DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Answer To A Poetical Epistle Sent To The Author By A Tailor.
by Robert Burns

What ails ye now, ye lousie b----h,
To thresh my back at sic a pitch?
Losh, man! hae mercy wi' your natch,
Your bodkin's bauld,
I didna suffer ha'f sae much
Frae Daddie Auld.
What tho' at times when I grow crouse,
I gie their wames a random pouse,
Is that enough for you to souse
Your servant sae?
Gae mind your seam, ye prick-the-louse,
An' jag-the-flae.
King David o' poetic brief,
Wrought 'mang the lasses sic mischief,
As fill'd his after life wi' grief,
An' bluidy rants,
An' yet he's rank'd amang the chief
O' lang-syne saunts.
And maybe, Tam, for a' my cants,
My wicked rhymes, an' druken rants,
I'll gie auld cloven Clootie's haunts
An unco' slip yet,
An' snugly sit among the saunts
At Davie's hip get.
But fegs, the Session says I maun
Gae fa' upo' anither plan,
Than garrin lasses cowp the cran
Clean heels owre body,
And sairly thole their mither's ban
Afore the howdy.
This leads me on, to tell for sport,
How I did wi' the Session sort,
Auld Clinkum at the inner port
Cried three times, "Robin!
Come hither, lad, an' answer for't,
Ye're blamed for jobbin'."
Wi' pinch I pat a Sunday's face on,
An' snoov'd away before the Session;
I made an open fair confession,
I scorn'd to lee;
An' syne Mess John, beyond expression,
Fell foul o' me.
To Laura In Death. Sonnet LXX.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Deh qual piet', qual angel fu s' presto.
HIS PRAYER IS HEARD.
What angel of compassion, hovering near,
Heard, and to heaven my heart grief instant bore,
Whence now I feel descending as of yore
My lady, in that bearing chaste and dear,
My lone and melancholy heart to cheer,
So free from pride, of humbleness such store,
In fine, so perfect, though at death's own door,
I live, and life no more is dull and drear.
Bless'd is she who so can others bless
With her fair sight, or with that tender speech
To whose full meaning love alone can reach.
"Dear friend," she says, "thy pangs my soul distress;
But for our good I did thy homage shun"--
In sweetest tones which might arrest the sun.
MACGREGOR.
TO  ---- .
by Madison Julius Cawein

"Lydia, dic, per omnes
Te deos oro!"
I
What are the subtleties
Which woo me in her eyes
To oaths she deems but lies,
I can not tell, I can not tell,
Nor will she.
They are beyond my thought.
For when I gaze I'm nought,
My senses all unwrought,
It is not well, it is not well,
Now Lily!
II
What is the magic sweet
Which makes hot pulses beat,
A wayward tongue repeat
A name for weeks, a name for weeks
Will, nill he?
Ai me! the pleasant pain
Falls sweetly on the brain
Like some slow sunny rain,
Whene'er she speaks, whene'er she speaks
This Lily.
III
What is the witchery rare
Which snares me in her hair
So deeply that I dare,
I dare not move, I dare not move, - 
Lie stilly?
In looks and winning ways
The bloom of love she lays
Like fire on all my days,
And makes me love, and makes me love
This Lily.
Rags.
by Robert Herrick

What are our patches, tatters, rags, and rents,
But the base dregs and lees of vestiments?
Odes From Horace. - To Apollo. Book The First, Ode The Thirty-First.
by Anna Seward

What asks the POET, when he pours
His first libation in the Delphic Bowers?
Duteous before the altar standing,
With lively hope his soul expanding,
O! what demands he, when the crimson wine
Flows sparkling from the vase, and laves the golden shrine?
Not the rich and swelling grain
That yellows o'er Sardinia's isle;
Nor snowy herds, slow winding thro' the plain,
When warm Calabria's rosy mornings smile;
Nor gold, nor gems, that India yields,
Nor yet those fair and fertile fields,
Which, thro' their flow'ry banks as calm he glides,
The silent [1]Liris' azure stream divides.
Let those, for whom kind fortune still
Leads lavish tendrils o'er the sloping hill,
Let such, with care their vineyard dressing,
Their bursting grapes assiduous pressing,
Gather, self-gratulant, the costly store,
And of the future year propitious suns implore!
May luscious wines, in cups of gold,
Oft for the wealthy Merchant flow!
Nor let cold Thrift those plenteous draughts withhold
That prosperous Commerce shall again bestow.
The flowing bowl he safely drains,
Since every favouring God ordains
That more than [2]once, within the circling year,
His prow shall o'er the smooth Atlantic steer.
Me, let tawny olives feed!
Me, lenient mallows from the simple mead!
Son of Latona, grant the blessing,
That, a cloudless mind possessing,
And not infirm of frame, in soft decay,
Cheer'd by the breathing lyre, my life may pass away!
Sonnet LVI. To A Timid Young Lady, Distressed By The Attentions Of An Amiable, And Accepted Lover.
by Anna Seward

What bashful wildness in those crystal eyes,
Fair Zillia! - Ah! more dear to LOVE the gaze
That dwells upon its object, than the rays
Of that vague glance, quick, as in summer skies
The lightning's lambent flash, when neither rise
Thunder, nor storm. - I mark, while transport plays
Warm in thy Lover's eye, what dread betrays
Thy throbbing heart: - yet why from his soft sighs
Fleet'st thou so swift away? - like the young Hind[1],
That bending stands the fountain's brim beside,
When, with a sudden gust, the western wind
Rustles among the boughs that shade the tide:
See, from the stream, innoxious and benign,
Starting she bounds, with terror vain as thine!
1: "Vitas hinnuleo me similis Chloe." HORACE.
A Ballad Of Marjorie
by Dora Sigerson Shorter

'What ails you that you look so pale,
O fisher of the sea?'
''Tis for a mournful tale I own,
Fair maiden Marjorie.'
'What is the dreary tale to tell,
O toiler of the sea?'
'I cast my net into the waves,
Sweet maiden Marjorie.
'I cast my net into the tide,
Before I made for home;
Too heavy for my hands to raise,
I drew it through the foam.'
'What saw you that you look so pale,
Sad searcher of the sea?'
'A dead man's body from the deep
My haul had brought to me!'
'And was he young, and was he fair?'
'Oh, cruel to behold!
In his white face the joy of life
Not yet was grown a-cold.'
'Oh, pale you are, and full of prayer
For one who sails the sea.'
'Because the dead looked up and spoke,
Poor maiden Marjorie.'
'What said he, that you seem so sad,
O fisher of the sea?
(Alack! I know it was my love,
Who fain would speak to me!)'
'He said, 'Beware a woman's mouth-
A rose that bears a thorn.''
'Ah, me! these lips shall smile no more
That gave my lover scorn.'
'He said, 'Beware a woman's eyes.
They pierce you with their death.''
'Then falling tears shall make them blind
That robbed my dear of breath.'
'He said, 'Beware a woman's hair-
A serpent's coil of gold.''
'Then will I shear the cruel locks
That crushed him in their fold.'
'He said, 'Beware a woman's heart
As you would shun the reef.''
'So let it break within my breast,
And perish of my grief.'
'He raised his hands; a woman's name
Thrice bitterly he cried:
My net had parted with the strain;
He vanished in the tide.'
'A woman's name!    What name but mine,
O fisher of the sea?'
'A woman's name, but not your name,
Poor maiden Marjorie.'
Nursery Rhyme. DCXIV. Relics.
by Unknown

What are little boys made of, made of,
What are little boys made of?
Snaps and snails, and puppy-dog's tails;
And that's what little boys are made of, made of.
What are little girls made of, made of, made of,
What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice, and all that's nice;
And that's what little girls are made of, made of.
Memorials Of A Tour In Italy, 1837 - XVII. - At The Eremite Or Upper Convent Of Camaldoli
by William Wordsworth

What aim had they, the Pair of Monks, in size
Enormous, dragged, while side by side they sate,
By panting steers up to this convent gate?
How, with empurpled cheeks and pampered eyes,
Dare they confront the lean austerities
Of Brethren who, here fixed, on Jesu wait
In sackcloth, and God's anger deprecate
Through all that humbles flesh and mortifies?
Strange contrast! verily the world of dreams,
Where mingle, as for mockery combined,
Things in their very essences at strife,
Shows not a sight incongruous as the extremes
That everywhere, before the thoughtful mind,
Meet on the solid ground of waking life.
Thoughts On Tar Barrels.
by Thomas Moore

(VIDE DESCRIPTION OF A LATE F'TE.)[1]
1832.
What a pleasing contrivance! how aptly devised
'Twixt tar and magnolias to puzzle one's noses!
And how the tar-barrels must all be surprised
To find themselves seated like "Love among roses!"
What a pity we can't, by precautions like these,
Clear the air of that other still viler infection;
That radical pest, that old whiggish disease,
Of which cases, true-blue, are in every direction.
Stead of barrels, let's light up an Auto da Fe
Of a few good combustible Lords of "the Club;"
They would fume in a trice, the Whig cholera away,
And there's Bucky would burn like a barrel of bub.
How Roden would blaze! and what rubbish throw out!
A volcano of nonsense in active display;
While Vane, as a butt, amidst laughter, would spout
The hot nothings he's full of, all night and all day.
And then, for a finish, there's Cumberland's Duke,--
Good Lord, how his chin-tuft would crackle in air!
Unless (as is shrewdly surmised from his look)
He's already bespoke for combustion elsewhere.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part III. - XLIV - The Same
by William Wordsworth

What awful perspective! while from our sight
With gradual stealth the lateral windows hide
Their Portraitures, their stone-work glimmers, dyed
In the soft chequerings of a sleepy light.
Martyr, or King, or sainted Eremite,
Whoe'er ye be, that thus, yourselves unseen,
Imbue your prison-bars with solemn sheen,
Shine on, until ye fade with coming Night!
But, from the arms of silence, list! O list!
The music bursteth into second life;
The notes luxuriate, every stone is kissed
By sound, or ghost of sound, in mazy strife;
Heart-thrilling strains, that cast, before the eye
Of the devout, a veil of ecstasy!
The Moth-Signal
by Thomas Hardy

(On Egdon Heath)
"What are you still, still thinking,"
He asked in vague surmise,
"That stare at the wick unblinking
With those great lost luminous eyes?"
"O, I see a poor moth burning
In the candle-flame," said she,
Its wings and legs are turning
To a cinder rapidly."
"Moths fly in from the heather,"
He said, "now the days decline."
"I know," said she. "The weather,
I hope, will at last be fine.
"I think," she added lightly,
"I'll look out at the door.
The ring the moon wears nightly
May be visible now no more."
She rose, and, little heeding,
Her husband then went on
With his attentive reading
In the annals of ages gone.
Outside the house a figure
Came from the tumulus near,
And speedily waxed bigger,
And clasped and called her Dear.
"I saw the pale-winged token
You sent through the crack," sighed she.
"That moth is burnt and broken
With which you lured out me.
"And were I as the moth is
It might be better far
For one whose marriage troth is
Shattered as potsherds are!"
Then grinned the Ancient Briton
From the tumulus treed with pine:
"So, hearts are thwartly smitten
In these days as in mine!"
Foolish Bobolink.
by Clara Doty Bates

What a silly bobolink,
Down in the meadow grasses!
What can the noisy fellow think,
When, to everyone who passes,
He calls out cheerily,
"Here, here is my nest! See! see!"
He could hide the summer through
In the thick, sweet-smelling clover,
Nor could anyone from dawn to dew,
His little house discover,
Did he not make so free
With the secret--"Here! see! see!"
Little Ted has ears and eyes,
And how can he keep from knowing
Just where the cosy treasure lies,
When bobolink, coming, going,
Shouts, plain as plain can be,
"Here, here is a nest! See! see!"
And Teddy would like to creep
Tip-toe across the meadow,
And for just one minute stoop and peep
Under the clover shadow.
He would do no harm--not he!
But would only see, see, see!
And what would he find below
The sheltering grass, you wonder?
Why, a nest, of course, and an egg or so,
A mother's dark wings under.
But bobolink--he would flee
In a fright--"A boy! see! see!"
So Teddy, whose heart is kind,
Though he longs to venture near him,
Sighs to himself, "Ah, never mind!"
And listens, glad to hear him
Shouting, in tireless glee,
"Here, here is my nest! See! see!"
Green gravel, Green gravel,
The grass is so green,
The fairest young maiden, that ever was seen,
Oh Mary, oh Mary, your true love is dead.
He's sent you a green bough
To tie round your head.
What Ails the World?
by Abram Joseph Ryan

"What ails the world?" the poet cried;
"And why does death walk everywhere?
And why do tears fall anywhere?
And skies have clouds, and souls have care?"
Thus the poet sang, and sighed.
For he would fain have all things glad,
All lives happy, all hearts bright;
Not a day would end in night,
Not a wrong would vex a right --
And so he sang -- and he was sad.
Thro' his very grandest rhymes
Moved a mournful monotone --
Like a shadow eastward thrown
From a sunset -- like a moan
Tangled in a joy-bell's chimes.
"What ails the world?" he sang and asked --
And asked and sang -- but all in vain;
No answer came to any strain,
And no reply to his refrain --
The mystery moved 'round him masked.
"What ails the world?" An echo came --
"Ails the world?" The minstrel bands,
With famous or forgotten hands,
Lift up their lyres in all the lands,
And chant alike, and ask the same
From him whose soul first soared in song,
A thousand, thousand years away,
To him who sang but yesterday,
In dying or in deathless lay --
"What ails the world?" comes from the throng.
They fain would sing the world to rest;
And so they chant in countless keys,
As many as the waves of seas,
And as the breathings of the breeze,
Yet even when they sing their best --
When o'er the list'ning world there floats
Such melody as 'raptures men --
When all look up entranced -- and when
The song of fame floats forth, e'en then
A discord creepeth through the notes --
Their sweetest harps have broken strings,
Their grandest accords have their jars,
Like shadows on the light of stars,
And somehow, something ever mars
The songs the greatest minstrel sings.
And so each song is incomplete,
And not a rhyme can ever round
Into the chords of perfect sound
The tones of thought that e'er surround
The ways walked by the poet's feet.
"What ails the world?" he sings and sighs;
No answer cometh to his cry.
He asks the earth and asks the sky --
The echoes of his song pass by
Unanswered -- and the poet dies.
Old St. David's At Radnor
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

What an image of peace and rest
Is this little church among its graves!
All is so quiet; the troubled breast,
The wounded spirit, the heart oppressed,
Here may find the repose it craves.
See, how the ivy climbs and expands
Over this humble hermitage,
And seems to caress with its little hands
The rough, gray stones, as a child that stands
Caressing the wrinkled cheeks of age!
You cross the threshold; and dim and small
Is the space that serves for the Shepherd's Fold;
The narrow aisle, the bare, white wall,
The pews, and the pulpit quaint and tall,
Whisper and say: "Alas! we are old."
Herbert's chapel at Bemerton
Hardly more spacious is than this;
But Poet and Pastor, blent in one,
Clothed with a splendor, as of the sun,
That lowly and holy edifice.
It is not the wall of stone without
That makes the building small or great
But the soul's light shining round about,
And the faith that overcometh doubt,
And the love that stronger is than hate.
Were I a pilgrim in search of peace,
Were I a pastor of Holy Church,
More than a Bishop's diocese
Should I prize this place of rest, and release
From farther longing and farther search.
Here would I stay, and let the world
With its distant thunder roar and roll;
Storms do not rend the sail that is furled;
Nor like a dead leaf, tossed and whirled
In an eddy of wind, is the anchored soul.
The Child's Question.
by H. P. Nichols

"What are the flowers for, mamma,
That spring up fresh and bright,
And grow on every hill and plain,
Where'er I turn my sight?
"How do the flowers grow, mamma?
I've pulled the leaves away,
And tried to see them blossom out,
On many a summer's day."
"The flowers were made, my little child,
That when our footsteps trod
Upon the green and pleasant fields,
We then might think of God.
"We may not see how they do grow,
And bloom in beauty fair;
We cannot tell how they can spread
Their small leaves to the air:
"But yet we know that God's kind hand
Creates these little flowers,
And makes the warm sun shine on them,
And waters them with showers.
"And so we love to think that He,
Who paints their sweet leaves thus,
Who sends the sunshine and the rain,
Has thought and care for us."
My Books
by Richard Le Gallienne

What are my books? - My friends, my loves,
My church, my tavern, and my only wealth;
My garden: yea, my flowers, my bees, my doves;
My only doctors - and my only health.
A Fragment.
by Alexander Pope

What are the falling rills, the pendant shades,
The morning bowers, the evening colonnades,
But soft recesses for th' uneasy mind
To sigh unheard in, to the passing wind!
So the struck deer, in some sequester'd part,
Lies down to die (the arrow in his heart);
There hid in shades, and wasting day by day,
Inly he bleeds, and pants his soul away.
We Will Still Fight On
by Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

What an insignificant trifle may sometimes transform the whole man!
Full of melancholy thought, I walked one day along the highroad.
My heart was oppressed by a weight of gloomy apprehension; I was overwhelmed by dejection. I raised my head.... Before me, between two rows of tall poplars, the road darted like an arrow into the distance.
And across it, across this road, ten paces from me, in the golden light of the dazzling summer sunshine, a whole family of sparrows hopped one after another, hopped saucily, drolly, self-reliantly!
One of them, in particular, skipped along sideways with desperate energy, puffing out his little bosom and chirping impudently, as though to say he was not afraid of any one! A gallant little warrior, really!
And, meanwhile, high overhead in the heavens hovered a hawk, destined, perhaps, to devour that little warrior.
I looked, laughed, shook myself, and the mournful thoughts flew right away: pluck, daring, zeal for life I felt anew. Let him, too, hover over me, my hawk.... We will fight on, and damn it all!
November 1879.
Absence.
by John Clare

"What ails my love, where can he be?
He never broke a vow,
Though twice the clock's reminded me
That he's deceiv'd me now.
Through some bad girl, I well know that,
Poor Peggy's love's forgot:"
Thus sigh'd a lass, as down she sat
On the appointed spot.
The night was gathering dark and deep,
But absent was the swain;
The dews on many a flower did weep,
But Peggy wept in vain:
And every noise that meets her ear,
And fancy of her eye,
Hope instant wipes away the tear,
And paints the shepherd nigh.
"Ah, now he comes, my cheek glows hot,
His dog barks to the sheep!"
Alas, her own dog lay forgot,
Loud whimpering in his sleep.
"He rustles down the wood-path park,
The boughs hung o'er it stirr'd!"--
Alas, her Rover's dreaming bark
Awoke a startled bird.
Again he look'd, and once again
Hop'd she her love should see,
A glimpse of moonlight checq'd the plain--
"Ah, here he comes, 'tis he!"
The trees hung o'er the shady way,
'Twas but a shadow'd oak.
The stock-dove wak'd the mimic lay,
"Ah, there my Henry spoke!"
"Ah, this is he! I know his tread!"
Again her hope's a dream;
Her wandering cows had left their shed,
And jump'd across the stream.
"Ah, then he spoke, 'twas Henry plain!"
She felt she knew not how;
Alas, the clock but told again
That he had broke his vow.
When wearied out, her home she seeks,
Where nought could please her view;
The tear stole silent down her cheeks,
Two rose-leaves in the dew:
Her auburn hair with sweetest grace
That down her temples spread,
The night-breeze wip'd it from her face,
And kiss'd her in his stead.
Muse's Triumph, The
by Thomas Oldham

What adverse passions rule my changeful breast,
With hope exalted, or by fear deprest!
Now, by the Muse inspired, I snatch the lyre,
And proudly to poetic fame aspire;
Now dies the sacred flame, my pride declines,
And diffidence the immortal wreath resigns.
Friends, void of taste, warm advocates for trade,
With shafts of ridicule, my peace invade:
'A Poet!' thus they sneeringly exclaim
'Well may you court that glorious, envied name;
For, sure, no common joys his lot attend;
None but himself those joys can comprehend.
O, superhuman bliss, employ sublime,
To scribble fiction, and to jingle rhyme!
Caged in some muse-behaunted, Grub-street garret,
To prate his feeders' promptings, like a parrot!
And what, though want and scorn his life assail?
What, though he rave in Bedlam, starve in jail?
Such trifling ills the Bard may well despise;
Sure of immortal honour when he dies.
But, seriously the advice of friendship hear:
Stop short in your poetical career;
O! quell the frenzies of your fever'd brain,
And turn, at Wisdom's call, to trade and gain,'
Absorb'd in passive sadness, I comply;
Turn from the Muse my disenchanted eye,
And deign to study, as my friends persuade,
The little, money-getting arts of trade.
But soon the Goddess, fired with high disdain
To see me woo the yellow strumpet, Gain,
Resuming all her beauty, all her power,
Returns to triumph in the vacant hour;
Weakly reluctant, on her charms I gaze,
Trembling, I feel her fascinating lays;
Roused from ignoble dreams, my wondering soul
Springs to the well-known bliss, regardless of control.
Say then, ye blind, profane! who dare to blame
The heaven-born Poet, and his thirst of fame;
Ye slaves of Mammon! whose low minds behold
No fair, no great, no good, in aught but gold;
Say! will the Captive of tyrannic sway,
Restored to genial air, and boundless day,
Turn to his dungeon's suffocating night?
Will the proud Eagle, who with daring flight
Sublimely soars against the solar blaze,
And eyes the inspiring God with raptured gaze,
Stoop from his native kingdom in the sky,
To share the breathings of mortality?
How, then, can he, whose breast the Muse inspires,
Restrain his soul, or quench those hallow'd fires?
How can he quit the world of mental bliss,
For all the riches, miseries! of this?
Portals
by Walt Whitman

What are those of the known, but to ascend and enter the Unknown?
And what are those of life, but for Death?
Natural History
by Walter Crane

1.
What are little boys made of?
What are little boys made of?
Frogs and snails and puppy-dog's tails,
And that are little boys made of.
2.
What are little girls made of?
What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice and all that's nice,
And that are little girls made of.
3.
What are young men made of?
What are young men made of?
Sighs and leers, and crocodile tears,
And that are young men made of.
4.
What are young women made of?
What are young women made of?
Ribbons and laces, and sweet pretty faces,
And that are young women made of.
On George Herbert's Poems
by James Thomson -  (Bysshe Vanolis)

What are these leaves dark-spotted and acerb?
'A very holy herb.'
To what good use may I this herb convert?
'Press it on thy soul's hurt.'
When herb unto the hurt I thus apply?
'Herb-ert is sanctity.'