DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Sonnet. To A.M.D.
by George MacDonald

Methinks I see thee, lying calm and low,
Silent and dark within thy earthy bed;
Thy mighty hands, in which I trusted, dead,
Resting, with thy long arms, from work or blow;
And the night-robe, around thy tall form, flow
Down from the kingly face, and from the head,
Save by its thick dark curls, uncovered--
My brother, dear from childhood, lying so!
Not often since thou went'st, I think of thee,
(With inward cares and questionings oppressed);
And yet, ere long, I seek thee in thy rest,
And bring thee home my heart, as full, as free,
As sure that thou wilt take me tenderly,
As then when youth and nature made us blest.
Sonnet CCXXIV.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Cara la vita, e dopo lei mi pare.
HONOUR TO BE PREFERRED TO LIFE.
Methinks that life in lovely woman first,
And after life true honour should be dear;
Nay, wanting honour--of all wants the worst--
Friend! nought remains of loved or lovely here.
And who, alas! has honour's barrier burst,
Unsex'd and dead, though fair she yet appear,
Leads a vile life, in shame and torment curst,
A lingering death, where all is dark and drear.
To me no marvel was Lucretia's end,
Save that she needed, when that last disgrace
Alone sufficed to kill, a sword to die.
Sophists in vain the contrary defend:
Their arguments are feeble all and base,
And truth alone triumphant mounts on high!
MACGREGOR.
The Match Girl.
by John Hartley

Merrily rang out the midnight bells,
Glad tidings of joy for all;
As crouched a little shiv'ring child,
Close by the churchyard wall.
The snow and sleet were pitiless,
The wind played with her rags,
She beat her bare, half frozen feet
Upon the heartless flags;
A tattered shawl she tightly held
With one hand, round her breast;
Whilst icicles shone in her hair,
Like gems in gold impressed,
But on her pale, wan cheeks, the tears
That fell too fast to freeze,
Rolled down, as soft she murmured,
"Do buy my matches, please."
Wee, weak, inheritor of want!
She heard the Christmas chimes,
Perchance, her fancy wrought out dreams,
Of by-gone, better times,
The days before her mother died,
When she was warmly clad;
When food was plenty, and her heart
From morn to night was glad.
Her father now is lying sick,
She soon may be alone;
He cannot use his spade and pick,
As once he could have done.
The workhouse door stands open wide,
But should he enter there,
They'd tear his darling from his side
And place her anywhere.
They'd call it charitable help,
Though breaking both their hearts;
But then, when in adversity
Folks have to bear the smarts.
Some carriages go rolling by,
Gay laughter greets her ears;
She envies not their better lot,
She only sheds more tears,
And now and then a passing step,
Will cause the tears to cease;
As fainter, fainter, comes the plaint,
"Do buy my matches, please."
Darker the sky, colder the wind, - 
The bells are silent now; - 
She creeps still closer to the wall,
And sinks upon the snow.
The sound of revelry no more
Disturbs her weary ear,
Sleep conquers cold and pain and grief; - 
Oblivion shuts out fear.
The snow drifts to the churchyard wall,
The graves with white are spread;
But those gray walls do not enclose
All of the near-by dead.
The wind has ta'en the snowflakes,
And gently as it might,
Has spread a shroud o'er one more lost
And hid it from the sight.
I would not wake her if I could,
'Twas well for her she died;
Her spirit floated out upon
The bells of Christmastide,
She breathed no prayer, nor thought of Heaven, - 
Her last faint words were these; - 
As time merged in eternity,
"Do buy my matches, please."
But surely angels would be there,
To shield her from all harm;
And in Christ's loving bosom,
She could nestle and get warm.
The wifeless, childless, stricken man,
Lies moaning in his pain - 
"Come, let me bless thee e'er I die!"
But she never came again.
To Faneuil Hall
by John Greenleaf Whittier

Men! if manhood still ye claim,
If the Northern pulse can thrill,
Roused by wrong or stung by shame,
Freely, strongly still;
Let the sounds of traffic die:
Shut the mill-gate, leave the stall,
Fling the axe and hammer by;
Throng to Faneuil Hall!
Wrongs which freemen never brooked,
Dangers grim and fierce as they,
Which, like couching lions, looked
On your fathers' way;
These your instant zeal demand,
Shaking with their earthquake-call
Every rood of Pilgrim land,
Ho, to Faneuil Hall!
From your capes and sandy bars,
From your mountain-ridges cold,
Through whose pines the westering stars
Stoop their crowns of gold;
Come, and with your footsteps wake
Echoes from that holy wall;
Once again, for Freedom's sake,
Rock your fathers' hall!
Up, and tread beneath your feet
Every cord by party spun:
Let your hearts together beat
As the heart of one.
Banks and tarrifs, stocks and trade,
Let them rise or let them fall:
Freedom asks your common aid,
Up, to Faneuil Hall!
Up, and let each voice that speaks
Ring from thence to Southern plains,
Sharply as the blow which breaks
Prison-bolts and chains!
Speak as well becomes the free:
Dreaded more than steel or ball,
Shall your calmest utterance be,
Heard from Faneuil Hall!
Have they wronged us? Let us then
Render back nor threats nor prayers;
Have they chained our free-born men?
Let us unchain theirs!
Up, your banner leads the van,
Blazoned, "Liberty for all!"
Finish what your sires began!
Up, to Faneuil Hall
Eye-Service
by Maurice Henry Hewlett

Meseems thine eyes are two still-folded lakes
Wherein deep water reflects the guardian sky,
Searching wherein I see how Heaven is nigh
And our broad Earth at peace. So my Love takes
My soul's thin hands and, chafing them, she makes
My life's blood lusty and my life's hope high
For the strong lips and eyes of Poesy,
To hold the world well squandered for their sakes.
I looked thee full this day: thine unveiled eyes
Rayed their swift-searching magic forth; and then
I felt all strength that love can put in men
Whenas they know that loveliness is wise.
For love can be content with no less prize,
To lift us up beyond our mortal ken.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part I. - XXII - Continued
by William Wordsworth

Methinks that to some vacant hermitage
'My' feet would rather turn to some dry nook
Scooped out of living rock, and near a brook
Hurled down a mountain-cove from stage to stage,
Yet tempering, for my sight, its bustling rage
In the soft heaven of a translucent pool;
Thence creeping under sylvan arches cool,
Fit haunt of shapes whose glorious equipage
Would elevate my dreams. A beechen bowl,
A maple dish, my furniture should be;
Crisp, yellow leaves my bed; the hooting owl
My night-watch: nor should e'er the crested fowl
From thorp or vill his matins sound for me,
Tired of the world and all its industry.
Odes Of Anacreon - Ode. LIV.
by Thomas Moore

[1]
Methinks, the pictured bull we see
Is amorous Jove--it must be he!
How fondly blest he seems to bear
That fairest of Phoenician fair!
How proud he breasts the foamy tide,
And spurns the billowy surge aside!
Could any beast of vulgar vein,
Undaunted thus defy the main?
No: he descends from climes above,
He looks the God, he breathes of Jove!
Translations. - Hope. (From Schiller.)
by George MacDonald

Men talk with their lips and dream with their soul
Of better days hitherward pacing;
To a happy, a glorious, golden goal
See them go running and chasing!
The world grows old and to youth returns,
But still for the Better man's bosom burns.
It is Hope leads him into life and its light;
She haunts the little one merry;
The youth is inspired by her magic might;
Her the graybeard cannot bury:
When he finds at the grave his ended scope,
On the grave itself he planteth Hope.
She was never begotten in Folly's brain,
An empty illusion, to flatter;
In the Heart she cries, aloud and plain:
We are born to something better!
And that which the inner voice doth say
The hoping spirit will not betray.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part II. - XXXIX - Eminent Reformers
by William Wordsworth

Methinks that I could trip o'er heaviest soil,
Light as a buoyant bark from wave to wave,
Were mine the trusty staff that Jewel gave
To youthful Hooker, in familiar style
The gift exalting, and with playful smile:
For thus equipped, and bearing on his head
The Donor's farewell blessing, can he dread
Tempest, or length of way, or weight of toil?
More sweet than odours caught by him who sails
Near spicy shores of Araby the blest,
A thousand times more exquisitely sweet,
The freight of holy feeling which we meet,
In thoughtful moments, wafted by the gales
From fields where good men walk, or bowers wherein they rest.
To My Guardian Angel.
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

Merciful spirit! who thy bright throne above
Hast left, to wander through this dismal earth
With me, poor child of sin! - Angel of love!
Whose guardian wings hung o'er me from my birth,
And who still walk'st unwearied by my side,
How oft, oh thou compassionate! must thou mourn
Over the wayward deeds, the thoughts of pride,
That thy pure eyes behold!    Yet not aside
From thy sad task dost thou in anger turn;
But patiently, thou hast but gazed and sighed,
And followed still, striving with the divine
Powers of thy soul for mastery over mine;
And though all line of human hope be past,
Still fondly watching, hoping, to the last.
Song-Sermon
by George MacDonald

Mercy to thee, O Lord, belongs,
For as his work thou giv'st the man.
From us, not thee, come all our wrongs;
Mercy to thee, O Lord, belongs:
With small-cord whips and scorpion thongs
Thou lay'st on every ill thy ban.
Mercy to thee, O Lord, belongs,
For as his work thou giv'st the man.
The Butterfly And The Bee. (From The Villager's Verse-Book.)
by William Lisle Bowles

Methought I heard a butterfly
Say to a labouring bee,
Thou hast no colours of the sky
On painted wings, like me.
Poor child of vanity! those dyes,
And colours bright and rare,
With mild reproof, the bee replies,
Are all beneath my care.
Content I toil from morn till eve,
And, scorning idleness,
To tribes of gawdy sloth I leave
The vanities of dress.
Risus Dei
by Thomas Edward Brown

Methinks in Him there dwells alway
A sea of laughter very deep,
Where the leviathans leap,
And little children play,
Their white feet twinkling on its crisped edge;
But in the outer bay
The strong man drives the wedge
Of polished limbs,
And swims.
Yet there is one will say:
'It is but shallow, neither is it broad'
And so he frowns; but is he nearer God?
One saith that God is in the note of bird,
And piping wind, and brook,
And all the joyful things that speak no word:
Then if from sunny nook
Or shade a fair child's laugh
Is heard,
Is not God half?
And if a strong man gird
His loins for laughter, stirred
By trick of ape or calf,
Is he no better than a cawing rook?
Nay 'tis a Godlike function; laugh thy fill!
Mirth comes to thee unsought;
Mirth sweeps before it like a flood the mill
Of languaged logic; thought
Hath not its source so high;
The will
Must let it by:
For though the heavens are still,
God sits upon His hill,
And sees the shadows fly;
And if He laughs at fools, why should He not?
'Yet hath a fool a laugh', Yea, of a sort;
God careth for the fools;
The chemic tools
Of laughter He hath given them, and some toys
Of sense, as 'twere a small retort
Wherein they may collect the joys
Of natural giggling, as becomes their state:
The fool is not inhuman, making sport
For such as would not gladly be without
That old familiar noise:
Since, though he laugh not, he can cachinnate,
This also is of God, we may not doubt.
'Is there an empty laugh?' Best called a shell
From which a laugh has flown,
A mask, a well
That hath no water of its own,
Part echo of a groan,
Which, if it hide a cheat,
Is a base counterfeit;
But if one borrow
A cloak to wrap a sorrow
That it may pass unknown,
Then can it not be empty. God doth dwell
Behind the feigned gladness,
Inhabiting a sacred core of sadness.
'Yet is there not an evil laugh?' Content,
What follows?
When Satan fills the hollows
Of his bolt-riven heart
With spasms of unrest,
And calls it laughter; if it give relief
To his great grief,
Grudge not the dreadful jest.
But if the laugh be aimed
At any good thing that it be ashamed,
And blush thereafter,
Then it is evil, and it is not laughter.
There are who laugh, but know not why:
Whether the force
Of simple health and vigour seek a course
Extravagant, as when a wave runs high,
And tips with crest of foam the incontinent curve,
Or if it be reserve
Of power collected for a goal, which had,
Behold! the man is fresh. So when strung nerve,
Stout heart, pent breath, have brought you to the source
Of a great river, on the topmost stie
Of cliff, then have you bad
All heaven to laugh with you; yet somewhere nigh
A shepherd lad
Has wondering looked, and deemed that you were mad.
Sailing Of The Glory
by John Frederick Freeman

Merrily shouted all the sailors
As they left the town behind;
Merrily shouted they and gladdened
At the slip-slap of the wind.
But envious were those faint home-keepers,
Faint land-lovers, as they saw
How the Glory dipped and staggered--
Envying saw
Pass the ship while all her sailors
Merrily shouted.
Far and far on eastern waters
Sailed the ship and yet sailed on,
While the townsmen, faint land-lovers,
Thought, "How long is't now she's gone?
Now, maybe, Bombay she touches,
Now strange craft about her throng";
Till she grew but half-remembered,
Gone so long:
Quite forgot how all her sailors
Merrily shouted.
Far in unfamiliar waters
Ship and shipmen harbourage found,
Where the rocks creep out like robbers
After travellers tempest-bound.
Then those faint land-lovers murmured
Doleful thanks not dead were they:--
Ah, yet envious, though the Glory
Sunken lay,
Hearing again those farewell voices
Merrily shouting.
The Gleaner
by Victor James Daley

Methought I came unto a world-wide plain
Where souls stood thick as grain at harvest-tide,
And many reapers, full of pious pride,
With rapid scythe-sweeps mowed them down amain;
And zealous binders bound them up like grain
In sheaves: the reapers at each onward stride
Trod many souls down. These the binders eyed
With careless looks or glances of disdain.
But, following slow, a patient Gleaner came
And gathered all the Binders cast aside,
And made fair sheaves thereof. Whereat I cried:
'Why gather these? Who art thou? Name thy name!'
The Gleaner in a sad, sweet voice replied:
'The outcasts' Saviour, for these, too, I died.'
Sonnets: Idea XXXI To The Critics
by Michael Drayton

Methinks I see some crooked mimic jeer,
And tax my Muse with this fantastic grace;
Turning my papers asks, "What have we here?"
Making withal some filthy antic face.
I fear no censure nor what thou canst say,
Nor shall my spirit one jot of vigour lose.
Think'st thou, my wit shall keep the packhorse way,
That every dudgeon low invention goes?
Since sonnets thus in bundles are imprest,
And every drudge doth dull our satiate ear,
Think'st thou my love shall in those rags be drest
That every dowdy, every trull doth wear?
Up to my pitch no common judgment flies;
I scorn all earthly dung-bred scarabies.
Mercy.
by Robert Herrick

Mercy, the wise Athenians held to be
Not an affection, but a deity.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part II. - XLI - Distractions
by William Wordsworth

Men, who have ceased to reverence, soon defy,
Their forefathers; lo! sects are formed, and split
With morbid restlessness; the ecstatic fit
Spreads wide; though special mysteries multiply,
'The Saints must govern', is their common cry;
And so they labour, deeming Holy Writ
Disgraced by aught that seems content to sit
Beneath the roof of settled Modesty.
The Romanist exults; fresh hope he draws
From the confusion, craftily incites
The overweening, personates the mad
To heap disgust upon the worthier Cause:
Totters the Throne; the new-born Church is sad,
For every wave against her peace unites.
Casting Rocks
by Paul Cameron Brown

Merely on edge,
the wharf in bad light
clinging to water's ledge -
a loon from afar
the Woods
closing with each sound.
Casting rocks toward moon's glare
lapidations laughing back,
the treacle of warm night
coaxing fire's glowing might.
Sudden, oceanic wilderness
breathless in barked silence -
and camphor to keep the flies at distance,
the anchored boat like a prison ship
dallying on the waves,
brambles & underbrush
sunken wet sand,
abundant berries rasp in thickets -
the cottage like a jar
closing for the night.
On Tweed River
by Walter Scott (Sir)

I.
Merrily swim we, the moon shines bright,
Both current and ripple are dancing in light.
We have roused the night raven, I heard him croak
As we plashed along beneath the oak
That flings its broad branches so far and so wide,
Their shadows are dancing in the midst of the tide.
"Who wakens my nestlings," the raven he said,
"My beak shall ere morn in his blood be red,
For a blue-swollen corpse is a dainty meal,
And I'll have my share with the pike and the eel."
II.
Merrily swim we, the moon shines bright,
There's a golden gleam on the distant height;
There's a silver shadow on the alders dank,
And the drooping willows that wave on the bank.
I see the Abbey, both turret and tower,
It is all astir for the vesper hour;
The monks for the chapel are leaving each cell,
But where's Father Philip, should toll the bell?
III.
Merrily swim we, the moon shines bright,
Downward we drift through shadow and light.
Under yon rock the eddies sleep,
Calm and silent, dark and deep.
The Kelpy has risen from the fathomless pool,
He hath lighted his candle of death and of dool:
Look, Father, look, and you'll laugh to see
How he gapes and he glares with his eyes on thee!
IV.
Good luck to your fishing, whom watch ye to night?
A man of mean or a man of might?
Is it layman or priest that must float in your cove,
Or lover who crosses to visit his love?
Hark! heard ye the Kelpy reply as we passed,'
"God's blessing on the warder, he lock'd the bridge fast!
All that come to my cove are sunk,
Priest or layman, lover or monk."
Landed!'landed! the black book hath won,
Else had you seen Berwick with morning sun!
Sain ye, and save ye, and blithe mot ye be,
For seldom they land that go swimming with me.
Lady Hamilton.
by Muriel Stuart

Men wondered why I loved you, and none guessed
How sweet your slow, divine stupidity,
Your look of earth, your sense of drowsy rest,
So rich, so strange, so all unlike my sea.
After the temper of my sails, my lean
Tall masts, you were the lure of harbour hours, -
A sleepy landscape warm and very green,
Where browsing creatures stare above still flowers.
These salt hands holding sweetness, the leader led,
A slave, too happy and too crazed to rule,
Sea land-locked, brine and honey in one bed,
And England's man your servant and your fool!
My banqueting eyes foreswore my waiting ships;
I was a silly landsman at your lips.
The Caged Bird's Song.
by Pamela S. Vining, (J. C. Yule)

RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED TO HIS PATRONESS AND FRIEND, BY THE LITTLE, BROWN SINGER HIMSELF.
Merrily!
Merrily!
Tschee! tschee! tschee!
What can the meaning of these things be?
Tiniest buds and leaflets green - 
Who shall tell me what these things mean?
Merrily!
Merrily!
Tschee! tschee! tschee!
Much I guess they were meant for me!
Tsu-ert!
Tsu-ert!
Tschee! tschee! tschee!
So I shall eat them up you see
Somebody, somewhere, is kindly stirred
To think of me, a poor, brown bird! - 
Merrily!
Merrily!
Tschee! tschee! tschee!
Somebody, somewhere, thinks of me!
Tsu-ert!
Tsu-ert!
Tschee! tschee! tschee!
"A gentle lady?" - and can it be? - 
Say it again, 'tis a pleasant word,
Thinking of me, your poor, brown bird! - 
Merrily!
Merrily!
Tschee! tschee! tschee!
Bless the lady that thinks of me
Tsu-ert!
Tsu-ert!
Tschee: tschee! tschee!
So I shall eat them up, you see!
Hi, a nip here! and ho, a nip there!
Bless me, mistress, how sweet they are!
Merrily!
Merrily!
Tschee! tschee! tschee!
Bless the lady who thinks of me!
Tsu-ert!
Tsu-ert!
Tschee! tschee! tschee!
Merrily, merrily, let it be! - 
Hi, a nip here! and ho, a nip there!
Over, under, everywhere!
Merrily!
Merrily!
Tschee! tschee! tschee!
Somebody, somewhere, thinks of me!
Your Mirror Frame
by Emily Pauline Johnson

Methinks I see your mirror frame,
Ornate with photographs of them.
Place mine therein, for, all the same,
I'll have my little laughs at them.
For girls may come, and girls may go,
I think I have the best of them;
And yet this photograph I know
You'll toss among the rest of them.
I cannot even hope that you
Will put me in your locket, dear;
Nor costly frame will I look through,
Nor bide in your breast pocket, dear.
For none your heart monopolize,
You favour such a nest of them.
So I but hope your roving eyes
Seek mine among the rest of them.
For saucy sprite, and noble dame,
And many a dainty maid of them
Will greet me in your mirror frame,
And share your kisses laid on them.
And yet, sometimes I fancy, dear,
You hold me as the best of them.
So I'm content if I appear
To-night with all the rest of them.
On His Deceased Wife
by John Milton

Methought I saw my late espoused Saint
Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave,
Whom Joves great Son to her glad Husband gave,
Rescu'd from death by force though pale and faint.
Mine as whom washt from spot of child-bed taint,
Purification in the old Law did save,
And such, as yet once more I trust to have
Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint,
Came vested all in white, pure as her mind:
Her face was vail'd, yet to my fancied sight,
Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin'd
So clear, as in no face with more delight.
But O as to embrace me she enclin'd
I wak'd, she fled, and day brought back my night.
Good-Night
by Richard Le Gallienne

(After The Norwegian Of Rosencrantz Johnsen)
Midnight, and through the blind the moonlight stealing
On silver feet across the sleeping room,
Ah, moonlight, what is this thou art revealing -
Her breast, a great sweet lily in the gloom.
It is their bed, white little isle of bliss
In the dark wilderness of midnight sea, -
Hush! 'tis their hearts still beating from the kiss,
The warm dark kiss that only night may see.
Their cheeks still burn, they close and nestle yet,
Ere, with faint breath, they falter out good-night,
Her hand in his upon the coverlet
Lies in the silver pathway of the light.
(LILLEHAMMER, August 22, 1892.)
Methought I Saw My Late Espoused Saint
by John Milton

Methought I saw my late espoused Saint
Brought to me like Alcestus from the grave,
Who Jove's great Son to her glad Husband gave,
Rescu'd from death by force though pale and faint.
Mine as whom washt from spot of child-bed taint
Purification in the old Law did save,
And such as yet once more I trust to have
Full sight of her in Heav'n without restraint,
Came vested all in white, pure as her mind:
Her face was veil'd, yet to my fancied sight
Love, sweetness, goodness in her person shin'd
So clear, as in no face with more delight.
But O as to embrace me she enclin'd
I wak'd, she fled, and day brought back my night.
The Vision.
by Robert Herrick

Methought I saw, as I did dream in bed,
A crawling vine about Anacreon's head.
Flushed was his face; his hairs with oil did shine;
And, as he spake, his mouth ran o'er with wine.
Tippled he was, and tippling lisped withal;
And lisping reeled, and reeling like to fall.
A young enchantress close by him did stand,
Tapping his plump thighs with a myrtle wand:
She smil'd; he kiss'd; and kissing, cull'd her too,
And being cup-shot, more he could not do.
For which, methought, in pretty anger she
Snatched off his crown, and gave the wreath to me;
Since when, methinks, my brains about do swim,
And I am wild and wanton like to him.