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

Nature, erewhile so marvelously lovely, is bereft
Of her supernal charm;
And with the few dead garlands of departed splendor left,
Like crape upon her arm,
In boreal hints, and sudden gusts
That fan the glowing ember,
By multitude of ways fulfills
The promise of November.
Upon the path where Beauty, sylvan priestess, sped away,
Lies the rich afterglow
Of Indian Summer, bringing round the happy holiday
That antedates the snow:
The glad Thanksgiving time, the cheer,
The festival commotion
That stirs fraternal feeling from
The mountains to the ocean.
O Hospitality! unclose thy bounty-laden hand
In generous dealing, where
Is gathered in reunion each long-severed household band,
And let no vacant chair
Show where the strongest, brightest link
In love's dear chain is broken - 
A symbol more pathetic than
By language ever spoken.
Into the place held sacred to the memory of some
Beloved absentee,
Perchance passed to the other shore, oh, let the stranger come
And in gratuity
Partake of festal favors that
Shall sweeten hours of labor,
And strengthen amity and love
Unto his friend and neighbor.
Let gratitude's pure incense in warm orisons ascend,
A blessing to secure,
And gracious impulse bearing largesse of good gifts extend
To all deserving poor;
So may the day be hallowed by
Unstinted thanks and giving,
In sweet remembrance of the dead
And kindness to the living.
Mother Nature.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Nature, the gentlest mother,
Impatient of no child,
The feeblest or the waywardest, --
Her admonition mild
In forest and the hill
By traveller is heard,
Restraining rampant squirrel
Or too impetuous bird.
How fair her conversation,
A summer afternoon, --
Her household, her assembly;
And when the sun goes down
Her voice among the aisles
Incites the timid prayer
Of the minutest cricket,
The most unworthy flower.
When all the children sleep
She turns as long away
As will suffice to light her lamps;
Then, bending from the sky
With infinite affection
And infiniter care,
Her golden finger on her lip,
Wills silence everywhere.
Adeline
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

I.
Mystery of mysteries,
Faintly smiling Adeline,
Scarce of earth nor all divine,
Nor unhappy, nor at rest,
But beyond expression fair
With thy floating flaxen hair;
Thy rose-lips and full blue eyes
Take the heart from out my breast.
Wherefore those dim looks of thine,
Shadowy, dreaming Adeline?
II.
Whence that aery bloom of thine,
Like a lily which the sun
Looks thro' in his sad decline,
And a rose-bush leans upon,
Thou that faintly smilest still,
As a Naiad in a well,
Looking at the set of day,
Or a phantom two hours old
Of a maiden passed away,
Ere the placid lips be cold?
Wherefore those faint smiles of thine,
Spiritual Adeline?
III.
What hope or fear or joy is thine?
Who talketh with thee, Adeline?
For sure thou art not all alone:
Do beating hearts of salient springs
Keep measure with thine own?
Hast thou heard the butterflies
What they say betwixt their wings?
Or in stillest evenings
With what voice the violet woos
To his heart the silver dews?
Or when little airs arise,
How the merry bluebell rings
To the mosses underneath?
Hast thou look'd upon the breath
Of the lilies at sunrise?
Wherefore that faint smile of thine,
Shadowy, dreaming Adeline?
IV.
Some honey-converse feeds thy mind,
Some spirit of a crimson rose
In love with thee forgets to close
His curtains, wasting odorous sighs
All night long on darkness blind.
What aileth thee? whom waitest thou
With thy soften'd, shadow'd brow,
And those dew-lit eyes of thine,
Thou faint smiler, Adeline?
V.
Lovest thou the doleful wind
When thou gazest at the skies?
Doth the low-tongued Orient
Wander from the side of the morn,
Dripping with Sabsean spice
On thy pillow, lowly bent
With melodious airs lovelorn,
Breathing Light against thy face,
While his locks a-dropping twined
Round thy neck in subtle ring
Make a carcanet of rays,
And ye talk together still,
In the language wherewith Spring
Letters cowslips on the hill?
Hence that look and smile of thine,
Spiritual Adeline.
A Tardy Apology - I
by Eugene Field

M'cenas, you will be my death,--though friendly you profess yourself,--
If to me in a strain like this so often you address yourself:
"Come, Holly, why this laziness? Why indolently shock you us?
Why with Lethean cups fall into desuetude innocuous?"
A god, M'cenas! yea, a god hath proved the very curse of me!
If my iambics are not done, pray, do not think the worse of me;
Anacreon for young Bathyllus burned without apology,
And wept his simple measures on a sample of conchology.
Now, you yourself, M'cenas, are enjoying this beatitude;
If by no brighter beauty Ilium fell, you've cause for gratitude.
A certain Phryne keeps me on the rack with lovers numerous;
This is the artful hussy's neat conception of the humorous!
Translated From A Sonnet Of Ronsard
by John Keats

Nature withheld Cassandra in the skies
For more adornment a full thousand years;
She took their cream of Beauty's fairest dyes,
And shap'd and tinted her above all Peers:
Meanwhile Love kept her dearly with his wings,
And underneath their shadow fill'd her eyes
With such a richness that the cloudy Kings
Of high Olympus utter'd slavish sighs.
When from the Heavens I saw her first descend
My heart took fire, and only burning pains
They were my pleasures, they my Life's sad end;
Love pour'd her beauty into my warm veins.
Nothing Gold Can Stay
by Robert Lee Frost

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Nursery Rhyme. LXXXIII. Proverbs.
by Unknown

[Hours of sleep.]
Nature requires five,
Custom gives seven!
Laziness takes nine,
And Wickedness eleven.
Odes From Horace. - To M'cenas. Book The First, Ode The First.
by Anna Seward

I.
M'cenas, from Etrurian Princes sprung,
For whom my golden lyre I strung,
Friend, Patron, Guardian of its rising song,
O mark the Youth, that towers along,
With triumph in his air;
Proud of Olympic dust, that soils
His burning cheek and tangled hair!
Mark how he spreads the palm, that crown'd his toils!
Each look the throbbing hope reveals
That his fleet steeds and kindling wheels,
Swept round the skilfully-avoided goal,
Shall with illustrious Chiefs his echo'd name enrol.
II.
Who the civic crown obtains,
Or bears into his granaries large
The plenteous tribute of the Libyan Plains;
Or he, who watches still a rural charge,
O'er his own fields directs the plough,
Sees his own fruitage load the bough;
These would'st thou tempt to brave the faithless main,
And tempt with regal wealth, thy effort should be vain.
I.
The stormy South howls thro' the sullen cloud,
Contending billows roar aloud!
The Merchant sees the gathering danger rise,
And sends a thousand yearning sighs
To his dear shelter'd home. - 
Its shades receive him; - but the tides
Grow smooth; - the wild winds cease to roam;
And see! - his new-trimm'd vessel gaily rides! - 
Fir'd with the hope of wealth, once more
He quits, so hardly gain'd, the shore;
Watches, with eager eye, th' unfurling sail,
Nor casts one look behind to the safe, sylvan vale.
II.
[1]The youth of gay, luxurious taste,
Breaks, in the [=a]rbutus' soft shade,
The precious day with interrupting feast;
Or quaffs, by some clear fountain in a glade,
The mellow wine of ruby gleam,
While in vain the purer stream
Courts him, as gently the green bank it laves,
To blend th' enfevering draught with its pellucid waves.
I.
Th' uplifted trumpet, and the clarion, send,
Confus'd, the mingled clang afar;
Lo! while the Matron's tender breast they rend,
Her Soldier hails that din of war. - 
The wood-land Chase desired,
Far other sounds the Hunter charms;
By the enlivening shout inspired,
He breaks from his young Bride's encircling arms;
Nor heeds the morning's wintry gale,
While his deep-mouth'd hounds inhale
The tainted breeze, or hold the stag at bay,
Or while, from his strong toils, the wild boar bursts away.
II.
[2]THEE bright Learning's ivy crown
Exalts above a mortal fate;
Me shady Groves, light Nymphs, and Satyrs brown,
Raise o'er the Crowd, in sweet sequester'd state.
And there is heard the Lesbian lute,
And there Euterpe's Dorian flute;
But, should'st thou rank me with the LYRIC CHOIR,
To GLORY's starry heights thy Poet would aspire. -
To Leonora (3)
by John Milton

Naples, too credulous, ah! boast no more
The sweet-voiced Siren buried on thy shore,
That, when Parthenope1 deceas'd, she gave
Her sacred dust to a Chalcidic2 grave,
For still she lives, but has exchanged the hoarse
Pausilipo for Tiber's placid course,
Where, idol of all Rome, she now in chains,
Of magic song both Gods and Men detains.
Myself And Mine
by Walt Whitman

Myself and mine gymnastic ever,
To stand the cold or heat - to take good aim with a gun - to sail a boat - to manage horses - to beget superb children,
To speak readily and clearly - to feel at home among common people,
And to hold our own in terrible positions, on land and sea.
Not for an embroiderer;
(There will always be plenty of embroiderers - I welcome them also;)
But for the fibre of things, and for inherent men and women.
Not to chisel ornaments,
But to chisel with free stroke the heads and limbs of plenteous
Supreme Gods, that The States may realize them, walking and talking.
Let me have my own way;
Let others promulge the laws - I will make no account of the laws;
Let others praise eminent men and hold up peace - I hold up agitation and conflict;
I praise no eminent man - I rebuke to his face the one that was thought most worthy.
(Who are you? you mean devil! And what are you secretly guilty of, all your life?
Will you turn aside all your life? Will you grub and chatter all your life?)
(And who are you - blabbing by rote, years, pages, languages, reminiscences,
Unwitting to-day that you do not know how to speak a single word?)
Let others finish specimens - I never finish specimens;
I shower them by exhaustless laws, as Nature does, fresh and modern continually.
I give nothing as duties;
What others give as duties, I give as living impulses;
(Shall I give the heart's action as a duty?)
Let others dispose of questions - I dispose of nothing - I arouse unanswerable questions;
Who are they I see and touch, and what about them?
What about these likes of myself, that draw me so close by tender directions and indirections?
I call to the world to distrust the accounts of my friends, but listen to my enemies - as I myself do;
I charge you, too, forever, reject those who would expound me - for I cannot expound myself;
I charge that there be no theory or school founded out of me;
I charge you to leave all free, as I have left all free.
After me, vista!
O, I see life is not short, but immeasurably long;
I henceforth tread the world, chaste, temperate, an early riser, a steady grower,
Every hour the semen of centuries - and still of centuries.
I will follow up these continual lessons of the air, water, earth;
I perceive I have no time to lose.
Mylo Jones's Wife
by James Whitcomb Riley

"Mylo Jones's wife" was all
I heerd, mighty near, last Fall -
Visitun relations down
T'other side of Morgantown!
Mylo Jones's wife she does
This and that, and "those" and "thus"! -
Can't 'bide babies in her sight -
Ner no childern, day and night,
Whoopin' round the premises -
NER NO NOTHIN' ELSE, I guess!
Mylo Jones's wife she 'lows
She's the boss of her own house! -
Mylo - consequences is -
Stays whare things seem SOME like HIS, -
Uses, mostly, with the stock -
Coaxin' "Old Kate" not to balk,
Ner kick hoss-flies' branes out, ner
Act, I s'pose, so much like HER!
Yit the wimmern-folks tells you
She's PERFECTION. - Yes they do!
Mylo's wife she says she's found
Home hain't home with MEN-FOLKS round
When they's work like HERN to do-
Picklin' pears and BUTCHERN, too,
And a-rendern lard, and then
Cookin' fer a pack of men
To come trackin' up the flore
SHE'S scrubbed TEL she'll scrub no MORE! -
Yit she'd keep things clean ef they
Made her scrub tel Jedgmunt Day!
Mylo Jones's wife she sews
Carpet-rags and patches clothes
Jest year IN and OUT! - and yit
Whare's the livin' use of it?
She asts Mylo that. - And he
Gits back whare he'd ruther be,
With his team; - jest PLOWS - and don't
Never sware - like some folks won't!
Think ef HE'D CUT LOOSE, I gum!
'D he'p his heavenly chances some!
Mylo's wife don't see no use,
Ner no reason ner excuse
Fer his pore relations to
Hang round like they allus do!
Thare 'bout onc't a year - and SHE -
She jest GA'NTS 'em, folks tells me,
On spiced pears! - Pass Mylo one,
He says "No, he don't chuse none!"
Workin'men like Mylo they
'D ort to have MEAT ev'ry day!
Dad-burn Mylo Jones's wife!
Ruther rake a blame caseknife
'Crost my wizzen than to see
Sich a womern rulin' ME! -
Ruther take and turn in and
Raise a fool mule-colt by hand'
MYLO, though - od-rot the man! -
Jest keeps ca'm - like some folks CAN -
And 'lows sich as her, I s'pose,
Is MAN'S HE'PMEET' - Mercy knows!
Savoir C'est Pardonner.
by Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncey Woolsey)

Myriad rivers seek the sea,
The sea rejects not any one;
A myriad rays of light may be
Clasped in the compass of one sun;
And myriad grasses, wild and free,
Drink of the dew which faileth none.
A myriad worlds encompass ours;
A myriad souls our souls enclose;
And each, its sins and woes and powers,
The Lord He sees, the Lord He knows,
And from the Infinite Knowledge flowers
The Infinite Pity's fadeless rose.
Lighten our darkness, Lord, most wise;
All-seeing One, give us to see;
Our judgments are profanities,
Our ignorance is cruelty,
While Thou, knowing all, dost not despise
To pardon even such things as we.
The Highland Lassie.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "The deuks dang o'er my daddy!"
I.
Nae gentle dames, tho' e'er sae fair,
Shall ever be my muse's care:
Their titles a' are empty show;
Gie me my Highland lassie, O.
Within the glen sae bushy, O,
Aboon the plains sae rushy, O,
I set me down wi' right good-will,
To sing my Highland lassie, O.
II.
Oh, were yon hills and valleys mine,
Yon palace and yon gardens fine,
The world then the love should know
I bear my Highland lassie, O.
III.
But fickle fortune frowns on me,
And I maun cross the raging sea;
But while my crimson currents flow,
I'll love my Highland lassie, O.
IV.
Altho' thro' foreign climes I range,
I know her heart will never change,
For her bosom burns with honour's glow,
My faithful Highland lassie, O.
V.
For her I'll dare the billows' roar,
For her I'll trace a distant shore,
That Indian wealth may lustre throw
Around my Highland lassie, O.
VI.
She has my heart, she has my hand,
by sacred truth and honour's band!
'Till the mortal stroke shall lay me low,
I'm thine, my Highland lassie, O.
Farewell the glen sae bushy, O!
Farewell the plain sae rushy, O!
To other lands I now must go,
To sing my Highland lassie, O.
A Performance Of Henry V At Stratford-Upon-Avon
by Elizabeth Jennings

Nature teaches us our tongue again
And the swift sentences came pat. I came
Into cool night rescued from rainy dawn.
And I seethed with language, Henry at
Harfleur and Agincourt came apt for war
In Ireland and the Middle East. Here was
The riddling and right tongue, the feeling words
Solid and dutiful. Aspiring hope
Met purpose in "advantages" and "He
That fights with me today shall be my brother."
Say this is patriotic, out of date.
But you are wrong. It never is too late
For nights of stars and feet that move to an
Iambic measure; all who clapped were linked,
The theatre is our treasury and too,
Our study, school-room, house where mercy is
Dispensed with justice. Shakespeare has the mood
And draws the music from the dullest heart.
This is our birthright, speeches for the dumb
And unaccomplished. Henry has the words
For grief and we learn how to tell of death
With dignity. "All was as cold" she said
"As any stone" and so, we who lacked scope
For big or little deaths, increase, grow up
To purposes and means to face events
Of cruelty, stupidity. I walked
Fast under stars. The Avon wandered on
"Tomorrow and tomorrow". Words aren't worn
Out in this place but can renew our tongue,
Flesh out our feeling, make us apt for life.
Song for th' Hard Times, (1879.)
by John Hartley

Nah chaps, pray dooant think it's a sarmon awm praichin,
If aw tell yo some nooations at's entered mi pate;
For ther's nubdy should turn a cold shoulder to taichin,
If th' moral be whoalsum an th' matter be reight.
We're goin throo a time o' bad trade an depression,
An scoors o' poor crayturs we meet ivvery day,
'At show bi ther faces they've had a hard lesson: - 
That's a nooation aw had as aw went on mi way.
Aw couldn't but think as throo th' streets aw wor walkin,
An lukt i' shop winders whear fin'ry's displayed,
If they're able to sell it we're fooils to keep tawkin,
An liggin all th' blame on this slackness o' trade.
Tho times may be hard, yet ther's wealth, aye, an plenty,
An if fowk do ther duty aw'll venter to say,
Ther's noa reason a honest man's plate should be empty: - 
That's a nooation aw had as aw went on mi way.
When it's freezin an snowin, an cold winds are blowin,
Aw see childer hawf covered wi two or three rags;
As they huddle together to shelter throo th' weather,
An think thersen lucky to find some dry flags;
Wol others i' carriages, gay wi fine paintin,
Lapt up i' warm furs, they goa dashin away;
Do they think o' them poor little childer at's faintin? - 
That's a nooation aw had as aw went on mi way.
All honor to them who have proved thersen willin,
To help the unfortunate ones from their stooar;
An if freely bestowed, be it pence, pound, or shillin,
They shall nivver regret what they've given to th' poor.
An if we all do what we can for our naybor,
We shall sooin drive this bitter starvation away;
Till th' time when gooid wages reward honest labor: - 
That's a nooation aw had as aw went on mi way.
But theas trubbles an trials may yet prove a blessin,
If when th' sun shines agean we all strive to mak hay;
An be careful to waste nowt o' drinkin an dressin,
But aght ov fair wages put summat away.
When adversity's claad agean hangs o'er the nation,
We can wait for th' return ov prosperity's ray;
An noa mooar find awr land i' this sad situation: - 
That's a nooation aw had as aw went on mi way.
An ther's one matter mooar, at aw cannot but mention,
For it points aght a moral at shouldn't be missed;
Can't yo see ha they use ivvery aid an invention,
To grind daan yor wage when yo cannot resist.
If yo strike, they dooant care, for yor foorced to knock under,
Yor net able to live if they stop off yer pay;
Will it bring workin men to ther senses aw wonder? - 
That's a nooation aw had as aw went on mi way.
Some are lukkin for help from this chap or tother,
An pinnin ther faith on pet parliament men;
But to feight ther own battles finds them lots o' bother,
An if help's what yo want yo mun luk to yorsen.
If we're blessed wi gooid health, an have brains, booans, an muscle,
An keep a brave heart, we shall yet win the fray;
An be wiser an stronger for havin this tussle: - 
That's a nooation held then, an it holds to this day.
Epitaph XII. Intended For Sir Isaac Newton, In Westminster Abbey.
by Alexander Pope

ISAACUS NEWTONUS:
QUEM IMMORTALEM
TESTANTUR TEMPUS, NATURA, COELUM:
MORTALEM
HOC MARMOR FATETUR.
Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night
God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.
Circles
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nature centres into balls,
And her proud ephemerals,
Fast to surface and outside,
Scan the profile of the sphere;
Knew they what that signified,
A new genesis were here.
My Youth
by William Henry Davies

My youth was my old age,
Weary and long;
It had too many cares
To think of song;
My moulting days all came
When I was young.
Now, in life's prime, my soul
Comes out in flower;
Late, as with Robin, comes
My singing power;
I was not born to joy
Till this late hour.
On A Mourner
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

I.
Nature, so far as in her lies,
Imitates God, and turns her face
To every land beneath the skies,
Counts nothing that she meets with base,
But lives and loves in every place;
II.
Fills out the homely quickset-screens,
And makes the purple lilac ripe,
Steps from her airy hill, and greens
The swamp, where humm'd the dropping snipe,
With moss and braided marish-pipe;
III.
And on thy heart a finger lays,
Saying, 'Beat quicker, for the time
Is pleasant, and the woods and ways
Are pleasant, and the beech and lime
Put forth and feel a gladder clime.'
IV.
And murmurs of a deeper voice,
Going before to some far shrine,
Teach that sick heart the stronger choice,
Till all thy life one way incline
With one wide Will that closes thine.
V.
And when the zoning eve has died
Where yon dark valleys wind forlorn,
Come Hope and Memory, spouse and bride,
From out the borders of the morn,
With that fair child betwixt them born.
VI.
And when no mortal motion jars
The blackness round the tombing sod,
Thro' silence and the trembling stars
Comes Faith from tracts no feet have trod,
And Virtue, like a household god
VII.
Promising empire; such as those
Once heard at dead of night to greet
Troy's wandering prince, so that he rose
With sacrifice, while all the fleet
Had rest by stony hills of Crete.
The Enemy
by Charles Baudelaire

My youth was nothing but a black storm
Crossed now and then by brilliant suns.
The thunder and the rain so ravage the shores
Nothing's left of the fruit my garden held once.
I should employ the rake and the plow,
Having reached the autumn of ideas,
To restore this inundated ground
Where the deep grooves of water form tombs in the lees.
And who knows if the new flowers you dreamed
Will find in a soil stripped and cleaned
The mystic nourishment that fortifies?
O Sorrow ' O Sorrow ' Time consumes Life,
And the obscure enemy that gnaws at my heart
Uses the blood that I lose to play my part.
Verses Written In The Album Of A Friend. (Herr Von Mecheln Of Basle.)
by Friedrich Schiller

Nature in charms is exhaustless, in beauty ever reviving;
And, like Nature, fair art is inexhaustible too.
Hail, thou honored old man! for both in thy heart thou preservest
Living sensations, and thus ne'er-ending youth is thy lot!
To M'cenas
by Eugene Field

M'cenas, thou of royalty's descent,
Both my protector and dear ornament,
Among humanity's conditions are
Those who take pleasure in the flying car,
Whirling Olympian dust, as on they roll,
And shunning with the glowing wheel the goal;
While the ennobling palm, the prize of worth,
Exalts them to the gods, the lords of earth.
Here one is happy if the fickle crowd
His name the threefold honor has allowed;
And there another, if into his stores
Comes what is swept from Libyan threshing-floors.
He who delights to till his father's lands,
And grasps the delving-hoe with willing hands,
Can never to Attalic offers hark,
Or cut the Myrtoan Sea with Cyprian bark.
The merchant, timorous of Afric's breeze,
When fiercely struggling with Icarian seas
Praises the restful quiet of his home,
Nor wishes from the peaceful fields to roam;
Ah, speedily his shattered ships he mends,--
To poverty his lesson ne'er extends.
One there may be who never scorns to fill
His cups with mellow draughts from Massic's hill,
Nor from the busy day an hour to wean,
Now stretched at length beneath the arbute green,
Now at the softly whispering spring, to dream
Of the fair nymphs who haunt the sacred stream.
For camp and trump and clarion some have zest,--
The cruel wars the mothers so detest.
'Neath the cold sky the hunter spends his life,
Unmindful of his home and tender wife,
Whether the doe is seen by faithful hounds
Or Marsian boar through the fine meshes bounds.
But as for me, the ivy-wreaths, the prize
Of learned brows, exalt me to the skies;
The shady grove, the nymphs and satyrs there,
Draw me away from people everywhere;
If it may be, Euterpe's flute inspires,
Or Polyhymnia strikes the Lesbian lyres;
And if you place me where no bard debars,
With head exalted I shall strike the stars!