DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Simonides Preserved By The Gods.[1]
by Jean de La Fontaine

Three sorts there are, as Malherbe[2] says,
Which one can never overpraise - 
The gods, the ladies, and the king;
And I, for one, endorse the thing.
The heart, praise tickles and entices;
Of fair one's smile, it oft the price is.
See how the gods sometimes repay it.
Simonides - the ancients say it - 
Once undertook, in poem lyric,
To write a wrestler's panegyric;
Which, ere he had proceeded far in,
He found his subject somewhat barren.
No ancestors of great renown;
His sire of some unnoted town;
Himself as little known to fame,
The wrestler's praise was rather tame.
The poet, having made the most of
Whate'er his hero had to boast of,
Digress'd, by choice that was not all luck's,
To Castor and his brother Pollux;
Whose bright career was subject ample,
For wrestlers, sure, a good example.
Our poet fatten'd on their story,
Gave every fight its place and glory,
Till of his panegyric words
These deities had got two-thirds.
All done, the poet's fee
A talent was to be.
But when he comes his bill to settle,
The wrestler, with a spice of mettle,
Pays down a third, and tells the poet,
'The balance they may pay who owe it.
The gods than I are rather debtors
To such a pious man of letters.
But still I shall be greatly pleased
To have your presence at my feast,
Among a knot of guests select,
My kin, and friends I most respect.'
More fond of character than coffer,
Simonides accepts the offer.
While at the feast the party sit,
And wine provokes the flow of wit,
It is announced that at the gate
Two men, in haste that cannot wait,
Would see the bard. He leaves the table,
No loss at all to 'ts noisy gabble.
The men were Leda's twins, who knew
What to a poet's praise was due,
And, thanking, paid him by foretelling
The downfall of the wrestler's dwelling.
From which ill-fated pile, indeed,
No sooner was the poet freed,
Than, props and pillars failing,
Which held aloft the ceiling
So splendid o'er them,
It downward loudly crash'd,
The plates and flagons dash'd,
And men who bore them;
And, what was worse,
Full vengeance for the man of verse,
A timber broke the wrestler's thighs,
And wounded many otherwise.
The gossip Fame, of course, took care
Abroad to publish this affair.
'A miracle!' the public cried, delighted.
No more could god-beloved bard be slighted.
His verse now brought him more than double,
With neither duns, nor care, nor trouble.
Whoe'er laid claim to noble birth
Must buy his ancestors a slice,
Resolved no nobleman on earth
Should overgo him in the price.
From which these serious lessons flow: - 
Fail not your praises to bestow
On gods and godlike men. Again,
To sell the product of her pain
Is not degrading to the Muse.
Indeed, her art they do abuse,
Who think her wares to use,
And yet a liberal pay refuse.
Whate'er the great confer upon her,
They're honour'd by it while they honour.
Of old, Olympus and Parnassus
In friendship heaved their sky-crown'd masses.
The Treasure
by Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell

Three times have I beheld
Fear leap in a babe's face, and take his breath,
Fear, like the fear of eld
That knows the price of life, the name of death.
What is it justifies
This thing, this dread, this fright that has no tongue,
The terror in those eyes
When only eyes can speak-they are so young?
Not yet those eyes had wept.
What does fear cherish that it locks so well?
What fortress is thus kept?
Of what is ignorant terror sentinel?
And pain in the poor child,
Monstrously disproportionate, and dumb
In the poor beast, and wild
In the old decorous man, caught, overcome?
Of what the outposts these?
Of what the fighting guardians?    What demands
That sense of menaces,
And then such flying feet, imploring hands?
Life: There's nought else to seek;
Life only, little prized; but by design
Of Nature prized.    How weak,
How sad, how brief!    O how divine, divine!
S'ta.
by Toru Dutt

Three happy children in a darkened room!
What do they gaze on with wide-open eyes?
A dense, dense forest, where no sunbeam pries,
And in its centre a cleared spot.--There bloom
Gigantic flowers on creepers that embrace
Tall trees; there, in a quiet lucid lake
The white swans glide; there, "whirring from the brake,"
The peacock springs; there, herds of wild deer race;
There, patches gleam with yellow waving grain;
There, blue smoke from strange altars rises light,
There, dwells in peace, the poet-anchorite.
But who is this fair lady? Not in vain
She weeps,--for lo! at every tear she sheds
Tears from three pairs of young eyes fall amain,
And bowed in sorrow are the three young heads.
It is an old, old story, and the lay
Which has evoked sad S'ta from the past
Is by a mother sung.... 'Tis hushed at last
And melts the picture from their sight away,
Yet shall they dream of it until the day!
When shall those children by their mother's side
Gather, ah me! as erst at eventide?
Three Souls
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Three Souls there were that reached the Heavenly Gate,
And gained permission of the Guard to wait.
Barred from the bliss of Paradise by sin,
They did not ask or hope to enter in.
'We loved one woman (thus their story ran);
We lost her, for she chose another man.
So great our love, it brought us to this door;
We only ask to see her face once more.
Then will we go to realms where we belong,
And pay our penalty for doing wrong.'
'And wert thou friends on earth?'    (The Guard spake thus.)
'Nay, we were foes; but Death made friends of us.
The dominating thought within each Soul
Brought us together, comrades, to this goal,
To see her face, and in its radiance bask
For one great moment - that is all we ask.
And, having seen her, we must journey back
The path we came - a hard and dangerous track.'
'Wait, then,' the Angel said, 'beside me here,
But do not strive within God's Gate to peer
Nor converse hold with Spirits clothed in light
Who pass this way; thou hast not earned the right.'
They waited year on year.    Then, like a flame,
News of the woman's death from earth-land came.
The eager lovers scanned with hungry eyes
Each Soul that passed the Gates of Paradise.
The well-beloved face in vain they sought,
Until one day the Guardian Angel brought
A message to them.    'She has gone,' he said,
'Down to the lower regions of the dead;
Her chosen mate went first; so great her love
She has resigned the joys that wait above
To dwell with him, until perchance some day,
Absolved from sin, he seeks the Better Way.'
Silent, the lovers turned.    The pitying Guard
Said:    'Stay (the while his hand the door unbarred),
There waits for thee no darker grief or woe;
Enter the Gates, and all God's glories know.
But to be ready for so great a bliss,
Pause for a moment and take heed of this:
The dearest treasure by each mortal lost
Lies yonder, when the Threshold has been crossed,
And thou shalt find within that Sacred Place
The shining wonder of her worshipped face.
All that is past is but a troubled dream;
Go forward now and claim the Fact Supreme.'
Then clothed like Angels, fitting their estate,
Three Souls went singing, singing through God's Gate.
The Union
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

I
Three in one, but one in three,
God, who girt her with the sea,
Bade our Commonweal to be:
Nought, if now not one.
Though fraud and fear would sever
The bond assured for ever,
Their shameful strength shall never
Undo what heaven has done.
II
South and North and West and East
Watch the ravens flock to feast,
Dense as round some death-struck beast,
Black as night is black.
Stand fast as faith together
In stress of treacherous weather
When hounds and wolves break tether
And Treason guides the pack.
III
Lovelier than thy seas are strong,
Glorious Ireland, sword and song
Gird and crown thee: none may wrong,
Save thy sons alone.
The sea that laughs around us
Hath sundered not but bound us:
The sun's first rising found us
Throned on its equal throne.
IV
North and South and East and West,
All true hearts that wish thee best
Beat one tune and own one quest,
Staunch and sure as steel.
God guard from dark disunion
Our threefold State's communion,
God save the loyal Union,
The royal Commonweal!
A Vow-Day Flower
by Michael Earls

(POVERTY, CHASTITY, OBEDIENCE)
Three little leaves like shamrock,
And the trefoil's love-lit eyes,
Whether it takes the sunshine
Or the shadows from the skies.
And richer than rose or lily
Is the flower he wears today,
With triune bloom and fragrance
From earth to heaven alway.
Poverty is the low leaf,
And one is chastely white,
And the red love of obedience
Goes up to God a light.
Grow, good flower, and keep him
Who wears your bloom today,
Shadow and sunshine bless him,
And the trefoil's heavenward way.
Under Mr Milton's Picture, Before His Paradise Lost.[1]
by John Dryden

Three Poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England, did adorn.
The first, in loftiness of thought surpass'd;
The next, in majesty; in both the last.
The force of nature could no further go;
To make a third, she join'd the former two.
After Looking into Carlyles Reminiscences - Sonnets
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

I.
Three men lived yet when this dead man was young
Whose names and words endure for ever one:
Whose eyes grew dim with straining toward the sun,
And his wings weakened, and his angel's tongue
Lost half the sweetest song was ever sung,
But like the strain half uttered earth hears none,
Nor shall man hear till all men's songs are done:
One whose clear spirit like an eagle hung
Between the mountains hallowed by his love
And the sky stainless as his soul above:
And one the sweetest heart that ever spake
The brightest words wherein sweet wisdom smiled.
These deathless names by this dead snake denied
Bid memory spit upon him for their sake.
II.
Sweet heart, forgive me for thine own sweet sake,
Whose kind blithe soul such seas of sorrow swam,
And for my love's sake, powerless as I am
For love to praise thee, or like thee to make
Music of mirth where hearts less pure would break,
Less pure than thine, our life-unspotted Lamb.
Things hatefullest thou hadst not heart to damn,
Nor wouldst have set thine heel on this dead snake.
Let worms consume its memory with its tongue,
The fang that stabbed fair Truth, the lip that stung
Men's memories uncorroded with its breath.
Forgive me, that with bitter words like his
I mix the gentlest English name that is,
The tenderest held of all that know not death.
Nursery Rhyme. LXXXIV. Proverbs.
by Unknown

Three straws on a staff,
Would make a baby cry and laugh.
Three Weeks Old
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Three weeks since there was no such rose in being;
Now may eyes made dim with deep delight
See how fair it is, laugh with love, and seeing
Praise the chance that bids us bless the sight.
Three weeks old, and a very rose of roses,
Bright and sweet as love is sweet and bright.
Heaven and earth, till a man's life wanes and closes,
Show not life or love a lovelier sight.
Three weeks past have renewed the rosebright creature
Day by day with life, and night by night.
Love, though fain of its every faultless feature,
Finds not words to match the silent sight.
The Outcasts
by Arthur Conan Doyle

Three women stood by the river's flood
In the gas-lamp's murky light,
A devil watched them on the left,
And an angel on the right.
The clouds of lead flowed overhead;
The leaden stream below;
They marvelled much, that outcast three,
Why Fate should use them so.
Said one: "I have a mother dear,
Who lieth ill abed,
And by my sin the wage I win
From which she hath her bread."
Said one: "I am an outcast's child,
And such I came on earth.
If me ye blame, for this my shame,
Whom blame ye for my birth?"
The third she sank a sin-blotched face,
And prayed that she might rest,
In the weary flow of the stream below,
As on her mother's breast.
Now past there came a godly man,
Of goodly stock and blood,
And as he passed one frown he cast
At that sad sisterhood.
Sorely it grieved that godly man,
To see so foul a sight,
He turned his face, and strode apace,
And left them to the night.
But the angel drew her sisters three,
Within her pinions' span,
And the crouching devil slunk away
To join the godly man.
Magi Gothamenses.
by Jacob Bigelow

Three wise men of Gotham
Went to sea in a bowl.
If the bowl had been stronger,
My song had been longer.
Tres magi Gothamenses
In scypho mare tranant
Si cymba secura,
Canenda sint plura.
Cives tres docti Gothamenses 'quora verrunt,
Crater et fragilis corpora obesa vehit.
Mox en tempestas, surguntque ad sidera fluctus.
Musa dolens casum nunc memorare nequit.
Lucy IV
by William Wordsworth

Three years she grew in sun and shower;
Then Nature said, 'A lovelier flower
On earth was never sown;
This child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
A lady of my own.
'Myself will to my darling be
Both law and impulse: and with me
The girl, in rock and plain,
In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power
To kindle or restrain.
'She shall be sportive as the fawn
That wild with glee across the lawn
Or up the mountain springs;
And hers shall be the breathing balm,
And hers the silence and the calm
Of mute insensate things.
'The floating clouds their state shall lend
To her; for her the willow bend;
Nor shall she fail to see
Even in the motions of the storm
Grace that shall mould the maiden's form
By silent sympathy.
'The stars of midnight shall be dear
To her; and she shall lean her ear
In many a secret place
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face.
'And vital feelings of delight
Shall rear her form to stately height,
Her virgin bosom swell;
Such thoughts to Lucy I will give
While she and I together live
Here in this happy dell.'
Thus Nature spake, The work was done, 
How soon my Lucy's race was run!
She died, and left to me
This heath, this calm, and quiet scene;
The memory of what has been,
And never more will be.
A Servant When He Reigneth
by Rudyard Kipling

Three things make earth unquiet
And four she cannot brook
The godly Agur counted them
And put them in a book,
Those Four Tremendous Curses
With which mankind is cursed;
But a Servant when He Reigneth
Old Agur entered first.
An Handmaid that is Mistress
We need not call upon.
A Fool when he is full of Meat
Will fall asleep anon.
An Odious Woman Married
May bear a babe and mend;
But a Servant when He Reigneth
Is Confusion to the end.
His feet are swift to tumult,
His hands are slow to toil,
His ears are deaf to reason,
His lips are loud in broil.
He knows no use for power
Except to show his might.
He gives no heed to judgment
Unless it prove him right.
Because he served a master
Before his Kingship came,
And hid in all disaster
Behind his master's name,
So, when his Folly opens
The unnecessary hells,
A Servant when He Reigneth
Throws the blame on some one else.
His vows are lightly spoken,
His faith is hard to bind,
His trust is easy broken,
He fears his fellow-kind.
The nearest mob will move him
To break the pledge he gave,
Oh, a Servant when he Reigneth
Is more than ever slave!
To A Bower.
by John Clare

Three times, sweet hawthorn! I have met thy bower,
And thou hast gain'd my love, and I do feel
An aching pain to leave thee: every flower
Around thee opening doth new charms reveal,
And binds my fondness stronger.--Wild wood bower,
In memory's calendar thou'rt treasur'd up:
And should we meet in some remoter hour,
When all thy bloom to winter-winds shall droop;
Ah, in life's winter, many a day to come,
Should my grey wrinkles pass thy spot of ground,
And find it bare--with thee no longer crown'd;
Within the woodman's faggot torn from hence,
Or chopt by hedgers up for yonder fence;
Ah, should I chance by thee as then to come,
I'll look upon thy nakedness with pain,
And, as I view thy desolated doom,
In fancy's eye I'll fetch thy shade again:
And of this lovely day I'll think and sigh,
And ponder o'er this sweetly-passing hour,
And feel as then the throes of joys gone by,
When I was young, and thou a blooming bower.
Three Of A Kind.
by Bliss Carman (William)

Three of us without a care
In the red September
Tramping down the roads of Maine,
Making merry with the rain,
With the fellow winds a-fare
Where the winds remember.
Three of us with shocking hats,
Tattered and unbarbered,
Happy with the splash of mud,
With the highways in our blood,
Bearing down on Deacon Platt's
Where last year we harbored.
We've come down from Kennebec,
Tramping since last Sunday,
Loping down the coast of Maine,
With the sea for a refrain,
And the maples neck and neck
All the way to Fundy.
Sometimes lodging in an inn,
Cosey as a dormouse--
Sometimes sleeping on a knoll
With no rooftree but the Pole--
Sometimes halely welcomed in
At an old-time farmhouse.
Loafing under ledge and tree,
Leaping over boulders,
Sitting on the pasture bars,
Hail-fellow with storm or stars--
Three of us alive and free,
With unburdened shoulders!
Three of us with hearts like pine
That the lightnings splinter,
Clean of cleave and white of grain--
Three of us afoot again,
With a rapture fresh and fine
As a spring in winter!
All the hills are red and gold;
And the horns of vision
Call across the crackling air
Till we shout back to them there,
Taken captive in the hold
Of their bluff derision.
Spray-salt gusts of ocean blow
From the rocky headlands;
Overhead the wild geese fly,
Honking in the autumn sky;
Black sinister flocks of crow
Settle on the dead lands.
Three of us in love with life,
Roaming like wild cattle,
With the stinging air a-reel
As a warrior might feel
The swift orgasm of the knife
Slay him in mid-battle.
Three of us to march abreast
Down the hills of morrow!
With a clean heart and a few
Friends to clench the spirit to!--
Leave the gods to rule the rest,
And good-by, sorrow!
Captain's Adventure.
by James McIntyre

Three years ago my vessel lay
In a port of Hudson Bay,
I started off for the trading post,
But on the way back I then got lost.
And the thought soon gave me the blues,
Trudging along on my snow shoes,
Over the wastes of drifting snow,
While the wind it did fiercely blow.
I feared that I would be froze hard,
For it was a fearful blizzard,
I was growing faint and weary,
Not the slightest hopes to cheer me.
Without compass to bearing,
My yells were beyond crews' hearing,
But at last to my loud halloo
There came a mournful ho, ho.
From creature white I thought 'twas ghost,
And that I was forever lost,
I heard horrid creature flutter,
As it those strange sounds did utter.
At last I found that all this howl
Was from a noble large white owl,
And a happy apparition,
So runs the Indian tradition.
It guides the lost one in distress
And leads him out of wilderness,
This strange bird I soon follow,
And it still kept up its halloo.
It seem'd that it cried to cheer me,
I thought the ship was now near me,
As I walked o'er the banks of snow
I kept up a feeble halloo.
And but a little ways beyond
From my own crew I got respond,
With joy I was received by crew,
So happy all at my rescue.
It must be that some gentle soul
Did then inhabit that strange fowl,
But O to me 'twas wondrous fair,
For it thus saved me from despair.
The man's my foe who now doth growl
At the strange sounds made by the owl,
The sailors all they took delight
To feed this bird so pure and white.
But soon the poor bird was o'erfed,
Early one morn we found it dead,
And my breast it heaved with sighs,
And the tears poured from mine eyes.
But precious relic in glass case
I oft gaze on its kindly face,
And grateful memories it brings,
When I behold its glorious wings.
To stuff such birds I knew the art
On it I worked with my whole heart,
To preserve each grace and feature
Full of charms to me is creature.
The Masque Of The Magi
by James Elroy Flecker

Three Kings have come to Bethlehem
With a trailing star in front of them.
MARY
What would you in this little place,
You three bright kings?
KINGS
Mother, we tracked the trailing star
Which brought us here from lands afar,
And we would look on his dear face
Round whom the Seraphs fold their wings.
MARY
But who are you, bright kings?
CASPAR
Caspar am I: the rocky North
From storm and silence drave me forth
Down to the blue and tideless sea.
I do not fear the tinkling sword,
For I am a great battle-lord,
And love the horns of chivalry.
And I have brought thee splendid gold,
The strong man's joy, refined and cold.
All hail, thou Prince of Galilee!
BALTHAZAR
I am Balthazar, Lord of Ind,
Where blows a soft and scented wind
From Taprobane towards Cathay.
My children, who are tall and wise,
Stand by a tree with shutten eyes
And seem to meditate or pray.
And these red drops of frankincense
Betoken man's intelligence.
Hail, Lord of Wisdom, Prince of Day!
MELCHIOR
I am the dark man, Melchior,
And I shall live but little more
Since I am old and feebly move.
My kingdom is a burnt-up land
Half buried by the drifting sand,
So hot Apollo shines above.
What could I bring but simple myrrh
White blossom of the cordial fire?
Hail, Prince of Souls, and Lord of Love!
CHORUS OF ANGELS
O Prince of souls and Lord of Love,
O'er thee the purple-breasted dove
Shall watch with open silver wings,
Thou King of Kings.
Suaviole o flos Virginum,
Apparuit Rex Gentium.
. . .
"Who art thou, little King of Kings?"
His wondering mother sings.
The Three Silences Of Molinos
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

TO JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
Three Silences there are: the first of speech,
The second of desire, the third of thought;
This is the lore a Spanish monk, distraught
With dreams and visions, was the first to teach.
These Silences, commingling each with each,
Made up the perfect Silence, that he sought
And prayed for, and wherein at times he caught
Mysterious sounds from realms beyond our reach.
O thou, whose daily life anticipates
The life to come, and in whose thought and word
The spiritual world preponderates.
Hermit of Amesbury! thou too hast heard
Voices and melodies from beyond the gates,
And speakest only when thy soul is stirred!