DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Song: Half Hope.
by Edward Shanks

August is gone and now this is September,
Softer the sun in a cloudier sky;
Yellow the leaves grow and apples grow golden,
Blackberries ripen and hedges undress.
Watch and you'll see the departure of summer,
Here is the end, this the last month of all:
Pause and look back and remember its promise,
All that looked open and easy in May.
Nothing will stay them, the seasons go onward,
Lightly the bright months fly out of my hand,
Softly the leading note calls a new octave;
Autumn is coming and what have I done?
Even as summer my young days go over,
No day to pause on and nowhere to rest:
Slowly they go but implacably onwards,
Ah! and my dreams, alas, still they are dreams.
How shall I force all my flowers to fruition,
Use up the season of ripening sun?
Softly the years go but going have vanished,
Soon I shall find myself empty and old.
Yet I feel in myself bright buds and blossoms,
Promise of mellowest bearing to be.
Still I have time beside what I have wasted:
Life shall be good to me, work shall be sweet.
Revelation
by Aldous Leonard Huxley

At your mouth, white and milk-warm sphinx,
I taste a strange apocalypse:
Your subtle taper finger-tips
Weave me new heavens, yet, methinks,
I know the wiles and each iynx
That brought me passionate to your lips:
I know you bare as laughter strips
Your charnel beauty; yet my spirit drinks
Pure knowledge from this tainted well,
And now hears voices yet unheard
Within it, and without it sees
That world of which the poets tell
Their vision in the stammered word
Of those that wake from piercing ecstasies.
Epistle To William Creech.
by Robert Burns

Selkirk, 13 May, 1787.
Auld chukie Reekie's[1] sair distrest,
Down droops her ance weel-burnisht crest,
Nae joy her bonnie buskit nest
Can yield ava,
Her darling bird that she lo'es best,
Willie's awa!
O Willie was a witty wight,
And had o' things an unco slight;
Auld Reekie ay he keepit tight,
An' trig an' braw:
But now they'll busk her like a fright,
Willie's awa!
The stiffest o' them a' he bow'd;
The bauldest o' them a' he cow'd;
They durst nae mair than he allow'd,
That was a law;
We've lost a birkie weel worth gowd,
Willie's awa!
Now gawkies, tawpies, gowks, and fools,
Frae colleges and boarding-schools,
May sprout like simmer puddock stools
In glen or shaw;
He wha could brush them down to mools,
Willie's awa!
The brethren o' the Commerce-Chaumer[2]
May mourn their loss wi' doofu' clamour;
He was a dictionar and grammar
Amang them a';
I fear they'll now mak mony a stammer,
Willie's awa!
Nae mair we see his levee door
Philosophers and poets pour,[3]
And toothy critics by the score
In bloody raw!
The adjutant o' a' the core,
Willie's awa!
Now worthy Gregory's Latin face,
Tytler's and Greenfield's modest grace;
Mackenzie, Stewart, sic a brace
As Rome n'er saw;
They a' maun meet some ither place,
Willie's awa!
Poor Burns, e'en Scotch drink canna quicken,
He cheeps like some bewilder'd chicken,
Scar'd frae its minnie and the cleckin
By hoodie-craw;
Grief's gien his heart an unco kickin',
Willie's awa!
Now ev'ry sour-mou'd girnin' blellum,
And Calvin's fock are fit to fell him;
And self-conceited critic skellum
His quill may draw;
He wha could brawlie ward their bellum,
Willie's awa!
Up wimpling stately Tweed I've sped,
And Eden scenes on crystal Jed,
And Ettrick banks now roaring red,
While tempests blaw;
But every joy and pleasure's fled,
Willie's awa!
May I be slander's common speech;
A text for infamy to preach;
And lastly, streekit out to bleach
In winter snaw;
When I forget thee! Willie Creech,
Tho' far awa!
May never wicked fortune touzle him!
May never wicked man bamboozle him!
Until a pow as auld's Methusalem
He canty claw!
Then to the blessed New Jerusalem,
Fleet wing awa!
Moonlit Apples
by John Drinkwater

At the top of the house the apples are laid in rows,
And the skylight lets the moonlight in, and those
Apples are deep-sea apples of green. There goes
A cloud on the moon in the autumn night.
A mouse in the wainscot scratches, and scratches, and then
There is no sound at the top of the house of men
Or mice; and the cloud is blown, and the moon again
Dapples the apples with deep-sea light.
They are lying in rows there, under the gloomy beams;
On the sagging floor; they gather the silver streams
Out of the moon, those moonlit apples of dreams,
And quiet is the steep stair under.
In the corridors under there is nothing but sleep.
And stiller than ever on orchard boughs they keep
Tryst with the moon, and deep is the silence, deep
On moon-washed apples of wonder.
Waterloo
by William F. Kirk

At Vaterloo dar ban a scrap
Gude many year ago.
Napolyun, he ban brave old chap
And boss of whole French show.
And Maester Vellington, he say,
"Ay skol mak gude defence,
And make dis Bonypart and Ney
To look lak saxty cents."
Dey start to fight on Sunday morn;
And preacher say to Nap:
"Now, yust so sure sum yu ban born,
Yu're going to fall in trap.
Ef yu got any vork to du,
Yust chuse some oder day."
But Nap say, "To the voods vith yu!
Mak dis bar bugle play!"
Ven Maester Vellington vake op,
He see a gude big hill,
Vith plenty soldier men on top, - 
Ay bet he got gude chill.
"Yerusalem!" he tal his men,
"Dese French ban purty t'ick.
Ay tenk by qvarter after ten
Dey skol feel gude and sick."
Den Yen'ral Blucher com along,
And loading op his gun;
And dis mak tengs look purty strong
For Maester Vellington.
Two heads ban more sum von, yu see;
And Vellington, he say,
"Yust keep yure Yerman gang vith me,
And ve skol vinning day."
Den all his English soldiers scrap
Vith guns so big sum trees;
And Yermans fight vith lager tap
And planty Brickstein cheese.
And so, betveen the two, dey chase
Dese Frenchmen to tall pines;
And old Napolyun hide his face,
And yumping back to mines.
Napolyun, he feels purty bum;
And after vile he say,
"Ef Maester Grouchy only com,
Ve could have von to-day."
But Grouchy ban asleep at svitch,
So vat could Frenchman du?
Dis har ban all the history vich
Ay know 'bout Vaterloo.
The Story Of Augustus Who Would Not Have Any Soup
by Heinrich Hoffmann

Augustus was a chubby lad;
Fat ruddy cheeks Augustus had:
And everybody saw with joy
The plump and hearty, healthy boy.
He ate and drank as he was told,
And never let his soup get cold.
But one day, one cold winter's day,
He screamed out "Take the soup away!
O take the nasty soup away!
I won't have any soup today."
Next day, now look, the picture shows
How lank and lean Augustus grows!
Yet, though he feels so weak and ill,
The naughty fellow cries out still
"Not any soup for me, I say:
O take the nasty soup away!
I won't have any soup today."
The third day comes: Oh what a sin!
To make himself so pale and thin.
Yet, when the soup is put on table,
He screams, as loud as he is able,
"Not any soup for me, I say:
O take the nasty soup away!
I WON'T have any soup today."
Look at him, now the fourth day's come!
He scarcely weighs a sugar-plum;
He's like a little bit of thread,
And, on the fifth day, he was--dead!
The World-Child
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

At times I am the mother of the world;
And mine seem all its sorrows, and its fears.
That rose, which in each mother-heart is curled,
The rose of pity, opens with my tears,
And, waking in the night, I lie and hark
To the lone sobbing, and the wild alarms,
Of my World-child, a wailing in the dark:
The child I fain would shelter in my arms.
I call to it (as from another room
A mother calls, what time she cannot go):
'Sleep well, dear world; Love hides behind this gloom.
There is no need for wakefulness or woe,
The long, long night is almost past and gone,
The day is near.'    And yet the world weeps on.
Again I follow it, throughout the day.
With anxious eyes I see it trip and fall,
And hurt itself in many a foolish way:
Childlike, unheeding warning word or call.
I see it grasp, and grasping, break the toys
It cried to own, then toss them on the floor
And, breathless, hurry after fancied joys
That cease to please, when added to its store.
I see the lacerations on its hands,
Made by forbidden tools; but when it weeps,
I also weep, as one who understands;
And having been a child, the memory keeps.
Ah, my poor world, however wrong thy part,
Still is there pity in my mother-heart.
At Twilight Time
by Arthur Macy

At twilight time when tolls the chime,
And saddest notes are falling,
A lonely bird with plaintive word
Across the dusk is calling.
Vain doth it wait for one dear mate,
That ne'er shall know the morrow;
Then sinks to rest with drooping crest
In one long dream of sorrow.
Dearest, when night is here,
To thee I'm calling,
Sadly as tear on tear
Is slowly falling,
Oh, fold me near, more near - 
In love enthralling!
Here on thy breast,
While life shall last,
With thee I stay.
Here will I rest
Till night is past,
And comes the day!
To William Hall, Esquire: With The Works Of Chaulieu
by Mark Akenside

Attend to Chaulieu's wanton lyre;
While, fluent as the sky-lark sings
When first the morn allures it's wings,
The epicure his theme pursues:
And tell me if, among the choir
Whose music charms the banks of Seine,
So full, so free, so rich a strain
E'er dictated the warbling Muse.
Yet, Hall, while thy judicious ear
Admires the well-dissembled art
That can such harmony impart
To the lame pace of Gallic rhymes;
While wit from affectation clear,
Bright images, and passions true,
Recall to thy assenting view
The envied bards of nobler times;
Say, is not oft his doctrine wrong?
This priest of pleasure, who aspires
To lead us to her sacred fires,
Knows he the ritual of her shrine?
Say (her sweet influence to thy song
So may the goddess still afford)
Doth she consent to be ador'd
With shameless love and frantic wine?
Nor Cato, nor Chrysippus here
Need we in high indignant phrase
From their Elysian quiet raise;
But pleasure's oracle alone
Consult; attentive, not severe.
O pleasure, we blaspheme not thee;
Nor emulate the rigid knee
Which bends but at the Stoic throne.
We own had fate to man assign'd
Nor sense, nor wish but what obey
Or Venus soft or Bacchus gay,
Then might our bard's voluptuous creed
Most aptly govern human kind:
Unless perchance what he hath sung
Of tortur'd joints and nerves unstrung,
Some wrangling heretic should plead.
But now with all these proud desires
For dauntless truth and and honest fame;
With that strong master of our frame,
The inexorable judge within,
What can be done? Alas, ye fires
Of love; alas, ye rosy smiles,
Ye nectar'd cups from happier soils,
Ye have no bribe his grace to win.
To Mr Granville,[1] On His Excellent Tragedy Called "Heroic Love."
by John Dryden

Auspicious poet, wert thou not my friend,
How could I envy, what I must commend!
But since 'tis nature's law, in love and wit,
That youth should reign, and withering age submit,
With less regret those laurels I resign,
Which, dying on my brows, revive on thine.
With better grace an ancient chief may yield
The long-contended honours of the field,
Than venture all his fortune at a cast,
And fight, like Hannibal, to lose at last.
Young princes, obstinate to win the prize,
Though yearly beaten, yearly yet they rise:
Old monarchs, though successful, still in doubt,
Catch at a peace, and wisely turn devout.
Thine be the laurel, then; thy blooming age
Can best, if any can, support the stage;
Which so declines, that shortly we may see
Players and plays reduced to second infancy.
Sharp to the world, but thoughtless of renown,
They plot not on the stage, but on the town,
And, in despair, their empty pit to fill,
Set up some foreign monster in a bill.
Thus they jog on, still tricking, never thriving,
And murdering plays, which they miscall reviving.
Our sense is nonsense, through their pipes convey'd:
Scarce can a poet know the play he made;
'Tis so disguised in death; nor thinks 'tis he
That suffers in the mangled tragedy.
Thus Itys first was kill'd, and after dress'd
For his own sire, the chief invited guest.
I say not this of thy successful scenes,
Where thine was all the glory, theirs the gains.
With length of time, much judgment, and more toil,
Not ill they acted, what they could not spoil.
Their setting sun[2] still shoots a glimmering ray,
Like ancient Rome majestic in decay:
And better gleanings their worn soil can boast,
Than the crab-vintage of the neighbouring coast.[3]
This difference yet the judging world will see;
Thou copiest Homer, and they copy thee.
Honeymoon Time At An Inn
by Thomas Hardy

At the shiver of morning, a little before the false dawn,
The moon was at the window-square,
Deedily brooding in deformed decay -
The curve hewn off her cheek as by an adze;
At the shiver of morning a little before the false dawn
So the moon looked in there.
Her speechless eyeing reached across the chamber,
Where lay two souls opprest,
One a white lady sighing, "Why am I sad!"
To him who sighed back, "Sad, my Love, am I!"
And speechlessly the old moon conned the chamber,
And these two reft of rest.
While their large-pupilled vision swept the scene there,
Nought seeming imminent,
Something fell sheer, and crashed, and from the floor
Lay glittering at the pair with a shattered gaze,
While their large-pupilled vision swept the scene there,
And the many-eyed thing outleant.
With a start they saw that it was an old-time pier-glass
Which had stood on the mantel near,
Its silvering blemished, - yes, as if worn away
By the eyes of the countless dead who had smirked at it
Ere these two ever knew that old-time pier-glass
And its vague and vacant leer.
As he looked, his bride like a moth skimmed forth, and kneeling
Quick, with quivering sighs,
Gathered the pieces under the moon's sly ray,
Unwitting as an automaton what she did;
Till he entreated, hasting to where she was kneeling,
Let it stay where it lies!"
"Long years of sorrow this means!" breathed the lady
As they retired. "Alas!"
And she lifted one pale hand across her eyes.
"Don't trouble, Love; it's nothing," the bridegroom said.
"Long years of sorrow for us!" murmured the lady,
"Or ever this evil pass!"
And the Spirits Ironic laughed behind the wainscot,
And the Spirits of Pity sighed.
It's good," said the Spirits Ironic, "to tickle their minds
With a portent of their wedlock's after-grinds."
And the Spirits of Pity sighed behind the wainscot,
"It's a portent we cannot abide!
"More, what shall happen to prove the truth of the portent?"
- "Oh; in brief, they will fade till old,
And their loves grow numbed ere death, by the cark of care."
- "But nought see we that asks for portents there? -
'Tis the lot of all." - "Well, no less true is a portent
That it fits all mortal mould."
Seek And Find.
by Robert Herrick

Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt;
Nothing's so hard but search will find it out.
Letter To James Tennant, Of Glenconner.
by Robert Burns

Auld comrade dear, and brither sinner,
How's a' the folk about Glenconner?
How do you this blae eastlin wind,
That's like to blaw a body blind?
For me, my faculties are frozen,
My dearest member nearly dozen'd,
I've sent you here, by Johnie Simson,
Twa sage philosophers to glimpse on;
Smith, wi' his sympathetic feeling,
An' Reid, to common sense appealing.
Philosophers have fought and wrangled,
An' meikle Greek and Latin mangled,
Till wi' their logic-jargon tir'd,
An' in the depth of science mir'd,
To common sense they now appeal,
What wives and wabsters see and feel.
But, hark ye, friend! I charge you strictly
Peruse them, an' return them quickly,
For now I'm grown sae cursed douce
I pray and ponder butt the house,
My shins, my lane, I there sit roastin',
Perusing Bunyan, Brown, an' Boston;
Till by an' by, if I haud on,
I'll grunt a real gospel groan:
Already I begin to try it,
To cast my e'en up like a pyet,
When by the gun she tumbles o'er,
Flutt'ring an' gasping in her gore:
Sae shortly you shall see me bright,
A burning and a shining light.
My heart-warm love to guid auld Glen,
The ace an' wale of honest men:
When bending down wi' auld gray hairs,
Beneath the load of years and cares,
May He who made him still support him,
An' views beyond the grave comfort him,
His worthy fam'ly far and near,
God bless them a' wi' grace and gear!
My auld schoolfellow, preacher Willie,
The manly tar, my mason Billie,
An' Auchenbay, I wish him joy;
If he's a parent, lass or boy,
May he be dad, and Meg the mither,
Just five-and-forty years thegither!
An' no forgetting wabster Charlie,
I'm tauld he offers very fairly.
An' Lord, remember singing Sannock,
Wi' hale breeks, saxpence, an' a bannock,
An' next my auld acquaintance, Nancy,
Since she is fitted to her fancy;
An' her kind stars hae airted till her
A good chiel wi' a pickle siller.
My kindest, best respects I sen' it,
To cousin Kate, an' sister Janet;
Tell them, frae me, wi' chiels be cautious,
For, faith, they'll aiblins fin' them fashious;
To grant a heart is fairly civil,
But to grant the maidenhead's the devil
An' lastly, Jamie, for yoursel',
May guardian angels tak a spell,
An' steer you seven miles south o' hell:
But first, before you see heaven's glory,
May ye get monie a merry story,
Monie a laugh, and monie a drink,
And aye eneugh, o' needfu' clink.
Now fare ye weel, an' joy be wi' you,
For my sake this I beg it o' you.
Assist poor Simson a' ye can,
Ye'll fin' him just an honest man;
Sae I conclude, and quat my chanter,
Your's, saint or sinner,
ROB THE RANTER.
To The Marquis Of Dufferin And Ava
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

I.
At times our Britain cannot rest,
At times her steps are swift and rash;
She moving, at her girdle clash
The golden keys of East and West.
II.
Not swift or rash, when late she lent
The sceptres of her West, her East,
To one, that ruling has increased
Her greatness and her self-content.
III.
Your rule has made the people love
Their ruler. Your viceregal days
Have added fulness to the phrase
Of 'Gauntlet in the velvet glove.'
IV.
But since your name will grow with Time,
Not all, as honouring your fair fame
Of Statesman, have I made the name
A golden portal to my rhyme:
V.
But more, that you and yours may know
From me and mine, how dear a debt
We owed you, and are owing yet
To you and yours, and still would owe.
VI.
For he'your India was his Fate,
And drew him over sea to you'
He fain had ranged her thro' and thro',
To serve her myriads and the State,'
VII.
A soul that, watch'd from earliest youth,
And on thro' many a brightening year,
Had never swerved for craft or fear,
By one side-path, from simple truth;
VIII.
Who might have chased and claspt Renown
And caught her chaplet here'and there
In haunts of jungle-poison'd air
The flame of life went wavering down;
IX.
But ere he left your fatal shore,
And lay on that funereal boat,
Dying, 'Unspeakable' he wrote
'Their kindness,' and he wrote no more;
X.
And sacred is the latest word;
And now the Was, the Might-have-been,
And those lone rites I have not seen,
And one dear sound I have not heard,
XI.
Are dreams that scarce will let me be,
Not there to bid my boy farewell,
When That within the coffin fell,
Fell'and flash'd into the Red Sea,
XII.
Beneath a hard Arabian moon
And alien stars. To question, why
The sons before the fathers die,
Not mine! and I may meet him soon;
XIII.
But while my life's late eve endures,
Nor settles into hueless gray,
My memories of his briefer day
Will mix with love for you and yours.
At The Mid Hour Of Night
by Thomas Moore

At the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly
To the lone vale we loved, when life shone warm in thine eye;
And I think oft, if spirits can steal from the regions of air,
To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt come to me there,
And tell me our love is remembered, even in the sky.
Then I sing the wild song 'twas once such pleasure to hear
When our voices commingling breathed, like one, on the ear;
And, as Echo far off thro' the vale my sad orison rolls,
I think, oh my love! 'tis thy voice from the Kingdom of Souls,[1]
Faintly answering still the notes that once were so dear.
In Memory Of Anyone Unknown To Me
by Elizabeth Jennings

At this particular time I have no one
Particular person to grieve for, though there must
Be many, many unknown ones going to dust
Slowly, not remembered for what they have done
Or left undone. For these, then, I will grieve
Being impartial, unable to deceive.
How they lived, or died, is quite unknown,
And, by that fact gives my grief purity,
An important person quite apart from me
Or one obscure who drifted down alone.
Both or all I remember, have a place.
For these I never encountered face to face.
Sentiment will creep in. I cast it out
Wishing to give these classical repose,
No epitaph, no poppy and no rose
From me, and certainly no wish to learn about
The way they lived or died. In earth or fire
They are gone. Simply because they were human, I admire.
The Dawn Wind
by Rudyard Kipling

At two o'clock in the morning, if you open your window and listen,
You will hear the feet of the Wind that is going to call the sun.
And the trees in the shadow rustle and the trees in the moonlight glisten,
And though it is deep, dark night, you feel that the night is done.
So do the cows in the field. They graze for an hour and lie down,
Dozing and chewing the cud; or a bird in the ivy wakes,
Chirrups one note and is still, and the restless Wind strays on,
Fidgeting far down the road, till, softly, the darkness breaks.
Back comes the Wind full strength with a blow like an angel's wing,
Gentle but waking the world, as he shouts: "The Sun! The Sun!"
And the light floods over the fields and the birds begin to sing,
And the Wind dies down in the grass. It is day and his work is done.
So when the world is asleep, and there seems no hope of her waking
Out of some long, bad dream that makes her mutter and moan,
Suddenly, all men arise to the noise of fetters breaking,
And every one smiles at his neighbour and tells him his soul is his own!
The Voice
by Sara Teasdale

Atoms as old as stars,
Mutation on mutation,
Millions and millions of cells
Dividing yet still the same,
From air and changing earth,
From ancient Eastern rivers,
From turquoise tropic seas,
Unto myself I came.
My spirit like my flesh
Sprang from a thousand sources,
From cave-man, hunter and shepherd,
From Karnak, Cyprus, Rome;
The living thoughts in me
Spring from dead men and women,
Forgotten time out of mind
And many as bubbles of foam.
Here for a moment's space
Into the light out of darkness,
I come and they come with me
Finding words with my breath;
From the wisdom of many life-times
Seek for Beauty, she only
Fights with man against Death!"
Sir William Gomm - Sonnets
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

I.
At threescore years and five aroused anew
To rule in India, forth a soldier went
On whose bright-fronted youth fierce war had spent
Its iron stress of storm, till glory grew
Full as the red sun waned on Waterloo.
Landing, he met the word from England sent
Which bade him yield up rule: and he, content,
Resigned it, as a mightier warrior's due;
And wrote as one rejoicing to record
That 'from the first' his royal heart was lord
Of its own pride or pain; that thought was none
Therein save this, that in her perilous strait
England, whose womb brings forth her sons so great,
Should choose to serve her first her mightiest son.
II.
Glory beyond all flight of warlike fame
Go with the warrior's memory who preferred
To praise of men whereby men's hearts are stirred,
And acclamation of his own proud name
With blare of trumpet-blasts and sound and flame
Of pageant honour, and the titular word
That only wins men worship of the herd,
His country's sovereign good: who overcame
Pride, wrath, and hope of all high chance on earth,
For this land's love that gave his great heart birth.
O nursling of the sea-winds and the sea,
Immortal England, goddess ocean-born,
What shall thy children fear, what strengths not scorn,
While children of such mould are born to thee?