DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
To Julia!
by George Gordon Byron

1.
Julia! since far from you I've rang'd,
Our souls with fond affection glow not;
You say 'tis I, not you have chang'd,
I'd tell you why, - but yet I know not.
2.
Your polish'd brow, no cares have crost,
And Julia! we are not much older,
Since trembling first my heart I lost,
Or told my love with hope, grown bolder.
3.
Sixteen was then our utmost age,
Two years have lingering pass'd away, love!
And now new thoughts our minds engage,
At least, I feel disposed to stray, love!
4.
'Tis I, that am alone to blame,
I, that am guilty of love's treason;
Since your sweet breast, is still the same,
Caprice must be my only reason.
5.
I do not, love, suspect your truth,
With jealous doubt my bosom heaves not,
Warm was the passion of my youth,
One trace of dark deceit it leaves not.
6.
No, no, my flame was not pretended,
For oh! I lov'd you most sincerely,
And though our dream at last is ended,
My bosom still esteems you dearly.
7.
No more we meet in yonder bowers,
Perhaps my soul's too prone to roving,
But older, firmer hearts than ours,
Have found monotony in loving.
8.
Your cheeks soft bloom is unimpair'd,
Your beauties still are daily bright'ning,
Your eye for conquest comes prepar'd,
The forge of love's resistless lightning.
9.
Arm'd thus to make their bosoms bleed,
Many will throng to sigh like me, love,
More constant they may prove indeed,
Fonder alas! they ne'er can be, love!
His Request To Julia
by Robert Herrick

Julia, if I chance to die
Ere I print my poetry,
I most humbly thee desire
To commit it to the fire:
Better 'twere my book were dead,
Than to live not perfected.
Clerical Oppressors
by John Greenleaf Whittier

Just God! and these are they
Who minister at thine altar, God of Right!
Men who their hands with prayer and blessing lay
On Israel's Ark of light!
What! preach, and kidnap men?
Give thanks, and rob thy own afflicted poor?
Talk of thy glorious liberty, and then
Bolt hard the captive's door?
What! servants of thy own
Merciful Son, who came to seek and save
The homeless and the outcast, fettering down
The tasked and plundered slave!
Pilate and Herod, friends!
Chief priests and rulers, as of old, combine!
Just God and holy! is that church, which lends
Strength to the spoiler, thine?
Paid hypocrites, who turn
Judgment aside, and rob the Holy Book
Of those high words of truth which search and burn
In warning and rebuke;
Feed fat, ye locusts, feed!
And, in your tasselled pulpits, thank the Lord
That, from the toiling bondman's utter need,
Ye pile your own full board.
How long, O Lord! how long
Shall such a priesthood barter truth away,
And in Thy name, for robbery and wrong
At Thy own altars pray?
Is not Thy hand stretched forth
Visibly in the heavens, to awe and smite?
Shall not the living God of all the earth,
And heaven above, do right?
Woe, then, to all who grind
Their brethren of a common Father down!
To all who plunder from the immortal mind
Its bright and glorious crown!
Woe to the priesthood! woe
To those whose hire is with the price of blood;
Perverting, darkening, changing, as they go,
The searching truths of God!
Their glory and their might.
Shall perish; and their very names shall be
Vile before all the people, in the light
Of a world's liberty.
Oh, speed the moment on
When Wrong shall cease, and Liberty and Love
And Truth and Right throughout the earth be known
As in their home above
The Gipsy Lass
by John Clare

Just like the berry brown is my bonny lassie O!
And in the smoky camp lives my bonny lassie O!
Where the scented woodbine weaves
Round the white-thorn's glossy leaves:
The sweetest maid on earth is my gipsy lassie O!
The brook it runs so clear by my bonny lassie O!
And the blackbird singeth near my bonny lassie O!
And there the wild briar rose
Wrinkles the clear stream as it flows
By the smoky camp of my bonny lassie O!
The groundlark singeth high o'er my bonny lassie O!
The nightingale lives nigh my gipsy lassie O!
They're with her all the year,
By the brook that runs so clear,
And there's none in all the world like my gipsy lassie O!
With a bosom white as snow is my gipsy lassie O!
With a foot like to the roe is my bonny lassie O!
Like the sweet birds she will sing,
While echo it will ring:
Sure there's none in the world like my bonny lassie O!
To Julia (2)
by Robert Herrick

Julia, when thy Herrick dies,
Close thou up thy poet's eyes;
And his last breath, let it be
Taken in by none but thee.
Upon Judith. Epig.
by Robert Herrick

Judith has cast her old skin and got new,
And walks fresh varnish'd to the public view;
Foul Judith was and foul she will be known
For all this fair transfiguration.
Rangoon
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Just a changing sea of colour
Surging up and flowing down;
And pagodas shining golden, night and noon;
And a sun-burst-tinted throng
Of young priests that move along
Under sun-burst-hued umbrellas through the town.
That's Rangoon.
Fate Knows no Tears
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

Just as the dawn of Love was breaking
Across the weary world of grey,
Just as my life once more was waking
As roses waken late in May,
Fate, blindly cruel and havoc-making,
Stepped in and carried you away.
Memories have I none in keeping
Of times I held you near my heart,
Of dreams when we were near to weeping
That dawn should bid us rise and part;
Never, alas, I saw you sleeping
With soft closed eyes and lips apart,
Breathing my name still through your dreaming. - 
Ah! had you stayed, such things had been!
But Fate, unheeding human scheming,
Serenely reckless came between - 
Fate with her cold eyes hard and gleaming
Unseared by all the sorrow seen.
Ah! well-beloved, I never told you,
I did not show in speech or song,
How at the end I longed to fold you
Close in my arms; so fierce and strong
The longing grew to have and hold you,
You, and you only, all life long.
They who know nothing call me fickle,
Keen to pursue and loth to keep.
Ah, could they see these tears that trickle
From eyes erstwhile too proud to weep.
Could see me, prone, beneath the sickle,
While pain and sorrow stand and reap!
Unopened scarce, yet overblown, lie
The hopes that rose-like round me grew,
The lights are low, and more than lonely
This life I lead apart from you.
Come back, come back!    I want you only,
And you who loved me never knew.
You loved me, pleaded for compassion
On all the pain I would not share;
And I in weary, halting fashion
Was loth to listen, long to care;
But now, dear God! I faint with passion
For your far eyes and distant hair.
Yes, I am faint with love, and broken
With sleepless nights and empty days;
I want your soft words fiercely spoken,
Your tender looks and wayward ways - 
Want that strange smile that gave me token
Of many things that no man says.
Cold was I, weary, slow to waken
Till, startled by your ardent eyes,
I felt the soul within me shaken
And long-forgotten senses rise;
But in that moment you were taken,
And thus we lost our Paradise!
Farewell, we may not now recover
That golden "Then" misspent, passed by,
We shall not meet as loved and lover
Here, or hereafter, you and I.
My time for loving you is over,
Love has no future, but to die.
And thus we part, with no believing
In any chance of future years.
We have no idle self-deceiving,
No half-consoling hopes and fears;
We know the Gods grant no retrieving
A wasted chance.    Fate knows no tears.
Upon Julia's Fall.
by Robert Herrick

Julia was careless, and withal
She rather took than got a fall,
The wanton ambler chanc'd to see
Part of her legs' sincerity:
And ravish'd thus, it came to pass,
The nag (like to the prophet's ass)
Began to speak, and would have been
A-telling what rare sights he'd seen:
And had told all; but did refrain
Because his tongue was tied again.
The Gods Wishing To Instruct A Son Of Jupiter (Prose Fable)
by Jean de La Fontaine

Jupiter had a son, who, sensible of his lofty origin, showed always a god-like spirit. Childhood is not much concerned with loving; yet to the childhood of this young god, loving and wishing to be loved was the chief concern. In him, love and reason which grow with years, outraced Time, that light-winged bearer of the seasons which come, alas! only too quickly.
Flora,[14] with laughing looks and winning airs, was the first to touch the heart of the youthful Olympian. Everything that passion could inspire - delicate sentiments full of tenderness, tears, and sighs - all were there: he forgot nothing. As a son of Jupiter he would by right of birth be dowered with greater gifts than the sons of other gods; and it seemed as though all his behaviour were prompted by the reminiscence that he had indeed already been a lover in some former state, so well did he play the part.
Nevertheless, it was Jupiter's wish that the boy should be taught, and assembling the gods in council he said, "So far, I have never been at fault in the conduct of the universe which I have ruled unaided; but there are various charges which I now have decided to distribute amongst the younger gods. This beloved child of mine I have already counted upon. He is of my own blood and many an altar already flames in his honour. Yet to merit his rank among the immortals it is necessary that he should possess all knowledge."
As the god of the thunders ceased the whole assembly applauded. As for the boy himself, he did not appear to be above the wish to learn everything.
"I undertake," said Mars, the god of war, "to teach him the art by which so many heroes have won the glories of Olympus and extended the empire."
"I will be his master in the art of the lyre," promised the fair and learned Apollo.
"And I," said Hercules with the lion's-skin, "will teach him how to overcome Vice and quell evil passions, those poisonous monsters which like Hydras[15] are ever reborn in the heart. A foe to effeminate pleasures, he shall learn from me those too seldom trodden paths that lead to honour along the tracks of virtue."
When it came to Cupid, the god of love, to speak he simply said, "I can show him everything."
And Cupid was right; for what cannot be achieved with wit and the desire to please?
Purity.
by Thomas Frederick Young

Keep pure the thoughts within thy mind,
For they to actions turn,
Which succor want, or pity woe,
Or all but self they spurn.
Keep pure thy thoughts, for outward looks
Will then in beauty shine;
Although thy face be plain, 'twill be
A human face divine.
Keep pure thy thoughts by trust in God,
And, when in trouble's sea,
Look thou for strength to brave the storm,
Upon thy bended knee.
Then lift thy head with fearless front,
For come whatever may,
Thou'lt gather strength to brave it well,
Thro' ev'ry passing day.
Keep pure thy heart, oh, keep it pure,
And thou wilt bless the hour,
When thou withstood temptation's siege,
And bridl'd passion's pow'r.
Lal Of Kilrudden.
by Bliss Carman (William)

Kilrudden ford, Kilrudden dale,
Kilrudden fronting every gale
On the lorn coast of Inishfree,
And Lal's last bed the plunging sea.
Lal of Kilrudden with flame-red hair,
And the sea-blue eyes that rove and dare,
And the open heart with never a care;
With her strong brown arms and her ankles bare,
God in heaven, but she was fair,
That night the storm put in from sea?
The nightingales of Inishkill,
The rose that climbed her window-sill,
The shade that rustled or was still,
The wind that roved and had his will,
And one white sail on the low sea-hill,
Were all she knew of love.
So when the storm drove in that day,
And her lover's ship on the ledges lay,
Past help and wrecking in the gray,
And the cry was, "Who'll go down the bay,
With half of the lifeboat's crew away?"
Who should push to the front and say,
"I will be one, be others who may,"
But Lal of Kilrudden, born at sea!
The nightingales all night in the rain,
The rose that fell at her window-pane,
The frost that blackened the purple plain,
And the scorn of pitiless disdain
At the hands of the wolfish pirate main,
Quelling her great hot heart in vain,
Were all she knew of death.
Kilrudden ford, Kilrudden dale,
Kilrudden ruined in the gale
That wrecked the coast of Inishfree,
And Lal's last bed the plunging sea.
Mount Rennie." {95}
by Francis William Lauderdale Adams

(The Australian Press speaks).
"Kill them! Yes, hang them all!
They are fiends, just that!
And we're all agreed fiends should be sent
To a place that's hot.
"They were fiends, too, of themselves;
They delighted in it!
It's all their fault, their own fault!
Don't listen a minute!
"Don't let anyone talk
About 'fatality,' 'lot,'
That sort of talk (excuse us!)
Is just damned rot.
"You and I, p'raps, are what we're made.
If I'm dying of phthisis,
It's because my father passed on
To me what the price is
"Of his excesses, and I,
Overworked, come off worse.
Just so; but, with these young fiends,
It's quite the reverse.
"Their homes were happy and bright,
(All are in Australia).
Their parents were good, kind, wise:
No breath of failure
"Can be breathed on their education,
Their childhood's surroundings,
The healthy training that gives
Youth morality's groundings.
"Those people who say
That the larrikins come
From that God-spat-out-thing,
The Australian 'home' - 
"The narrow harsh rule
Of base mean parents,
Whose played-out ideas drive
All of good and of fair thence:
"That our prostitute girls
Come from just the same Cause - 
Why, these idiots know nothing
Of facts, social laws!
"Kill them, then! Hang them all!
We (like God) must be just.
It was all their own faults,
Not ours. . . . Dust to dust!"
The Tryst
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Just when all hope had perished in my soul,
And balked desire made havoc with my mind,
My cruel Ladye suddenly grew kind,
And sent these gracious words upon a scroll:
"When knowing Night her dusky scarf has tied
Across the bold, intrusive eyes of day,
Come as a glad, triumphant lover may,
No longer fearing that he be denied."
I read her letter for the hundredth time,
And for the hundredth time my gladdened sight
Blurred with the rapture of my vast delight,
And swooned upon the page. I caught the chime
Of far off bells, and at each silver note
My heart on tiptoe pressed its eager ear
Against my breast; it was such joy to hear
The tolling of the hour of which she wrote.
The curious day still lingered in the skies
And watched me as I hastened to the tryst.
And back, beyond great clouds of amethyst,
I saw the Night's soft, reassuring eyes.
"Oh, Night," I cried, "dear Love's considerate friend,
Haste from the far, dim valleys of the west,
Rock the sad striving earth to quiet rest,
And bid the day's insistent vigil end."
Down brooding streets, and past the harbored ships
The Night's young handmaid, Twilight, walked with me.
A spent moon leaned inertly o'er the sea;
A few, pale, phantom stars were in eclipse.
There was the house, My Ladye's sea-girt bower
All draped in gloom, save for one taper's glow,
Which lit the path, where willing feet would go.
There was the house, and this the promised hour.
The tide was out; and from the sea's salt path
Rose amorous odors, filtering through the night
And stirring all the senses with delight;
Sweet perfumes left since Aphrodite's bath.
Back in the wooded copse, a whip-poor-will
Gave love's impassioned and impatient call.
On pebbled sands I heard the waves kiss fall,
And fall again, so hushed the hour and still.
Light was my knock upon the door, so light,
And yet the sound seemed rude. My pulses beat
So loud they drowned the coming of her feet
The arrow of her taper pierced the gloom -
The portal closed behind me. She was there -
Love on her lips and yielding in her eyes
And but the sea to hear our vows and sighs.
She took my hand and led me up the stair.
Just Think!
by Robert William Service

Just think! some night the stars will gleam
Upon a cold, grey stone,
And trace a name with silver beam,
And lo! 'twill be your own.
That night is speeding on to greet
Your epitaphic rhyme.
Your life is but a little beat
Within the heart of Time.
A little gain, a little pain,
A laugh, lest you may moan;
A little blame, a little fame,
A star-gleam on a stone.
Handing Over The Gun
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

Kill me if you will not love me.
Here are flints;
Ram down the heavy bullet, little leopard,
On the black powder.
Only you must not shoot me through the head,
Nor touch my heart;
Because my head is full of the ways of you
And my heart is dead.
Song of Syria.
Just To Be Good.
by James Whitcomb Riley

Just to be good - 
This is enough - enough!
O we who find sin's billows wild and rough,
Do we not feel how more than any gold
Would be the blameless life we led of old
While yet our lips knew but a mother's kiss?
Ah! though we miss
All else but this,
To be good is enough!
It is enough - 
Enough - just to be good!
To lift our hearts where they are understood;
To let the thirst for worldly power and place
Go unappeased; to smile back in God's face
With the glad lips our mothers used to kiss.
Ah! though we miss
All else but this,
To be good is enough!
Just Whistle A Bit
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Just whistle a bit, if the day be dark,
And the sky be overcast:
If mute be the voice of the piping lark,
Why, pipe your own small blast.
And it's wonderful how o'er the gray sky-track
The truant warbler comes stealing back.
But why need he come? for your soul's at rest,
And the song in the heart,--ah, that is best.
Just whistle a bit, if the night be drear
And the stars refuse to shine:
And a gleam that mocks the starlight clear
Within you glows benign.
Till the dearth of light in the glooming skies
Is lost to the sight of your soul-lit eyes.
What matters the absence of moon or star?
The light within is the best by far.
Just whistle a bit, if there 's work to do,
With the mind or in the soil.
And your note will turn out a talisman true
To exorcise grim Toil.
It will lighten your burden and make you feel
That there 's nothing like work as a sauce for a meal.
And with song in your heart and the meal in--its place,
There 'll be joy in your bosom and light in your face.
Just whistle a bit, if your heart be sore;
'Tis a wonderful balm for pain.
Just pipe some old melody o'er and o'er
Till it soothes like summer rain.
And perhaps 't would be best in a later day,
When Death comes stalking down the way,
To knock at your bosom and see if you 're fit,
Then, as you wait calmly, just whistle a bit.
Evening.
by Charles Stuart Calverley

Kate! if e'er thy light foot lingers
On the lawn, when up the fells
Steals the Dark, and fairy fingers
Close unseen the pimpernels:
When, his thighs with sweetness laden,
From the meadow comes the bee,
And the lover and the maiden
Stand beneath the trysting tree:-
Lingers on, till stars unnumber'd
Tremble in the breeze-swept tarn,
And the bat that all day slumber'd
Flits about the lonely barn;
And the shapes that shrink from garish
Noon are peopling cairn and lea;
And thy sire is almost bearish
If kept waiting for his tea:-
And the screech-owl scares the peasant
As he skirts some churchyard drear;
And the goblins whisper pleasant
Tales in Miss Rossetti's ear;
Importuning her in strangest,
Sweetest tones to buy their fruits:-
O be careful that thou changest,
On returning home, thy boots.
Spleen Ii
by Charles Baudelaire

J'ai plus de souvenirs que si j'avais mille ans.
Un gros meuble ' tiroirs encombr' de bilans,
De vers, de billets doux, de proc's, de romances,
Avec de lourds cheveux roul's dans des quittances,
Cache moins de secrets que mon triste cerveau.
C'est une pyramide, un immense caveau,
Qui contient plus de morts que la fosse commune.
'Je suis un cimeti're abhorr' de la lune,
O' comme des remords se tra'nent de longs vers
Qui s'acharnent toujours sur mes morts les plus chers.
Je suis un vieux boudoir plein de roses fan'es,
O' g't tout un fouillis de modes surann'es,
O' les pastels plaintifs et les p'les Boucher,
Seuls, respirent l'odeur d'un flacon d'bouch'.
Rien n''gale en longueur les boiteuses journ'es,
Quand sous les lourds flocons des neigeuses ann'es
L'ennui, fruit de la morose incuriosit',
Prend les proportions de l'immortalit'.
'D'sormais tu n'es plus, ' mati're vivante!
Qu'un granit entour' d'une vague 'pouvante,
Assoupi dans le fond d'un Sahara brumeux;
Un vieux sphinx ignor' du monde insoucieux,
Oubli' sur la carte, et dont l'humeur farouche
Ne chante qu'aux rayons du soleil qui se couche.
To Mr. and Mrs. A. M. T.
by Abram Joseph Ryan

Just when the gentle hand of spring
Came fringing the trees with bud and leaf,
And when the blades the warm suns bring
Were given glad promise of golden sheaf;
Just when the birds began to sing
Joy hymns after their winter's grief,
I wandered weary to a place;
Tired of toil, I sought for rest,
Where Nature wore her mildest grace --
I went where I was more than guest.
Strange, tall trees rose as if they fain
Would wear as crowns the clouds of skies;
The sad winds swept with low refrain
Through branches breathing softest sighs;
And o'er the field and down the lane
Sweet flowers, the dreams of Paradise,
Bloomed up into this world of pain,
Where all that's fairest soonest dies;
And 'neath the trees a little stream
Went winding slowly round and round,
Just like a poet's mystic dream,
With here a silence, there a sound.
The lowly ground, beneath the sheen
Of March day suns, now dim, now bright,
Now emeralds of golden green
In flashing or in fading light;
And here and there throughout the scene
The timid wild flowers met the sight,
While over all the sun and shade
Swept like a strangely woven veil,
Folding the flowers that else might fade,
Guarding young rosebuds from the gale.
And blossoms of most varied hue
Bedecked the forest everywhere,
While valleys wore the robes of blue,
Bright woven by the violets fair;
And there was gladness all around;
It was a place so fair to see,
And yet so simple -- there I found
How sweet a quiet home may be.
Four children -- and thro' all the day
They flung their laughter o'er the place;
Bright as the flowers in happy May,
The children shed a sweet pure grace
Around this quiet home, and they
To father and to mother brought
The smiles of purest love unsought;
It was a happy, happy spot,
Too dear to be fore'er forgot.
Farewell, sweet place! I came as guest;
From toil, in thee I found relief,
I found in thee a home and rest --
But, ah! the days are far too brief.
Farewell! I go, but with me come
Sweet memories that long will last;
I'll think of thee as of a home
That stands forever in my past.
Keep Those Eyes Still Purely Mine.
by Thomas Moore

Keep those eyes still purely mine,
Tho' far off I be:
When on others most they shine,
Then think they're turned on me.
Should those lips as now respond
To sweet minstrelsy,
When their accents seem most fond,
Then think they're breathed for me.
Make what hearts thou wilt thy own,
If when all on thee
Fix their charmed thoughts alone,
Thou think'st the while on me.