DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Baktschi Serai
by Adam Bernard Mickiewicz

In ruin are the spacious, splendid halls
With frozen forest of white columns where
The Tartar Khan his palace builded fair,
Where loneliest the shrilling cricket calls.
The ivy blackens over shining walls
Enscribing in gigantic letters there
Some curse Belshazzar-like: Beware! Beware!--
Then black as crepe from crested columns falls.
Within the burnished banquet room there sings
The fountain of the harem pure and clear,
Just as of old it sang in twilights drear.
But whither love and fame speed--on what wings?
When all things else must perish these endure!
Yet both are gone! The fountain ripples pure.
Sonnets: Idea XLVII
by Michael Drayton

In pride of wit, when high desire of fame
Gave life and courage to my lab'ring pen,
And first the sound and virtue of my name
Won grace and credit in the ears of men,
With those the throng'd theatres that press,
I in the circuit for the laurel strove,
Where the full praise I freely must confess,
In heat of blood a modest mind might move;
With shouts and claps at every little pause,
When the proud round on every side hath rung,
Sadly I sit unmoved with the applause,
As though to me it nothing did belong.
No public glory vainly I pursue;
All that I seek is to eternise you.
Thus Saith The Lord, I Offer Thee Three Things.
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

In poisonous dens, where traitors hide
Like bats that fear the day,
While all the land our charters claim
Is sweating blood and breathing flame,
Dead to their country's woe and shame,
The recreants whisper STAY!
In peaceful homes, where patriot fires
On Love's own altars glow,
The mother hides her trembling fear,
The wife, the sister, checks a tear,
To breathe the parting word of cheer,
Soldier of Freedom, Go!
In halls where Luxury lies at ease,
And Mammon keeps his state,
Where flatterers fawn and menials crouch,
The dreamer, startled from his couch,
Wrings a few counters from his pouch,
And murmurs faintly WAIT!
In weary camps, on trampled plains
That ring with fife and drum,
The battling host, whose harness gleams
Along the crimson-flowing streams,
Calls, like a warning voice in dreams,
We want you, Brother! COME!
Choose ye whose bidding ye will do, - 
To go, to wait, to stay!
Sons of the Freedom-loving town,
Heirs of the Fathers' old renown,
The servile yoke, the civic crown,
Await your choice To-DAY!
The stake is laid! O gallant youth
With yet unsilvered brow,
If Heaven should lose and Hell should win,
On whom shall lie the mortal sin,
That cries aloud, It might have been?
God calls you - answer NOW.
1862.
The Man & The Snake
by Walter Crane

In pity he brought the poor Snake
To be warmed at his fire. A mistake!
For the ungrateful thing
Wife & children would sting.
I have known some as bad as the Snake.
Beware How You Entertain Traitors
The Eagle And Dove.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In search of prey once raised his pinions
An eaglet;
A huntsman's arrow came, and reft
His right wing of all motive power.
Headlong he fell into a myrtle grove,
For three long days on anguish fed,
In torment writhed
Throughout three long, three weary nights;
And then was cured,
Thanks to all-healing Nature's
Soft, omnipresent balm.
He crept away from out the copse,
And stretch'd his wing alas!
Lost is all power of flight 
He scarce can lift himself
From off the ground
To catch some mean, unworthy prey,
And rests, deep-sorrowing,
On the low rock beside the stream.
Up to the oak he looks,
Looks up to heaven,
While in his noble eye there gleams a tear.
Then, rustling through the myrtle boughs, behold,
There comes a wanton pair of doves,
Who settle down, and, nodding, strut
O'er the gold sands beside the stream,
And gradually approach;
Their red-tinged eyes, so full of love,
Soon see the inward-sorrowing one.
The male, inquisitively social, leaps
On the next bush, and looks
Upon him kindly and complacently.
"Thou sorrowest," murmurs he:
"Be of good cheer, my friend!
All that is needed for calm happiness
Hast thou not here?
Hast thou not pleasure in the golden bough
That shields thee from the day's fierce glow?
Canst thou not raise thy breast to catch,
On the soft moss beside the brook,
The sun's last rays at even?
Here thou mayst wander through the flowers' fresh dew,
Pluck from the overflow
The forest-trees provide,
Thy choicest food, mayst quench
Thy light thirst at the silvery spring.
Oh friend, true happiness
Lies in contentedness,
And that contentedness
Finds everywhere enough."
"Oh, wise one!" said the eagle, while he sank
In deep and ever deep'ning thought 
"Oh Wisdom! like a dove thou speakest!"
The Ravaged Villa
by Herman Melville

In shards the sylvan vases lie,
Their links of dance undone,
And brambles wither by thy brim,
Choked fountain of the sun!
The spider in the laurel spins,
The weed exiles the flower:
And, flung to kiln, Apollo's bust
Makes lime for Mammon's tower.
Art
by Herman Melville

In placid hours well-pleased we dream
Of many a brave unbodied scheme.
But form to lend, pulsed life create,
What unlike things must meet and mate:
A flame to melt--a wind to freeze;
Sad patience--joyous energies;
Humility--yet pride and scorn;
Instinct and study; love and hate;
Audacity--reverence. These must mate,
And fuse with Jacob's mystic heart,
To wrestle with the angel--Art.
When He Would Have His Verses Read
by Robert Herrick

In sober mornings do thou not rehearse
The holy incantation of a verse;
But when that men have both well drunk, and fed,
Let my enchantments then be sung, or read.
When laurel spurts i' th' fire, and when the hearth
Smiles to itself, and gilds the roof with mirth;
When up the thyrse is raised, and when the sound
Of sacred orgies flies: "A round, a round;"
When the rose reigns, and locks with ointments shine,
Let rigid Cato read these lines of mine.
From "The Parish: A Satire"
by John Clare

I
In politics and politicians' lies
The modern farmer waxes wondrous wise;
Opinionates with wisdom all compact,
And een could tell a nation how to act;
Throws light on darkness with excessive skill,
Knows who acts well and whose designs are ill,
Proves half the members nought but bribery's tools,
And calls the past a dull dark age of fools.
As wise as Solomon they read the news,
Not with their blind forefathers' simple views,
Who read of wars, and wished that wars would cease,
And blessed the King, and wished his country peace;
Who marked the weight of each fat sheep and ox,
The price of grain and rise and fall of stocks;
Who thought it learning how to buy and sell,
And him a wise man who could manage well.
No, not with such old-fashioned, idle views
Do these newsmongers traffic with the news.
They read of politics and not of grain,
And speechify and comment and explain,
And know so much of Parliament and state
You'd think they're members when you heard them prate;
And know so little of their farms the while
They can but urge a wiser man to smile.
II
A thing all consequence here takes the lead,
Reigning knight-errant oer this dirty breed--
A bailiff he, and who so great to brag
Of law and all its terrors as Bumtagg;
Fawning a puppy at his master's side
And frowning like a wolf on all beside;
Who fattens best where sorrow worst appears
And feeds on sad misfortune's bitterest tears?
Such is Bumtagg the bailiff to a hair,
The worshipper and demon of despair,
Who waits and hopes and wishes for success
At every nod and signal of distress,
Happy at heart, when storms begin to boil,
To seek the shipwreck and to share the spoil.
Brave is this Bumtagg, match him if you can;
For there's none like him living--save his man.
As every animal assists his kind
Just so are these in blood and business joined;
Yet both in different colours hide their art,
And each as suits his ends transacts his part.
One keeps the heart-bred villain full in sight,
The other cants and acts the hypocrite,
Smoothing the deed where law sharks set their gin
Like a coy dog to draw misfortune in.
But both will chuckle oer their prisoners' sighs
And are as blest as spiders over flies.
Such is Bumtagg, whose history I resign,
As other knaves wait room to stink and shine;
And, as the meanest knave a dog can brag,
Such is the lurcher that assists Bumtagg.
Heroes.
by Emma Lazarus

In rich Virginian woods,
The scarlet creeper reddens over graves,
Among the solemn trees enlooped with vines;
Heroic spirits haunt the solitudes, - 
The noble souls of half a million braves,
Amid the murmurous pines.
Ah! who is left behind,
Earnest and eloquent, sincere and strong,
To consecrate their memories with words
Not all unmeet? with fitting dirge and song
To chant a requiem purer than the wind,
And sweeter than the birds?
Here, though all seems at peace,
The placid, measureless sky serenely fair,
The laughter of the breeze among the leaves,
The bars of sunlight slanting through the trees,
The reckless wild-flowers blooming everywhere,
The grasses' delicate sheaves, - 
Nathless each breeze that blows,
Each tree that trembles to its leafy head
With nervous life, revives within our mind,
Tender as flowers of May, the thoughts of those
Who lie beneath the living beauty, dead, - 
Beneath the sunshine, blind.
For brave dead soldiers, these:
Blessings and tears of aching thankfulness,
Soft flowers for the graves in wreaths enwove,
The odorous lilac of dear memories,
The heroic blossoms of the wilderness,
And the rich rose of love.
But who has sung their praise,
Not less illustrious, who are living yet?
Armies of heroes, satisfied to pass
Calmly, serenely from the whole world's gaze,
And cheerfully accept, without regret,
Their old life as it was,
With all its petty pain,
Its irritating littleness and care;
They who have scaled the mountain, with content
Sublime, descend to live upon the plain;
Steadfast as though they breathed the mountain-air
Still, wheresoe'er they went.
They who were brave to act,
And rich enough their action to forget;
Who, having filled their day with chivalry,
Withdraw and keep their simpleness intact,
And all unconscious add more lustre yet
Unto their victory.
On the broad Western plains
Their patriarchal life they live anew;
Hunters as mighty as the men of old,
Or harvesting the plenteous, yellow grains,
Gathering ripe vintage of dusk bunches blue,
Or working mines of gold;
Or toiling in the town,
Armed against hindrance, weariness, defeat,
With dauntless purpose not to serve or yield,
And calm, defiant, they struggle on,
As sturdy and as valiant in the street,
As in the camp and field.
And those condemned to live,
Maimed, helpless, lingering still through suffering years,
May they not envy now the restful sleep
Of the dear fellow-martyrs they survive?
Not o'er the dead, but over these, your tears,
O brothers, ye may weep!
New England fields I see,
The lovely, cultured landscape, waving grain,
Wide haughty rivers, and pale, English skies.
And lo! a farmer ploughing busily,
Who lifts a swart face, looks upon the plain, - 
I see, in his frank eyes,
The hero's soul appear.
Thus in the common fields and streets they stand;
The light that on the past and distant gleams,
They cast upon the present and the near,
With antique virtues from some mystic land,
Of knightly deeds and dreams.
Memory
by Edward Shanks

In silence and in darkness memory wakes
Her million sheath'd buds, and breaks
That day-long winter when the light and noise
And hard bleak breath of the outward-looking will
Made barren her tender soil, when every voice
Of her million airy birds was muffled or still.
One bud-sheath breaks:
One sudden voice awakes.
What change grew in our hearts, seeing one night
That moth-winged ship drifting across the bay,
Her broad sail dimly white
On cloudy waters and hills as vague as they?
Some new thing touched our spirits with distant delight,
Half-seen, half-noticed, as we loitered down,
Talking in whispers, to the little town,
Down from the narrow hill
Talking in whispers, for the air so still
Imposed its stillness on our lips, and made
A quiet equal with the equal shade
That filled the slanting walk. That phantom now
Slides with slack canvas and unwhispering prow
Through the dark sea that this dark room has made.
Or the night of the closed eyes will turn to day,
And all day's colours start out of the gray.
The sun burns on the water. The tall hills
Push up their shady groves into the sky,
And fail and cease where the intense light spills
Its parching torrent on the gaunt and dry
Rock of the further mountains, whence the snow
That softened their harsh edges long is gone,
And nothing tempers now
The hot flood falling on the barren stone.
O memory, take and keep
All that my eyes, your servants, bring you home, 
Those other days beneath the low white dome
Of smooth-spread clouds that creep
As slow and soft as sleep,
When shade grows pale and the cypress stands upright,
Distinct in the cool light,
Rigid and solid as a dark hewn stone;
And many another night,
That melts in darkness on the narrow quays,
And changes every colour and every tone,
And soothes the waters to a softer ease,
When under constellations coldly bright
The homeward sailors sing their way to bed
On ships that motionless in harbour float.
The circling harbour-lights flash green and red;
And, out beyond, a steady travelling boat,
Breaking the swell with slow industrious oars,
At each stroke pours
Pale lighted water from the lifted blade.
Now in the painted houses all around
Slow-darkening windows call
The empty unwatched middle of the night.
The tide's few inches rise without a sound.
On the black promontory's windless head,
The last awake, the fireflies rise and fall
And tangle up their dithering skeins of light.
O memory, take and keep
All that my eyes, your servants, bring you home!
Thick through the changing year
The unexpected, rich-charged moments come,
That you twixt wake and sleep
In the lids of the closed eyes shall make appear.
This is life's certain good,
Though in the end it be not good at all
When the dark end arises,
And the stripped, startled spirit must let fall
The amulets that could
Prevail with life's but not death's sad devices.
Then, like a child from whom an older child
Forces its gathered treasures,
Its beads and shells and strings of withered flowers,
Tokens of recent pleasures,
The soul must lose in eyes weeping and wild
Those prints of vanished hours.
Sunk Lyonesse
by Walter De La Mare

In sea-cold Lyonesse,
When the Sabbath eve shafts down
On the roofs, walls, belfries
Of the foundered town,
The Nereids pluck their lyres
Where the green translucency beats,
And with motionless eyes at gaze
Make minstrelsy in the streets.
The ocean water stirs
In salt-worn casemate and porch
Plies the blunt-snouted fish
With fire in his skull for torch.
And the ringing wires resound;
And the unearthly lovely weep,
In lament of the music they make
In the sullen courts of sleep.
Whose marble flowers bloom for aye,
And - lapped by the moon-guiled tide - 
Mock their carver with heart of stone,
Caged in his stone-ribbed side.
The Bird's Nest. A Tale.[1]
by William Cowper

In Scotland's realms, where trees are few,
Nor even shrubs abound;
But where, however bleak the view,
Some better things are found;
For husband there and wife may boast
There union undefiled,
And false ones are as rare almost
As hedgerows in the wild'
In Scotland's realm forlorn and bare
The history chanced of late'
The history of a wedded pair,
A chaffinch and his mate.
The spring drew near, each felt a breast
With genial instinct fill'd;
They pair'd, and would have built a nest,
But found not where to build.
The heaths uncover'd and the moors
Except with snow and sleet,
Sea-beaten rocks and naked shores
Could yield them no retreat.
Long time a breeding-place they sought,
Till both grew vex'd and tired;
At length a ship arriving brought
The good so long desired.
A ship!'could such a restless thing
Afford them place of rest?
Or was the merchant charged to bring
The homeless birds a nest?
Hush'silent hearers profit most'
This racer of the sea
Proved kinder to them than the coast,
It served them with a tree.
But such a tree! 'twas shaven deal,
The tree they call a mast,
And had a hollow with a wheel
Through which the tackle pass'd.
Within that cavity aloft
Their roofless home they fix'd,
Form'd with materials neat and soft,
Bents, wool, and feathers mix'd.
Four ivory eggs soon pave its floor
With russet specks bedight'
The vessel weighs, forsakes the shore,
And lessens to the sight.
The mother-bird is gone to sea,
As she had changed her kind;
But goes the male? Far wiser, he
Is doubtless left behind.
No'soon as from ashore he saw
The winged mansion move,
He flew to reach it, by a law
Of never-failing love;
Then, perching at his consort's side,
Was briskly borne along,
The billows and the blast defied,
And cheer'd her with a song.
The seaman with sincere delight
His feather'd shipmates eyes,
Scarce less exulting in the sight
Than when he tows a prize.
For seamen much believe in signs,
And from a chance so new
Each some approaching good divines,
And may his hopes be true!
Hail, honour'd land! a desert where
Not even birds can hide,
Yet parent of this loving pair
Whom nothing could divide.
And ye who, rather than resign
Your matrimonial plan,
Were not afraid to plough the brine
In company with man;
For whose lean country much disdain
We English often show,
Yet from a richer nothing gain
But wantonness and woe'
Be it your fortune, year by year
The same resource to prove,
And may ye, sometimes landing here,
Instruct us how to love!
Translations. - Simeon The Patriarch's Song Of Praise. (Luther's Song-Book.)
by George MacDonald

In peace and joy I now depart,
For God hath willed it.
Comforted is my mind and heart,
For he hath stilled it;
As my God did promise me,
Death is grown only slumber.
That shows that Christ is God's own Son,
And our saviour so,
Whom thou, O Lord, to me hast shown,
Making me know
Him the Life eternal,
And health in pain and dying.
In the fore-front thou hast him placed,
In him delighted;
The whole world to his kingdom blest
Hast invited
Through thy precious wholesome word
In every place resounding.
He is the health and happy light
Of the heathen,
To ope their eyes, and give them sight
Thee to see then.
He to thy people, Isr'el,
Is glory, honour, pleasure.
J. Pierpont Morgan
by Oliver Herford

In Rome, when Morgan came to town,
They nailed the Colosseum down.
A great Collector! Once his Fad
Was Coins, but when in time he had
Collected all the coin in sight,
To Europe's Art his thoughts took flight.
But let not Europe palpitate
For fear of an Art Syndicate.
There are more Rembrandts, strange to say,
Than ever were in Rembrandt's day;
And statues "planted" in the sand
Will always equal the demand.
An "Idyl" Of The Ball.
by George W. Doneghy

I.
In reel, in waltz, in lancer's maze,
She moved with pretty air of grace,
And all the ball-room's brilliant blaze
Seemed borrowed brightness from her face!
O, winsome maid, demure and sweet!
I'll ne'er forget when first I met her,
And saw the dainty slippered feet
Glide o'er the floor at Linnietta!
II.
O, dreams of youth and beauty rare,
What rose-hued visions thou canst paint!
But none in loveliness compare
With her who seemed Love's patron saint!
Her pictured image haunts the mind,
And, oh, I never can forget her,
Nor rarer pleasure hope to find
Than dance with her at Linnietta!
III.
Arrayed in softly flowing gown,
The love-light flashing from her eyes--
With cheeks aglow like roses blown
Beneath the ardent summer skies--
No artist hand could fitly trace
The wondrous charm that did beset her,
When tripping with a fairy's grace
O'er the waxen floor at Linnietta!
A Mabinogi.
by Madison Julius Cawein

In samite sark yclad was she;
And that fair glimmerish band of gold
Which crowned long, savage locks of hair
In the moon brent cold.
She with big eyeballs gloomed and glowered,
And lightly hummed some Elfin's song,
And one could naught save on her stare
And fare along.
Yea; sad and lute-like was that song
And softly said its mystery;
Which quaintly sang in elden verse
"Thy love I'll be."
And oft it said: "I love thee true,
Sir Ewain, champion of the fair."
And never wist he what a witch
Was that one there.
And never wist he that a witch
Had bound him with her wily hair,
Eke with dark art had ta'en his heart
To slay him there.
And all his soul did wax amort
To stars, to hills, to slades, to streams,
And it but held that sorceress fair
As one of dreams.
And now he kens some castle gray
Wild turrets ivied, in the moon,
Old, where through woodlands foaming on
A torrent shone....
In its high hall full twenty knights
With visors barred all sternly stand;
The following of some gracious brave,
Lord of the land.
And lo! when that dim damosel
Moved down the hall, they louted low;
And she was queen of all that band,
That dame of snow.
Now on that knight she stared eftsoons,
And cried on high unto her crew,
"Behold! Sir Knights, the dastard brave
Your king that slew."
And all those heathen knights wox wild
Attonce; and all against him drave;
Long battle blades and daggers bright
Aloft did wave.
The press on him puissant bare
And smote him to the rush-strown earth; - 
Tall, tall o'er all that Fairy rose
Aloud with mirth.
The Cakewalk
by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

In smoky lamplight of a Smyrna Caf',
He saw them, seven solemn negroes dancing,
With faces rapt and out-thrust bellies prancing
In a slow solemn ceremonial cakewalk,
Dancing and prancing to the sombre tom-tom
Thumped by a crookbacked grizzled negro squatting.
And as he watched ... within the steamy twilight
Of swampy forest in rank greenness rotting,
That sombre tom-tom at his heartstrings strumming
Set all his sinews twitching, and a singing
Of cold fire through his blood - and he was dancing
Among his fellows in the dank green twilight
With naked, oiled, bronze-gleaming bodies swinging
In a rapt holy everlasting cakewalk
For evermore in slow procession prancing.
La Scala Santa
by Charles G. Leland

'Robusti sono i fatti.'
- Discorso del Terremoto,
del S. Alessandro Sardo.
Venetia, A.D. 1586.
In San Gianni Lateran,
Dey've cot a flight of shdairs,
More woonderful ash nefer vas,
As Latin pooks declares.
For you kits your sins forgifen,
If you glimes dem knee py knee;
It's such a gitten up a stairs,
I nefer yet did see.
Now as Breitmann vas a vaitin
Among some demi reps,
Ascensionem expectans,
To see dem glime de steps,
Dere came a sinful scoffer,
Who his mind had firmly set
To go dem holy sdairs afoot,
Und do it on a bet!
Boot shoost as he vas startet,
To make dis sassy go,
Der Breitmann caught him py de neck,
Und tripped him off his toe!
Und den dere come de skience,
A la prenez gardez vous;
For he bung his eye and bust his shell,
Und shplit his noshe in dwo.
De briests vere so astonish,
To see him lam de man,
Dat dey shvore a holy miracle
Vas vork by Breitemann.
Says Breitmann, 'I'm a heretic,
But dis you may pe bound,
No chap shall mock relishious dings
Vhile I'm a bummin round.
'Und you owes me really noding,
For as I'll plainly show,
At last I've found out someding
Vot I alfays vant to know.
Und now dat I have found it,
In de newspapers I'll brag:
Evviva! Ho trovato,
Vot means a Scala-Wag.'
In Possum Land
by Henry Lawson

In Possum Land the nights are fair,
the streams are fresh and clear;
no dust is in the moonlit air;
no traffic jars the ear.
With Possums gambolling overhead,
'neath western stars so grand,
Ah! would that we could make our bed
tonight in Possum Land
The Lake
by Edgar Allan Poe

In spring of youth it was my lot
To haunt of the wide world a spot
The which I could not love the less,
So lovely was the loneliness
Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,
And the tall pines that towered around.
But when the Night had thrown her pall
Upon the spot, as upon all,
And the mystic wind went by
Murmuring in melody,
Then,ah, then, I would awake
To the terror of the lone lake.
Yet that terror was not fright,
But a tremulous delight,
A feeling not the jewelled mine
Could teach or bribe me to define,
Nor Love,although the Love were thine.
Death was in that poisonous wave,
And in its gulf a fitting grave
For him who thence could solace bring
To his lone imagining,
Whose solitary soul could make
An Eden of that dim lake.