DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
With A Ho-Ho-Ho! And A Hi-Hi-Hi!
by A. H. Laidlaw

With a ho-ho-ho! and a hi-hi-hi!
With a canzonet and tabor,
Thus, with ho-ho-ho! and our hi-hi-hi!
We amble, ramble, gambol, I
And my lily-fingered neighbor.
With a ha-ha-ha! and a he-he-he!
With a joyous laugh and caper,
Thus, with ha-ha-ha! and our he-he-he!
In sunlight, moonlight, starlight, we
Both consume our life's bright taper.
With a hi-hi-hi! and a ho-ho-ho!
With a prancing, dancing gaiter,
Thus, with hi-hi-hi! and our ho-ho-ho!
We ringing, singing, swinging, go,
Through the glees of our Creator.
With a he-he-he! and a ha-ha-ha!
Through all spells of wind or weather,
Thus, with he-he-he! and our ha-ha-ha!
Till frailing, ailing, failing, ah!
We will die and lie together.
Thus, with ho-ho-ho! and a hi-hi-hi!
With a canzonet and tabor,
Yea, with ho-ho-ho! and our hi-hi-hi!
We amble, ramble, gambol, I
And my lily-fingered neighbor.
Cloud-Break
by Archibald Lampman

With a turn of his magical rod,
That extended and suddenly shone,
From the round of his glory some god
Looks forth and is gone.
To the summit of heaven the clouds
Are rolling aloft like steam;
There's a break in their infinite shrouds,
And below it a gleam.
O'er the drift of the river a whiff
Comes out from the blossoming shore;
And the meadows are greening, as if
They never were green before.
The islands are kindled with gold
And russet and emerald dye;
And the interval waters outrolled
Are more blue than the sky.
From my feet to the heart of the hills
The spirits of May intervene,
And a vapor of azure distills
Like a breath on the opaline green.
Only a moment! - and then
The chill and the shadow decline,
On the eyes of rejuvenate men
That were wide and divine.
Winter
by Richard Le Gallienne

Winter, some call thee fair,
Yea! flatter thy cold face
With vain compare
Of all thy glittering ways
And magic snows
With summer and the rose;
Thy phantom flowers
And fretted traceries
Of crystal breath,
Thy frozen and fantastic art of death,
With April as she showers
The violet on the leas,
And bares her bosom
In the blossoming trees,
And dances on her way
To laugh with May - 
Winter that hath no bird
To sing thee, and no bloom
To deck thy brow:
To me thou art an empty haunted room,
Where once the music
Of the summer stirred,
And all the dancers
Fallen on silence now.
The Alarm Clock.
by Edwin C. Ranck

With a clatter and a jangle,
And a wrangle and a screech,
How the old alarm clock wheezes
As it sneezes out of reach!
How you groan and yawn and stretch
In the chilly morning air,
As you pull the blankets tight,
With your head clear out of sight--
How you swear!
A Character
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

With a half-glance upon the sky
At night he said, 'The wanderings
Of this most intricate Universe
Teach me the nothingness of things.'
Yet could not all creation pierce
Beyond the bottom of his eye.
He spake of beauty: that the dull
Saw no divinity in grass,
Life in dead stones, or spirit in air;
Then looking as 'twere in a glass,
He smooth'd his chin and sleek'd his hair,
And said the earth was beautiful.
He spake of virtue: not the gods
More purely, when they wish to charm
Pallas and Juno sitting by:
And with a sweeping of the arm,
And a lack-lustre dead-blue eye,
Devolved his rounded periods.
Most delicately hour by hour
He canvass'd human mysteries,
And trod on silk, as if the winds
Blew his own praises in his eyes,
And stood aloof from other minds
In impotence of fancied power.
With lips depress'd as he were meek,
Himself unto himself he sold:
Upon himself himself did feed:
Quiet, dispassionate, and cold,
And other than his form of creed,
With chisell'd features clear and sleek.
Lines By A Cambridge Ancient Mariner - Addressed To His University.
by Edward Woodley Bowling

Wish ye, sons of Alma Mater,
Long lost laurels to replace?
Listen to a stout old Pater,
Once renowned in many a race.
Now, alas!    I'm fat and forty,
And my form grows round to view;
And my nose is rather "porty;"
But my heart is still light-blue.
'Tis as bad as an emetic,
E'en my 'baccy I refuse,
When I hear that sports athletic
Interfere with Cambridge crews.
Once a Grecian runner famous
Scorned to fight his country's foes;
And to Greece, as some to Camus,
Caused innumerable woes.
When I hear the voice parental
Cry, "my youngster shall not row!"
Then my wrath is transcendental,
Then my words with vigour flow.
Sires, with hearts of alabaster,
Your stern "vetos" yet you'll rue,
When ye see a sixth disaster,
Overwhelm your loved light-blue.
But whatever to Cambridge happen,
Sons of Cam behave like men!
Rally round your royal Cap'en,
King of Lake, and King of Fen!
Fortune helps the brave who court her,
Only to yourselves be true;
And perhaps, on Putney's water,
Victory will crown light-blue.
When your Cox'en cries "all ready,"
Be alert, dismiss all napping,
Get well forward, all sit steady,
Grasp the oar, avoid all "capping:"
Shoulders square, back straight, eyes ever
Fixed upon the back before;
Then all eight, with one endeavour,
Dip at once the bladed oar.
Catch your stroke at the beginning,
Then let legs with vigour work:
Little hope has he of winning,
Who his "stretcher" loves to shirk.
Let your rigid arms extended
Be as straight as pokers two;
And until the stroke is ended,
Pull it, without jerking, through!
Thus all disputations spurning,
Ye, ere many a year has past,
While old Fortune's wheel is turning,
Victory shall taste at last.
Only wait and work together;
Trust in discipline and pluck - 
Soon bad luck will run his tether,
And good rowing bring good luck.
(1866).
The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - To Ridolfo Di Bina.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Senno ed Amor.
Wisdom and love, O Bina, gave thee wings,
Before the blossom of thy years had faded,
To fly with Adam for thy guide, God-aided,
Through many lands in divers journeyings.
Pure virtue is thy guerdon: virtue brings
Glory to thee, death to the foes degraded,
Who through long years of darkness have invaded
Thy Germany, mother of slaves not kings.
Yet, gazing on heaven's book, heroic child,
My soul discerns graces divine in thee:--
Leave toys and playthings to the crowd of fools!
Do thou with heart fervent and proudly mild
Make war upon those fraud-engendering schools!
I see thee victor, and in God I see.
The Way To Dreamland
by Jean Blewett

With an angel flower-laden, every day a dimpled maiden
Sails away from off my bosom on a radiant sea of bliss;
I can see her drifting, drifting, hear the snowy wings uplifting
As he woos her into Dreamland with a kiss.
Blissful hour, my pretty sleeper, guarded by an angel keeper,
List'ning to the words he brings thee from a fairer world than this;
Sweet! thy heart he is beguiling, I can tell it by thy smiling,
As he woos thee into Dreamland with a kiss.
Could there come to weary mortals such a glimpse through golden portals,
Would we not drift on forever toward the longed-for land of peace, jean     Would we not leave joys and sorrows,
Glad to-days and sad to-morrows,
For the sound of white wings lifting, and the kiss?
The Paphian Venus
by Madison Julius Cawein

With anxious eyes and dry, expectant lips,
Within the sculptured stoa by the sea,
All day she waited while, like ghostly ships,
Long clouds rolled over Paphos: the wild bee
Hung in the sultry poppy, half asleep,
Beside the shepherd and his drowsy sheep.
White-robed she waited day by day; alone
With the white temple's shrined concupiscence,
The Paphian goddess on her obscene throne,
Binding all chastity to violence,
All innocence to lust that feels no shame - 
Venus Mylitta born of filth and flame.
So must they haunt her marble portico,
The devotees of Paphos, passion-pale
As moonlight streaming through the stormy snow;
Dark eyes desirous of the stranger sail,
The gods shall bring across the Cyprian Sea,
With him elected to their mastery.
A priestess of the temple came, when eve
Blazed, like a satrap's triumph, in the west;
And watched her listening to the ocean's heave,
Dusk's golden glory on her face and breast,
And in her hair the rosy wind's caress, - 
Pitying her dedicated tenderness.
When out of darkness night persuades the stars,
A dream shall bend above her saying, "Soon
A barque shall come with purple sails and spars,
Sailing from Tarsus 'neath a low white moon;
And thou shalt see one in a robe of Tyre
Facing toward thee like the god Desire.
"Rise then! as, clad in starlight, riseth Night - 
Thy nakedness clad on with loveliness!
So shalt thou see him, like the god Delight,
Breast through the foam and climb the cliff to press
Hot lips to thine and lead thee in before
Love's awful presence where ye shall adore."
Thus at her heart the vision entered in,
With lips of lust the lips of song had kissed,
And eyes of passion laughing with sweet sin,
A shimmering splendor robed in amethyst, - 
Seen like that star set in the glittering gloam, - 
Venus Mylitta born of fire and foam.
So shall she dream until, near middle night, - 
When on the blackness of the ocean's rim
The moon, like some war-galleon all alight
With blazing battle, from the sea shall swim, - 
A shadow, with inviolate lips and eyes,
Shall rise before her speaking in this wise:
"So hast thou heard the promises of one, - 
Of her, with whom the God of gods is wroth, - 
For whom was prophesied at Babylon
The second death - Chaldaean Mylidoth!
Whose feet take hold on darkness and despair,
Hissing destruction in her heart and hair.
"Wouldst thou behold the vessel she would bring? - 
A wreck! ten hundred years have smeared with slime:
A hulk! where all abominations cling,
The spawn and vermin of the seas of time:
Wild waves have rotted it; fierce suns have scorched;
Mad winds have tossed and stormy stars have torched.
"Can lust give birth to love? The vile and foul
Be mother to beauty? Lo! can this thing be? - 
A monster like a man shall rise and howl
Upon the wreck across the crawling sea,
Then plunge; and swim unto thee; like an ape,
A beast all belly. - Thou canst not escape!"
Gone was the shadow with the suffering brow;
And in the temple's porch she lay and wept,
Alone with night, the ocean, and her vow. - 
Then up the east the moon's full splendor swept,
And dark between it - wreck or argosy? - 
A sudden vessel far away at sea.
There Is A Budding Morrow In Midnight.
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Wintry boughs against a wintry sky;
Yet the sky is partly blue
And the clouds are partly bright.
Who can tell but sap is mounting high
Out of sight,
Ready to burst through?
Winter is the mother-nurse of Spring,
Lovely for her daughter's sake.
Not unlovely for her own;
For a future buds in everything
Grown or blown
Or about to break.
With All Thy Gifts, America
by Walt Whitman

With all thy gifts, America,
(Standing secure, rapidly tending, overlooking the world,)
Power, wealth, extent, vouchsafed to thee, With these, and like of these, vouchsafed to thee,
What if one gift thou lackest? (the ultimate human problem never solving;)
The gift of Perfect Women fit for thee, What of that gift of gifts thou lackest?
The towering Feminine of thee? the beauty, health, completion, fit for thee?
The Mothers fit for thee?
A Phylactery.
by John Milton Hay

Wise men I hold those rakes of old
Who, as we read in antique story,
When lyres were struck and wine was poured,
Set the white Death's Head on the board -
Memento mori.
Love well! love truly! and love fast!
True love evades the dilatory.
Life's bloom flares like a meteor past;
A joy so dazzling cannot last -
Memento mori.
Stop not to pluck the leaves of bay
That greenly deck the path of glory,
The wreath will wither if you stay,
So pass along your earnest way -
Memento mori.
Hear but not heed, though wild and shrill,
The cries of faction transitory;
Cleave to YOUR good, eschew YOUR ill,
A Hundred Years and all is still -
Memento mori.
When Old Age comes with muffled drums,
That beat to sleep our tired life's story,
On thoughts of dying (Rest is good!),
Like old snakes coiled i' the sun, we brood -
Memento mori.
Sir Curt's Wedding-Journey.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

With a bridegroom's joyous bearing,
Mounts Sir Curt his noble beast,
To his mistress' home repairing,
There to hold his wedding feast;
When a threatening foe advances
From a desert, rocky spot;
For the fray they couch their lances,
Not delaying, speaking not.
Long the doubtful fight continues,
Victory then for Curt declares;
Conqueror, though with wearied sinews,
Forward on his road he fares.
When he sees, though strange it may be,
Something 'midst the foliage move;
'Tis a mother, with her baby,
Stealing softly through the grove!
And upon the spot she beckons 
"Wherefore, love, this speed so wild?
Of the wealth thy storehouse reckons,
Hast thou nought to give thy child!"
Flames of rapture now dart through him,
And he longs for nothing more,
While the mother seemeth to him
Lovely as the maid of yore.
But he hears his servants blowing,
And bethinks him of his bride;
And ere long, while onward going,
Chances past a fair to ride;
In the booths he forthwith buys him
For his mistress many a pledge;
But, alas! some Jews surprise him,
And long-standing debts allege.
And the courts of justice duly
Send the knight to prison straight.
Oh accursed story, truly!
For a hero, what a fate!
Can my patience such things weather?
Great is my perplexity.
Women, debts, and foes together, 
Ah, no knight escapes scot free!
Marigolds
by Robert von Ranke Graves

With a fork drive Nature out,
She will ever yet return;
Hedge the flowerbed all about,
Pull or stab or cut or burn,
She will ever yet return.
Look: the constant marigold
Springs again from hidden roots.
Baffled gardener, you behold
New beginnings and new shoots
Spring again from hidden roots.
Pull or stab or cut or burn,
They will ever yet return.
Gardener, cursing at the weed,
Ere you curse it further, say:
Who but you planted the seed
In my fertile heart, one day?
Ere you curse me further, say!
New beginnings and new shoots
String again from hidden roots
Pull or stab or cut or burn,
Love must ever yet return.
Argonauts
by Madison Julius Cawein

With argosies of dawn he sails,
And triremes of the dusk,
The Seas of Song, whereon the gales
Are myths that trail wild musk.
He hears the hail of Siren bands
From headlands sunset-kissed;
The Lotus-eaters wave pale hands
Within a land of mist.
For many a league he hears the roar
Of the Symplegades;
And through the far foam of its shore
The Isle of Sappho sees.
All day he looks, with hazy lids,
At gods who cleave the deep;
All night he hears the Nere'ds
Sing their wild hearts asleep.
When heaven thunders overhead,
And hell upheaves the Vast,
Dim faces of the ocean's dead
Gaze at him from each mast.
He but repeats the oracle
That bade him first set sail;
And cheers his soul with, "All is well!
Go on! I will not fail."
Behold! he sails no earthly bark
And on no earthly sea,
Who down the years into the dark,
Divine of destiny,
Holds to his purpose, ships of Greece,
Ideal-steered afar,
For whom awaits the Golden Fleece,
The fame that is his star.
The Wood
by Madison Julius Cawein

Witch-hazel, dogwood, and the maple here;
And there the oak and hickory;
Linn, poplar, and the beech-tree, far and near
As the eased eye can see.
Wild-ginger; wahoo, with its wan balloons;
And brakes of briers of a twilight green;
And fox-grapes plumed with summer; and strung moons
Of mandrake flowers between.
Deep gold-green ferns, and mosses red and gray, - 
Mats for what naked myth's white feet? - 
And, cool and calm, a cascade far away
With even-falling beat.
Old logs, made sweet with death; rough bits of bark;
And tangled twig and knotted root;
And sunshine splashes and great pools of dark;
And many a wild-bird's flute.
Here let me sit until the Indian, Dusk,
With copper-colored feet, comes down;
Sowing the wildwood with star-fire and musk,
And shadows blue and brown.
Then side by side with some magician dream,
To take the owlet-haunted lane,
Half-roofed with vines; led by a firefly gleam,
That brings me home again.
Wirastrua
by Dora Sigerson Shorter

Wirastrua, wirastrua, woe to me that you are dead!
The corpse has spoken from out his bed,
'Yesternight my burning brain
Throbbed and beat on the strings of pain:
Now I rest, all my dreaming's done,
In the world behind the sun.
Yesterday I toiled full sore,
To-day I ride in a coach and four.
Yesternight in the streets I lay,
To-night with kings, and as good as they.'
Wirastrua! wirastrua! would I were lying as cold as you.
The Poet And The Children
by John Greenleaf Whittier

Longfellow.
With a glory of winter sunshine
Over his locks of gray,
In the old historic mansion
He sat on his last birthday;
With his books and his pleasant pictures,
And his household and his kin,
While a sound as of myriads singing
From far and near stole in.
It came from his own fair city,
From the prairie's boundless plain,
From the Golden Gate of sunset,
And the cedarn woods of Maine.
And his heart grew warm within him,
And his moistening eyes grew dim,
For he knew that his country's children
Were singing the songs of him,
The lays of his life's glad morning,
The psalms of his evening time,
Whose echoes shall float forever
On the winds of every clime.
All their beautiful consolations,
Sent forth like birds of cheer,
Came flocking back to his windows,
And sang in the Poet's ear.
Grateful, but solemn and tender,
The music rose and fell
With a joy akin to sadness
And a greeting like farewell.
With a sense of awe he listened
To the voices sweet and young;
The last of earth and the first of heaven
Seemed in the songs they sung.
And waiting a little longer
For the wonderful change to come,
He heard the Summoning Angel,
Who calls God's children home!
And to him in a holier welcome
Was the mystical meaning given
Of the words of the blessed Master
"Of such is the kingdom of heaven!"
Song
by James Whitcomb Riley

[W.S.]
With a hey! and a hi! and a hey-ho rhyme!
O the shepherd lad
He is ne'er so glad
As when he pipes, in the blossom-time,
So rare!
While Kate picks by, yet looks not there.
So rare! so rare!
With a hey! and a hi! and a ho!
The grasses curdle where the daisies blow!
With a hey! and a hi! and a hey-ho vow!
Then he sips her face
At the sweetest place - 
And ho! how white is the hawthorn now! - 
So rare! - 
And the daisied world rocks round them there.
So rare! so rare!
With a hey! and a hi! and a ho!
The grasses curdle where the daisies blow!
Ballad. "Winter's Gone, The Summer Breezes"
by John Clare

Winter's gone, the summer breezes
Breathe the shepherd's joys again,
Village scene no longer pleases,
Pleasures meet upon the plain;
Snows are fled that hung the bowers,
Buds to blossoms softly steal,
Winter's rudeness melts in flowers:--
Charmer, leave thy spinning wheel,
And tend the sheep with me.
Careless here shall pleasures lull thee,
From domestic troubles free;
Rushes for thy couch I'll pull thee,
In the shade thy seat shall be;
All the flower-buds will I get
Spring's first sunbeams do unseal,
Primrose, cowslip, violet:--
Charmer, leave thy spinning wheel,
And tend the sheep with me.
Cast away thy "twilly willy,"
Winter's warm protecting gown,
Storms no longer blow to chill thee;
Come with mantle loosely thrown,
Garments, light as gale's embraces,
That thy lovely shape reveal;
Put thou on thy airy dresses:--
Charmer, leave thy spinning wheel,
And tend the sheep with me.
Sweet to sit where brooks are flowing,
Pleasant spreads the gentle heat,
On the green's lap thyme is growing,
Every molehill forms a seat:
Fear not suns 'cause thou'rt so fair,
In the thorn-bower we'll conceal;
Ne'er a sunbeam pierces there:--
Charmer, leave thy spinning wheel,
And tend the sheep with me.
Landscape
by Alfred Lichtenstein

(for a picture)
With all its branches a slender tree casts
The shine of darkness around poor crosses.
The earth stretches out painfully black and broad.
A small moon slips slowly out of space.
And next to it strange, unapproachable, huge
Airplanes hover heavenward!
Sinners filled with longing look up, with belief
And tear themselves out of their tombs.
The Paphian Venus
by Madison Julius Cawein

With anxious eyes and dry, expectant lips,
Within the sculptured stoa by the sea,
All day she waited while, like ghostly ships,
Long clouds rolled over Paphos: the wild bee
Hung in the sultry poppy, half asleep,
Beside the shepherd and his drowsy sheep.
White-robed she waited day by day; alone
With the white temple's shrined concupiscence,
The Paphian goddess on her obscene throne,
Binding all chastity to violence,
All innocence to lust that feels no shame
Venus Mylitta born of filth and flame.
So must they haunt her marble portico,
The devotees of Paphos, passion-pale
As moonlight streaming through the stormy snow;
Dark eyes desirous of the stranger sail,
The gods shall bring across the Cyprian Sea,
With him elected to their mastery.
A priestess of the temple came, when eve
Blazed, like a satrap's triumph, in the west;
And watched her listening to the ocean's heave,
Dusk's golden glory on her face and breast,
And in her hair the rosy wind's caress,
Pitying her dedicated tenderness.
When out of darkness night persuades the stars,
A dream shall bend above her saying, "Soon
A barque shall come with purple sails and spars,
Sailing from Tarsus 'neath a low white moon;
And thou shalt see one in a robe of Tyre
Facing toward thee like the god Desire.
"Rise then! as, clad in starlight, riseth Night
Thy nakedness clad on with loveliness!
So shalt thou see him, like the god Delight,
Breast through the foam and climb the cliff to press
Hot lips to thine and lead thee in before
Love's awful presence where ye shall adore."
Thus at her heart the vision entered in,
With lips of lust the lips of song had kissed,
And eyes of passion laughing with sweet sin,
A shimmering splendor robed in amethyst,
Seen like that star set in the glittering gloam,
Venus Mylitta born of fire and foam.
So shall she dream until, near middle night,
When on the blackness of the ocean's rim
The moon, like some war-galleon all alight
With blazing battle, from the sea shall swim,
A shadow, with inviolate lips and eyes,
Shall rise before her speaking in this wise:
"So hast thou heard the promises of one,
Of her, with whom the God of gods is wroth,
For whom was prophesied at Babylon
The second death Chald'an Mylidoth!
Whose feet take hold on darkness and despair,
Hissing destruction in her heart and hair.
"Wouldst thou behold the vessel she would bring?
A wreck! ten hundred years have smeared with slime:
A hulk! where all abominations cling,
The spawn and vermin of the seas of time:
Wild waves have rotted it; fierce suns have scorched;
Mad winds have tossed and stormy stars have torched.
"Can lust give birth to love? The vile and foul
Be mother to beauty? Lo! can this thing be?
A monster like a man shall rise and howl
Upon the wreck across the crawling sea,
Then plunge; and swim unto thee; like an ape,
A beast all belly. Thou canst not escape!"
Gone was the shadow with the suffering brow;
And in the temple's porch she lay and wept,
Alone with night, the ocean, and her vow.
Then up the east the moon's full splendor swept,
And dark between it wreck or argosy?
A sudden vessel far away at sea.
Argonauts
by Madison Julius Cawein

With argosies of dawn he sails,
And triremes of the dusk,
The Seas of Song, whereon the gales
Are myths that trail wild musk.
He hears the hail of Siren bands
From headlands sunset-kissed;
The Lotus-eaters wave pale hands
Within a land of mist.
For many a league he hears the roar
Of the Symplegades;
And through the far foam of its shore
The Isle of Sappho sees.
All day he looks, with hazy lids,
At gods who cleave the deep;
All night he hears the Nere'ds
Sing their wild hearts asleep.
When heaven thunders overhead,
And hell upheaves the Vast,
Dim faces of the ocean's dead
Gaze at him from each mast.
He but repeats the oracle
That bade him first set sail;
And cheers his soul with, "All is well!
Go on! I will not fail."
Behold! he sails no earthly bark
And on no earthly sea,
Who down the years into the dark, - 
Divine of destiny, - 
Holds to his purpose, - ships of Greece, - 
Ideal-steered afar,
For whom awaits the Golden Fleece,
The fame that is his star.