DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Address, Spoken By Miss Fontenelle On Her Benefit Night.
by Robert Burns

Still anxious to secure your partial favour,
And not less anxious, sure, this night than ever,
A Prologue, Epilogue, or some such matter,
'Twould vamp my bill, said I, if nothing better;
So sought a Poet, roosted near the skies,
Told him I came to feast my curious eyes;
Said nothing like his works was ever printed;
And last, my Prologue-business slyly hinted!
"Ma'am, let me tell you," quoth my man of rhymes,
"I know your bent, these are no laughing times:
Can you, but, Miss, I own I have my fears,
Dissolve in pause, and sentimental tears;
With laden sighs, and solemn-rounded sentence,
Rouse from his sluggish slumbers, fell Repentance;
Paint Vengeance as he takes his horrid stand,
Waving on high the desolating brand,
Calling the storms to bear him o'er a guilty land?"
I could no more, askance the creature eyeing,
D'ye think, said I, this face was made for crying?
I'll laugh, that's poz, nay more, the world shall know it;
And so your servant: gloomy Master Poet!
Firm as my creed, Sirs, 'tis my fix'd belief,
That Misery's another word for Grief;
I also think, so may I be a bride!
That so much laughter, so much life enjoy'd.
Thou man of crazy care and ceaseless sigh,
Still under bleak Misfortune's blasting eye;
Doom'd to that sorest task of man alive,
To make three guineas do the work of five:
Laugh in Misfortune's face, the beldam witch!
Say, you'll be merry, tho' you can't be rich.
Thou other man of care, the wretch in love,
Who long with jiltish arts and airs hast strove;
Who, us the boughs all temptingly project,
Measur'st in desperate thought, a rope, thy neck,
Or, where the beetling cliff o'erhangs the deep,
Peerest to meditate the healing leap:
Would'st thou be cur'd, thou silly, moping elf?
Laugh at their follies, laugh e'en at thyself:
Learn to despise those frowns now so terrific,
And love a kinder, that's your grand specific.
To sum up all, be merry, I advise;
And as we're merry, may we still be wise.
Astrophel and Stella - Sonnet L
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

Stella, the fullnesse of my thoughts of thee
Cannot be staid within my panting breast,
But they do swell and struggle forth of me,
Till that in words thy figure be exprest:
And yet, as soone as they so formed be,
According to my lord Loues oene behest,
With sad eies I their weak proportion see
To portrait that which in this world is best.
So that I cannot chuse but write my mind,
And cannot chuse but put out what I write,
While these poor babes their death in birth do find;
And now my pen these lines had dashed quite
But that they stopt his fury from the same,
Because their forefront bare sweet Stellas name.
Written In A Cemetery.
by Kate Seymour Maclean

Stay yet awhile, oh flowers!--oh wandering grasses,
And creeping ferns, and climbing, clinging vines;--
Bend down and cover with lush odorous masses
My darling's couch, where he in sleep reclines.
Stay yet awhile;--let not the chill October
Plant spires of glinting frost about his bed;
Nor shower her faded leaves, so brown and sober,
Among the tuberoses above his head.
I would have all things fair, and sweet, and tender,--
The daisy's pearl, the cowslip's shield of snow,
And fragrant hyacinths in purple splendour,
About my darling's grassy couch to grow.
Oh birds!--small pilgrims of the summer weather,
Come hither, for my darling loved ye well;--
Here floats the thistle down for you to gather,
And bearded grasses ripen in the dell.
Here pipe, and plume your wings, and chirp and flutter,
And swing, light-poised upon the pendant bough;--
Fondly I deem he hears the calls ye utter,
And stirs in his light sleep to answer you.
Oh wind!--that blows through hours of nights and lonely,
Oh rain!--that sobs against my window pane,--
Ye beat upon my heart, which beats but only
To clasp and shelter my lost lamb again.
Peace--peace, my soul:--I know that in another
And brighter land my darling walks and waits,
Where we shall surely meet and clasp each other,
Beyond the threshold of the shining gates.
Astrophel and Stella - Sonnet XLV
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

Stella oft sees the very face of wo
Painted in my beclowded stormie face,
But cannot skill to pitie my disgrace,
Not though thereof the cause herself she know:
Yet, hearing late a fable which did show
Of louers neuer knowne, a grieuous case,
Pitie thereof gate in her breast such place,
That, from that sea deriu'd, teares spring did flow.
Alas, if Fancie, drawne by imag'd things
Though false, yet with free scope, more grace doth breed
Than seruants wracke, where new doubts honour brings;
Then thinke, my deare, that you in me do reed
Of louers ruine some thrise-sad tragedie.
I am not I: pitie the tale of me.
From The Spanish Of Pedro De Castro Y A'aya. (Translations.)
by William Cullen Bryant

Stay, rivulet, nor haste to leave
The lovely vale that lies around thee.
Why wouldst thou be a sea at eve,
When but a fount the morning found thee?
Born when the skies began to glow,
Humblest of all the rock's cold daughters,
No blossom bowed its stalk to show
Where stole thy still and scanty waters.
Now on thy stream the noonbeams look,
Usurping, as thou downward driftest,
Its crystal from the clearest brook,
Its rushing current from the swiftest.
Ah! what wild haste! and all to be
A river and expire in ocean.
Each fountain's tribute hurries thee
To that vast grave with quicker motion.
Far better 'twere to linger still
In this green vale, these flowers to cherish,
And die in peace, an aged rill,
Than thus, a youthful Danube, perish.
Amour 7
by Michael Drayton

Stay, stay, sweet Time; behold, or ere thou passe
From world to world, thou long hast sought to see,
That wonder now wherein all wonders be,
Where heauen beholds her in a mortall glasse.
Nay, looke thee, Time, in this Celesteall glasse,
And thy youth past in this faire mirror see:
Behold worlds Beautie in her infancie,
What shee was then, and thou, or ere shee was.
Now passe on, Time: to after-worlds tell this,
Tell truelie, Time, what in thy time hath beene,
That they may tel more worlds what Time hath seene,
And heauen may ioy to think on past worlds blisse.
Heere make a Period, Time, and saie for mee,
She was the like that neuer was, nor neuer more shalbe.
The Wind In The Hemlock
by Sara Teasdale

Steely stars and moon of brass,
How mockingly you watch me pass!
You know as well as I how soon
I shall be blind to stars and moon,
Deaf to the wind in the hemlock tree,
Dumb when the brown earth weighs on me.
With envious dark rage I bear,
Stars, your cold complacent stare;
Heart-broken in my hate look up,
Moon, at your clear immortal cup,
Changing to gold from dusky red,
Age after age when I am dead
To be filled up with light, and then
Emptied, to be refilled again.
What has man done that only he
Is slave to death, so brutally
Beaten back into the earth
Impatient for him since his birth?
Oh let me shut my eyes, close out
The sight of stars and earth and be
Sheltered a minute by this tree.
Hemlock, through your fragrant boughs
There moves no anger and no doubt,
No envy of immortal things.
The night-wind murmurs of the sea
With veiled music ceaselessly,
That to my shaken spirit sings.
From their frail nest the robins rouse,
In your pungent darkness stirred,
Twittering a low drowsy word,
And me you shelter, even me.
In your quietness you house
The wind, the woman and the bird.
You speak to me and I have heard:
"If I am peaceful, I shall see
Beauty's face continually;
Feeding on her wine and bread
I shall be wholly comforted,
For she can make one day for me
Rich as my lost eternity."
Pencil Sketches
by Paul Cameron Brown

Staying home,
I caught naughty elves
watering my piano,
growling inside my head.
Faucet drops
beating out in harmony a drum tatoo
to the tune of a plugged drain,
the careless postures of indifference
retold lives lived on spindle shanks
caught on the obligatory
insipid train
of obliging a pantry full
of ones you love.
Barbara Fell
by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

Stephen, wake up! There's some one at the gate.
Quick, to the window ... Oh, you'll be too late!
I hear the front door opening quietly.
Did you forget, last night, to turn the key?
A foot is on the stairs, nay, just outside
The very room, the door is opening wide...
Stephen, wake up, wake up! Who's there? Who's there?
I only feel a cold wind in my hair...
Have I been dreaming, Stephen? Husband, wake
And comfort me: I think my heart will break.
I never knew you sleep so sound and still....
O my heart's love, why is your hand so chill?
To Dan
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Step me now a bridal measure,
Work give way to love and leisure,
Hearts be free and hearts be gay--
Doctor Dan doth wed to-day.
Diagnosis, cease your squalling--
Check that scalpel's senseless bawling,
Put that ugly knife away--
Doctor Dan doth wed to-day.
'Tis no time for things unsightly,
Life's the day and life goes lightly;
Science lays aside her sway--
Love rules Dr. Dan to-day.
Gather, gentlemen and ladies,
For the nuptial feast now made is,
Swing your garlands, chant your lay
For the pair who wed to-day.
Wish them happy days and many,
Troubles few and griefs not any,
Lift your brimming cups and say
God bless them who wed to-day.
Then a cup to Cupid daring,
Who for conquest ever faring,
With his arrows dares assail
E'en a doctor's coat of mail.
So with blithe and happy hymning
And with harmless goblets brimming,
Dance a step--musicians play--
Doctor Dan doth wed to-day.
Stay, My Charmer.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "An Gille dubh ciar dhubh."
I.
Stay, my charmer, can you leave me?
Cruel, cruel, to deceive me!
Well you know how much you grieve me;
Cruel charmer, can you go?
Cruel charmer, can you go?
II.
By my love so ill requited;
By the faith you fondly plighted;
By the pangs of lovers slighted;
Do not, do not leave me so!
Do not, do not leave me so!
Cats
by Charles Baudelaire

Stiff scholars and the hody amorous
Will in their ripeness equally admire
Powerful, gende cats, pride of the house,
Who, like them, love to sit around the fire.
Friends both of sciences and of l'amour,
They seek the silent horror of the night;
Erebus wants them for his funeral corps,
But in their pride they'd never choose that fate.
They take in sleeping noble attitudes
Great sphinxes in the desert solitudes,
Who seem to be entranced by endless dreams;
Within their potent loins are magic sparks,
And flakes of gold, fine sand, are vaguely seen
Behind their mystic eyes, gleaming like stars.
Dirge
by Herman Melville

Stay, Death, Not mine the Christus-wand
Wherewith to charge thee and command:
I plead. Most gently hold the hand
Of her thou leadest far away;
Fear thou to let her naked feet
Tread ashes--but let mosses sweet
Her footing tempt, where'er ye stray.
Shun Orcus; win the moonlit land
Belulled--the silent meadows lone,
Where never any leaf is blown
From lily-stem in Azrael's hand.
There, till her love rejoin her lowly
(Pensive, a shade, but all her own)
On honey feed her, wild and holy;
Or trance her with thy choicest charm.
And if, ere yet the lover's free,
Some added dusk thy rule decree--
That shadow only let it be
Thrown in the moon-glade by the palm.
Epitaph.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Step lightly on this narrow spot!
The broadest land that grows
Is not so ample as the breast
These emerald seams enclose.
Step lofty; for this name is told
As far as cannon dwell,
Or flag subsist, or fame export
Her deathless syllable.
Astrophel and Stella - Sonnet CI
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

Stella is sicke, and in that sicke-bed lies
Sweetnesse, which breathes and pants as oft as she:
And Grace, sicke too, such fine conclusion tries,
That Sickenesse brags it selfe best grac'd to be.
Beauty is sicke, but sicke in so faire guise,
That in that palenesse Beauties white we see;
And Ioy, which is inseparate from those eyes,
Stella now learnes (strange case) to weepe in me.
Loue mones thy paine, and like a faithfull page,
As thy lookes sturre, runs vp and downe, to make
All folkes prest at thy will thy paine to swage;
Nature with care sweates for hir darlings sake,
Knowing worlds passe, ere she enough can finde,
Of such heauen-stuffe to cloath so heau'nly minde.
Columbus.
by Friedrich Schiller

Steer on, bold sailor Wit may mock thy soul that sees the land,
And hopeless at the helm may droop the weak and weary hand,
Yet ever ever to the West, for there the coast must lie,
And dim it dawns, and glimmering dawns before thy reason's eye;
Yea, trust the guiding God and go along the floating grave,
Though hid till now yet now behold the New World o'er the wave!
With genius Nature ever stands in solemn union still,
And ever what the one foretells the other shall fulfil.
Betzko - A Hungarian Legend
by Hanford Lennox Gordon

Stibor had led in many a fight,
And broken a score of swords
In furious frays and bloody raids
Against the Turkish hordes.
And Sigismund, the Polish king,
Who joined the Magyar bands,
Bestowed upon the valiant knight
A broad estate of lands.
Once when the wars were o'er, the knight
Was holding wassail high,
And the valiant men that followed him
Were at the revelry.
Betzko, his Jester, pleased him so
He vowed it his the task
To do whatever in human power
His witty Fool might ask.
"Build on yon cliff," the Jester cried,
In drunken jollity,
"A mighty castle high and wide,
And name it after me."
"Ah, verily a Jester's prayer,"
Exclaimed the knightly crew,
"To ask of such a noble lord
What you know he cannot do."
"Who says I cannot," Stibor cried,
"Do whatsoe'er I will?
Within one year a castle shall stand
On yonder rocky hill 
"A castle built of ponderous stones,
To give me future fame;
In honor of my witty Fool,
Betzko shall be its name."
Now the cliff was high three hundred feet,
And perpendicular;
And the skill that could build a castle there
Must come from lands afar.
And craftsmen came from foreign lands,
Italian, German and Jew 
Apprentices and fellow-craftsmen,
And master-masons, too.
And every traveler journeying
Along the mountain-ways
Was held to pay his toll of toil
On the castle for seven days.
Slowly they raised the massive towers
Upon the steep ascent,
And all around a thousand hands
Built up the battlement.
Three hundred feet above the glen 
(By the steps five hundred feet) 
The castle stood upon the cliff
At the end of the year complete.
Now throughout all the Magyar land
There's none other half so high,
So massive built, so strong and grand; 
It reaches the very sky.
But from that same high battlement
(Say tales by gypsies told)
The valiant Stibor met his death
When he was cross and old.
I'll tell you the tale as they told it to me,
And I doubt not it is true,
For 'twas handed down from the middle ages
From the lips of knights who knew.
One day when the knight was old and cross,
And a little the worse for grog,
Betzko, the Jester, thoughtlessly
Struck Stibor's favorite dog.
Now the dog was a hound and Stibor's pet,
And as white as Carpathian snow,
And Stibor hurled old Betzko down
From the walls to the rocks below.
And as the Jester headlong fell
From the dizzy, dreadful height,
He muttered a curse with his latest breath
On the head of the cruel knight.
One year from that day old Stibor held
His drunken wassail long,
And spent the hours till the cock crew morn
In jest and wine and song.
Then he sought his garden on the cliff,
And lay down under a vine
To sleep away the lethargy
Of a wassail-bowl of wine.
While sleeping soundly under the shade,
And dreaming of revelries,
An adder crawled upon his breast,
And bit him in both his eyes.
Blinded and mad with pain he ran
Toward the precipice,
Unheeding till he headlong fell
Adown the dread abyss.
Just where old Betzko's blood had dyed
With red the old rocks gray,
Quivering and bleeding and dumb and dead
Old Stibor's body lay.
Astrophel and Stella - Sonnet XCI
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

Stella, while now, by Honours cruell might,
I am from you, light of my life, misled,
And whiles, faire you, my sunne, thus ouerspred
With Absence vaile, I liue in Sorrowes night;
If this darke place yet shewe like candle-light,
Some beauties peece, as amber-colour'd hed,
Milke hands, rose cheeks, or lips more sweet, more red;
Or seeing jets blacke but in blacknesse bright;
They please, I do confesse they please mine eyes.
But why? because of you they models be;
Models, such be wood-globes of glist'ring skies.
Deere therefore be not iaelous ouer me,
If you heare that they seeme my heart to moue;
Not them, O no, but you in them I loue.
Astrophel and Stella - Sonnet XC
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

Stella, thinke not that I by verse seeke fame,
Who seeke, who hope, who loue, who liue but thee;
Thine eyes my pride, thy lips mine history:
If thou praise not, all other praise is shame.
Nor so ambitious am I, as to frame
A nest for my young praise in lawrell tree:
In truth, I sweare I wish not there should be
Grau'd in my epitaph a Poets name.
Ne, if I would, could I iust title make,
That any laud thereof to me should growe,
Without my plumes from others wings I take:
For nothing from my wit or will doth flow,
Since all my words thy beauty doth endite,
And Loue doth hold my hand, and makes me write.
Sonnets: Idea XVII To Time
by Michael Drayton

Stay, speedy time! Behold, before thou pass
From age to age, what thou hast sought to see,
One in whom all the excellencies be,
In whom heaven looks itself as in a glass.
Time, look thou too in this translucent glass,
And thy youth past in this pure mirror see!
As the world's beauty in his infancy,
What it was then, and thou before it was.
Pass on and to posterity tell this--
Yet see thou tell but truly what hath been.
Say to our nephews that thou once hast seen
In perfect human shape all heavenly bliss;
And bid them mourn, nay more, despair with thee,
That she is gone, her like again to see.
Stephen--Saul
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

Stephen, who died while I stood by consenting,
Wrought in his death the making of a life,
Bruised one hard heart to thought of swift repenting,
Fitted one fighter for a nobler strife.
Stephen, the Saint, triumphant and forgiving,
Prayed while the hot blows beat him to the earth.
Was that a dying? Rather was it living!--
Through his soul's travail my soul came to birth.
Stephen, the Martyr, full of faith and fearless,
Smiled when his bruised lips could no longer pray,--
Smiled with a courage undismayed and peerless,--
Smiled!--and that smile is with me, night and day.
O, was it I that stood there, all consenting?
I--at whose feet the young men's clothes were laid?
Was it my will that wrought that hot tormenting?
My heart that boasted over Stephen, dead?
Yes, it was I. And sore to me the telling.
Yes, it was I. And thought of it has been
God's potent spur my whole soul's might compelling
These outer darknesses for Him to win.
Mrs. Grundy
by Walter De La Mare

"Step very softly, sweet Quiet-foot,
Stumble not, whisper not, smile not:
By this dark ivy stoop cheek and brow.
Still even thy heart! What seest thou?..."
"High-coifed, broad-browed, aged, suave yet grim,
A large flat face, eyes keenly dim,
Staring at nothing - that's me! - and yet,
With a hate one could never, no, never forget ..."
"This is my world, my garden, my home,
Hither my father bade mother to come
And bear me out of the dark into light,
And happy I was in her tender sight.
"And then, thou frail flower, she died and went,
Forgetting my pitiless banishment,
And that Old Woman - an Aunt - she said,
Came hither, lodged, fattened, and made her bed.
"Oh yes, thou most blessed, from Monday to Sunday,
Has lived on me, preyed on me, Mrs. Grundy:
Called me, 'dear Nephew'; on each of those chairs
Has gloated in righteousness, heard my prayers.
"Why didst thou dare the thorns of the grove,
Timidest trespasser, huntress of love?
Now thou hast peeped, and now dost know
What kind of creature is thine for foe.
"Not that she'll tear out thy innocent eyes,
Poison thy mouth with deviltries.
Watch thou, wait thou: soon will begin
The guile of a voice: hark!..." "Come in, Come in!"
Astrophel and Stella - Sonnet LXVIII
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

Stella, the onely planet of my light,
Light of my life, and life of my desire,
Chiefe good whereto my hope doth only aspire,
World of my wealth, and heau'n of my delight;
Why dost thou spend the treasures of thy sprite
With voice more fit to wed Amphions lyre,
Seeking to quench in me the noble fire
Fed by thy worth, and kindled by thy sight?
And all in vaine: for while thy breath most sweet
With choisest words, thy words with reasons rare,
Thy reasons firmly set on Vertues feet,
Labour to kill in me this killing care:
O thinke I then, what paradise of ioy
It is, so faire a vertue to enioy!
The Song Of The Tempest
by Walter Scott (Sir)

Stern eagle of the far north-west,
Thou that bearest in thy grasp the thunderbolt,
Thou whose rushing pinions stir ocean to madness,
Thou the destroyer of herds, thou the scatterer of navies,
Amidst the scream of thy rage,
Amidst the scream be loud as the cry of a perishing nation,
Though the rushing of thy wings be like the roar of ten thousand waves,
Yet hear, in thine ire and thy haste,
Hear thou the voice of the Reim-kennar.
Thou hast met the pine-trees of Drontheim,
Their dark-green heads lie prostrate beside their up-rooted stems;
Thou hast met the rider of the ocean,
The tall, the strong bark of the fearless rover,
And she has struck to thee the topsail
That she had not veil'd to a royal armada;
Thou hast met the tower that bears its crest among the clouds,
The battled massive tower of the Jarl of former days,
And the cope-stone of the turret
Is lying upon its hospitable hearth;
But thou too shalt stoop. proud compeller of clouds,
When thou hearest the voice of the Reim-kennar.
There are verses that can stop the stag in the forest,
Ay, and when the dark-colour'd dog is opening on his track;
There are verses can make the wild hawk pause on the wing,
Like the falcon that wears the hood and the jesses,
And who knows the shrill whistle of the fowler.
Thou who canst mock at the scream of the drowning mariner,
And the crash of the ravaged forest,
And the groan of the overwhelmed crowds,
When the church hath fallen in the moment of prayer;
There are sounds which thou also must list,
When they are chanted by the voice of the Reim-kennar.
Enough of woe hast thou wrought on the ocean,
The widows wring their hands on the beach;
Enough of woe hast thou wrought on the land,
The husbandman folds his arms in despair;
Cease thou the waving of thy pinions,
Let the ocean repose in her dark strength;
Cease thou the flashing of thine eye,
Let the thunderbolt sleep in the armoury of Odin;
Be thou still at my bidding, viewless racer of the north-western heaven,
Sleep thou at the voice of Norna the Reim-kennar.
Eagle of the far north-western waters,
Thou hast heard the voice of the Reim-kennar,
Thou hast closed thy wide sails at her bidding,
And folded them in peace by thy side.
My blessing be on thy retiring path;
When thou stoopest from thy place on high,
Soft be thy slumbers in the caverns of the unknown ocean,
Rest till destiny shall again awaken thee;
Eagle of the north-west, thou hast heard the voice of the Reim-kennar.
Stay
by John Frederick Freeman

Stay, thou desired one, stay!
Brighten the curious darkness of the world.
Cold through the chill dark swings the sleeping world,
Sense-heavy, dreaming dully of clear day.
No moon, no stars, no sound of wind or seas:
Wearily sleeping in immense unease,
Dreams, dreams the world of day.
Stay, thou adored one, stay,
Who on the dark hang'st lamps of gold delight,
Gold flames amid the purple pit of night.
Stay, stay,
Who the cool dawn's most lovely gray
Mak'st lovelier with rose of far away.
Stay, thou, who buildest wonder of things mean
(More truly so they're seen).
Stay--nay, fly not, nay--stay;
Youth gone, remain thou yet and yet.
Though the world spin in darkness and forget
The light,
Stay thou, whose coming's joy and flight despair.
Thou unimaginably more than fair,
Brief unsustainable strange dream, stay yet!
Lamping the world's close unsustainable dark
With golden unimaginable day.