DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Wanderer
by Alan Seeger

To see the clouds his spirit yearned toward so
Over new mountains piled and unploughed waves,
Back of old-storied spires and architraves
To watch Arcturus rise or Fomalhaut,
And roused by street-cries in strange tongues when day
Flooded with gold some domed metropolis,
Between new towers to waken and new bliss
Spread on his pillow in a wondrous way:
These were his joys. Oft under bulging crates,
Coming to market with his morning load,
The peasant found him early on his road
To greet the sunrise at the city-gates, - 
There where the meadows waken in its rays,
Golden with mist, and the great roads commence,
And backward, where the chimney-tops are dense,
Cathedral-arches glimmer through the haze.
White dunes that breaking show a strip of sea,
A plowman and his team against the blue,
Swiss pastures musical with cowbells, too,
And poplar-lined canals in Picardie,
And coast-towns where the vultures back and forth
Sail in the clear depths of the tropic sky,
And swallows in the sunset where they fly
Over gray Gothic cities in the north,
And the wine-cellar and the chorus there,
The dance-hall and a face among the crowd, - 
Were all delights that made him sing aloud
For joy to sojourn in a world so fair.
Back of his footsteps as he journeyed fell
Range after range; ahead blue hills emerged.
Before him tireless to applaud it surged
The sweet interminable spectacle.
And like the west behind a sundown sea
Shone the past joys his memory retraced,
And bright as the blue east he always faced
Beckoned the loves and joys that were to be.
From every branch a blossom for his brow
He gathered, singing down Life's flower-lined road,
And youth impelled his spirit as he strode
Like winged Victory on the galley's prow.
That Loveliness whose being sun and star,
Green Earth and dawn and amber evening robe,
That lamp whereof the opalescent globe
The season's emulative splendors are,
That veiled divinity whose beams transpire
From every pore of universal space,
As the fair soul illumes the lovely face - 
That was his guest, his passion, his desire.
His heart the love of Beauty held as hides
One gem most pure a casket of pure gold.
It was too rich a lesser thing to hold;
It was not large enough for aught besides.
The Lion And The Rat.
by Jean de La Fontaine

To show to all your kindness, it behoves:
There's none so small but you his aid may need.
I quote two fables for this weighty creed,
Which either of them fully proves.
From underneath the sward
A rat, quite off his guard,
Popp'd out between a lion's paws.
The beast of royal bearing
Show'd what a lion was
The creature's life by sparing - 
A kindness well repaid;
For, little as you would have thought
His majesty would ever need his aid,
It proved full soon
A precious boon.
Forth issuing from his forest glen,
T' explore the haunts of men,
In lion net his majesty was caught,
From which his strength and rage
Served not to disengage.
The rat ran up, with grateful glee,
Gnaw'd off a rope, and set him free.
By time and toil we sever
What strength and rage could never.
To Mrs. .......
by Thomas Moore

To see thee every day that came,
And find thee still each day the same;
In pleasure's smile or sorrow's tear
To me still ever kind and dear;--
To meet thee early, leave thee late,
Has been so long my bliss, my fate,
That life, without this cheering ray,
Which came, like sunshine, every day,
And all my pain, my sorrow chased,
Is now a lone, a loveless waste.
Where are the chords she used to touch?
The airs, the songs she loved so much?
Those songs are hushed, those chords are still,
And so, perhaps, will every thrill
Of feeling soon be lulled to rest,
Which late I waked in Anna's breast.
Yet, no--the simple notes I played
From memory's tablet soon may fade;
The songs, which Anna loved to hear,
May vanish from her heart and ear;
But friendship's voice shall ever find
An echo in that gentle mind,
Nor memory lose nor time impair
The sympathies that tremble there.
To Read In The Morning And At Night...
by Bertolt Brecht

[Original Poem]
Morgens und abends zu lesen
Der, den ich liebe
Hat mir gesagt
Da' er mich braucht.
Darum
Gebe ich auf mich acht
Sehe auf meinen Weg und
F'rchte von jedem Regentropfen
Da' er mich erschlagen k'nnte.
[Translated Poem]
To read in the morning and at night
My love
Has told me
That he needs me.
That's why
I take good care of myself
Watch out where I'm going and
Fear that any drop of rain
Might kill me.
Lines To Sir Robert Ker Porter, Knight Of The Imperial Order Of St. Joachim
by John Carr (Sir)

Upon His Approaching Nuptials With The Princess Shebatoff.
To save the credit of the dame,
Poets and painters all agree
That Mistress Fortune cannot see,
And on her bandage cast the blame;
When honours on th' unworthy wait,
When riches to the wealthy flow,
When high desert, oppress'd by woe,
Is left to struggle on with Fate.
But, Porter! when on thee she smil'd,
The fillet from her eyes she mov'd,
To view the merit all approv'd - 
A mind inform'd, a heart unsoil'd.
She saw thy virtues bright appear;
A son that mothers seldom know,
A brother with affection's glow,
The soldier brave[A], the friend sincere.
With honours then thy name she grac'd,
And call'd on Love to bless thy arms
With princely rank, with Virtue's charms,
And all the pow'rs of wit and taste.
A Late Scene At Swanage.
by Thomas Moore

[1]
regnis EX sul ademptis.--Verg. 1827.
To Swanage--that neat little town in whose bay
Fair Thetis shows off in her best silver slippers--
Lord Bags[2] took his annual trip t'other day,
To taste the sea breezes and chat with the dippers.
There--learned as he is in conundrums and laws--
Quoth he to his dame (whom he oft plays the wag on),
"Why are chancery suitors like bathers?"--"Because
Their suits are put off, till they haven't a rag on."
Thus on he went chatting--but, lo! while he chats,
With a face full of wonder around him he looks;
For he misses his parsons, his dear shovel hats,
Who used to flock round him at Swanage like rooks.
"How is this, Lady Bags?--to this region aquatic
"Last year they came swarming to make me their bow,
"As thick as Burke's cloud o'er the vales of Carnatic,
"Deans, Rectors, D.D.'s--where the devil are they now?"
"My dearest Lord Bags!" saith his dame, "can you doubt?
"I am loath to remind you of things so unpleasant;
"But don't you perceive, dear, the Church have found out
"That you're one of the people called Ex's, at present?"
"Ah, true--you have hit it--I am, indeed, one
"Of those ill-fated Ex's (his Lordship replies),
"And with tears, I confess--God forgive me the pun!--
"We X's have proved ourselves not to be Y's."
Things Worth While.
by Edwin C. Ranck

To sit and dream in a shady nook
While the phantom clouds roll by;
To con some long-remembered book
When the pulse of youth beats high.
To thrill when the dying sunset glows
Through the heart of a mystic wood,
To drink the sweetness of some wild rose,
And to find the whole world good.
To bring unto others joy and mirth,
And keep what friends you can;
To learn that the rarest gift on earth
Is the love of your fellow man.
To hold the respect of those you know,
To scorn dishonest pelf;
To sympathize with another's woe,
And just be true to yourself.
To find that a woman's honest love
In this great world of strife
Gleams steadfast like a star, above
The dark morass of life.
To feel a baby's clinging hand,
To watch a mother's smile;
To dwell once more in fairyland--
These are the things worth while.
Fellowship With Christ
by Pamela S. Vining, (J. C. Yule)

To pray as Jesus prayed,
When faithless brethren sleep, - 
To weep the ruin sin has made - 
The only ones that weep, - 
To bear the heavy cross, - 
To toil, yet murmur not, - 
To suffer pain, reproach, and loss, - 
Be such our earthly lot.
Yet oh, how richly blest
The Master's cup to share, - 
The aching grief that wrung His breast, - 
His broken-hearted prayer, - 
If thus we may but gain
One sheaf of golden wheat
Gleaned from Earth's sultry harvest-plain,
To lay at His dear feet! - 
If thus we may but win
One precious earthly gem
Snatched from the mire of vice and sin,
For His rich diadem! - 
Here, sorrow, patience, prayer;
In Heaven, the rich reward!
Here, the sharp thorns, the cross, - and there
"Forever with the Lord"!
Distrust.
by Robert Herrick

To safeguard man from wrongs, there nothing must
Be truer to him than a wise distrust.
And to thyself be best this sentence known:
Hear all men speak, but credit few or none.
The Invitation
by Robert Herrick

To sup with thee thou didst me home invite,
And mad'st a promise that mine appetite
Should meet and tire, on such lautitious meat,
The like not Heliogabalus did eat:
And richer wine would'st give to me, thy guest,
Than Roman Sylla pour'd out at his feast.
I came, 'tis true, and look'd for fowl of price,
The bastard Phoenix; bird of Paradise;
And for no less than aromatic wine
Of maidens-blush, commix'd with jessamine.
Clean was the hearth, the mantle larded jet,
Which, wanting Lar and smoke, hung weeping wet;
At last i' th' noon of winter, did appear
A ragg'd soused neats-foot, with sick vinegar;
And in a burnish'd flagonet, stood by
Beer small as comfort, dead as charity.
At which amazed, and pond'ring on the food,
How cold it was, and how it chill'd my blood,
I curst the master, and I damn'd the souce,
And swore I'd got the ague of the house.
Well, when to eat thou dost me next desire,
I'll bring a fever, since thou keep'st no fire.
The Vision Of St. Peter.
by John Milton Hay

To Peter by night the faithfullest came
And said, "We appeal to thee!
The life of the Church is in thy life;
We pray thee to rise and flee.
"For the tyrant's hand is red with blood,
And his arm is heavy with power;
Thy head, the head of the Church, will fall
If thou tarry in Rome an hour."
Through the sleeping town St. Peter passed
To the wide Campagna plain;
In the starry light of the Alban night
He drew free breath again:
When across his path an awful form
In luminous glory stood;
His thorn-crowned brow, His hands and feet,
Were wet with immortal blood.
The godlike sorrow which filled His eyes
Seemed changed to a godlike wrath
As they turned on Peter, who cried aloud,
And sank to his knees in the path.
"Lord of my life, my love, my soul!
Say, what wilt Thou with me?"
A voice replied, "I go to Rome
To be crucified for thee."
The Apostle sprang, all flushed, to his feet, -
The vision had passed away;
The light still lay on the dewy plain,
But the sky in the east was gray.
To the city walls St. Peter turned,
And his heart in his breast grew fire;
In every vein the hot blood burned
With the strength of one high desire.
And sturdily back he marched to his death
Of terrible pain and shame;
And never a shade of fear again
To the stout Apostle came.
The Old Cat And The Young Mouse.
by Jean de La Fontaine

To Monseigneur, The Duke De Bourgogne; Who Had Requested Of M. De La Fontaine A Fable Which Should Be Called "The Cat And The Mouse."
To please a youthful prince, whom Fame
A temple in my writings vows,
What fable answers to the name,
"The Cat and Mouse?"
Shall I in verse the fair present,
With softest look but hard intent,
Who serves the hearts her charms entice
As does the cat its captive mice?
Or make my subject Fortune's sport?
She treats the friends that make her court,
And follow closest her advice,
As treats the cat the silly mice.
Shall I for theme a king select
Who sole, of all her favourites,
Commands the goddess's respect?
For whom she from her wheel alights.
Who, never stay'd by foes a trice,
Whene'er they block his way,
Can with the strongest play
As doth the cat with mice!
Insensibly, while casting thus about,
Quite anxious for my subject's sake,
A theme I meet, and, if I don't mistake,
Shall spoil it, too, by spinning out.
The prince will treat my muse, for that,
As mice are treated by the cat.
A young and inexperienced mouse
Had faith to try a veteran cat,[1] - 
Raminagrobis, death to rat,
And scourge of vermin through the house, - 
Appealing to his clemency
With reasons sound and fair.
'Pray let me live; a mouse like me
It were not much to spare.
Am I, in such a family,
A burden? Would my largest wish
Our wealthy host impoverish?
A grain of wheat will make my meal;
A nut will fat me like a seal.
I'm lean at present; please to wait,
And for your heirs reserve my fate.'
The captive mouse thus spake.
Replied the captor, 'You mistake;
To me shall such a thing be said?
Address the deaf! address the dead!
A cat to pardon! - old one too!
Why, such a thing I never knew.
Thou victim of my paw,
By well-establish'd law,
Die as a mousling should,
And beg the sisterhood
Who ply the thread and shears,
To lend thy speech their ears.
Some other like repast
My heirs may find, or fast.'
He ceased. The moral's plain.
Youth always hopes its ends to gain,
Believes all spirits like its own:
Old age is not to mercy prone.
Epigram Printed In The Northampton Mercury.
by William Cowper

To purify their wine, some people bleed
A lamb into the barrel, and succeed;
No nostrum, planters say, is half so good
To make fine sugar as a negro's blood.
Now lambs and negroes both are harmless things,
And thence perhaps this wondrous virtue springs,
'Tis in the blood of innocence alone'
Good cause why planters never try their own.
The Favorite Sultana.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("N'ai-je pas pour toi, belle juive.")
[XII., Oct. 27, 1828.]
To please you, Jewess, jewel!
I have thinned my harem out!
Must every flirting of your fan
Presage a dying shout?
Grace for the damsels tender
Who have fear to hear your laugh,
For seldom gladness gilds your lips
But blood you mean to quaff.
In jealousy so zealous,
Never was there woman worse;
You'd have no roses but those grown
Above some buried corse.
Am I not pinioned firmly?
Why be angered if the door
Repulses fifty suing maids
Who vainly there implore?
Let them live on - to envy
My own empress of the world,
To whom all Stamboul like a dog
Lies at the slippers curled.
To you my heroes lower
Those scarred ensigns none have cowed;
To you their turbans are depressed
That elsewhere march so proud.
To you Bassora offers
Her respect, and Trebizonde
Her carpets richly wrought, and spice
And gems, of which you're fond.
To you the Cyprus temples
Dare not bar or close the doors;
For you the mighty Danube sends
The choicest of its stores.
Fear you the Grecian maidens,
Pallid lilies of the isles?
Or the scorching-eyed sand-rover
From Baalbec's massy piles?
Compared with yours, oh, daughter
Of King Solomon the grand,
What are round ebon bosoms,
High brows from Hellas' strand?
You're neither blanched nor blackened,
For your tint of olive's clear;
Yours are lips of ripest cherry,
You are straight as Arab spear.
Hence, launch no longer lightning
On these paltry slaves of ours.
Why should your flow of tears be matched
By their mean life-blood showers?
Think only of our banquets
Brought and served by charming girls,
For beauties sultans must adorn
As dagger-hilts the pearls.
Fame Makes Us Forward.
by Robert Herrick

To print our poems, the propulsive cause
Is fame - the breath of popular applause.
Burial.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

To the grave one day from a house they bore
A maiden;
To the window the citizens went to explore;
In splendour they lived, and with wealth as of yore
Their banquets were laden.
Then thought they: "The maid to the tomb is now borne;
We too from our dwellings ere long must be torn,
And he that is left our departure to mourn,
To our riches will be the successor,
For some one must be their possessor.
Recipe For A Suffragette:
by Unknown

To the power that already lies in her hands
You add equal rights with the gents;
You'll find votes that used to bring two or three plunks,
Marked down to ninety-eight cents.
To My Friend Mr. J. Ellis.
by Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow

To thee, the guardian of my youthful days,
Fain would I pay some tribute of respect;
And though it falls far short of thy desert,
The will to do thee justice thou'lt accept.
As I recall the days of former years,
Thy many acts of kindness bring to mind,
Tears fill my eyes, in thee I've ever found
A friend most faithful, uniformly kind.
Thou art the earliest friend of mine that's left - 
The rest have long departed, every one;
They've long years since the debt of nature paid,
But thou remainest still, and thou alone.
The snow of four score winters thou has seen,
And life's long pilgrimage may soon be o'er;
Respected, loved, and happy hast thou been,
With ample means to relieve the suffering poor,
Thou ever hadst the will, as well as power.
Temperate in habit, and of temper even,
Calm and unruffled as the peaceful lake,
To thee the satisfaction has been given
Much to enjoy, and others happy make.
And when thy days on earth shall all be past,
And thou before the Saviour's bar appear,
Mayst thou be found clothed in his righteousness
And from his lips the joyful sentence hear - 
"Well done, thou good and faithful servant; thou
Hast over few things faithful been, and now
I'll make thee ruler over many things,
And place a crown of glory on thy brow."
Such will be thy reward, my friend, and mine,
If trusting in Christ's merits, not our own,
We at the last great day in him be found;
He is the ark of safety - He alone.
Weston, April 24, 1852.
November Song.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

To the great archer not to him
To meet whom flies the sun,
And who is wont his features dim
With clouds to overrun 
But to the boy be vow'd these rhymes,
Who 'mongst the roses plays,
Who hear us, and at proper times
To pierce fair hearts essays.
Through him the gloomy winter night,
Of yore so cold and drear,
Brings many a loved friend to our sight,
And many a woman dear.
Henceforward shall his image fair
Stand in yon starry skies,
And, ever mild and gracious there,
Alternate set and rise.
To The East And To The West
by Walt Whitman

To the East and to the West;
To the man of the Seaside State, and of Pennsylvania,
To the Kanadian of the North, to the Southerner I love;
These, with perfect trust, to depict you as myself, the germs are in all men;
I believe the main purport of These States is to found a superb friendship, exalt', previously unknown,
Because I perceive it waits, and has been always waiting, latent in all men.
To Thee, Old Cause!
by Walt Whitman

To thee, old Cause!
Thou peerless, passionate, good cause!
Thou stern, remorseless, sweet Idea!
Deathless throughout the ages, races, lands!
After a strange, sad war, great war for thee,
(I think all war through time was really fought, and ever will be really fought, for thee;)
These chants for thee, the eternal march of thee.
Thou orb of many orbs!
Thou seething principle! Thou well-kept, latent germ! Thou centre!
Around the idea of thee the strange sad war revolving,
With all its angry and vehement play of causes,
(With yet unknown results to come, for thrice a thousand years,)
These recitatives for thee, my Book and the War are one,
Merged in its spirit I and mine, as the contest hinged on thee,
As a wheel on its axis turns, this Book, unwitting to itself,
Around the Idea of thee.
To The Leaven'd Soil They Trod
by Walt Whitman

To the leaven'd soil they trod, calling, I sing, for the last;
(Not cities, nor man alone, nor war, nor the dead,
But forth from my tent emerging for good, loosing, untying the tent-ropes;)
In the freshness, the forenoon air, in the far-stretching circuits and vistas, again to peace restored,
To the fiery fields emanative, and the endless vistas beyond, to the south and the north;
To the leaven'd soil of the general western world, to attest my songs,
(To the average earth, the wordless earth, witness of war and peace,)
To the Alleghanian hills, and the tireless Mississippi,
To the rocks I, calling, sing, and all the trees in the woods,
To the plain of the poems of heroes, to the prairie spreading wide,
To the far-off sea, and the unseen winds, and the same impalpable air;
And responding, they answer all, (but not in words,)
The average earth, the witness of war and peace, acknowledges mutely;
The prairie draws me close, as the father, to bosom broad, the son;
The Northern ice and rain, that began me, nourish me to the end;
But the hot sun of the South is to ripen my songs.
Inscribed: Riley Love-Lyrics
by James Whitcomb Riley

To the Elect of Love, - or side-by-side
In raptest ecstasy, or sundered wide
By seas that bear no message to or fro
Between the loved and lost of long ago.
So were I but a minstrel, deft
At weaving, with the trembling strings
Of my glad harp, the warp and weft
Of rondels such as rapture sings, -
I'd loop my lyre across my breast,
Nor stay me till my knee found rest
In midnight banks of bud and flower
Beneath my lady's lattice-bower.
And there, drenched with the teary dews,
I'd woo her with such wondrous art
As well might stanch the songs that ooze
Out of the mockbird's breaking heart;
So light, so tender, and so sweet
Should be the words I would repeat,
Her casement, on my gradual sight,
Would blossom as a lily might.
The Petition Of The Orangemen Of Ireland.
by Thomas Moore

To the people of England, the humble Petition
Of Ireland's disconsolate Orangemen, showing--
That sad, very sad, is our present condition;--
Our jobbing all gone and our noble selves going;--
That forming one seventh, within a few fractions,
Of Ireland's seven millions of hot heads and hearts,
We hold it the basest of all base transactions
To keep us from murdering the other six parts;--
That as to laws made for the good of the many,
We humbly suggest there is nothing less true;
As all human laws (and our own, more than any)
Are made by and for a particular few:--
That much it delights every true Orange brother
To see you in England such ardor evince,
In discussing which sect most tormented the other,
And burned with most gusto some hundred years since;--
That we love to behold, while old England grows faint,
Messrs. Southey and Butler nigh coming to blows,
To decide whether Dunstan, that strong-bodied Saint,
Ever truly and really pulled the De'il's nose;
Whether t'other Saint, Dominic, burnt the De'il's paw--
Whether Edwy intrigued with Elgiva's odd mother--
And many such points, from which Southey can draw
Conclusions most apt for our hating each other.
That 'tis very well known this devout Irish nation
Has now for some ages, gone happily on
Believing in two kinds of Substantiation,
One party in Trans and the other in Con;[1]
That we, your petitioning Cons, have in right
Of the said monosyllable ravaged the lands
And embezzled the goods and annoyed, day and night,
Both the bodies and souls of the sticklers for Trans;--
That we trust to Peel, Eldon, and other such sages,
For keeping us still in the same state of mind;
Pretty much as the world used to be in those ages,
When still smaller syllables maddened mankind;--
When the words ex and per[2] served as well to annoy
One's neighbors and friends with, as con and trans now;
And Christians, like Southey, who stickled for oi,
Cut the throats of all Christians who stickled for ou.[3]
That relying on England whose kindness already
So often has helpt us to play this game o'er,
We have got our red coats and our carabines ready,
And wait but the word to show sport as before.
That as to the expense--the few millions or so,
Which for all such diversions John Bull has to pay--
'Tis at least a great comfort to John Bull to know
That to Orangemen's pockets 'twill all find its way.
For which your petitioners ever will pray,
Etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.
The Kiss
by Siegfried Loraine Sassoon

To these I turn, in these I trust;
Brother Lead and Sister Steel.
To his blind power I make appeal;
I guard her beauty clean from rust.
He spins and burns and loves the air,
And splits a skull to win my praise;
But up the nobly marching days
She glitters naked, cold and fair.
Sweet Sister, grant your soldier this;
That in good fury he may feel
The body where he sets his heel
Quail from your downward darting kiss.
The Ungrateful Wolf
by Walter Crane

To the Wolf, from whose throat Dr Crane
Drew the bone, his long bill made it plain
He expected his fee:
Snarled Wolf--"Fiddle de dee,
Be thankful your head's out again."
Some Characters Have No Sense Of Obligation