DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Behave Yoursel' Before Folk
by Alexander Rodger

Behave yoursel' before folk,
Behave yoursel' before folk,
And dinna be sae rude to me,
As kiss me sae before folk.
It wadna gi'e me meikle pain,
Gin we were seen and heard by nane,
To tak' a kiss, or grant you ane;
But guidsake! no before folk.
Behave yoursel' before folk,
Behave yoursel' before folk;
Whate'er ye do, when out o' view,
Be cautious aye before folk.
Consider, lad, how folk will crack,
And what a great affair they'll mak'
O' naething but a simple smack,
That's gi'en or ta'en before folk.
Behave yoursel' before folk,
Behave yoursel' before folk;
Nor gi'e the tongue o' auld or young
Occasion to come o'er folk.
It's no through hatred o' a kiss,
That I sae plainly tell you this;
But, losh! I tak' it sair amiss
To be sae teazed before folk.
Behave yoursel' before folk,
Behave yoursel' before folk;
When we're our lane ye may tak' ane,
But fient a ane before folk.
I'm sure wi' you I've been as free
As ony modest lass should be;
But yet it doesna do to see
Sic freedom used before folk.
Behave yoursel' before folk,
Behave yoursel' before folk;
I'll ne'er submit again to it,
So mind you that, before folk.
Ye tell me that my face is fair;
It may be sae, I dinna care,
But ne'er again gar't blush sae sair
As ye ha'e done before folk.
Behave yoursel' before folk,
Behave yoursel' before folk;
Nor heat my cheeks wi' your mad freaks,
But aye de douce before folk.
Ye tell me that my lips are sweet,
Sic tales, I doubt, are a' deceit;
At ony rate, it's hardly meet
To pree their sweets before folk.
Behave yoursel' before folk,
Behave yoursel' before folk;
Gin that's the case, there's time, and place,
But surely no before folk.
But, gin you really do insist
That I should suffer to be kiss'd,
Gae, get a license frae the priest,
And mak' me yours before folk.
Behave yoursel' before folk,
Behave yoursel' before folk;
And when we're ane, baith flesh and bane,
Ye may tak' ten, before folk.
Clearing
by Madison Julius Cawein

Before the wind, with rain-drowned stocks,
The pleated crimson hollyhocks
Are bending;
And, smouldering in the breaking brown,
Above the hills that edge the town,
The day is ending.
The air is heavy with the damp;
And, one by one, each cottage lamp
Is lighted;
Infrequent passers of the street
Stroll on or stop to talk or greet,
Benighted.
I look beyond my city yard,
And watch the white moon struggling hard,
Cloud-buried;
The wind is driving toward the east,
A wreck of pearl, all cracked and creased
And serried.
At times the moon, erupting, streaks
Some long cloud; like Andean peaks
That double
Horizon-vast volcano chains,
The earthquake scars with lava veins
That bubble.
The wind that blows from out the hills
Is like a woman's touch that stills
A sorrow:
The moon sits high with many a star
In the deep calm: and fair and far
Abides to-morrow.
Up Tails All.
by Robert Herrick

Begin with a kiss,
Go on too with this;
And thus, thus, thus let us smother
Our lips for awhile,
But let's not beguile
Our hope of one for the other.
This play, be assur'd,
Long enough has endur'd,
Since more and more is exacted;
For Love he doth call
For his uptails all;
And that's the part to be acted.
Columbus
by Joaquin Miller

Behind him lay the gray Azores,
Behind the Gates of Hercules;
Before him not the ghost of shores,
Before him only shoreless seas.
The good mate said: "Now we must pray,
For lo! the very stars are gone.
Brave Admiral, speak, what shall I say?"
"Why, say, 'Sail on! sail on! and on!' "
"My men grow mutinous day by day;
My men grow ghastly wan and weak."
The stout mate thought of home; a spray
Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek.
"What shall I say, brave Admiral, say,
If we sight naught but seas at dawn?"
"Why, you shall say at break of day,
'Sail on! sail on! and on!' "
They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow,
Until at last the blanched mate said:
"Why, now not even God would know
Should I and all my men fall dead.
These very winds forget their way,
For God from these dead seas is gone.
Now speak, brave Admiral, speak and say"
He said, "Sail on! sail on! and on!"
They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate:
"This mad sea shows his teeth tonight.
He curls his lip, he lies in wait,
With lifted teeth, as if to bite!
Brave Admiral, say but one good word:
What shall we do when hope is gone?"
The words leapt like a leaping sword:
"Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!"
Then pale and worn, he kept his deck,
And peered through darkness. Ah, that night
Of all dark nights! And then a speck
A light! a light! at last a light!
It grew, a starlit flag unfurled!
It grew to be Time's burst of dawn.
He gained a world; he gave that world
Its grandest lesson: "On! sail on!"
The Hills.
by George MacDonald

Behind my father's cottage lies
A gentle grassy height
Up which I often ran--to gaze
Back with a wondering sight,
For then the chimneys I thought high
Were down below me quite!
All round, where'er I turned mine eyes,
Huge hills closed up the view;
The town 'mid their converging roots
Was clasped by rivers two;
From, one range to another sprang
The sky's great vault of blue.
It was a joy to climb their sides,
And in the heather lie!
A joy to look at vantage down
On the castle grim and high!
Blue streams below, white clouds above,
In silent earth and sky!
And now, where'er my feet may roam,
At sight of stranger hill
A new sense of the old delight
Springs in my bosom still,
And longings for the high unknown
Their ancient channels fill.
For I am always climbing hills,
From the known to the unknown--
Surely, at last, on some high peak,
To find my Father's throne,
Though hitherto I have only found
His footsteps in the stone!
And in my wanderings I did meet
Another searching too:
The dawning hope, the shared quest
Our thoughts together drew;
Fearless she laid her band in mine
Because her heart was true.
She was not born among the hills,
Yet on each mountain face
A something known her inward eye
By inborn light can trace;
For up the hills must homeward be,
Though no one knows the place.
Clasp my hand close, my child, in thine--
A long way we have come!
Clasp my hand closer yet, my child,
Farther we yet must roam--
Climbing and climbing till we reach
Our heavenly father's home.
To Music
by Robert Herrick

Begin to charm, and as thou strok'st mine ears
With thine enchantment, melt me into tears.
Then let thy active hand scud o'er thy lyre,
And make my spirits frantic with the fire;
That done, sink down into a silvery strain,
And make me smooth as balm and oil again.
Opportunity
by Madison Julius Cawein

Behold a hag whom Life denies a kiss
As he rides questward in knighterrant-wise;
Only when he hath passed her is it his
To know, too late, the Fairy in disguise.
Hymnia-Beatrix
by Maurice Henry Hewlett

Before you pass and leave me gaunt and chill
Alone to do what I have joyed in doing
In your glad sight, suffer me, nor take ill
If I confess you prize and me pursuing.
As the rapt Tuscan lifted up his eyes
Whither his Lady led, and lived with her,
Strong in her strength, and in her wisdom wise,
Love-taught with song to be her thurifer;
So I, that may no nearer stand than he
To minister about the holy place,
Am well content to watch my Heaven in thee
And read my Credo in thy sacred face.
For even as Beatrix Dante's wreath did bind,
So, Hymnia, hast thou imparadised my mind.
Beginning My Studies
by Walt Whitman

Beginning my studies, the first step pleas'd me so much,
The mere fact, consciousness--these forms--the power of motion,
The least insect or animal--the senses--eyesight--love;
The first step, I say, aw'd me and pleas'd me so much,
I have hardly gone, and hardly wish'd to go, any farther,
But stop and loiter all the time, to sing it in extatic songs.
Evensong.
by Robert Herrick

Begin with Jove; then is the work half done,
And runs most smoothly when 'tis well begun.
Jove's is the first and last: the morn's his due,
The midst is thine; but Jove's the evening too;
As sure a matins does to him belong,
So sure he lays claim to the evensong.
The Hills.
by George MacDonald

Behind my father's house there lies
A little grassy brae,
Whose face my childhood's busy feet
Ran often up in play,
Whence on the chimneys I looked down
In wonderment alway.
Around the house, where'er I turned,
Great hills closed up the view;
The town 'midst their converging roots
Was clasped by rivers two;
From one hill to another sprang
The sky's great arch of blue.
Oh! how I loved to climb their sides,
And in the heather lie;
The bridle on my arm did hold
The pony feeding by;
Beneath, the silvery streams; above,
The white clouds in the sky.
And now, in wandering about,
Whene'er I see a hill,
A childish feeling of delight
Springs in my bosom still;
And longings for the high unknown
Follow and flow and fill.
For I am always climbing hills,
And ever passing on,
Hoping on some high mountain peak
To find my Father's throne;
For hitherto I've only found
His footsteps in the stone.
And in my wanderings I have met
A spirit child like me,
Who laid a trusting hand in mine,
So fearlessly and free,
That so together we have gone,
Climbing continually.
Upfolded in a spirit bud,
The child appeared in space,
Not born amid the silent hills,
But in a busy place;
And yet in every hill we see
A strange, familiar face.
For they are near our common home;
And so in trust we go,
Climbing and climbing on and on,
Whither we do not know;
Not waiting for the mournful dark,
But for the dawning slow.
Clasp my hand closer yet, my child,--
A long way we have come!
Clasp my hand closer yet, my child,--
For we have far to roam,
Climbing and climbing, till we reach
Our Heavenly Father's home.
The Common Question
by John Greenleaf Whittier

Behind us at our evening meal
The gray bird ate his fill,
Swung downward by a single claw,
And wiped his hooked bill.
He shook his wings and crimson tail,
And set his head aslant,
And, in his sharp, impatient way,
Asked, "What does Charlie want?"
"Fie, silly bird!" I answered, "tuck
Your head beneath your wing,
And go to sleep;" but o'er and o'er
He asked the self-same thing.
Then, smiling, to myself I said
How like are men and birds!
We all are saying what he says,
In action or in words.
The boy with whip and top and drum,
The girl with hoop and doll,
And men with lands and houses, ask
The question of Poor Poll.
However full, with something more
We fain the bag would cram;
We sigh above our crowded nets
For fish that never swam.
No bounty of indulgent Heaven
The vague desire can stay;
Self-love is still a Tartar mill
For grinding prayers alway.
The dear God hears and pities all;
He knoweth all our wants;
And what we blindly ask of Him
His love withholds or grants.
And so I sometimes think our prayers
Might well be merged in one;
And nest and perch and hearth and church
Repeat, "Thy will be done.
Behavior
by Walt Whitman

Behavior--fresh, native, copious, each one for himself or herself,
Nature and the Soul expressed--America and freedom expressed--In it the finest art,
In it pride, cleanliness, sympathy, to have their chance,
In it physique, intellect, faith--in it just as much as to manage an army or a city, or to write a book--perhaps more,
The youth, the laboring person, the poor person, rivalling all the rest--perhaps outdoing the rest,
The effects of the universe no greater than its;
For there is nothing in the whole universe that can be more effective
than a man's or woman's daily behavior can be,
In any position, in any one of These States.
Transports
by John Le Gay Brereton

Behind us lay the homely shore
With youthful memories aureoled;
A sky of dazzling blue before,
We sailed a sea of molten gold.
To our old haven we return;
By smoky hills as grey as mud
We see the sullen sunset burn
Malignant on a lake of blood.
Yes, we return: but memory roams
A foul, bleak age of pain that yields
The smoke and flame of ruined homes,
The muck of cannon-pitted fields.
On A Cannon
by Jonathan Swift

Begotten, and born, and dying with noise,
The terror of women, and pleasure of boys,
Like the fiction of poets concerning the wind,
I'm chiefly unruly when strongest confined.
For silver and gold I don't trouble my head,
But all I delight in is pieces of lead;
Except when I trade with a ship or a town,
Why then I make pieces of iron go down.
One property more I would have you remark,
No lady was ever more fond of a spark;
The moment I get one, my soul's all a-fire,
And I roar out my joy, and in transport expire.
Before The Paling Of The Stars
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

(Lyra Messianica, 1864.)
Before the paling of the stars,
Before the winter morn,
Before the earliest cockcrow
Jesus Christ was born:
Born in a stable,
Cradled in a manger,
In the world His hands had made
Born a stranger.
Priest and king lay fast asleep
In Jerusalem,
Young and old lay fast asleep
In crowded Bethlehem:
Saint and Angel, ox and ass,
Kept a watch together,
Before the Christmas daybreak
In the winter weather.
Jesus on His Mother's breast
In the stable cold,
Spotless Lamb of God was He,
Shepherd of the fold:
Let us kneel with Mary maid,
With Joseph bent and hoary,
With Saint and Angel, ox and ass,
To hail the King of Glory.
The Window
by Walter De La Mare

Behind the blinds I sit and watch
The people passing - passing by;
And not a single one can see
My tiny watching eye.
They cannot see my little room,
All yellowed with the shaded sun;
They do not even know I'm here;
Nor'll guess when I am gone.
Before the Curtain
by Bret Harte (Francis)

Behind the footlights hangs the rusty baize,
A trifle shabby in the upturned blaze
Of flaring gas and curious eyes that gaze.
The stage, methinks, perhaps is none too wide,
And hardly fit for royal Richard's stride,
Or Falstaff's bulk, or Denmark's youthful pride.
Ah, well! no passion walks its humble boards;
O'er it no king nor valiant Hector lords:
The simplest skill is all its space affords.
The song and jest, the dance and trifling play,
The local hit at follies of the day,
The trick to pass an idle hour away,
For these no trumpets that announce the Moor,
No blast that makes the hero's welcome sure,
A single fiddle in the overture!
Behind The Hill (The Adventures Of Seumas Beg)
by James Stephens

Behind the hill I met a man in green
Who asked me if my mother had gone out?
I said she had.    He asked me had I seen
His castle where the people sing and shout
From dawn to dark, and told me that he had
A crock of gold inside a hollow tree,
And I could have it., I wanted money bad
To buy a sword with, and I thought that he
Would keep his solemn word; so, off we went.
He said he had a pound hid in the crock,
And owned the castle too, and paid no rent
To any one, and that you had to knock
Five hundred times.    I asked, "Who reckoned up?"
And he said, "You insulting little pup!"
Begin The Day
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Begin each morning with a talk to God,
And ask for your divine inheritance
Of usefulness, contentment, and success.
Resign all fear, all doubt, and all despair.
The stars doubt not, and they are undismayed,
Though whirled through space for countless centuries,
And told not why or wherefore:    and the sea
With everlasting ebb and flow obeys,
And leaves the purpose with the unseen Cause.
The star sheds radiance on a million worlds,
The sea is prodigal with waves, and yet
No lustre from the star is lost, and not
One drop is missing from the ocean tides.
Oh! brother to the star and sea, know all
God's opulence is held in trust for those
Who wait serenely and who work in faith.
Ante Aram
by Rupert Brooke

Before thy shrine I kneel, an unknown worshipper,
Chanting strange hymns to thee and sorrowful litanies,
Incense of dirges, prayers that are as holy myrrh.
Ah, goddess, on thy throne of tears and faint low sighs,
Weary at last to theeward come the feet that err,
And empty hearts grown tired of the world's vanities.
How fair this cool deep silence to a wanderer
Deaf with the roar of winds along the open skies!
Sweet, after sting and bitter kiss of sea-water,
The pale Lethean wine within thy chalices!
I come before thee, I, too tired wanderer,
To heed the horror of the shrine, the distant cries,
And evil whispers in the gloom, or the swift whirr
Of terrible wings, I, least of all thy votaries,
With a faint hope to see the scented darkness stir,
And, parting, frame within its quiet mysteries
One face, with lips than autumn-lilies tenderer,
And voice more sweet than the far plaint of viols is,
Or the soft moan of any grey-eyed lute-player.
Arms And The Man. - The Beleaguered Town.
by James Barron Hope

Behind the town the sun sinks down
Gilding the vane upon the spire,
While many a wall reels to its fall
Beneath the fell artillery fire.
As sinks that sun mortar and gun
Like living things leap grim and hot,
And far and wide across the tide
Spray-furrows show the flying shot.
White smoke in clouds yon earthwork shrouds
Where, steeped in battle to the lips,
The French amain pour fiery rain
On town, and walls, and English ships.
That deadly sleet smites lines and fleet,
As closes in the Autumn night,
And Aboville from head to heel
Thrills with the battle's wild delight.
At every flash oak timbers crash - 
A sudden glare yon frigate dyes!
Then flames up-gush, and roar, and rush,
From deck to where her pennon flies!
Those flames on high crimson the sky
And paint their signals overhead,
And every fold of smoke is rolled
And woven in Plutonian red.
All radiant now taffrail and prow,
And hull, and cordage, beams and spars,
Thus lit she sails on fiery gales
To purple seas where float the stars.
Ages ago just such a glow
Woke Agamemnon's house to joy,
Its red and gold to Argos told
The long-expected fate of Troy.
So, on these heights, that flame delights
The Allies thundering at the wall,
Forewrit they see the land set free
And Albion's short-lived Ilium fall!
Then as the Lilies turn to red
Dipped in the battles' wine
Another picture is outspread
Where still the figures shine - 
The picture of a deadly fray
Worthy the pencil of Vernet!
Don Quixote.
by Henry Austin Dobson

Behind thy pasteboard, on thy battered hack,
Thy lean cheek striped with plaster to and fro,
Thy long spear levelled at the unseen foe,
And doubtful Sancho trudging at thy back,
Thou wert a figure strange enough, good lack!
To make Wiseacredom, both high and low,
Rub purblind eyes, and (having watched thee go)
Dispatch its Dogberrys upon thy track:
Alas! poor Knight! Alas! poor soul possest?
Yet would to-day when Courtesy grows chill,
And life's fine loyalties are turned to jest,
Some fire of thine might burn within us still!
Ah, would but one might lay his lance in rest,
And charge in earnest--were it but a mill!
The Bluebird.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Before you thought of spring,
Except as a surmise,
You see, God bless his suddenness,
A fellow in the skies
Of independent hues,
A little weather-worn,
Inspiriting habiliments
Of indigo and brown.
With specimens of song,
As if for you to choose,
Discretion in the interval,
With gay delays he goes
To some superior tree
Without a single leaf,
And shouts for joy to nobody
But his seraphic self!
Sunset On Hampton Roads.
by James Barron Hope

Behind me purplish lines marked out the town,
Before me stretched the noble Roadstead's tide:
And there I saw the Evening sun go down
Casting a parting glory far and wide - 
As King who for the cowl puts off his crown - 
So went the sun: and left a wealth of light
Ere hidden by the cloister-gates of Night.
Beholding this my soul was stilled in prayer,
I understood how all men, save the blind,
Might find religion in a scene so fair
And formulate a creed within the mind; - 
See prophesies in clouds; fates in the air;
The skies flamed red; the murm'ring waves were hushed - 
"The conscious water saw its God and blushed."
The Pretty Rose-Tree.
by Thomas Moore

Being weary of love,
I flew to the grove,
And chose me a tree of the fairest;
Saying, "Pretty Rose-tree,
"Thou my mistress shall be,
"And I'll worship each bud thou bearest.
"For the hearts of this world are hollow,
"And fickle the smiles we follow;
"And 'tis sweet, when all
"Their witcheries pall
"To have a pure love to fly to:
"So, my pretty Rose-tree,
"Thou my mistress shalt be,
"And the only one now I shall sigh to."
When the beautiful hue
Of thy cheek thro' the dew
Of morning is bashfully peeping,
"Sweet tears," I shall say
(As I brush them away),
"At least there's no art in this weeping"
Altho thou shouldst die to-morrow;
'Twill not be from pain or sorrow;
And the thorns of thy stem
Are not like them
With which men wound each other;
So, my pretty Rose-tree,
Thou my mistress shalt be
And I'll never again sigh to another.
The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - Sophists.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Nessun ti verr' a dire.
'Behold, I am a Sophist!' no man saith.
But the true sons of perfidy refined
Forge theologic lies the soul to blind,
Calling themselves evangels of the faith.
Aretine with his scoundrels blew his breath,
And in the cynic orgies boldly joined;
His ribald jests had flowers and thorns combined--
A frank fair list including life and death,
For fun, not fraud. It shames him to be found
Less vile than those who cannot bear to see
Their sink of filth laid open to the ground:
Wherefore they shut our mouths, our books impound,
Garble with lies each sentence that may be
Cited to prove their foul hypocrisy.
Hymn For The Inauguration Of The Statue Of Governor Andrew, Hingham, October 7, 1875
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Behold the shape our eyes have known!
It lives once more in changeless stone;
So looked in mortal face and form
Our guide through peril's deadly storm.
But hushed the beating heart we knew,
That heart so tender, brave, and true,
Firm as the rooted mountain rock,
Pure as the quarry's whitest block!
Not his beneath the blood-red star
To win the soldier's envied sear;
Unarmed he battled for the right,
In Duty's never-ending fight.
Unconquered will, unslumbering eye,
Faith such as bids the martyr die,
The prophet's glance, the master's hand
To mould the work his foresight planned,
These were his gifts; what Heaven had lent
For justice, mercy, truth, he spent,
First to avenge the traitorous blow,
And first to lift the vanquished foe.
Lo, thus he stood; in danger's strait
The pilot of the Pilgrim State!
Too large his fame for her alone, - 
A nation claims him as her own!
In Hospital - IV - Before
by William Ernest Henley

Behold me waiting - waiting for the knife.
A little while, and at a leap I storm
The thick, sweet mystery of chloroform,
The drunken dark, the little death-in-life.
The gods are good to me:    I have no wife,
No innocent child, to think of as I near
The fateful minute; nothing all-too dear
Unmans me for my bout of passive strife.
Yet am I tremulous and a trifle sick,
And, face to face with chance, I shrink a little:
My hopes are strong, my will is something weak.
Here comes the basket?    Thank you.    I am ready.
But, gentlemen my porters, life is brittle:
You carry Caesar and his fortunes - steady!
The Delphic Oracle Upon Plotinus
by William Butler Yeats

Behold that great Plotinus swim,
Buffeted by such seas;
Bland Rhadamanthus beckons him,
But the Golden Race looks dim,
Salt blood blocks his eyes.
Scattered on the level grass
Or winding through the grove
Plato there and Minos pass,
There stately Pythagoras
And all the choir of Love.
The Two Streams
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Behold the rocky wall
That down its sloping sides
Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall,
In rushing river-tides!
Yon stream, whose sources run
Turned by a pebble's edge,
Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun
Through the cleft mountain-ledge.
The slender rill had strayed,
But for the slanting stone,
To evening's ocean, with the tangled braid
Of foam-flecked Oregon.
So from the heights of Will
Life's parting stream descends,
And, as a moment turns its slender rill,
Each widening torrent bends, - 
From the same cradle's side,
From the same mother's knee, - 
One to long darkness and the frozen tide,
One to the Peaceful Sea!