DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Shakspeare
by William Lisle Bowles

O sovereign Master! who with lonely state
Dost rule as in some isle's enchanted land,
On whom soft airs and shadowy spirits wait,
Whilst scenes of "faerie" bloom at thy command,
On thy wild shores forgetful could I lie,
And list, till earth dissolved to thy sweet minstrelsy!
Called by thy magic from the hoary deep,
A'rial forms should in bright troops ascend,
And then a wondrous masque before me sweep;
Whilst sounds, that the earth owned not, seem to blend
Their stealing melodies, that when the strain
Ceased, I should weep, and would so dream again!
The song hath ceased. Ah! who, pale shade, art thou,
Sad raving to the rude tempestuous night!
Sure thou hast had much wrong, so stern thy brow,
So piteous thou dost tear thy tresses white;
So wildly thou dost cry, Blow, bitter wind!
Ye elements, I call not you unkind![1]
Beneath the shade of nodding branches gray,
'Mid rude romantic woods, and glens forlorn,
The merry hunters wear the hours away;
Rings the deep forest to the joyous horn!
Joyous to all, but him,[2] who with sad look
Hangs idly musing by the brawling brook.
But mark the merry elves of fairy land![3]
To the high moon's gleamy glance,
They with shadowy morrice dance;
Soft music dies along the desert sand;
Soon at peep of cold-eyed day,
Soon the numerous lights decay;
Merrily, now merrily,
After the dewy moon they fly.
The charm is wrought: I see an aged form,
In white robes, on the winding sea-shore stand;
O'er the careering surge he waves his wand:
Hark! on the bleak rock bursts the swelling storm:
Now from bright opening clouds I hear a lay,
Come to these yellow sands, fair stranger,[4] come away!
Saw ye pass by the weird sisters pale![5]
Marked ye the lowering castle on the heath!
Hark, hark, is the deed done--the deed of death!
The deed is done:--Hail, king of Scotland, hail!
I see no more;--to many a fearful sound
The bloody cauldron sinks, and all is dark around.
Pity! touch the trembling strings,
A maid, a beauteous maniac, wildly sings:
They laid him in the ground so cold,[6]
Upon his breast the earth is thrown;
High is heaped the grassy mould,
Oh! he is dead and gone.
The winds of the winter blow o'er his cold breast,
But pleasant shall be his rest.
O sovereign Master! at whose sole command
We start with terror, or with pity weep;
Oh! where is now thy all-creating wand;
Buried ten thousand thousand fathoms deep!
The staff is broke, the powerful spell is fled,
And never earthly guest shall in thy circle tread.
In Memoriam 3: O Sorrow, Cruel Fellowship
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

O Sorrow, cruel fellowship,
O Priestess in the vaults of Death,
O sweet and bitter in a breath,
What whispers from thy lying lip?
"The stars," she whispers, "blindly run;
A web is wov'n across the sky;
From out waste places comes a cry,
And murmurs from the dying sun:
"And all the phantom, Nature, stands--
With all the music in her tone,
A hollow echo of my own,--
A hollow form with empty hands."
And shall I take a thing so blind,
Embrace her as my natural good;
Or crush her, like a vice of blood,
Upon the threshold of the mind?
O Silly Love! O Cunning Love!
by John Clare

O silly love! O cunning love!
An old maid to trepan:
I cannot go about my work
For loving of a man.
I cannot bake, I cannot brew,
And, do the best I can,
I burn the bread and chill the mash,
Through loving of a man.
Shrove Tuesday last I tried, and tried,
To turn the cakes in pan,
And dropt the batter on the floor,
Through thinking of a man.
My mistress screamed, my master swore,
Boys cursed me in a troop;
The cat was all the friends I had,
Who helped to clean it up.
Last Christmas eve, from off the spit
I took the goose to table,
Or should have done, but teasing Love
Did make me quite unable;
And down slipt dish, and goose, and all
With din and clitter-clatter;
All but the dog fell foul on me;
He licked the broken platter.
Although I'm ten years past a score,
Too old to play the fool,
My mistress says I must give o'er
My service for a school.
Good faith! What must I do, and do,
To keep my service still;
I'll give the winds my thoughts to love,
Indeed and so I will.
And if the wind my love should lose,
Right foolish were the play,
For I should mourn what I had lost,
And love another day.
With crosses and with losses
Right double were the ill,
So I'll e'en bear with love and all,
Alack, and so I will.
Memories
by William Henry Drummond

O spirit of the mountain that speaks to us to-night,
Your voice is sad, yet still recalls past visions of delight,
When 'mid the grand old Laurentides, old when the earth was new,
With flying feet we followed the moose and caribou.
And backward rush sweet memories, like fragments of a dream,
We hear the dip of paddle blades, the ripple of the stream,
The mad, mad rush of frightened wings from brake and covert start,
The breathing of the woodland, the throb of nature's heart.
Once more beneath our eager feet the forest carpet springs,
We march through gloomy valleys, where the vesper sparrow sings.
The little minstrel heeds us not, nor stays his plaintive song,
As with our brave coureurs de bois we swiftly pass along.
Again o'er dark Wayagamack, in bark canoe we glide,
And watch the shades of evening glance along the mountain side.
Anon we hear resounding the wizard loon's wild cry,
And mark the distant peak whereon the ling'ring echoes die.
But Spirit of the Northland! let the winter breezes blow,
And cover every giant crag with rifts of driving snow.
Freeze every leaping torrent, bind all the crystal lakes,
Tell us of fiercer pleasures when the Storm King awakes.
And now the vision changes, the winds are loud and shrill,
The falling flakes are shrouding the mountain and the hill,
But safe within our snug cabane with comrades gathered near,
We set the rafters ringing with "Roulant" and "Brigadier."
Then after Pierre and Telesphore have danced "Le Caribou,"
Some hardy trapper tells a tale of the dreaded Loup Garou,
Or phantom bark in moonlit heavens, with prow turned to the East,
Bringing the Western voyageurs to join the Christmas feast.
And while each backwoods troubadour is greeted with huzza
Slowly the homely incense of "tabac Canayen"
Rises and sheds its perfume like flowers of Araby,
O'er all the true-born loyal Enfants de la Patrie.
And thus with song and story, with laugh and jest and shout,
We heed not dropping mercury nor storms that rage without,
But pile the huge logs higher till the chimney roars with glee,
And banish spectral visions with La Chanson Normandie.
"Brigadier! r'pondit Pandore
Brigadier! vous avez raison,
Brigadier! r'pondit Pandore,
Brigadier! vous avez raison!"
O spirit of the mountain! that speaks to us to-night,
Return again and bring us new dreams of past delight,
And while our heart-throbs linger, and till our pulses cease,
We'll worship thee among the hills where flows the Saint-Maurice.
Confused Dreams.
by Emma Lazarus

O strange, dim other-world revealed to us,
Beginning there where ends reality,
Lying 'twixt life and death, and populous
With souls from either sphere! now enter we
Thy twisted paths.    Barred is the silver gate,
But the wild-carven doors of ivory
Spring noiselessly apart: between them straight
Flies forth a cloud of nameless shadowy things,
With harpies, imps, and monsters, small and great,
Blurring the thick air with darkening wings.
All humors of the blood and brain take shape,
And fright us with our own imaginings.
A trouble weighs upon us: no escape
From this unnatural region can there be.
Fixed eyes stare on us, wide mouths grin and gape,
Familiar faces out of reach we see.
Fain would we scream, to shatter with a cry
The tangled woof of hideous fantasy,
When, lo! the air grows clear, a soft fair sky
Shines over head: sharp pain dissolves in peace;
Beneath the silver archway quietly
We float away: all troublous visions cease.
By a strange sense of joy we are possessed,
Body and spirit soothed in perfect rest.
Nature.
by John Clare

O simple Nature, how I do delight
To pause upon thy trifles--foolish things,
As some would call them.--On the summer night,
Tracing the lane-path where the dog-rose hings
With dew-drops seeth'd, while chick'ring cricket sings;
My eye can't help but glance upon its leaves,
Where love's warm beauty steals her sweetest blush,
When, soft the while, the Even silent heaves
Her pausing breath just trembling thro' the bush,
And then again dies calm, and all is hush.
O how I feel, just as I pluck the flower
And stick it to my breast--words can't reveal;
But there are souls that in this lovely hour
Know all I mean, and feel whate'er I feel.
A Counsel
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

O strong Republic of the nobler years
Whose white feet shine beside time's fairer flood
That shall flow on the clearer for our blood
Now shed, and the less brackish for our tears;
When time and truth have put out hopes and fears
With certitude, and love has burst the bud,
If these whose powers then down the wind shall scud
Still live to feel thee smite their eyes and ears,
When thy foot's tread hath crushed their crowns and creeds,
Care thou not then to crush the beast that bleeds,
The snake whose belly cleaveth to the sod,
Nor set thine heel on men as on their deeds;
But let the worm Napoleon crawl untrod,
Nor grant Mastai the gallows of his God.
The Lady Of The May.
by Eric Mackay

I.
O stars that fade in amber skies
Because ye dread the light of day,
O moon so lonely and so wise,
Look down, and love my Love alw'y;
Salute the Lady of the May.
II.
O lark that soarest in the light
To hail thy lord in his array,
Look down; be just; and sing aright.
A lover claims thy song to-day
To greet his Lady of the May.
III.
"O lady! lady!" sings the lark,
"Thy lover's hest I do obey;
For thou art splendid after dark,
And where thou smilest, there is day;
And thou'rt the Lady of the May.
IV.
"The nightingale's a friend of mine,
And yesternight she flew my way.
'Awake,' she cried, 'at morning shine
And sing for me thy blythest lay
To greet the Lady of the May.'
V.
"'And tell her, tell her, gentle one,
While thou attun'st thy morning lay,
That I will sing at set of sun
Another song for thy sweet fay,
Because she's Lady of the May.'
VI.
"And lo I come," the lark in air,
Self-pois'd and free, did seem to say,
"I come to greet thy lady's hair
And call its beams the light of day
Which decks thy Lady of the May."
VII.
Oh, thank thee, bird that singest well!
For all thou say'st and still would'st say
And for the thoughts which Philomel
Intends to trill, in roundelay,
To greet my Lady of the May.
VIII.
We two (my Love and I) are one,
And so shall be, for aye and aye.
Go, take my homage to the sun,
And bid him shine his best to-day,
To crown my Lady of the May!
Eyes
by Walter De La Mare

O strange devices that alone divide
The se'r from the seen - 
The very highway of earth's pomp and pride
That lies between
The traveller and the cheating, sweet delight
Of where he longs to be,
But which, bound hand and foot, he, close on night,
Can only see.
In Early Spring
by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

O Spring, I know thee!    Seek for sweet surprise
In the young children's eyes.
But I have learnt the years, and know the yet
Leaf-folded violet.
Mine ear, awake to silence, can foretell
The cuckoo's fitful bell.
I wander in a grey time that encloses
June and the wild hedge-roses.
A year's procession of the flowers doth pass
My feet, along the grass.
And all you sweet birds silent yet, I know
The notes that stir you so,
Your songs yet half devised in the dim dear
Beginnings of the year.
In these young days you meditate your part;
I have it all by heart.
I know the secrets of the seeds of flowers
Hidden and warm with showers,
And how, in kindling Spring, the cuckoo shall
Alter his interval.
But not a flower or song I ponder is
My own, but memory's.
I shall be silent in those days desired
Before a world inspired.
O dear brown birds, compose your old song-phrases
Earth, thy familiar daisies.
The poet mused upon the dusky height,
Between two stars towards night,
His purpose in his heart.    I watched, a space,
The meaning of his face:
There was the secret, fled from earth and skies,
Hid in his grey young eyes.
My heart and all the Summer wait his choice,
And wonder for his voice.
Who shall foretell his songs, and who aspire
But to divine his lyre?
Sweet earth, we know thy dimmest mysteries,
But he is lord of his.
One Of The Signers
by John Greenleaf Whittier

O storied vale of Merrimac
Rejoice through all thy shade and shine,
And from his century's sleep call back
A brave and honored son of thine.
Unveil his effigy between
The living and the dead to-day;
The fathers of the Old Thirteen
Shall witness bear as spirits may.
Unseen, unheard, his gray compeers
The shades of Lee and Jefferson,
Wise Franklin reverend with his years
And Carroll, lord of Carrollton!
Be thine henceforth a pride of place
Beyond thy namesake's over-sea,
Where scarce a stone is left to trace
The Holy House of Amesbury.
A prouder memory lingers round
The birthplace of thy true man here
Than that which haunts the refuge found
By Arthur's mythic Guinevere.
The plain deal table where he sat
And signed a nation's title-deed
Is dearer now to fame than that
Which bore the scroll of Runnymede.
Long as, on Freedom's natal morn,
Shall ring the Independence bells,
Give to thy dwellers yet unborn
The lesson which his image tells.
For in that hour of Destiny,
Which tried the men of bravest stock,
He knew the end alone must be
A free land or a traitor's block.
Among those picked and chosen men
Than his, who here first drew his breath,
No firmer fingers held the pen
Which wrote for liberty or death.
Not for their hearths and homes alone,
But for the world their work was done;
On all the winds their thought has flown
Through all the circuit of the sun.
We trace its flight by broken chains,
By songs of grateful Labor still;
To-day, in all her holy fanes,
It rings the bells of freed Brazil.
O hills that watched his boyhood's home,
O earth and air that nursed him, give,
In this memorial semblance, room
To him who shall its bronze outlive!
And thou, O Land he loved, rejoice
That in the countless years to come,
Whenever Freedom needs a voice,
These sculptured lips shall not be dumb
O Steer Her Up.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "O steer her up, and haud her gaun."
I.
O steer her up and haud her gaun - 
Her mother's at the mill, jo;
And gin she winna take a man,
E'en let her take her will, jo:
First shore her wi' a kindly kiss,
And ca' another gill, jo,
And gin she take the thing amiss,
E'en let her flyte her fill, jo.
II.
O steer her up, and be na blate,
An' gin she take it ill, jo,
Then lea'e the lassie till her fate,
And time nae longer spill, jo:
Ne'er break your heart for ae rebute,
But think upon it still, jo,
That gin the lassie winna do't,
Ye'll fin' anither will, jo.
The Passage.
by Jean Blewett

O soul on God's high seas! the way is strange and long,
Yet fling your pennons out, and spread your canvas strong;
For though to mortal eyes so small a craft you seem,
The highest star in heaven cloth lend you guiding gleam.
O soul on God's high seas! look to your course with care,
Fear most when winds are kind and skies are blue and fair.
Your helm must sway at touch of no hand save your own - 
The soul that sails on God's high seas must sail alone.
O soul on God's high seas! sail on with steady aim,
Unmoved by winds of praise, untouched by seas of blame.
Beyond the lonely ways, beyond the guiding star,
There stretches out the strand and golden harbor bar.
Suburbs On A Hazy Day
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

O Stiffly shapen houses that change not,
What conjuror's cloth was thrown across you, and raised
To show you thus transfigured, changed,
Your stuff all gone, your menace almost rased?
Such resolute shapes, so harshly set
In hollow blocks and cubes deformed, and heaped
In void and null profusion, how is this?
In what strong aqua regia now are you steeped?
That you lose the brick-stuff out of you
And hover like a presentment, fading faint
And vanquished, evaporate away
To leave but only the merest possible taint!
Sonnet To Sleep
by John Keats

O soft embalmer of the still midnight!
Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,
Our gloom-pleas'd eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,
In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes.
Or wait the Amen, ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities;
Then save me, or the passed day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;
Save me from curious conscience, that still hoards
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,
And seal the hushed casket of my soul.
Lost Reality.
by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

O soul of life, 't is thee we long to hear,
Thine eyes we seek for, and thy touch we dream;
Lost from our days, thou art a spirit near, - 
Life needs thine eloquence, and ways supreme.
More real than we who but a semblance wear,
We see thee not, because thou wilt not seem!
The Splendid Ship
by Charles Baudelaire

O soft enchantress, let me tell the truth
Of all the beauties decking out your youth!
I'll paint the charms for you to see
Of childhood married with maturity.
When you step out, your broad skirt sweeps the breeze
As if you were a ship on easy seas
Under full sail, that rolls along
In rhythm with a slow and languid song.
On your plump shoulders and your rounded neck
Your head parades itself with rare effect;
In a composed, triumphant style
You go your stately way, majestic child.
O soft enchantress, let me tell the truth
Of all the beauties decking out your youth!
I'll paint the charms for you to see
Of childhood married with maturity.
Your jutting bosom stretching out the moire,
Triumphant bosom, is a fine armoire
Whose bright and swelling panels might
Like shields reflect the flashing of the light;
Enticing shields, equipped with rosy tips!
Armoire of treasures, full of secret gifts,
Of perfumes, of liqueurs, of wines
Making delirious men's hearts and minds!
When you step out your broad skirt sweeps the breeze
As if you were a ship on easy seas
Under full sail, that rolls along
In rhythm with a slow and languid song.
Your noble legs, the flounces they inspire,
Torment and agitate obscure desires.
They're like two witches who stir up
A black concoction in a lavish cup.
Your arms, that rival infant Hercules',
Are like two glimmering boas, which with ease
Can crush their prey against your chest,
As if you'd print your lover on your breast.
On your plump shoulders and your rounded neck
Your head parades itself with rare effect;
In a composed, triumphant style
You go your stately way, majestic child.
Man, The Destroyer
by Richard Le Gallienne

O spirit of Life, by whatsoe'er a name
Known among men, even as our fathers bent
Before thee, and as little children came
For counsel in Life's dread predicament,
Even we, with all our lore,
That only beckons, saddens and betrays,
Have no such key to the mysterious door
As he that kneels and prays.
The stern ascension of our climbing thought,
The martyred pilgrims of the soaring soul,
Bring us no nearer to the thing we sought,
But only tempt us further from the goal;
Yea! the eternal plan
Darkens with knowledge, and our weary skill
But makes us more of beast and less of man,
Fevered to hate and kill.
Loves flees with frightened eyes the world it knew,
Fades and dissolves and vanishes away,
And the sole art the sons of men pursue
Is to out-speed the slayer and to slay:
And lovely secrets won
From radiant nature and her magic laws
Serve but to stretch black deserts in the sun,
And glut destruction's jaws.
Life! is it sweet no more? the same blue sky
Arches the woods; the green earth, filled with trees,
Glories with song, happy it knows not why,
Painted with flowers, and warm with murmurous bees;
This earth, this golden home,
Where men, like unto gods, were wont to dwell,
Was all this builded, with the stars for dome,
For man to make it hell?
Was it for this life blossomed with fair arts,
That for some paltry leagues of stolen land,
Or some poor squabble of contending marts,
Murder shall smudge out with its reeking hand
Man's faith and fanes alike;
And man be man no more - but a brute brain,
A primal horror mailed and fanged to strike,
And bring the Dark again?
Fool of the Ages! fitfully wise in vain;
Surely the heavens shall laugh! - the long long climb
Up to the stars, to dash him down again!
And all the travail of slow-moving Time
And birth of radiant wings,
A dream of pain, an agony for naught!
Highest and lowest of created things,
Man, the proud fool of thought.
Sol Canadien, Terre Cherie.
by W. M. MacKeracher

(From the French of Isidore Bedard.)
O soil Canadian, cherished earth,
The brave, the noble, peopled thee;
They left the country of their birth,
And sought a land of liberty.
It was from glorious France they came:
They were the pick of warriors, they;
The shining lustre of their fame
Is kept untarnished till to-day.
How beautiful thy fields appear!
How much thou hast to give content!
All hail, ye mountains that uprear
Your lordly heights magnificent!
All hail, St. Lawrence' noble tide!
Hail, land by Nature richly deckt!
Thy children's hearts should throb with pride,
Thy sons should walk with head erect.
Still honor the protecting hand
Of Albion, friend of the opprest;
And harbor no malicious band
Of traitors nourished in thy breast.
Yield never in the storm, be brave;
Thine only masters are thy laws;
Thou wast not made to be a slave;
Fear not, thy rights are Britain's cause.
If that belov'd, protecting hand
Should ever fail thee, undismay'd
Stand by thyself, alone, my land,
Rejecting, scorning foreign aid.
From glorious France thy founders came;
They were the pick of warriors, they:
The shining lustre of their fame
Unsullied shall be kept for aye.
To The Ship Of State
by Eugene Field

O ship of state
Shall new winds bear you back upon the sea?
What are you doing? Seek the harbor's lee
Ere 't is too late!
Do you bemoan
Your side was stripped of oarage in the blast?
Swift Africus has weakened, too, your mast;
The sailyards groan.
Of cables bare,
Your keel can scarce endure the lordly wave.
Your sails are rent; you have no gods to save,
Or answer pray'r.
Though Pontic pine,
The noble daughter of a far-famed wood,
You boast your lineage and title good,--
A useless line!
The sailor there
In painted sterns no reassurance finds;
Unless you owe derision to the winds,
Beware--beware!
My grief erewhile,
But now my care--my longing! shun the seas
That flow between the gleaming Cyclades,
Each shining isle.
Sonnet VII: To Solitude
by John Keats

O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell,
Let it not be among the jumbled heap
Of murky buildings: climb with me the steep,
Nature's observatory, whence the dell,
In flowery slopes, its river's crystal swell,
May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep
'Mongst boughs pavilioned, where the deer's swift leap
Startles the wild bee from the foxglove bell.
But though I'll gladly trace these scenes with thee,
Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind,
Whose words are images of thoughts refined,
Is my soul's pleasure; and it sure must be
Almost the highest bliss of human-kind,
When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee.