DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Sport In The Meadows
by John Clare

Maytime is to the meadows coming in,
And cowslip peeps have gotten eer so big,
And water blobs and all their golden kin
Crowd round the shallows by the striding brig.
Daisies and buttercups and ladysmocks
Are all abouten shining here and there,
Nodding about their gold and yellow locks
Like morts of folken flocking at a fair.
The sheep and cows are crowding for a share
And snatch the blossoms in such eager haste
That basket-bearing children running there
Do think within their hearts they'll get them all
And hoot and drive them from their graceless waste
As though there wa'n't a cowslip peep to spare.
--For they want some for tea and some for wine
And some to maken up a cuckaball
To throw across the garland's silken line
That reaches oer the street from wall to wall.
--Good gracious me, how merrily they fare:
One sees a fairer cowslip than the rest,
And off they shout--the foremost bidding fair
To get the prize--and earnest half and jest
The next one pops her down--and from her hand
Her basket falls and out her cowslips all
Tumble and litter there--the merry band
In laughing friendship round about her fall
To helpen gather up the littered flowers
That she no loss may mourn. And now the wind
In frolic mood among the merry hours
Wakens with sudden start and tosses off
Some untied bonnet on its dancing wings;
Away they follow with a scream and laugh,
And aye the youngest ever lags behind,
Till on the deep lake's very bank it hings.
They shout and catch it and then off they start
And chase for cowslips merry as before,
And each one seems so anxious at the heart
As they would even get them all and more.
One climbs a molehill for a bunch of may,
One stands on tiptoe for a linnet's nest
And pricks her hand and throws her flowers away
And runs for plantin leaves to have it drest.
So do they run abouten all the day
And teaze the grass-hid larks from getting rest.
--Scarce give they time in their unruly haste
To tie a shoestring that the grass unties--
And thus they run the meadows' bloom to waste,
Till even comes and dulls their phantasies,
When one finds losses out to stifle smiles
Of silken bonnet-strings--and utters sigh
Oer garments renten clambering over stiles.
Yet in the morning fresh afield they hie,
Bidding the last day's troubles all goodbye;
When red pied cow again their coming hears,
And ere they clap the gate she tosses up
Her head and hastens from the sport she fears:
The old yoe calls her lamb nor cares to stoop
To crop a cowslip in their company.
Thus merrily the little noisy troop
Along the grass as rude marauders hie,
For ever noisy and for ever gay
While keeping in the meadows holiday.
On Woman
by William Butler Yeats

May God be praised for woman
That gives up all her mind,
A man may find in no man
A friendship of her kind
That covers all he has brought
As with her flesh and bone,
Nor quarrels with a thought
Because it is not her own.
Though pedantry denies,
It's plain the Bible means
That Solomon grew wise
While talking with his queens.
Yet never could, although
They say he counted grass,
Count all the praises due
When Sheba was his lass,
When she the iron wrought, or
When from the smithy fire
It shuddered in the water:
Harshness of their desire
That made them stretch and yawn,
Pleasure that comes with sleep,
Shudder that made them one.
What else He give or keep
God grant me'no, not here,
For I am not so bold
To hope a thing so dear
Now I am growing old,
But when if the tale's true
The Pestle of the moon
That pounds up all anew
Brings me to birth again'
To find what once I had
And know what once I have known,
Until I am driven mad,
Sleep driven from my bed,
By tenderness and care,
Pity, an aching head,
Gnashing of teeth, despair;
And all because of some one
Perverse creature of chance,
And live like Solomon
That Sheba led a dance.
Me Thinks This Heart Should Rest Awhile
by Emily Bronte

Me thinks this heart should rest awhile
So stilly round the evening falls
The veiled sun sheds no parting smile
Nor mirth nor music wakes my Halls
I have sat lonely all the day
Watching the drizzly mist descend
And first conceal the hills in grey
And then along the valleys wend
And I have sat and watched the trees
And the sad flowers how drear they blow
Those flowers were formed to feel the breeze
Wave their light leaves in summer's glow
Yet their lives passed in gloomy woe
And hopeless comes its dark decline
And I lament because I know
That cold departure pictures mine
Orestes
by Stephen Phillips

Me in far lands did Justice call, cold queen
Among the dead, who after heat and haste
At length have leisure for her steadfast voice,
That gathers peace from the great deeps of hell.
She call'd me, saying: 'I heard a cry by night!
Go thou, and question not; within thy halls
My will awaits fulfilment. Lo, the dead
Cries out before me in the under-world.
Seek not to justify thyself: in me
Be strong, and I will show thee wise in time;
For, though my face be dark, yet unto those
Who truly follow me through storm or shine,
For these the veil shall fall, and they shall see
They walked with Wisdom, though they knew her not.'
So sped I home; and from the under-world
Forever came a wind that fill'd my sails,
Cold, like a spirit! and ever her still voice
Spoke over shoreless seas and fathomless deeps,
And in great calms, as from a colder world;
Nor slack'd I sail by day, nor yet when night
Fell on my running keel, and now would burn,
With all her eyes, my errand into me.
So sped I on, fill'd with a voice divine:
And hardly wist I whom I was to slay,
My mother! but a vague, heroic dream
Possess'd me; fired to do the will of gods,
I lost the man in minister of Heaven;
Nor took I note of sandbank, nor of storm,
Nor of the ocean's thunders, when the shores
All round had faded, leaving me alone:
I knew I could not die, till I had slain!
But, when I came once more upon the land
That rear'd me, all the sweetness of old days
Came back on me: I stood, as from a dream
Waked to a sudden, sad reality.
And when, far off, I saw those ancient towers,
The palaces and places of my youth,
I long'd to fall into my mother's arms,
And tell a thousand tales of near escapes.
And lo! the nurse, that fondled me of yore,
Fell with glad tears upon my neck, and told
How she, and how my mother, all this while
Had dream'd of all I was to do, and said
How dear I should be to my mother's eyes.
Her words shook me, but shook not my resolve.
For even then there came that sterner voice,
Echoing to what was highest in the soul.
Then, like to those who have a work on earth,
And put far from them lips of wife or child,
And gird them to the accomplishment; so I
Strode in, nor saw at all mine ancient halls;
And struck my father's murderess, not my mother.
And, when I had smitten, lo, the strength of gods
Pass'd from me, and the old, familiar halls
Reel'd back on me; dim statues, that of old
Holding my mother's hand I marvell'd at,
And questioned her of each. And she lies there,
My mother! ay, my mother now; O hair
That once I play'd with in these halls! O eyes
That for a moment knew me as I came,
And lighten'd up, and trembled into love;
The next were darkened by my hand! Ah me!
Ye will not look upon me in that world.
Yet thou, perchance, art happier, if thou go'st
Into some land of wind and drifting leaves,
To sleep without a star; but as for me,
Hell hungers, and the restless Furies wait.
Then the dark Curse, that sits upon the towers,
Bow'd down her awful head, thus satisfied,
And I fled forth, a murderer, through the world.
The May Magnificat
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

May is Mary's month, and I
Muse at that and wonder why:
Her feasts follow reason,
Dated due to season - 
Candlemas, Lady Day;
But the Lady Month, May,
Why fasten that upon her,
With a feasting in her honour?
Is it only its being brighter
Than the most are must delight her?
Is it opportunest
And flowers finds soonest?
Ask of her, the mighty mother:
Her reply puts this other
Question: What is Spring? - 
Growth in every thing - 
Flesh and fleece, fur and feather,
Grass and green world all together;
Star-eyed strawberry-breasted
Throstle above her nested
Cluster of bugle blue eggs thin
Forms and warms the life within;
And bird and blossom swell
In sod or sheath or shell.
All things rising, all things sizing
Mary sees, sympathising
With that world of good,
Nature's motherhood.
Their magnifying of each its kind
With delight calls to mind
How she did in her stored
Magnify the Lord.
Well but there was more than this:
Spring's universal bliss
Much, had much to say
To offering Mary May.
When drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple
Bloom lights the orchard-apple
And thicket and thorp are merry
With silver-surf'd cherry
And azuring-over greybell makes
Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes
And magic cuckoocall
Caps, clears, and clinches all - 
This ecstacy all through mothering earth
Tells Mary her mirth till Christ's birth
To remember and exultation
In God who was her salvation.
Maud Muller
by William F. Kirk

Maude Muller, on nice summer day,
Raked in meadows sveet vith hay.
Her eyes ban sharp lak gude sharp knife;
She ban nice girl, ay bet yure life.
Before she ban dar wery long,
She start to senging little song.
The Yudge come riding down big hill
In nice red yumping ottomobill.
Maude say, "Hello, Yudge, - how ban yu?"
The Yudge say, "Maudie, how y' du?"
He say: "Skol yu tak little ride?
Ef yu skol lak to, yump inside."
So Maude and Yudge ride 'bout sax miles,
And Yudge skol bask in Maude's sveet smiles.
The Yudge say, "Skol yu be my pal?"
Den ottomobill bust all to hal.
Den Maude ban valking 'bout half vay
Back to meadows sveet vith hay.
"Ay luv yu still, dear," say the Yudge,
But Maude she only say, "O fudge!"
Of all sad vords dat men skol talk,
The saddest ban, "Valk, yu sucker, valk!"
Stanzas. On The Late Indecent Liberties Taken With The Remains Of Milton.[1]
by William Cowper

'Me too, perchance, in future days,
The sculptured stone shall show,
With Paphian myrtle or with bays
Parnassian on my brow.
'But I, or ere that season come,
Escaped from every care,
Shall reach my refuge in the tomb,
And sleep securely there.'
So sang, in Roman tone and style,
The youthful bard, ere long
Ordain'd to grace his native isle
With her sublimest song.
Who then but must conceive disdain,
Hearing the deed unblest
Of wretches who have dared profane
His dread sepulchral rest?
Ill fare the hands that heaved the stones
Where Milton's ashes lay,
That trembled not to grasp his bones
And steal his dust away!
O ill requited bard! neglect
Thy living worth repaid,
And blind idolatrous respect
As much affronts thee dead.
Lines For A Christmas Card
by Hilaire Belloc

May all my enemies go to hell,
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel.
Epitaph - In Obitum M S, X' Maij, 1614
by William Browne

May! Be thou never grac'd with birds that sing,
Nor Flora's pride!
In thee all flowers and roses spring,
Mine only died.
W. B.
Sonnet CLXVIII.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Mia ventura ed Amor m' avean s' adorno.
HE REGRETS HAVING RETURNED HER GLOVE.
Me Love and Fortune then supremely bless'd!
Her glove which gold and silken broidery bore!
I seem'd to reach of utmost bliss the crest,
Musing within myself on her who wore.
Ne'er on that day I think, of days the best,
Which made me rich, then beggar'd as before,
But rage and sorrow fill mine aching breast.
With slighted love and self-shame boiling o'er;
That on my precious prize in time of need
I kept not hold, nor made a firmer stand
'Gainst what at best was merely angel force,
That my feet were not wings their flight to speed,
And so at last take vengeance on the hand,
Make my poor eyes of tears the too oft source.
MACGREGOR.
Me! Come! My Dazzled Face
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Me! Come! My dazzled face
In such a shining place!
Me! Hear! My foreign ear
The sounds of welcome near!
The saints shall meet
Our bashful feet.
My holiday shall be
That they remember me;
My paradise, the fame
That they pronounce my name.
Sarah Brown
by Edgar Lee Masters

Maurice, weep not, I am not here under this pine tree.
The balmy air of spring whispers through the sweet grass,
The stars sparkle, the whippoorwill calls,
But thou grievest, while my soul lies rapturous
In the blest Nirvana of eternal light!
Go to the good heart that is my husband
Who broods upon what he calls our guilty love: - 
Tell him that my love for you, no less than my love for him
Wrought out my destiny - that through the flesh
I won spirit, and through spirit, peace.
There is no marriage in heaven
But there is love.
To The Pope
by Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

May it please your Holiness
There are possibly two,
Or it may be three,
Men
In Europe
Who could indite this Ode
Without treading on anybody's corns.
After mature reflection,
I am inclined to think that I am those three men
So that you will understand.
Well, my dear Pope, I hear on all hands
That you are engaged, at the present moment,
In the cheerful act and process
Of having a Jubilee.
I have had several myself
And I know what pleasant little functions they are,
Especially when the King
Sends a mission to congratulate one on them.
To proceed,
You must know, my dear Pope,
That, by conviction
And in my own delightful country,
I am a rabid, saw-toothed Kensitite Protestant;
All my ancestors figure gloriously
In Foxe's "Book of Martyrs,"
And, if they don't, they ought to.
Also, I never go into Smithfield
Without thinking of the far-famed fires thereof
And thanking my lucky stars
That this is Protestant England
And that the King defends the Faith.
But, when I get on to the Continent,
To do my week-end in Paris,
Or my "ten days at lovely Lucerne,"
Or my walk with Dr. Lunn
"In the footsteps of St. Paul,"
Why, then, somehow
The bottom falls clean out of my Kensitariousness
And I become a decent, mass-hearing, candle-burning Catholic.
That is curious, but true,
And may probably be accounted for
By differences of climate.
However, we can leave that;
Here, in England, my dear Pope,
We all like you,
Whether we be Catholics or Protestants or Jews or Gentiles or members of the Playgoers' Club;
And we all see you, in our minds' eye,
Seated benevolently upon your throne
Giving people blessings;
Or walking in the Vatican Garden
Clothed on with simple white.
We all think of you, my beloved Pope,
As a diaphanous and dear old gentleman
Whose intentions are the kindest in the world.
And yet, and yet, and yet -
The memory of Smithfield
So rages in our honest British blood
That, in spite of your white garments
And your placid, gentle ways,
We feel quite sure that you do carry,
Somewhere about your person,
A box of matches;
And that, if certain people had their way,
You would soon be lighting such a candle in England
That we should want a new Foxe
And a new Book of Martyrs
Of about the size of a pantechnicon.
Hence it is, my dear Pope,
That we - er - Englishmen remain Protestant
And make the King swear fearful oaths
Against popery and all its works,
Although, for aught one knows to the contrary,
He may have Mass said twice daily
Behind the curtain, as it were.
All the same, I wish you good wishes
As to this your Jubilee
And
Nihil obstat.
To A Child At Christmas Time.
by Edwin C. Ranck

May the day that gave Christ birth
Bring you boundless joy and mirth,
Fill the golden hours with gladness,
Raise no thought to cause you sadness.
Who Is Now Reading This?
by Walt Whitman

May-be one is now reading this who knows some wrong-doing of my past life,
Or may-be a stranger is reading this who has secretly loved me,
Or may-be one who meets all my grand assumptions and egotisms with derision,
Or may-be one who is puzzled at me.
As if I were not puzzled at myself!
Or as if I never deride myself! (O conscience-struck! O self-convicted!)
Or as if I do not secretly love strangers! (O tenderly, a long time, and never avow it;)
Or as if I did not see, perfectly well, interior in myself, the stuff of wrong-doing,
Or as if it could cease transpiring from me until it must cease.
To Cvpid
by Michael Drayton

Maydens, why spare ye?
Or whether not dare ye
Correct the blind Shooter?
Because wanton VENVS,
So oft that doth paine vs,
Is her Sonnes Tutor.
Now in the Spring,
He proueth his Wing,
The Field is his Bower,
And as the small Bee,
About flyeth hee,
From Flower to Flower.
And wantonly roues,
Abroad in the Groues,
And in the Ayre houers,
Which when it him deweth,
His Fethers he meweth,
In sighes of true Louers.
And since doom'd by Fate,
(That well knew his Hate)
That Hee should be blinde;
For very despite,
Our Eyes be his White,
So wayward his kinde.
If his Shafts loosing,
(Ill his Mark choosing)
Or his Bow broken;
The Moane VENVS maketh,
And care that she taketh,
Cannot be spoken.
To VULCAN commending
Her loue, and straight sending
Her Doues and her Sparrowes,
With Kisses vnto him,
And all but to woo him,
To make her Sonne Arrowes.
Telling what he hath done,
(Sayth she, Right mine owne Sonne)
In her Armes she him closes,
Sweetes on him fans,
Layd in Downe of her Swans,
His Sheets, Leaues of Roses.
And feeds him with Kisses;
Which oft when he misses,
He euer is froward:
The Mothers o'r-ioying,
Makes by much coying,
The Child so vntoward.
Yet in a fine Net,
That a Spider set,
The Maydens had caught him;
Had she not beene neere him,
And chanced to heare him,
More good they had taught him.
Nursery Rhyme. CCXL. Charms.
by Unknown

[A charm somewhat similar to the following may be seen in the 'Townley Mysteries,' p. 91. See a paper in the 'Arch'ologia,' vol. xxvii, p. 253, by the Rev. Lancelot Sharpe, M.A. See also MS. Lansd. 231, fol. 114, and Ady's 'Candle in the Dark,' 4to, London, 1650, p. 58.]
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Guard the bed that I lay on!
Four corners to my bed,
Four angels round my head;
One to watch, one to pray,
And two to bear my soul away!
Chant-Pagan
by Rudyard Kipling

Me that 'ave been what I've been,
Me that 'ave gone where I've gone,
Me that 'ave seen what I've seen,
'Ow can I ever take on
With awful old England again,
An' 'ouses both sides of the street,
And 'edges two sides of the lane,
And the parson an' gentry between,
An' touchin' my 'at when we meet,
Me that 'ave been what I've been?
Me that 'ave watched 'arf a world
'Eave up all shiny with dew,
Kopje on kop to the sun,
An' as soon as the mist let 'em through
Our 'elios winkin' like fun,
Three sides of a ninety-mile square,
Over valleys as big as a shire,
"Are ye there? Are ye there? Are ye there?"
An' then the blind drum of our fire . . .
An' I'm rollin' 'is lawns for the Squire,
Me!
Me that 'ave rode through the dark
Forty mile, often, on end,
Along the Ma'ollisberg Range,
With only the stars for my mark
An' only the night for my friend,
An' things runnin' off as you pass,
An' things jumpin' up in the grass,
An' the silence, the shine an' the size
Of the 'igh, unexpressible skies,
I am takin' some letters almost
As much as a mile to the post,
An' "mind you come back with the change!"
Me!
Me that saw Barberton took
When we dropped through the clouds on their 'ead,
An' they 'ove the guns over and fled,
Me that was through Di'mond 'Ill,
An' Pieters an' Springs an' Belfast,
From Dundee to Vereeniging all,
Me that stuck out to the last
(An' five bloomin' bars on my chest),
I am doin' my Sunday-school best,
By the 'elp of the Squire an' 'is wife
(Not to mention the 'ousemaid an' cook),
To come in an' 'ands up an' be still,
An' honestly work for my bread,
My livin' in that state of life
To which it shall please God to call
Me!
Me that 'ave followed my trade
In the place where the Lightnin's are made;
'Twixt the Rains and the Sun and the Moon,
Me that lay down an' got up
Three years with the sky for my roof,
That 'ave ridden my 'unger an' thirst
Six thousand raw mile on the hoof,
With the Vaal and the Orange for cup,
An' the Brandwater Basin for dish,,
Oh! it's 'ard to be'ave as they wish
(Too 'ard, an' a little too soon),
I'll 'ave to think over it first,
Me!
I will arise an' get 'ence,
I will trek South and make sure
If it's only my fancy or not
That the sunshine of England is pale,
And the breezes of England are stale,
An' there's something' gone small with the lot.
For I know of a sun an' a wind,
An' some plains and a mountain be'ind,
An' some graves by a barb-wire fence,
An' a Dutchman I've fought 'oo might give
Me a job where I ever inclined
To look in an' offsaddle an' live
Where there's neither a road nor a tree,
But only my Maker an' me,
And I think it will kill me or cure,
So I think I will go there an' see.
May Is Back
by Richard Le Gallienne

May is back, and You and I
Are at the stream again - 
The leaves are out,
And all about
The building birds begin
To make a merry din:
May is back, and You and I
Are at the dream again.
May is back, and You and I
Lie in the grass again, - 
The butterfly
Flits painted by,
The bee brings sudden fear,
Like people talking near;
May is back, and You and I
Are lad and lass again.
May is back, and You and I
Are heart to heart again, - 
In God's green house
We make our vows
Of summer love that stays
Faithful through winter days;
May is back, and You and I
Shall never part again.
Berrying
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

'May be true what I had heard,--
Earth's a howling wilderness,
Truculent with fraud and force,'
Said I, strolling through the pastures,
And along the river-side.
Caught among the blackberry vines,
Feeding on the Ethiops sweet,
Pleasant fancies overtook me.
I said, 'What influence me preferred,
Elect, to dreams thus beautiful?'
The vines replied, 'And didst thou deem
No wisdom from our berries went?'
Me Imperturbe
by Walt Whitman

Me imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature,
Master of all, or mistress of all - aplomb in the midst of irrational things,
Imbued as they - passive, receptive, silent as they,
Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, less important than I thought;
Me private, or public, or menial, or solitary - all these subordinate,
(I am eternally equal with the best - I am not subordinate;)
Me toward the Mexican Sea, or in the Mannahatta, or the Tennessee, or far north, or inland,
A river man, or a man of the woods, or of any farm-life in These States, or of the coast, or the lakes, or Kanada,
Me, wherever my life is lived, O to be self-balanced for contingencies!
O to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do.
Me Tho' In Life's Sequester'd Vale
by Mark Akenside

Me tho' in life's sequester'd vale
The Almighty sire ordain'd to dwell,
Remote from glory's toilsome ways,
And the great scenes of public praise;
Yet let me still with grateful pride
Remember how my infant frame
He temper'd with prophetic flame,
And early music to my tongue supply'd.
'Twas then my future fate he weigh'd,
And, This be thy concern, he said,
At once with Passion's keen alarms,
And Beauty's pleasurable charms,
And sacred Truth's eternal light,
To move the various mind of Man;
Till under one unblemish'd plan,
His Reason, Fancy, and his Heart unite.
Epi-strauss-ium
by Arthur Hugh Clough

Matthew and Mark and Luke and holy John
Evanished all and gone!
Yea, he that erst his dusky curtains quitting,
Thro' Eastern pictured panes his level beams transmitting,
With gorgeous portraits blent,
On them his glories intercepted spent.
Southwestering now, thro' windows plainly glassed,
On the inside face his radiance keen hath cast,
And in the lustre lost, invisible and gone,
Are, say you, Matthew, Mark and Luke and holy John?
Lost, is it, lost, to be recovered never?
However,
The place of worship the meantime with light
Is, if less richly, more sincerely bright,
And in blue skies the Orb is manifest to sight.
To Dr. Maxwell, On Jessie Staig's Recovery.
by Robert Burns

Maxwell, if merit here you crave
That merit I deny,
You save fair Jessie from the grave,
An angel could not die.
Modern Maud Muller.
by Edwin C. Ranck

Maud Muller on a summer's day,
Raked the meadows, sweet with hay.
Nor was this just a grand-stand play;
Maud got a rake-off, so they say.