DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Down The Songo.
by Bliss Carman (William)

I.
Floating!
Floating--and all the stillness waits
And listens at the ivory gates,
Full of a dim uncertain presage
Of some strange, undelivered message.
There is no sound save from the bush
The alto of the shy wood-thrush,
And ever and anon the dip
Of a lazy oar.
The rhythmic drowsiness keeps time
To hazy subtleties of rhyme
That seem to slip
Through the lulled soul to seek the sleepy shore.
The idle clouds go floating by;
Above us sky, beneath us sky;
The sun shines on us as we lie
Floating.
It is a dream.
It is a dream, my love; see how
The ripples quiver at the prow,
And all the long reflections shake
Unsteadily beneath the lake.
The mists about the uplands show
Dim violet towers that come and go.
Phantasmagoric palaces
Rise trembling there,
As though one breath of waking weather
Would crash their airy walls together
With sudden stress,
While silent detonations shook the air--
Vast fabrics toppling to the ground
And vanishing without a sound.
Ah, love, these are not what we deem;
It is a dream.
II.
Let us dream on, then,----dream and die
Ere the dream pass.
Let us for once, like idle flowers,
Let slip the unregarded hours,
Like the wise flowers that lie
Unfretted by a feeble thought,
Future and past alike forgot,
Drinking the dew contentedly
In the cool grass.
III.
Look yonder where the clouds float; could we glide
As they, across the sky's blue shoreless tide,
What better were it than to dream
Across yon lake and into this still stream?
IV.
Trees and a glimpse of sky!
And the slow river, quiet as a pool!
And thou and I--and thou and I--
Kiss me! How soft the air is and how cool!
Flow On, Thou Shining River. (Portuguese Air.)
by Thomas Moore

Flow on, thou shining river;
But ere thou reach the sea
Seek Ella's bower and give her
The wreaths I fling o'er thee
And tell her thus, if she'll be mine
The current of our lives shall be,
With joys along their course to shine,
Like those sweet flowers on thee.
But if in wandering thither
Thou find'st she mocks my prayer,
Then leave those wreaths to wither
Upon the cold bank there;
And tell her thus, when youth is o'er,
Her lone and loveless Charms shall be
Thrown by upon life's weedy shore.
Like those sweet flowers from thee.
A Carol Presented To Dr. Williams, Bishop Of Lincoln As A New-Year's Gift.
by Robert Herrick

Fly hence, pale care, no more remember
Past sorrows with the fled December,
But let each pleasant cheek appear
Smooth as the childhood of the year,
And sing a carol here.
'Twas brave, 'twas brave, could we command the hand
Of youth's swift watch to stand
As you have done your day;
Then should we not decay.
But all we wither, and our light
Is spilt in everlasting night,
Whenas your sight
Shows like the heavens above the moon,
Like an eternal noon
That sees no setting sun.
Keep up those flames, and though you shroud
Awhile your forehead in a cloud,
Do it like the sun to write
In the air a greater text of light;
Welcome to all our vows,
And since you pay
To us this day
So long desir'd,
See we have fir'd
Our holy spikenard, and there's none
But brings his stick of cinnamon,
His eager eye or smoother smile,
And lays it gently on the pile,
Which thus enkindled, we invoke
Your name amidst the sacred smoke.
Chorus. Come then, great Lord.
And see our altar burn
With love of your return,
And not a man here but consumes
His soul to glad you in perfumes.
The Russian Lover.
by Thomas Moore

Fleetly o'er the moonlight snows
Speed we to my lady's bower;
Swift our sledge as lightning goes,
Nor shall stop till morning's hour.
Bright, my steed, the northern star
Lights us from yon jewelled skies;
But to greet us, brighter far,
Morn shall bring my lady's eyes.
Lovers, lulled in sunny bowers,
Sleeping out their dream of time,
Know not half the bliss that's ours,
In this snowy, icy clime.
Like yon star that livelier gleams
From the frosty heavens around,
Love himself the keener beams
When with snows of coyness crowned.
Fleet then on, my merry steed,
Bound, my sledge, o'er hill and dale;--
What can match a lover's speed?
See, 'tis daylight, breaking pale!
Brightly hath the northern star
Lit us from yon radiant Skies;
But, behold, how brighter far
Yonder shine my lady's eyes!
Magical Nature
by Robert Browning

Flower, I never fancied, jewel, I profess you!
Bright I see and soft I feel the outside of a flower.
Save but glow inside and jewel, I should guess you,
Dim to sight and rough to touch: the glory is the dower.
You, forsooth, a flower? Nay, my love, a jewel,
Jewel at no mercy of a moment in your prime!
Time may fray the flower-face: kind be time or cruel,
Jewel, from each facet, flash your laugh at time!
To Laura In Death. Sonnet XLV.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Passato ' 'l tempo omai, lasso! che tanto.
HIS ONLY DESIRE IS AGAIN TO BE WITH HER.
Fled--fled, alas! for ever--is the day,
Which to my flame some soothing whilom brought;
And fled is she of whom I wept and wrote:
Yet still the pang, the tear, prolong their stay!
And fled that angel vision far away;
But flying, with soft glance my heart it smote
('Twas then my own) which straight, divided, sought
Her, who had wrapp'd it in her robe of clay.
Part shares her tomb, part to her heaven is sped;
Where now, with laurel wreathed, in triumph's car
She reaps the meed of matchless holiness:
So might I, of this flesh discumber'd,
Which holds me prisoner here, from sorrow far
With her expatiate free 'midst realms of endless bliss!
WRANGHAM.
Ah! gone for ever are the happy years
That soothed my soul amid Love's fiercest fire,
And she for whom I wept and tuned my lyre
Has gone, alas!--But left my lyre, my tears:
Gone is that face, whose holy look endears;
But in my heart, ere yet it did retire,
Left the sweet radiance of its eyes, entire;--
My heart? Ah; no! not mine! for to the spheres
Of light she bore it captive, soaring high,
In angel robe triumphant, and now stands
Crown'd with the laurel wreath of chastity:
Oh! could I throw aside these earthly bands
That tie me down where wretched mortals sigh,--
To join blest spirits in celestial lands!
MOREHEAD.
Sonnet
by John Masefield

Flesh, I have knocked at many a dusty door,
Gone down full many a midnight lane,
Probed in old walls and felt along the floor,
Pressed in blind hope the lighted window-pane,
But useless all, though sometimes when the moon
Was full in heaven and the sea was full,
Along my body's alleys came a tune
Played in the tavern by the Beautiful.
Then for an instant I have felt at point
To find and seize her, whosoe'er she be,
Whether some saint whose glory doth anoint
Those whom she loves, or but a part of me,
Or something that the things not understood
Make for their uses out of flesh and blood.
Song, By A Person Of Quality
by Alexander Pope

I
Flutt'ring spread thy purple Pinions,
Gentle Cupid, o'er my Heart;
I a Slave in thy Dominions;
Nature must give Way to Art.
II
Mild Arcadians, ever blooming,
Nightly nodding o'er your Flocks,
See my weary Days consuming,
All beneath yon flow'ry Rocks.
III
Thus the Cyprian Goddess weeping,
Mourn'd Adonis, darling Youth:
Him the Boar in Silence creeping,
Gor'd with unrelenting Tooth.
IV
Cynthia, tune harmonious Numbers;
Fair Discretion, string the Lyre;
Sooth my ever-waking Slumbers:
Bright Apollo, lend thy Choir.
V
Gloomy Pluto, King of Terrors,
Arm'd in adamantine Chains,
Lead me to the Crystal Mirrors,
Wat'ring soft Elysian Plains.
VI
Mournful Cypress, verdant Willow,
Gilding my Aurelia's Brows,
Morpheus hov'ring o'er my Pillow,
Hear me pay my dying Vows.
VII
Melancholy smooth Maeander,
Swiftly purling in a Round,
On thy Margin Lovers wander,
With thy flow'ry Chaplets crown'd.
VIII
Thus when Philomela drooping,
Softly seeks her silent Mate,
See the Bird of Juno stooping;
Melody resigns to Fate.
Flowers For Brave Soldiers
by Helen Leah Reed

Flowers for brave soldiers,
Flowers for those who gave us
A Country undivided.
Flowers for the dead!
With flags we are marking
Their last earth-dwelling.
Our hearts are bending
In gratitude,
While we are praying
That this our Nation
Pass safe through peril,
Through deadly war.
Flowers for brave soldiers - 
Flowers for those who loved us,
Flowers to their memory,
This fair spring day!
January 1, 1828.
by Nathaniel Parker Willis

Fleetly hath past the year. The seasons came
Duly as they are wont - the gentle Spring,
And the delicious Summer, and the cool,
Rich Autumn, with the nodding of the grain,
And Winter, like an old and hoary man,
Frosty and stiff - and so are chronicled.
We have read gladness in the new green leaf,
And in the first blown violets; we have drunk
Cool water from the rock, and in the shade
Sunk to the noon-tide slumber; - we have eat
The mellow fruitage of the bending tree,
And girded to our pleasant wanderings
When the cool wind came freshly from the hills;
And when the tinting of the Autumn leaves
Had faded from its glory, we have sat
By the good fires of Winter, and rejoiced
Over the fulness of the gathered sheaf.
"God hath been very good!" 'Tis He whose hand
Moulded the sunny hills, and hollowed out
The shelter of the valleys, and doth keep
The fountains in their secret places cool;
And it is He who leadeth up the sun,
And ordereth the starry influences,
And tempereth the keenness of the frost - 
And therefore, in the plenty of the feast,
And in the lifting of the cup, let HIM
Have praises for the well-completed year.
Flow Gently, Sweet Afton.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "Afton Water."
I.
Flow gently, sweet Afton! among thy green braes,
Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise;
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.
II.
Thou stock-dove, whose echo resounds thro' the glen;
Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den;
Thou green-crested lapwing, thy screaming forbear,
I charge you disturb not my slumbering fair.
III.
How lofty, sweet Afton! thy neighbouring hills,
Far mark'd with the courses of clear, winding rills;
There daily I wander as noon rises high,
My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye.
IV.
How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below,
Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow!
There, oft as mild evening weeps over the lea,
The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me.
V.
Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides,
And winds by the cot where my Mary resides;
How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave,
As gathering sweet flow'rets she stems thy clear wave.
VI.
Flow gently, sweet Afton! among thy green braes,
Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays!
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton! disturb not her dream.
To The Avon
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Flow on, sweet river! like his verse
Who lies beneath this sculptured hearse
Nor wait beside the churchyard wall
For him who cannot hear thy call.
Thy playmate once; I see him now
A boy with sunshine on his brow,
And hear in Stratford's quiet street
The patter of his little feet.
I see him by thy shallow edge
Wading knee-deep amid the sedge;
And lost in thought, as if thy stream
Were the swift river of a dream.
He wonders whitherward it flows;
And fain would follow where it goes,
To the wide world, that shall erelong
Be filled with his melodious song.
Flow on, fair stream!    That dream is o'er;
He stands upon another shore;
A vaster river near him flows,
And still he follows where it goes.
The Past
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Fling my past behind me, like a robe
Worn threadbare in the seams, and out of date.
I have outgrown it.    Wherefore should I weep
And dwell up on its beauty, and its dyes
Of Oriental splendour, or complain
That I must needs discard it?    I can weave
Upon the shuttles of the future years
A fabric far more durable.    Subdued,
It may be, in the blending of its hues,
Where sombre shades commingle, yet the gleam
Of golden warp shall shoot it through and through,
While over all a fadeless lustre lies,
And starred with gems made out of crystalled tears,
My new robe shall be richer than the old.
A farewell
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver:
No more by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.
Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
A rivulet then a river:
Nowhere by thee my steps shall be
For ever and for ever.
But here will sigh thine alder tree
And here thine aspen shiver;
And here by thee will hum the bee,
For ever and for ever.
A thousand suns will stream on thee,
A thousand moons will quiver;
But not by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.
The Star's Song
by Abram Joseph Ryan

Flower! Flower, why repine?
God knows each creature's place;
He hides within me when I shine,
And your leaves hide His face.
And you are near as I to Him,
And you reveal as much
Of that eternal soundless hymn
Man's words may never touch.
God sings to man through all my rays
That wreathe the brow of night,
And walks with me thro' all my ways --
The everlasting light.
Flower! Flower, why repine?
He chose on lowly earth,
And not in heaven where I shine,
His Bethlehem and birth.
Flower! Flower, I see Him pass
Each hour of night and day,
Down to an altar and a Mass
Go thou! and fade away.
Fade away upon His shrine!
Thy light is brighter far
Than all the light wherewith I shine
In heaven, as a star.
Sonnet LXVIII.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Fuggendo la prigione ov' Amor m' ebbe.
HE LONGS TO RETURN TO THE CAPTIVITY OF LOVE.
Fleeing the prison which had long detain'd,
Where Love dealt with me as to him seem'd well,
Ladies, the time were long indeed to tell,
How much my heart its new-found freedom pain'd.
I felt within I could not, so bereaved,
Live e'en a day: and, midway, on my eyes
That traitor rose in so complete disguise,
A wiser than myself had been deceived:
Whence oft I've said, deep sighing for the past,
Alas! the yoke and chains of old to me
Were sweeter far than thus released to be.
Me wretched! but to learn mine ill at last;
With what sore trial must I now forget
Errors that round my path myself have set.
MACGREGOR.
On Time
by John Milton

Fly envious Time, till thou run out thy race,
Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,
Whose speed is but the heavy Plummets pace;
And glut thy self with what thy womb devours,
Which is no more then what is false and vain,
And meerly mortal dross;
So little is our loss,
So little is thy gain.
For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb'd,
And last of all, thy greedy self consum'd,
Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss
With an individual kiss;
And Joy shall overtake us as a flood,
When every thing that is sincerely good
And perfectly divine,
With Truth, and Peace, and Love shall ever shine
About the supreme Throne
Of him, t'whose happy-making sight alone,
When once our heav'nly-guided soul shall clime,
Then all this Earthy grosnes quit,
Attir'd with Stars, we shall for ever sit,
Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee O Time
Address To The Flag
by Hanford Lennox Gordon

Float in the winds of heaven, O tattered Flag!
Emblem of hope to all the misruled world:
Thy field of golden stars is rent and red 
Dyed in the blood of brothers madly spilled
By brother-hands upon the mother-soil.
O fatal Upas of the savage Nile,[CT]
Transplanted hither rooted multiplied 
Watered with bitter tears and sending forth
Thy venom-vapors till the land is mad,
Thy day is done. A million blades are swung
To lay thy jungles open to the sun;
A million torches fire thy blasted boles;
A million hands shall drag thy fibers out
And feed the fires till every root and branch
Lie in dead ashes. From the blackened soil,
Enriched and moistened with fraternal blood,
Beside the palm shall spring the olive-tree,
And every breeze shall waft the happy song
Of Freedom crowned with olive-twigs and flowers.
Yea, Patriot-Flag of our old patriot-sires,
Honored victorious on an hundred fields
Where side by side for Freedom's mother-land
Her Southern sons and Northern fighting fell,
And side by side in glorious graves repose,
I see the dawn of glory grander still,
When hand in hand upon this battle-field
The blue-eyed maidens of the Merrimac
With dewy roses from the Granite Hills,
And dark-eyed daughters from the land of palms
With orange-blossoms from the broad St. Johns,
In solemn concert singing as they go,
Shall strew the graves of these fraternal dead.
The day of triumph comes, O blood-stained Flag!
Washed clean and lustrous in the morning light
Of a new era, thou shalt float again
In more than pristine glory o'er the land
Peace-blest and re-united. On the seas
Thou shalt be honored to the farthest isle.
The oppressed of foreign lands shall flock the shores
To look upon and bless thee. Mothers shall lift
Their infants to behold thee as a star
New-born in heaven to light the darksome world.
The children weeping round the desolate,
Sore-stricken mother in the saddened home
Whereto the father shall no more return,
In future years will proudly boast the blood
Of him who bravely fell defending thee.
And these misguided brothers who would tear
Thy starry field asunder and would trail
Their own proud flag and history in the dust,
Ere many years will bless thee, dear old Flag,
That thou didst triumph even over them.
Aye, even they with proudly swelling hearts
Will see the glory thou shalt shortly wear,
And new-born stars swing in upon thy field
In lustrous clusters. Come, O glorious day
Of Freedom crowned with Peace. God's will be done!
God's will is peace on earth good-will to men.
The chains all broken and the bond all free,
O may this nation learn to war no more;
Yea, into plow-shares may these brothers beat
Their swords and into pruning-hooks their spears,
Clasp hands again, and plant these battle-fields
With golden corn and purple-clustered vines,
And side by side re-build the broken walls 
Joined and cemented as one solid stone
With patriot-love and Christ's sweet charity.
Nursery Rhyme. CXCVIII. Riddles.
by Unknown

[A plum-pudding.]
Flour of England, fruit of Spain,
Met together in a shower of rain;
Put in a bag tied round with a string,
If you'll tell me this riddle, I'll give you a ring.
On A Forget-Me-Not, (Brought from Switzerland.)
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

Flower of the mountain! by the wanderer's hand
Robbed of thy beauty's short-lived sunny day;
Didst thou but blow to gem the stranger's way,
And bloom, to wither in the stranger's land?
Hueless and scentless as thou art,
How much that stirs the memory,
How much, much more, that thrills the heart,
Thou faded thing, yet lives in thee!
Where is thy beauty? in the grassy blade,
There lives more fragrance, and more freshness now;
Yet oh! not all the flowers that bloom and fade,
Are half so dear to memory's eye as thou.
The dew that on the mountain lies,
The breeze that o'er the mountain sighs,
Thy parent stem will nurse and nourish;
But thou - not e'en those sunny eyes
As bright, as blue, as thine own skies,
Thou faded thing! can make thee flourish.
The Tryst
by Walter De La Mare

Flee into some forgotten night and be
Of all dark long my moon-bright company:
Beyond the rumour even of Paradise come,
There, out of all remembrance, make our home:
Seek we some close hid shadow for our lair,
Hollowed by Noah's mouse beneath the chair
Wherein the Omnipotent, in slumber bound,
Nods till the piteous Trump of Judgment sound.
Perchance Leviathan of the deep sea
Would lease a lost mermaiden's grot to me,
There of your beauty we would joyance make - 
A music wistful for the sea-nymph's sake:
Haply Elijah, o'er his spokes of fire,
Cresting steep Leo, or the heavenly Lyre,
Spied, tranced in azure of inanest space,
Some eyrie hostel, meet for human grace,
Where two might happy be - just you and I - 
Lost in the uttermost of Eternity.
Think! In Time's smallest clock's minutest beat
Might there not rest be found for wandering feet?
Or, 'twixt the sleep and wake of Helen's dream,
Silence wherein to sing love's requiem?
No, no. Nor earth, nor air, nor fire, nor deep
Could lull poor mortal longingness asleep.
Somewhere there Nothing is; and there lost Man
Shall win what changeless vague of peace he can.
Song Of The German Lanzknecht
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Sonnex, clarions!")
[Bk. VI. vii.]
Flourish the trumpet! and rattle the drum!
The Reiters are mounted! the Reiters will come!
When our bullets cease singing
And long swords cease ringing
On backplates of fearsomest foes in full flight,
We'll dig up their dollars
To string for girls' collars - 
They'll jingle around them before it is night!
When flourish the trumpets, etc.
We're the Emperor's winners
Of right royal dinners,
Where cities are served up and flanked by estates,
While we wallow in claret,
Knowing not how to spare it,
Though beer is less likely to muddle our pates - 
While flourish the trumpets, etc.
Gods of battle! red-handed!
Wise it was to have banded
Such arms as are these for embracing of gain!
Hearken to each war-vulture
Crying, "Down with all culture
Of land or religion!" Hoch! to our refrain
Of flourish the trumpets, etc.
Give us "bones of the devil"
To exchange in our revel
The ingot, the gem, and yellow doubloon;
Coronets are but playthings - 
We reck not who say things
When the Reiters have ridden to death! none too soon! - 
To flourish of trumpet and rattle of drum,
The Reiters will finish as firm as they come!
H.L.W.
Song: That Women Are But Mens Shaddows
by Ben Jonson

Follow a shaddow, it still flies you,
Seeme to flye it, it will pursue:
So court a mistris, she denies you;
Let her alone, she will court you.
Say, are not women truly, then,
Stil'd but the shaddows of us men?
At morne, and even, shades are longest;
At noone, they are short, or none:
So men at weakest, they are strongest,
But grant us perfect, they're not knowne.
Say, are not women truly, then,
Stil'd but the shaddows of us men?
Wonder
by John Frederick Freeman

Following upon the faint wind's fickle courses
A feather drifts and strays.
My thought after her thought
Floated--how many ways and days!
She swayed me as the wind swayeth a feather.
I was a leaf upon
Her breath, a dream within
Her dream. The dream how soon was done!
For now all's changed, not Time's change more wondrous,
I am her sun, and she
(Herself doth swear) the moon;
Or she the ship upon my sea.
How should this be? I know not; I so grossly
Mastering her spirit pure.
O, how can her bird's breast
My nervous and harsh hand endure?
Tell me if this be love indeed, fond lovers,
That high stoop to low,
Soul be to flesh subdued;
That the sun around the earth should go?
I know not: I but know that love is misery,
O'erfilled with delight.
Day follows night: her love
Is gay as day, yet strange as night.