DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
When A Merry Maiden Marries.
by William Schwenck Gilbert

When a merry maiden marries,
Sorrow goes and pleasure tarries;
Every sound becomes a song,
All is right and nothing's wrong!
From to-day and ever after
Let your tears be tears of laughter 
Every sigh that finds a vent
Be a sigh of sweet content!
When you marry merry maiden,
Then the air with love is laden;
Every flower is a rose,
Every goose becomes a swan,
Every kind of trouble goes
Where the last year's snows have gone!
Sunlight takes the place of shade
When you marry merry maid!
When a merry maiden marries
Sorrow goes and pleasure tarries;
Every sound becomes a song,
All is right, and nothing's wrong.
Gnawing Care and aching Sorrow,
Get ye gone until to-morrow;
Jealousies in grim array,
Ye are things of yesterday!
When you marry merry maiden,
Then the air with joy is laden;
All the corners of the earth
Ring with music sweetly played,
Worry is melodious mirth.
Grief is joy in masquerade;
Sullen night is laughing day 
All the year is merry May!
To Flora.
by John Milton Hay

When April woke the drowsy flowers,
And vagrant odours thronged the breeze,
And bluebirds wrangled in the bowers,
And daisies flashed along the leas,
And faint arbutus strove among
Dead winter's leaf-strewn wreck to rise,
And nature's sweetly jubilant song
Went murmuring up the sunny skies,
Into this cheerful world you came,
And gained by right your vernal name.
I think the springs have changed of late,
For "Arctics" are my daily wear,
The skies are turned to cold grey slate,
And zephyrs are but draughts of air;
But you make up whate'er we lack,
When we, too rarely, come together,
More potent than the almanac,
You bring the ideal April weather;
When you are with us we defy
The blustering air, the lowering sky;
In spite of winter's icy darts,
We've spring and sunshine in our hearts.
In fine, upon this April day,
This deep conundrum I will bring:
Tell me the two good reasons, pray,
I have, to say you are like spring?
[You give it up?]    Because we love you -
And see so very little of you.
The Fabulists
by Rudyard Kipling

When all the world would keep a matter hid,
Since Truth is seldom Friend to any crowd,
Men write in fable, as old Aesop did,
Jesting at that which none will name aloud.
And this they needs must do, or it will fall
Unless they please they are not heard at all.
When desperate Folly daily laboureth
To work confusion upon all we have,
When diligent Sloth demandeth Freedom's death,
And banded Fear commandeth Honour's grave,
Even in that certain hour before the fall,
Unless men please they are not heard at all.
Needs must all please, yet some not all for need,
Needs must all toil, yet some not all for gain,
But that men taking pleasure may take heed.
Whom present toil shall snatch from later pain.
Thus some have toiled, but their reward was small
Since, though they pleased, they were not heard at all.
This was the lock that lay upon our lips,
This was the yoke that we have undergone,
Denying us all pleasant fellowships
As in our time and generation.
Our pleasures unpursued age past recall,
And for our pains, we are not heard at all.
What man hears aught except the groaning guns?
What man heeds aught save what each instant brings?
When each man's life all imaged life outruns,
What man shall pleasure in imaginings?
So it hath fallen, as it was bound to fall,
We are not, nor we were not, heard at all.
Submergence
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

When along the pavement,
Palpitating flames of life,
People flicker round me,
I forget my bereavement,
The gap in the great constellation,
The place where a star used to be.
Nay, though the pole-star
Is blown out like a candle,
And all the heavens are wandering in disarray,
Yet when pleiads of people are
Deployed around me, and I see
The street's long outstretched Milky Way,
When people flicker down the pavement,
I forget my bereavement.
The Little Old Log Cabin
by Robert William Service

When a man gits on his uppers in a hard-pan sort of town,
An' he ain't got nothin' comin', an' he can't afford ter eat,
An' he's in a fix fer lodgin', an' he wanders up an' down,
An' you'd fancy he'd been boozin', he's so locoed 'bout the feet;
When he's feelin' sneakin' sorry, an' his belt is hangin' slack,
An' his face is peaked an' grey-like, an' his heart gits down an' whines,
Then he's apt ter git a-thinkin' an' a-wishin' he was back
In the little ol' log cabin in the shadder of the pines.
When he's on the blazin' desert, an' his canteen's sprung a leak,
An' he's all alone an' crazy, an' he's crawlin' like a snail,
An' his tongue's so black an' swollen that it hurts him fer to speak,
An' he gouges down fer water, an' the raven's on his trail;
When he's done with care and cursin', an' he feels more like to cry,
An' he sees ol' Death a-grinnin', an' he thinks upon his crimes,
Then he's like ter hev' a vision, as he settles down ter die,
Of the little ol' log cabin an' the roses an' the vines.
Oh, the little ol' log cabin, it's a solemn shinin' mark
When a feller gits ter sinnin', an' a-goin' ter the wall,
An' folks don't understand him, an' he's gropin' in the dark,
An' he's sick of bein' cursed at, an' he's longin' fer his call:
When the sun of life's a-sinkin' you can see it 'way above,
On the hill from out the shadder in a glory 'gin the sky,
An' your mother's voice is callin', an' her arms are stretched in love,
An' somehow you're glad you're goin', an' you ain't a-scared to die;
When you'll be like a kid again, an' nestle to her breast,
An' never leave its shelter, an' forget, an' love, an' rest.
Discord.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

When by the brook his strain
Cupid is fluting,
And on the neighboring plain
Mayors disputing,
There turns the ear ere long,
Loving and tender,
Yet to the noise a song
Soon must surrender.
Loud then the flute-notes glad
Sound 'mid war's thunder;
If I grow raving mad,
Is it a wonder?
Flutes sing and trumpets bray,
Waxing yet stronger;
If, then, my senses stray,
Wonder no longer.
Sonnets: Idea XXIX To The Senses
by Michael Drayton

When conquering love did first my heart assail,
Unto mine aid I summoned every sense,
Doubting if that proud tyrant should prevail,
My heart should suffer for mine eyes' offence.
But he with beauty first corrupted sight,
My hearing bribed with her tongue's harmony,
My taste by her sweet lips drawn with delight,
My smelling won with her breath's spicery,
But when my touching came to play his part,
The king of senses, greater than the rest,
He yields love up the keys unto my heart,
And tells the others how they should be blest.
And thus by those of whom I hoped for aid,
To cruel love my soul was first betrayed.
Half-Ballade Of Waterval
by Rudyard Kipling

When by the labour of my 'ands 
I've 'elped to pack a transport tight 
With prisoners for foreign lands, 
I ain't transported with delight. 
I know it's only just an' right, 
But yet it somehow sickens me, 
For I 'ave learned at Waterval 
The meanin' of captivity. 
Be'ind the pegged barb-wire strands, 
Beneath the tall electric light, 
We used to walk in bare-'ead bands, 
Explainin' 'ow we lost our fight; 
An' that is what they'll do to-night 
Upon the steamer out at sea, 
If I 'ave learned at Waterval 
The meanin' of captivity. 
They'll never know the shame that brands, 
Black shame no livin' down makes white, 
The mockin' from the sentry-stands, 
The women's laugh, the gaoler's spite. 
We are too bloomin'-much polite, 
But that is 'ow I'd 'ave us be... 
Since I 'ave learned at Waterval 
The meanin' of captivity. 
They'll get those draggin' days all right, 
Spent as a foreigner commands, 
An' 'orrors of the locked-up night, 
With 'Ell's own thinkin' on their 'ands. 
I'd give the gold o' twenty Rands 
(If it was mine) to set 'em free, 
For I 'ave learned at Waterval 
The meanin' of captivity!
Voices.
by Madison Julius Cawein

When blood-root blooms and trillium flowers
Unclasp their stars to sun and rain,
My heart strikes hands with winds and showers
And wanders in the woods again.
O urging impulse, born of spring,
That makes glad April of my soul,
No bird, however wild of wing,
Is more impatient of control.
Impetuous of pulse it beats
Within my blood and bears me hence;
Above the housetops and the streets
I hear its happy eloquence.
It tells me all that I would know,
Of birds and buds, of blooms and bees;
I seem to hear the blossoms blow,
And leaves unfolding on the trees.
I seem to hear the blue-bells ring
Faint purple peals of fragrance; and
The honey-throated poppies fling
Their golden laughter o'er the land.
It calls to me; it sings to me;
I hear its far voice night and day;
I can not choose but go when tree
And flower clamor, "Come, away!"
To Hope
by John Keats

When by my solitary hearth I sit,
And hateful thoughts enwrap my soul in gloom;
When no fair dreams before my "mind's eye" flit,
And the bare heath of life presents no bloom;
Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head!
Whene'er I wander, at the fall of night,
Where woven boughs shut out the moon's bright ray,
Should sad Despondency my musings fright,
And frown, to drive fair Cheerfulness away,
Peep with the moonbeams through the leafy roof,
And keep that fiend Despondence far aloof!
Should Disappointment, parent of Despair,
Strive for her son to seize my careless heart;
When, like a cloud, he sits upon the air,
Preparing on his spell-bound prey to dart:
Chase him away, sweet Hope, with visage bright,
And fright him as the morning frightens night!
Whene'er the fate of those I hold most dear
Tells to my fearful breast a tale of sorrow,
O bright-eyed Hope, my morbidfancy cheer;
Let me awhile thy sweetest comforts borrow:
Thy heaven-born radiance around me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head!
Should e'er unhappy love my bosom pain,
From cruel parents, or relentless fair;
O let me think it is not quite in vain
To sigh out sonnets to the midnight air!
Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head!
In the long vista of the years to roll,
Let me not see our country's honour fade:
O let me see our land retain her soul,
Her pride, her freedom; and not freedom's shade.
From thy bright eyes unusual brightness shed
Beneath thy pinions canopy my head!
Let me not see the patriot's high bequest,
Great Liberty! how great in plain attire!
With the base purple of a court oppress'd,
Bowing her head, and ready to expire:
But let me see thee stoop from heaven on wings
That fill the skies with silver glitterings!
And as, in sparkling majesty, a star
Gilds the bright summit of some gloomy cloud;
Brightening the half veil'd face of heaven afar:
So, when dark thoughts my boding spirit shroud,
Sweet Hope, celestial influence round me shed,
Waving thy silver pinions o'er my head!
Rule, Britannia!
by James Thomson

When Britain first, at Heaven's command,
Arose from out the azure main,
This was the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sung this strain
"Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves."
The nations, not so blessed as thee,
Must in their turns to tyrants fall;
While thou shalt flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
"Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves."
Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
More dreadful from each foreign stroke;
As the loud blast that tears the skies
Serves but to root thy native oak.
"Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves."
Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame;
All their attempts to bend thee down
Will but arouse thy generous flame,
But work their woe and thy renown.
"Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves."
To thee belongs the rural reign;
Thy cities shall with commerce shine;
All thine shall be the subject main,
And every shore it circles thine.
"Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves."
The Muses, still with freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coast repair:
Blessed isle! with matchless beauty crowned,
And manly hearts to guard the fair.
"Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves."
Green River.
by William Cullen Bryant

When breezes are soft and skies are fair,
I steal an hour from study and care,
And hie me away to the woodland scene,
Where wanders the stream with waters of green,
As if the bright fringe of herbs on its brink
Had given their stain to the wave they drink;
And they, whose meadows it murmurs through,
Have named the stream from its own fair hue.
Yet pure its waters, its shallows are bright
With coloured pebbles and sparkles of light,
And clear the depths where its eddies play,
And dimples deepen and whirl away,
And the plane-tree's speckled arms o'ershoot
The swifter current that mines its root,
Through whose shifting leaves, as you walk the hill,
The quivering glimmer of sun and rill
With a sudden flash on the eye is thrown,
Like the ray that streams from the diamond stone.
Oh, loveliest there the spring days come,
With blossoms, and birds, and wild bees' hum;
The flowers of summer are fairest there,
And freshest the breath of the summer air;
And sweetest the golden autumn day
In silence and sunshine glides away.
Yet fair as thou art, thou shunnest to glide,
Beautiful stream! by the village side;
But windest away from haunts of men,
To quiet valley and shaded glen;
And forest, and meadow, and slope of hill,
Around thee, are lonely, lovely, and still.
Lonely, save when, by thy rippling tides,
From thicket to thicket the angler glides;
Or the simpler comes with basket and book,
For herbs of power on thy banks to look;
Or haply, some idle dreamer, like me,
To wander, and muse, and gaze on thee.
Still, save the chirp of birds that feed
On the river cherry and seedy reed,
And thy own wild music gushing out
With mellow murmur and fairy shout,
From dawn to the blush of another day,
Like traveller singing along his way.
That fairy music I never hear,
Nor gaze on those waters so green and clear,
And mark them winding away from sight,
Darkened with shade or flashing with light,
While o'er them the vine to its thicket clings,
And the zephyr stoops to freshen his wings,
But I wish that fate had left me free
To wander these quiet haunts with thee,
Till the eating cares of earth should depart,
And the peace of the scene pass into my heart;
And I envy thy stream, as it glides along,
Through its beautiful banks in a trance of song.
Though forced to drudge for the dregs of men,
And scrawl strange words with the barbarous pen,
And mingle among the jostling crowd,
Where the sons of strife are subtle and loud,
I often come to this quiet place,
To breathe the airs that ruffle thy face,
And gaze upon thee in silent dream,
For in thy lonely and lovely stream
An image of that calm life appears
That won my heart in my greener years.
The Treasure
by Rupert Brooke

When colour goes home into the eyes,
And lights that shine are shut again
With dancing girls and sweet birds' cries
Behind the gateways of the brain;
And that no-place which gave them birth, shall close
The rainbow and the rose:
Still may Time hold some golden space
Where I'll unpack that scented store
Of song and flower and sky and face,
And count, and touch, and turn them o'er,
Musing upon them; as a mother, who
Has watched her children all the rich day through
Sits, quiet-handed, in the fading light,
When children sleep, ere night.
Prologue Spoken By Mr. Woods On His Benefit Night, Monday, 16 April, 1787.
by Robert Burns

When by a generous Public's kind acclaim,
That dearest meed is granted, honest fame;
When here your favour is the actor's lot,
Nor even the man in private life forgot;
What breast so dead to heavenly virtue's glow,
But heaves impassion'd with the grateful throe?
Poor is the task to please a barbarous throng,
It needs no Siddons' powers in Southerne's song;
But here an ancient nation fam'd afar,
For genius, learning high, as great in war,
Hail, CALEDONIA, name for ever dear!
Before whose sons I'm honoured to appear!
Where every science, every nobler art,
That can inform the mind, or mend the heart,
Is known; as grateful nations oft have found
Far as the rude barbarian marks the bound.
Philosophy, no idle pedant dream,
Here holds her search by heaven-taught Reason's beam;
Here History paints, with elegance and force,
The tide of Empires' fluctuating course;
Here Douglas forms wild Shakspeare into plan,
And Harley[1] rouses all the god in man.
When well-form'd taste and sparkling wit unite,
With manly lore, or female beauty bright,
(Beauty, where faultless symmetry and grace,
Can only charm as in the second place,)
Witness my heart, how oft with panting fear,
As on this night, I've met these judges here!
But still the hope Experience taught to live,
Equal to judge, you're candid to forgive.
Nor hundred-headed Riot here we meet,
With decency and law beneath his feet:
Nor Insolence assumes fair Freedom's name;
Like CALEDONIANS, you applaud or blame.
O Thou dread Power! whose Empire-giving hand
Has oft been stretch'd to shield the honour'd land!
Strong may she glow with all her ancient fire:
May every son be worthy of his sire;
Firm may she rise with generous disdain
At Tyranny's, or direr Pleasure's chain;
Still self-dependent in her native shore,
Bold may she brave grim Danger's loudest roar,
Till Fate the curtain drop on worlds to be no more.
When Bryan Speaks
by Vachel Lindsay

When Bryan speaks, the town's a hive.
From miles around, the autos drive.
The sparrow chirps. The rooster crows.
The place is kicking and alive.
When Bryan speaks, the bunting glows.
The raw procession onward flows.
The small dogs bark. The children laugh
A wind of springtime fancy blows.
When Bryan speaks, the wigwam shakes.
The corporation magnate quakes.
The pre-convention plot is smashed.
The valiant pleb full-armed awakes.
When Bryan speaks, the sky is ours,
The wheat, the forests, and the flowers.
And who is here to say us nay?
Fled are the ancient tyrant powers.
When Bryan speaks, then I rejoice.
His is the strange composite voice
Of many million singing souls
Who make world-brotherhood their choice.
Then And Now
by Thomas Hardy

When battles were fought
With a chivalrous sense of Should and Ought,
In spirit men said,
"End we quick or dead,
Honour is some reward!
Let us fight fair - for our own best or worst;
So, Gentlemen of the Guard,
Fire first!"
In the open they stood,
Man to man in his knightlihood:
They would not deign
To profit by a stain
On the honourable rules,
Knowing that practise perfidy no man durst
Who in the heroic schools
Was nurst.
But now, behold, what
Is warfare wherein honour is not!
Rama laments
Its dead innocents:
Herod breathes: "Sly slaughter
Shall rule! Let us, by modes once called accurst,
Overhead, under water,
Stab first."
1915.
Bonny Mary Ann.
by John Hartley

When but a little toddlin thing,
I'th' heather sweet shoo'd play,
An like a fay on truant wing,
Shoo'd rammel far away;
An even butterflees wod come
Her lovely face to scan,
An th' burds wod sing ther sweetest song,
For bonny Mary Ann.
Shoo didn't fade as years flew by,
But added day bi day,
Some little touch ov witchery, - 
Some little winnin way.
Her lovely limbs an angel face,
To paint noa mortal can;
Shoo seemed possessed ov ivvery grace,
Did bonny Mary Ann.
To win her wod be heaven indeed,
Soa off aw went to woo;
Mi tale o' love shoo didn't heed,
Altho' mi heart spake too.
Aw axt, "what wants ta, onnyway?"
Shoo sed, "aw want a man,"
Then laffin gay, shoo tript away, - 
Mi bonny Mary Ann.
Thinks aw, well, aw'll be man enough
To leeav thi to thisen,
Some day tha'll net be quite as chuff,
Aw'll wait an try thi then.
'Twor hard, - it ommost braik mi heart
To carry aght mi plan;
But honestly aw played mi part,
An lost mi Mary Ann.
For nah shoo's wed an lost yo see,
But oh! revenge is sweet;
Her husband's less bi th' hawf nor me,
His face is like a freet;
An what enticed her aw must own,
To guess noa mortal can;
For what it is, is nobbut known, - 
To him an Mary Ann.
The House Of Peers.
by William Schwenck Gilbert

When Britain really ruled the waves 
(In good Queen Bess's time)
The House of Peers made no pretence
To intellectual eminence,
Or scholarship sublime;
Yet Britain won her proudest bays
In good Queen Bess's glorious days!
When Wellington thrashed Bonaparte,
As every child can tell,
The House of Peers, throughout the war,
Did nothing in particular,
And did it very well;
Yet Britain set the world a-blaze
In good King George's glorious days!
And while the House of Peers withholds
Its legislative hand.
And noble statesmen do not itch
To interfere with matters which
They do not understand,
As bright will shine Great Britain's rays,
As in King George's glorious days!
Moly
by Madison Julius Cawein

When by the wall the tiger-flower swings
A head of sultry slumber and aroma;
And by the path, whereon the blown rose flings
Its obsolete beauty, the long lilies foam a
White place of perfume, like a beautiful breast - 
Between the pansy fire of the west,
And poppy mist of moonrise in the east,
This heartache will have ceased.
The witchcraft of soft music and sweet sleep - 
Let it beguile the burthen from my spirit,
And white dreams reap me as strong reapers reap
The ripened grain and full blown blossom near it;
Let me behold how gladness gives the whole
The transformed countenance of my own soul - 
Between the sunset and the risen moon
Let sorrow vanish soon.
And these things then shall keep me company:
The elfins of the dew; the spirit of laughter
Who haunts the wind; the god of melody
Who sings within the stream, that reaches after
The flow'rs that rock themselves to his caress:
These of themselves shall shape my happiness,
Whose visible presence I shall lean upon,
Feeling that care is gone.
Forgetting how the cankered flower must die;
The worm-pierced fruit fall, sicklied to its syrup;
How joy, begotten 'twixt a sigh and sigh,
Waits with one foot forever in the stirrup, - 
Remembering how within the hollow lute
Soft music sleeps when music's voice is mute;
And in the heart, when all seems black despair,
Hope sits, awaiting there.
Lydia.
by Madison Julius Cawein

When Autumn's here and days are short,
Let LYDIA laugh and, hey!
Straightway 't is May-day in my heart,
And blossoms strew the way.
When Summer's here and days are long,
Let LYDIA sigh and, ho!
December's fields I walk among,
And shiver in the snow.
No matter what the Seasons are,
My LYDIA is so dear,
My soul admits no Calendar
Of earth when she is near.
Odes Of Anacreon - Ode XLIX.
by Thomas Moore

When Bacchus, Jove's immortal boy,
The rosy harbinger of joy,
Who, with the sunshine of the bowl,
Thaws the winter of our soul--
When to my inmost core he glides,
And bathes it with his ruby tides,
A flow of joy, a lively heat,
Fires my brain, and wings my feet,
Calling up round me visions known
To lovers of the bowl alone.
Sing, sing of love, let music's sound
In melting cadence float around,
While, my young Venus, thou and I
Responsive to its murmurs sigh.
Then, waking from our blissful trance,
Again we'll sport, again we'll dance.
Home At Night.
by James Whitcomb Riley

When chirping crickets fainter cry,
And pale stars blossom in the sky,
And twilight's gloom has dimmed the bloom
And blurred the butterfly:
When locust-blossoms fleck the walk,
And up the tiger-lily stalk
The glow-worm crawls and clings and falls
And glimmers down the garden-walls:
When buzzing things, with double wings
Of crisp and raspish flutterings,
Go whizzing by so very nigh
One thinks of fangs and stings: - 
O then, within, is stilled the din
Of crib she rocks the baby in,
And heart and gate and latch's weight
Are lifted - and the lips of Kate.