DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Memorials Of A Tour In Scotland 1814 - II. Composed At Cora Linn - In Sight Of Wallace's Tower
by William Wordsworth

"How Wallace fought for Scotland, left the name
Of Wallace to be found, like a wild flower,
All over his dear Country; left the deeds
Of Wallace, like a family of ghosts,
To people the steep rocks and river banks,
Her natural sanctuaries, with a local soul
Of independence and stern liberty."
- See The Prelude, Book I, Lines 214-20.
Lord of the vale! astounding Flood;
The dullest leaf in this thick wood
Quakes conscious of thy power;
The caves reply with hollow moan;
And vibrates, to its central stone,
Yon time-cemented Tower!
And yet how fair the rural scene!
For thou, O Clyde, hast ever been
Beneficent as strong;
Pleased in refreshing dews to steep 
The little trembling flowers that peep
Thy shelving rocks among.
Hence all who love their country, love
To look on thee, delight to rove
Where they thy voice can hear;
And, to the patriot-warrior's Shade,
Lord of the vale! to Heroes laid
In dust, that voice is dear!
Along thy banks, at dead of night
Sweeps visibly the Wallace Wight; 
Or stands, in warlike vest,
Aloft, beneath the moon's pale beam,
A Champion worthy of the stream,
Yon grey tower's living crest!
But clouds and envious darkness hide
A Form not doubtfully descried:
Their transient mission o'er,
O say to what blind region flee
These Shapes of awful phantasy?
To what untrodden shore? 
Less than divine command they spurn;
But this we from the mountains learn,
And this the valleys show;
That never will they deign to hold
Communion where the heart is cold
To human weal and woe.
The man of abject soul in vain
Shall walk the Marathonian plain;
Or thrid the shadowy gloom,
That still invests the guardian Pass, 
Where stood, sublime, Leonidas
Devoted to the tomb.
And let no Slave his head incline,
Or kneel, before the votive shrine
By Uri's lake, where Tell
Leapt, from his storm-vext boat, to land,
Heaven's Instrument, for by his hand
That day the Tyrant fell.
Spell-Bound
by William Morris

How weary is it none can tell,
How dismally the days go by!
I hear the tinkling of the bell,
I see the cross against the sky.
The year wears round to Autumn-tide,
Yet comes no reaper to the corn;
The golden land is like a bride
When first she knows herself forlorn;
She sits and weeps with all her hair
Laid downward over tender hands;
For stain'd silk she hath no care,
No care for broken ivory wands;
The silver cups beside her stand;
The golden stars on the blue roof
Yet glitter, though against her hand
His cold sword presses for a proof
He is not dead, but gone away.
How many hours did she wait
For me, I wonder? Till the day
Had faded wholly, and the gate
Clanged to behind returning knights?
I wonder did she raise her head
And go away, fleeing the lights;
And lay the samite on her bed,
The wedding samite strewn with pearls:
Then sit with hands laid on her knees,
Shuddering at half-heard sound of girls
That chatter outside in the breeze?
I wonder did her poor heart throb
At distant tramp of coming knight?
How often did the choking sob
Raise up her head and lips? The light,
Did it come on her unawares,
And drag her sternly down before
People who loved her not? in prayers
Did she say one name and no more?
And once, all songs they ever sung,
All tales they ever told to me,
This only burden through them rung:
O golden love that waitest me!
The days pass on, pass on apace,
Sometimes I have a little rest
In fairest dreams, when on thy face
My lips lie, or thy hands are prest
About my forehead, and thy lips
Draw near and nearer to mine own;
But when the vision from me slips,
In colourless dawn I lie and moan,
And wander forth with fever'd blood,
That makes me start at little things,
The blackbird screaming from the wood,
The sudden whirr of pheasants' wings.
O dearest, scarcely seen by me!
But when that wild time had gone by,
And in these arms I folded thee,
Who ever thought those days could die?
Yet now I wait, and you wait too,
For what perchance may never come;
You think I have forgotten you,
That I grew tired and went home.
But what if some day as I stood
Against the wall with strain'd hands,
And turn'd my face toward the wood,
Away from all the golden lands;
And saw you come with tired feet,
And pale face thin and wan with care,
And stain'd raiment no more neat,
The white dust lying on your hair:
Then I should say, I could not come;
This land was my wide prison, dear;
I could not choose but go; at home
There is a wizard whom I fear:
He bound me round with silken chains
I could not break; he set me here
Above the golden-waving plains,
Where never reaper cometh near.
And you have brought me my good sword,
Wherewith in happy days of old
I won you well from knight and lord;
My heart upswells and I grow bold.
But I shall die unless you stand,
Half lying now, you are so weak,
Within my arms, unless your hand
Pass to and fro across my cheek.
His Grange.
by Robert Herrick

How well contented in this private grange
Spend I my life, that's subject unto change:
Under whose roof with moss-work wrought, there I
Kiss my brown wife and black posterity.
Prologue To "The Pilgrim." By Beaumont And Fletcher.
by John Dryden

REVIVED FOR OUR AUTHOR'S BENEFIT, ANNO 1700.
How wretched is the fate of those who write!
Brought muzzled to the stage, for fear they bite.
Where, like Tom Dove, they stand the common foe;
Lugg'd by the critic, baited by the beau.
Yet worse, their brother poets damn the play,
And roar the loudest, though they never pay.
The fops are proud of scandal, for they cry,
At every lewd, low character,--That's I.
He who writes letters to himself would swear,
The world forgot him, if he was not there.
What should a poet do? 'Tis hard for one
To pleasure all the fools that would be shown:
And yet not two in ten will pass the town.
Most coxcombs are not of the laughing kind;
More goes to make a fop, than fops can find.
Quack Maurus,[1] though he never took degrees
In either of our universities,
Yet to be shown by some kind wit he looks,
Because he play'd the fool, and writ three books.
But, if he would be worth a Poet's pen,
He must be more a fool, and write again:
For all the former fustian stuff he wrote
Was dead-born doggerel, or is quite forgot:
His man of Uz, stript of his Hebrew robe,
Is just the proverb, and as poor as Job.
One would have thought he could no longer jog;
But Arthur was a level, Job's a bog.
There, though he crept, yet still he kept in sight;
But here, he founders in, and sinks down right,
Had he prepared us, and been dull by rule,
Tobit had first been turn'd to ridicule:
But our bold Briton, without fear or awe,
O'erleaps at once the whole Apocrypha;
Invades the Psalms with rhymes, and leaves no room
For any Vandal Hopkins yet to come.
But when if, after all, this godly gear
Is not so senseless as it would appear;
Our mountebank has laid a deeper train,
His cant, like Merry-Andrew's noble vein,
Cat-calls the sects to draw them in again.
At leisure hours, in epic song he deals,
Writes to the rumbling of his coach's wheels,
Prescribes in haste, and seldom kills by rule,
But rides triumphant between stool and stool.
Well, let him go; 'tis yet too early day,
To get himself a place in farce or play.
We know not by what name we should arraign him,
For no one category can contain him;
A pedant, canting preacher, and a quack,
Are load enough to break one ass's back:
At last, grown wanton, he presumed to write,
Traduced two kings, their kindness to requite;
One made the doctor, and one dubb'd the knight.
Verses To Order.
by Henry Austin Dobson

(For A Drawing By E. A. Abbey.)
How weary 'twas to wait! The year
Went dragging slowly on;
The red leaf to the running brook
Dropped sadly, and was gone;
December came, and locked in ice
The plashing of the mill;
The white snow filled the orchard up;
But she was waiting still.
Spring stirred and broke. The rooks once more
'Gan cawing in the loft;
The young lambs' new awakened cries
Came trembling from the croft;
The clumps of primrose filled again
The hollows by the way;
The pale wind-flowers blew; but she
Grew paler still than they.
How weary 'twas to wait! With June,
Through all the drowsy street,
Came distant murmurs of the war,
And rumours of the fleet;
The gossips, from the market-stalls,
Cried news of Joe and Tim;
But June shed all her leaves, and still
There came no news of him.
And then, at last, at last, at last,
One bless'd August morn,
Beneath the yellowing autumn elms,
Pang-panging came the horn;
The swift coach paused a creaking-space,
Then flashed away, and passed;
But she stood trembling yet, and dazed:
The news had come--at last!
And thus the artist saw her stand,
While all around her seems
As vague and shadowy as the shapes
That flit from us in dreams;
And naught in all the world is true,
Save those few words which tell
That he she lost is found again--
Is found again--and well!
The Faded Face
by Thomas Hardy

How was this I did not see
Such a look as here was shown
Ere its womanhood had blown
Past its first felicity? -
That I did not know you young,
Faded Face,
Know you young!
Why did Time so ill bestead
That I heard no voice of yours
Hail from out the curved contours
Of those lips when rosy red;
Weeted not the songs they sung,
Faded Face,
Songs they sung!
By these blanchings, blooms of old,
And the relics of your voice -
Leavings rare of rich and choice
From your early tone and mould -
Let me mourn, - aye, sorrow-wrung,
Faded Face,
Sorrow-wrung!
Lese-Amour.
by John Milton Hay

How well my heart remembers
Beside these camp-fire embers
The eyes that smiled so far away, -
The joy that was November's.
Her voice to laughter moving,
So merrily reproving, -
We wandered through the autumn woods,
And neither thought of loving.
The hills with light were glowing,
The waves in joy were flowing, -
It was not to the clouded sun
The day's delight was owing.
Though through the brown leaves straying,
Our lives seemed gone a-Maying;
We knew not Love was with us there,
No look nor tone betraying.
How unbelief still misses
The best of being's blisses!
Our parting saw the first and last
Of love's imagined kisses.
Now 'mid these scenes the drearest
I dream of her, the dearest, -
Whose eyes outshine the Southern stars,
So far, and yet the nearest.
And Love, so gaily taunted,
Who died, no welcome granted,
Comes to me now, a pallid ghost,
By whom my life is haunted.
With bonds I may not sever,
He binds my heart for ever,
And leads me where we murdered him, -
The Hill beside the River.
CAMP SHAW, FLORIDA,
February 1864.
Spectres
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

How terrible these nights are when alone
With our scarred hearts, we sit in solitude,
And some old sorrow, to the world unknown,
Does suddenly with silent steps intrude.
After the guests departed, and the light
Burned dimly in my room, there came to me,
As noiselessly as shadows of the night,
The spectre of a woe that used to be.
Out of the gruesome darkness and the gloom
I saw it peering; and, in still despair,
I watched it gliding swift across the room,
Until it came and stood beside my chair.
Why, need I tell thee what its shape or name?
Thou hast thy secret hidden from the light:
And be it sin or sorrow, woe or shame,
Thou dost not like to meet it in the night.
And yet it comes.    As certainly as death,
And far more cruel since death ends all pain,
On lonesome nights we feel its icy breath,
And turn and face the thing we fancied slain.
With shrinking hearts, we view the ghastly shape;
We look into its eyes with fear and dread,
And know that we can never more escape
Until the grave doth fold us with the dead.
On the swift maelstrom of the eddying world
We hurl our woes, and think they are no more.
But round and round by dizzy billows whirled,
They reach out sinewy arms and swim to shore.
The Memory Of Burns
by John Greenleaf Whittier

How sweetly come the holy psalms
From saints and martyrs down,
The waving of triumphal palms
Above the thorny crown
The choral praise, the chanted prayers
From harps by angels strung,
The hunted Cameron's mountain airs,
The hymns that Luther sung!
Yet, jarring not the heavenly notes,
The sounds of earth are heard,
As through the open minster floats
The song of breeze and bird
Not less the wonder of the sky
That daisies bloom below;
The brook sings on, though loud and high
The cloudy organs blow!
And, if the tender ear be jarred
That, haply, hears by turns
The saintly harp of Olney's bard,
The pastoral pipe of Burns,
No discord mars His perfect plan
Who gave them both a tongue;
For he who sings the love of man
The love of God hath sung!
To-day be every fault forgiven
Of him in whom we joy
We take, with thanks, the gold of Heaven
And leave the earth's alloy.
Be ours his music as of spring,
His sweetness as of flowers,
The songs the bard himself might sing
In holier ears than ours.
Sweet airs of love and home, the hum
Of household melodies,
Come singing, as the robins come
To sing in door-yard trees.
And, heart to heart, two nations lean,
No rival wreaths to twine,
But blending in eternal green
The holly and the pine
St. Irvyne's Tower.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

1.
How swiftly through Heaven's wide expanse
Bright day's resplendent colours fade!
How sweetly does the moonbeam's glance
With silver tint St. Irvyne's glade!
2.
No cloud along the spangled air,
Is borne upon the evening breeze;
How solemn is the scene! how fair
The moonbeams rest upon the trees!
3.
Yon dark gray turret glimmers white,
Upon it sits the mournful owl;
Along the stillness of the night,
Her melancholy shriekings roll.
4.
But not alone on Irvyne's tower,
The silver moonbeam pours her ray;
It gleams upon the ivied bower,
It dances in the cascade's spray.
5.
'Ah! why do dark'ning shades conceal
The hour, when man must cease to be?
Why may not human minds unveil
The dim mists of futurity? -
6.
'The keenness of the world hath torn
The heart which opens to its blast;
Despised, neglected, and forlorn,
Sinks the wretch in death at last.'
The Bobolink
by George Parsons Lathrop

How sweetly sang the bobolink,
When thou, my love, wast nigh!
His liquid music from the brink
Of some cloud-fountain seemed to sink,
Far in the blue-domed sky.
How sadly sings the bobolink!
No more my love is nigh:
Yet rise, my spirit, rise, and drink
Once more from that cloud-fountain's brink, - 
Once more before I die!
The Curl of Gold.
by Harriet Annie Wilkins

How wildly blows the wintry wind, deep lies the drifting snow
On the hillside, and the roadside, and the valleys down below;
And up the gorge all through last night the rushing storm flew fast,
And there old walls and casements were rattling in the blast.
Lady, I had a dream last night, born of the storm and pain,
I dreamed it was the time of spring; but the clouds were black with rain.
I thought that I was on the bay, a good way out from shore
Alone, and feeling much afraid at the wild tempest's roar,
I tried to reach the distant land, but could not find the way,
And suddenly my boat capsized far out upon the bay.
I shrieked in wildest agony amid the thunder shock,
When I heard you saying unto me, "Beneath us is a Rock,
Trust not to me, these waves are strong, but lift your tear-dimmed eye--
That star will lead us to the rock that higher is than I."
And through the drenching wave and surf, together on we passed,
Till the bright green slopes of Hamilton shone clearly out at last.
It seemed so strange, we stepped ashore, your garments were all dry,
And, holding hands as we do now, I heard you say "good-bye."
Dear lady, now I see it all, those blessed words you said
Were with me in the storm last night, like angels round my bed.
"So many and great dangers that we cannot stand upright,"
"Defend us by thy mercy, from all perils of this night."
Lady, I am a mother, none know it here save you;
Don't blush for me, there is no shame, I am a wife, leal and true.
Lady, true love is born of heaven, we may deem it dead and past,
And sit with bowed down head alone, the heart's door closed and fast;
When suddenly we hear a voice, and spite of bolt or bar,
Like its dear Master, there it stands, stretching its arms afar;
Though buried up it rises, though dead it lives anew,
And breathes again its Master's words, "Sweet peace be unto you,"
Folks say, "There is a mystery about that poor sick girl,"
Lady, there's mystery round us all, that angels will unfurl,
I have one favor now to ask, within this paper's fold,
There's a little lock of baby's hair, just half one curl of gold,
When I am in my coffin, and soon now I'll be at rest,
Will you lay this little curl of gold upon my quiet breast,
God and the angels only know where the other half lies hid,
In the green sod of old Ireland, neath a baby's coffin lid,
Don't'leave me yet, it is near night, I feel so strange to-day,
You know the prayers for dying ones, oh kneel once more and pray,
Thank God for sending one to me, where the wild tempests roll,
You won't forget--the little curl--Saviour receive my soul.
Fragment Inscribed To The Right Hon. C.J. Fox.
by Robert Burns

How wisdom and folly meet, mix, and unite;
How virtue and vice blend their black and their white;
How genius, th' illustrious father of fiction,
Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction,
I sing: if these mortals, the critics, should bustle,
I care not, not I, let the critics go whistle!
But now for a patron, whose name and whose glory
At once may illustrate and honour my story.
Thou first of our orators, first of our wits;
Yet whose parts and acquirements seem mere lucky hits;
With knowledge so vast, and with judgment so strong,
No man with the half of 'em e'er went far wrong;
With passions so potent, and fancies so bright,
No man with the half of 'em e'er went quite right;
A sorry, poor misbegot son of the muses,
For using thy name offers fifty excuses.
Good L--d, what is man? for as simple he looks,
Do but try to develope his hooks and his crooks;
With his depths and his shallows, his good and his evil,
All in all he's a problem must puzzle the devil.
On his one ruling passion Sir Pope hugely labours,
That, like th' old Hebrew walking-switch, eats up its neighbours;
Mankind are his show-box, a friend, would you know him?
Pull the string, ruling passion the picture will show him.
What pity, in rearing so beauteous a system,
One trifling particular, truth, should have miss'd him;
For spite of his fine theoretic positions,
Mankind is a science defies definitions.
Some sort all our qualities each to its tribe,
And think human nature they truly describe;
Have you found this, or t'other? there's more in the wind,
As by one drunken fellow his comrades you'll find.
But such is the flaw, or the depth of the plan,
In the make of that wonderful creature, call'd man,
No two virtues, whatever relation they claim,
Nor even two different shades of the same,
Though like as was ever twin brother to brother,
Possessing the one shall imply you've the other.
But truce with abstraction, and truce with a muse,
Whose rhymes you'll perhaps, Sir, ne'er deign to peruse:
Will you leave your justings, your jars, and your quarrels,
Contending with Billy for proud-nodding laurels.
My much-honour'd Patron, believe your poor poet,
Your courage much more than your prudence you show it;
In vain with Squire Billy, for laurels you struggle,
He'll have them by fair trade, if not, he will smuggle;
Not cabinets even of kings would conceal 'em,
He'd up the back-stairs, and by G, he would steal 'em.
Then feats like Squire Billy's you ne'er can achieve 'em;
It is not, outdo him, the task is, out-thieve him.
How Will It Be?
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

How will it be when one of us alone
Goes on that strange last journey of the soul?
That certain search for an uncertain goal,
That voyage on which no comradeship is known?
Will our dear sea sing with the old sweet tone,
Though one sits stricken where its billows roll?
Will space be dumb, or from the mystic pole
Will spirit-messages be backward blown?
When our united lives are wrenched apart,
And day no more means fond companionship,
When fervent night, and lovely languorous dawn,
Are only memories to one sad heart,
And but in dreams love-kisses burn the lip, - 
Dear God, how can this same fair world move on?
Summer Songs
by Richard Le Gallienne

I
How thick the grass,
How green the shade - 
All for love
And lovers made.
Wood-lilies white
As hidden lace - 
Open your bodice,
That's their place.
See how the sun-god
Overpowers
The summer lying
Deep in flowers;
With burning kisses
Of bright gold
Fills her young womb
With joy untold;
And all the world
Is lad and lass,
A blue sky
And a couch of grass.
Summer is here - 
let us drain
It all! it may
Not come again.
II
How the leaves thicken
On the boughs,
And the birds make
Their lyric vows.
O the beating, breaking
Heart of things,
The pulse and passion - 
How it sings.
How it burns and flames
And showers,
Lusts and laughs, flowers
And deflowers.
III
Summer came,
Rose on rose;
Leaf on leaf,
Summer goes.
Summer came,
Song on song;
O summer had
A golden tongue.
Summer goes,
Sigh on sigh;
Not a rose
Sees him die.
How Thought You That This Thing Could Captivate?
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

How thought you that this thing could captivate?
What are those graces that could make her dear,
Who is not worth the notice of a sneer,
To rouse the vapid devil of her hate?
A speech conventional, so void of weight,
That after it has buzzed about one's ear,
'Twere rich refreshment for a week to hear
The dentist babble or the barber prate;
A hand displayed with many a little art;
An eye that glances on her neighbor's dress;
A foot too often shown for my regard;
An angel's form -- a waiting-woman's heart;
A perfect-featured face, expressionless,
Insipid, as the Queen upon a card.
The Crow & The Pitcher
by Walter Crane

How the cunning old Crow got his drink
When 'twas low in the pitcher, just think!
Don't say that he spilled it!
With pebbles he filled it,
Till the water rose up to the brink.
Use Your Wits
Sonnet XXVII.
by Fernando Ant'nio Nogueira Pessoa

How yesterday is long ago! The past
Is a fixed infinite distance from to-day,
And bygone things, the first-lived as the last,
In irreparable sameness far away.
How the to-be is infinitely ever
Out of the place wherein it will be Now,
Like the seen wave yet far up in the river,
Which reaches not us, but the new-waved flow!
This thing Time is, whose being is having none,
The equable tyrant of our different fates,
Who could not be bought off by a shattered sun
Or tricked by new use of our careful dates.
This thing Time is, that to the grave-will bear
My heart, sure but of it and of my fear.
To R. B. H.
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

At The Dinner To The President, Boston, June 26, 1877
How to address him? awkward, it is true
Call him "Great Father," as the Red Men do?
Borrow some title? this is not the place
That christens men Your Highness and Your Grace;
We tried such names as these awhile, you know,
But left them off a century ago.
His Majesty? We've had enough of that
Besides, that needs a crown; he wears a hat.
What if, to make the nicer ears content,
We say His Honesty, the President?
Sir, we believed you honest, truthful, brave,
When to your hands their precious trust we gave,
And we have found you better than we knew,
Braver, and not less honest, not less true!
So every heart has opened, every hand
Tingles with welcome, and through all the land
All voices greet you in one broad acclaim,
Healer of strife! Has earth a nobler name?
What phrases mean you do not need to learn;
We must be civil, and they serve our turn
"Your most obedient humble" means - means what?
Something the well-bred signer just is not.
Yet there are tokens, sir, you must believe;
There is one language never can deceive
The lover knew it when the maiden smiled;
The mother knows it when she clasps her child;
Voices may falter, trembling lips turn pale,
Words grope and stumble; this will tell their tale
Shorn of all rhetoric, bare of all pretence,
But radiant, warm, with Nature's eloquence.
Look in our eyes! Your welcome waits you there, - 
North, South, East, West, from all and everywhere!