DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Mercury And Cupid
by Matthew Prior

In sullen Humour one Day Jove
Sent Hermes down to Ida's Grove,
Commanding Cupid to deliver
His Store of Darts, his total Quiver;
That Hermes shou'd the Weapons break,
Or throw 'em into Lethe's Lake.
Hermes, You know, must do his Errand:
He found his Man, produc'd his Warrant:
Cupid, your Darts this very Hour 
There's no contending against Power.
How sullen Jupiter, just now
I think I said: and You'll allow,
That Cupid was as bad as He:
Hear but the Youngster's Repartee.
Come Kinsman (said the little God)
Put off your Wings; lay by your Rod;
Retire with Me to yonder Bower;
And rest your self for half an Hour:
'Tis far indeed from hence to Heav'n:
And You fly fast: and 'tis but Seven.
We'll take one cooling Cup of Nectar;
And drink to this Celestial Hector 
He break my Darts, or hurt my Pow'r!
He, Leda's Swan, and Danae's Show'r!
Go, bid him his Wife's Tongue restrain;
And mind his Thunder, and his Rain. 
My Darts? O certainly I'll give 'em:
From Cloe's Eyes He shall receive 'em.
There's One, the Best in all my Quiver,
Twang! thro' his very Heart and Liver.
He then shall Pine, and Sigh, and Rave:
Good Lord! what Bustle shall We have!
Neptune must straight be sent to Sea;
And Flora summon'd twice a-day:
One must find Shells, and t'other Flow'rs,
For cooling Grotts, and fragrant Bow'rs,
That Cloe may be serv'd in State:
The Hours must at Her Toilet wait:
Whilst all the reasoning Fools below,
Wonder their Watches go too slow.
Lybs must fly South, and Eurus East,
For Jewels for Her Hair and Breast:
No Matter tho' their cruel Haste
Sink Cities, and lay Forrests waste.
No Matter tho' This Fleet be lost;
Or That lie wind-bound on the Coast.
What whis'pring in my Mother's Ear!
What Care, that Juno shou'd not hear!
What Work among You Scholar Gods!
Phoebus must write Him am'rous Odes:
And Thou, poor Cousin, must compose
His Letters in submissive Prose:
Whilst haughty Cloe, to sustain
The Honour of My mystic Reign,
Shall all his Gifts and Vows disdain;
And laugh at your Old Bully's Pain.
Dear Couz, said Hermes in a Fright,
For Heav'n sake keep Your Darts: Good Night.
The Revenge Of Rain-In-The-Face
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In that desolate land and lone,
Where the Big Horn and Yellowstone
Roar down their mountain path,
By their fires the Sioux Chiefs
Muttered their woes and griefs
And the menace of their wrath.
"Revenge!" cried Rain-in-the-Face,
"Revenue upon all the race
Of the White Chief with yellow hair!"
And the mountains dark and high
From their crags re-echoed the cry
Of his anger and despair.
In the meadow, spreading wide
By woodland and riverside
The Indian village stood;
All was silent as a dream,
Save the rushing a of the stream
And the blue-jay in the wood.
In his war paint and his beads,
Like a bison among the reeds,
In ambush the Sitting Bull
Lay with three thousand braves
Crouched in the clefts and caves,
Savage, unmerciful!
Into the fatal snare
The White Chief with yellow hair
And his three hundred men
Dashed headlong, sword in hand;
But of that gallant band
Not one returned again.
The sudden darkness of death
Overwhelmed them like the breath
And smoke of a furnace fire:
By the river's bank, and between
The rocks of the ravine,
They lay in their bloody attire.
But the foemen fled in the night,
And Rain-in-the-Face, in his flight
Uplifted high in air
As a ghastly trophy, bore
The brave heart, that beat no more,
Of the White Chief with yellow hair.
Whose was the right and the wrong?
Sing it, O funeral song,
With a voice that is full of tears,
And say that our broken faith
Wrought all this ruin and scathe,
In the Year of a Hundred Years.
The Digging Skeleton
by Charles Baudelaire

I
In the anatomical plates
displayed on the dusty quays
where many a dry book sleeps
mummified, as in ancient days,
drawings to which the gravity
and skill of some past artist,
despite the gloomy subject
have communicated beauty,
you'll see, and it renders those
gruesome mysteries more complete,
flayed men, and skeletons posed,
farm-hands, digging the soil at their feet.
II
Peasants, dour and resigned,
convicts pressed from the grave,
what's the strange harvest, say,
for which you hack the ground,
bending your backbones there,
flexing each fleshless sinew,
what farmer's barn must you
labour to fill with such care?
Do you seek to show ' by that pure,
and terrible, emblem of too hard
a fate! that even in the bone-yard
the promised sleep's far from sure:
that even the Void's a traitor:
that even Death tells us lies,
that in some land new to our eyes,
we must, perhaps, alas, forever,
and ever, and ever, eternally,
wield there the heavy spade,
scrape the dull earth, its blade
beneath our naked, bleeding feet?
The Friendly Meeting.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In spreading mantle to my chin conceald,
I trod the rocky path, so steep and grey,
Then to the wintry plain I bent my way
Uneasily, to flight my bosom steel'd.
But sudden was the newborn day reveal'd:
A maiden came, in heavenly bright array,
Like the fair creatures of the poet's lay
In realms of song. My yearning heart was heal'd.
Yet turn'd I thence, till she had onward pass'd,
While closer still the folds to draw I tried,
As though with heat self-kindled to grow warm;
But follow'd her. She stood. The die was cast!
No more within my mantle could I hide;
I threw it off, she lay within mine arm.
Ballade Of The Golfer In Love
by Clinton Scollard

In the "foursome" some would fain
Find nepenthe for their woe;
Following through shine or rain
Where the "greens" like satin show;
But I vote such sport as "slow"
Find it rather glum and gruesome;
With a little maid I know
I would play a quiet "twosome"!
In the "threesome," some maintain,
Lies excitement's gayest glow,
Strife that mounts unto the brain
Like the sparkling Veuve Clicquot;
My opinion? Nay, not so!
Noon or eve or morning dewsome
With a little maid I know
I would play a quiet "twosome"!
Bays of glory some would gain
With grim "Bogey" for their foe;
(He's a bogey who's not slain
Save one smite with canny blow!)
Yet I hold this tame, and though
My refrain seems trite, 'tis truesome;
With a little maid I know
I would play a quiet "twosome"!
envoy
Comrades all who golfing go,
Happiness, if you would view some,
With a little maid you know,
Haste and play a quiet "twosome"!
Sairey - Excerpts From An Incongruity
by John Kendall (Dum-Dum)

After A. C. S.
In Spring there are lashings of new books,
In Autumn fresh novels are sold,
They are many, but my shelf has few books,
My comrades, the favourites of old;
Tho' the roll of the cata-logues vary,
Thou alone art unchangeably dear,
O bibulous, beautiful Sairey,
Our Lady of Cheer.
By the whites of thine eyes that were yellow,
By the folds of thy duplicate chin,
By thy voice that was husky but mellow
With gin, with the richness of gin,
By thy scorn of the boy that was Bragian,
By thy wealth of perambulate swoons,
O matchless and mystical Magian,
Beguile us with boons.
For thou scatterest the evil before us
With grave humours and exquisite speech,
Till we heed not the 'new men that bore us,'
Nor regard the new women that screech;
We are weak, but thy hand shall refresh us;
We are faint, but we know thee sublime;
More priceless than pills, and more precious
Than draughts that are slime.
Thou hast lifted us forth from the melly,
Thou hast told, with thick heavings of pride,
Of the Package in Jonadge's belly,
And the Camel that rich folks may ride;
From the mire and the murk of a stern Age
In the Font of St. Polge we are clean,
O Gold as has passed through the Furnage,
Our Lady and Queen.
In thy chamber where Holborn is highest,
At the banquet, ere night had begun,
Thou wert seated with her that was nighest
Thy heart, save the Only, the One;
For the hours of thy labour were ended,
And the spirit of peace was within,
And the fumes from the teapot ascended
Of unsweetened gin.
Dost thou dream in dim dusk when light lingers,
Of Betsy, the bage, the despiged,
Who with snap of imperious fingers
Hari'ina, thy figment, deniged?
Dost thou gasp at the shock of the blow sich
As she, in her tantrum, let fall,
Who 'didn't believe there was no sich
A person' at all?
Fear not! Though the torters be frightful,
Though the words that thou took'st unawares
Be as serpiants that twine and are spiteful,
O thou best of good creeturs, who cares?
For the curse hath recoiled, and the stigma
Thou hast turned to her sorrer and shame,
While thy cryptic and sombre Enigma
Is shrined in a Name.
And our wine shall not lack for thy throttle,
Nor at night shall our portals be cloged,
And thy lips thou shalt place to the bottle
On our chimley, when so thou'rt dispoged;
We have pickled 'intensely' our salmon;
To thy moods are great cowcumbers dressed,
O Daughter of Gumption and Gammon,
Our Mistress and Guest!
And in hours when our lamp-ile has dwindled
In deep walleys of uttermost pain,
When our hopes to grey ashes are kindled,
We are fain of thee still, we are fain;
In this Piljian's Projiss of Woe, in
This Wale of white shadders and damp,
O Roge all a-blowin' and growin',
We open our Gamp!
Lines Addressed To An Old Bachelor.
by James McIntyre

In summer time we roam o'er dingle,
But winter draws us round the ingle,
Why do you remain thus single,
When love would make two hearts tingle,
Pray, tell me why my dearest wingle,
With the fair you do not mingle,
Better with love 'neath cot of shingle,
Than all your yellow gold to jingle.
For married life you would enjoy,
And soon a little girl and boy,
They would your leisure hours employ,
At Christmas you could buy each toy,
And fill their little hearts with joy,
For their amusements never cloy,
Business cares do men annoy,
Child's happiness knows no alloy.
Sonnet LXXIV.
by Anna Seward

[1]In sultry noon when youthful MILTON lay,
Supinely stretch'd beneath the poplar shade,
Lur'd by his Form, a fair Italian Maid
Steals from her loitering chariot, to survey
The slumbering charms, that all her soul betray.
Then, as coy fears th' admiring gaze upbraid,
Starts; - and these lines, with hurried pen pourtray'd,
Slides in his half-clos'd hand; - and speeds away. - 
"Ye eyes, ye human stars! - if, thus conceal'd
By Sleep's soft veil, ye agitate my heart,
Ah! what had been its conflict if reveal'd
Your rays had shone!" - Bright Nymph, thy strains impart
Hopes, that impel the graceful Bard to rove,
Seeking thro' Tuscan Vales his visionary Love.
1: This romantic circumstance of our great Poet's juvenility was inserted, as a well known fact, in one of the General Evening Posts in the Spring 1789, and it was there supposed to have formed the first impulse of his Italian journey.
The Ropewalk
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In that building, long and low,
With its windows all a-row,
Like the port-holes of a hulk,
Human spiders spin and spin,
Backward down their threads so thin
Dropping, each a hempen bulk.
At the end, an open door;
Squares of sunshine on the floor
Light the long and dusky lane;
And the whirring of a wheel,
Dull and drowsy, makes me feel
All its spokes are in my brain.
As the spinners to the end
Downward go and reascend,
Gleam the long threads in the sun;
While within this brain of mine
Cobwebs brighter and more fine
By the busy wheel are spun.
Two fair maidens in a swing,
Like white doves upon the wing,
First before my vision pass;
Laughing, as their gentle hands
Closely clasp the twisted strands,
At their shadow on the grass.
Then a booth of mountebanks,
With its smell of tan and planks,
And a girl poised high in air
On a cord, in spangled dress,
With a faded loveliness,
And a weary look of care.
Then a homestead among farms,
And a woman with bare arms
Drawing water from a well;
As the bucket mounts apace,
With it mounts her own fair face,
As at some magician's spell.
Then an old man in a tower,
Ringing loud the noontide hour,
While the rope coils round and round
Like a serpent at his feet,
And again, in swift retreat,
Nearly lifts him from the ground.
Then within a prison-yard,
Faces fixed, and stern, and hard,
Laughter and indecent mirth;
Ah! it is the gallows-tree!
Breath of Christian charity,
Blow, and sweep it from the earth!
Then a school-boy, with his kite
Gleaming in a sky of light,
And an eager, upward look;
Steeds pursued through lane and field;
Fowlers with their snares concealed;
And an angler by a brook.
Ships rejoicing in the breeze,
Wrecks that float o'er unknown seas,
Anchors dragged through faithless sand;
Sea-fog drifting overhead,
And, with lessening line and lead,
Sailors feeling for the land.
All these scenes do I behold,
These, and many left untold,
In that building long and low;
While the wheel goes round and round,
With a drowsy, dreamy sound,
And the spinners backward go.
The Sifting Of Peter
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In St. Luke's Gospel we are told
How Peter in the days of old
Was sifted;
And now, though ages intervene,
Sin is the same, while time and scene
Are shifted.
Satan desires us, great and small,
As wheat to sift us, and we all
Are tempted;
Not one, however rich or great,
Is by his station or estate
Exempted.
No house so safely guarded is
But he, by some device of his,
Can enter;
No heart hath armor so complete
But he can pierce with arrows fleet
Its centre.
For all at last the cock will crow,
Who hear the warning voice, but go
Unheeding,
Till thrice and more they have denied
The Man of Sorrows, crucified
And bleeding.
One look of that pale suffering face
Will make us feel the deep disgrace
Of weakness;
We shall be sifted till the strength
Of self-conceit be changed at length
To meekness.
Wounds of the soul, though healed will ache;
The reddening scars remain, and make
Confession;
Lost innocence returns no more;
We are not what we were before
Transgression.
But noble souls, through dust and heat,
Rise from disaster and defeat
The stronger,
And conscious still of the divine
Within them, lie on earth supine
No longer.
A Satyre On Charles II
by John Wilmot

In th' isle of Britain, long since famous grown
For breeding the best cunts in Christendom,
There reigns, and oh! long may he reign and thrive,
The easiest King and best bred man alive.
Him no ambition moves to get reknown
Like the French fool, that wanders up and down
Starving his people, hazarding his crown.
Peace is his aim, his gentleness is such,
And love he loves, for he loves f*cking much.
Nor are his high desires above his strength:
His scepter and his prick are of a length;
And she may sway the one who plays with th' other,
And make him little wiser than his brother.
Poor Prince! thy prick, like thy buffoons at court,
Will govern thee because it makes thee sport.
'Tis sure the sauciest prick that e'er did swive,
The proudest, peremptoriest prick alive.
Though safety, law, religion, life lay on 't,
'Twould break through all to make its way to cunt.
Restless he rolls about from whore to whore,
A merry monarch, scandalous and poor.
To Carwell, the most dear of all his dears,
The best relief of his declining years,
Oft he bewails his fortune, and her fate:
To love so well, and be beloved so late.
Yet his dull, graceless bollocks hang an arse.
This you'd believe, had I but time to tell ye
The pains it costs to poor, laborious Nelly,
Whilst she employs hands, fingers, mouth, and thighs,
Ere she can raise the member she enjoys.
All monarchs I hate, and the thrones they sit on,
From the hector of France to the cully of Britain.
The King Of England
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

(June 24th, 1902)
In that eclipse of noon when joy was hushed
Like the bird's song beneath unnatural night,
And Terror's footfall in the darkness crushed
The rose imperial of our delight,
Then, even then, though no man cried "He comes,"
And no man turned to greet him passing there,
With phantom heralds challenging renown
And silent-throbbing drums
I saw the King of England, hale and fair,
Ride out with a great train through London town.
Unarmed he rode, but in his ruddy shield
The lions bore the dint of many a lance,
And up and down his mantle's azure field
Were strewn the lilies plucked in famous France.
Before him went with banner floating wide
The yeoman breed that served his honour best,
And mixed with these his knights of noble blood;
But in the place of pride
His admirals in billowy lines abreast
Convoyed him close like galleons on the flood.
Full of a strength unbroken showed his face
And his brow calm with youth's unclouded dawn,
But round his lips were lines of tenderer grace
Such as no hand but Time's hath ever drawn.
Surely he knew his glory had no part
In dull decay, nor unto Death must bend,
Yet surely too of lengthening shadows dreamed
With sunset in his heart,
So brief his beauty now, so near the end,
And now so old and so immortal seemed.
O King among the living, these shall hail
Sons of thy dust that shall inherit thee:
O King of men that die, though we must fail
Thy life is breathed from thy triumphant sea.
O man that servest men by right of birth,
Our hearts' content thy heart shall also keep,
Thou too with us shalt one day lay thee down
In our dear native earth,
Full sure the King of England, while we sleep,
For ever rides abroad, through London town.
The Neckan
by Matthew Arnold

In summer, on the headlands,
The Baltic Sea along,
Sits Neckan with his harp of gold,
And sings his plaintive song.
Green rolls beneath the headlands,
Green rolls the Baltic Sea.
And there, below the Neckan's feet,
His wife and children be.
He sings not of the ocean,
Its shells and roses pale.
Of earth, of earth the Neckan sings;
He hath no other tale.
He sits upon the headlands,
And sings a mournful stave
Of all he saw and felt on earth,
Far from the green sea wave.
Sings how, a knight, he wander'd
By castle, field, and town.
But earthly knights have harder hearts
Than the Sea Children own.
Sings of his earthly bridal
Priest, knights, and ladies gay.
'And who art thou,' the priest began,
'Sir Knight, who wedd'st to-day?'
'I am no knight,' he answer'd;
'From the sea waves I come.'
The knights drew sword, the ladies scream'd,
The surplic'd priest stood dumb.
He sings how from the chapel
He vanish'd with his bride,
And bore her down to the sea halls,
Beneath the cold sea tide.
He sings how she sits weeping
'Mid shells that round her lie.
'False Neckan shares my bed,' she weeps;
'No Christian mate have I.'
He sings how through the billows
He rose to earth again,
And sought a priest to sign the cross,
That Neckan Heaven might gain.
He sings how, on an evening,
Beneath the birch trees cool,
He sate and play d his harp of gold,
Beside the river pool.
Beside the pool sate Neckan
Tears fill'd his cold blue eye.
On his white mule, across the bridge,
A cassock'd priest rode by.
'Why sitt'st thou there, O Neckan,
And play'st thy harp of gold?
Sooner shall this my staff bear leaves,
Than thou shalt Heaven behold.'
But, lo, the staff, it budded!
It green'd, it branch'd, it waved.
'O ruth of God,' the preist cried out,
'This lost sea-creature saved!'
The cassock'd priest rode onwards,
And vanish'd with his mule.
And Neckan in the twilight grey
Wept by the river pool.
He wept: 'The earth hath kindness,
The sea, the starry poles;
Earth, sea, and sky, and God above
But, ah, not human souls!'
In summer, on the headlands,
The Baltic Sea along,
Sits Neckan with his harp of gold,
And sings this plaintive song.
Her Waiting Face
by James Whitcomb Riley

In some strange place
Of long-lost lands he finds her waiting face -
Comes marveling upon it, unaware,
Set moonwise in the midnight of her hair.
A Cherished Relic.
by George W. Doneghy

In the attic, unused, there they put it away;
The old oaken frame has begun to decay;
What iron's about it is eaten with rust,
And upon and around it are cobwebs and dust;
The dear, loving hands that on it have spun,
With labor and toil forever are done,
And long is the time since I saw them unreel
The threads, snowy white, from the old spinning-wheel!
It stood on a porch where the Summer sunshine
Sifted down to the floor through a clambering vine,
Whose tendrils about the lattice-work clung
Like my heart-strings round her, and the song that she sung;
And the pictures of fancy I con o'er and o'er,
Till, raptured, I see the dear features once more,
And thrill with the touch when her lips set the seal
Of her love, as she spun on the old spinning-wheel!
Then through the shadows and mists of many long years
The old cottage home to the vision appears;
And though youth it has fled, and the hair it is gray,
I'm a bare-footed boy returned to his play--
Forgetting the present to dream once again
That life had no anguish, no sorrow, no pain;
And sweetly the bells of the memory peal
When communing up there with the old spinning-wheel!
And back from the past, with its grief and its joy,
Come the tones of a voice I heard when a boy,
And I see once again, as it moved to and fro,
A form that now rests where the wild roses blow,
And the sentinel stars their love vigils keep
Above the dear one in her long, dreamless sleep;
But memories sweet to a heart that can feel
Still cluster around the old spinning-wheel.
Some spokes from the rim are broken and gone,
And it stands there forsaken, neglected, alone;
It knows naught of language, but a story can tell
With a charm that for me time cannot dispel;
And often I climb the old attic stair
The love of my childhood with it to share,
And emotions possess me I cannot conceal
When fondly I gaze on the old spinning-wheel!
The distaff is worn and smooth with the touch
Of the now folded hands that used it so much;
And lingering there I clearly can trace
The sweet smile of love from a well-cherished face,
Which sheds round about it a halo divine
When thus I am kneeling at memory's shrine,
And hallows the thoughts which on the mind steal,
When up there alone with the old spinning-wheel!
'Tis then that I see her in saintly guise,
Through the fast-welling tears that come to my eyes--
A vision arrayed in raiment white
That beckons to me from the regions of light,
And illumines the way that my footsteps may tread
Unerringly where her love for me led--
Along the straight path that she tried to reveal
As she taught me, and spun on the old spinning-wheel!
Yes, the finger of Time has furrowed the brow,
And silvered the hair, yet I dream of her now
As when, long ago, I heard as a child
The words of her love that my sorrows beguiled;
And this relic she used but brings back anew
The morning of life, that was fresh with the dew
Distilled from the heart, as she taught me to kneel
Right down by her side, and the old spinning-wheel!
Fragment I
by Alan Seeger

In that fair capital where Pleasure, crowned
Amidst her myriad courtiers, riots and rules,
I too have been a suitor. Radiant eyes
Were my life's warmth and sunshine, outspread arms
My gilded deep horizons. I rejoiced
In yielding to all amorous influence
And multiple impulsion of the flesh,
To feel within my being surge and sway
The force that all the stars acknowledge too.
Amid the nebulous humanity
Where I an atom crawled and cleaved and sundered,
I saw a million motions, but one law;
And from the city's splendor to my eyes
The vapors passed and there was nought but Love,
A ferment turbulent, intensely fair,
Where Beauty beckoned and where Strength pursued.