DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Prometheus.
by Thomas Gent

What sovereign good shall satiate man's desires,
Propell'd by Hope's unconquerable fires?
Vain each bright bauble by ambition prized;
Unwon, 'tis worshipp'd--but possess'd, despised.
Yet all defect with virtue shines allied,
His mightiest impulse genius owes to pride.
From conquer'd science graced with glorious spoils,
He still dares on, demands sublimer toils;
And, had not Nature check'd his vent'rous wing,
His eye had pierced her at her primal spring.
Thus when, enwrapt, Prometheus strove to trace
Inspired perceptions of celestial grace,
Th' ideal spirit, fugitive as wind,
Art's forceful spells in adamant confined:
Curved with nice chisel floats the obsequious line;
From stone unconscious, beauty beams divine;
On magic poised, th' exulting structure swims,
And spurns attraction with elastic limbs.
While ravish'd fancy vivifies the form;
While judgment toils to analyze its charm;
While admiration spreads her speaking hands;
The lofty artist undelighted stands.
He longs to ravish from the bless'd abodes
The seal of heaven, the attribute of gods;
To give his labour more than man can give,
Breathe Jove's own breath, and bid the marble live!
Won from her woof, embellishing the skies,
Descending, Pallas soothes her vot'ry's sighs,
Where, 'midst the twilight of o'er-arching groves,
By waking visions led, th' enthusiast roves;
Like summer suns, by showery clouds conceal'd,
With sudden blaze the goddess shines reveal'd:
Behold, she cries, in thy distinguished cause
I challenge Jove's inexorable laws!
With life-stol'n essence let th' awaken'd stone
A super-human generation own.
Defrauded nature shall admire the deed,
And time recoil at thy immortal meed.
Impregn'd with action, and convoked to breathe,
Sighs the still form his ardent hands beneath;
Electric lustres flash from either eve,
O'er its pale cheeks suffusive flushes fly,
And glossy damps its clust'ring curls adorn,
Like dew-drops bright'ning on the brows of morn.
Through nerves that vibrate in unfolding chains,
Foams the warm life-blood, excavating veins;
'Till all infused, and organized the whole,
The finish'd fabric hails the breathing soul!
Then waked tumultuous in th' alarmed breast,
Contending passions claim th' etherial guest;
And still, as each alternate empire proves,
She hopes, she fears, she envies, and she loves;
Owns all sensations that deride the span,
And eternize the little life of man!
Persevere.
by John Hartley

What tho' th' claads aboon luk dark,
Th' sun's just waitin to peep throo;
Let us buckle to awr wark,
For ther's lots o' jobs to do:
Tho' all th' world luks dark an drear,
Let's ha faith, an persevere.
He's a fooil 'at sits an mumps
'Coss some troubles hem him raand!
Man mud allus be i'th dumps,
If he sulk'd 'coss fortun fraand;
Th' time 'll come for th' sky to clear: - 
Let's ha faith, an persevere.
If we think awr lot is hard,
Nivver let us mak a fuss;
Lukkin raand, at ivvery yard,
We'st find others war nor us;
We have still noa cause to fear!
Let's ha faith, an persevere.
A faint heart, aw've heeard 'em say,
Nivver won a lady fair:
Have a will! yo'll find a way!
Honest men ne'er need despair.
Better days are drawin near: - 
Then ha faith, an persevere.
Workin men, - nah we've a voice,
An con help to mak new laws;
Let us ivver show awr choice
Lains to strengthen virtue's cause,
Wrangs to reighten, - griefs to cheer;
This awr motto - 'Persevere.'
Let us show to foreign empires
Loyalty's noa empty booast;
We can scorn the thirsty vampires
If they dar molest awr cooast:
To awr Queen an country dear
Still we'll cling an persevere.
The printed version in Yorkshire Lyrics finishes here
These two extra verses are from Yorkshire Ditties First Series.
But as on throo life we hurry,
By whativver path we rooam,
Let us ne'er forget i'th' worry,
True reform begins at hooam:
Then, to prove yorsens sincere,
Start at once; an persevere.
Hard wark, happen yo may find it,
Some dear folly to forsake,
Be detarmined ne'er to mind it!
Think, yor honor's nah at stake.
Th' gooid time's drawin varry near!
Then ha faith, an persevere.
Memorials Of A Tour On The Continent, 1820 - XIX. - Effusion
by William Wordsworth

In Presence Of The Painted Tower Of Tell, At Altorf.
What though the Italian pencil wrought not here,
Nor such fine skill as did the meed bestow
On Marathonian valour, yet the tear
Springs forth in presence of this gaudy show,
While narrow cares their limits overflow.
Thrice happy, burghers, peasants, warriors old,
Infants in arms, and ye, that as ye go
Homeward or schoolward, ape what ye behold!
Heroes before your time, in frolic fancy bold!
And when that calm Spectatress from on high
Looks down the bright and solitary Moon,
Who never gazes but to beautify;
And snow-fed torrents, which the blaze of noon
Roused into fury, murmur a soft tune
That fosters peace, and gentleness recalls;
'Then' might the passing Monk receive a boon
Of saintly pleasure from these pictured walls,
While, on the warlike groups, the mellowing lustre falls.
How blest the souls who when their trials come
Yield not to terror or despondency,
But face like that sweet Boy their mortal doom,
Whose head the ruddy apple tops, while he
Expectant stands beneath the linden tree:
He quakes not like the timid forest game,
But smiles the hesitating shaft to free;
Assured that Heaven its justice will proclaim,
And to his Father give its own unerring aim.
Unattainable.
by Madison Julius Cawein

I
What though the soul be tired
For that to which 'twas fired,
The far, dear, still desired,
Beyond the heaven's scope;
Beyond us and above us,
The thing we would have love us,
That will know nothing of us,
But only bids us hope.
II
It still behooves us ever
From loving ne'er to sever,
To love it though it never
Reciprocate our care;
For love, when freely given,
Lets in soft hints of heaven
In memories that leaven
Black humors of despair.
III
For in this life diurnal
All earthly, gross, infernal,
Conflicts with that eternal
To make its love as lust;
To rot the fairest flower
Of thought which is a power,
All happiness to sour,
And burn our eyes with dust.
IV
Believe, some power higher
Breathes in us this desire
With purpose strange as fire,
And soft though seeming hard;
Who to such starved endeavor
And wasted love, that never
Seems recompensed, forever
Gives in His way reward.
Poetry Everywhere
by William Schwenck Gilbert

What time the poet hath hymned
The writhing maid, lithe-limbed,
Quivering on amaranthine asphodel,
How can he paint her woes,
Knowing, as well he knows,
That all can be set right with calomel?
When from the poet's plinth
The amorous colocynth
Yearns for the aloe, faint with rapturous thrills,
How can he hymn their throes
Knowing, as well he knows,
That they are only uncompounded pills?
Is it, and can it be,
Nature hath this decree,
Nothing poetic in the world shall dwell?
Or that in all her works
Something poetic lurks,
Even in colocynth and calomel?
Antarctic
by Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

What tale is this which stirs a world of knaves
Out of its grubbing to throw greasy pence
Forth to the hat, and choke with eloquence
In boastful prose and verse of doubtful staves?
Four men have died, gentlemen, heroes, braves;
Snows wrap them round eternally. From thence
They may no more return to life or sense
And a steel moon aches down on their chill graves.
"They died for England." It is excellent
To die for England. Death is oft the prize
Of him who bears the burden and the load.
So with a glory let our lives be spent --
We may be noble in the Minories
And die for England in the Camden Road.
A Swain To His Sweetheart.
by Thomas Frederick Young

What subtle charm is in thy voice,
That ever, when I hear its tone,
My heart doth pleasantly rejoice,
And fondly turns to thee alone?
The mem'ries of a toilsome life
Are banish'd by its potent spell,
And earthly care, and earthly strife,
No whisper'd sorrows dare to tell.
Where hope had fled, new hope inspires;
Comes life, where lately life had gone;
New purposes my bosom fires,
To battle hard and bravely on.
What charm dwells in thine eye of blue,
That thus, by its magnetic pow'r,
The world to me hath brighter hue,
And happier grows each passing hour?
With virtuous thought, and pure desire,
Thine eyes look forth from lofty soul;
Contagious, then, my thoughts aspire
To reach, with thee, thy lofty goal.
Thine eyes contemptuously look down
On all that's sordid, mean and low;
Around thy head is virtue's crown,
About the feet is virtue's snow.
What though my voice cease like a moan o' the wind?
by Thomas Runciman

What though my voice cease like a moan o' the wind?
Not the less shall I
Cast on this life a kindly eye,
Glad if through its mystery
Faint gleams of love and truth glance o'er my mind.
What though I end like a spring leaf shed on the wind?
Restrained by pure-eyed Sorrow's hand,
Lithe Joy through this wondrous land
Leads me; nothing have I scanned
Unmixed with good. Fate's sharpest stroke is kind.
To me, thoughts lived of old anew are born
From glances at the unsullied sea,
Or breath of morning purity,
From cloud or blown grass tossing free,
Or frail dew quivering on leaf, rose or thorn.
What though behind me all is mist and shade,
Yet warmth of afterglow bathes all.
Hallowed spirits move and call
Each to me, a willing thrall,
With kindly speech of mountain, plain or glade.
Before me, through the veil that covers all,
Rays of a vasty Dawn strike high
To the zenith of the sky.
Intense, yet low as true love's sigh,
Prophetic voices to my spirit call.
So, though my voice cease like a moan o' the wind,
Not the less shall I
Cast on life a kindly eye,
Glad if through its mystery
Stray gleams of love and truth illume my mind.
A Prayer For Grace In Death. First Reading.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

S' avvien che spesso.
What though strong love of life doth flatter me
With hope of yet more years on earth to stay,
Death none the less draws nearer day by day,
Who to sad souls alone comes lingeringly.
Yet why desire long life and jollity,
If in our griefs alone to God we pray?
Glad fortune, length of days, and pleasure slay
The soul that trusts to their felicity.
Then if at any hour through grace divine
The fiery shafts of love and faith that cheer
And fortify the soul, my heart assail,
Since nought achieve these mortal powers of mine,
Straight may I wing my way to heaven; for here
With lengthening days good thoughts and wishes fail.
Hope Well And Have Well: Or, Fair After Foul Weather.
by Robert Herrick

What though the heaven be lowering now,
And look with a contracted brow?
We shall discover, by-and-by,
A repurgation of the sky;
And when those clouds away are driven,
Then will appear a cheerful heaven.
At Last.
by Marietta Holley

What though upon a wintry sea our life bark sails,
What though we tremble 'neath its cruel gales,
Its icy blast;
We see a happy port lie far before,
We see its shining waves, its sunny shore,
Where we shall wander, and forget the troubled past,
At last.
No storms approach that quiet shore, no night
Falls on its silver streams, and valleys bright,
And gardens vast;
Within that pleasant land of perfect peace
Our toil-worn feet shall stay, our wanderings cease;
There shall we, resting, all forget the past,
At last.
The sorrows we have hid in silent weariness,
As birds above a wounded, bleeding breast,
Their bright plumes cast;
The griefs like mourners in a dark array,
That haunt our footsteps here, will flee away,
And leave us to forget the sorrowful past,
At last.
Voices we loved sound from those far-off lands,
And thrill our hearts; life's golden sands
Are dropping fast;
Soon shall we meet by the river of peace, and say,
As the night flees before the eye of day,
So faded from our eyes the mournful past,
At last.
The Legend Of The Horseshoe.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

What time our Lord still walk'd the earth,
Unknown, despised, of humble birth,
And on Him many a youth attended
(His words they seldom comprehended),
It ever seem'd to Him most meet
To hold His court in open street,
As under heaven's broad canopy
One speaks with greater liberty.
The teachings of His blessed word
From out His holy mouth were heard;
Each market to a fane turn'd He
With parable and simile.
One day, as tow'rd a town He roved,
In peace of mind with those He loved,
Upon the path a something gleam'd;
A broken horseshoe 'twas, it seem'd.
So to St. Peter thus He spake:
"That piece of iron prythee take!"
St. Peter's thoughts had gone astray, 
He had been musing on his way
Respecting the world's government,
A dream that always gives content,
For in the head 'tis check'd by nought;
This ever was his dearest thought,
For him this prize was far too mean
Had it a crown and sceptre been!
But, surely, 'twasn't worth the trouble
For half a horseshoe to bend double!
And so he turn'd away his head,
As if he heard not what was said,
The Lord, forbearing tow'rd all men,
Himself pick'd up the horseshoe then
(He ne'er again like this stoop'd down).
And when at length they reach'd the town,
Before a smithy He remain'd,
And there a penny for 't obtain'd.
As they the market-place went by,
Some beauteous cherries caught His eye:
Accordingly He bought as many
As could be purchased for a penny,
And then, as oft His wont had been,
Placed them within His sleeve unseen.
They went out by another gate,
O'er plains and fields proceeding straight,
No house or tree was near the spot,
The sun was bright, the day was hot;
In short, the weather being such,
A draught of water was worth much.
The Lord walk'd on before them all,
And let, unseen, a cherry fall.
St. Peter rush'd to seize it hold,
As though an apple 'twere of gold;
His palate much approv'd the berry;
The Lord ere long another cherry
Once more let fall upon the plain;
St. Peter forthwith stoop'd again.
The Lord kept making him thus bend
To pick up cherries without end.
For a long time the thing went on;
The Lord then said, in cheerful tone:
"Had'st thou but moved when thou wert bid,
Thou of this trouble had'st been rid;
The man who small things scorns, will next,
By things still smaller be perplex'd."
Waiting, A Field at Dusk
by Robert Lee Frost

What things for dream there are when spectre-like,
Moving among tall haycocks lightly piled,
I enter alone upon the stubble field,
From which the laborers' voices late have died,
And in the antiphony of afterglow
And rising full moon, sit me down
Upon the full moon's side of the first haycock
And lose myself amid so many alike.
I dream upon the opposing lights of the hour,
Preventing shadow until the moon prevail;
I dream upon the night-hawks peopling heaven,
Each circling each with vague unearthly cry,
Or plunging headlong with fierce twang afar;
And on the bat's mute antics, who would seem
Dimly to have made out my secret place,
Only to lose it when he pirouettes,
And seek it endlessly with purblind haste;
On the last swallow's sweep; and on the rasp
In the abyss of odor and rustle at my back,
That, silenced by my advent, finds once more,
After an interval, his instrument,
And tries once, twice,and thrice if I be there;
And on the worn book of old-golden song
I brought not here to read, it seems, but hold
And freshen in this air of withering sweetness;
But on the memory of one absent most,
For whom these lines when they shall greet her eye.
What The Bee Is To The Floweret.
by Thomas Moore

HE.
What the bee is to the floweret,
When he looks for honey-dew,
Thro' the leaves that close embower it,
That, my love, I'll be to you.
SHE.
What the bank, with verdure glowing,
Is to waves that wander near,
Whispering kisses, while they're going,
That I'll be to you, my dear.
SHE.
But they say, the bee's a rover,
Who will fly, when sweets are gone;
And, when once the kiss is over,
Faithless brooks will wander on.
HE.
Nay, if flowers will lose their looks,
If sunny banks will wear away,
Tis but right that bees and brooks
Should sip and kiss them while they may.
Song Of Jealousy, In Love Triumphant.
by John Dryden

What state of life can be so blest
As love, that warms a lover's breast?
Two souls in one, the same desire
To grant the bliss, and to require!
But if in heaven a hell we find,
'Tis all from thee,
O Jealousy!
'Tis all from thee,
O Jealousy!
Thou tyrant, tyrant Jealousy,
Thou tyrant of the mind!
All other ills, though sharp they prove,
Serve to refine, and perfect love:
In absence, or unkind disdain,
Sweet hope relieves the lover's pain.
But, ah! no cure but death we find,
To set us free
From Jealousy:
O Jealousy!
Thou tyrant, tyrant Jealousy,
Thou tyrant of the mind!
False in thy glass all objects are,
Some set too near, and some too far;
Thou art the fire of endless night,
The fire that burns, and gives no light.
All torments of the damn'd we find
In only thee,
O Jealousy!
Thou tyrant, tyrant Jealousy,
Thou tyrant of the mind!
To Massachusetts
by John Greenleaf Whittier

What though around thee blazes
No fiery rallying sign?
From all thy own high places,
Give heaven the light of thine!
What though unthrilled, unmoving,
The statesman stand apart,
And comes no warm approving
From Mammon's crowded mart?
Still, let the land be shaken
By a summons of thine own!
By all save truth forsaken,
Stand fast with that alone!
Shrink not from strife unequal!
With the best is always hope;
And ever in the sequel
God holds the right side up!
But when, with thine uniting,
Come voices long and loud,
And far-off hills are writing
Thy fire-words on the cloud;
When from Penobscot's fountains
A deep response is heard,
And across the Western mountains
Rolls back thy rallying word;
Shall thy line of battle falter,
With its allies just in view?
Oh, by hearth and holy altar,
My fatherland, be true!
Fling abroad thy scrolls of freedom!
Speed them onward far and fast!
Over hill and valley speed them,
Like the sibyl's on the blast!
Lo! The Empire State is shaking
The shackles from her hand;
With the rugged North is waking
The level sunset land!
On they come, the free battalions!
East and West and North they come,
And the heart-beat of the millions
Is the beat of Freedom's drum.
"To the tyrant's plot no favor!
No heed to place-fed knaves!
Bar and bolt the door forever
Against the land of slaves!"
Hear it, mother Earth, and hear it,
The heavens above us spread!
The land is roused, its spirit
Was sleeping, but not dead
The Bee.
by Sidney Lanier

What time I paced, at pleasant morn,
A deep and dewy wood,
I heard a mellow hunting-horn
Make dim report of Dian's lustihood
Far down a heavenly hollow.
Mine ear, though fain, had pain to follow:
`Tara!' it twanged, `tara-tara!' it blew,
Yet wavered oft, and flew
Most ficklewise about, or here, or there,
A music now from earth and now from air.
But on a sudden, lo!
I marked a blossom shiver to and fro
With dainty inward storm; and there within
A down-drawn trump of yellow jessamine
A bee
Thrust up its sad-gold body lustily,
All in a honey madness hotly bound
On blissful burglary.
A cunning sound
In that wing-music held me: down I lay
In amber shades of many a golden spray,
Where looping low with languid arms the Vine
In wreaths of ravishment did overtwine
Her kneeling Live-Oak, thousand-fold to plight
Herself unto her own true stalwart knight.
As some dim blur of distant music nears
The long-desiring sense, and slowly clears
To forms of time and apprehensive tune,
So, as I lay, full soon
Interpretation throve: the bee's fanfare,
Through sequent films of discourse vague as air,
Passed to plain words, while, fanning faint perfume,
The bee o'erhung a rich, unrifled bloom:
"O Earth, fair lordly Blossom, soft a-shine
Upon the star-pranked universal vine,
Hast nought for me?
To thee
Come I, a poet, hereward haply blown,
From out another worldflower lately flown.
Wilt ask, `What profit e'er a poet brings?'
He beareth starry stuff about his wings
To pollen thee and sting thee fertile: nay,
If still thou narrow thy contracted way,
- Worldflower, if thou refuse me -
- Worldflower, if thou abuse me,
And hoist thy stamen's spear-point high
To wound my wing and mar mine eye -
Nathless I'll drive me to thy deepest sweet,
Yea, richlier shall that pain the pollen beat
From me to thee, for oft these pollens be
Fine dust from wars that poets wage for thee.
But, O beloved Earthbloom soft a-shine
Upon the universal Jessamine,
Prithee, abuse me not,
Prithee, refuse me not,
Yield, yield the heartsome honey love to me
Hid in thy nectary!"
And as I sank into a dimmer dream
The pleading bee's song-burthen sole did seem:
"Hast ne'er a honey-drop of love for me
In thy huge nectary?"
Tampa, Florida, 1877.
The Winners
by Rudyard Kipling

What the moral? Who rides may read.
When the night is thick and the tracks are blind
A friend at a pinch is a friend, indeed,
But a fool to wait for the laggard behind.
Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne,
He travels the fastest who travels alone.
White hands cling to the tightened rein,
Slipping the spur from the booted heel,
Tenderest voices cry "Turn again!"
Red lips tarnish the scabbarded steel,
High hopes faint on a warm hearth-stone,
He travels the fastest who travels alone.
One may fall but he falls by himself,
Falls by himself with himself to blame.
One may attain and to him is pelf,
Loot of the city in Gold or Fame.
Plunder of earth shall be all his own
Who travels the fastest and travels alone.
Wherefore the more ye be helpen and stayed,
Stayed by a friend in the hour of toil,
Sing the heretical song I have made,
His be the labour and yours be the spoil.
Win by his aid and the aid disown,
He travels the fastest who travels alone!
Sonnet III: Written On The Day That Mr Leigh Hunt Left Prison
by John Keats

What though, for showing truth to flatter'd state,
Kind Hunt was shut in prison, yet has he,
In his immortal spirit, been as free
As the sky-searching lark, and as elate.
Minion of grandeur! think you he did wait?
Think you he nought but prison-walls did see,
Till, so unwilling, thou unturn'dst the key?
Ah, no! far happier, nobler was his fate!
In Spenser's halls he stray'd, and bowers fair,
Culling enchanted flowers; and he flew
With daring Milton through the fields of air:
To regions of his own his genius true
Took happy flights. Who shall his fame impair
When thou art dead, and all thy wretched crew?
The Impeachment Of Night.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Perch' Febo non torce.
What time bright Phoebus doth not stretch and bend
His shining arms around this terrene sphere,
The people call that season dark and drear
Night, for the cause they do not comprehend.
So weak is Night that if our hand extend
A glimmering torch, her shadows disappear,
Leaving her dead; like frailest gossamere,
Tinder and steel her mantle rive and rend.
Nay, if this Night be anything at all,
Sure she is daughter of the sun and earth;
This holds, the other spreads that shadowy pall.
Howbeit they err who praise this gloomy birth,
So frail and desolate and void of mirth
That one poor firefly can her might appal.
The Peculiar Ideal.
by Friedrich Schiller

What thou thinkest, belongs to all; what thou feelest, is thine only.
Wouldst thou make him thine own, feel thou the God whom thou thinkest!
The Narrow Way.
by William Cowper

What thousands never knew the road!
What thousands hate it when 'tis known!
None but the chosen tribes of God
Will seek or choose it for their own.
A thousand ways in ruin end,
One, only, leads to joys on high;
By that my willing steps ascend,
Pleased with a journey to the sky.
No more I ask, or hope to find,
Delight or happiness below;
Sorrow may well possess the mind
That feeds where thorns and thistles grow.
The joy that fades is not for me,
I seek immortal joys above;
There glory without end shall be
The bright reward of faith and love.
Cleave to the world, ye sordid worms,
Contented lick your native dust,
But God shall fight with all his storms
Against the idol of your trust.