DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Life in the West.
by George Pope Morris

Ho! brothers--come hither and list to my story--
Merry and brief will the narrative be.
Here, like a monarch, I reign in my glory--
Master am I, boys, of all that I see!
Where once frowned a forest, a garden is smiling--
The meadow and moorland are marshes no more;
And there curls the smoke of my cottage, beguiling
The children who cluster like grapes round my door.
Then enter, boys; cheerly, boys, enter and rest;
The land of the heart is the land of the West!
Oho, boys!--oho, boys!--oho!
Talk not of the town, boys--give me the broad prairie,
Where man, like the wind, roams impulsive and free:
Behold how its beautiful colors all vary,
Like those of the clouds, or the deep-rolling sea!
A life in the woods, boys, is even as changing;
With proud independence we season our cheer,
And those who the world are for happiness ranging,
Won't find it at all if they don't find it here.
Then enter, boys; cheerly, boys, enter and rest!
I'll show you the life, boys, we live in the West!
Oho, boys!--oho, boys!--oho!
Here, brothers, secure from all turmoil and danger,
We reap what we sow, for the soil is our own;
We spread hospitality's board for the stranger,
And care not a jot for the king on his throne.
We never know want, for we live by our labor,
And in it contentment and happiness find;
We do what we can for a friend or a neighbor,
And die, boys, in peace and good-will to mankind.
Then enter, boys; cheerly, boys, enter and rest;
You know how we live, boys, and die in the West!
Oho, boys!--oho, boys!--oho!
At Night
by Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell

Home, home from the horizon far and clear,
Hither the soft wings sweep;
Flocks of the memories of the day draw near
The dovecote doors of sleep.
O which are they that come through sweetest light
Of all these homing birds?
Which with the straightest and the swiftest flight?
Your words to me, your words!
Home! Home!
by A. H. Laidlaw

Home! Home!
Man may roam
While the blood of life is brimming,
While the head's with glory swimming;
But, when Love and Life are over,
Bring him to the village clover,
Home! Home!
Home! Home!
Bring him home,
Where the songs of sad hearts shrive him,
Where remorse no more shall rive him,
Where the ever weeping willow
Moults to make its leaves his pillow,
Home! Home!
Home! Home!
He is home,
Where his song was ever sounding,
Where his blood was ever bounding,
Here, at last, he leaves his madness,
All his love and all his sadness,
Home! Home!
Billy And His Drum
by James Whitcomb Riley

Ho! it's come, kids, come!
"With a bim! bam! bum!
Here's little Billy bangin' on his big bass drum!
He's a-marchin' round the room,
With his feather-duster plume
A-noddin' an' a-bobbin' with his bim! bom! boom!
Looky, little Jane an' Jim!
Will you only look at him,
A-humpin' an' a-thumpin' with his bam! bom! bim!
Has the Day o' Judgment come
Er the New Mi-len-nee-um?
Er is it only Billy with his bim! bam! bim!
I 'm a-comin'; yes, I am - 
Jim an' Sis, an' Jane an' Sam!
We'll all march off with Billy an' his bom! bim! bam!
Come hurrawin' as you come,
Er they'll think you're deef-an'-dumb
Ef you don't hear little Billy an' his big bass drum!
Epitaph
by Jonathan Swift

BY THE SAME (DR. DELANY)
Hoc tumulata jacet proles Lenaea sepulchro,
Immortale genus, nee peritura jacet;
Quin oritura iterum, matris concreditur alvo:
Bis natum referunt te quoque, Bacche Pater.
Hold up yer Heeads.
by John Hartley

Hold up yer heeads, tho' at poor workin men
Simple rich ens may laff an may scorn;
Maybe they ne'er haddled ther riches thersen,
Somdy else lived befooar they wor born.
As noble a heart may be fun in a man,
Who's a poor ragged suit for his best,
(An who knows he mun work or else he mun clam,)
As yo'll find i' one mich better drest.
Soa here's to all th' workers whearivver they be,
I'th' land or i'th' loom or i'th' saddle;
An the dule tak all them who wod mak us less free,
Or rob us o'th' wages we haddle!
The Bean-Stalk
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Ho, Giant!    This is I!
I have built me a bean-stalk into your sky!
La,--but it's lovely, up so high!
This is how I came,--I put
Here my knee, there my foot,
Up and up, from shoot to shoot--
And the blessed bean-stalk thinning
Like the mischief all the time,
Till it took me rocking, spinning,
In a dizzy, sunny circle,
Making angles with the root,
Far and out above the cackle
Of the city I was born in,
Till the little dirty city
In the light so sheer and sunny
Shone as dazzling bright and pretty
As the money that you find
In a dream of finding money--
What a wind!    What a morning!--
Till the tiny, shiny city,
When I shot a glance below,
Shaken with a giddy laughter,
Sick and blissfully afraid,
Was a dew-drop on a blade,
And a pair of moments after
Was the whirling guess I made,--
And the wind was like a whip
Cracking past my icy ears,
And my hair stood out behind,
And my eyes were full of tears,
Wide-open and cold,
More tears than they could hold,
The wind was blowing so,
And my teeth were in a row,
Dry and grinning,
And I felt my foot slip,
And I scratched the wind and whined,
And I clutched the stalk and jabbered,
With my eyes shut blind,--
What a wind!    What a wind!
Your broad sky, Giant,
Is the shelf of a cupboard;
I make bean-stalks, I'm
A builder, like yourself,
But bean-stalks is my trade,
I couldn't make a shelf,
Don't know how they're made,
Now, a bean-stalk is more pliant--
La, what a climb!
Odes Of Anacreon - Ode LXXVI.
by Thomas Moore

Hither, gentle Muse of mine,
Come and teach thy votary old
Many a golden hymn divine,
For the nymph with vest of gold.
Pretty nymph, of tender age,
Fair thy silky looks unfold;
Listen to a hoary sage,
Sweetest maid with vest of gold!
Nursery Rhyme. XIV. Historical
by Unknown

[The word tory has changed greatly in its meaning, as it originated in the reign of Elizabeth, and represented a class of "bog-trotters," who were a compound of the knave and the highwayman. For many interesting particulars see Crofton Croker's 'Researches in the South of Ireland,' 4to, 1824, p. 52.]
Ho! Master Teague, what is your story?
I went to the wood and kill'd a tory;
I went to the wood and kill'd another;
Was it the same, or was it his brother?
I hunted him in, and I hunted him out,
Three times through the bog, about and about;
When out of a bush I saw his head,
So I fired my gun, and I shot him dead.
Perfidy
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

Hollow rang the house when I knocked on the door,
And I lingered on the threshold with my hand
Upraised to knock and knock once more:
Listening for the sound of her feet across the floor,
Hollow re-echoed my heart.
The low-hung lamps stretched down the road
With shadows drifting underneath,
With a music of soft, melodious feet
Quickening my hope as I hastened to meet
The low-hung light of her eyes.
The golden lamps down the street went out,
The last car trailed the night behind;
And I in the darkness wandered about
With a flutter of hope and of dark-shut doubt
In the dying lamp of my love.
Two brown ponies trotting slowly
Stopped at a dim-lit trough to drink:
The dark van drummed down the distance slowly;
While the city stars so dim and holy
Drew nearer to search through the streets.
A hastening car swept shameful past,
I saw her hid in the shadow,
I saw her step to the curb, and fast
Run to the silent door, where last
I had stood with my hand uplifted.
She clung to the door in her haste to enter,
Entered, and quickly cast
It shut behind her, leaving the street aghast.
Epilogue For Mr. Lee Lewes
by Oliver Goldsmith

Hold! Prompter, hold! a word before your nonsense;
I'd speak a word or two, to ease my conscience.
My pride forbids it ever should be said,
My heels eclips'd the honours of my head;
That I found humour in a piebald vest,
Or ever thought that jumping was a jest.
('Takes off his mask.')
Whence, and what art thou, visionary birth?
Nature disowns, and reason scorns thy mirth,
In thy black aspect every passion sleeps,
The joy that dimples, and the woe that weeps.
How has thou fill'd the scene with all thy brood,
Of fools pursuing, and of fools pursu'd!
Whose ins and outs no ray of sense discloses,
Whose only plot it is to break our noses;
Whilst from below the trap-door Demons rise,
And from above the dangling deities;
And shall I mix in this unhallow'd crew?
May rosined lightning blast me, if I do!
No I will act, I'll vindicate the stage:
Shakespeare himself shall feel my tragic rage.
Off! off! vile trappings! a new passion reigns!
The madd'ning monarch revels in my veins.
Oh! for a Richard's voice to catch the theme:
'Give me another horse! bind up my wounds!
soft 'twas but a dream.'
Aye, 'twas but a dream, for now there's no retreating:
If I cease Harlequin, I cease from eating.
'Twas thus that Aesop's stag, a creature blameless,
Yet something vain, like one that shall be nameless,
Once on the margin of a fountain stood,
And cavill'd at his image in the flood.
'The deuce confound,' he cries, 'these drumstick shanks,
They never have my gratitude nor thanks;
They're perfectly disgraceful! strike me dead!
But for a head, yes, yes, I have a head.
How piercing is that eye! how sleek that brow!
My horns! I'm told horns are the fashion now.'
Whilst thus he spoke, astonish'd, to his view,
Near, and more near, the hounds and huntsmen drew.
'Hoicks! hark forward!' came thund'ring from behind,
He bounds aloft, outstrips the fleeting wind:
He quits the woods, and tries the beaten ways;
He starts, he pants, he takes the circling maze.
At length his silly head, so priz'd before,
Is taught his former folly to deplore;
Whilst his strong limbs conspire to set him free,
And at one bound he saves himself, like me.
('Taking a hump through the stage door'.)
Epilogue[1], To Mr. Hoppy's Benefit-Night, At Smock-Alley
by Jonathan Swift

HOLD! hold, my good friends; for one moment, pray stop ye,
I return ye my thanks, in the name of poor Hoppy.
He's not the first person who never did write,
And yet has been fed by a benefit-night.
The custom is frequent, on my word I assure ye,
In our famed elder house, of the Hundreds of Drury.
But then you must know, those players still act on
Some very good reasons, for such benefaction.
A deceased poet's widow, if pretty, can't fail;
From Cibber she holds, as a tenant in tail.
Your emerited actors, and actresses too,
For what they have done (though no more they can do)
And sitters, and songsters, and Chetwood and G -    - ,
And sometimes a poor sufferer in the South Sea;
A machine-man, a tire-woman, a mute, and a spright,
Have been all kept from starving by a benefit-night.
Thus, for Hoppy's bright merits, at length we have found
That he must have of us ninety-nine and one pound,
Paid to him clear money once every year:
And however some think it a little too dear,
Yet, for reasons of state, this sum we'll allow,
Though we pay the good man with the sweat of our brow.
First, because by the King to us he was sent,
To guide the whole session of this parliament.
To preside in our councils, both public and private,
And so learn, by the by, what both houses do drive at.
When bold B -    -    roars, and meek M -    -    raves,
When Ash prates by wholesale, or Be -    - h by halves,
When Whigs become Whims, or join with the Tories;
And to himself constant when a member no more is,
But changes his sides, and votes and unvotes;
As S -    - t is dull, and with S -    - d, who dotes;
Then up must get Hoppy, and with voice very low,
And with eloquent bow, the house he must show,
That that worthy member who spoke last must give
The freedom to him, humbly most, to conceive,
That his sentiment on this affair isn't right;
That he mightily wonders which way he came by't:
That, for his part, God knows, he does such things disown;
And so, having convinced him, he most humbly sits down.
For these, and more reasons, which perhaps you may hear,
Pounds hundred this night, and one hundred this year,
And so on we are forced, though we sweat out our blood,
To make these walls pay for poor Hoppy's good;
To supply with rare diet his pot and his spit;
And with richest Margoux to wash down a tit-bit.
To wash oft his fine linen, so clean and so neat,
And to buy him much linen, to fence against sweat:
All which he deserves; for although all the day
He ofttimes is heavy, yet all night he's gay;
And if he rise early to watch for the state,
To keep up his spirits he'll sit up as late.
Thus, for these and more reasons, as before I did say
Hop has got all the money for our acting this play,
Which makes us poor actors look je ne s'ai quoy.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part II. - XL - The Same
by William Wordsworth

Holy and heavenly Spirits as they are,
Spotless in life, and eloquent as wise,
With what entire affection do they prize
Their Church reformed! labouring with earnest care
To baffle all that may her strength impair;
That Church, the unperverted Gospel's seat;
In their afflictions a divine retreat;
Source of their liveliest hope, and tenderest prayer!
The truth exploring with an equal mind,
In doctrine and communion they have sought
Firmly between the two extremes to steer;
But theirs the wise man's ordinary lot
To trace right courses for the stubborn blind,
And prophesy to ears that will not hear.
Sir Giles' War-Song
by William Morris

Ho! is there any will ride with me,
Sir Giles, le bon des barri'res?
The clink of arms is good to hear,
The flap of pennons fair to see;
Ho! is there any will ride with me,
Sir Giles, le bon des barri'res?
The leopards and lilies are fair to see;
St. George Guienne! right good to hear:
Ho! is there any will ride with me,
Sir Giles, le bon des barri'res?
I stood by the barrier,
My coat being blazon'd fair to see;
Ho! is there any will ride with me,
Sir Giles, le bon des barri'res?
Clisson put out his head to see,
And lifted his basnet up to hear;
I pull'd him through the bars to ME,
Sir Giles; le bon des barri'res.
Accomplishment
by Madison Julius Cawein

Hold to the rapture: let it work
Inward till founts of being fill,
And all is clear that once was murk,
And Beauty's self rise, mirrored still,
Before the mind, that shall devise
New forms of earth to realize.
Let it possess the heart and soul,
And through the two evolve the one,
And so achieve th' immortal goal
Of something great that man has done:
Pouring his thought, his dream intense,
Into the molds of permanence.
Within the compass of extremes
Science and Art their worlds have set,
Wherein the soul fulfills its dreams,
And evermore, without a let,
Swift, eagle-like, free, unconfined,
Soars to new altitudes of mind.
Upon Hog.
by Robert Herrick

Hog has a place i' the' kitchen, and his share,
The flimsy livers and blue gizzards are.
Our Boyhood Haunts
by James Whitcomb Riley

Ho! I'm going back to where
We were youngsters. - Meet me there,
Dear old barefoot chum, and we
Will be as we used to be, -
Lawless rangers up and down
The old creek beyond the town -
Little sunburnt gods at play,
Just as in that far-away: -
Water nymphs, all unafraid,
Shall smile at us from the brink
Of the old millrace and wade
Tow'rd us as we kneeling drink
At the spring our boyhood knew,
Pure and clear as morning-dew:
And, as we are rising there,
Doubly dow'rd to hear and see,
We shall thus be made aware
Of an eerie piping, heard
High above the happy bird
In the hazel: And then we,
Just across the creek, shall see
(Hah! the goaty rascal!) Pan
Hoof it o'er the sloping green,
Mad with his own melody,
Aye, and (bless the beasty man!)
Stamping from the grassy soil
Bruis'd scents of fleur-de-lis,
Boneset, mint and pennyroyal.
Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Home they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swooned, nor uttered cry:
All her maidens, watching, said,
'She must weep or she will die.'
Then they praised him, soft and low,
Called him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe;
Yet she neither spoke nor moved.
Stole a maiden from her place,
Lightly to the warrior stepped,
Took the face-cloth from the face;
Yet she neither moved nor wept.
Rose a nurse of ninety years,
Set his child upon her knee'
Like summer tempest came her tears'
'Sweet my child, I live for thee.'
Lord Rochester's Song.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Un soldat au dur visage.")
[CROMWELL, ACT I.]
"Hold, little blue-eyed page!"
So cried the watchers surly,
Stern to his pretty rage
And golden hair so curly - 
"Methinks your satin cloak
Masks something bulky under;
I take this as no joke - 
Oh, thief with stolen plunder!"
"I am of high repute,
And famed among the truthful:
This silver-handled lute
Is meet for one still youthful
Who goes to keep a tryst
With her who is his dearest.
I charge you to desist;
My cause is of the clearest."
But guardsmen are so sharp,
Their eyes are as the lynx's:
"That's neither lute nor harp - 
Your mark is not the minxes.
Your loving we dispute - 
That string of steel so cruel
For music does not suit - 
You go to fight a duel!"
Of Horne, A Combmaker.
by Robert Herrick

Horne sells to others teeth; but has not one
To grace his own gums, or of box, or bone.
Hours Continuing Long
by Walt Whitman

Hours continuing long, sore and heavy-hearted,
Hours of the dusk, when I withdraw to a lonesome and unfrequented spot, seating myself, leaning my face in my hands;
Hours sleepless, deep in the night, when I go forth, speeding swiftly the country roads, or through the city streets, or pacing miles and miles, stifling plaintive cries;
Hours discouraged, distracted--for the one I cannot content myself without, soon I saw him content himself without me;
Hours when I am forgotten, (O weeks and months are passing, but I believe I am never to forget!)
Sullen and suffering hours! (I am ashamed--but it is useless--I am what I am;)
Hours of my torment--I wonder if other men ever have the like, out of the like feelings?
Is there even one other like me--distracted--his friend, his lover, lost to him?
Is he too as I am now? Does he still rise in the morning, dejected, thinking who is lost to him? and at night, awaking, think who is lost?
Does he too harbor his friendship silent and endless? harbor his anguish and passion?
Does some stray reminder, or the casual mention of a name, bring the fit back upon him, taciturn and deprest?
Does he see himself reflected in me? In these hours, does he see the face of his hours reflected?
Hope.
by Emily Bronte

Hope Was but a timid friend;
She sat without the grated den,
Watching how my fate would tend,
Even as selfish-hearted men.
She was cruel in her fear;
Through the bars one dreary day,
I looked out to see her there,
And she turned her face away!
Like a false guard, false watch keeping,
Still, in strife, she whispered peace;
She would sing while I was weeping;
If I listened, she would cease.
False she was, and unrelenting;
When my last joys strewed the ground,
Even Sorrow saw, repenting,
Those sad relics scattered round;
Hope, whose whisper would have given
Balm to all my frenzied pain,
Stretched her wings, and soared to heaven,
Went, and ne'er returned again!
Hope.
by Alfred Castner King

Hope is the shadowy essence of a wish,
A fond desire which floats before our eyes;
With lurid aberration, feverish,--
We clutch the shadow which elusive, flies;
Though at our grasp the mocking fancy flees,
Hope still pursues and soothes realities.
Hope, as a mirage on the desert waste,
Lures the lost traveler, by a vision fair
Of gushing fountains which he may not taste,
Of streamlets cool depicted on the air;
With tongue outstretched and parched he onward speeds,
But as he moves the phantom scene recedes.
In the foul dungeon or the narrow cell,
The prisoner doth pace his lonely beat,
And as he treads, his shackles clank a knell
Responsive to each movement of his feet;
Yet through his grated window, he discerns
The star of hope which ever brightly burns.
A noble ship her ponderous anchor weighs,
Glides from the harbor and is lost to sight;
A young wife waves farewell. As many days
In passing turn her golden tresses white,
She scans the horizon through a mist of tears,
Hopes for that vanished sail which ne'er appears.
A galley slave in age and clime remote,
Chained to his seat, unwilling plies the oar;
Before his eyes fond dreams of freedom float,
He hopes amid the battle's crash and roar;
And as the waves the imprisoned wretches drown,
Hopes, as his fetters draw him swiftly down.
A mighty host in force of arms we see,
With march invasive, cross a boundary line;
At its approach no freemen turn and flee,
Each with his life defends his family shrine;
As burning homes illuminate the sky
With ghastly light, they hope and fight and die.
Beside the bed where rests the pallid form,
Of loved one stricken with the fever's breath,
E'en when the loving hands, no longer warm,
Portend the sure and swift approach of Death,
Hope holds the spirit in its house of clay,
And with that spirit only, soars away.
The guilty wretch, for murder doomed to die,
Hoped, in his dungeon as the death watch paced,
Hoped, as the death cap veiled his evil eye,
Hoped, as the noose around his neck was placed,
Hoped, as the chaplain read his final prayer,
Hoped, as he struggled in the viewless air.
In the glad sunshine of life's vernal spring,
Hope buoys the spirit with expectancy;
Hope with her dulcet voice and fluttering wing,
Sings of life's goal with siren harmony;
When silvered temples tell that life declines,
That goal, though yet unreached, still brightly shines.
Yes! As through failure and vicissitude,
We sail along with many an adverse wind,
Hope plants her beacon in the tempest rude,
And leads with generous radiance unconfined;
And when the yawning grave receives its prey,
Hope speeds the spirit on its astral way.
Astrophel and Stella - Sonnet LXVII
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

Hope, art thou true, or doest thou flatter me?
Doth Stella now beginne with piteous eye
The ruines of her conquest to espie?
Will she take time before all wracked be?
Her eyes-speech is translated thus by thee,
But failst thou not in phrases so heau'nly hye?
Looke on againe, the faire text better prie;
What blushing notes dost thou in Margent see?
What sighes stolne out, or kild before full-borne?
Hast thou found such and such-like arguments,
Or art thou else to comfort me forsworne?
Well, how-so thou interpret the contents,
I am resolu'd thy errour to maintaine,
Rather then by more truth to get more paine.
God And The King.
by Robert Herrick

How am I bound to Two! God, who doth give
The mind; the king, the means whereby I live.
Memnon.
by Walter R. Cassels

Hot blows the wild simoom across the waste,
The desert waste, amid the dreary sand,
With fiery breath swift burning up the land,
O'er the scared pilgrim, speeding on in haste,
Hurling fierce death-drifts with broad-scorching hand.
O weary Wilderness! No shady tree
To spread its arms around the fainting soul;
No spring to sparkle in the parch'd bowl;
No refuge in the drear immensity,
Where lies the Past, wreck'd 'neath a sandy sea,
Where o'er its glories blighting billows roll.
Ho! Sea, yield up thy buried dead again;
Heave back thy waves, and let the Past arise;
Restore Time's relics to the startled skies,
Till giant shadows tremble on the plain,
And awe the heart with old-world mysteries!
Old Menmon! Once again thy Poet-voice
May sing sweet paeans to the golden Morn,
Again may hail the saviour Light sun-born,
And bid the wild and desert waste rejoice,--
Again with sighs the looming darkness mourn.
Thou Watchman, waiting weary for the dawn,
Breathing low longings for its golden light,
Through the dim silence of the drowsy night,
What wistful sighs with thine are softly drawn,
Till day-beams on the darken'd spirit smite!
The dawning light of Knowledge smites thee now,
And forth from the dim Past come voices clear,
Falling in solemn music on the ear,
Which, as the haloes brighten on thy brow,
Shall still in richer harmonies draw near.
The Past comes back in music soft and sweet,
And lo! the Present like a strung harp stands
Waiting the sweeping of prophetic hands,
To send its living music, loud and fleet,
Careering calmly through unnumber'd lands.
Then swift uprise, thou Sun, thou Music-Maker!
Smiting the chords of Life with gladsome rays,
Till from each Memnon burst the song of praise,
From lips which thou hast freed, O silence-breaker!
That over Earth the sound may swell always.