DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Floating Down The River.
by Walter R. Cassels

My little bark glides steadily along,
Still and unshaken as a summer dream;
And never falls the oar into the stream,
For 'tis but morning, and the current strong;
So let the ripples bear me as they will;
Sweet, sweet is Life, and every sound is song;
Sorrow lies sleeping, and Joy sends me still
Swift floating down the River.
Bright shines the sun athwart the linden-trees;
One little cloud alone steals o'er the sky,
As o'er the widening stream below steal I,
Fann'd by the same faint perfume-laden breeze;
Bird-music answers sweetly through the air,
The unheard warbling of heart melodies;
Thus go I dreaming, free from faintest care,
Swift floating down the River.
Pure lie the broad-leaved lilies on the tide,
With glowing petals in the midst, that rest
Like the gold shower on Danae's lovely breast;
And the tall rushes cluster on the side.
Ho! sweet-lipp'd lily, thou must be my prize--
Thus shall I pluck thee in thy beauty's pride!
Fail'd--all too steadily my shallop hies,
Swift floating down the River.
The stream fast widens, and upon the shore
Rise busy hamlets 'mid the falling woods,
Filling their shorn and broken solitudes,
With labour's clamour ever more and more:
No more, no more in dreams of love all day,
Rich set in music from the forests hoar,
Now gaily speeds my untoss'd bark away,
Swift floating down the River.
Let me take oar, and turn mine eager prow,
Back to the quiet waveless source again,
Where no harsh sound breaks on the dreaming brain,
And winds steal softly round the careless brow,--
Swift as a dream my tiny bark hath gone,
And stoutly though I ply the oar, yet now
My weary shallop still goes sadly on,
Swift floating down the River.
Ah! never more for me--Ah! never more
Return those blessed morning hours again;
The sun beats hotly on my throbbing brain,
And no cool shade waves friendly from the shore:
My feeble oar dips powerless utterly,
And onward, onward, though I struggle sore,
Still goes my bark towards the surging sea,
Swift floating down the River.
Welcome art thou, O cool and fragrant eve!
Welcome art thou, though night pursue thee fast
With thee the burning and the toil roll past,
And there is time to gaze back and to grieve.
Hoarse ocean-murmurs fall upon mine ears,
And round me now prophetic billows heave,
As on I go, out-looking through salt tears,
Swift floating down the River,
Swift floating to the Sea.
A Valentine.
by Madison Julius Cawein

My life is grown a witchcraft place
Through gazing on thy form and face.
Now 't is thy Smile's soft sorcery
That makes my soul a melody.
Now 't is thy Frown, that comes and goes,
That makes my heart a page of prose.
Some day, perhaps, a word of thine
Will change me to thy VALENTINE.
Serepta Mason
by Edgar Lee Masters

My life's blossom might have bloomed on all sides
Save for a bitter wind which stunted my petals
On the side of me which you in the village could see.
From the dust I lift a voice of protest:
My flowering side you never saw!
Ye living ones, ye are fools indeed
Who do not know the ways of the wind
And the unseen forces
That govern the processes of life.
On the Death of the Bishop of Ely.1 - Anno Aetates 17.
by John Milton

My lids with grief were tumid yet,
And still my sullied cheek was wet
With briny dews profusely shed
For venerable Winton dead,2
When Fame, whose tales of saddest sound
Alas! are ever truest found,
The news through all our cities spread
Of yet another mitred head
By ruthless Fate to Death consign'd,
Ely, the honour of his kind.
At once, a storm of passion heav'd
My boiling bosom, much I grieved
But more I raged, at ev'ry breath
Devoting Death himself to death.
With less revenge did Naso3 teem
When hated Ibis was his theme;
With less, Archilochus,4 denied
The lovely Greek, his promis'd bride.
But lo! while thus I execrate,
Incens'd, the Minister of Fate,
Wondrous accents, soft, yet clear,
Wafted on the gale I hear.
Ah, much deluded! lay aside
Thy threats and anger misapplied.
Art not afraid with sounds like these
T'offend whom thou canst not appease?
Death is not (wherefore dream'st thou thus?)
The son of Night and Erebus,
Nor was of fell Erynnis born5
In gulphs, where Chaos rules forlorn,
But sent from God, his presence leaves,
To gather home his ripen'd sheaves,
To call encumber'd souls away
From fleshly bonds to boundless day,
(As when the winged Hours excite,
And summon forth the Morning-light)
And each to convoy to her place
Before th'Eternal Father's face.
But not the wicked-Them, severe
Yet just, from all their pleasures here
He hurries to the realms below,
Terrific realms of penal woe!
Myself no sooner heard his call
Than, scaping through my prison-wall,
I bade adieu to bolts and bars,
And soar'd with angels to the stars,
Like Him of old, to whom 'twas giv'n
To mount, on fiery wheels, to heav'n.
Bootes' wagon,6 slow with cold
Appall'd me not, nor to behold
The sword that vast Orion draws,
Or ev'n the Scorpion's horrid claws.7
Beyond the Sun's bright orb I fly,
And far beneath my feet descry
Night's dread goddess, seen with awe,
Whom her winged dragons draw.
Thus, ever wond'ring at my speed
Augmented still as I proceed,
I pass the Planetary sphere,
The Milky Way and now appear
Heav'ns crystal battlements, her door
Of massy pearl, and em'rald floor.
But here I cease. For never can
The tongue of once a mortal man
In suitable description trace
The pleasures of that happy place,
Suffice it that those joys divine
Are all, and all for ever, mine.
To William Shelley.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

(With what truth may I say -
Roma! Roma! Roma!
Non e piu come era prima!)
1.
My lost William, thou in whom
Some bright spirit lived, and did
That decaying robe consume
Which its lustre faintly hid, -
Here its ashes find a tomb,
But beneath this pyramid
Thou art not - if a thing divine
Like thee can die, thy funeral shrine
Is thy mother's grief and mine.
2.
Where art thou, my gentle child?
Let me think thy spirit feeds,
With its life intense and mild,
The love of living leaves and weeds
Among these tombs and ruins wild; -
Let me think that through low seeds
Of sweet flowers and sunny grass
Into their hues and scents may pass
A portion -
Nursery Rhyme. CLIX. Songs.
by Unknown

My maid Mary
She minds her dairy,
While I go a hoing and mowing each morn,
Merrily run the reel
And the little spinning wheel
Whilst I am singing and mowing my corn.
The Lament of the Border Widow
by George Wharton Edwards

My love he built me a bonny bower,
And clad it a' wi' a lilye flower,
A brawer bower ye ne'er did see,
Than my true love he built for me.
There came a man, by middle day,
He spied his sport and went away,
And brought the king that very night,
Who brake my bower, and slew my knight.
He slew my knight, to me so dear;
He slew my knight, and poined his gear;
My servants all for life did flee,
And left me in extremitie.
I sewed his sheet, making my mane;
I watched the corpse, myself alane;
I watched his body, night and day;
No living creature came that way.
I took his body on my back,
And whiles I gaed, and whiles I sat,
I digged a grave, and laid him in,
And happed him with the sod so green.
But think na ye my heart was sair,
When I laid the moul' on his yellow hair;
Think na ye my heart was wae,
When I turned about, away to gae?
Nae living man I'll love again,
Since that my lovely knight is slain;
W? ae lock of his yellow hair
I'll chain my heart for evermair.
In Absence
by Edward Shanks

My lovely one, be near to me to-night.
For now I need you most, since I have gone
Through the sparse woodland in the fading light,
Where in time past we two have walked alone,
Heard the loud nightjar spin his pleasant note,
And seen the wild rose folded up for sleep,
And whispered, though the soft word choked my throat,
Your dear name out across the valley deep.
Be near to me, for now I need you most.
To-night I saw an unsubstantial flame
Flickering along those shadowy paths, a ghost
That turned to me and answered to your name,
Mocking me with a wraith of far delight.
... My lovely one, be near to me to-night.
The Message.
by Jean Blewett

My Marjorie doth hold in her white hands
A spray of lilies plucked below the brook
Where the old ruin of a chapel stands - 
A ruin tenanted by many a nook,
And all the grayness of it hid from sight
By gracious draping of the ivy green.
Sweet lilies, 'tis your glorious fate to-night
To lie upon her breast, to send between
Her silken bodice and the heart beneath
The fragrance given you by sun and shower.
Speak subtly with your warm, sweet-scented breath
Till, 'mid the dance and music of the hour,
She turn you love-filled eyes and glowing face,
With: "Ah, ye grew in that old trysting place!"
Fragments Of Ancient Poetry, Fragment I
by James Macpherson

SHILRIC, VINVELA.
VINVELA
My love is a son of the hill.
He pursues the flying deer.
His grey dogs are panting
around him; his bow-string sounds in
the wind. Whether by the fount of
the rock, or by the stream of the
mountain thou liest; when the rushes are
nodding with the wind, and the mist
is flying over thee, let me approach
my love unperceived, and see him
from the rock. Lovely I saw thee
first by the aged oak; thou wert returning
tall from the chace; the fairest
among thy friends.
SHILRIC.
What voice is that I hear? that
voice like the summer-wind.--I sit
not by the nodding rushes; I hear not
the fount of the rock. Afar, Vinvela,
afar I go to the wars of Fingal. My
dogs attend me no more. No more
I tread the hill. No more from on
high I see thee, fair-moving by the
stream of the plain; bright as the
bow of heaven; as the moon on the
western wave.
VINVELA.
Then thou art gone, O Shilric!
and I am alone on the hill. The
deer are seen on the brow; void of
fear they graze along. No more they
dread the wind; no more the rustling
tree. The hunter is far removed;
he is in the field of graves. Strangers!
sons of the waves! spare my
lovely Shilric.
SHILRIC.
If fall I must in the field, raise high
my grave, Vinvela. Grey stones, and
heaped-up earth, shall murk me to future
times. When the hunter shall sit by
the mound, and produce his food at
noon, "some warrior rests here," he
will say; and my fame shall live in his
praise. Remember me, Vinvela, when
low on earth I lie!
VINVELA.
Yes!--I will remember thee--indeed
my Shilric will fall. What shall I do,
my love! when thou art gone for ever?
Through these hills I will go at noon: O
will go through the silent heath. There
I will see where often thou sattest returning
from the chace. Indeed, my Shilric
will fall; but I will remember
him.
My Lot
by Joseph Horatio Chant

My lot on earth is not all mirth,
Nor is it constant gloom;
Some joys decay and fall away,
But leave much lasting bloom.
My wishes are not always met,
And cares press hard at times;
Yet joyous strains ne'er sink to fret,
Tho' dollars shrink to dimes.
My earthly lot boasts not a cot,
No foot of land I own,
No bank account nor phosphate mount,
Nor credit for a loan;
But I can read my title clear
To mansion, robe, and crown;
I couple these with lot down here,
And sing, tho' foes may frown.
Berrying
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
My love went berrying
Where brooks were merrying
And wild wings ferrying
Heaven's amethyst;
The wildflowers blessed her,
My dearest Hester,
The winds caressed her,
The sunbeams kissed.
II.
I followed, carrying
Her basket; varying
Fond hopes of marrying
With hopes denied;
Both late and early
She deemed me surly,
And bowed her curly
Fair head and sighed:
III.
"The skies look lowery;
It will he showery;
No longer flowery
The way I find.
No use in going.
'T will soon be snowing
If you keep growing
Much more unkind."
IV.
Then looked up tearfully.
And I, all fearfully,
Replied, "My dear, fully
Will I explain:
I love you dearly,
But look not cheerly
Since all says clearly
I love in vain."
V.
Then smiled she airily;
And answered merrily
With words that - verily
Made me decide:
And drawing tow'rd her,
I there implored her - 
I who adored her - 
To be my bride.
VI.
O sweet simplicity
Of young rusticity,
Without duplicity,
Whom love made know,
That hearts in meter
Make earth completer;
And kisses, sweeter
Than - berries grow.
His Change.
by Robert Herrick

My many cares and much distress
Has made me like a wilderness;
Or, discompos'd, I'm like a rude
And all confused multitude:
Out of my comely manners worn,
And, as in means, in mind all torn.
A Ballad On The Game Of Traffic
by Jonathan Swift

WRITTEN AT THE CASTLE OF DUBLIN, 1699
My Lord,[1] to find out who must deal,
Delivers cards about,
But the first knave does seldom fail
To find the doctor out.
But then his honour cried, Gadzooks!
And seem'd to knit his brow:
For on a knave he never looks
But he thinks upon Jack How.[2]
My lady, though she is no player,
Some bungling partner takes,
And, wedged in corner of a chair,
Takes snuff, and holds the stakes.
Dame Floyd[3] looks out in grave suspense
For pair royals and sequents;
But, wisely cautious of her pence,
The castle seldom frequents.
Quoth Herries,[4] fairly putting cases,
I'd won it, on my word,
If I had but a pair of aces,
And could pick up a third.
But Weston has a new-cast gown
On Sundays to be fine in,
And, if she can but win a crown,
'Twill just new dye the lining.
"With these is Parson Swift,[5]
Not knowing how to spend his time,
Does make a wretched shift,
To deafen them with puns and rhyme."
Mary Neele
by John Clare

My love is tall and handsome;
All hearts she might command;
She's matchless for her beauty,
The queen of all the land.
She has my heart in keeping,
For which there's no repeal,
For the fairest of all woman kind
Is my love, Mary Neele.
I felt my soul enchanted
To view this turtle dove,
That lately seems descended
From heavenly bowers of love;
And might I have the fortune
My wishes could reveal,
I'd turn my back on splendour
And fly to Mary Neele.
She is the flower of nations,
The diamond of my eye;
All others are but gloworms
That in her splendour die.
As shining stars all vanish
When suns their light reveal,
So beauties shrink to shadows
At the feet of Mary Neele.
I ask no better fortune
Than to embrace her charms;
Like Plato I would laugh at wealth
While she was in my arms;
And if I cannot gain her
From grief there's no appeal;
My joy, my pain, my life, my all
Are fixed with Mary Neele.
The stone of vain philosophers,
That wonder-working toy,
The golden fleece of Jason,
That Helen stole from Troy,
The beauty and the riches
That all these fames unseal,
Are nothing all, and less than that,
Compared to Mary Neele.
O if I cannot gain her
Right wretched must I be,
And caves and lonely mountains
Must be the life for me,
To pine in gloom and sorrow,
And hide the deaths I feel,
For light nor life I may not share
When lost to Mary Neele.
My Love, Thou Art A Nosegay Sweet.
by John Clare

My love, thou art a nosegay sweet,
My sweetest flower I'll prove thee,
And pleased I pin thee to my breast,
And dearly do I love thee.
And when, my nosegay, thou shalt fade,
As sweet a flower thou'lt prove thee;
And as thou witherest on my breast
For beauty past I'll love thee.
And when, my nosegay, thou shalt die,
And heaven's flower shalt prove thee,
My hopes shall follow to the sky,
And everlasting love thee.
My Amazon.
by Eric Mackay

I.
My Love is a lady fair and free,
A lady fair from over the sea,
And she hath eyes that pierce my breast
And rob my spirit of peace and rest.
II.
A youthful warrior, warm and young,
She takes me prisoner with her tongue,
Aye! and she keeps me, - on parole, -
Till paid the ransom of my soul.
III.
I swear the foeman, arm'd for war
From cap-'-pie, with many a scar,
More mercy finds for prostrate foe
Than she who deals me never a blow.
IV.
And so 'twill be, this many a day;
She comes to wound, if not to slay.
But in my dreams, - in honied sleep, -
'Tis I to smile, and she to weep!
Upon Lucia Dabbled In The Dew.
by Robert Herrick

My Lucia in the dew did go,
And prettily bedabbled so,
Her clothes held up, she showed withal
Her decent legs, clean, long, and small.
I follow'd after to descry
Part of the nak'd sincerity;
But still the envious scene between
Denied the mask I would have seen.
The Lament Of The Border Widow
by Frank Sidgwick

The Text is given from Scott's Minstrelsy (1803), vol. iii. pp. 83-4. His introduction states that it was obtained from recitation in the Forest of Ettrick, and that it relates to the execution of a Border freebooter, named Cokburne, by James V., in 1529.
The Story referred to above may have once existed in the ballad, but the lyrical dirge as it now stands is obviously corrupted with a broadside-ballad, The Lady turned Serving-man, given with 'improvements' by Percy (Reliques, 1765, vol. iii. p. 87, etc.). Compare the first three stanzas of the Lament with stanzas 3, 4, and 5 of the broadside:--
3.
And then my love built me a bower,
Bedeckt with many a fragrant flower;
A braver bower you never did see
Than my true-love did build for me.
4.
But there came thieves late in the night,
They rob'd my bower, and slew my knight,
And after that my knight was slain,
I could no longer there remain.
5.
My servants all from me did flye,
In the midst of my extremity,
And left me by my self alone,
With a heart more cold then any stone.
It is of course impossible to compare the bald style of the broadside with the beautiful Scottish dirge; and the difficulty of clothing a bower with lilies, which offends Professor Child, may be disregarded.
THE LAMENT OF THE BORDER WIDOW
1.
My love he built me a bonny bower,
And clad it a' wi' lilye flour;
A brawer bower ye ne'er did see,
Than my true love he built for me.
2.
There came a man, by middle day,
He spied his sport, and went away;
And brought the king, that very night,
Who brake my bower, and slew my knight.
3.
He slew my knight, to me sae dear;
He slew my knight, and poin'd his gear;
My servants all for life did flee,
And left me in extremitie.
4.
I sew'd his sheet, making my mane;
I watched the corpse, myself alane;
I watched his body, night and day;
No living creature came that way.
5.
I took his body on my back,
And whiles I gaed, and whiles I sate;
I digg'd a grave, and laid him in,
And happ'd him with the sod sae green.
6.
But think na ye my heart was sair,
When I laid the moul' on his yellow hair?
O think na ye my heart was wae,
When I turn'd about, away to gae?
7.
Nae living man I'll love again,
Since that my lovely knight is slain;
Wi' ae lock of his yellow hair,
I'll chain my heart for evermair.
Speech On The Umbrella Question.
by Thomas Moore

[1]
BY LORD ELDON.
"vos inumbrelles video."--Ex Juvenil.
GEORGII CANNINGII.[2]
My Lords, I'm accused of a trick that God knows is
The last into which at my age I could fall--
Of leading this grave House of Peers by their noses,
Wherever I choose, princes, bishops and all.
My Lords, on the question before us at present,
No doubt I shall hear, "'Tis that cursed old fellow,
"That bugbear of all that is liberal and pleasant,
"Who won't let the Lords give the man his umbrella!"
God forbid that your Lordships should knuckle to me;
I am ancient--but were I as old as King Priam,
Not much, I confess, to your credit 'twould be,
To mind such a twaddling old Trojan as I am.
I own, of our Protestant laws I am jealous,
And long as God spares me will always maintain,
That once having taken men's rights, or umbrellas,
We ne'er should consent to restore them again.
What security have you, ye Bishops and Peers,
If thus you give back Mr. Bell's parapluie,
That he mayn't with its stick, come about all your ears,
And then--where would your Protestant periwigs be?
No! heaven be my judge, were I dying to-day,
Ere I dropt in the grave, like a medlar that's mellow,
"For God's sake"--at that awful moment I'd say--
"For God's sake, don't give Mr. Bell his umbrella."
Penance
by John McCrae

My lover died a century ago,
Her dear heart stricken by my sland'rous breath,
Wherefore the Gods forbade that I should know
The peace of death.
Men pass my grave, and say, "'Twere well to sleep,
Like such an one, amid the uncaring dead!"
How should they know the vigils that I keep,
The tears I shed?
Upon the grave, I count with lifeless breath,
Each night, each year, the flowers that bloom and die,
Deeming the leaves, that fall to dreamless death,
More blest than I.
'Twas just last year, I heard two lovers pass
So near, I caught the tender words he said:
To-night the rain-drenched breezes sway the grass
Above his head.
That night full envious of his life was I,
That youth and love should stand at his behest;
To-night, I envy him, that he should lie
At utter rest.
Hymn To Priapus
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

My love lies underground
With her face upturned to mine,
And her mouth unclosed in a last long kiss
That ended her life and mine.
I dance at the Christmas party
Under the mistletoe
Along with a ripe, slack country lass
Jostling to and fro.
The big, soft country lass,
Like a loose sheaf of wheat
Slipped through my arms on the threshing floor
At my feet.
The warm, soft country lass,
Sweet as an armful of wheat
At threshing-time broken, was broken
For me, and ah, it was sweet!
Now I am going home
Fulfilled and alone,
I see the great Orion standing
Looking down.
He's the star of my first beloved
Love-making.
The witness of all that bitter-sweet
Heart-aching.
Now he sees this as well,
This last commission.
Nor do I get any look
Of admonition.
He can add the reckoning up
I suppose, between now and then,
Having walked himself in the thorny, difficult
Ways of men.
He has done as I have done
No doubt:
Remembered and forgotten
Turn and about.
My love lies underground
With her face upturned to mine,
And her mouth unclosed in the last long kiss
That ended her life and mine.
She fares in the stark immortal
Fields of death;
I in these goodly, frozen
Fields beneath.
Something in me remembers
And will not forget.
The stream of my life in the darkness
Deathward set!
And something in me has forgotten,
Has ceased to care.
Desire comes up, and contentment
Is debonair.
I, who am worn and careful,
How much do I care?
How is it I grin then, and chuckle
Over despair?
Grief, grief, I suppose and sufficient
Grief makes us free
To be faithless and faithful together
As we have to be.
The Sonnets CII - My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming
by William Shakespeare

My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming;
I love not less, though less the show appear;
That love is merchandiz'd, whose rich esteeming,
The owner's tongue doth publish every where.
Our love was new, and then but in the spring,
When I was wont to greet it with my lays;
As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,
And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:
Not that the summer is less pleasant now
Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,
But that wild music burthens every bough,
And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.
Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:
Because I would not dull you with my song.
Sonnet XVII.
by Fernando Ant'nio Nogueira Pessoa

My love, and not I, is the egoist.
My love for thee loves itself more than thee;
Ay, more than me, in whom it doth exist,
And makes me live that it may feed on me.
In the country of bridges the bridge is
More real than the shores it doth unsever;
So in our world, all of Relation, this
Is true--that truer is Love than either lover.
This thought therefore comes lightly to Doubt's door--
If we, seeing substance of this world, are not
Mere Intervals, God's Absence and no more,
Hollows in real Consciousness and Thought.
And if 'tis possible to Thought to bear this fruit,
Why should it not be possible to Truth?
A Love For Winged Things.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

[XXXVII., April 12, 1840.]
My love flowed e'er for things with wings.
When boy I sought for forest fowl,
And caged them in rude rushes' mesh,
And fed them with my breakfast roll;
So that, though fragile were the door,
They rarely fled, and even then
Would flutter back at faintest call!
Man-grown, I charm for men.
My Love Is In A Light Attire
by James Joyce

My love is in a light attire
Among the apple-trees,
Where the gay winds do most desire
To run in companies.
There, where the gay winds stay to woo
The young leaves as they pass,
My love goes slowly, bending to
Her shadow on the grass;
And where the sky's a pale blue cup
Over the laughing land,
My love goes lightly, holding up
Her dress with dainty hand.