DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
To ......., 1801.
by Thomas Moore

To be the theme of every hour
The heart devotes to Fancy's power,
When her prompt magic fills the mind
With friends and joys we've left behind,
And joys return and friends are near,
And all are welcomed with a tear:--
In the mind's purest seat to dwell,
To be remembered oft and well
By one whose heart, though vain and wild,
By passion led, by youth beguiled,
Can proudly still aspire to be
All that may yet win smiles from thee:--
If thus to live in every part
Of a lone, weary wanderer's heart;
If thus to be its sole employ
Can give thee one faint gleam of joy,
Believe it. Mary,--oh! believe
A tongue that never can deceive,
Though, erring, it too oft betray
Even more than Love should dare to say,--
In Pleasure's dream or Sorrow's hour,
In crowded hall or lonely bower,
The business of my life shall be,
For ever to remember thee.
And though that heart be dead to mine,
Since Love is life and wakes not thine,
I'll take thy image, as the form
Of one whom Love had failed to warm,
Which, though it yield no answering thrill,
Is not less dear, is worshipt still--
I'll take it, wheresoe'er I stray,
The bright, cold burden of my way.
To keep this semblance fresh in bloom,
My heart shall be its lasting tomb,
And Memory, with embalming care,
Shall keep it fresh and fadeless there.
The Buyers.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

To an apple-woman's stall
Once some children nimbly ran;
Longing much to purchase all,
They with joyous haste began
Snatching up the piles there raised,
While with eager eyes they gazed
On the rosy fruit so nice;
But when they found out the price,
Down they threw the whole they'd got,
Just as if they were red hot.
*     *     *     *     *
The man who gratis will his goods supply
Will never find a lack of folks to buy!
Ezra J. M'Manus To A Soubrette.
by Eugene Field

'Tis years, soubrette, since last we met,
And yet, ah yet, how swift and tender
My thoughts go back in Time's dull track
To you, sweet pink of female gender!
I shall not say--though others may--
That time all human joy enhances;
But the same old thrill comes to me still
With memories of your songs and dances.
Soubrettish ways these latter days
Invite my praise, but never get it;
I still am true to yours and you--
My record's made--I'll not upset it!
The pranks they play, the things they say--
I'd blush to put the like on paper;
And I'll avow they don't know how
To dance, so awkwardly they caper!
I used to sit down in the pit
And see you flit like elf or fairy
Across the stage, and I'll engage
No moonbeam sprite were half so airy.
Lo! everywhere about me there
Were rivals reeking with pomatum,
And if perchance they caught a glance
In song or dance, how did I hate 'em!
At half-past ten came rapture--then
Of all those men was I most happy,
For wine and things and food for kings
And tete-a-tetes were on the tapis.
Did you forget, my fair soubrette,
Those suppers in the Cafe Rector--
The cozy nook where we partook
Of sweeter draughts than fabled nectar?
Oh, happy days, when youth's wild ways
Knew every phase of harmless folly!
Oh, blissful nights whose fierce delights
Defied gaunt-featured Melancholy!
Gone are they all beyond recall,
And I, a shade--a mere reflection--
Am forced to feed my spirits' greed
Upon the husks of retrospection.
And lo! to-night the phantom light
That as a sprite flits on the fender
Reveals a face whose girlish grace
Brings back the feeling, warm and tender;
And all the while the old time smile
Plays on my visage, grim and wrinkled,
As though, soubrette, your footfalls yet
Upon my rusty heart-strings tinkled.
Breitmann In Holland
by Charles G. Leland

To Amsterd-m came Breitmann
All in de Kermes tide;
Yonge Maegden allegader
Filled de straat on afery side.
De meisjes in de straaten
Vere tantzin alle nacht long;
Dere vas kissen, dere vas trinken,
Mit a roar of Holland song.
Who went into de straaten
Ven de sonn had gone his day,
De Dootch gals quickly grapped him
Und tantzed him wild avay.
Dere was der Prinz von Capua,
Who fell among dese wags;
Dey tantzed him off in a carmagnole,
Und sent him home in rags.
Und den at afery gorner,
So peaudifool to see,
De volk vas bilin dough-nuts,
Or else vas fryin tea.
Und Kermes cakes mit boetry,
Vitch land-volk dinks a dreat,
Mit all of Barnum's blayed out shows
In dents along de shdreet.
Id pring de tears to Breitmann's eyes,
To find in many a shtand
Vot oft he'd baid a quarder for
To see in a distand land.
De Aztec dwins und de Siamese
(Dough soom vere a wachsen sham);
Mit de Beardet Frau und de Bear Woman'
All here in Amsterdam
De fashion here in Nederland
Ish not vot you'd soopose,
Mit oos, men bays de vomens,
Boot de Dootch gals hires deir beaux!
Dey hire dem for de season,
Und because moosh rain ish fell,
Dey alvays bays a higher brice,
For a man mit an umberell.
Und dere vas Nord Hollander maids,
So woonderfool to see,
Mit caps of gold und goldne pins,
Und quaint orf'verie.
Likewise de Zeeland Boersmen,
Mit silber bootons gay;
Und silber belts, und silber knives,
Mijn Gott!'how sdrange vere dey!
But dough de men wore silber gear,
Und de vrouws in gold were tall,
De gals vere gabblin all de dimes,
Und de men said noding at all.
'Dey say dat sbeech is silbern,
Boot silence golden pe,
Dat aint de vay dey vork id here,'
Said Breitemann, said he.
Goot Gott! how Breitmann vent it,
In moonlighdt or in rain;
Den vakened to Schied-m it,
Ven de mornin peamed again.
For to solfe von awfool broplem,
He vas efer shdill incline;
If'den wijn is beter als de min,
Or'de min doet veel meer als de wijn.
Dwo weeks der Breitmann studiet,
Vile he vent it on de howl.
He shpree so moosh to find de troot,
Dat he lookt like a bi-led owl.
Den he say, 'Ik wil honor Bacchus,
So long as ik leven shall;
Boot not so moosh vercieren
As to blace him ofer all.
De rose of lofe is lofely
In zomer ven it plow;
De bush shdill gifes a bromise,
In winter mid de shnow;
Ja, als de bloeme is geplukt,
En van den steel genomen,
Ve know de peautiful vill life,
Till zomer is gekomen.
Boot oh dose vas arch-heafenly dimes,
Ven by mine lofe I sat;
Und see de maedchen pring de grapes,
Und crash dem in a vat.
Und ven her glances unto mine
In plessfool ropture toorn;
I dink dere ne'er vas no dwo crapes
Like dem plue eyes of hern.
Wat is soeter als de trinken,
Ja'niet kan beter zyn.
Niet is soeter as de minne,
It smackt nog beter als wijn.
Es giebt nichts wie die M'dchen,
Es gibt nichts wie das Bier,
Wer liebt nicht alle beide,
Wird gar kein Cavalier.
O vot ve vant to quickest come
Ish dat vot's soonest gone.
Dis life ish boot a passin from
de efer-gomin-on.
De gloser dat ve looks ad id,
De shmaller it ish grow;
Who goats und spurs mit lofe und wein,
He makes it fastest go.
Great Maladies, Long Medicines.
by Robert Herrick

To an old sore a long cure must go on:
Great faults require great satisfaction.
Editor Whedon
by Edgar Lee Masters

To be able to see every side of every question;
To be on every side, to be everything, to be nothing long;
To pervert truth, to ride it for a purpose,
To use great feelings and passions of the human family
For base designs, for cunning ends,
To wear a mask like the Greek actors - 
Your eight-page paper - behind which you huddle,
Bawling through the megaphone of big type:
"This is I, the giant."
Thereby also living the life of a sneak-thief,
Poisoned with the anonymous words
Of your clandestine soul.
To scratch dirt over scandal for money,
And exhume it to the winds for revenge,
Or to sell papers,
Crushing reputations, or bodies, if need be,
To win at any cost, save your own life.
To glory in demoniac power, ditching civilization,
As a paranoiac boy puts a log on the track
And derails the express train.
To be an editor, as I was.
Then to lie here close by the river over the place
Where the sewage flows from the village,
And the empty cans and garbage are dumped,
And abortions are hidden.
The Astrologer Who Stumbled Into A Well.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
To an astrologer who fell
Plump to the bottom of a well,
'Poor blockhead!' cried a passer-by,
'Not see your feet, and read the sky?'
This upshot of a story will suffice
To give a useful hint to most;
For few there are in this our world so wise
As not to trust in star or ghost,
Or cherish secretly the creed
That men the book of destiny may read.
This book, by Homer and his pupils sung,
What is it, in plain common sense,
But what was chance those ancient folks among,
And with ourselves, God's providence?
Now chance doth bid defiance
To every thing like science;
'Twere wrong, if not,
To call it hazard, fortune, lot - 
Things palpably uncertain.
But from the purposes divine,
The deep of infinite design,
Who boasts to lift the curtain?
Whom but himself doth God allow
To read his bosom thoughts? and how
Would he imprint upon the stars sublime
The shrouded secrets of the night of time?
And all for what? To exercise the wit
Of those who on astrology have writ?
To help us shun inevitable ills?
To poison for us even pleasure's rills?
The choicest blessings to destroy,
Exhausting, ere they come, their joy?
Such faith is worse than error - 'tis a crime.
The sky-host moves and marks the course of time;
The sun sheds on our nicely-measured days
The glory of his night-dispelling rays;
And all from this we can divine
Is, that they need to rise and shine, - 
To roll the seasons, ripen fruits,
And cheer the hearts of men and brutes.
How tallies this revolving universe
With human things, eternally diverse?
Ye horoscopers, waning quacks,
Please turn on Europe's courts your backs,
And, taking on your travelling lists
The bellows-blowing alchemists,
Budge off together to the land of mists.
But I've digress'd. Return we now, bethinking
Of our poor star-man, whom we left a drinking.
Besides the folly of his lying trade,
This man the type may well be made
Of those who at chimeras stare
When they should mind the things that are.
Recipe For A Policeman:
by Unknown

To a quart of boiling temper add a pint of Irish stew
Together with cracked nuts, long beats and slugs;
Serve hot with mangled citizens who ask the time of day -
The receipt is much the same for making thugs.
- Life.
Archimedes.
by Friedrich Schiller

To Archimedes once a scholar came,
"Teach me," he said, "the art that won thy fame; 
The godlike art which gives such boons to toil,
And showers such fruit upon thy native soil; 
The godlike art that girt the town when all
Rome's vengeance burst in thunder on the wall!"
"Thou call'st art godlike it is so, in truth,
And was," replied the master to the youth,
"Ere yet its secrets were applied to use 
Ere yet it served beleaguered Syracuse: 
Ask'st thou from art, but what the art is worth?
The fruit? for fruit go cultivate the earth. 
He who the goddess would aspire unto,
Must not the goddess as the woman woo!"
Beau Austin
by William Ernest Henley

By W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson,
Haymarket Theatre, November 3, 1890.
Spoken by Mr. TREE in the character of Beau Austin.
'To all and singular,' as DRYDEN says,
We bring a fancy of those Georgian days,
Whose style still breathed a faint and fine perfume
Of old-world courtliness and old-world bloom:
When speech was elegant and talk was fit,
For slang had not been canonised as wit;
When manners reigned, when breeding had the wall,
And Women - yes! - were ladies first of all;
When Grace was conscious of its gracefulness,
And man - though Man! - was not ashamed to dress.
A brave formality, a measured ease
Were his - and hers - whose effort was to please.
And to excel in pleasing was to reign,
And, if you sighed, never to sigh in vain.
But then, as now - it may be, something more - 
Woman and man were human to the core.
The hearts that throbbed behind that brave attire
Burned with a plenitude of essential fire.
They too could risk, they also could rebel:
They could love wisely - they could love too well.
In that great duel of Sex, that ancient strife
Which is the very central fact of life,
They could - and did - engage it breath for breath,
They could - and did - get wounded unto death.
As at all times since time for us began
Woman was truly woman, man was man,
And joy and sorrow were as much at home
In trifling TUNBRIDGE as in mighty ROME.
Dead - dead and done with!    Swift from shine to shade
The roaring generations flit and fade.
To this one, fading, flitting, like the rest,
We come to proffer - be it worst or best - 
A sketch, a shadow, of one brave old time;
A hint of what it might have held sublime;
A dream, an idyll, call it what you will,
Of man still Man, and woman - Woman still!
The Following Lines In French, Are inscribed upon the Pedestal of a Statue of Cupid, In A Garden At Utrecht.
by John Carr (Sir)

ORIGINAL.
N'offrant qu'un coeur ' la Beaut',
Nud comme la Verit',
Sans armes comme l'Innocence,
Sans a'les comme la Constance,
Tel fut l'Amour dans le siecle d'or,
On ne le trouve plus, quoiqu'on le cherche encore.
TRANSLATION.
To Beauty give your heart, your sighs,
No other off'ring will she prize;
As Truth should unadorn'd appear,
Behold! the god is naked here!
Like Innocence, he has no arms
But those of sweet, of native, charms;
No wish or pow'r has he to fly,
Like thy pure spirit, Constancy!
Such in the golden age was Love;
But now, oh! whither does he rove?
Christ.
by Robert Herrick

To all our wounds here, whatsoe'er they be,
Christ is the one sufficient remedy.
The Epic.
by Madison Julius Cawein

"To arms!" the battle bugles blew.
The daughter of their Earl was she,
Lord of a thousand swords and true;
He but a squire of low degree.
The horns of war blew up to horse:
He kissed her mouth; her face was white;
"God grant they bear thee back no corse!" - 
"God give I win my spurs to-night!"
Each watch-tower's blazing beacon scarred
A blood-blot in the wounded dark:
She heard knights gallop battleward,
And from the turret leaned to mark.
"My God, deliver me and mine!
My child! my God!" all night she prayed:
She saw the battle beacons shine;
She saw the battle beacons fade.
They brought him on a bier of spears. - 
For him - the death-won spurs and name;
For her - the sting of secret tears,
And convent walls to hide her shame.
H. M. S. "Dreadnought."
by W. M. MacKeracher

Titanic craft of many thousand tons,
A smaller Britain free to come and go,
Relying on thy ten terrific guns
To daunt afar the most presumptuous foe;
Thick-panoplied with plates of hardened steel,
Equipped with all the engin'ry of death,
Unrivalled swiftness in thy massive keel,
Annihilation latent in thy breath.
"Dreadnought" thy name. And yet, for all thy size
And strength, the ocean might engulf thy prow,
Or the swift red torpedo of the skies,
The lightning, blast thy boast-emblazoned brow;
Thou hast thy use, but Britain's sons were wise
To put their trust in better things than thou.
Seven Times Six. Giving In Marriage.
by Jean Ingelow

To bear, to nurse, to rear,
To watch, and then to lose:
To see my bright ones disappear,
Drawn up like morning dews - 
To bear, to nurse, to rear,
To watch, and then to lose:
This have I done when God drew near
Among his own to choose.
To hear, to heed, to wed,
And with thy lord depart
In tears that he, as soon as shed,
Will let no longer smart. - 
To hear, to heed, to wed,
This while thou didst I smiled,
For now it was not God who said,
"Mother, give ME thy child."
O fond, O fool, and blind,
To God I gave with tears;
But when a man like grace would find,
My soul put by her fears - 
O fond, O fool, and blind,
God guards in happier spheres;
That man will guard where he did bind
Is hope for unknown years.
To hear, to heed, to wed,
Fair lot that maidens choose,
Thy mother's tenderest words are said,
Thy face no more she views;
Thy mother's lot, my dear,
She doth in nought accuse;
Her lot to bear, to nurse, to rear,
To love - and then to lose.
Love And Wine.
by Thomas Frederick Young

'Tis wine that cheers the soul of man,
With subtle and seductive flow;
It warms the heart, as naught else can,
And banishes regret, and woe.
It keeps alive the flick'ring flame,
Which strives to burn with feeble force
Within the heart, so dull and tame,
But still of life, the present source.
It warms up this fount of life,
And sends life's fluid here and there;
And nerves and brain, in gladsome strife,
Forget their dull and dark despair.
And what is love, if 'tis not wine,
Refin'd, distill'd from grossness, tho',
More potent than the juice of vine,
And bringing greater joy, and woe?
Does it not, too, refresh, revive,
And oft intoxicate the brain,
And make the being all alive
With keenest joy, or keenest pain?
And does it not when much indulg'd,
Or held by slack and yielding hand,
Lead on to woes oft undivulg'd,
To crimes unknown, throughout the land?
Oh! blessed woman, fruitful vine,
Inspiring and enchanting twain,
I pray that neither love nor wine,
May o'er my will, resistless reign.
They tell us, that the safest way
To 'scape from wine or woman's thrall,
Is to go on from day to day,
And never drink, or love, at all.
I could give up the cheering wine,
And never taste the siren cup,
But oh, thou woman, nymph divine,
I can not, will not give thee up.
The Parasceve, Or Preparation.
by Robert Herrick

To a love-feast we both invited are:
The figur'd damask, or pure diaper,
Over the golden altar now is spread,
With bread, and wine, and vessels furnished;
The sacred towel and the holy ewer
Are ready by, to make the guests all pure:
Let's go, my Alma; yet, ere we receive,
Fit, fit it is we have our parasceve.
Who to that sweet bread unprepar'd doth come,
Better be starv'd, than but to taste one crumb.
Odes Of Anacreon - Ode XXIV.
by Thomas Moore

To all that breathe the air of heaven,
Some boon of strength has Nature given.
In forming the majestic bull,
She fenced with wreathed horns his skull;
A hoof of strength she lent the steed,
And winged the timorous hare with speed.
She gave the lion fangs of terror,
And, o'er the ocean's crystal mirror,
Taught the unnumbered scaly throng
To trace their liquid path along;
While for the umbrage of the grove,
She plumed the warbling world of love.
To man she gave, in that proud hour,
The boon of intellectual power.
Then, what, oh woman, what, for thee,
Was left in Nature's treasury?
She gave thee beauty--mightier far
Than all the pomp and power of war.
Nor steel, nor fire itself hath power
Like woman, in her conquering hour.
Be thou but fair, mankind adore thee,
Smile, and a world is weak before thee![1]
Preface
by Rudyard Kipling

To all to whom this little book may come,
Health for yourselves and those you hold most dear!
Content abroad, and happiness at home,
And, one grand secret in your private ear:,
Nations have passed away and left no traces,
And History gives the naked cause of it,
One single, simple reason in all cases;
They fell because their peoples were not fit.
Now, though your Body be mis-shapen, blind,
Lame, feverish, lacking substance, power or skill,
Certain it is that men can school the Mind
To school the sickliest Body to her will,
As many have done, whose glory blazes still
Like mighty flames in meanest lanterns lit:
Wherefore, we pray the crippled, weak and ill,
Be fit, be fit! In mind at first be fit!
And, though your Spirit seem uncouth or small,
Stubborn as clay or shifting as the sand,
Strengthen the Body, and the Body shall
Strengthen the Spirit till she take command;
As a bold rider brings his horse in hand
At the tall fence, with voice and heel and bit,
And leaps while all the field are at a stand.
Be fit, be fit! In body next be fit!
Nothing on earth, no Arts, no Gifts, nor Graces,
No Fame, no Wealth, outweighs the want of it.
This is the Law which every law embraces,
Be fit, be fit! In mind and body befit!
The even heart that seldom slurs its beat,
The cool head weighing what that heart desires,
The measuring eye that guides the hands and feet,
The Soul unbroken when the Body tires,
These are the things our weary world requires
Far more than superfluities of wit;
Wherefore we pray you, sons of generous sires,
Be fit, be fit! For Honour's sake be fit.
There is one lesson at all Times and Places,
One changeless Truth on all things changing writ,
For boys and girls, men, women, nations, races,
Be fit, be fit! And once again, be fit!
To Aurelio Saffi.
by George MacDonald

To God and man be simply true:
Do as thou hast been wont to do:
Or, Of the old more in the new:
Mean all the same when said to you.
I love thee. Thou art calm and strong;
Firm in the right, mild to the wrong;
Thy heart, in every raging throng,
A chamber shut for prayer and song.
Defeat thou know'st not, canst not know;
Only thy aims so lofty go,
They need as long to root and grow
As any mountain swathed in snow.
Go on and prosper, holy friend.
I, weak and ignorant, would lend
A voice, thee, strong and wise, to send
Prospering onward, without end.
The Broken Crystal.
by Robert Herrick

To fetch me wine my Lucia went,
Bearing a crystal continent:
But, making haste, it came to pass
She brake in two the purer glass,
Then smil'd, and sweetly chid her speed;
So with a blush beshrew'd the deed.
To The King, To Cure The Evil.
by Robert Herrick

To find that tree of life whose fruits did feed
And leaves did heal all sick of human seed:
To find Bethesda and an angel there
Stirring the waters, I am come; and here,
At last, I find (after my much to do)
The tree, Bethesda and the angel too:
And all in your blest hand, which has the powers
Of all those suppling-healing herbs and flowers.
To that soft charm, that spell, that magic bough,
That high enchantment, I betake me now,
And to that hand (the branch of heaven's fair tree),
I kneel for help; O! lay that hand on me,
Adored C'sar! and my faith is such
I shall be heal'd if that my king but touch.
The evil is not yours: my sorrow sings,
"Mine is the evil, but the cure the king's".
The Giver.
by George MacDonald

To give a thing and take again
Is counted meanness among men;
To take away what once is given
Cannot then be the way of heaven!
But human hearts are crumbly stuff,
And never, never love enough,
Therefore God takes and, with a smile,
Puts our best things away a while.
Thereon some weep, some rave, some scorn,
Some wish they never had been born;
Some humble grow at last and still,
And then God gives them what they will.
Two Sonnets: Harvard
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

At the meeting of the New York Harvard Club, February 21, 1878.
"CHRISTO ET ECCLESLE." 1700
To GOD'S ANOINTED AND HIS CHOSEN FLOCK
So ran the phrase the black-robed conclave chose
To guard the sacred cloisters that arose
Like David's altar on Moriah's rock.
Unshaken still those ancient arches mock
The ram's-horn summons of the windy foes
Who stand like Joshua's army while it blows
And wait to see them toppling with the shock.
Christ and the Church. Their church, whose narrow door
Shut out the many, who if overbold
Like hunted wolves were driven from the fold,
Bruised with the flails these godly zealots bore,
Mindful that Israel's altar stood of old
Where echoed once Araunah's threshing-floor.
1643 "VERITAS." 1878
Truth: So the frontlet's older legend ran,
On the brief record's opening page displayed;
Not yet those clear-eyed scholars were afraid
Lest the fair fruit that wrought the woe of man
By far Euphrates - where our sire began
His search for truth, and, seeking, was betrayed - 
Might work new treason in their forest shade,
Doubling the curse that brought life's shortened span.
Nurse of the future, daughter of the past,
That stern phylactery best becomes thee now
Lift to the morning star thy marble brow
Cast thy brave truth on every warring blast!
Stretch thy white hand to that forbidden bough,
And let thine earliest symbol be thy last!
Upon Brock. Epig.
by Robert Herrick

To cleanse his eyes, Tom Brock makes much ado,
But not his mouth, the fouler of the two.
A clammy rheum makes loathsome both his eyes:
His mouth, worse furr'd with oaths and blasphemies.