DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Bi-Centennial Ode
by Horatio Alger, Jr.

From the door of the homestead the mother looks forth,
With a glance half of hope, half of fear,
For the clock in the corner now points to the hour
When the children she loves should appear.
For have they not promised, whatever betide,
On this their dear mother's birthday,
To gather once more round the family board,
Their dutiful service to pay?
From the East and the West, from the North and the South,
In communion and intercourse sweet,
Her children have come, on this festival day,
To sit, as of old, at her feet.
And our mother,-- God bless her benevolent face!--
How her heart thrills with motherly joys,
As she stands at the portal, with arms opened wide,
To welcome her girls and her boys.
And yet, when the first joyful greetings are o'er,
When the words of her welcome are said:
A shadow creeps over her motherly face,
As she silently thinks of the dead,
Of the children whose voices once rang through her fields,
Who shared all her hopes and alarms,
Till, tired with the burden and heat of the day,
They have fallen asleep in her arms.
They have gone from our midst, but their labors abide
On the fields where they prayerfully wrought;
They scattered the seed, but the harvest is ours,
By their toil and self-sacrifice bought.
As we scan the fair scene that once greeted their eyes,
As we tread the same paths which they trod,
Let us tenderly think of our elders by birth,
Who have gone to their rest, and their God.
God bless the old homestead! some linger there still,
In the haunts which their childhood has known,
While others have wandered to places remote,
And planted new homes of their own;
But Time cannot weaken the ties Love creates,
Nor absence, nor distance, impede
The filial devotion which thrills all our hearts,
As we bid our old mother God-speed.
London Flood, July 11th, 1883.
by James McIntyre

From the long continuous rains
O'erflowing were the swamps and drains,
For each day had its heavy shower,
Torrents fell for many an hour;
At London where two branches join
It seem'd two furies did combine,
For to spread far both death and woe,
With their wild, raging overflow;
E'en houses did on waters float,
As though each had been built for boat,
And where was wealth and joy and bloom,
Soon naught but inmates of the tomb;
Flood o'erflowed both vale and ridges,
And swept railroads, dams and bridges,
A mother climbed in tree to save
Her infant from a watery grave,
But on the house you saw its blood
Where it was crushed 'gainst tree by flood;
Where cottages 'mong gardens stood
'Tis covered o'er with vile drift wood,
O'er flowers and bushes you may travel
For they are buried under gravel,
Or you may walk o'er barren sand,
The crops washed out and fertile land;
Two funerals we at once did see
Of one family who lost three;
No longer river's deep and wide
But gently flows to distant tide.
Changed
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

From the outskirts of the town
Where of old the mile-stone stood.
Now a stranger, looking down
I behold the shadowy crown
Of the dark and haunted wood.
Is it changed, or am I changed?
Ah! the oaks are fresh and green,
But the friends with whom I ranged
Through their thickets are estranged
By the years that intervene.
Bright as ever flows the sea,
Bright as ever shines the sun,
But alas! they seem to me
Not the sun that used to be,
Not the tides that used to run.
Mid-August
by Duncan Campbell Scott

From the upland hidden,
Where the hill is sunny
Tawny like pure honey
In the August heat,
Memories float unbidden
Where the thicket serries
Fragrant with ripe berries
And the milk-weed sweet.
Like a prayer-mat holy
Are the patterned mosses
Which the twin-flower crosses
With her flowerless vine;
In fragile melancholy
The pallid ghost flowers hover
As if to guard and cover
The shadow of a shrine.
Where the pine-linnet lingered
The pale water searches,
The roots of gleaming birches
Draw silver from the lake;
The ripples, liquid-fingered,
Plucking the root-layers,
Fairy like lute players
Lulling music make.
O to lie here brooding
Where the pine-tree column
Rises dark and solemn
To the airy lair,
Where, the day eluding,
Night is couched dream laden,
Like a deep witch-maiden
Hidden in her hair.
In filmy evanescence
Wraithlike scents assemble,
Then dissolve and tremble
A little until they die;
Spirits of the florescence
Where the bees searched and tarried
Till the blossoms all were married
In the days before July.
Light has lost its splendour,
Light refined and sifted,
Cool light and dream drifted
Ventures even where,
(Seeping silver tender)
In the dim recesses,
Trembling mid her tresses,
Hides the maiden hair.
Covered with the shy-light,
Filling in the hushes,
Slide the tawny thrushes
Calling to their broods,
Hoarding till the twilight
The song that made for noon-days
Of the amorous June days
Preludes and interludes.
The joy that I am feeling
Is there something in it
Unlike the warble the linnet
Phrases and intones?
Or is a like thought stealing
With a rapture fine, free
Through the happy pine tree
Ripening her cones?
In some high existence
In another planet
Where their poets cannot
Know our birds and flowers,
Does the same persistence
Give the dreams they issue
Something like the tissue
Of these dreams of ours?
O to lie athinking - 
Moods and whims! I fancy
Only necromancy
Could the web unroll,
Only somehow linking
Beauties that meet and mingle
In this quiet dingle
With the beauty of the whole.
The Prayer Of Miriam Cohen
by Rudyard Kipling

From the wheel and the drift of Things
Deliver us, Good Lord,
And we will face the wrath of Kings,
The faggot and the sword!
Lay not thy Works before our eyes
Nor vex us with thy Wars,
Lest we should feel the straining skies
O'ertrod by trampling stars.
Hold us secure behind the gates
Of saving flesh and bone,
Lest we should dream what Dream awaits
The Soul escaped alone.
Thy Path, thy Purposes conceal     
From our beleaguered realm
Lest any shattering whisper steal
Upon us and o'erwhelm.
A veil 'twixt us and Thee, Good Lord,
A veil 'twixt us and Thee,
Lest we should hear too clear, too clear,
And unto madness see!
Sonnet III. Written At Buxton In A Rainy Season.
by Anna Seward

From these wild heights, where oft the mists descend
In rains, that shroud the sun, and chill the gale,
Each transient, gleaming interval we hail,
And rove the naked vallies, and extend
Our gaze around, where yon vast mountains blend
With billowy clouds, that o'er their summits sail;
Pondering, how little Nature's charms befriend
The barren scene, monotonous, and pale.
Yet solemn when the darkening shadows fleet
Successive o'er the wide and silent hills,
Gilded by watry sun-beams, then we meet
Peculiar pomp of vision. Fancy thrills,
And owns there is no scene so rude and bare,
But Nature sheds or grace or grandeur there.
North Wind. (The Winds)
by William Lisle Bowles

From the vast and desert deeps,
Where the lonely Kraken sleeps,
Where fixed the icy mountains high
Glimmer to the twilight sky;
Where, six lingering months to last,
The night has closed, the day is past,
Father, lo, I come, I come:
I have heard the wizard's drum,
And the withered Lapland hag,
Seal, with muttered spell, her bag:
O'er mountains white, and forests sere,
I flew, and with a wink am here.
The Wind Of Summer
by Madison Julius Cawein

From the hills and far away
All the long, warm summer day
Comes the wind and seems to say:
"Come, oh, come! and let us go
Where the meadows bend and blow,
Waving with the white-tops' snow.
"'Neath the hyssop-colored sky
'Mid the meadows we will lie
Watching the white clouds roll by;
"While your hair my hands shall press
With a cooling tenderness
Till your grief grows less and less.
"Come, oh, come! and let us roam
Where the rock-cut waters comb
Flowing crystal into foam.
"' Under trees whose trunks are brown,
On the banks that violets crown,
We will watch the fish flash down;
"While your ear my voice shall soothe
With a whisper soft and smooth
Till your care shall wax uncouth.
"Come! where forests, line on line,
Armies of the oak and pine,
Scale the hills and shout and shine.
"We will wander, hand in hand,
Ways where tall the toadstools stand,
Mile-stones white of Fairyland.
"While your eyes my lips shall kiss,
Dewy as a wild rose is,
Till they gaze on naught but bliss.
"On the meadows you will hear,
Leaning low your spirit ear,
Cautious footsteps drawing near.
"You will deem it but a bee,
Murmuring soft and sleepily,
Till your inner sight shall see.
"'Tis a presence passing slow,
All its shining hair ablow,
Through the white-tops' tossing snow.
"By the waters, if you will,
And your inmost soul be still,
Melody your ears shall fill.
"You will deem it but the stream
Rippling onward in a dream,
Till upon your gaze shall gleam.
"Arm of spray and throat of foam
'Tis a spirit there aroam
Where the radiant waters comb.
"In the forest, if you heed,
You shall hear a magic reed
Sow sweet notes like silver seed.
"You will deem your ears have heard
Stir of tree or song of bird,
Till your startled eyes are blurred.
"By a vision, instant seen,
Naked gold and beryl green,
Glimmering bright the boughs between.
"Follow me! and you shall see
Wonder-worlds of mystery
That are only known to me!"
Thus outside my city door
Speaks the Wind its wildwood lore,
Speaks and lo! I go once more.
The Bells - A collaboration
by Edgar Allan Poe

The bells! ah, the bells!
The little silver bells!
How fairy-like a melody there floats
From their throats. 
From their merry little throats 
From the silver, tinkling throats
Of the bells, bells, bells 
Of the bells!
The bells! ah, the bells!
The heavy iron bells!
How horrible a monody there floats
From their throats 
From their deep-toned throats 
From their melancholy throats!
How I shudder at the notes
Of the bells, bells, bells 
Of the bells!
Wild Goose Shot At Midnight, Nov., 1888.
by James McIntyre

From the regions of the north
Where the waters now are frozen,
Towards the south they issue forth
A flock of wild geese of four dozen.
But when they flew o'er the river Thames
They swooped down to take a dive,
But sport with shot gun at them aims
And one at least did not survive.
And he now says it tasted fine,
And that it was both fat and big,
A hungry man did on it dine,
Satisfied with just one leg.
He was sorry fowl to kill,
But they awoke him from his slumber,
The air with cackle they did fill,
And thus they lost one of their number.
Muckle-Mouth Meg
by Robert Browning

Frowned the Laird on the Lord: 'So, red-handed I catch thee?
Death-doomed by our Law of the Border!
We've a gallows outside and a chiel to dispatch thee:
Who trespasses, hangs: all's in order.'
He met frown with smile, did the young English gallant:
Then the Laird's dame: 'Nay, Husband, I beg!
He's comely: be merciful! Grace for the callant
If he marries our Muckle-mouth Meg!
'No mile-wide-mouthed monster of yours do I marry:
Grant rather the gallows!' laughed he.
'Foul fare kith and kin of you, why do you tarry?'
'To tame your fierce temper!' quoth she.
'Shove him quick in the Hole, shut him fast for a week:
Cold, darkness, and hunger work wonders:
Who lion-like roars now, mouse-fashion will squeak,
And 'it rains' soon succeed to 'it thunders.''
A week did he bide in the cold and the dark
Not hunger: for duly at morning
In flitted a lass, and a voice like a lark
Chirped, 'Muckle-mouth Meg still ye're scorning?
'Go hang, but here's parritch to hearten ye first!'
'Did Meg's muckle-mouth boast within some
Such music as yours, mine should match it or burst:
No frog-jaws! So tell folk, my Winsome!'
Soon week came to end, and, from Hole's door set wide,
Out he marched, and there waited the lassie:
'Yon gallows, or Muckle-mouth Meg for bride!
Consider! Sky's blue and turf's grassy:
'Life's sweet: shall I say ye wed Muckle-mouth Meg?'
'Not I,' quoth the stout heart: 'too eerie
The mouth that can swallow a bubblyjock's egg;
Shall I let it munch mine? Never, Dearie!
'Not Muckle-mouth Meg? Wow, the obstinate man!
Perhaps he would rather wed me!'
'Ay, would he, with just for a dowry your can!'
'I'm Muckle-mouth Meg,' chirruped she.
'Then so-so-so-so,' as he kissed her apace,
'Will I widen thee out till thou turnest
From Margaret Minnikin-mou', by God's grace,
To Muckle-mouth Meg in good earnest!'
Some Account Of The Late Dinner To Dan.
by Thomas Moore

From tongue to tongue the rumor flew;
All askt, aghast, "Is't true? is't true?"
But none knew whether 'twas fact or fable:
And still the unholy rumor ran,
From Tory woman to Tory man,
Tho' none to come at the truth was able--
Till, lo! at last, the fact came out,
The horrible fact, beyond all doubt,
That Dan had dined at the Viceroy's table;
Had flesht his Popish knife and fork
In the heart of the Establisht mutton and pork!
Who can forget the deep sensation
That news produced in this orthodox nation?
Deans, rectors, curates, all agreed,
If Dan was allowed at the Castle to feed,
'Twas clearly all up with the Protestant creed!
There hadn't indeed such an apparition
Been heard of in Dublin since that day
When, during the first grand exhibition
Of Don Giovanni, that naughty play,
There appeared, as if raised by necromancers,
An extra devil among the dancers!
Yes--every one saw with fearful thrill
That a devil too much had joined the quadrille;
And sulphur was smelt and the lamps let fall
A grim, green light o'er the ghastly ball,
And the poor sham devils didn't like it at all;
For they knew from whence the intruder had come,
Tho' he left, that night, his tail at home.
This fact, we see, is a parallel case
To the dinner that some weeks since took place.
With the difference slight of fiend and man,
It shows what a nest of Popish sinners
That city must be, where the devil and Dan
May thus drop in at quadrilles and dinners!
But mark the end of these foul proceedings,
These demon hops and Popish feedings.
Some comfort 'twill be--to those, at least,
Who've studied this awful dinner question--
To know that Dan, on the night of that feast,
Was seized with a dreadful indigestion;
That envoys were sent post-haste to his priest
To come and absolve the suffering sinner,
For eating so much at a heretic dinner;
And some good people were even afraid
That Peel's old confectioner--still at the trade--
Had poisoned the Papist with orangeade.
From This Hour The Pledge Is Given.
by Thomas Moore

From this hour the pledge is given,
From this hour my soul is thine:
Come what will, from earth or heaven,
Weal or woe, thy fate be mine.
When the proud and great stood by thee,
None dared thy rights to spurn;
And if now they're false and fly thee,
Shall I, too, basely turn?
No;--whate'er the fires that try thee,
In the same this heart shall burn.
Tho' the sea, where thou embarkest,
Offers now no friendly shore,
Light may come where all looks darkest,
Hope hath life when life seems o'er.
And, of those past ages dreaming,
When glory decked thy brow,
Oft I fondly think, tho' seeming
So fallen and clouded now,
Thou'lt again break forth, all beaming,--
None so bright, so blest as thou!
Arterial
by Rudyard Kipling

I
Frost upon small rain the ebony-lacquered avenue
Reflecting lamps as a pool shows goldfish.
The sight suddenly emptied out of the young man's eyes
Entering upon it sideways.
II
In youth, by hazard, I killed an old man.
In age I maimed a little child.
Dead leaves under foot reproach not:
But the lop-sided cherry-branch whenever the sun rises,
How black a shadow!
Invisible.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

From us she wandered now a year,
Her tarrying unknown;
If wilderness prevent her feet,
Or that ethereal zone
No eye hath seen and lived,
We ignorant must be.
We only know what time of year
We took the mystery.
Ianthe
by Walter Savage Landor

From you, Ianthe, little troubles pass
Like little ripples down a sunny river;
Your pleasures spring like daisies in the grass,
Cut down, and up again as blithe as ever.
Evening
by Archibald Lampman

From upland slopes I see the cows file by,
Lowing, great-chested, down the homeward trail,
By dusking fields and meadows shining pale
With moon-tipped dandelions. Flickering high,
A peevish night-hawk in the western sky
Beats up into the lucent solitudes,
Or drops with griding wing. The stilly woods
Grow dark and deep and gloom mysteriously.
Cool night-winds creep, and whisper in mine ear
The homely cricket gossips at my feet.
From far-off pools and wastes of reeds I hear,
Clear and soft-piped, the chanting frogs break sweet
In full Pandean chorus. One by one
Shine out the stars, and the great night comes on.
Batuschka.
by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

From yonder gilded minaret
Beside the steel-blue Neva set,
I faintly catch, from time to time,
The sweet, aerial midnight chime--
"God save the Tsar!"
Above the ravelins and the moats
Of the white citadel it floats;
And men in dungeons far beneath
Listen, and pray, and gnash their teeth--
"God save the Tsar!"
The soft reiterations sweep
Across the horror of their sleep,
"Little Father," or "Dear Little Father,"
a term of endearment applied
to the Tsar in Russian folk-song.
As if some daemon in his glee
Were mocking at their misery--
"God save the Tsar!"
In his Red Palace over there,
Wakeful, he needs must hear the prayer.
How can it drown the broken cries
Wrung from his children's agonies?--
"God save the Tsar!"
Father they called him from of old--
Batuschka! . . .    How his heart is cold!
Wait till a million scourged men
Rise in their awful might, and then--
God save the Tsar!
Yorktown
by John Greenleaf Whittier

Yorktown
From Yorktown's ruins, ranked and still,
Two lines stretch far o'er vale and hill:
Who curbs his steed at head of one?
Hark! the low murmur: Washington!
Who bends his keen, approving glance,
Where down the gorgeous line of France
Shine knightly star and plume of snow?
Thou too art victor, Rochambeau!
The earth which bears this calm array
Shook with the war-charge yesterday,
Ploughed deep with hurrying hoof and wheel,
Shot-sown and bladed thick with steel;
October's clear and noonday sun
Paled in the breath-smoke of the gun,
And down night's double blackness fell,
Like a dropped star, the blazing shell.
Now all is hushed: the gleaming lines
Stand moveless as the neighboring pines;
While through them, sullen, grim, and slow,
The conquered hosts of England go:
O'Hara's brow belies his dress,
Gay Tarleton's troop rides bannerless:
Shout, from thy fired and wasted homes,
Thy scourge, Virginia, captive comes!
Nor thou alone: with one glad voice
Let all thy sister States rejoice;
Let Freedom, in whatever clime
She waits with sleepless eye her time,
Shouting from cave and mountain wood
Make glad her desert solitude,
While they who hunt her quail with fear;
The New World's chain lies broken here!
But who are they, who, cowering, wait
Within the shattered fortress gate?
Dark tillers of Virginia's soil,
Classed with the battle's common spoil,
With household stuffs, and fowl, and swine,
With Indian weed and planters' wine,
With stolen beeves, and foraged corn,
Are they not men, Virginian born?
Oh, veil your faces, young and brave!
Sleep, Scammel, in thy soldier grave!
Sons of the Northland, ye who set
Stout hearts against the bayonet,
And pressed with steady footfall near
The moated battery's blazing tier,
Turn your scarred faces from the sight,
Let shame do homage to the right!
Lo! fourscore years have passed; and where
The Gallic bugles stirred the air,
And, through breached batteries, side by side,
To victory stormed the hosts allied,
And brave foes grounded, pale with pain,
The arms they might not lift again,
As abject as in that old day
The slave still toils his life away.
Oh, fields still green and fresh in story,
Old days of pride, old names of glory,
Old marvels of the tongue and pen,
Old thoughts which stirred the hearts of men,
Ye spared the wrong; and over all
Behold the avenging shadow fall!
Your world-wide honor stained with shame,
Your freedom's self a hollow name!
Where's now the flag of that old war?
Where flows its stripe? Where burns its star?
Bear witness, Palo Alto's day,
Dark Vale of Palms, red Monterey,
Where Mexic Freedom, young and weak,
Fleshes the Northern eagle's beak;
Symbol of terror and despair,
Of chains and slaves, go seek it there!
Laugh, Prussia, midst thy iron ranks!
Laugh, Russia, from thy Neva's banks!
Brave sport to see the fledgling born
Of freedom by its parent torn!
Safe now is Speilberg's dungeon cell,
Safe drear Siberia's frozen hell:
With Slavery's flag o'er both unrolled,
What of the New World fears the Old?
Ballata VI.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Di tempo in tempo mi si fa men dura.
THOUGH SHE BE LESS SEVERE, HE IS STILL NOT CONTENTED AND TRANQUIL AT HEART.
From time to time more clemency for me
In that sweet smile and angel form I trace;
Seem too her lovely face
And lustrous eyes at length more kind to be.
Yet, if thus honour'd, wherefore do my sighs
In doubt and sorrow flow,
Signs that too truly show
My anguish'd desperate life to common eyes?
Haply if, where she is, my glance I bend,
This harass'd heart to cheer,
Methinks that Love I hear
Pleading my cause, and see him succour lend.
Not therefore at an end the strife I deem,
Nor in sure rest my heart at last esteem;
For Love most burns within
When Hope most pricks us on the way to win.
MACGREGOR.
From time to time less cruelty I trace
In her sweet smile and form divinely fair;
Less clouded doth appear
The heaven of her fine eyes and lovely face.
What then at last avail to me those sighs,
Which from my sorrows flow,
And in my semblance show
The life of anguish and despair I lead?
If towards her perchance I bend mine eyes,
Some solace to bestow
Upon my bosom's woe,
Methinks Love takes my part, and lends me aid:
Yet still I cannot find the conflict stay'd,
Nor tranquil is my heart in every state:
For, ah! my passion's heat
More strongly glows within as my fond hopes increase.
NOTT.
A Shell.
by Walter R. Cassels

From what rock-hollow'd cavern deep in ocean,
Where jagged columns break the billow's beat,
Whirl'd upward by some wild mid-world commotion,
Has this rose-tinted shell steer'd to my feet?
Perchance the wave that bore it has rejoiced
Above Man's founder'd hopes, and shatter'd pride,
Whilst fierce Euroclydon swept, trumpet-voiced,
Through the frail spars, and hurl'd them in the tide,
And the lost seamen floated at its side!
Ah! thus too oft do Woe and Beauty meet,
Swept onward by the self-same tide of fate,
The bitter following swift upon the sweet,
Close, close together, yet how separate!
Frail waif from the sublime storm-shaken sea,
Thou seem'st the childhood toy of some old king,
Who 'mid the shock of nations lights on thee,
And instant backward do his thoughts take wing
To the unclouded days of infancy;
Then, sighing, thus away the foolish joy doth fling.
Forth from thine inner chambers come there out
Low murmurs of sweet mystic melodies,
Old Neptune's couch winding lone caves about,
In tones that faintly through the waves arise,
And steal to mortal ears in softest sighs.
The poet dreams of olden ages flowing
Through the time-ocean to the listening soul,
Ages when from each fountain clear and glowing,
Unto the spirit Naiad voices stole.
And still, from earth and sea, there ever pealeth
A voice far softer than leal lover's lay,
Bearing the heart, o'er which its true sense stealeth,
Far to diviner dreams of joy away,
And to the wisdom of a riper day.
To The Shah From Enweri
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

From thy worth and weight the stars gravitate,
And the equipoise of heaven is thy house's equipoise.