whence my sad nights in show'rs are ever drown'd,
'Till my Aurora comes, her brow with roses bound.
Impromptu, To Oriana. On Attending With Her, As Sponsors, At A Christening
by Thomas Gent

Lady! who didst--with angel-look and smile,
And the sweet lustre of those dear, dark eyes,
Gracefully bend before the font of Christ,
In humble adoration, faith, and prayer!
Oh!--as the infant pledge of friends beloved
Received from thy pure lips its future name,
Sweetly unconscious look'd the baby-boy!
How beautifully helpless--and how mild!
--Methought, a seraph spread her shelt'ring wings
Over the solemn scene; and as the sun,
In its full splendour, on the altar came,
God's blessing seem'd to sanctify the deed.
Bohemiens En Voyage (French)
by Charles Baudelaire

La tribu proph'tique aux prunelles ardentes
Hier s'est mise en route, emportant ses petits
Sur son dos, ou livrant ' leurs fiers app'tits
Le tr'sor toujours pr't des mamelles pendantes.
Les hommes vont ' pied sous leurs armes luisantes
Le long des chariots ou les leurs sont blottis,
Promenant sur le ciel des yeux appesantis
Par le morne regret des chim'res absentes.
Du fond de son r'duit sablonneux, le grillon,
Les regardant passer, redouble sa chanson;
Cyb'le, qui les aime, augmente ses verdures,
Fait couler le rocher et fleurir le d'sert
Devant ces voyageurs, pour lesquels est ouvert
L'empire familier des t'n'bres futures.
Echoes
by Lewis Carroll

Lady Clara Vere de Vere
Was eight years old, she said:
Every ringlet, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden thread.
She took her little porringer:
Of me she shall not win renown:
For the baseness of its nature shall have strength to drag her
down.
"Sisters and brothers, little Maid?
There stands the Inspector at thy door:
Like a dog, he hunts for boys who know not two and two are four."
"Kind words are more than coronets,"
She said, and wondering looked at me:
"It is the dead unhappy night, and I must hurry home to tea."
Lady of England.
by George Pope Morris

Lady of England--o'er the seas
Thy name was borne on every breeze,
Till all this sunset clime became
Familiar with Victoria's name.
Though seas divide us many miles,
Yet, for the Queen of those fair isles,
Which gave our fathers birth, there roves
A blessing from this Land of Groves.
Our Fatherland!--Fit theme for song!
When thou art named, what memories throng!
Shall England cease our love to claim?
Not while our language is the same.
Scion of kings! so live and reign,
That, when thy nation's swelling strain
Is breathed amid our forests green,
We too may sing, "God save the Queen!"
To The Lady Mary Lowther
by William Wordsworth

Lady! I rifled a Parnassian Cave
(But seldom trod) of mildly-gleaming ore;
And culled, from sundry beds, a lucid store
Of genuine crystals, pure as those that pave
The azure brooks, where Dian joys to lave
Her spotless limbs; and ventured to explore
Dim shades for reliques, upon Lethe's shore,
Cast up at random by the sullen wave.
To female hands the treasures were resigned;
And lo this Work! a grotto bright and clear
From stain or taint; in which thy blameless mind
May feed on thoughts though pensive not austere;
Or, if thy deeper spirit be inclined
To holy musing, it may enter her.
To Lady Beaumont
by William Wordsworth

Lady! the songs of Spring were in the grove
While I was shaping beds for winter flowers;
While I was planting green unfading bowers,
And shrubs--to hang upon the warm alcove,
And sheltering wall; and still, as Fancy wove
The dream, to time and nature's blended powers
I gave this paradise for winter hours,
A labyrinth, Lady! which your feet shall rove.
Yes! when the sun of life more feebly shines,
Becoming thoughts, I trust, of solemn gloom                             
Or of high gladness you shall hither bring;
And these perennial bowers and murmuring pines
Be gracious as the music and the bloom
And all the mighty ravishment of spring.
Dedication To The Prophecy Of Dante.
by George Gordon Byron

Lady! if for the cold and cloudy clime
Where I was born, but where I would not die,
Of the great Poet-Sire of Italy
I dare to build[276] the imitative rhyme,
Harsh Runic[277] copy of the South's sublime,
Thou art the cause; and howsoever I
Fall short of his immortal harmony,
Thy gentle heart will pardon me the crime.
Thou, in the pride of Beauty and of Youth,
Spakest; and for thee to speak and be obeyed
Are one; but only in the sunny South
Such sounds are uttered, and such charms displayed,
So sweet a language from so fair a mouth - [278]
Ah! to what effort would it not persuade?
Ravenna, June 21, 1819.
Nursery Rhyme. DLXII. Natural History.
by Unknown

Lady bird, lady bird, fly away home,
Thy house is on fire, thy children all gone,
All but one, and her name is Ann,
And she crept under the pudding-pan.
The Howe O' The Mearns
by Violet Jacob

Laddie, my lad, when ye gang at the tail o' the plough
An' the days draw in,
When the burnin' yellow's awa' that was aince a-lowe
On the braes o' whin,
Do ye mind o' me that's deaved wi' the wearyfu' south
An' it's puir concairns
While the weepies fade on the knowes at the river's mouth
In the Howe o' the Mearns?
There was nae twa lads frae the Grampians doon to the Tay
That could best us twa;
At bothie or dance, or the field on a fitba' day,
We could sort them a';
An' at courtin'-time when the stars keeked doon on the glen
An' its theek o' fairns,
It was you an' me got the pick o' the basket then
In the Howe o' the Mearns.
London is fine, an' for ilk o' the lasses at hame
There'll be saxty here,
But the springtime comes an' the hairst - an it's aye the same
Through the changefu year.
O, a lad thinks lang o' hame ere he thinks his fill
As his breid he airns - 
An' they're thrashin' noo at the white fairm up on the hill
In the Howe o' the Mearns.
Gin I mind mysel' an' toil for the lave o' my days
While I've een to see,
When I'm auld an' done wi' the fash o' their English ways
I'll come hame to dee;
For the lad dreams aye o' the prize that the man'll get,
But he lives an' lairns,
An' it's far, far 'ayont him still - but it's farther yet
To the Howe o' the Mearns.
Laddie, my lad, when the hair is white on yer pow
An' the work's put past,
When yer hand's owre auld an' heavy to haud the plough
I'll win hame at last,
An we'll bide our time on the knowes whaur the broom stands braw
An' we played as bairns,
Till the last lang gloamin' shall creep on us baith an' fa'
On the Howe o' the Mearns.
To Jane Addams at the Hague
by Vachel Lindsay

Two Poems, written on the Sinking of the Lusitania.
Appearing in the Chicago 'Herald', May 11, 1915.
I. Speak Now for Peace
Lady of Light, and our best woman, and queen,
Stand now for peace, (though anger breaks your heart),
Though naught but smoke and flame and drowning is seen.
Lady of Light, speak, though you speak alone,
Though your voice may seem as a dove's in this howling flood,
It is heard to-night by every senate and throne.
Though the widening battle of millions and millions of men
Threatens to-night to sweep the whole of the earth,
Back of the smoke is the promise of kindness again.
II. Tolstoi Is Plowing Yet
Tolstoi is plowing yet. When the smoke-clouds break,
High in the sky shines a field as wide as the world.
There he toils for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake.
Ah, he is taller than clouds of the little earth.
Only the congress of planets is over him,
And the arching path where new sweet stars have birth.
Wearing his peasant dress, his head bent low,
Tolstoi, that angel of Peace, is plowing yet;
Forward, across the field, his horses go.
Sonnet LIX. To The Right Honourable Lady Marianne Carnegie
by Anna Seward

To The Right Honourable Lady Marianne Carnegie, passing her winters at Ethic House on the Coast of Scotland, with her Father, Lord Northesk, who retired thither after the death of his excellent Countess.
WRITTEN FEBRUARY 1787.
Lady, each soft effusion of thy mind,
Flowing thro' thy free pen, shows thee endu'd
With taste so just for all of wise, and good,
As bids me hope thy spirit does not find,
Young as thou art, with solitude combin'd
That wish of change, that irksome lassitude,
Which often, thro' unvaried days, obtrude
On Youth's rash bosom, dangerously inclin'd
To pant for more than peace. - Rich volumes yield
Their soul-endowing wealth. - Beyond e'en these
Shall consciousness of filial duty gild
The gloomy hours, when Winter's turbid Seas
Roar round the rocks; when the dark Tempest lours,
And mourn the Winds round Ethic's lonely towers.
To Laura In Death. Sonnet LXXVI.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Donna che lieta col Principio nostro.
HE CONJURES LAURA, BY THE PURE LOVE HE EVER BORE HER, TO OBTAIN FOR HIM A SPEEDY ADMISSION TO HER IN HEAVEN.
Lady, in bliss who, by our Maker's feet,
As suited for thine excellent life alone,
Art now enthroned in high and glorious seat,
Adorn'd with charms nor pearls nor purple own;
O model high and rare of ladies sweet!
Now in his face to whom all things are known,
Look on my love, with that pure faith replete,
As long my verse and truest tears have shown,
And know at last my heart on earth to thee
Was still as now in heaven, nor wish'd in life
More than beneath thine eyes' bright sun to be:
Wherefore, to recompense the tedious strife,
Which turn'd my liege heart from the world away,
Pray that I soon may come with thee to stay.
MACGREGOR.
Lady! whose gentle virtues have obtain'd
For thee a dwelling with thy Maker blest,
To sit enthroned above, in angels' vest
(Whose lustre gold nor purple had attain'd):
Ah! thou who here the most exalted reign'd,
Now through the eyes of Him who knows each breast,
That heart's pure faith and love thou canst attest,
Which both my pen and tears alike sustain'd.
Thou, knowest, too, my heart was thine on earth,
As now it is in heaven; no wish was there
But to avow thine eyes, its only shrine:
Thus to reward the strife which owes its birth
To thee, who won my each affection'd care,
Pray God to waft me to his home and thine!
WOLLASTON.
The Gage
by Walter De La Mare

'Lady Jane, O Lady Jane!
Your hound hath broken bounds again,
And chased my timorous deer, O;
If him I see,
That hour he'll dee;
My brakes shall be his bier, O.'
'Lord A'rie, Lord A'rie,
My hound, I trow, is fleet and free,
He's welcome to your deer, O;
Shoot, shoot you may,
He'll gang his way,
Your threats we nothing fear, O.'
He's fetched him in, he's fetched him in,
Gone all his swiftness, all his din,
White fang, and glowering eye, O:
'Here is your beast,
And now at least
My herds in peace shall lie, O.'
"In peace!" my lord, O mark me well!
For what my jolly hound befell
You shall sup twenty-fold, O!
For every tooth
Of his, i'sooth,
A stag in pawn I hold, O.
'Huntsman and horn, huntsman and horn,
Shall scare your heaths and coverts lorn,
Braying 'em shrill and clear, O;
But lone and still
Shall lift each hill,
Each valley wan and sere, O.
'Ride up you may, ride down you may,
Lonely or trooped, by night or day,
My hound shall haunt you ever:
Bird, beast, and game
Shall dread the same,
The wild fish of your river.'
Her cheek is like the angry rose,
Her eye with wrath and pity flows:
He gazes fierce and round, O, - 
'Dear Lord!' he says,
'What loveliness
To waste upon a hound, O.
'I'd give my stags, my hills and dales,
My stormcocks and my nightingales
To have undone this deed, O;
For deep beneath
My heart is death
Which for her love doth bleed, O.'
Wanders he up, wanders he down,
On foot, a-horse, by night and noon:
His lands are bleak and drear, O;
Forsook his dales
Of nightingales,
Forsook his moors of deer, O.
Forsook his heart, ah me! of mirth;
There's nothing lightsome left on earth:
Only one scene is fain, O,
Where far remote
The moonbeams gloat,
And sleeps the lovely Jane, O.
Until an eve when lone he went,
Gnawing his beard in dreariment,
Lo! from a thicket hidden,
Lovely as flower
In April hour,
Steps forth a form unbidden.
'Get ye now down, Lord A'rie,
I'm troubled so I'm like to dee,'
She cries, 'twixt joy and grief, O;
'The hound is dead,
When all is said,
But love is past belief, O.
'Nights, nights I've lain your lands to see,
Forlorn and still - and all for me,
All for a foolish curse, O;
Now here am I
Come out to die,
To live unlov'd is worse, O!'
In faith, this lord, in that lone dale,
Hears now a sweeter nightingale,
And lairs a tend'rer deer, O;
His sorrow goes
Like mountain snows
In waters sweet and clear, O!
Let the hound bay in Shadowland,
Tuning his ear to understand
What voice hath tamed this A'rie;
Chafe, chafe he may
The stag all day,
And never thirst nor weary.
Now here he smells, now there he smells,
Winding his voice along the dells,
Till grey flows up the morn, O;
Then hies again
To Lady Jane,
No longer now forlorn, O.
Ay, as it were a bud, did break
To loveliness for A'rie's sake,
So she in beauty moving
Rides at his hand
Across his land,
Beloved as well as loving.
Ad Chloen, M.A., Fresh From Her Cambridge Examination
by Edward James Mortimer Collins

Lady, very fair are you,
And your eyes are very blue,
And your hose;
And your brow is like the snow,
And the various things you know,
Goodness knows.
And the rose-flush on your cheek,
And your Algebra and Greek
Perfect are;
And that loving lustrous eye
Recognizes in the sky
Every star.
You have pouting piquant lips,
You can doubtless an eclipse
Calculate;
But for your cerulean hue,
I had certainly from you
Met my fate.
If by some arrangement dual
I were Adams mixed with Whewell,
Then some day
I, as wooer, perhaps might come
To so sweet an Artium
Magistra.
Vain And Careless.
by Robert von Ranke Graves

Lady, lovely lady,
Careless and gay!
Once when a beggar called
She gave her child away.
The beggar took the baby,
Wrapped it in a shawl,
"Bring her back," the lady said,
"Next time you call."
Hard by lived a vain man,
So vain and so proud,
He walked on stilts
To be seen by the crowd.
Up above the chimney pots,
Tall as a mast,
And all the people ran about
Shouting till he passed.
"A splendid match surely,"
Neighbours saw it plain,
"Although she is so careless,
Although he is so vain."
But the lady played bobcherry,
Did not see or care,
As the vain man went by her
Aloft in the air.
This gentle-born couple
Lived and died apart.
Water will not mix with oil,
Nor vain with careless heart.
Lady Mine
by H. E. Clarke

Lady mine, most fair thou art
With youth's gold and white and red;
'Tis a pity that thy heart
Is so much harder than thy head.
This has stayed my kisses oft,
This from all thy charms debarr'd,
That thy head is strangely soft,
While thy heart is strangely hard.
Nothing had kept us apart,
I had loved thee, I had wed,
Hadst thou had a softer heart
Or a harder head.
But I think I'll bear Love's smart
Till the wound has healed and fled,
Or thy head is like thy heart,
Or thy heart is like thy head.
Labour.
by Robert Herrick

Labour we must, and labour hard
I' th' forum here, or vineyard.
Lady Lorgnette
by Emily Pauline Johnson

I
Lady Lorgnette, of the lifted lash,
The curling lip and the dainty nose,
The shell-like ear where the jewels flash,
The arching brow and the languid pose,
The rare old lace and the subtle scents,
The slender foot and the fingers frail, - 
I may act till the world grows wild and tense,
But never a flush on your features pale.
The footlights glimmer between us two, - 
You in the box and I on the boards, - 
I am only an actor, Madame, to you,
A mimic king 'mid his mimic lords,
For you are the belle of the smartest set,
Lady Lorgnette.
II
Little Babette, with your eyes of jet,
Your midnight hair and your piquant chin,
Your lips whose odours of violet
Drive men to madness and saints to sin, - 
I see you over the footlights' glare
Down in the pit 'mid the common mob, - 
Your throat is burning, and brown, and bare,
You lean, and listen, and pulse, and throb;
The viols are dreaming between us two,
And my gilded crown is no make-believe,
I am more than an actor, dear, to you,
For you called me your king but yester eve,
And your heart is my golden coronet,
Little Babette.
Written In The Album Of The Lady Of Dr. George Birkbeck, M.D.
by Thomas Gent

Lady unknown! a pilgrim from the shrine
Of Poesy's fair temple, brings a wreath
Which fame and gratitude alike entwine,
Around a name that charms the monster Death,
And bids him pause!--Amidst despairing life
BIRKBECK's the harbinger of hope and health;
When sordid affluence was with man at strife,
He boldly stripp'd the veil, and show'd the wealth
To aged ignorance, and ardent youth,
Of cultured minds--the freedom of the soul!
The sun of science, and the light of truth,
The bliss of reason--mind without control.
Accept this tribute. Lady! and the praise,
As Consort and the soother of his care!
His offspring's pride--his friend's commingled rays,
And every other grace that man has deem'd most rare!
To Robin Red-Breast
by Robert Herrick

Laid out for dead, let thy last kindness be
With leaves and moss-work for to cover me;
And while the wood-nymphs my cold corpse inter,
Sing thou my dirge, sweet-warbling chorister!
For epitaph, in foliage, next write this:
Here, Here the tomb of Robin Herrick is!
Force of Example (Prose)
by John Hartley

Last May Mr. Goosequill, attorney-at-law, liberally forgave a poor widow the expenses of a trial in which he had been engaged. It is a singular fact that a tom-cat, which had been for years in the gentleman's family, having caught a mouse, let it go for pity's sake the following day.