DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Patria.[1]
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("L'-haut, qui sourit.")
[Bk. VII. vii., September, 1853.]
Who smiles there? Is it
A stray spirit,
Or woman fair?
Sombre yet soft the brow!
Bow, nations, bow;
O soul in air,
Speak - what art thou?
In grief the fair face seems - 
What means those sudden gleams?
Our antique pride from dreams
Starts up, and beams
Its conquering glance, - 
To make our sad hearts dance,
And wake in woods hushed long
The wild bird's song.
Angel of Day!
Our Hope, Love, Stay,
Thy countenance
Lights land and sea
Eternally,
Thy name is France
Or Verity.
Fair angel in thy glass
When vile things move or pass,
Clouds in the skies amass;
Terrible, alas!
Thy stern commands are then:
"Form your battalions, men,
The flag display!"
And all obey.
Angel of might
Sent kings to smite,
The words in dark skies glance,
"Men', Men'," hiss
Bolts that never miss!
Thy name is France,
Or Nemesis.
As halcyons in May,
O nations, in his ray
Float and bask for aye,
Nor know decay!
One arm upraised to heaven
Seals the past forgiven;
One holds a sword
To quell hell's horde,
Angel of God!
Thy wings stretch broad
As heaven's expanse!
To shield and free
Humanity!
Thy name is France,
Or Liberty!
A Jog-Trot Pair
by Thomas Hardy

Who were the twain that trod this track
So many times together
Hither and back,
In spells of certain and uncertain weather?
Commonplace in conduct they
Who wandered to and fro here
Day by day:
Two that few dwellers troubled themselves to know here.
The very gravel-path was prim
That daily they would follow:
Borders trim:
Never a wayward sprout, or hump, or hollow.
Trite usages in tamest style
Had tended to their plighting.
"It's just worth while,
Perhaps," they had said. "And saves much sad good-nighting."
And petty seemed the happenings
That ministered to their joyance:
Simple things,
Onerous to satiate souls, increased their buoyance.
Who could those common people be,
Of days the plainest, barest?
They were we;
Yes; happier than the cleverest, smartest, rarest.
Overture
by Walter Savage Landor

Who will away to Athens with me? who
Loves choral songs and maidens crown'd with flowers,
Unenvious? mount the pinnace; hoist the sail.
I promise ye, as many as are here,
Ye shall not, while ye tarry with me, taste                
From unrins'd barrel the diluted wine
Of a low vineyard or a plant ill prun'd,
But such as anciently the Aegean isles
Pour'd in libation at their solemn feasts:
And the same goblets shall ye grasp, emboss'd                
With no vile figures of loose languid boors,
But such as gods have liv'd with and have led.
West-Eastern Divan.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Who the song would understand,
Needs must seek the song's own land.
Who the minstrel understand,
Needs must seek the minstrel's land.
Song: Who thinks that he possesses.
by Edward Shanks

Who thinks that he possesses
His mistress with his kisses
Knows neither love nor her.
Nor beauty is not his
Who seeks it in a kiss:
If you would seek for this
O seek it otherwhere!
Love is a flame, a spirit
Beyond all earthly merit
And all we dream of here;
Strive as you may but still
Love is intangible,
No servant to your will
But sovereign otherwhere.
The Rape Of The Baron's Wine
by Dora Sigerson Shorter

Who was stealing the Baron's wine,
Golden sherry and port so old,
Precious, I wot, as drops of gold?
Lone to-night he came to dine,
Flung himself in his oaken chair,
Kicked the hound that whined for bread;
'God! the thief shall swing!' he said,
Thrust his hand through his ruffled hair.
Bolt and bar and double chain
Held secure the cellar door;
And the watchman placed before,
Kept a faithful watch in vain.
Every day the story came,
'Master, come!    I hear it drip!'
The wine is wet on the robber's lip,
Who the robber, none could name.
All the folk in County Clare
Found a task for every day
By the Baron's gate to stray,
Came to gossip, stayed to stare.
Nothing here to satisfy
Souls for tragedy awake;
Just the castle by the lake,
Calmest spot beneath the sky.
But the whispered story grew,
When the Baron went to dine,
That a devil shared his wine,
Had his soul in danger too.
Every morn the Baron rose
More morose and full of age;
Passed the day in sullen rage,
Barred his gates on friends or foes.
Lone to-night he came to dine,
Struck the hound that asked a share,
Heard a step upon the stair-
'Come, the thief is at your wine!'
Baron of Killowen keep
Running down the vaulted way,
To the cellar dark by day,
Took the ten steps at a leap.
There he listened with the throng
Of frighted servants at the door,
He heard the wine drip on the floor,
And sea-mew's laughter loud and long.
Of oaken beam, of bolt and chain
They freed the door, and crowded through,
Their eyes a horror claimed in vain,
Nor ghost nor devil met their view.
They searched behind the hogshead, where
The watchful spider spied and span;
They sighed to see the wine that ran
A crimson torrent, wasting there.
They even searched the gloomy well
That legend said rose from the lake;
They saw bright bubbles rise and break,
But nothing stranger here befell.
The Baron cursed-the Baron said,
'Now all be gone, alone I'll stay,
There shall not rise another day
Without this thief, alive or dead.'
So still he stood, no sound was there,
But just the wine went drop and drip;
Save that, the silence seemed to slip
Its threatening fingers through his hair.
And then as last an echo flew,
The splash of waters thrown apart;
He cursed the beating of his heart
Because the thief was listening too.
The slipping scrape of scales he hears,
And sea-mew laughter, loud and sweet;
He dares not move his frightened feet,
His pulse beats with a thousand fears.
At that strange monster in the gloom
He points his pistol quick, and fires;
Before the powder spark expires
He hears a sea-bird's scream of doom.
He saw one gleam of foam-white arms,
Of sea-green eyes, of sloak brown hair;
He had a glance to find her fair,
When he had slain her thousand charms.
* * * * *
The Baron of Killowen slew
A strange sea-maiden, young and fair;
And all the folk in county Clare
Will tell you that the tale is true.
And when the Baron came to dine,
His guests could never understand,
That he should say, with glass in hand,
'I would the thief were at my wine!'
The Song Of The Mad Prince
by Walter De La Mare

Who said, 'Peacock Pie?'
The old King to the sparrow:
Who said, 'Crops are ripe?'
Rust to the harrow:
Who said, 'Where sleeps she now?'
Where rests she now her head,
Bathed in eve's loveliness'? - -
That's what I said.
Who said, 'Ay, mum's the word'?
Sexton to willow:
Who said, 'Green duck for dreams,
Moss for a pillow'?
Who said, 'All Time's delight
Hath she for narrow bed;
Life's troubled bubble broken'? - -
That's what I said.
The Sonnets XVII - Who will believe my verse in time to come
by William Shakespeare

Who will believe my verse in time to come,
If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?
Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts.
If I could write the beauty of your eyes,
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say 'This poet lies;
Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'
So should my papers, yellow'd with their age,
Be scorn'd, like old men of less truth than tongue,
And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage
And stretched metre of an antique song:
But were some child of yours alive that time,
You should live twice, in it, and in my rhyme.
A Lay Of Real Life
by Thomas Hood

"Some are born with a wooden spoon in their mouths,
and some with a golden ladle."        GOLDSMITH.
"Some are born with tin rings in their noses, and
with silver ones."                SILVERSMITH.
Who ruined me ere I was born,
Sold every acre, grass or corn,
And left the next heir all forlorn?
My Grandfather.
Who said my mother was no nurse.
And physicked me and made me worse,
Till infancy became a curse?
My Grandmother.
Who left me in my seventh year,
A comfort to my mother dear,
And Mr. Pope, the overseer?
My Father.
Who let me starve, to buy her gin,
Till all my bones came through my skin,
Then called me "ugly little sin?"
My Mother.
Who said my mother was a Turk,
And took me home - and made me work,
But managed half my meals to shirk?
My Aunt.
Who "of all earthly things" would boast,
"He hated others' brats the most,"
And therefore made me feel my post?
My Uncle.
Who got in scrapes, an endless score,
And always laid them at my door,
Till many a bitter bang I bore?
My Cousin.
Who took me home when mother died,
Again with father to reside,
Black shoes, clean knives, run far and wide?
My Stepmother.
Who marred my stealthy urchin joys
And when I played cried "What a noise?" - 
Girls always hector over boys - 
My Sister.
Who used to share in what was mine,
Or took it all, did he incline,
'Cause I was eight, and he was nine?
My Brother.
Who stroked my head, and said "Good lad,"
And gave me sixpence, "all he had";
But at the stall the coin was bad?
My Godfather.
Who, gratis, shared, my social glass,
But when misfortune came to pass,
Referr'd me to the pump? Alas!
My Friend.
Through all this weary world, in brief,
Who ever sympathized with grief,
Or shared my joy - my sole relief?
Myself.
Love.
by Jean Ingelow

Who veileth love should first have vanquished fate.
She folded up the dream in her deep heart,
Her fair full lips were silent on that smart,
Thick fring'd eyes did on the grasses wait.
What good? one eloquent blush, but one, and straight
The meaning of a life was known; for art
Is often foiled in playing nature's part,
And time holds nothing long inviolate.
Earth's buried seed springs up - slowly, or fast:
The ring came home, that one in ages past
Flung to the keeping of unfathomed seas:
And golden apples on the mystic trees
Were sought and found, and borne away at last,
Though watched of the divine Hesperides.
Lilah, Alice, Hypatia
by James Thomson -  (Bysshe Vanolis)

To Alice and Hypatia Bradlaugh
Who was Lilah? I am sure
She was young and sweet and pure;
With the forehead wise men love,
Here a lucid dawn above
Broad curved brows, and twilight there,
Under the deep dusk of hair.
And her eyes? I cannot say
Whether brown, or blue, or grey:
I have seen them brown, and blue,
And a soft green grey, the hue
Shakespeare loved (and he was wise);
'Grey as glass' were Silvia's eyes.
So to Lilah's name above
I will add two names I love,
Linking with the bracket curls
Three sweet names of three sweet girls:-
Sunday of Saint Valentine,
Eighteen hundred sixty-nine.
George And Sarah Green
by William Wordsworth

Who weeps for strangers? Many wept
For George and Sarah Green;
Wept for that pair's unhappy fate,
Whose grave may here be seen.
By night, upon these stormy fells,
Did wife and husband roam;
Six little ones at home had left,
And could not find that home.
For 'any' dwelling-place of man
As vainly did they seek.
He perish'd; and a voice was heard 
The widow's lonely shriek.
Not many steps, and she was left
A body without life 
A few short steps were the chain that bound
The husband to the wife.
Now do those sternly-featured hills
Look gently on this grave;
And quiet now are the depths of air,
As a sea without a wave.
But deeper lies the heart of peace
In quiet more profound;
The heart of quietness is here
Within this churchyard bound.
And from all agony of mind
It keeps them safe, and far
From fear and grief, and from all need
Of sun or guiding star.
O darkness of the grave! how deep,
After that living night 
That last and dreary living one
Of sorrow and affright?
O sacred marriage-bed of death,
That keeps them side by side
In bond of peace, in bond of love,
That may not be untied!
Wealth
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Who shall tell what did befall,
Far away in time, when once,
Over the lifeless ball,
Hung idle stars and suns?
What god the element obeyed?
Wings of what wind the lichen bore,
Wafting the puny seeds of power,
Which, lodged in rock, the rock abrade?
And well the primal pioneer
Knew the strong task to it assigned,
Patient through Heaven's enormous year
To build in matter home for mind.
From air the creeping centuries drew
The matted thicket low and wide,
This must the leaves of ages strew
The granite slab to clothe and hide,
Ere wheat can wave its golden pride.
What smiths, and in what furnace, rolled
(In dizzy aeons dim and mute
The reeling brain can ill compute)
Copper and iron, lead and gold?
What oldest star the fame can save
Of races perishing to pave
The planet with a floor of lime?
Dust is their pyramid and mole:
Who saw what ferns and palms were pressed
Under the tumbling mountain's breast,
In the safe herbal of the coal?
But when the quarried means were piled,
All is waste and worthless, till
Arrives the wise selecting will,
And, out of slime and chaos, Wit
Draws the threads of fair and fit.
Then temples rose, and towns, and marts,
The shop of toil, the hall of arts;
Then flew the sail across the seas
To feed the North from tropic trees;
The storm-wind wove, the torrent span,
Where they were bid, the rivers ran;
New slaves fulfilled the poet's dream,
Galvanic wire, strong-shouldered steam.
Then docks were built, and crops were stored,
And ingots added to the hoard.
But though light-headed man forget,
Remembering Matter pays her debt:
Still, through her motes and masses, draw
Electric thrills and ties of law,
Which bind the strengths of Nature wild
To the conscience of a child.
Sonnet XVI
by Alan Seeger

Who shall invoke her, who shall be her priest,
With single rites the common debt to pay?
On some green headland fronting to the East
Our fairest boy shall kneel at break of day.
Naked, uplifting in a laden tray
New milk and honey and sweet-tinctured wine,
Not without twigs of clustering apple-spray
To wreath a garland for Our Lady's shrine.
The morning planet poised above the sea
Shall drop sweet influence through her drowsing lid;
Dew-drenched, his delicate virginity
Shall scarce disturb the flowers he kneels amid,
That, waked so lightly, shall lift up their eyes,
Cushion his knees, and nod between his thighs.
Sister Maude
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Who told my mother of my shame,
Who told my father of my dear?
Oh who but Maude, my sister Maude,
Who lurked to spy and peer.
Cold he lies, as cold as stone,
With his clotted curls about his face:
The comeliest corpse in all the world
And worthy of a queen's embrace.
You might have spared his soul, sister,
Have spared my soul, your own soul too:
Though I had not been born at all,
He'd never have looked at you.
My father may sleep in Paradise,
My mother at Heaven-gate:
But sister Maude shall get no sleep
Either early or late.
My father may wear a golden gown,
My mother a crown may win;
If my dear and I knocked at Heaven-gate
Perhaps they'd let us in:
But sister Maude, oh sister Maude,
Bide you with death and sin.
Mistress Fell
by Walter De La Mare

"Whom seek you here, sweet Mistress Fell?"
"One who loved me passing well.
Dark his eye, wild his face - 
Stranger, if in this lonely place
Bide such an one, then, prythee, say
I am come here to-day."
"Many his like, Mistress Fell?"
"I did not look, so cannot tell.
Only this I surely know,
When his voice called me, I must go;
Touched me his fingers, and my heart
Leapt at the sweet pain's smart."
"Why did he leave you, Mistress Fell?"
"Magic laid its dreary spell. - 
Stranger, he was fast asleep;
Into his dream I tried to creep;
Called his name, soft was my cry;
He answered - not one sigh.
"The flower and the thorn are here;
Falleth the night-dew, cold and clear;
Out of her bower the bird replies,
Mocking the dark with ecstasies,
See how the earth's green grass doth grow,
Praising what sleeps below!
"Thus have they told me. And I come,
As flies the wounded wild-bird home.
Not tears I give; but all that he
Clasped in his arms, sweet charity;
All that he loved - to him I bring
For a close whispering."
The Heron Ballads. (Ballad First.)
by Robert Burns

I.
Whom will you send to London town,
To Parliament and a' that?
Or wha in a' the country round
The best deserves to fa' that?
For a' that, and a' that;
Thro Galloway and a' that;
Where is the laird or belted knight
That best deserves to fa' that?
II.
Wha sees Kerroughtree's open yett,
And wha is't never saw that?
Wha ever wi' Kerroughtree meets
And has a doubt of a' that?
For a' that, and a' that,
Here's Heron yet for a' that,
The independent patriot,
The honest man, an' a' that.
III.
Tho' wit and worth in either sex,
St. Mary's Isle can shaw that;
Wi' dukes and lords let Selkirk mix,
And weel does Selkirk fa' that.
For a' that, and a' that,
Here's Heron yet for a' that!
The independent commoner
Shall be the man for a' that.
IV.
But why should we to nobles jouk,
And it's against the law that;
For why, a lord may be a gouk,
Wi' ribbon, star, an' a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
Here's Heron yet for a' that!
A lord may be a lousy loun,
Wi' ribbon, star, an' a' that.
V.
A beardless boy comes o'er the hills,
Wi' uncle's purse an' a' that;
But we'll hae ane frae 'mang oursels,
A man we ken, an' a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
Here's Heron yet for a' that!
For we're not to be bought an' sold
Like naigs, an' nowt, an' a' that.
VI.
Then let us drink the Stewartry,
Kerroughtree's laird, an' a' that,
Our representative to be,
For weel he's worthy a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
Here's Heron yet for a' that,
A House of Commons such as he,
They would be blest that saw that.
The Christening
by Thomas Hardy

Whose child is this they bring
Into the aisle? -
At so superb a thing
The congregation smile
And turn their heads awhile.
Its eyes are blue and bright,
Its cheeks like rose;
Its simple robes unite
Whitest of calicoes
With lawn, and satin bows.
A pride in the human race
At this paragon
Of mortals, lights each face
While the old rite goes on;
But ah, they are shocked anon.
What girl is she who peeps
From the gallery stair,
Smiles palely, redly weeps,
With feverish furtive air
As though not fitly there?
"I am the baby's mother;
This gem of the race
The decent fain would smother,
And for my deep disgrace
I am bidden to leave the place."
"Where is the baby's father?" -
"In the woods afar.
He says there is none he'd rather
Meet under moon or star
Than me, of all that are.
"To clasp me in lovelike weather,
Wish fixing when,
He says: To be together
At will, just now and then,
Makes him the blest of men;
"But chained and doomed for life
To slovening
As vulgar man and wife,
He says, is another thing:
Yea: sweet Love's sepulchring!"
1904.
Poverty And Riches
by Robert Herrick

Who with a little cannot be content,
Endures an everlasting punishment.
Verses Written In Westminster Abbey. [1]
by Samuel Rogers

Whoe'er thou art, approach, and, with a sigh,
Mark where the small remains of Greatness lie.[2]
There sleeps the dust of Him for ever gone;
How near the Scene where once his Glory shone!
And, tho' no more ascends the voice of Prayer,
Tho' the last footsteps cease to linger there,
Still, like an awful Dream that comes again,
Alas, at best, as transient and as vain,
Still do I see (while thro' the vaults of night
The funeral-song once more proclaims the rite)
The moving Pomp along the shadowy Isle,
That, like a Darkness, fill'd the solemn Pile;
The illustrious line, that in long order led,
Of those that lov'd Him living, mourn'd Him dead;
Of those, the Few, that for their Country stood
Round Him who dar'd be singularly good;
All, of all ranks, that claim'd Him for their own;
And nothing wanting--but Himself alone! [3]
Oh say, of Him now rests there but a name;
Wont, as He was, to breathe ethereal flame?
Friend of the Absent! Guardian of the Dead! [4]
Who but would here their sacred sorrows shed?
(Such as He shed on NELSON'S closing grave;
How soon to claim the sympathy He gave!)
In Him, resentful of another's wrong,
The dumb were eloquent, the feeble strong.
Truth from his lips a charm celestial drew--
Ah, who so mighty and so gentle too?
What tho' with War the madding Nations rung,
'Peace,' when He spoke, dwelt ever on his tongue!
Amidst the frowns of Power, the tricks of State,
Fearless, resolv'd, and negligently great!
In vain malignant vapours gather'd round;
He walk'd, erect, on consecrated ground.
The clouds, that rise to quench the Orb of day,
Reflect its splendour, and dissolve away!
When in retreat He laid his thunder by,
For letter'd ease and calm Philosophy,
Blest were his hours within the silent grove,
Where still his god-like Spirit deigns to rove;
Blest by the orphan's smile, the widow's prayer,
For many a deed, long done in secret there.
There shone his lamp on Homer's hallow'd page.
There, listening, sate the hero and the sage;
And they, by virtue and by blood allied,
Whom most He lov'd, and in whose arms He died.
Friend of all Human-kind! not here alone
(The voice, that speaks, was not to Thee unknown)
Wilt Thou be miss'd,--O'er every land and sea
Long, long shall England be rever'd in Thee!
And, when the Storm is hush'd--in distant years--
Foes on thy grave shall meet, and mingle tears!
The Two Poets
by Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell

Whose is the speech
That moves the voices of this lonely beech?
Out of the long West did this wild wind come -
Oh strong and silent! And the tree was dumb,
Ready and dumb, until
The dumb gale struck it on the darkened hill.
Two memories,
Two powers, two promises, two silences
Closed in this cry, closed in these thousand leaves
Articulate. This sudden hour retrieves
The purpose of the past,
Separate, apart - embraced, embraced at last.
"Whose is the word?
Is it I that spake? Is it thou? Is it I that heard?"
"Thine earth was solitary; yet I found thee!"
"Thy sky was pathless, but I caught, I bound thee,
Thou visitant divine."
"O thou my Voice, the word was thine."
"Was thine."
The Poetry Of Life.
by Friedrich Schiller

"Who would himself with shadows entertain,
Or gild his life with lights that shine in vain,
Or nurse false hopes that do but cheat the true? 
Though with my dream my heaven should be resigned 
Though the free-pinioned soul that once could dwell
In the large empire of the possible,
This workday life with iron chains may bind,
Yet thus the mastery o'er ourselves we find,
And solemn duty to our acts decreed,
Meets us thus tutored in the hour of need,
With a more sober and submissive mind!
How front necessity yet bid thy youth
Shun the mild rule of life's calm sovereign, truth."
So speakest thou, friend, how stronger far than I;
As from experience that sure port serene 
Thou lookest; and straight, a coldness wraps the sky,
The summer glory withers from the scene,
Scared by the solemn spell; behold them fly,
The godlike images that seemed so fair!
Silent the playful Muse the rosy hours
Halt in their dance; and the May-breathing flowers
Fall from the sister-graces' waving hair.
Sweet-mouthed Apollo breaks his golden lyre,
Hermes, the wand with many a marvel rife; 
The veil, rose-woven, by the young desire
With dreams, drops from the hueless cheeks of life.
The world seems what it is a grave! and love
Casts down the bondage wound his eyes above,
And sees! He sees but images of clay
Where he dreamed gods; and sighs and glides away.
The youngness of the beautiful grows old,
And on thy lips the bride's sweet kiss seems cold;
And in the crowd of joys upon thy throne
Thou sittest in state, and hardenest into stone.
The Sleeping Flowers.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

"Whose are the little beds," I asked,
"Which in the valleys lie?"
Some shook their heads, and others smiled,
And no one made reply.
"Perhaps they did not hear," I said;
"I will inquire again.
Whose are the beds, the tiny beds
So thick upon the plain?"
"'T is daisy in the shortest;
A little farther on,
Nearest the door to wake the first,
Little leontodon.
"'T is iris, sir, and aster,
Anemone and bell,
Batschia in the blanket red,
And chubby daffodil."
Meanwhile at many cradles
Her busy foot she plied,
Humming the quaintest lullaby
That ever rocked a child.
"Hush! Epigea wakens! --
The crocus stirs her lids,
Rhodora's cheek is crimson, --
She's dreaming of the woods."
Then, turning from them, reverent,
"Their bed-time 't is," she said;
"The bumble-bees will wake them
When April woods are red."