DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
St. Martin's Summer
by John Greenleaf Whittier

Though flowers have perished at the touch
Of Frost, the early comer,
I hail the season loved so much,
The good St. Martin's summer.
O gracious morn, with rose-red dawn,
And thin moon curving o'er it!
The old year's darling, latest born,
More loved than all before it!
How flamed the sunrise through the pines!
How stretched the birchen shadows,
Braiding in long, wind-wavered lines
The westward sloping meadows!
The sweet day, opening as a flower
Unfolds its petals tender,
Renews for us at noontide's hour
The summer's tempered splendor.
The birds are hushed; alone the wind,
That through the woodland searches,
The red-oak's lingering leaves can find,
And yellow plumes of larches.
But still the balsam-breathing pine
Invites no thought of sorrow,
No hint of loss from air like wine
The earth's content can borrow.
The summer and the winter here
Midway a truce are holding,
A soft, consenting atmosphere
Their tents of peace enfolding.
The silent woods, the lonely hills,
Rise solemn in their gladness;
The quiet that the valley fills
Is scarcely joy or sadness.
How strange! The autumn yesterday
In winter's grasp seemed dying;
On whirling winds from skies of gray
The early snow was flying.
And now, while over Nature's mood
There steals a soft relenting,
I will not mar the present good,
Forecasting or lamenting.
My autumn time and Nature's hold
A dreamy tryst together,
And, both grown old, about us fold
The golden-tissued weather.
I lean my heart against the day
To feel its bland caressing;
I will not let it pass away
Before it leaves its blessing.
God's angels come not as of old
The Syrian shepherds knew them;
In reddening dawns, in sunset gold,
And warm noon lights I view them.
Nor need there is, in times like this
When heaven to earth draws nearer,
Of wing or song as witnesses
To make their presence clearer.
O stream of life, whose swifter flow
Is of the end forewarning,
Methinks thy sundown afterglow
Seems less of night than morning!
Old cares grow light; aside I lay
The doubts and fears that troubled;
The quiet of the happy day
Within my soul is doubled.
That clouds must veil this fair sunshine
Not less a joy I find it;
Nor less yon warm horizon line
That winter lurks behind it.
The mystery of the untried days
I close my eyes from reading;
His will be done whose darkest ways
To light and life are leading!
Less drear the winter night shall be,
If memory cheer and hearten
Its heavy hours with thoughts of thee,
Sweet summer of St. Martin!
Clothes Are Conspirators.
by Robert Herrick

Though from without no foes at all we fear,
We shall be wounded by the clothes we wear.
Crosses.
by Robert Herrick

Though good things answer many good intents,
Crosses do still bring forth the best events.
Victory
by Madison Julius Cawein

Though dead the flower,
That, from her tower,
Love flung you in some perfect hour:
Though quenched the light,
That, on the height,
Faith built, a beacon in the fight:
Though gone the star,
That, seen afar,
Hope lit to guide you through the war:
Yet draw your sword,
And shout your word,
And plunge into the battling horde!
Give Fate the lie!
And, live or die,
Yours, yours shall be the victory!
To Julia.
by Thomas Moore

Though Fate, my girl, may bid us part,
Our souls it cannot, shall not sever;
The heart will seek its kindred heart,
And cling to it as close as ever.
But must we, must we part indeed?
Is all our dream of rapture over?
And does not Julia's bosom bleed
To leave so dear, so fond a lover?
Does she, too, mourn?--Perhaps she may;
Perhaps she mourns our bliss so fleeting;
But why is Julia's eye so gay,
If Julia's heart like mine is beating?
I oft have loved that sunny glow
Of gladness in her blue eye beaming--
But can the bosom bleed with woe
While joy is in the glances beaming?
No, no!--Yet, love, I will not chide;
Although your heart were fond of roving,
Nor that, nor all the world beside
Could keep your faithful boy from loving.
You'll soon be distant from his eye,
And, with you, all that's worth possessing.
Oh! then it will be sweet to die,
When life has lost its only blessing!
Imitations Of English Poets. Earl Of Dorset: Artemisia.
by Alexander Pope

1 Though Artemisia talks, by fits,
Of councils, classics, fathers, wits;
Reads Malebranche, Boyle, and Locke:
Yet in some things methinks she fails--
'Twere well if she would pare her nails,
And wear a cleaner smock.
2 Haughty and huge as High-Dutch bride,
Such nastiness, and so much pride
Are oddly join'd by fate:
On her large squab you find her spread,
Like a fat corpse upon a bed,
That lies and stinks in state.
3 She wears no colours (sign of grace)
On any part except her face;
All white and black beside:
Dauntless her look, her gesture proud,
Her voice theatrically loud,
And masculine her stride.
4 So have I seen, in black and white
A prating thing, a magpie height,
Majestically stalk;
A stately, worthless animal,
That plies the tongue, and wags the tail,
All flutter, pride, and talk.
PHRYNE.
1 Phryne had talents for mankind,
Open she was, and unconfined,
Like some free port of trade:
Merchants unloaded here their freight,
And agents from each foreign state
Here first their entry made.
2 Her learning and good breeding such,
Whether the Italian or the Dutch,
Spaniards or French came to her:
To all obliging she'd appear,
'Twas 'Si, Signor,' 'twas 'Yaw, Mynheer,'
'Twas 'S' il vous plait, Monsieur.'
3 Obscure by birth, renown'd by crimes,
Still changing names, religions, climes,
At length she turns a bride:
In diamonds, pearls, and rich brocades,
She shines the first of batter'd jades,
And flutters in her pride.
4 So have I known those insects fair,
(Which curious Germans hold so rare)
Still vary shapes and dyes;
Still gain new titles with new forms;
First grubs obscene, then wriggling worms,
Then painted butterflies.
My Jean!
by Robert Burns

Tune - "The Northern Lass."
Though cruel fate should bid us part,
Far as the pole and line,
Her dear idea round my heart,
Should tenderly entwine.
Though mountains rise, and deserts howl,
And oceans roar between;
Yet, dearer than my deathless soul,
I still would love my Jean
Security
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Though her eye seek other forms
And a glad delight below,
Yet the love the world that warms
Bids for me her bosom glow.
She must love me till she find
Another heart as large and true.
Her soul is frank as the ocean wind,
And the world has only two.
If Nature hold another heart
That knows a purer flame than me,
I too therein could challenge part
And learn of love a new degree.
A Mean In Our Means
by Robert Herrick

Though frankincense the deities require,
We must not give all to the hallow'd fire.
Such be our gifts, and such be our expense,
As for ourselves to leave some frankincense.
The Blind Grandfather. (From The Villager's Verse-Book.)
by William Lisle Bowles

Though grandfather has long been blind,
And his few locks are gray,
He loves to hear the summer wind
Round his pale temples play.
We'll lead him to some quiet place,
Some unfrequented nook,
Where winds breathe soft, and wild-flowers grace
The borders of the brook.
There he shall sit, as in a dream,
Though nought can he behold,
Till the brook's murmuring flow shall seem
The voice of friends of old.
Think no more of them, aged man,
For here thou hast no friend;
Think, since this life is but a span,
Of joys that have no end.
Song.
by Thomas Runciman

Though here fair blooms the rose and the woodbine waves on high,
And oak and elm and bracken frond enrich the rolling lea,
And winds as if from Arcady breathe joy as they go by,
Yet I yearn and I pine for my North Countrie.
I leave the drowsing south and in dreams I northward fly,
And walk the stretching moors that fringe the ever-calling sea;
And am gladdened as the gales that are so bitter-sweet go by,
While grey clouds sweetly darken o'er my North Countrie.
For there's music in the storms, and there's colour in the shades,
And there's joy e'en in the sorrow widely brooding o'er the sea;
And larger thoughts have birth among the moors and lowly glades
And reedy mounds and sands of my North Countrie.
Brittle Bones.
by Robert von Ranke Graves

Though I am an old man
With my bones very brittle,
Though I am a poor old man
Worth very little,
Yet I suck at my long pipe
At peace in the sun,
I do not fret nor much regret
That my work is done.
If I were a young man
With my bones full of marrow,
Oh, if I were a bold young man
Straight as an arrow,
And if I had the same years
To live once again,
I would not change their simple range
Of laughter and pain.
If I were a young man
And young was my Lily,
A smart girl, a bold young man,
Both of us silly.
And though from time before I knew
She'd stab me with pain,
Though well I knew she'd not be true,
I'd love her again.
If I were a young man
With a brisk, healthy body,
Oh, if I were a bold young man
With love of rum toddy,
Though I knew that I was spiting
My old age with pain,
My happy lip would touch and sip
Again and again.
If I were a young man
With my bones full of marrow,
Oh, if I were a bold young man
Straight as an arrow,
I'd store up no virtue
For Heaven's distant plain,
I'd live at ease as I did please
And sin once again.
Epilogue.  Under the Blessing of Your Psyche Wings
by Vachel Lindsay

Though I have found you like a snow-drop pale,
On sunny days have found you weak and still,
Though I have often held your girlish head
Drooped on my shoulder, faint from little ill: - 
Under the blessing of your Psyche-wings
I hide to-night like one small broken bird,
So soothed I half-forget the world gone mad: - 
And all the winds of war are now unheard.
My heaven-doubting pennons feel your hands
With touch most delicate so circling round,
That for an hour I dream that God is good.
And in your shadow, Mercy's ways abound.
I thought myself the guard of your frail state,
And yet I come to-night a helpless guest,
Hiding beneath your giant Psyche-wings,
Against the pallor of your wondrous breast.
Prelude To "Preludes"
by John Drinkwater

Though black the night, I know upon the sky,
A little paler now, if clouds were none,
The stars would be. Husht now the thickets lie,
And now the birds are moving one by one,, 
A note, and now from bush to bush it goes, 
A prelude, now victorious light along
The west will come till every bramble glows
With wash of sunlit dew shaken in song.
Shaken in song;    O heart, be ready now,
Cold in your night, be ready now to sing.
Dawn as it wakes the sleeping bird on bough
Shall summon you to instant reckoning,, 
She is your dawn, O heart,, sing, till the night
Of death shall come, the gospel of her light.
The Nineteenth Century And After
by William Butler Yeats

Though the great song return no more
There's keen delight in what we have:
The rattle of pebbles on the shore
Under the receding wave.
The Hope of the Resurrection
by Vachel Lindsay

Though I have watched so many mourners weep
O'er the real dead, in dull earth laid asleep - 
Those dead seemed but the shadows of my days
That passed and left me in the sun's bright rays.
Now though you go on smiling in the sun
Our love is slain, and love and you were one.
You are the first, you I have known so long,
Whose death was deadly, a tremendous wrong.
Therefore I seek the faith that sets it right
Amid the lilies and the candle-light.
I think on Heaven, for in that air so clear
We two may meet, confused and parted here.
Ah, when man's dearest dies, 'tis then he goes
To that old balm that heals the centuries' woes.
Then Christ's wild cry in all the streets is rife: - 
"I am the Resurrection and the Life."
Stanzas To Augusta.[n][77]
by George Gordon Byron

I.
Though the day of my Destiny's over,
And the star of my Fate hath declined,[o]
Thy soft heart refused to discover
The faults which so many could find;
Though thy Soul with my grief was acquainted,
It shrunk not to share it with me,
And the Love which my Spirit hath painted[p]
It never hath found but in Thee.
II.
Then when Nature around me is smiling,[78]
The last smile which answers to mine,
I do not believe it beguiling,[q]
Because it reminds me of thine;
And when winds are at war with the ocean,
As the breasts I believed in with me,[r]
If their billows excite an emotion,
It is that they bear me from Thee.
III.
Though the rock of my last Hope is shivered,[s]
And its fragments are sunk in the wave,
Though I feel that my soul is delivered
To Pain - it shall not be its slave.
There is many a pang to pursue me:
They may crush, but they shall not contemn;
They may torture, but shall not subdue me;
'Tis of Thee that I think - not of them.[t]
IV.
Though human, thou didst not deceive me,
Though woman, thou didst not forsake,
Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me,
Though slandered, thou never couldst shake;[u][79]
Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me,
Though parted, it was not to fly,
Though watchful, 'twas not to defame me,
Nor, mute, that the world might belie.[v]
V.
Yet I blame not the World, nor despise it,
Nor the war of the many with one;
If my Soul was not fitted to prize it,
'Twas folly not sooner to shun:[80]
And if dearly that error hath cost me,
And more than I once could foresee,
I have found that, whatever it lost me,[w]
It could not deprive me of Thee.
VI.
From the wreck of the past, which hath perished,[x]
Thus much I at least may recall,
It hath taught me that what I most cherished
Deserved to be dearest of all:
In the Desert a fountain is springing,[y][81]
In the wide waste there still is a tree,
And a bird in the solitude singing,
Which speaks to my spirit of Thee.[82]
July 24, 1816.
[First published, Prisoner of Chillon, etc., 1816.]
The Silver Jubilee: To James First Bishop of Shrewsbury on the 25th Year of his Episcopate July 28. 1876
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

1
Though no high-hung bells or din
Of braggart bugles cry it in - 
What is sound? Nature's round
Makes the Silver Jubilee.
2
Five and twenty years have run
Since sacred fountains to the sun
Sprang, that but now were shut,
Showering Silver Jubilee.
3
Feasts, when we shall fall asleep,
Shrewsbury may see others keep;
None but you this her true,
This her Silver Jubilee.
4
Not today we need lament
Your wealth of life is some way spent:
Toil has shed round your head
Silver but for Jubilee.
5
Then for her whose velvet vales
Should have pealed with welcome, Wales,
Let the chime of a rhyme
Utter Silver Jubilee.
Self-Reliance.
by Thomas Osborne Davis

I.
Though savage force and subtle schemes,
And alien rule, through ages lasting,
Have swept your land like lava streams,
Its wealth and name and nature blasting;
Rot not, therefore, in dull despair,
Nor moan at destiny in far lands!
Face not your foe with bosom bare,
Nor hide your chains in pleasure's garlands.
The wise man arms to combat wrong,
The brave man clears a den of lions,
The true man spurns the Helot's song;
The freeman's friend is Self-Reliance!
II.
Though France that gave your exiles bread,
Your priests a home, your hopes a station,
Or that young land where first was spread
The starry flag of Liberation,--
Should heed your wrongs some future day,
And send you voice or sword to plead 'em,
With helpful love their help repay,
But trust not even to them for Freedom.
A Nation freed by foreign aid
Is but a corpse by wanton science
Convulsed like life, then flung to fade--
The life itself is Self-Reliance!
III.
Oh! see your quailing tyrant run
To courteous lies, and Roman agents,
His terror, lest Dungannon's sun
Should rise again with riper radiance.
Oh! hark the Freeman's welcome cheer,
And hark your brother sufferers sobbing
Oh! mark the universe grow clear,
Oh! mark your spirit's royal throbbing--
'Tis Freedom's God that sends such signs,
As pledges of his blest alliance;
He gives bright hopes to brave designs,
And lends his bolts to Self-Reliance!
IV.
Then, flung alone, or hand in hand,
In mirthful hour, or spirit solemn;
In lowly toil, or high command,
In social hall, or charging column:
In tempting wealth, and trying woe,
In struggling with a mob's dictation;
In bearing back a foreign foe,
In training up a troubled nation:
Still hold to Truth, abound in Love,
Refusing every base compliance--
Your Praise within, your Prize above,
And live and die in SELF-RELIANCE!
Bide A Wee!
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

Though the times be dark and dreary,
Though the way be long,
Keep your spirits bright and cheery,--
--"Bide a wee, and dinna weary!"
Is a heartsome song.
Tom O'Roughley
by William Butler Yeats

'Though logic choppers rule the town,
And every man and maid and boy
Has marked a distant object down,
An aimless joy is a pure joy,'
Or so did Tom O'Roughley say
That saw the surges running by,
'And wisdom is a butterfly
And not a gloomy bird of prey.
'If little planned is little sinned
But little need the grave distress.
What's dying but a second wind?
How but in zigzag wantonness
Could trumpeter Michael be so brave?'
Or something of that sort he said,
'And if my dearest friend were dead
I'd dance a measure on his grave.'
Elegiac Stanzas. Supposed To Be Written By Julia, On The Death Of Her Brother.
by Thomas Moore

Though sorrow long has worn my heart;
Though every day I've, counted o'er
Hath brought a new and, quickening smart
To wounds that rankled fresh before;
Though in my earliest life bereft
Of tender links by nature tied;
Though hope deceived, and pleasure left;
Though friends betrayed and foes belied;
I still had hopes--for hope will stay
After the sunset of delight;
So like the star which ushers day,
We scarce can think it heralds night!--
I hoped that, after all its strife,
My weary heart at length should rest.
And, feinting from the waves of life,
Find harbor in a brother's breast.
That brother's breast was warm with truth,
Was bright with honor's purest ray;
He was the dearest, gentlest youth--
Ah, why then was he torn away?
He should have stayed, have lingered here
To soothe his Julia's every woe;
He should have chased each bitter tear,
And not have caused those tears to flow.
We saw within his soul expand
The fruits of genius, nurst by taste;
While Science, with a fostering hand,
Upon his brow her chaplet placed.
We saw, by bright degrees, his mind
Grow rich in all that makes men dear;
Enlightened, social, and refined,
In friendship firm, in love sincere.
Such was the youth we loved so well,
And such the hopes that fate denied;--
We loved, but ah! could scarcely tell
How deep, how dearly, till he died!
Close as the fondest links could strain,
Twined with my very heart he grew;
And by that fate which breaks the chain,
The heart is almost broken too.
Lines Inscribed On The Wall Of A Dungeon In The Southern P Of I
by Anne Bronte

Though not a breath can enter here,
I know the wind blows fresh and free;
I know the sun is shining clear,
Though not a gleam can visit me.
They thought while I in darkness lay,
'Twere pity that I should not know
How all the earth is smiling gay;
How fresh the vernal breezes blow.
They knew, such tidings to impart
Would pierce my weary spirit through,
And could they better read my heart,
They'd tell me, she was smiling too.
They need not, for I know it well,
Methinks I see her even now;
No sigh disturbs her bosom's swell,
No shade o'ercasts her angel brow.
Unmarred by grief her angel voice,
Whence sparkling wit, and wisdom flow:
And others in its sound rejoice,
And taste the joys I must not know,
Drink rapture from her soft dark eye,
And sunshine from her heavenly smile;
On wings of bliss their moments fly,
And I am pining here the while!
Oh! tell me, does she never give
To my distress a single sigh?
She smiles on them, but does she grieve
One moment, when they are not by?
When she beholds the sunny skies,
And feels the wind of heaven blow;
Has she no tear for him that lies
In dungeon gloom, so far below?
While others gladly round her press
And at her side their hours beguile,
Has she no sigh for his distress
Who cannot see a single smile
Nor hear one word nor read a line
That her beloved hand might write,
Who banished from her face must pine
Each day a long and lonely night?
Alexander April 1826
Tezcotzinco
by Alan Seeger

Though thou art now a ruin bare and cold,
Thou wert sometime the garden of a king.
The birds have sought a lovelier place to sing.
The flowers are few. It was not so of old.
It was not thus when hand in hand there strolled
Through arbors perfumed with undying Spring
Bare bodies beautiful, brown, glistening,
Decked with green plumes and rings of yellow gold.
Do you suppose the herdsman sometimes hears
Vague echoes borne beneath the moon's pale ray
From those old, old, far-off, forgotten years?
Who knows? Here where his ancient kings held sway
He stands. Their names are strangers to his ears.
Even their memory has passed away.
Though I Thy Mithridates Were
by James Joyce

Though I thy Mithridates were,
Framed to defy the poison-dart,
Yet must thou fold me unaware
To know the rapture of thy heart,
And I but render and confess
The malice of thy tenderness.
For elegant and antique phrase,
Dearest, my lips wax all too wise;
Nor have I known a love whose praise
Our piping poets solemnize,
Neither a love where may not be
Ever so little falsity.
A Dark Day
by Madison Julius Cawein

Though Summer walks the world to-day
With corn-crowned hours for her guard,
Her thoughts have clad themselves in gray,
And wait in Autumn's weedy yard.
And where the larkspur and the phlox
Spread carpets wheresoe'er she pass,
She seems to stand with sombre locks
Bound bleak with fog-washed zinnias. - 
Fall's terra-cotta-colored flowers,
Whose disks the trickling wet has tinged
With dingy lustre when the bower's
Thin, flame-flecked leaves the frost has singed;
Or with slow feet, 'mid gaunt gold blooms
Of marigolds her fingers twist,
She seems to pass with Fall's perfumes,
And dreams of sullen rain and mist.
Benedick's Song
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

Though I see within thine eyes
Sudden frown of cloudy skies,
Yet I bid them "merry morn"
For they tell me Love is born.
So ha-h'! with h'-ha-h'!
For they tell me Love is born.
Storms of mocking from thy lips
Lash me still like airy whips;
But to-day thy scorn I scorn
For I know that Love is born.
So ha-h'! with h'-ha-h'!
For I know that Love is born.
O the hail that rattles fierce
Through my hodden cloak to pierce!
What care I if rags be torn?
Love and I are beggars born!
So ha-h'! with h'-ha-h'!
Love and I are beggars born.
A Man Young And Old:- First Love
by William Butler Yeats

Though nurtured like the sailing moon
In beauty's murderous brood,
She walked awhile and blushed awhile
And on my pathway stood
Until I thought her body bore
A heart of flesh and blood.
But since I laid a hand thereon
And found a heart of stone
I have attempted many things
And not a thing is done,
For every hand is lunatic
That travels on the moon.
She smiled and that transfigured me
And left me but a lout,
Maundering here, and maundering there,
Emptier of thought
Than the heavenly circuit of its stars
When the moon sails out.
Potters' Clay - An Allegorical Interlude
by Adam Lindsay Gordon

'Nec propter vitam vivendi perdere causas.'
Though the pitcher that goes to the sparkling rill
Too oft gets broken at last,
There are scores of others its place to fill
When its earth to the earth is cast;
Keep that pitcher at home, let it never roam,
But lie like a useless clod,
Yet sooner or later the hour will come
When its chips are thrown to the sod.
Is it wise, then, say, in the waning day,
When the vessel is crack'd and old,
To cherish the battered potters' clay,
As though it were virgin gold?
Take care of yourself, dull, boorish elf,
Though prudent and safe you seem,
Your pitcher will break on the musty shelf,
And mine by the dazzling stream.