DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Regret.
by Charlotte Bronte

Long ago I wished to leave
"The house where I was born;"
Long ago I used to grieve,
My home seemed so forlorn.
In other years, its silent rooms
Were filled with haunting fears;
Now, their very memory comes
O'ercharged with tender tears.
Life and marriage I have known.
Things once deemed so bright;
Now, how utterly is flown
Every ray of light!
'Mid the unknown sea, of life
I no blest isle have found;
At last, through all its wild wave's strife,
My bark is homeward bound.
Farewell, dark and rolling deep!
Farewell, foreign shore!
Open, in unclouded sweep,
Thou glorious realm before!
Yet, though I had safely pass'd
That weary, vexed main,
One loved voice, through surge and blast
Could call me back again.
Though the soul's bright morning rose
O'er Paradise for me,
William! even from Heaven's repose
I'd turn, invoked by thee!
Storm nor surge should e'er arrest
My soul, exalting then:
All my heaven was once thy breast,
Would it were mine again!
Caelia - Sonnet - 1
by William Browne

Lo, I the man that whilom lov'd and lost,
Not dreading loss, do sing again of love;
And like a man but lately tempest-toss'd,
Try if my stars still inauspicious prove:
Not to make good that poets never can
Long time without a chosen mistress be,
Do I sing thus; or my affections ran
Within the maze of mutability;
What last I lov'd was beauty of the mind,
And that lodg'd in a temple truly fair,
Which ruin'd now by death, if I can find
The saint that liv'd therein some otherwhere,
I may adore it there, and love the cell
For entertaining what I lov'd so well.
The Better Part
by Matthew Arnold

Long fed on boundless hopes, O race of man,
How angrily thou spurn'st all simpler fare!
"Christ," some one says, "was human as we are;
No judge eyes us from Heaven, our sin to scan;
We live no more when we have done our span."
"Well, then, for Christ," thou answerest, "who can care?
From sin, which Heaven records not, why forbear?
Live we like brutes our life without a plan!"
So answerest thou; but why not rather say,
"Hath man no second life? Pitch this one high!
Sits there no judge in Heaven our sin to see?
More strictly, then, the inward judge obey!
Was Christ a man like us? Ah! let us try
If we then, too, can be such men as he!"
Drawing Near The Light.
by William Morris

Lo, when we wade the tangled wood,
In haste and hurry to be there,
Nought seem its leaves and blossoms good,
For all that they be fashioned fair.
But looking up, at last we see
The glimmer of the open light,
From o'er the place where we would be:
Then grow the very brambles bright.
So now, amidst our day of strife,
With many a matter glad we play,
When once we see the light of life
Gleam through the tangle of to-day.
"Ave Caesar"
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

Long ago the Gladiators,
When the call to combat came,
Marching past the massed spectators,
Hailed the Emp'ror with acclaim!
Voices ringing with the fury
Of the strife so soon to be,
Cried, "O Caesar, morituri
salutamus te!"
Nowadays the massed spectators
See the unaccustomed sight,
Legislative gladiators
Marching to their last great fight;
Young and old, obscure and famous,
Hand to hand and knee to knee,
Hear the war-cry, "Salutamus
morituri te!"
Fight! Nor be the fight suspended
Till the corpses strew the plain.
Ere the grisly strife be ended
Five and thirty must be slain.
Slay and spare not, lest another
Haply may discomfit thee:
Brother now must war with brother,
"Salutamus te!"
War-torn vet'ran, skilled debater,
Trickster famed of bridge and road,
Now for each grim gladiator
Gapes Oblivion's drear abode.
Should the last great final jury
Turn their thumbs down, it must be!
"Ave, Caesar, morituri
salutamus te!"
The Logicians Refuted
by Jonathan Swift

Logicians have but ill defined
As rational, the human kind;
Reason, they say, belongs to man,
But let them prove it if they can.
Wise Aristotle and Smiglesius,
By ratiocinations specious,
Have strove to prove, with great precision,
With definition and division,
Homo est ratione praeditum;
But for my soul I cannot credit 'em,
And must, in spite of them, maintain,
That man and all his ways are vain;
And that this boasted lord of nature
Is both a weak and erring creature;
That instinct is a surer guide
Than reason, boasting mortals' pride;
And that brute beasts are far before 'em.
Deus est anima brutorum.
Whoever knew an honest brute
At law his neighbour prosecute,
Bring action for assault or battery,
Or friend beguile with lies and flattery?
O'er plains they ramble unconfined,
No politics disturb their mind;
They eat their meals, and take their sport
Nor know who's in or out at court.
They never to the levee go
To treat, as dearest friend, a foe:
They never importune his grace,
Nor ever cringe to men in place:
Nor undertake a dirty job,
Nor draw the quill to write for Bob.[1]
Fraught with invective, they ne'er go
To folks at Paternoster Row.
No judges, fiddlers, dancing-masters,
No pickpockets, or poetasters,
Are known to honest quadrupeds;
No single brute his fellow leads.
Brutes never meet in bloody fray,
Nor cut each other's throats for pay.
Of beasts, it is confess'd, the ape
Comes nearest us in human shape;
Like man, he imitates each fashion,
And malice is his lurking passion:
But, both in malice and grimaces,
A courtier any ape surpasses.
Behold him, humbly cringing, wait
Upon the minister of state;
View him soon after to inferiors
Aping the conduct of superiors;
He promises with equal air,
And to perform takes equal care.
He in his turn finds imitators,
At court, the porters, lacqueys, waiters,
Their masters' manner still contract,
And footmen, lords and dukes can act.
Thus, at the court, both great and small
Behave alike, for all ape all.
Plaudits
by Paul Cameron Brown

Loki, the Norwegian god of mischief, sends out a lithesome blonde with a slinkiness that ravishes the libido. She presses her dream-like form against the windowpane. The night is soft about the city's lights. Water cascades in the distance, while small, black crickets' shovel sounds around pricked ears. The diminished man ignores this, instead busying himself with drawing lions on a vast sheet of blank paper. There is no word for happiness in the Malawi tongue and this disturbs him. What far reaching implications for the people of Africa.
He stands and downs a drink to ease his parched mouth. A moisture ring blurs one of his lions, and, again, he will lose the battle against the king of beasts tonight.
London Bridge
by Walter Crane

London Bridge is broken down,
Dance over my Ladye Lea;
London Bridge is broken down:
With a gay ladye.
How shall we build it up again?
Dance over my Ladye Lea;
How shall we build it up again?
With a gay ladye.
Silver and gold will be stole away,
Dance over my Ladye Lea;
Silver and gold will be stole away:
With a gay ladye.
Iron and steel will bend and bow,
Dance over my Ladye Lea;
Iron and steel will bend and bow:
With a gay ladye.
Wood and clay will wash away,
Dance over my Ladye Lea;
Wood and clay will wash away:
With a gay ladye.
Build it up with stone so strong,
Dance over my Ladye Lea;
Huzza! 'twill last for ages long.
With a gay ladye.
Southampton Bells
by John Drinkwater

I
Long ago some builder thrust
Heavenward in Southampton town
His spire and beamed his bells,
Largely conceiving from the dust
That pinnacle for ringing down
Orisons and No'ls.
In his imagination rang,
Through generations challenging
His peal on simple men,
Who, as the heart within him sang,
In daily townfaring should sing
By year and year again.
II
Now often to their ringing go
The bellmen with lean Time at heel,
Intent on daily cares;
The bells ring high, the bells ring low,
The ringers ring the builder's peal
Of tidings unawares.
And all the bells might well be dumb
For any quickening in the street
Of customary ears;
And so at last proud builders come
With dreams and virtues to defeat
Among the clouding years.
III
Now, waiting on Southampton sea
For exile, through the silver night
I hear No'l! No'l!
Through generations down to me
Your challenge, builder, comes aright,
Bell by obedient bell.
You wake an hour with me; then wide
Though be the lapses of your sleep
You yet shall wake again;
And thus, old builder, on the tide
Of immortality you keep
Your way from brain to brain.
Anti-Desperation
by Matthew Arnold

Long fed on boundless hopes, O race of man,
How angrily thou spurn'st all simpler fare!
Christ, some one says, was human as we are;
No judge eyes us from heaven, our sin to scan;
We live no more, when we have done our span.
'Well, then, for Christ,' thou answerest, 'who can care?
'From sin, which heaven records not, why forbear
'Live we like brutes our life without a plan!'
So answerest thou; but why not rather say
Hath man no second life? Pitch this one high!
'Sits there no judge in heaven, our sin to see?
'More strictly, then, the inward judge obey!
'Was Christ a man like us? Ah! let us try
'If we then, too, can be such men as he!'
Master Or Slave
by Bj'rnstjerne Martinius Bj'rnson

Lo, this land that lifts around it
Threatening peaks, while stern seas bound it,
With cold winters, summers bleak,
Curtly smiling, never meek,
'Tis the giant we must master,
Till he work our will the faster.
He shall carry, though he clamor,
He shall haul and saw and hammer,
Turn to light the tumbling torrent, - 
All his din and rage abhorrent
Shall, if we but do our duty,
Win for us a realm of beauty.
Gulf-Stream.
by Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncey Woolsey)

Lonely and cold and fierce I keep my way,
Scourge of the lands, companioned by the storm,
Tossing to heaven my frontlet, wild and gray,
Mateless, yet conscious ever of a warm
And brooding presence close to mine all day.
What is this alien thing, so near, so far,
Close to my life always, but blending never?
Hemmed in by walls whose crystal gates unbar
Not at the instance of my strong endeavor
To pierce the stronghold where their secrets are?
Buoyant, impalpable, relentless, thin,
Rise the clear, mocking walls. I strive in vain
To reach the pulsing heart that beats within,
Or with persistence of a cold disdain,
To quell the gladness which I may not win.
Forever sundered and forever one,
Linked by a bond whose spell I may not guess,
Our hostile, yet embracing currents run;
Such wedlock lonelier is than loneliness.
Baffled, withheld, I clasp the bride I shun.
Yet even in my wrath a wild regret
Mingles; a bitterness of jealous strife
Tinges my fury as I foam and fret
Against the borders of that calmer life,
Beside whose course my wrathful course is set.
But all my anger, all my pain and woe,
Are vain to daunt her gladness; all the while
She goes rejoicing, and I do not know,
Catching the soft irradiance of her smile,
If I am most her lover or her foe.
Part Of A Ghazal
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

Lonely rose out-splendouring legions of roses,
How could the nightingales behold you and not sing?
By Rustwell of Georgia (from the Tariel, twelfth century).
Tamerlane
by Victor James Daley

Lo, upon the carpet, where
Throned upon a heap of slain
Blue-eyed dolls of beauty rare
(Ah, they pleaded all in vain!)
Sits the Infant Tamerlane!
Broken toys upon the floor
Scattered lie, a ruined rout.
Thus from all things evermore
Are, the fact is past a doubt,
Hidden virtues hammered out.
Poet's page, or statesman's bust,
Nothing comes to him amiss;
Everything he clutches must,
'Tis his simple dream of bliss!
Suffer his analysis.
O my little Tamerlane,
Infantile Iconoclast,
Is your small barbaric brain
Not o'erawed by the amassed
Wit and Wisdom of the Past?
Type are you of that which springs
Ever forth when comes the need,
Overthrowing thrones and kings,
Faithless altar, sapless creed;
Sowing fresh and living seed.
On the worn-out Roman realm,
In whose purple gnawed the moth,
Thus its pride to overwhelm,
And its state to carve like cloth,
Swept the fierce, long-sworded Goth.
Age preserves with doting care
Things from which life long has fled,
Shrieks to see Youth touch a hair
On the mouldiest mummy-head,
So Egyptians kept their dead.
Youth comes by with head high-reared,
Stares in scorn at these august
Effigies by age revered,
Gilded shapes of Greed and Lust,
Shakes them into rags and dust.
Little Vandal, smash away!
Riot while your blood is hot!
If into the world each day
Such as you are entered not,
It would perish of dry-rot.
Poor 'Miss 7'
by Walter De La Mare

Lone and alone she lies,
Poor Miss 7,
Five steep flights from the earth,
And one from heaven;
Dark hair and dark brown eyes, -
Not to be sad she tries,
Still - still it's lonely lies
Poor Miss 7.
One day-long watch hath she,
Poor Miss 7,
Not in some orchard sweet
In April Devon -
Just four blank walls to see,
And dark come shadowily,
No moon, no stars, ah me!
Poor Miss 7.
And then to wake again,
Poor Miss 7,
To the cold night, to have
Sour physic given;
Out of some dream of pain,
Then strive long hours in vain
Deep dreamless sleep to gain:
Poor Miss 7.
Yet memory softly sings
Poor Miss 7
Songs full of love and peace
And gladness even;
Clear flowers and tiny wings,
All tender, lovely things,
Hope to her bosom brings -
Happy Miss 7.
Poems From "A Shropshire Lad" - LI
by Alfred Edward Housman

Loitering with a vacant eye
Along the Grecian gallery,
And brooding on my heavy ill,
I met a statue standing still.
Still in marble stone stood he,
And stedfastly he looked at me.
"Well met," I thought the look would say,
"We both were fashioned far away;
We neither knew, when we were young,
These Londoners we live among."
Still he stood and eyed me hard,
An earnest and a grave regard:
"What, lad, drooping with your lot?
I too would be where I am not.
I too survey that endless line
Of men whose thoughts are not as mine.
Years, ere you stood up from rest,
On my neck the collar prest;
Years, when you lay down your ill,
I shall stand and bear it still.
Courage, lad, 'tis not for long:
Stand, quit you like stone, be strong."
So I thought his look would say;
And light on me my trouble lay,
And I slept out in flesh and bone
Manful like the man of stone.
Locations And Times
by Walt Whitman

Locations and times - what is it in me that meets them all, whenever and wherever, and makes me at home?
Forms, colors, densities, odors - what is it in me that corresponds with them?
Nursery Rhyme. CLII. Songs.
by Unknown

London bridge is broken down,
Dance o'er my lady lee;
London bridge is broken down,
With a gay lady.
How shall we build it up again?
Dance o'er my lady lee;
How shall we build it up again?
With a gay lady.
Silver and gold will be stole away,
Dance o'er my lady lee;
Silver and gold will be stole away,
With a gay lady.
Build it up again with iron and steel,
Dance o'er my lady lee;
Build it up with iron and steel,
With a gay lady.
Iron and steel will bend and bow,
Dance o'er my lady lee;
Iron and steel will bend and bow,
With a gay lady.
Build it up with wood and clay,
Dance o'er my lady lee;
Build it up with wood and clay,
With a gay lady.
Wood and clay will wash away,
Dance o'er my lady lee;
Wood and clay will wash away,
With a gay lady.
Build it up with stone so strong,
Dance o'er my lady lee;
Huzza! 'twill last for ages long,
With a gay lady.
After London
by J. D. C. Fellow

London Bridge is broken down;
Green is the grass on Ludgate Hill;
I know a farmer in Camden Town
Killed a brock by Pentonville.
I have heard my grandam tell
How some thousand years ago
Houses stretched from Camberwell
Right to Highbury and Bow.
Down by Shadwell's golden meads
Tall ships' masts would stand as thick
As the pretty tufted reeds
That the Wapping children pick.
All the kings from end to end
Of all the world paid tribute then,
And meekly on their knees would bend
To the King of the Englishmen.
Thinks I while I dig my plot,
What if your grandam's tales be true?
Thinks I, be they true or not,
What's the odds to a fool like you?
Thinks I, while I smoke my pipe
Here beside the tumbling Fleet,
Apples drop when they are ripe,
And when they drop are they most sweet.
To The Master Of The Meteor
by Herman Melville

Lonesome on earth's loneliest deep,
Sailor! who dost thy vigil keep--
Off the Cape of Storms dost musing sweep
Over monstrous waves that curl and comb;
Of thee we think when here from brink
We blow the mead in bubbling foam.
Of thee we think, in a ring we link;
To the shearer of ocean's fleece we drink,
And the Meteor rolling home.
To Melpomene
by Eugene Field

Lofty and enduring is the monument I've reared:
Come, tempests, with your bitterness assailing;
And thou, corrosive blasts of time, by all things mortal feared,
Thy buffets and thy rage are unavailing!
I shall not altogether die: by far my greater part
Shall mock man's common fate in realms infernal;
My works shall live as tributes to my genius and my art,--
My works shall be my monument eternal!
While this great Roman empire stands and gods protect our fanes,
Mankind with grateful hearts shall tell the story
How one most lowly born upon the parched Apulian plains
First raised the native lyric muse to glory.
Assume, revered Melpomene, the proud estate I've won,
And, with thine own dear hand the meed supplying,
Bind thou about the forehead of thy celebrated son
The Delphic laurel-wreath of fame undying!
To Joy
by Sara Teasdale

Lo, I am happy, for my eyes have seen
Joy glowing here before me, face to face;
His wings were arched above me for a space,
I kissed his lips, no bitter came between.
The air is vibrant where his feet have been,
And full of song and color is his place.
His wondrous presence sheds about a grace
That lifts and hallows all that once was mean.
I may not sorrow for I saw the light,
Tho' I shall walk in valley ways for long,
I still shall hear the echo of the song,
My life is measured by its one great height.
Joy holds more grace than pain can ever give,
And by my glimpse of joy my soul shall live.
Inscribed To The Pathetic Memory Of The Poet Henry Timrod
by Madison Julius Cawein

Long are the days, and three times long the nights.
The weary hours are a heavy chain
Upon the feet of all Earth's dear delights,
Holding them ever prisoners to pain.
What shall beguile me to believe again
In hope, that faith within her parable writes
Of life, care reads with eyes whose tear-drops stain?
Shall such assist me to subdue the heights?
Long is the night, and over long the day. - 
The burden of all being! - is it worse
Or better, lo! that they who toil and pray
May win not more than they who toil and curse?
A little sleep, a little love, ah me!
And the slow weigh up the soul's Calvary!
Billys 'Square Affair'
by Henry Lawson

Long Bill, the captain of the push, was tired of his estate,
And wished to change his life and win the love of something 'straight';
'Twas rumour'd that the Gory B.'s had heard Long Bill declare
That he would turn respectable and wed a 'square affair.'
He craved the kiss of innocence; his spirit longed to rise;
The 'Crimson Streak,' his faithful 'piece,' grew hateful in his eyes;
(And though, in her entirety, the Crimson Streak 'was there,'
I grieve to state the Crimson Streak was not a 'square affair.')
He wanted clothes, a masher suit, he wanted boots and hat;
His girl had earned a quid or two, he wouldn't part with that;
And so he went to Brickfield Hill, and from a draper there
He 'shook' the proper kind of togs to fetch a 'square affair.'
Long Bill went to the barber's shop and had a shave and singe,
And from his narrow forehead combed his darling Mabel fringe;
Long Bill put on a 'square cut' and he brushed his boots with care,
And roved about the Gardens till he mashed a 'square affair.'
She was a tony servant-girl from somewhere on 'the Shore;'
She dressed in style that suited Bill, he could not wish for more.
While in her guileless presence he had ceased to chew or swear,
He knew the kind of barrack that can fetch a square affair.
To thus desert his donah old was risky and a sin,
And 'twould have served him right if she had caved his garret in.
The Gory Bleeders thought it too, and warned him to take care
In case the Crimson Streak got scent of Billy's square affair.
He took her to the stalls; 'twas dear, but Billy said 'Wot odds!'
He couldn't take his square affair amongst the crimson gods.
They wandered in the park at night, and hugged each other there, 
But, ah! the Crimson Streak got wind of Billy's square affair!
'The blank and space and stars!' she yelled; 'the nameless crimson dash!
'I'll smash the blanky crimson and his square affair, I'll smash', 
In short, she drank and raved and shrieked and tore her crimson hair,
And swore to murder Billy and to pound his square affair.
And so one summer evening, as the day was growing dim,
She watched her bloke go out, and foxed his square affair and him.
That night the park was startled by the shrieks that rent the air, 
The 'Streak' had gone for Billy and for Billy's square affair.
The 'gory' push had foxed the Streak, they foxed her to the park,
And they, of course; were close at hand to see the bleedin' lark;
A cop arrived in time to hear a 'gory B.' declare
'Gor blar-me! here's the Red Streak foul of Billy's square affair.'
Now Billy scowls about the Rocks, his manly beauty marr'd,
And Billy's girl, upon her 'ed, is doin' six months 'ard;
Bill's swivel eye is in a sling, his heart is in despair,
And in the Sydney 'Orspital lies Billy's square affair.
The Sonnets CXLIII - Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch
by William Shakespeare

Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch
One of her feather'd creatures broke away,
Sets down her babe, and makes all swift dispatch
In pursuit of the thing she would have stay;
Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,
Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent
To follow that which flies before her face,
Not prizing her poor infant's discontent;
So runn'st thou after that which flies from thee,
Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind;
But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,
And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind;
So will I pray that thou mayst have thy 'Will,'
If thou turn back and my loud crying still.
June Longings.
by George Parsons Lathrop

Lo, all about the lofty blue are blown
Light vapors white, like thistle-down,
That from their softened silver heaps opaque
Scatter delicate flake by flake,
Upon the wide loom of the heavens weaving
Forms of fancies past believing,
And, with fantastic show of mute despair,
As for some sweet hope hurt beyond repair,
Melt in the silent voids of sunny air.
All day the cooing brooklet runs in tune:
Half sunk i' th' blue, the powdery moon
Shows whitely. Hark, the bobolink's note! I hear it,
Far and faint as a fairy spirit!
Yet all these pass, and as some blithe bird, winging,
Leaves a heart-ache for his singing,
A frustrate passion haunts me evermore
For that which closest dwells to beauty's core.
O Love, canst thou this heart of hope restore?
To A Snowdrop
by William Wordsworth

Lone Flower, hemmed in with snows and white as they
But hardier far, once more I see thee bend
Thy forehead, as if fearful to offend,
Like an unbidden guest. Though day by day,
Storms, sallying from the mountain-tops, waylay
The rising sun, and on the plains descend;
Yet art thou welcome, welcome as a friend
Whose zeal outruns his promise! Blue-eyed May
Shall soon behold this border thickly set
With bright jonquils, their odours lavishing
On the soft west-wind and his frolic peers;
Nor will I then thy modest grace forget,
Chaste Snowdrop, venturous harbinger of Spring,
And pensive monitor of fleeting years!