DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Torpedo.
by Hattie Howard

Valiant sons of the sea,
All the vast deep, your home,
Holds no terror so dread
As this novel and unseen foe,
Lurking under the foam
Of some dangerous channel - 
As the torpedo, the scourge of ships.
Through the rigging may roar
'olus' thousand gales,
Yet the mariner's heart
Shrinketh not from the howling blast;
Though with battle-rent sails,
Flames and carnage around him,
Cowardice never shall pale his lips.
But when powers concealed,
Threatening with death the crew,
Pave each eddy below,
E'en the bravest are chilled with fear,
Lest yon wizard in blue,
Who their progress is spying,
Touch but the key with his finger-tips.
Lo! with thunderous boom
Towers a column bright,
And the vessel is gone!
In that ocean of blinding spray
Sink her turrets from sight,
By thy potency broken,
O irresistible scourge of ships!
- Harry Howard.
The Violet.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Upon the mead a violet stood,
Retiring, and of modest mood,
In truth, a violet fair.
Then came a youthful shepherdess,
And roam'd with sprightly joyousness,
And blithely woo'd
With carols sweet the air
"Ah!" thought the violet, "had I been
For but the smallest moment e'en
Nature's most beauteous flower,
'Till gather'd by my love, and press'd,
When weary, 'gainst her gentle breast,
For e'en, for e'en
One quarter of an hour!"
Alas! alas! the maid drew nigh,
The violet failed to meet her eye,
She crush'd the violet sweet.
It sank and died, yet murmur'd not:
"And if I die, oh, happy lot,
For her I die,
And at her very feet!"
The Dog
by Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

Us two in the room; my dog and me.... Outside a fearful storm is howling.
The dog sits in front of me, and looks me straight in the face.
And I, too, look into his face.
He wants, it seems, to tell me something. He is dumb, he is without words, he does not understand himself - but I understand him.
I understand that at this instant there is living in him and in me the same feeling, that there is no difference between us. We are the same; in each of us there burns and shines the same trembling spark.
Death sweeps down, with a wave of its chill broad wing....
And the end!
Who then can discern what was the spark that glowed in each of us?
No! We are not beast and man that glance at one another....
They are the eyes of equals, those eyes riveted on one another.
And in each of these, in the beast and in the man, the same life huddles up in fear close to the other.
February 1878.
The Hero's Legacy.
by George Pope Morris

Upon the couch of death,
The champion of the free,
Gave, with his parting breath,
This solemn legacy:--
"Sheathed be the battle-blade,
"And hushed the cannons' thunder:
"The glorious UNION GOD hath made,
"Let no man put asunder!
"War banish from the land,
"Peace cultivate with all!
"United you must stand,
"Divided you will fall!
"Cemented with our blood,
"The UNION keep unriven!"
While freemen heard this counsel good,
His spirit soared to heaven.
Sonnet LI.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Del mar Tirreno alla sinistra riva.
THE FALL.
Upon the left shore of the Tyrrhene sea,
Where, broken by the winds, the waves complain,
Sudden I saw that honour'd green again,
Written for whom so many a page must be:
Love, ever in my soul his flame who fed,
Drew me with memories of those tresses fair;
Whence, in a rivulet, which silent there
Through long grass stole, I fell, as one struck dead.
Lone as I was, 'mid hills of oak and fir,
I felt ashamed; to heart of gentle mould
Blushes suffice: nor needs it other spur.
'Tis well at least, breaking bad customs old,
To change from eyes to feet: from these so wet
By those if milder April should be met.
MACGREGOR.
The Solitary
by Madison Julius Cawein

Upon the mossed rock by the spring
She sits, forgetful of her pail,
Lost in remote remembering
Of that which may no more avail.
Her thin, pale hair is dimly dressed
Above a brow lined deep with care,
The color of a leaf long pressed,
A faded leaf that once was fair.
You may not know her from the stone
So still she sits who does not stir,
Thinking of this one thing alone - 
The love that never came to her.
A Dubious "Old Kriss"
by James Whitcomb Riley

Us-folks is purty pore - but Ma
She's waitin' - two years more - tel Pa
He serve his term out. Our Pa he - 
He's in the Penitenchurrie!
Now don't you never tell! - 'cause Sis,
The baby, she don't know he is. - 
'Cause she wuz only four, you know,
He kissed her last an' hat to go!
Pa alluz liked Sis best of all
Us childern. - 'Spect it's 'cause she fall
"When she'uz ist a child, one day - 
An' make her back look thataway.
Pa - 'fore he be a burglar - he's
A locksmiff, an' maked locks, an' keys,
An' knobs you pull fer bells to ring,
An' he could ist make anything! - 
'Cause our Ma say he can! - An' this
Here little pair o' crutches Sis
Skips round on - Pa maked them - yes-sir! - 
An' silivur-plate-name here fer her!
Pa's out o' work when Chris'mus come
One time, an' stay away from home,
An' 's drunk an' 'buse our Ma, an' swear
They ain't no "Old Kriss" anywhere!
An' Sis she alluz say they wuz
A' Old Kriss - an' she alluz does.
But ef they is a' Old Kriss, why,
When's Chris'mus, Ma she alluz cry?
This Chris'mus now, we live here in
Where Ma's rent's alluz due ag'in - 
An' she "ist slaves" - I heerd her say
She did - ist them words thataway!
An' th'other night, when all's so cold
An' stove's 'most out - our Ma she rolled
Us in th'old feather-bed an' said,
"To-morry's Chris'mus - go to bed,
"An' thank yer blessed stars fer this - 
We don't 'spect nothin' from Old Kriss!"
An' cried, an' locked the door, an' prayed,
An' turned the lamp down.... An' I laid
There, thinkin' in the dark ag'in,
"Ef wuz Old Kriss, he can't git in,
'Cause ain't no chimbly here at all - 
Ist old stovepipe stuck frue the wall!"
I sleeped nen. - An' wuz dreamin' some
When I waked up an' morning's come, - 
Fer our Ma she wuz settin' square
Straight up in bed, a-readin' there
Some letter 'at she 'd read, an' quit,
An' nen hold like she's huggin' it. - 
An' diamon' ear-rings she don't know
Wuz in her ears tel I say so - 
An' wake the rest up. An' the sun
In frue the winder dazzle-un
Them eyes o' Sis's, wiv a sure-
Enough gold chain Old Kriss bringed to 'er!
An' all of us git gold things! - Sis,
Though, say she know it "ain't Old Kriss - 
He kissed her, so she waked an' saw
Him skite out - an' it wuz her Pa."
The Book Of Urizen: Chapter VIII
by William Blake

1.
Urizen explor'd his dens
Mountain, moor, & wilderness,
With a globe of fire lighting his journey
A fearful journey, annoy'd
By cruel enormities: forms
Of life on his forsaken mountains
2.
And his world teemd vast enormities
Frightning; faithless; fawning
Portions of life; similitudes
Of a foot, or a hand, or a head
Or a heart, or an eye, they swam mischevous
Dread terrors! delighting in blood
3.
Most Urizen sicken'd to see
His eternal creations appear
Sons & daughters of sorrow on mountains
Weeping! wailing! first Thiriel appear'd
Astonish'd at his own existence
Like a man from a cloud born, & Utha
From the waters emerging, laments!
Grodna rent the deep earth howling
Amaz'd! his heavens immense cracks
Like the ground parch'd with heat; then Fuzon
Flam'd out! first begotten, last born.
All his eternal sons in like manner
His daughters from green herbs & cattle
From monsters, & worms of the pit.
4.
He in darkness clos'd, view'd all his race,
And his soul sicken'd! he curs'd
Both sons & daughters; for he saw
That no flesh nor spirit could keep
His iron laws one moment.
5.
For he saw that life liv'd upon death
The Ox in the slaughter house moans
The Dog at the wintry door
And he wept, & he called it Pity
And his tears flowed down on the winds
6.
Cold he wander'd on high, over their cities
In weeping & pain & woe!
And where-ever he wanderd in sorrows
Upon the aged heavens
A cold shadow follow'd behind him
Like a spiders web, moist, cold, & dim
Drawing out from his sorrowing soul
The dungeon-like heaven dividing.
Where ever the footsteps of Urizen
Walk'd over the cities in sorrow.
7.
Till a Web dark & cold, throughout all
The tormented element stretch'd
From the sorrows of Urizens soul
And the Web is a Female in embrio
None could break the Web, no wings of fire.
8.
So twisted the cords, & so knotted
The meshes: twisted like to the human brain
9.
And all calld it, The Net of Religion
????? ???' ????? ????? (Greek - Poems and Prose Remains, Vol II)
by Arthur Hugh Clough

Upon the water, in the boat,
I sit and sketch as down I float:
The stream is wide, the view is fair,
I sketch it looking backward there.
The stream is strong, and as I sit
And view the picture that we quit,
It flows and flows, and bears the boat,
And I sit sketching as we float.
Each pointed height, each wavy line,
To new and other forms combine;
Proportions vary, colours fade,
And all the landscape is remade.
Depicted neither far nor near,
And larger there and smaller here,
And varying down from old to new,
E'en I can hardly think it true.
Yet still I look, and still I sit,
Adjusting, shaping, altering it;
And still the current bears the boat
And me, still sketching as I float.
Still as I sit, with something new
The foreground intercepts my view;
Even the distant mountain range
From the first moment suffers change.
The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - True And False Nobility.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

In noi dal senno.
Valour and mind form real nobility,
The which bears fruit and shows a fair increase
By doughty actions: these and nought but these
Confer true patents of gentility.
Money is false and light unless it be
Bought by a man's own worthy qualities;
And blood is such that its corrupt disease
And ignorant pretence are foul to see.
Honours that ought to yield more true a type,
Europe, thou measurest by fortune still,
To thy great hurt; and this thy foe perceives:
He rates the tree by fruits mature and ripe,
Not by mere shadows, roots, and verdant leaves:--
Why then neglect so grave a cause of ill?
The Suicide
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Vast was the wealth I carried in life's pack - 
Youth, health, ambition, hope and trust; but Time
And Fate, those robbers fit for any crime,
Stole all, and left me but the empty sack.
Before me lay a long and lonely track
Of darkling hills and barren steeps to climb;
Behind me lay in shadows the sublime
Lost lands of Love's delight.    Alack!    Alack!
Unwearied, and with springing steps elate,
I had conveyed my wealth along the road.
The empty sack proved now a heavier load:
I was borne down beneath its worthless weight.
I stumbled on, and knocked at Death's dark gate.
There was no answer.    Stung by sorrow's goad
I forced my way into that grim abode,
And laughed, and flung Life's empty sack to Fate.
Unknown and uninvited I passed in
To that strange land that hangs between two goals,
Round which a dark and solemn river rolls - 
More dread its silence than the loud earth's din.
And now, where was the peace I hoped to win?
Black-masted ships slid past me in great shoals,
Their bloody decks thronged with mistaken souls.
(God punishes mistakes sometimes like sin.)
Not rest and not oblivion I found.
My suffering self dwelt with me just the same;
But here no sleep was, and no sweet dreams came
To give me respite.    Tyrant Death, uncrowned
By my own hand, still King of Terrors, frowned
Upon my shuddering soul, that shrank in shame
Before those eyes where sorrow blent with blame,
And those accusing lips that made no sound.
What gruesome shapes dawned on my startled sight
What awful sighs broke on my listening ear!
The anguish of the earth, augmented here
A thousand-fold, made one continuous night.
The sack I flung away in impious spite
Hung yet upon me, filled, I saw in fear.
With tears that rained from earth's adjacent sphere,
And turned to stones in falling from that height.
And close about me pressed a grieving throng,
Each with his heavy sack, which bowed him so
His face was hidden.    One of these mourned: "Know
Who enters here but finds the way more long
To those fair realms where sounds the angels' song.
There is no man-made exit out of woe;
Ye cannot dash the locked door down and go
To claim thy rightful joy through paths of wrong."
He passed into the shadows dim and grey,
And left me to pursue my path alone.
With terror greater than I yet had known.
Hard on my soul the awful knowledge lay,
Death had not ended life nor found God's way;
But, with my same sad sorrows still my own,
Where by-roads led to by-roads, thistle-sown,
I had but wandered off and gone astray.
With earth still near enough to hear its sighs,
With heaven afar and hell but just below,
Still on and on my lonely soul must go
Until I earn the right to Paradise.
We cannot force our way into God's skies,
Nor rush into the rest we long to know;
But patiently, with bleeding steps and slow
Toil on to where selfhood in Godhood dies.
The Morning Drive.
by Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow

FOR MY DAUGHTER MARGARET.
Very like to a dream,
Doth the time to me seem,
When with thee a young girl by my side,
One of summer's fine days,
In a one pony chaise,
We commenced in the morning our ride.
By the pine grove and nook,
Over bridge and through brook,
Quite at random we drove without fear;
While the birds of the grove,
In sweet harmony strove,
By their concert of music to cheer.
With none to molest us,
No home cares to press us,
Farther onward, and onward we roam;
But at length the skies lower,
And unhoped for the shower
Finds us many miles distant from home.
Even so is life's day,
Like a fair morn in May,
With hope's bright bow of promise it cheers;
But long before night,
The sun that so bright
In the morning had shone, disappears.
Do not then I entreat,
My beloved Margaret,
Be content with this world for thy portion;
Let ambition soar higher,
E'en above earth aspire,
And to God give thy heart's true devotion.
April 29, 1853.
Chant For Autumn.
by George Parsons Lathrop

Veiled in visionary haze,
Behold, the ethereal autumn days
Draw near again!
In broad array,
With a low, laborious hum
These ministers of plenty come,
That seem to linger, while they steal away.
O strange, sweet charm
Of peaceful pain,
When yonder mountain's bended arm
Seems wafting o'er the harvest-plain
A message to the heart that grieves,
And round us, here, a sad-hued rain
Of leaves that loosen without number
Showering falls in yellow, umber,
Red, or russet, 'thwart the stream!
Now pale Sorrow shall encumber
All too soon these lands, I deem;
Yet who at heart believes
The autumn, a false friend,
Can bring us fatal harm?
Ah, mist-hung avenues in dream
Not more uncertainly extend
Than the season that receives
A summer's latest gleam!
But the days of death advance:
They tarry not, nor turn!
I will gather the ashes of summer
In my heart, as an urn.
Oh draw thou nearer,
Thou
Spirit of the distant height,
Whither now that slender flight
Of swallows, winging, guides my sight!
The hill cloth seem to me
A fading memory
Of long delight,
And in its distant blue
Half hideth from my view
This shrinking season that must now retire;
And so shall hold it, hopeful, a desire
And knowledge old as night and always new.
Draw nigher! And, with bended brow,
I will be thy reverer
Through the long winter's term!
So, when the snows hold firm,
And the brook is dumb;
When sharp winds come
To flay the hill-tops bleak,
And whistle down the creek;
While the unhappy worm
Crawls deeper down into the ground,
To 'scape Frost's jailer on his round;
Thy form to me shall speak
From the wide valley's bound,
Recall the waving of the last bird's wing,
And help me hope for spring.
The Forlorn Shepherd's Complaint.[1] - An Unpublished Poem, From Sydney.
by Thomas Hood

"Vell! Here I am - no Matter how it suits
A-keeping Company vith them dumb Brutes;
Old Park vos no bad Judge - confound his vig!
Of vot vood break the Sperrit of a Prig!
"The Like of Me, to come to New Sow Wales
To go a-tagging arter Vethers' Tails
And valk in Herbage as delights the Flock,
But stinks of Sweet Herbs vorser nor the Dock!
"To go to set this solitary Job
To Von whose Vork vos alvay in a Mob!
It's out of all our Lines, for sure I am
Jack Shepherd even never kep a Lamb!
"I arn't ashamed to say I sit and veep
To think of Seven Year of keepin Sheep,
The spooniest Beast in Nater, all to Sticks,
And not a Votch to take for all their Ticks!
"If I'd fore-seed how Transports vould turn out
To only Baa! and Botanize about,
I'd quite as leaf have had the t'other Pull,
And come to Cotton, as to all this Vool!
"Von only happy moment I have had
Since here I come to be a Farmer's Cad,
And then I cotch'd a vild Beast in a Snooze,
And pick'd her pouch of three young Kangaroos!
"Vot chance haye I to go to Race or Mill?
Or show a sneaking Kindness for a Till;
And as for Vashings, on a hedge to dry,
I'd put the Natives' Linen in my Eye!
"If this whole Lot of Mutton I could scrag,
And find a Fence to turn it into Swag,
I'd give it all in London Streets to stand,
And if I had my pick, I'd say the Strand!
"But ven I goes, as maybe vonce I shall,
To my old Crib to meet with Jack, and Sal,
I've been so gallows honest in this Place,
I shan't not like to show my sheepish Face.
"It's wery hard for nothing but a Box
Of Irish Blackguard to be keepin' Flocks,
'Mong naked Blacks, sich Savages to hus,
They've nayther got a Pocket nor a Pus.
"But folks may tell their Troubles till they're sick
To dumb brute Beasts, - and so I'll cut my Stick!
And vot's the Use a Feller's Eyes to pipe
Vere von can't borrow any Gemman's Vipe?"
To The Men Of Kent
by William Wordsworth

OCTOBER 1803
Vanguard of Liberty, ye men of Kent,
Ye children of a Soil that doth advance
Her haughty brow against the coast of France,
Now is the time to prove your hardiment!
To France be words of invitation sent!
They from their fields can see the countenance
Of your fierce war, may ken the glittering lance
And hear you shouting forth your brave intent.
Left single, in bold parley, ye, of yore,
Did from the Norman win a gallant wreath;
Confirmed the charters that were yours before;
No parleying now! In Britain is one breath;
We all are with you now from shore to shore:
Ye men of Kent, 'tis victory or death!
W. Lloyd Garrison Standard
by Edgar Lee Masters

Vegetarian, non - resistant, free-thinker, in ethics a Christian;
Orator apt at the rhine-stone rhythm of Ingersoll.
Carnivorous, avenger, believer and pagan.
Continent, promiscuous, changeable, treacherous, vain,
Proud, with the pride that makes struggle a thing for laughter;
With heart cored out by the worm of theatric despair.
Wearing the coat of indifference to hide the shame of defeat;
I, child of the abolitionist idealism - 
A sort of Brand in a birth of half-and-half.
What other thing could happen when I defended
The patriot scamps who burned the court house
That Spoon River might have a new one
Than plead them guilty?
When Kinsey Keene drove through
The card - board mask of my life with a spear of light,
What could I do but slink away, like the beast of myself
Which I raised from a whelp, to a corner and growl?
The pyramid of my life was nought but a dune,
Barren and formless, spoiled at last by the storm.
The Lady Who Offers Her Looking-Glass To Venus
by Matthew Prior

Venus, take my votive glass:
Since I am not what I was,
What from this day I shall be,
Venus, let me never see.
All That's Past
by Walter De La Mare

Very old are the woods;
And the buds that break
Out of the briar's boughs,
When March winds wake,
So old with their beauty are - 
Oh, no man knows
Through what wild centuries
Roves back the rose.
Very old are the brooks;
And the rills that rise
Where snow sleeps cold beneath
The azure skies
Sing such a history
Of come and gone,
Their every drop is as wise
As Solomon.
Very old are we men;
Our dreams are tales
Told in dim Eden
By Eve's nightingales;
We wake and whisper awhile,
But, the day gone by,
Silence and sleep like fields
Of amaranth lie.
Letting In The Jungle
by Rudyard Kipling

Veil them, cover them, wall them round,
Blossom, and creeper, and weed,
Let us forget the sight and the sound,
The smell and the touch of the breed!
Fat black ash by the altar-stone,
Here is the white-foot rain
And the does bring forth in the fields unsown,
And none shall affright them again;
And the blind walls crumble, unknown, o'erthrown,
And none shall inhabit again!
Breitmann's Sleigh-Ride
by Charles G. Leland

Ven de winter make oos shifer
Und de bonds is froze mit ice,
To shlide und shkate on de rifer,
Mit de poys und gals is nice.
Ven de horses hafe deir bits on,
Und de roats pe vite mit shnow,
To vly in a sleigh like blitzen
Is de yolliest dings I know.
'Und its high, hooray!' saidt Breitmann
'For de gals on de Dutchtown-side;
Und it's lebe hoch! for de yunglins,
Vot'll go mit de gals to ride;
Und it's hip, herj'! for de drifers
Vot nefer dake no odds!
Und it's vivat! for de vellers,
Vot'll shtand de apple-tods!'
Der Breitmann pooled his mits on,
Der Breitmann crocked his vip,
'Now its fly like dunner blitzen,
Mein shildren, let 'er rip!
Like de eagles on de shtorm-cloudt
A-vlyin' to deir nest;
Dere is opple-yack a-vaitin
For de von dot times de rest.
'Oh mein Rapp, du bist de pestest
Of horses in de land!
Dou canst trafel on de grafel,
Und canst shell it on de sand!
Oh Rapp! dere's money on id,
Ton't let de Gelt go blue!
I vants you show de beoples
Dis tay vot you can do!'
Der Breitman mit his m'dchen
Vas in a shblentit shleigh,
Fritz Laufer mit his Mina,
Vas yoosht agross de vay;
Mit pop-slets und mit yoompers,
Mit horses and mit mules,
Dere vas more ash vifty fellers
Come mit deir ve-hi-cules.
Id's 'Ein-Zwei-Drei!' togedder
Dey hollered klein und gross,
Like de wind in shtormy wetter,
Stracks vent de Deutschers los!
Dey crock de vips like mooskets,
Dey ring from berg to berg,
'Hooray!' exsglaim Hans Breitmann:
'Dot sounds like Gettysburg!'
Der Breitmann und der Laufer
Vere half a mile ahet,
For ven id coom to driven,
De oder Dootch vere deadt.
Dey vly like teufel's arrows,
Mit imps oopon em gay,
Dey killt five hoondred shbarrows
Vot kit indo de vay.
Dey vly like rats und blitzen,
De fery gals vos doomb,
Und Breitmann kept his wits on,
To see vot shanse vouldt coom;
He know'd de pace dey clipped it
Moost enden in a shquall
By de vay der Laufer ripped it,
Und de shteeds vere ganz eg?l.
Der Laufer he vos leadin'
Hans Breitmann ash he goed,
Boot he tidn't see a soplin'
Dot vos lyin' in de road.
Id yank dem out like marples,
Mitout a will or shall;
Hets downvarts in a shnow-pank,
Vent Laufer mit his gal.
Und ash Breitmann comed oonto it
Id kit indo his vay,
Und tossed him mit his m'dchen
Right indo Laufer's shleigh;
Hans crab de reins like blitze',
Und go ahet like sin:
'Adj', mein lieber Fritze!
Dis dimes I scoop you in!'
He vly avay like shvallows
To vhere a davern lay,
Vhere de opple-tod vos ploomin'
Among de Deutschers gay.
Der Breitmann as he vonisht
Yoost cast von look pehind,
At de lecks of Fritz und Mina
A-vafin in de wind.
Chorus Of Spirits.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Vanish, dark clouds on high,
Offspring of night!
Let a more radiant beam
Through the blue ether gleam,
Charming the sight!
Would the dark clouds on high
Melt into air!
Stars glimmer tenderly,
Planets more fair
Shed their soft light.
Spirits of heav'nly birth,
Fairer than sons of earth,
Quivering emotions true
Hover above;
Yearning affections, too,
In their train move.
See how the spirit-band,
By the soft breezes fann'd,
Covers the smiling land,
Covers the leafy grove,
Where happy lovers rove,
Deep in a dream of love,
True love that never dies!
Bowers on bowers rise,
Soft tendrils twine;
While from the press escapes,
Born of the juicy grapes,
Foaming, the wine;
And as the current flows
O'er the bright stones it goes,
Leaving the hilly lands
Far, far behind,
Into a sea expands,
Loving to wind
Round the green mountain's base;
And the glad-winged race,
Rapture sip in,
As they the sunny light,
And the fair islands bright,
Hasten to win,
That on the billows play
With sweet deceptive ray,
Where in glad choral song
Shout the exulting throng;
Where on the verdant plain
Dancers we see,
Spreading themselves amain
Over the lea.
Some boldly climbing are
O'er the steep brake,
Others are floating far
O'er the smooth lake.
All for a purpose move,
All with life teem,
While the sweet stars above
Blissfully gleam.