DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Reckoning.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

LEADER.
Let no cares now hover o'er us
Let the wine unsparing run!
Wilt thou swell our merry chorus?
Hast thou all thy duty done?
SOLO.
Two young folks the thing is curious 
Loved each other; yesterday
Both quite mild, to-day quite furious,
Next day, quite the deuce to pay!
If her neck she there was stooping,
He must here needs pull his hair.
I revived their spirits drooping,
And they're now a happy pair.
CHORUS.
Surely we for wine may languish!
Let the bumper then go round!
For all sighs and groans of anguish
Thou to-day in joy hast drown'd.
SOLO.
Why, young orphan, all this wailing?
"Would to heaven that I were dead!
For my guardian's craft prevailing
Soon will make me beg my bread."
Knowing well the rascal genus,
Into court I dragg'd the knave;
Fair the judges were between us,
And the maiden's wealth did save.
CHORUS.
Surely we for wine may languish!
Let the bumper then go round!
For all sighs and groans of anguish
Thou to-day in joy hast drown'd.
SOLO.
To a little fellow, quiet,
Unpretending and subdued,
Has a big clown, running riot,
Been to-day extremely rude.
I bethought me of my duty,
And my courage swell'd apace,
So I spoil'd the rascal's beauty,
Slashing him across the face.
CHORUS.
Surely we for wine may languish!
Let the bumper then go round!
For all sighs and groans of anguish
Thou to-day in joy hast drown'd.
SOLO.
Brief must be my explanation,
For I really have done nought.
Free from trouble and vexation,
I a landlord's business bought.
There I've done, with all due ardour,
All that duty order'd me;
Each one ask'd me for the larder,
And there was no scarcity.
CHORUS.
Surely we for wine may languish!
Let the bumper then go round!
For all sighs and groans of anguish
Thou to-day in joy hast drown'd.
LEADER.
Each should thus make proclamation
Of what he did well to-day!
That's the match whose conflagration
Should inflame our tuneful lay.
Let it be our precept ever
To admit no waverer here!
For to act the good endeavour,
None but rascals meek appear.
CHORUS.
Surely we for wine may languish!
Let the bumper then go round!
For all sighs and groans of anguish
We have now in rapture drown'd.
TRIO.
Let each merry minstrel enter,
He's right welcome to our hall!
'Tis but with the self'tormentor
That we are not liberal;
For we fear that his caprices,
That his eye-brows dark and sad,
That his grief that never ceases
Hide an empty heart, or bad.
CHORUS.
No one now for wine shall languish!
Here no minstrel shall be found,
Who all sighs and groans of anguish,
Has not first in rapture drown'd!
Uselessness.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Let mine not be that saddest fate of all
To live beyond my greater self; to see
My faculties decaying, as the tree
Stands stark and helpless while its green leaves fall.
Let me hear rather the imperious call,
Which all men dread, in my glad morning time,
And follow death ere I have reached my prime,
Or drunk the strengthening cordial of life's gall.
The lightning's stroke or the fierce tempest blast
Which fells the green tree to the earth to-day
Is kinder than the calm that lets it last,
Unhappy witness of its own decay.
May no man ever look on me and say,
"She lives, but all her usefulness is past."
Doomsday.
by Robert Herrick

Let not that day God's friends and servants scare;
The bench is then their place, and not the bar.
An Epigram Addressed To The Gentlemen Reflected On In The Rosciad, A Poem, By The Author
by Oliver Goldsmith

Worried with debts and past all hopes of bail,
His pen he prostitutes t' avoid a gaol.
ROSCOM.
Let not the 'hungry' Bavius' angry stroke
Awake resentment, or your rage provoke;
But pitying his distress, let virtue shine,
And giving each your bounty, 'let him dine';
For thus retain'd, as learned counsel can,
Each case, however bad, he'll new japan;
And by a quick transition, plainly show
'Twas no defect of yours, but 'pocket low',
That caused his 'putrid kennel' to o'erflow.
The Farewell.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

LET mine eye the farewell say,
That my lips can utter ne'er;
Fain I'd be a man to-day,
Yet 'tis hard, oh, hard to bear!
Mournful in an hour like this
Is love's sweetest pledge, I ween;
Cold upon thy mouth the kiss,
Faint thy fingers' pressure e'en.
Oh what rapture to my heart
Used each stolen kiss to bring!
As the violets joy impart,
Gather'd in the early spring.
Now no garlands I entwine,
Now no roses pluck. for thee,
Though 'tis springtime, Fanny mine,
Dreary autumn 'tis to me!
[Probably addressed to his mistress Frederica.]
Life's Harmonies
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Let no man pray that he know not sorrow,
Let no soul ask to be free from pain,
For the gall of to-day is the sweet of to-morrow,
And the moment's loss is the lifetime's gain.
Through want of a thing does its worth redouble,
Through hunger's pangs does the feast content,
And only the heart that has harboured trouble
Can fully rejoice when joy is sent.
Let no man shrink from the bitter tonics
Of grief, and yearning, and need, and strife,
For the rarest chords in the soul's harmonics
Are found in the minor strains of life.
Nonpareil
by Matthew Prior

Let others from the Town retire,
And in the fields seek new delight;
My Phillis does such joys inspire,
No other objects please my sight.
In her alone I find whate'er
Beauties a country landscape grace;
No shade so lovely as her hair,
Nor plain so sweet as is her face.
Lilies and roses there combine,
More beauteous than in flowery field;
Transparent is her skin so fine,
To this each crystal stream must yield.
Her voice more sweet than warbling sound,
Though sung by nightingale or lark;
Her eyes such lustre dart around,
Compared to them the sun is dark.
Both light and vital heat they give,
Cherish'd by them my love takes root;
From her kind looks does life receive,
Grows a fair plant, bears flowers and fruit.
Such fruit I ween did once deceive
The common parent of mankind,
And made transgress our mother Eve,
Poison its core, though fair its rind.
Yet so delicious is its taste,
I cannot from the bait abstain,
But to th' enchanting pleasure haste,
Though I were sure 'twould end in pain.
The Leaden-eyed
by Vachel Lindsay

Let not young souls be smothered out before
They do quaint deeds and fully flaunt their pride.
It is the world's one crime its babes grow dull,
Its poor are ox-like, limp and leaden-eyed.
Not that they starve, but starve so dreamlessly,
Not that they sow, but that they seldom reap,
Not that they serve, but have no gods to serve,
Not that they die, but that they die like sheep.
Life's Harmonies
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Let no man pray that he know not sorrow,
Let no soul ask to be free from pain,
For the gall of to-day is the sweet of to-morrow,
And the moment's loss is the lifetime's gain.
Through want of a thing does its worth redouble,
Through hunger's pangs does the feast content,
And only the heart that has harbored trouble,
Can fully rejoice when joy is sent.
Let no man shrink from the bitter tonics
Of grief, and yearning, and need, and strife,
For the rarest chords in the soul's harmonies,
Are found in the minor strains of life.
The Water
by Henry Lawson

Let others make the songs of love
For our young struggling nation;
But I will sing while e'er I live
The Songs of Irrigation;
For while the white man shall beget
The white man's son and daughter,
The two most precious things for us
Shall still be wheat and water.
We've been drought-ruined in the West,
And ever in my dreaming
I see wide miles of waving crops
And sheets of water gleaming,
On plains where fortune died of thirst
When my brave father sought her,
I see the painted barges pass
Along the winding water.
And now the glorious scheme's afoot,
Our country to deliver
From drought and death on blazing waste,
By long neglected river.
You'll see the boodlers of the world
Rush in from every quarter:
They want the land,, the gold-reefed sand,
And now they'll want the water.
Bright intellects will plan the dykes,
With little gold to gild them,
Bright intellects will plan the dykes,
The people pay to build them;
And when we've made our long canals,
And lakes in every quarter,
Then ours would be the 'guarantee',
The Trust would own the water.
They'd hold the bores and aqueducts,
The water-ways and barges,
And we would live, or we would starve
According to their charges;
From all the Edens in the West
They'd bar our sons and daughters,
They'd hold the land, ten leagues or so,
Each side the rippling waters.
But those who fight to hold their own,
The Lord and time delivers;
As we have held our railway lines,
So we shall hold our rivers.
We'll find the money, as was found
The money spent in slaughter,
To build our dykes and build our dams,
And we shall own the water.
Morning Prayer
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Let me to-day do something that shall take
A little sadness from the world's vast store,
And may I be so favoured as to make
Of joy's too scanty sum a little more
Let me not hurt, by any selfish deed
Or thoughtless word, the heart of foe or friend;
Nor would I pass, unseeing, worthy need,
Or sin by silence when I should defend.
However meagre be my worldly wealth,
Let me give something that shall aid my. kind - 
A word of courage, or a thought of health,
Dropped as I pass for troubled hearts to find.
Let me to-night look back across the span
'Twixt dawn and dark, and to my conscience say - 
Because of some good act to beast or man - 
"The world is better that I lived to-day."
To Electra.
by Robert Herrick

Let not thy tombstone e'er be laid by me:
Nor let my hearse be wept upon by thee:
But let that instant when thou diest be known
The minute of mine expiration.
One knell be rung for both; and let one grave
To hold us two an endless honour have.
Granta Victrix.
by Edward Woodley Bowling

Let penny-a-liners columns pour
Of turgid efflorescence,
Describe in language that would floor
Our Cayleys, Rouths, and Besants,
How Oxford oars as levers move,
While Cambridge mathematics,
Though excellent in theory, prove
Unstable in aquatics.
Our muse, a maiden ne'er renowned
For pride, or self-reliance,
Knows little of the depths profound
Of "Telegraphic" science:
But now her peace she cannot hold
And like a true Camena,
With look half-blushing and half-bold,
Descends into the arena.
Sing who was he that steered to win,
In spite of nine disasters,
And proved that men who ne'er give in
Must in the end be masters?
No warrior stern by land or sea,
With spurs, cocked hat, and sword on,
Has weightier work than fell to thee,
Our gallant little Gordon.
Who when old Cam was almost dead,
His glory almost mouldy,
Replaced the laurels on his head?
Sweet Echo answers - "Goldie."
Who was our Seven of mighty brawn
As valiant as a lion?
Who could he be but strapping Strachan,
Australia's vigorous scion?
Who rowed more fierce than lioness,
Bereft of all her whelps?
A thousand light-blue voices bless
The magic name of Phelps.
Who was our Five?    Herculean Lowe,
(Not he of the Exchequer),
So strong, that he with ease could row
A race in a three-decker.
Cam sighed - "When shall I win a race"?
Fair Granta whispered - "When, Sir,
You see at Four, his proper place,
My Faerie-queen-like Spencer."
'Tis distance robes the mountain pale
In azure tints of bright hue,
'More than a distance' lends to Dale,
His well earned double light-blue.
Proud Oxford burnt in days of old
Ridley the Cambridge Martyr,
But this year in our Ridley bold
Proud Oxford caught a Tartar.
And Randolph rowed as well beseemed
His school renowned in story,
And like old Nelson only dreamed
Of Westminster and glory.
These men of weight rowed strong and straight,
And led from start to finish;
Their slow and steady thirty-eight
No spurts could e'er diminish:
Till Darbyshire, not given to lose,
Sees Cambridge rowing past him;
And Goldie steps into his shoes;
Long may their leather last him!
Glory be theirs who've won full well
The love of Alma Mater,
The smiles of every light-blue Belle,
The shouts of every Pater!
Unlimited was each man's store
Of courage, strength, and fettle,
From Goldie downwards every oar
Was ore of precious metal.
Then fare-ye-well till this time year,
Ye heroes stout and strapping,
And then beware, forgive my fear,
Lest Oxford find you napping;
And, oh! when o'er your work ye bend,
'Mid shouts of - "light-blue's winning,"
If ye would triumph in the end,
Remember the beginning!
P.S. The Muse true to her sex,
Less to be blamed than pitied,
A Post-script must of course annex
To state a point omitted.
When Granta glorying in success
With Camus pours her orisons;
One name she gratefully must bless,
That name is mighty Morrison's.
Arms and the Boy
by Wilfred Edward Salter Owen

Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade
How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood;
Blue with all malice, like a madman's flash;
And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh.
Lend him to stroke these blind, blunt bullet-heads
Which long to muzzle in the hearts of lads.
Or give him cartridges of fine zinc teeth,
Sharp with the sharpness of grief and death.
For his teeth seem for laughing round an apple.
There lurk no claws behind his fingers supple;
And God will grow no talons at his heels,
Nor antlers through the thickness of his curls.
A Faithful Preacher.
by W. M. MacKeracher

Let no one say of Christ's Church, "Ichabod,"
Or deem her strength partaker of decay,
Or think her trumpet voices fail. To-day
I saw a man who was a man of God,
His feet with gospel preparation shod,
The Spirit's quick and mighty weapon sway;
I heard him faithfully point out the way,
To him familiar, which the Master trod.
Intrepid, patient follower of the Lord,
While such as thou, obedient to His call,
Living epistles, known and read of all,
Proclaim the wonders of His sacred Word,
No sound of lamentation should be heard,
No shade of apprehension should appal.
Preface
by Alexander Pope

"Let such teach others, who themselves excel,
And censure freely who have written well."
Let Not Woman E'er Complain.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "Duncan Gray."
I.
Let not woman e'er complain
Of inconstancy in love;
Let not woman e'er complain
Fickle man is apt to rove:
Look abroad through nature's range,
Nature's mighty law is change;
Ladies, would it not be strange,
Man should then a monster prove?
II.
Mark the winds, and mark the skies;
Ocean's ebb, and ocean's flow:
Sun find moon but set to rise,
Round and round the seasons go:
Why then ask of silly man
To oppose great nature's plan?
We'll be constant while we can - 
You can be no more, you know.
Sonnets From The Portuguese XXIV
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Let the world's sharpness like a clasping knife
Shut in upon itself and do no harm
In this close hand of Love, now soft and warm,
And let us hear no sound of human strife
After the click of the shutting. Life to life,
I lean upon thee, Dear, without alarm,
And feel as safe as guarded by a charm
Against the stab of worldlings, who if rife
Are weak to injure. Very whitely still
The lilies of our lives may reassure
Their blossoms from their roots, accessible
Alone to heavenly dews that drop not fewer;
Growing straight, out of man's reach, on the hill.
God only, who made us rich, can make us poor.
A Dialogue
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

HE
Let us be friends.    My life is sad and lonely,
While yours with love is beautiful and bright.
Be kind to me:    I ask your friendship only.
No Star is robbed by lending darkness light.
SHE
I give you friendship as I understand it,
A sentiment I feel for all mankind.
HE
Oh, give me more; may not one friend command it?
SHE
Look in the skies, 'tis there the star you'll find;
It casts its beams on all with equal favour.
HE
I would have more than what all men may claim.
SHE
Then your ideas of friendship strongly savour
Of sentiments which wear another name.
HE
May not one friend receive more than another?
SHE
Not man from woman and still remain a friend.
Life holds but three for her, a father, brother,
Lover - against the rest she must contend.
HE
Against the universe I would protect you,
With my life even, nor hold the price too dear.
SHE
But not against YOURSELF, should fate select you
As Lancelot for foolish Guinevere.
HE
You would not tempt me?
SHE
That is undisputed.
We put the question back upon the shelf.
My point remains unanswered, unrefuted
No man protects a woman from himself.
HE
I am immune:    for once I loved with passion,
And all the fires within me burned to dust.
I think of woman but in friendly fashion:
In me she finds a comrade safe to trust.
SHE
So said Mount Peelee to the listening ocean:
Behold what followed!    Let the good be wise.
Though human hearts proclaim extinct emotion,
Beware how high the tides of friendship rise.
A Suggestion, To C. A. D.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Let the wild red-rose bloom.    Though not to thee
So delicately perfect as the white
And unwed lily drooping in the light,
Though she has known the kisses of the bee
And tells her amorous tale to passers-by
In perfumed whispers and with untaught grace,
Still let the red-rose bloom in her own place;
She could not be the lily should she try.
Why to the wondrous nightingale cry hush
Or bid her cease her wild heart-breaking lay,
And tune her voice to imitate the way
The whip-poor-will makes music, or the thrush?
All airs of sorrow to one theme belong,
And passion is not copyrighted yet.
Each heart writes its own music.    Why not let
The nightingale unchided sing her song?
A Leave-Taking
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Let us go hence, my songs; she will not hear.
Let us go hence together without fear;
Keep silence now, for singing-time is over,
And over all old things and all things dear.
She loves not you nor me as all we love her.
Yea, though we sang as angels in her ear,
She would not hear.
Let us rise up and part; she will not know.
Let us go seaward as the great winds go,
Full of blown sand and foam; what help is here?
There is no help, for all these things are so,
And all the world is bitter as a tear.
And how these things are, though ye strove to show,
She would not know.
Let us go home and hence; she will not weep.
We gave love many dreams and days to keep,
Flowers without scent, and fruits that would not grow,
Saying 'If thou wilt, thrust in thy sickle and reap.'
All is reaped now; no grass is left to mow;
And we that sowed, though all we fell on sleep,
She would not weep.
Let us go hence and rest; she will not love.
She shall not hear us if we sing hereof,
Nor see love's ways, how sore they are and steep.
Come hence, let be, lie still; it is enough.
Love is a barren sea, bitter and deep;
And though she saw all heaven in flower above,
She would not love.
Let us give up, go down; she will not care.
Though all the stars made gold of all the air,
And the sea moving saw before it move
One moon-flower making all the foam-flowers fair;
Though all those waves went over us, and drove
Deep down the stifling lips and drowning hair,
She would not care.
Let us go hence, go hence; she will not see.
Sing all once more together; surely she,
She too, remembering days and words that were,
Will turn a little toward us, sighing; but we,
We are hence, we are gone, as though we had not been there.
Nay, and though all men seeing had pity on me,
She would not see.
The Lesson
by Rudyard Kipling

Let us admit it fairly, as a business people should,
We have had no end of a lesson: it will do us no end of good.
Not on a single issue, or in one direction or twain,
But conclusively, comprehensively, and several times and again,
Were all our most holy illusions knocked higher than Gilderoy's kite. 
We have had a jolly good lesson, and it serves us jolly well right ! .
This was not bestowed us under the trees, nor yet in the shade of a tent,
But swingingly, over eleven degrees of a bare brown continent.
From Lamberts to Delagoa Bay, and from Pietersburg to Sutherland,
Fell the phenomenal lesson we learned-with a fullness accorded no other land.
It was our fault, and our very great fault, and not the judg- ment of Heaven.
We made an Army in our own image, on an island nine by seven,
Which faithfully mirrored its makers' ideals, equipment, and mental attitude,
And so we got our lesson: and we ought to accept it with gratitude.
We have spent two hundred million pounds to prove the fact once more,
That horses are quicker than men afoot, since two and two make four;
And horses have four legs, and men have two legs, and two into four goes twice,
And nothing over except our lesson--and very cheap at the price.
For remember (this our children shall know: we are too near for that knowledge)
Not our mere astonied camps, but Council and Creed and College,
All the obese, unchallenged old things that stifle and overlie us,
Have felt the effects of the lesson we got-an advantage no money could by us!
Then let us develop this marvellous asset which we alone command,
And which, it may subsequently transpire, will be worth as much as the Rand.
Let us approach this pivotal fact in a humble yet hopeful mood,
We have had no end of a lesson, it will do us no end of good!
It was our fault, and our very great fault, and now we must turn it to use.
We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse.
So the more we work and the less we talk the better results we shall get,
We have had an Imperial lesson; it may make us an Empire yet!
Reunited.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Let us begin, dear love, where we left off;
Tie up the broken threads of that old dream,
And go on happy as before, and seem
Lovers again, though all the world may scoff.
Let us forget the graves which lie between
Our parting and our meeting, and the tears
That rusted out the gold-work of the years,
The frosts that fell upon our gardens green.
Let us forget the cold, malicious Fate
Who made our loving hearts her idle toys,
And once more revel in the old sweet joys
Of happy love. Nay, it is not too late!
Forget the deep-ploughed furrows in my brow;
Forget the silver gleaming in my hair;
Look only in my eyes! Oh! darling, there
The old love shone no warmer then than now.
Down in the tender deeps of thy dear eyes
I find the lost sweet memory of my youth,
Bright with the holy radiance of thy truth,
And hallowed with the blue of summer skies.
Tie up the broken threads and let us go,
Like reunited lovers, hand in hand,
Back, and yet onward, to the sunny land
Of our To Be, which was our Long Ago.
Songs Of Shattering II
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Let the little birds sing;
Let the little lambs play;
Spring is here; and so 'tis spring;--
But not in the old way!
I recall a place
Where a plum-tree grew;
There you lifted up your face,
And blossoms covered you.
If the little birds sing,
And the little lambs play,
Spring is here; and so 'tis spring--
But not in the old way!