DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
To John Milton "From His Honoured Friend, William Davenant"
by John Clare

Poet of mighty power, I fain
Would court the muse that honoured thee,
And, like Elisha's spirit, gain
A part of thy intensity;
And share the mantle which she flung
Around thee, when thy lyre was strung.
Though faction's scorn at first did shun
With coldness thy inspired song,
Though clouds of malice passed thy sun,
They could not hide it long;
Its brightness soon exhaled away
Dank night, and gained eternal day.
The critics' wrath did darkly frown
Upon thy muse's mighty lay;
But blasts that break the blossom down
Do only stir the bay;
And thine shall flourish, green and long,
With the eternity of song.
Thy genius saw, in quiet mood,
Gilt fashion's follies pass thee by,
And, like the monarch of the wood,
Towered oer it to the sky,
Where thou couldst sing of other spheres,
And feel the fame of future years.
Though bitter sneers and stinging scorns
Did throng the muse's dangerous way,
Thy powers were past such little thorns,
They gave thee no dismay;
The scoffer's insult passed thee by,
Thou smild'st and mad'st him no reply.
Envy will gnaw its heart away
To see thy genius gather root;
And as its flowers their sweets display
Scorn's malice shall be mute;
Hornets that summer warmed to fly,
Shall at the death of summer die.
Though friendly praise hath but its hour.
And little praise with thee hath been;
The bay may lose its summer flower,
But still its leaves are green;
And thine, whose buds are on the shoot,
Shall only fade to change to fruit.
Fame lives not in the breath of words,
In public praises' hue and cry;
The music of these summer birds
Is silent in a winter sky,
When thine shall live and flourish on,
Oer wrecks where crowds of fames are gone.
The ivy shuns the city wall,
When busy clamorous crowds intrude,
And climbs the desolated hall
In silent solitude;
The time-worn arch, the fallen dome,
Are roots for its eternal home.
The bard his glory neer receives
Where summer's common flowers are seen,
But winter finds it when she leaves
The laurel only green;
And time from that eternal tree,
Shall weave a wreath to honour thee;
A sunny wreath for poets meet,
From Helicon's immortal soil,
Where sacred Time with pilgrim feet
Walks forth to worship, not to spoil,
A wreath which Fame creates and bears,
And deathless genius only heirs.
Nought but thy ashes shall expire;
Thy genius, at thy obsequies,
Shall kindle up its living fire
And light the muse's skies;
Ay, it shall rise, and shine, and be
A sun in song's posterity.
Horace, Book I, Ode Xiv Paraphrased And Inscribed To Ireland
by Jonathan Swift

THE INSCRIPTION
Poor floating isle, tost on ill fortune's waves,
Ordain'd by fate to be the land of slaves;
Shall moving Delos now deep-rooted stand;
Thou fix'd of old, be now the moving land!
Although the metaphor be worn and stale,
Betwixt a state, and vessel under sail;
Let me suppose thee for a ship a while,
And thus address thee in the sailor style.
Unhappy ship, thou art return'd in vain;
New waves shall drive thee to the deep again.[1]
Look to thyself, and be no more the sport
Of giddy winds, but make some friendly port.
Lost are thy oars, that used thy course to guide,
Like faithful counsellors, on either side.
Thy mast, which like some aged patriot stood,
The single pillar for his country's good,
To lead thee, as a staff directs the blind,
Behold it cracks by yon rough eastern wind;
Your cables burst, and you must quickly feel
The waves impetuous enter at your keel;
Thus commonwealths receive a foreign yoke,
When the strong cords of union once are broke.
Tom by a sudden tempest is thy sail,
Expanded to invite a milder gale.
As when some writer in a public cause
His pen, to save a sinking nation, draws,
While all is calm, his arguments prevail;
The people's voice expands his paper sail;
Till power, discharging all her stormy bags,
Flutters the feeble pamphlet into rags,
The nation scared, the author doom'd to death,
Who fondly put his trust in poplar breath.
A larger sacrifice in vain you vow;
There's not a power above will help you now;
A nation thus, who oft Heaven's call neglects,
In vain from injured Heaven relief expects.
'Twill not avail, when thy strong sides are broke
That thy descent is from the British oak;
Or, when your name and family you boast,
From fleets triumphant o'er the Gallic coast.
Such was Ierne's claim, as just as thine,
Her sons descended from the British line;
Her matchless sons, whose valour still remains
On French records for twenty long campaigns;
Yet, from an empress now a captive grown,
She saved Britannia's rights, and lost her own.
In ships decay'd no mariner confides,
Lured by the gilded stern and painted sides:
Yet at a ball unthinking fools delight
In the gay trappings of a birth-day night:
They on the gold brocades and satins raved,
And quite forgot their country was enslaved.
Dear vessel, still be to thy steerage just,
Nor change thy course with every sudden gust;
Like supple patriots of the modern sort,
Who turn with every gale that blows from court.
Weary and sea-sick, when in thee confined,
Now for thy safety cares distract my mind;
As those who long have stood the storms of state
Retire, yet still bemoan their country's fate.
Beware, and when you hear the surges roar,
Avoid the rocks on Britain's angry shore.
They lie, alas! too easy to be found;
For thee alone they lie the island round.
Poor Broken Flower.
by Thomas Moore

Poor broken flower! what art can now recover thee?
Torn from the stem that fed thy rosy breath--
In vain the sunbeams seek
To warm that faded cheek;
The dews of heaven, that once like balm fell over thee;
Now are but tears, to weep thy early death.
So droops the maid whose lover hath forsaken her,--
Thrown from his arms, as lone and lost as thou;
In vain the smiles of all
Like sunbeams round her fall:
The only smile that could from death awaken her,
That smile, alas! is gone to others now.
Epilogue To "All For Love."
by John Dryden

Poets, like disputants, when reasons fail,
Have one sure refuge left--and that's to rail.
Fop, coxcomb, fool, are thunder'd through the pit;
And this is all their equipage of wit.
We wonder how the devil this difference grows,
Betwixt our fools in verse, and yours in prose:
For, 'faith, the quarrel rightly understood,
'Tis civil war with their own flesh and blood.
The threadbare author hates the gaudy coat;
And swears at the gilt coach, but swears afoot:
For 'tis observed of every scribbling man,
He grows a fop as fast as e'er he can;
Prunes up, and asks his oracle, the glass,
If pink and purple best become his face.
For our poor wretch, he neither rails nor prays;
Nor likes your wit, just as you like his plays;
He has not yet so much of Mr Bayes.
He does his best; and if he cannot please,
Would quietly sue out his writ of ease.
Yet, if he might his own grand jury call,
By the fair sex he begs to stand or fall.
Let C'sar's power the men's ambition move,
But grace you him who lost the world for love!
Yet if some antiquated lady say,
The last age is not copied in his play;
Heaven help the man who for that face must drudge,
Which only has the wrinkles of a judge.
Let not the young and beauteous join with those;
For should you raise such numerous hosts of foes,
Young wits and sparks he to his aid must call;
'Tis more than one man's work to please you all.
To A Caged Lion
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Poor conquered monarch! though that haughty glance
Still speaks thy courage unsubdued by time,
And in the grandeur of thy sullen tread
Lives the proud spirit of thy burning clime; - 
Fettered by things that shudder at thy roar,
Torn from thy pathless wilds to pace this narrow floor!
Thou wast the victor, and all nature shrunk
Before the thunders of thine awful wrath;
The steel-armed hunter viewed thee from afar,
Fearless and trackless in thy lonely path!
The famished tiger closed his flaming eye,
And crouched and panted as thy step went by!
Thou art the vanquished, and insulting man
Bars thy broad bosom as a sparrow's wing;
His nerveless arms thine iron sinews bind,
And lead in chains the desert's fallen king;
Are these the beings that have dared to twine
Their feeble threads around those limbs of thine?
So must it be; the weaker, wiser race,
That wields the tempest and that rides the sea,
Even in the stillness of thy solitude
Must teach the lesson of its power to thee;
And thou, the terror of the trembling wild,
Must bow thy savage strength, the mockery of a child!
Prologue To "The Loyal Brother; Or, The Persian Prince;"[1] By Mr Southern, 1682.
by John Dryden

POETS, like lawful monarchs, ruled the stage,
Till critics, like damn'd Whigs, debauch'd our age.
Mark how they jump: critics would regulate
Our theatres, and Whigs reform our state:
Both pretend love, and both (plague rot them!) hate.
The critic humbly seems advice to bring;
The fawning Whig petitions to the king:
But one's advice into a satire slides;
The other's petition a remonstrance hides.
These will no taxes give, and those no pence;
Critics would starve the poet, Whigs the prince.
The critic all our troops of friends discards;
Just so the Whig would fain pull down the guards.
Guards are illegal, that drive foes away,
As watchful shepherds, that fright beasts of prey.
Kings, who disband such needless aids as these,
Are safe--as long as e'er their subjects please:
And that would be till next Queen Bess's night: [2]
Which thus grave penny chroniclers indite.
Sir Edmondbury first, in woful wise,
Leads up the show, and milks their maudlin eyes.
There's not a butcher's wife but dribs her part,
And pities the poor pageant from her heart;
Who, to provoke revenge, rides round the fire,
And, with a civil cong', does retire:
But guiltless blood to ground must never fall;
There's Antichrist behind, to pay for all.
The punk of Babylon in pomp appears,
A lewd old gentleman of seventy years:
Whose age in vain our mercy would implore;
For few take pity on an old cast whore.
The Devil, who brought him to the shame, takes part;
Sits cheek by jowl, in black, to cheer his heart;
Like thief and parson in a Tyburn-cart.
The word is given, and with a loud huzza
The mitred puppet from his chair they draw:
On the slain corpse contending nations fall:
Alas! what's one poor Pope among them all!
He burns; now all true hearts your triumphs ring:
And, next, for fashion, cry, God save the king!
A needful cry in midst of such alarms,
When forty thousand men are up in arms.
But after he's once saved, to make amends,
In each succeeding health they damn his friends:
So God begins, but still the Devil ends.
What if some one, inspired with zeal, should call,
Come, let's go cry, God save him at Whitehall?
His best friends would not like this over-care,
Or think him ere the safer for this prayer.
Five praying saints are by an act allow'd;[3]
But not the whole church-militant in crowd.
Yet, should Heaven all the true petitions drain
Of Presbyterians, who would kings maintain,
Of forty thousand, five would scarce remain.
The Crew Of The Nancy Lee.
by Lizzie Lawson

Polly's the mate of the Nancy Lee,
And Tom is the skipper bold,
They sail together
In rough wind and weather,
And they are the crew, all told.
In their taut and trim little boat they ride
Away o'er the bright blue sea,
With hands ever ready,
And hearts ever steady,
Whatever the dangers may be.
And a smarter crew will never be found,
Though you may search the whole world round.
To Maggie Le Gallienne With Love
by Richard Le Gallienne

Poor are the gifts of the poet -
Nothing but words!
The gifts of kings are gold,
Silver, and flocks and herds,
Garments of strange soft silk,
Feathers of wonderful birds,
Jewels and precious stones,
And horses white as the milk -
These are the gifts of kings:
But the gifts that the poet brings
Are nothing but words.
Forty thousand words!
Take them - a gift of flies!
Words that should have been birds,
Words that should have been flowers,
Words that should have been stars
In the eternal skies.
Forty thousand words!
Forty thousand tears -
All out of two sad eyes.
Nursery Rhyme. CXXXI. Songs.
by Unknown

Polly put the kettle on,
Polly put the kettle on,
Polly put the kettle on,
And let's drink tea.
Sukey take it off again,
Sukey take it off again,
Sukey take it off again,
They're all gone away.
The End Of Summer
by Madison Julius Cawein

Pods are the poppies, and slim spires of pods
The hollyhocks; the balsam's pearly bredes
Of rose-stained snow are little sacs of seeds
Collapsing at a touch: the lote, that sods
The pond with green, has changed its flowers to rods
And discs of vesicles; and all the weeds,
Around the sleepy water and its reeds,
Are one white smoke of seeded silk that nods.
Summer is dead, ay me! sweet Summer's dead!
The sunset clouds have built her funeral pyre,
Through which, e'en now, runs subterranean fire:
While from the east, as from a garden bed,
Mist-vined, the Dusk lifts her broad moon like some
Great golden melon saying, "Fall has come."
Request To The Grace
by Robert Herrick

Ponder my words, if so that any be
Known guilty here of incivility;
Let what is graceless, discomposed, and rude,
With sweetness, smoothness, softness be endued:
Teach it to blush, to curtsy, lisp, and show
Demure, but yet full of temptation, too.
Numbers ne'er tickle, or but lightly plea{e,
Unless they have some wanton carriages:
This if ye do, each piece will here be good
And graceful made by your neat sisterhood.
Memento Mori.
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Poor the pleasure
Doled out by measure,
Sweet though it be, while brief
As falling of the leaf;
Poor is pleasure
By weight and measure.
Sweet the sorrow
Which ends to-morrow;
Sharp though it be and sore,
It ends for evermore:
Zest of sorrow,
What ends to-morrow.
Poor Wounded Heart
by Thomas Moore

Poor wounded heart, farewell!
Thy hour of rest is come;
Thou soon wilt reach thy home,
Poor wounded heart, farewell!
The pain thou'lt feel in breaking
Less bitter far will be,
Than that long, deadly aching,
This life has been to thee.
There--broken heart, farewell!
The pang is o'er--
The parting pang is o'er;
Thou now wilt bleed no more.
Poor broken heart, farewell!
No rest for thee but dying--
Like waves whose strife is past,
On death's cold shore thus lying,
Thou sleepst in peace at last--
Poor broken heart, farewell!
From Hawk And Kite (The Rocky Road To Dublin)
by James Stephens

Poor, frightened, fluttered, silent one!
If we had seen your nest of clay
We would have passed it by, and gone,
Nor frightened you away.
For there are others guard a nest
From hawk and kite and lurking foe,
And more despair is in their breast
Than you can ever know.
Shield the nests where'er they be,
On the ground or on the tree;
Guard the poor from treachery.
To Laura In Death. Sonnet XC.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Vago augelletto che cantando vai.
THE PLAINTIVE SONG OF A BIRD RECALLS TO HIM HIS OWN KEENER SORROW.
Poor solitary bird, that pour'st thy lay;
Or haply mournest the sweet season gone:
As chilly night and winter hurry on,
And day-light fades and summer flies away;
If as the cares that swell thy little throat
Thou knew'st alike the woes that wound my rest.
Ah, thou wouldst house thee in this kindred breast,
And mix with mine thy melancholy note.
Yet little know I ours are kindred ills:
She still may live the object of thy song:
Not so for me stern death or Heaven wills!
But the sad season, and less grateful hour,
And of past joy and sorrow thoughts that throng
Prompt my full heart this idle lay to pour.
DACRE.
Sweet bird, that singest on thy airy way,
Or else bewailest pleasures that are past;
What time the night draws nigh, and wintry blast;
Leaving behind each merry month, and day;
Oh, couldst thou, as thine own, my state survey,
With the same gloom of misery o'ercast;
Unto my bosom thou mightst surely haste
And, by partaking, my sad griefs allay.
Yet would thy share of woe not equal mine,
Since the loved mate thou weep'st doth haply live,
While death, and heaven, me of my fair deprive:
But hours less gay, the season's drear decline;
With thoughts on many a sad, and pleasant year,
Tempt me to ask thy piteous presence here.
NOTT.
Miscellaneous Sonnets, 1842 - IV - In Allusion To Various Recent Histories And Notices Of The French Revolution
by William Wordsworth

Portentous change when History can appear
As the cool Advocate of foul device;
Reckless audacity extol, and jeer
At consciences perplexed with scruples nice!
They who bewail not, must abhor, the sneer
Born of Conceit, Power's blind Idolater;
Or haply sprung from vaunting Cowardice
Betrayed by mockery of holy fear.
Hath it not long been said the wrath of Man
Works not the righteousness of God? Oh bend,
Bend, ye Perverse! to judgments from on High,
Laws that lay under Heaven's perpetual ban
All principles of action that transcend
The sacred limits of humanity.
Poor Little Heart!
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Poor little heart!
Did they forget thee?
Then dinna care! Then dinna care!
Proud little heart!
Did they forsake thee?
Be debonair! Be debonair!
Frail little heart!
I would not break thee:
Could'st credit me? Could'st credit me?
Gay little heart!
Like morning glory
Thou'll wilted be; thou'll wilted be!
Nursery Rhyme. XXII. Historical
by Unknown

[The following is a fragment of a song on the subject, which was introduced by Russell in the character of Jerry Sneak.]
Poor old Robinson Crusoe!
Poor old Robinson Crusoe!
They made him a coat
Of an old nanny goat,
I wonder how they could do so!
With a ring a ting tang,
And a ring a ting tang,
Poor old Robinson Crusoe!
The Sick Muse
by Charles Baudelaire

Poor Muse, alas, what ails thee, then, to-day?
Thy hollow eyes with midnight visions burn,
Upon thy brow in alternation play,
Folly and Horror, cold and taciturn.
Have the green lemure and the goblin red,
Poured on thee love and terror from their urn?
Or with despotic hand the nightmare dread
Deep plunged thee in some fabulous Minturne?
Would that the breast where so deep thoughts arise,
Breathed forth a healthful perfume with thy sighs;
Would that thy Christian blood ran wave by wave
In rhythmic sounds the antique numbers gave,
When Phoebus shared his alternating reign
With mighty Pan, lord of the ripening grain.
Poor Withered Rose
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

A Song
Poor withered rose, she gave it me,
Half in revenge and half in glee;
Its petals not so pink by half
As are her lips when curled to laugh,
As are her cheeks when dimples gay
In merry mischief o'er them play.
Chorus
Forgive, forgive, it seems unkind
To cast thy petals to the wind;
But it is right, and lest I err
So scatter I all thought of her.
Poor withered rose, so like my heart,
That wilts at sorrow's cruel dart.
Who hath not felt the winter's blight
When every hope seemed warm and bright?
Who doth not know love unreturned,
E'en when the heart most wildly burned?
Poor withered rose, thou liest dead;
Too soon thy beauty's bloom hath fled.
'Tis not without a tearful ruth
I watch decay thy blushing youth;
And though thy life goes out in dole,
Thy perfume lingers in my soul.
A Face In The Street.
by George Parsons Lathrop

Poor, withered face, that yet was once so fair,
Grown ashen-old in the wild fires of lust - 
Thy star-like beauty, dimm'd with earthly dust,
Yet breathing of a purer native air; - 
They who whilom, cursed vultures, sought a share
Of thy dead womanhood, their greed unjust
Have satisfied, have stripped and left thee bare.
Still, like a leaf warped by the autumn gust,
And driving to the end, thou wrapp'st in flame
And perfume all thy hollow-eyed decay,
Feigning on those gray cheeks the blush that Shame
Took with her when she fled long since away.
Ah God! rain fire upon this foul-souled city
That gives such death, and spares its men, - for pity!
Sonnet LXIV. To Mr. Henry Cary, On The Publication Of His Sonnets.
by Anna Seward

Prais'd be the Poet, who the Sonnet's claim,
Severest of the orders that belong
Distinct and separate to the Delphic Song,
Shall venerate, nor its appropriate name
Lawless assume. Peculiar is its frame,
From him deriv'd, who shunn'd the City Throng,
And warbled sweet thy rocks and streams among,
Lonely Valclusa! - and that Heir of Fame,
Our greater MILTON, hath, by many a lay
Form'd on that arduous model, fully shown
That English Verse may happily display
Those strict energic measures, which alone
Deserve the name of Sonnet, and convey
A grandeur, grace and spirit, all their own.
On A Musical Box.
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

Poor little sprite! in that dark, narrow cell
Caged by the law of man's resistless might!
With thy sweet liquid notes, by some strong spell,
Compelled to minister to his delight!
Whence, what art thou? art thou a fairy wight
Caught sleeping in some lily's snowy bell,
Where thou hadst crept, to rock in the moonlight,
And drink the starry dew-drops, as they fell?
Say, dost thou think, sometimes when thou art singing,
Of thy wild haunt upon the mountain's brow,
Where thou wert wont to list the heath-bells ringing,
And sail upon the sunset's amber glow?
When thou art weary of thy oft-told theme,
Say, dost thou think of the clear pebbly stream,
Upon whose mossy brink thy fellows play,
Dancing in circles by the moon's soft beam,
Hiding in blossoms from the sun's fierce gleam,
Whilst thou, in darkness, sing'st thy life away?
And canst thou feel when the spring-time returns,
Filling the earth with fragrance and with glee;
When in the wide creation nothing mourns,
Of all that lives, save that which is not free?
Oh! if thou couldst, and we could hear thy prayer,
How would thy little voice beseeching cry,
For one short draught of the sweet morning air,
For one short glimpse of the clear azure sky!
Perchance thou sing'st in hope thou shalt be free,
Sweetly and patiently thy task fulfilling;
While thy sad thoughts are wandering with the bee,
To every bud with honey dew distilling.
That hope is vain: for even couldst thou wing
Thy homeward flight back to the greenwood gay,
Thou'dst be a shunned and a forsaken thing,
'Mongst the companions of thy happier day.
For fairy sprites, like many other creatures,
Bear fleeting memories, that come and go;
Nor can they oft recall familiar features,
By absence touched, or clouded o'er with woe.
Then rest content with sorrow: for there be
Many that must that lesson learn with thee;
And still thy wild notes warble cheerfully,
Till, when thy tiny voice begins to fail,
For thy lost bliss sing but one parting wail,
Poor little sprite! and then sleep peacefully!
A Song Of Harvest Home.
by Jean Blewett

Praise God for blessings great and small,
For garden bloom and orchard store,
The crimson vine upon the wall,
The green and gold of maples tall,
For harvest-field and threshing-floor!
Praise God for children's laughter shrill,
For clinging hands and tender eyes,
For looks that lift and words that thrill,
For friends that love through good and ill,
For home, and all home's tender ties!
Praise God for losses and for gain,
For tears to shed, and songs to sing,
For gleams of gold and mists of rain,
For the year's full joy, the year's deep pain,
The grieving and the comforting!
The Mountain Tomb
by William Butler Yeats

Pour wine and dance if Manhood still have pride,
Bring roses if the rose be yet in bloom;
The cataract smokes upon the mountain side,
Our Father Rosicross is in his tomb.
Pull down the blinds, bring fiddle and clarionet
That there be no foot silent in the room
Nor mouth from kissing, nor from wine unwet;
Our Father Rosicross is in his tomb.
In vain, in vain; the cataract still cries
The everlasting taper lights the gloom;
All wisdom shut into his onyx eyes
Our Father Rosicross sleeps in his tomb.
An Irish Song
by John Carr (Sir)

Poor Molly O'Flannagan (Lord rest her soul!)
Drank so deeply of whiskey, 'twas thought she would die;
Her fond lover, Pat, from her nate cabin stole,
And stepp'd into Dublin to buy her a pie.
Oh! poor Molly O'Flannagan!
Tho' chin-deep in sorrow, yet fun he lov'd well;
A pie-man pass'd near, crying "Pies" at his aise;
"Here are pies of all sorts." - "Oh! if all sorts you sell,
Then a twopenny magpie for me, if you plaise!"
Oh! poor Molly O'Flannagan!