DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Forest Spring
by Madison Julius Cawein

Push back the brambles, berry-blue:
The hollowed spring is full in view:
Deep-tangled with luxuriant fern
Its rock-embedded, crystal urn.
Not for the loneliness that keeps
The coigne wherein its silence sleeps;
Not for wild butterflies that sway
Their pansy pinions all the day
Above its mirror; nor the bee,
Nor dragon-fly, that passing see
Themselves reflected in its spar;
Not for the one white liquid star,
That twinkles in its firmament;
Nor moon-shot clouds, so slowly sent
Athwart it when the kindly night
Beads all its grasses with the light
Small jewels of the dimpled dew;
Not for the day's inverted blue
Nor the quaint, dimly coloured stones
That dance within it where it moans:
Not for all these I love to sit
In silence and to gaze in it.
But, know, a nymph with merry eyes
Looks at me from its laughing skies;
A graceful glimmering nymph who plays
All the long fragrant summer days
With instant sights of bees and birds,
And speaks with them in water words,
And for whose nakedness the air
Weaves moony mists, and on whose hair,
Unfilleted, the night will set
That lone star as a coronet.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part I. - XVII - Conversion
by William Wordsworth

Prompt transformation works the novel Lore;
The Council closed, the Priest in full career
Rides forth, an armed man, and hurls a spear
To desecrate the Fane which heretofore
He served in folly. Woden falls, and Thor
Is overturned; the mace, in battle heaved
(So might they dream) till victory was achieved,
Drops, and the God himself is seen no more.
Temple and Altar sink, to hide their shame
Amid oblivious weeds. "O come to me,
Ye heavy laden!" such the inviting voice
Heard near fresh streams; and thousands who rejoice
In the new Rite, the pledge of sanctity,
Shall, by regenerate life, the promise claim.
Another Imitation Of Anacreon
by Jean de La Fontaine

PRONE, on my couch I calmly slept
Against my wont.        A little child
Awoke me as he gently crept
And beat my door.     A tempest wild
Was raging-dark and cold the night.
"Have pity on my naked plight,"
He begged, "and ope thy door." - "Thy name?"
I asked admitting him. - "The same
"Anon I'll tell, but first must dry
"My weary limbs, then let me try
"My mois'ened bow." - Despite my fear
The hearth I lit, then drew me near
My guest, and chafed his fingers cold.
"Why fear?" I thought.    "Let me be bold
"No Polyphemus he; what harm
"In such a child? - Then I'll be calm!"
The playful boy drew out a dart,
Shook his fair locks, and to my heart
His shaft he launch'd. - "Love is my name,"
He thankless cried, "I hither came
"To tame thee.    In thine ardent pain
"Of Cupid think and young Climene." - 
"Ah! now I know thee, little scamp,
"Ungrateful, cruel boy! Decamp!"
Cupid a saucy caper cut,
Skipped through the door, and as it shut,
"My bow," he taunting cried, "is sound,
"Thy heart, poor comrade, feels the wound."
Consecration.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Proud of my broken heart since thou didst break it,
Proud of the pain I did not feel till thee,
Proud of my night since thou with moons dost slake it,
Not to partake thy passion, my humility.
For The Dedication Of The New City Library, Boston
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Proudly, beneath her glittering dome,
Our three-hilled city greets the morn;
Here Freedom found her virgin home, - 
The Bethlehem where her babe was born.
The lordly roofs of traffic rise
Amid the smoke of household fires;
High o'er them in the peaceful skies
Faith points to heaven her clustering spires.
Can Freedom breathe if ignorance reign?
Shall Commerce thrive where anarchs rule?
Will Faith her half-fledged brood retain
If darkening counsels cloud the school?
Let in the light! from every age
Some gleams of garnered wisdom pour,
And, fixed on thought's electric page,
Wait all their radiance to restore.
Let in the light! in diamond mines
Their gems invite the hand that delves;
So learning's treasured jewels shine
Ranged on the alcove's ordered shelves.
From history's scroll the splendor streams,
From science leaps the living ray;
Flashed from the poet's glowing dreams
The opal fires of fancy play.
Let in the light! these windowed walls
Shall brook no shadowing colonnades,
But day shall flood the silent halls
Till o'er yon hills the sunset fades.
Behind the ever open gate
No pikes shall fence a crumbling throne,
No lackeys cringe, no courtiers wait,
This palace is the people's own!
Heirs of our narrow-girdled past,
How fair the prospect we survey,
Where howled unheard the wintry blast,
And rolled unchecked the storm-swept bay!
These chosen precincts, set apart
For learned toil and holy shrines,
Yield willing homes to every art
That trains, or strengthens, or refines.
Here shall the sceptred mistress reign
Who heeds her meanest subject's call,
Sovereign of all their vast domain,
The queen, the handmaid of them all!
Upon Prudence Baldwin: Her Sickness.
by Robert Herrick

Prue, my dearest maid, is sick,
Almost to be lunatic:
'sculapius! come and bring
Means for her recovering;
And a gallant cock shall be
Offer'd up by her to thee.
Pure Element Of Waters!
by William Wordsworth

Pure element of waters! wheresoe'er
Thou dost forsake thy subterranean haunts,
Green herbs, bright flowers, and berry-bearing plants,
Rise into life and in thy train appear:
And, through the sunny portion of the year,
Swift insects shine, thy hovering pursuivants:
And, if thy bounty fail, the forest pants;
And hart and hind and hunter with his spear,
Languish and droop together. Nor unfelt
In man's perturbed soul thy sway benign;
And, haply, far within the marble belt
Of central earth, where tortured Spirits pine
For grace and goodness lost, thy murmurs melt
Their anguish, and they blend sweet songs with thine.
The Hosts
by Alan Seeger

Purged, with the life they left, of all
That makes life paltry and mean and small,
In their new dedication charged
With something heightened, enriched, enlarged,
That lends a light to their lusty brows
And a song to the rhythm of their tramping feet,
These are the men that have taken vows,
These are the hardy, the flower, the elite, - 
These are the men that are moved no more
By the will to traffic and grasp and store
And ring with pleasure and wealth and love
The circles that self is the center of;
But they are moved by the powers that force
The sea forever to ebb and rise,
That hold Arcturus in his course,
And marshal at noon in tropic skies
The clouds that tower on some snow-capped chain
And drift out over the peopled plain.
They are big with the beauty of cosmic things.
Mark how their columns surge! They seem
To follow the goddess with outspread wings
That points toward Glory, the soldier's dream.
With bayonets bare and flags unfurled,
They scale the summits of the world
And fade on the farthest golden height
In fair horizons full of light.
Comrades in arms there - friend or foe - 
That trod the perilous, toilsome trail
Through a world of ruin and blood and woe
In the years of the great decision - hail!
Friend or foe, it shall matter nought;
This only matters, in fine: we fought.
For we were young and in love or strife
Sought exultation and craved excess:
To sound the wildest debauch in life
We staked our youth and its loveliness.
Let idlers argue the right and wrong
And weigh what merit our causes had.
Putting our faith in being strong - 
Above the level of good and bad - 
For us, we battled and burned and killed
Because evolving Nature willed,
And it was our pride and boast to be
The instruments of Destiny.
There was a stately drama writ
By the hand that peopled the earth and air
And set the stars in the infinite
And made night gorgeous and morning fair,
And all that had sense to reason knew
That bloody drama must be gone through.
Some sat and watched how the action veered - 
Waited, profited, trembled, cheered - 
We saw not clearly nor understood,
But yielding ourselves to the masterhand,
Each in his part as best he could,
We played it through as the author planned.
The Cat That Walked By Himself
by Rudyard Kipling

Pussy can sit by the fire and sing,
Pussy can climb a tree,
Or play with a silly old cork and string
To 'muse herself, not me.
But I like Binkie my dog, because
He knows how to behave;
So, Binkie's the same as the First Friend was,
And I am the Man in Cave!
Pussy will play Man Friday till
It's time to wet her paw
And make her walk on the window-sill
(For the footprint Crusoe saw)    
Then she fluffles her tail and mews,
And scratches and won't attend.
But Binkie will play whatever I choose,
And he is my true First Friend!
Pussy will rub my knees with her head
Pretending she loves me hard;
But the very minute I go to my bed
Pussy runs out in the yard,
And there she stays till the morning-light;
So I know it is only pretend;
But Binkie, he snores at my feet all night,
And he is my Firstest Friend!
The Rhyme Of The O'Sullivan And Pro Bono Publico
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

Pro Bono Publico
Went out the streets to scan,
And marching to and fro
He met a seedy man,
Who did a tale unfold
In solemn tones and slow
And this is what he told
Pro Bono Publico.
"For many years I led
The people's onward march;
I was the 'Fountain Head',
The 'Democratic Arch'.
"In more than regal state
I used to sit and smile,
And bridges I'd donate,
And railways by the mile.
"I pawned the country off
For many million quid,
And spent it like a toff,
So hel me, Bob, I did.
"But now those times are gone,
The wind blows cold and keen;
I sit and think upon
The thing that I have been.
"And if a country town
Its obligation shirks,
I press for money down
To pay for water works.
"A million pounds or two
Was naught at all to me,
And now I have to sue
For paltry ' s d!
"Alas, that such a fate
Should come to such a man,
Who once was called the Great,
The great O'Sullivan!"
With weary steps and slow,
With tears of sympathy
Pro Bono Publico
Went sadly home to tea.
Remarking, as he went,
With sad and mournful brow,
"The cash that party spent,
I wish I had it now!"
Prophets At Home
by Rudyard Kipling

Prophets have honour all over the Earth,
Except in the village where they were born,
Where such as knew them boys from birth
Nature-ally hold 'em in scorn. 
When Prophets are naughty and young and vain, 
They make a won'erful grievance of it;
(You can see by their writings how they complain),
But 0, 'tis won'erful good for the Prophet!
There's nothing Nineveh Town can give
(Nor being swallowed by whales between),
Makes up for the place where a man's folk live,
Which don't care nothing what he has been.
He might ha' been that, or he might ha' been this,
But they love and they hate him for what he is.
The One-Legged Man
by Siegfried Loraine Sassoon

Propped on a stick he viewed the August weald;
Squat orchard trees and oasts with painted cowls;
A homely, tangled hedge, a corn-stooked field,
With sound of barking dogs and farmyard fowls.
And he'd come home again to find it more
Desirable than ever it was before.
How right it seemed that he should reach the span
Of comfortable years allowed to man!
Splendid to eat and sleep and choose a wife,
Safe with his wound, a citizen of life.
He hobbled blithely through the garden gate,
And thought; "Thank God they had to amputate!"
Nursery Rhyme. CCXVII. Riddles.
by Unknown

[The allusion to Oliver Cromwell satisfactorily fixes the date of the riddle to belong to the seventeenth century. The answer is, a rainbow.]
Purple, yellow, red, and green,
The king cannot reach it nor the queen;
Nor can old Noll, whose power's so great:
Tell me this riddle while I count eight.
Ballad Of Women I Love
by Eugene Field

Prudence Mears hath an old blue plate
Hid away in an oaken chest,
And a Franklin platter of ancient date
Beareth Amandy Baker's crest;
What times soever I've been their guest,
Says I to myself in an undertone:
"Of womenfolk, it must be confessed,
These do I love, and these alone."
Well, again, in the Nutmeg State,
Dorothy Pratt is richly blest
With a relic of art and a land effete--
A pitcher of glass that's cut, not pressed.
And a Washington teapot is possessed
Down in Pelham by Marthy Stone--
Think ye now that I say in jest
"These do I love, and these alone?"
Were Hepsy Higgins inclined to mate,
Or Dorcas Eastman prone to invest
In Cupid's bonds, they could find their fate
In the bootless bard of Crockery Quest.
For they've heaps of trumpery--so have the rest
Of those spinsters whose ware I'd like to own;
You can see why I say with such certain zest,
"These do I love, and these alone."
Boat-Song.
by George Pope Morris

Pull away merrily--over the waters!
Bend to your oars for the wood-tangled shore;
We're off and afloat with earth's loveliest daughters,
Worth all the argosies wave ever bore.
Pull away gallantly--pull away valiantly--
Pull with a swoop, boys; and pull for the shore:
Merrily, merrily, bend to the oar!
Pull away cheerily!--land is before us--
Green groves are flinging their balm to the spray;
The sky, like the spirit of love, bending o'er us,
Lights her bright torches to show us the way.
Pull away charily--pull away warily--
Pull with a nerve, boys; together give way:
Merrily, merrily, pull to the lay!
Pull away heartily--light winds are blowing,
Crisping the ripples that dance at our side;
The moon bathes in silver the path we are going,
And night is arrayed in her robes like a bride.
Pull away readily--pull away steadily--
Pull with a will, boys, and sing as we glide
Merrily, merrily, over the tide!
A Song. Written in an Album.
by Abram Joseph Ryan

Pure faced page! waiting so long
To welcome my muse and me;
Fold to thy breast, like a mother, the song
That floats from my spirit to thee.
And song! sound soft as the streamlet sings,
And sweet as the Summer's birds,
And pure and bright and white be the wings
That will waft thee into words.
Yea! fly as the sea-birds fly over the sea
To rest on the far-off beach,
And breathe forth the message I trust to thee,
Tear toned on the shores of speech.
But ere you go, dip your snowy wing
In a wave of my spirit's deep --
In a wave that is purest -- then haste and bring
A song to the hearts that weep.
Oh! bring it, and sing it -- its notes are tears;
Its octaves, the octaves of grief;
Who knows but its tones in the far-off years
May bring to the lone heart relief?
Yea! bring it, and sing it -- a worded moan
That sweeps thro' the minors of woe,
With mystical meanings in every tone,
And sounds like the sea's lone flow.
*    *    *    *    *
And the thoughts take the wings of words, and float
Out of my spirit to thee;
But the song dies away into only one note,
And sounds but in only one key.
And the note! 'tis the wail of the weariest wave
That sobs on the loneliest shore;
And the key! never mind, it comes out of a grave;
And the chord! -- 'tis a sad "nevermore".
And just like the wavelet that moans on the beach,
And, sighing, sinks back to the sea,
So my song -- it just touches the rude shores of speech,
And its music melts back into me.
Yea, song! shrink back to my spirit's lone deep,
Let others hear only thy moan --
But I -- I forever shall hear the grand sweep
Of thy mighty and tear-burdened tone.
Sweep on, mighty song! -- sound down in my heart
As a storm sounding under a sea;
Not a sound of thy music shall pass into art,
Nor a note of it float out from me.
A Song in Time of Order. 1852
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Push hard across the sand,
For the salt wind gathers breath;
Shoulder and wrist and hand,
Push hard as the push of death.
The wind is as iron that rings,
The foam-heads loosen and flee;
It swells and welters and swings,
The pulse of the tide of the sea.
And up on the yellow cliff
The long corn flickers and shakes;
Push, for the wind holds stiff,
And the gunwale dips and rakes.
Good hap to the fresh fierce weather,
The quiver and beat of the sea!
While three men hold together,
The kingdoms are less by three.
Out to the sea with her there,
Out with her over the sand;
Let the kings keep the earth for their share!
We have done with the sharers of land.
They have tied the world in a tether,
They have bought over God with a fee;
While three men hold together,
The kingdoms are less by three.
We have done with the kisses that sting,
The thief's mouth red from the feast,
The blood on the hands of the king
And the lie at the lips of the priest.
Will they tie the winds in a tether,
Put a bit in the jaws of the sea?
While three men hold together,
The kingdoms are less by three.
Let our flag run out straight in the wind!
The old red shall be floated again
When the ranks that are thin shall be thinned,
When the names that were twenty are ten;
When the devil's riddle is mastered
And the galley-bench creaks with a Pope,
We shall see Buonaparte the bastard
Kick heels with his throat in a rope.
While the shepherd sets wolves on his sheep
And the emperor halters his kine,
While Shame is a watchman asleep
And Faith is a keeper of swine,
Let the wind shake our flag like a feather,
Like the plumes of the foam of the sea!
While three men hold together,
The kingdoms are less by three.
All the world has its burdens to bear,
From Cayenne to the Austrian whips;
Forth, with the rain in our hair
And the salt sweet foam in our lips;
In the teeth of the hard glad weather,
In the blown wet face of the sea;
While three men hold together,
The kingdoms are less by three.
Sunday Ethics. A Scotch Ode.
by Thomas Moore

Puir, profligate Londoners, having heard tell
That the De'il's got amang ye, and fearing 'tis true,
We ha' sent ye a mon wha's a match for his spell,
A chiel o' our ain, that the De'il himsel
Will be glad to keep clear of, ane Andrew Agnew.
So at least ye may reckon for one day entire
In ilka lang week ye'll be tranquil eneugh,
As Auld Nick, do him justice, abhors a Scotch squire,
An' would sooner gae roast by his ain kitchen fire
Than pass a hale Sunday wi' Andrew Agnew.
For, bless the gude mon, gin he had his ain way,
He'd na let a cat on the Sabbath say "mew;"
Nae birdie maun whistle, nae lambie maun play,
An Phoebus himsel could na travel that day.
As he'd find a new Joshua in Andie Agnew.
Only hear, in your Senate, how awfu' he cries,
"Wae, wae to a' sinners who boil an' who stew!
"Wae, wae to a' eaters o' Sabbath baked pies,
"For as surely again shall the crust thereof rise
"In judgment against ye," saith Andrew Agnew!
Ye may think, from a' this, that our Andie's the lad
To ca' o'er the coals your nobeelity too;
That their drives, o' a Sunday, wi' flunkies,[1] a' clad
Like Shawmen, behind 'em, would mak the mon mad--
But he's nae sic a noodle, our Andie Agnew.
If Lairds an' fine Ladies, on Sunday, think right
To gang to the deevil--as maist o' 'em do--
To stop them our Andie would think na polite;
And 'tis odds (if the chiel could get onything by't)
But he'd follow 'em, booing, would Andrew Agnew.
High Talk
by William Butler Yeats

Processions that lack high stilts have nothing that
catches the eye.
What if my great-granddad had a pair that were
twenty foot high,
And mine were but fifteen foot, no modern Stalks
upon higher,
Some rogue of the world stole them to patch up a fence
or a fire.
Because piebald ponies, led bears, caged lions, ake
but poor shows,
Because children demand Daddy-long-legs upon This
timber toes,
Because women in the upper storeys demand a face at
the pane,
That patching old heels they may shriek, I take to
chisel and plane.
Malachi Stilt-Jack am I, whatever I learned has run wild,
From collar to collar, from stilt to stilt, from father to child.
All metaphor, Malachi, stilts and all. A barnacle goose
Far up in the stretches of night; night splits and the
dawn breaks loose;
I, through the terrible novelty of light, stalk on, stalk on;
Those great sea-horses bare their teeth and laugh at the dawn.
Profit And Loss
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

Profit?--Loss?
Who shall declare this good--that ill?--
When good and ill so intertwine
But to fulfil the vast design
Of an Omniscient Will?--
When seeming gain but turns to loss,--
When earthly treasure proves but dross,--
And what seemed loss but turns again
To high, eternal gain?
Wisest the man who does his best,
And leaves the rest
To Him who counts not deeds alone,
But sees the root, the flower, the fruit,
And calls them one.
Translations. - Psyches Mourning. (From Von Salis-Seewis.)
by George MacDonald

Psyche moans, in deep-sunk, darksome prison,
For redemption; ah! for light she aches;
Fears, hopes, after every noise doth listen--
Whether Fate her bars of iron breaks.
Bound are Psyche's pinions--airy, soaring;
Yet high-hearted is she, groaning low;
Knows that under clouds whence rain is pouring
Sprouts the palm that crowns the victor's brow;
Knows among the thorns the rose yet reigneth;
Golden flowers spring from the desert grave
She her garland through denial gaineth,
And her strength is steeled by winds that rave.
'Tis through lack that she her blisses buyeth;
Sorrow's dream comes true by longing long;
Lest light break the sleep wherein she lieth,
Round her tree of life the shadows throng.
Psyche's wail is but a fluted sadness
Heard from willows the moon silvereth;
Psyche's tears are dews of morning redness,
And her sighs the sweet night-violet's breath!
Yews o'ershade the myrtle of her probation;
Much she loves for great has been her dole;
Love leads through the paths of separation,
Leads her to reunion's joyous goal.
She endures; bravely bears every burden,
Dumb before the will of Fate bends low;
Lies her bliss the patient tranquil word in;
Her one cordial, feeling's overflow!
Preconviction--ah! the call, the token,
Spreading wings the darksome sky to cleave!
'Tis but boding! 'tis but knowledge broken!
Truth's but what she truly doth believe!
Darkness hides the goal of Psyche's mission;
For the eyes that tears so often gall
Reach not to the summit of completion
Where illusion's vaporous veil doth fall!
Envoy
by Eugene Field

Prince, show me the quickest way and best
To gain the subject of my moan;
We've neither spinsters nor relics out West--
These do I love, and these alone.
Prometheus
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Prometheus stole from Heaven the sacred fire
And swept to earth with it o'er land and sea.
He lit the vestal flames of poesy,
Content, for this, to brave celestial ire.
Wroth were the gods, and with eternal hate
Pursued the fearless one who ravished Heaven
That earth might hold in fee the perfect leaven
To lift men's souls above their low estate.
But judge you now, when poets wield the pen,
Think you not well the wrong has been repaired?
'Twas all in vain that ill Prometheus fared:
The fire has been returned to Heaven again!
We have no singers like the ones whose note
Gave challenge to the noblest warbler's song.
We have no voice so mellow, sweet, and strong
As that which broke from Shelley's golden throat.
The measure of our songs is our desires:
We tinkle where old poets used to storm.
We lack their substance tho' we keep their form:
We strum our banjo-strings and call them lyres.
Proud Word You Never Spoke
by Walter Savage Landor

Proud word you never spoke, but you will speak
Four not exempt from pride some future day.
Resting on one white hand a warm wet cheek,
Over my open volume you will say,
'This man loved me', then rise and trip away.
Lockswell.
by William Lisle Bowles

Pure fount, that, welling from this wooded hill,
Dost wander forth, as into life's wide vale,
Thou to the traveller dost tell no tale
Of other years; a lone, unnoticed rill,
In thy forsaken track, unheard of men,
Melting thy own sweet music through the glen.
Time was when other sounds and songs arose;
When o'er the pensive scene, at evening's close,
The distant bell was heard; or the full chant,
At morn, came sounding high and jubilant;
Or, stealing on the wildered pilgrim's way,
The moonlight "Miserere" died away,
Like all things earthly.
Stranger, mark the spot;
No echoes of the chiding world intrude.
The structure rose and vanished; solitude
Possessed the woods again; old Time forgot,
Passing to wider spoil, its place and name.
Since then, even as the clouds of yesterday,
Seven hundred years have well-nigh passed away;
No wreck remains of all its early pride;
Like its own orisons, its fame has died.
But this pure fount, through rolling years the same,
Yet lifts its small still voice, like penitence,
Or lowly prayer. Then pass admonished hence,
Happy, thrice happy, if, through good or ill,
Christian, thy heart respond to this forsaken rill.