DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Ambition
by Robert Herrick

In man, ambition is the common'st thing;
Each one by nature loves to be a king.
On Receiving Hayley's Picture.
by William Cowper

In language warm as could be breathed or penn'd
Thy picture speaks the original, my friend,
Not by those looks that indicate thy mind'
They only speak thee friend of all mankind;
Expression here more soothing still I see,
That friend of all a partial friend to me.
Memory's Mansion
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

In Memory's Mansion are wonderful rooms,
And I wander about them at will;
And I pause at the casements, where boxes of blooms
Are sending sweet scents o'er the sill.
I lean from a window that looks on a lawn:
From a turret that looks on the wave.
But I draw down the shade, when I see on some glade,
A stone standing guard, by a grave.
To Memory's attic I clambered one day,
When the roof was resounding with rain.
And there, among relics long hidden away,
I rummaged with heart-ache and pain.
A hope long surrendered and covered with dust,
A pastime, out-grown, and forgot,
And a fragment of love, all corroded with rust,
Were lying heaped up in one spot.
And there on the floor of that garret was tossed
A friendship too fragile to last,
With pieces of dearly bought pleasures, that cost
Vast fortunes of pain in the past.
A fabric of passion, once ardent and bright,
As tropical sunsets in spring,
Was spread out before me - a terrible sight - 
A moth-eaten rag of a thing.
Then down the steep stairway I hurriedly went,
And into fair chambers below.
But the mansion seemed filled with the old attic scent,
Wherever my footsteps would go.
Though in Memory's House I still wander full oft,
No more to the garret I climb;
And I leave all the rubbish heaped there in the loft
To the hands of the Housekeeper, Time.
Nursery Rhyme. CCIII. Riddles.
by Unknown

[An egg.]
In marble walls as white as milk,
Lined with a skin as soft as silk;
Within a fountain crystal clear,
A golden apple doth appear.
No doors there are to this strong-hold.
Yet things break in and steal the gold.
Man
by Walter Savage Landor

In his own image the Creator made,
His own pure sunbeam quicken'd thee, O man!
Thou breathing dial! since thy day began
The present hour was ever mark'd with shade!
Arms And The Man. - The Continentals.
by James Barron Hope

In hunting shirts, or faded blue and buff,
And many clad in simple, rustic stuff,
Their ensigns torn but held by Freedom's hand,
In long-drawn lines the Continentals stand.
To them precision, if not martial grace;
Each heart triumphant but composed each face;
Well taught in military arts by brave Steuben,
With port of soldiers, majesty of men,
All fathers of their Country like a wall
They stand at rest to see the curtain fall.
Well-taught were they by one who learned War's trade
From Frederick, whom not Ruin's self dismayed; - 
Well-taught by one who never lost the heat
Caught on an anvil where all Europe beat; - 
Beat in a storm of blows, with might and main,
But on that Prussian anvil beat in vain!
And to the gallant race of Steuben's name
That long has held close intercourse with Fame,
This great Republic bows its lofty crest,
And folds his kinsmen to her ample breast:
At fray, or festival, on march or halt,
Von Steuben always far above the salt!
A Divine Mistress
by Thomas Carew

In Nature's pieces still I see
Some error, that might mended be;
Something my wish could still remove,
Alter or add; but my fair love
Was fram'd by hands far more divine
For she hath ev'ry beauteous line;
Yet I had been far happier,
Had Nature, that made me, made her.
Then likeness might, that love creates,
Have made her love what now she hates;
Yet, I confess, I cannot spare
From her just shape the smallest hair;
Nor need I beg from all the store
Pf heaven for her one beauty more.
She hath too much divinity for me;
Ye gods, teach her some more humanity.
Amour 6
by Michael Drayton

In one whole world is but one Phoenix found,
A Phoenix thou, this Phoenix then alone:
By thy rare plume thy kind is easly knowne,
With heauenly colours dide, with natures wonder cround.
Heape thine own vertues, seasoned by their sunne,
On heauenly top of thy diuine desire;
Then with thy beautie set the same on fire,
So by thy death thy life shall be begunne.
Thy selfe, thus burned in this sacred flame,
With thine owne sweetnes al the heauens perfuming,
And stil increasing as thou art consuming,
Shalt spring againe from th' ashes of thy fame;
And mounting vp shall to the heauens ascend:
So maist thou liue, past world, past fame, past end.
An Ode Of The Birth Of Our Saviour.
by Robert Herrick

In numbers, and but these few,
I sing Thy birth, O JESU!
Thou pretty baby, born here,
With sup'rabundant scorn here;
Who for Thy princely port here,
Hadst for Thy place
Of birth a base
Out-stable for Thy court here.
Instead of neat enclosures
Of interwoven osiers,
Instead of fragrant posies
Of daffodils and roses,
Thy cradle, Kingly Stranger,
As Gospel tells,
Was nothing else
But here a homely manger.
But we with silks, not crewels,
With sundry precious jewels,
And lily-work will dress Thee;
And as we dispossess Thee
Of clouts, we'll make a chamber,
Sweet babe, for Thee
Of ivory,
And plaister'd round with amber.
The Jews they did disdain Thee,
But we will entertain Thee
With glories to await here,
Upon Thy princely state here;
And more for love than pity,
From year to year,
We'll make Thee, here,
A freeborn of our city.
Landscape
by Charles Baudelaire

In order to write my chaste verses I'll lie
like an astrologer near to the sky
and, by the bell-towers, listen in dream
to their solemn hymns on the air-stream.
Hands on chin, from my attic's height
I'll see the workshops of song and light,
the gutters, the belfries those masts of the city,
the vast skies that yield dreams of eternity
It is sweet to see stars being born in the blue,
through the mists, the lamps at the windows, too,
the rivers of smoke climbing the firmament,
and the moon pouring out her pale enchantment.
I'll see the springs, summers, autumns' glow,
and when winter brings the monotonous snow
I'll close all my doors and shutters tight
and build palaces of faery in the night.
Then I'll dream of blue-wet horizons,
weeping fountains of alabaster, gardens,
kisses, birdsong at morning or twilight,
all in the Idyll that is most childlike.
The mob that are beating in vain on the glass,
won't make me raise my head as they pass.
Since I'll be plunged deep in the thrill
of evoking the springtime through my own will,
raising the sun out of my own heart,
making sweet air from my burning thought.
Lines Upon Mademoiselle Delphine Saulot Singing Some Equisite Airs In The Gardens Of Mousseau, Near Paris.
by John Carr (Sir)

In Mousseau's sweet Arcadian dale
Fair Delphine pours the plaintive strain;
She charms the list'ning nightingale,
And seems th' enchantress of the plain.
Bless'd be those lips, to music dear;
Sweet songstress! never may they move
But with such sounds, to soothe the ear,
And melt the yielding heart to love.
May sorrow never bid them pour
From the torn heart one suff'ring sigh;
But be thy life a fragrant flow'r,
Blooming beneath a cloudless sky!
Translations. - The Creed. (Luther's Song-Book.)
by George MacDonald

In one true God we all believe,
Maker of the earth and heaven;
Who, us as children to receive,
Hath himself as father given.
Now and henceforth he will feed us;
Soul and body, will be round us;
'Gainst mischances all will heed us;
Nought shall come on us to wound us.
He watches for us, cares, defends;
And everything to his might bends.
And we believe in Jesus Christ,
His son, our Lord. Evermore he
Sits beside the Father high'st,
Equal God in might and glory.
He of Mary, the young maiden,
Verily was born true human
By the Holy Ghost. Grief-laden
For our sakes, lost man and woman,
He on the cross expired in faith,
And rose again, through God, from death.
We believe in the Holy Ghost
With the Father and the Saviour,
In whom the fearful learn to boast,
Who the meek doth crown with favour.
Christendom, in earth and heaven,
Of one heart and mind he keepeth.
Here all sins shall be forgiven;
Wake too shall the flesh that sleepeth;
After these sufferings there shall be
Life to all eternity. Amen.
It Is The Printer's Fault.
by Eugene Field

In Mrs. Potter's latest play
The costuming is fine;
Her waist is made decollete--
Her skirt is new design.
The Poet To His Childhood
by Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell

In my thought I see you stand with a path on either hand,
-Hills that look into the sun, and there a river'd meadow-land.
And your lost voice with the things that it decreed across me thrills,
When you thought, and chose the hills.
'If it prove a life of pain, greater have I judged the gain.
With a singing soul for music's sake, I climb and meet the rain,
And I choose, whilst I am calm, my thought and labouring to be
Unconsoled by sympathy.'
But how dared you use me so? For you bring my ripe years low
To your child's whim and a destiny your child-soul could not know.
And that small voice legislating I revolt against, with tears.
But you mark not, through the years.
'To the mountain leads my way. If the plains are green to-day,
These my barren hills are flushing faintly, strangely, in the May,
With the presence of the Spring amongst the smallest flowers that grow.'
But the summer in the snow?
Do you know, who are so bold, how in sooth the rule will hold,
Settled by a wayward child's ideal at some ten years old?
-How the human arms you slip from, thoughts and love you stay not for,
Will not open to you more?
You were rash then, little child, for the skies with storms are wild,
And you faced the dim horizon with its whirl of mists, and smiled,
Climbed a little higher, lonelier, in the solitary sun,
To feel how the winds came on.
But your sunny silence there, solitude so light to bear,
Will become a long dumb world up in the colder sadder air,
And the little mournful lonelinesses in the little hills
Wider wilderness fulfils.
And if e'er you should come down to the village or the town,
With the cold rain for your garland, and the wind for your renown,
You will stand upon the thresholds with a face or dumb desire,
Nor be known by any fire.
It is memory that shrinks. You were all too brave, methinks,
Climbing solitudes of flowering cistus and the thin wild pinks,
Musing, setting to a haunting air in one vague reverie
All the life that was to be.
With a smile do I complain in the safety of the pain,
Knowing that my feet can never quit their solitudes again;
But regret may turn with longing to that one hour's choice you had,
When the silence broodeth sad.
I rebel not, child gone by, but obey you wonderingly,
For you knew not, young rash speaker, all you spoke, and now will I,
With the life, and all the loneliness revealed that you thought fit,
Sing the Amen, knowing it.
The Milestone By The Rabbit-Burrow
by Thomas Hardy

On Yell'Ham Hill
In my loamy nook
As I dig my hole
I observe men look
At a stone, and sigh
As they pass it by
To some far goal.
Something it says
To their glancing eyes
That must distress
The frail and lame,
And the strong of frame
Gladden or surprise.
Do signs on its face
Declare how far
Feet have to trace
Before they gain
Some blest champaign
Where no gins are?
The Rajah's Sapphires
by Victor James Daley

In my garden, O Beloved!
Many pleasant trees are growing,
Peach, and apricot, and apple,
Myrtle, lilac, and laburnum.
Fair are they, but midst them lonely,
Like an exiled Eastern Princess
In a strange land far from kindred,
Stands a lonely fair Pomegranate.
Dreaming of its native Orient
Always is the fair Pomegranate,
And beneath it I lie dreaming
Of thine eyes and thee, Beloved!
Overhead its red globes, gleaming
Like red moons, old tales recall of
Eastern moons and songs of Hafiz,
Nightingales, and wine, and roses.
And at times it seems a mystic
Tree Circ'an, whose red fruit is
Broken hearts of old-time lovers,
Thus their secrets sad revealing.
And within each red sun-cloven
Glossy globe, like little rosy
Hearts within a great heart glowing,
Glow translucent seeds of crimson.
Like the fruit of the Pomegranate
Full of little hearts my heart is,
And the little hearts so glowing
They are thoughts of thee, Beloved!
Haply these at times are woven
In with dreams of the Pomegranate;
Thus, perchance, I dreamt the wondrous
Dream within a dream here written.
In his palace-hall, methought, I
Saw a splendid Indian Rajah;
Fame and Fortune were his vassals,
But his heart was sad within him.
Round him stood his chiefs and captains.
'Great art thou,' they cried, 'O Rajah!
And thy hand is strong in battle.'
But he smiled not at their speeches.
Silently through his Zenana
Passed he, glanced with cold and careless
Eyes at women, fair as houris
Seen in visions bred of hasheesh.
Like to dawn, and noon, and starry
Night, like all the moods of passion,
Were they, rose-and-white Circassians,
Amber Hindoos, dark-eyed Persians.
Dancing girls with golden armlets,
Golden rings around their ankles,
Making music clear, melodious
As the plash of crystal fountains
Heard in still, hot nights of summer,
Danced the Lovers' Dance before him;
But he heeded not their dancing,
For his heart was sad within him.
Thence unto his treasure-chamber
Strode he, there to gaze on gems that
Rajahs dead had won and hoarded;
Tragic-storied, splendid jewels,
Flashing diamonds, like fallen
Stars, for whose bright evil beauty
Blood in old days had been spilt that
Should have made them burn like rubies;
Emeralds greener than Spring's garments,
Pearls like unto tears of Peris
Weeping by the gates of Eden;
Opals with their fateful lustre.
Long on these, and countless other
Many-coloured gems, the Rajah
Gazed, but found no more delight in
Their sun-flashing brilliant beauty.
He had dreamt a dream enchanting
Of twin-sapphires, blue as Heaven,
And his heart was filled with hunger
And with yearning to possess them.
Therefore unto his Vizier he
Told his dream, and gave command that
He should seek the wide world over,
Till he found the wondrous sapphires.
Doth that sad Vizier still wander
O'er the earth the sapphires seeking?
Sooth, I know not, but I know that
He will never find them, never.
For they were no cold, bright sapphires
That the Rajah in his dream saw. . . .
Waking from my dream I knew that
They were thy blue eyes, Beloved!
In Myrtle Wreaths. By Alcaeus.
by Thomas Moore

In myrtle wreaths my votive sword I'll cover,
Like them of old whose one immortal blow
Struck off the galling fetters that hung over
Their own bright land, and laid her tyrant low.
Yes, loved Harmodius, thou'rt undying;
Still midst the brave and free,
In isles, o'er ocean lying,
Thy home shall ever be.
In myrtle leaves my sword shall hide its lightning,
Like his, the youth, whose ever-glorious blade
Leapt forth like flame, the midnight banquet brightening;'
And in the dust a despot victim laid.
Blest youths; how bright in Freedom's story
Your wedded names shall be;
A tyrant's death your glory,
Your meed, a nation free!
Prologue To A Charade. - "Damn-Ages."
by Horace Smith

In olden time--in great Eliza's age,
When rare Ben Jonson ruled the humorous stage,
No play without its Prologue might appear
To earn applause or ward the critic's sneer;
And surely now old customs should not sleep
When merry Christmas revelries we keep.
He loves old ways, old faces, and old friends,
Nor to new-fangled fancies condescends;
Besides, we need your kindly hearts to move
Our faults to pardon and our freaks approve,
For this our sport has been in haste begun,
Unpractised actors and impromptu fun;
So on our own deserts we dare not stand,
But beg the favour that we can't command.
Most flat would fall our "cranks and wanton wiles,"
Reft of your favouring "nods and wreathed smiles,"
As some tame landscape desolately bare
Is charmed by sunshine into seeming fair;
So, gentle friends, if you your smiles bestow,
That which is tame in us will not seem so.
Our play is a charade.    We split the word,
Each syllable an act, the whole a third;
My first we show you by a comic play,
Old, but not less the welcome, I dare say.
My second will be brought upon the stage
From lisping childhood down to palsied age.
Last, but not least, our country's joy and pride,
A British Jury will my whole decide;
But what's the word you'll ask me, what's the word?
That you must guess, or ask some little bird;
Guess as you will you'll fail; for 'tis no doubt
One of those things "no fellow can find out."
My Dream
by John Greenleaf Whittier

In my dream, methought I trod,
Yesternight, a mountain road;
Narrow as Al Sirat's span,
High as eagle's flight, it ran.
Overhead, a roof of cloud
With its weight of thunder bowed;
Underneath, to left and right,
Blankness and abysmal night.
Here and there a wild-flower blushed,
Now and then a bird-song gushed;
Now and then, through rifts of shade,
Stars shone out, and sunbeams played.
But the goodly company,
Walking in that path with me,
One by one the brink o'erslid,
One by one the darkness hid.
Some with wailing and lament,
Some with cheerful courage went;
But, of all who smiled or mourned,
Never one to us returned.
Anxiously, with eye and ear,
Questioning that shadow drear,
Never hand in token stirred,
Never answering voice I heard!
Steeper, darker! lo! I felt
From my feet the pathway melt.
Swallowed by the black despair,
And the hungry jaws of air,
Past the stony-throated caves,
Strangled by the wash of waves,
Past the splintered crags, I sank
On a green and flowery bank,
Soft as fall of thistle-down,
Lightly as a cloud is blown,
Soothingly as childhood pressed
To the bosom of its rest.
Of the sharp-horned rocks instead,
Green the grassy meadows spread,
Bright with waters singing by
Trees that propped a golden sky.
Painless, trustful, sorrow-free,
Old lost faces welcomed me,
With whose sweetness of content
Still expectant hope was blent.
Waking while the dawning gray
Slowly brightened into day,
Pondering that vision fled,
Thus unto myself I said:
"Steep and hung with clouds of strife
Is our narrow path of life;
And our death the dreaded fall
Through the dark, awaiting all.
"So, with painful steps we climb
Up the dizzy ways of time,
Ever in the shadow shed
By the forecast of our dread.
"Dread of mystery solved alone,
Of the untried and unknown;
Yet the end thereof may seem
Like the falling of my dream.
"And this heart-consuming care,
All our fears of here or there,
Change and absence, loss and death,
Prove but simple lack of faith."
Thou, O Most Compassionate!
Who didst stoop to our estate,
Drinking of the cup we drain,
Treading in our path of pain,
Through the doubt and mystery,
Grant to us thy steps to see,
And the grace to draw from thence
Larger hope and confidence.
Show thy vacant tomb, and let,
As of old, the angels sit,
Whispering, by its open door
"Fear not! He hath gone before!
In My Mind's Eye A Temple, Like A Cloud
by William Wordsworth

In my mind's eye a Temple, like a cloud
Slowly surmounting some invidious hill,
Rose out of darkness: the bright Work stood still:
And might of its own beauty have been proud,
But it was fashioned and to God was vowed
By Virtues that diffused, in every part,
Spirit divine through forms of human art:
Faith had her arch, her arch, when winds blow loud,
Into the consciousness of safety thrilled;
And Love her towers of dread foundation laid
Under the grave of things; Hope had her spire
Star-high, and pointing still to something higher
Trembling I gazed, but heard a voice it said,
"Hell-gates are powerless Phantoms when 'we' build."
Deliverance From Another Sore Fit
by Anne Bradstreet

In my distress I sought the Lord
When naught on earth could comfort give,
And when my soul these things abhorred,
Then, Lord, Thou said'st unto me, "Live."
Thou knowest the sorrows that I felt;
My plaints and groans were heard of Thee,
And how in sweat I seemed to melt
Thou help'st and Thou regardest me.
My wasted flesh Thou didst restore,
My feeble loins didst gird with strength,
Yea, when I was most low and poor,
I said I shall praise Thee at length.
What shall I render to my God
For all His bounty showed to me?
Even for His mercies in His rod,
Where pity most of all I see.
My heart I wholly give to Thee;
O make it fruitful, faithful Lord.
My life shall dedicated be
To praise in thought, in deed, in word.
Thou know'st no life I did require
Longer than still Thy name to praise,
Nor ought on earth worthy desire,
In drawing out these wretched days.
Thy name and praise to celebrate,
O Lord, for aye is my request.
O grant I do it in this state,
And then with Thee, which is the best.
To Beethoven.
by Sidney Lanier

In o'er-strict calyx lingering,
Lay music's bud too long unblown,
Till thou, Beethoven, breathed the spring:
Then bloomed the perfect rose of tone.
O Psalmist of the weak, the strong,
O Troubadour of love and strife,
Co-Litanist of right and wrong,
Sole Hymner of the whole of life,
I know not how, I care not why, -
Thy music sets my world at ease,
And melts my passion's mortal cry
In satisfying symphonies.
It soothes my accusations sour
'Gainst thoughts that fray the restless soul:
The stain of death; the pain of power;
The lack of love 'twixt part and whole;
The yea-nay of Freewill and Fate,
Whereof both cannot be, yet are;
The praise a poet wins too late
Who starves from earth into a star;
The lies that serve great parties well,
While truths but give their Christ a cross;
The loves that send warm souls to hell,
While cold-blood neuters take no loss;
Th' indifferent smile that nature's grace
On Jesus, Judas, pours alike;
Th' indifferent frown on nature's face
When luminous lightnings strangely strike
The sailor praying on his knees
And spare his mate that's cursing God;
How babes and widows starve and freeze,
Yet Nature will not stir a clod;
Why Nature blinds us in each act
Yet makes no law in mercy bend,
No pitfall from our feet retract,
No storm cry out `Take shelter, friend;'
Why snakes that crawl the earth should ply
Rattles, that whoso hears may shun,
While serpent lightnings in the sky,
But rattle when the deed is done;
How truth can e'er be good for them
That have not eyes to bear its strength,
And yet how stern our lights condemn
Delays that lend the darkness length;
To know all things, save knowingness;
To grasp, yet loosen, feeling's rein;
To waste no manhood on success;
To look with pleasure upon pain;
Though teased by small mixt social claims,
To lose no large simplicity,
And midst of clear-seen crimes and shames
To move with manly purity;
To hold, with keen, yet loving eyes,
Art's realm from Cleverness apart,
To know the Clever good and wise,
Yet haunt the lonesome heights of Art;
O Psalmist of the weak, the strong,
O Troubadour of love and strife,
Co-Litanist of right and wrong,
Sole Hymner of the whole of life,
I know not how, I care not why,
Thy music brings this broil at ease,
And melts my passion's mortal cry
In satisfying symphonies.
Yea, it forgives me all my sins,
Fits life to love like rhyme to rhyme,
And tunes the task each day begins
By the last trumpet-note of Time.
1876-7.
The Woodland Hall'.
by Robert Bloomfield

(Perhaps) adapted for Music.
In our cottage, that peeps from the skirts of the wood,
I am mistress, no mother have I;
Yet blithe are my days, for my father is good,
And kind is my lover hard by;
They both work together beneath the green shade,
Both woodmen, my father and Joe.
Where I've listen'd whole hours to the echo that made
So much of a laugh or - Hall'.
From my basket at noon they expect their supply,
And with joy from my threshold I spring;
For the woodlands I love, and the oaks waring high,
And Echo that sings as I sing.
Though deep shades delight me, yet love is my food,
As I call the dear name of my Joe;
His musical shout is the pride of the wood,
And my heart leaps to hear the - Hall'.
Simple flowers of the grove, little birds live at ease,
I wish not to wander from you;
I'll still dwell beneath the deep roar of your trees,
For I know that my Joe will be true.
The trill of the robin, the coo of the dove,
Are charms that I'll never forego;
But resting through life on the bosom of love,
Will remember the Woodland Hall'.