DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Prologue
by Thomas Oldham

The piece, to-night, is of peculiar kind,
For which the appropriate name is hard to find;
No Comedy, 'tis clear; nor can it be,
With strictest truth, pronounced a Tragedy;
Since, though predominant the tragic tone,
It reigns not uniformly and alone;
Then, that its character be best proclaim'd,
A Tragic-drama let the piece be named.
But do not, Critics! rashly hence conclude,
'Tis a mere Farce, incongruous and rude,
Where incidents in strange confusion blend,
Without connexion, interest, or end:
Not so; far different was the bard's design;
For though, at times, he ventures to combine
With grave Melpomene's impassion'd strain
The gay Thalia's more enlivening vein;
(As all mankind with one consent agree
How strong the charms of sweet variety,)
Yet Reason's path he still with care observes,
And ne'er from Taste with wilful blindness swerves,
His plot conducting by the rules of art:
And, above all, he strives to touch the heart;
Knowing that, void of pathos and of fire,
Art, Reason, Taste, are vain, and quickly tire.
Be mindful then, ye Critics! of the intent;
The poet means not here to represent
The tragic Muse in all her terrors drest,
With might tempestuous to convulse the breast;
Nor in her statelier, unrelaxing mien,
To stalk, in buskin'd pomp, through every scene;
But with an air more mild and versatile,                }
Where fear and grief, sometimes, admit a smile, }
Now loftier, humbler now, the changing style,     }
Resembling in effect an April-night
When from the clouds, by fits, the moon throws forth her light;
And louder winds, by turns, their rage appease,
Succeeded by the simply-whispering breeze.
But, in few words our author ends his plea,
Already tending to prolixity,
To paint from Nature was his leading aim;
Let then, the play your candid hearing claim:
Judge it, impartial, by dramatic laws;
If good, reward it with deserved applause;
If bad, condemn; yet be it still exempt
From your severer blame, for 'tis a first attempt.
Sonnet XIV.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Movesi 'l vecchierel canuto e bianco.
HE COMPARES HIMSELF TO A PILGRIM.
The palmer bent, with locks of silver gray,
Quits the sweet spot where he has pass'd his years,
Quits his poor family, whose anxious fears
Paint the loved father fainting on his way;
And trembling, on his aged limbs slow borne,
In these last days that close his earthly course,
He, in his soul's strong purpose, finds new force,
Though weak with age, though by long travel worn:
Thus reaching Rome, led on by pious love,
He seeks the image of that Saviour Lord
Whom soon he hopes to meet in bliss above:
So, oft in other forms I seek to trace
Some charm, that to my heart may yet afford
A faint resemblance of thy matchless grace.
DACRE.
As parts the aged pilgrim, worn and gray,
From the dear spot his life where he had spent,
From his poor family by sorrow rent,
Whose love still fears him fainting in decay:
Thence dragging heavily, in life's last day,
His suffering frame, on pious journey bent,
Pricking with earnest prayers his good intent,
Though bow'd with years, and weary with the way,
He reaches Rome, still following his desire
The likeness of his Lord on earth to see,
Whom yet he hopes in heaven above to meet;
So I, too, seek, nor in the fond quest tire,
Lady, in other fair if aught there be
That faintly may recall thy beauties sweet.
MACGREGOR.
Nursery Rhyme. DLXXX. Natural History.
by Unknown

The pettitoes are little feet,
And the little feet not big;
Great feet belong to the grunting hog,
And the pettitoes to the little pig.
The Past Was Goodly Once
by William Ernest Henley

The Past was goodly once, and yet, when all is said,
The best of it we know is that it's done and dead.
Dwindled and faded quite, perished beyond recall,
Nothing is left at last of what one time was all.
Coming back like a ghost, staring and lingering on,
Never a word it speaks but proves it dead and gone.
Duty and work and joy - these things it cannot give;
And the Present is life, and life is good to live.
Let it lie where it fell, far from the living sun,
The Past that, goodly once, is gone and dead and done.
Forbidden Speech
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The passion you forbade my lips to utter
Will not be silenced.    You must hear it in
The sullen thunders when they roll and mutter:
And when the tempest nears, with wail and din,
I know your calm forgetfulness is broken,
And to your heart you whisper, "He has spoken."
All nature understands and sympathises
With human passion.    When the restless sea
Turns in its futile search for peace, and rises
To plead and to pursue, it pleads for me.
And with each desperate billow's anguished fretting.
Your heart must tell you, "He is not forgetting."
When unseen hands in lightning strokes are writing
Mysterious words upon a cloudy scroll,
Know that my pent-up passion is inditing
A cypher message for your woman's soul;
And when the lawless winds rush by you shrieking,
Let your heart say, "Now his despair is speaking."
Love comes, nor goes, at beck or call of reason,
Nor is love silent - though it says no word;
By day or night, in any clime or season,
A dominating passion must be heard.
So shall you hear, through Junes and through Decembers,
The voice of Nature saying, "He remembers."
The Pessimist
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The pessimistic locust, last to leaf,
Though all the world is glad, still talks of grief.
Kent In War
by W.J. Turner

The pebbly brook is cold to-night,
Its water soft as air,
A clear, cold, crystal-bodied wind
Shadowless and bare,
Leaping and running in this world
Where dark-horned cattle stare:
Where dark-horned cattle stare, hoof-firm
On the dark pavements of the sky,
And trees are mummies swathed in sleep
And small dark hills crowd wearily;
Soft multitudes of snow-grey clouds
Without a sound march by.
Down at the bottom of the road
I smell the woody damp
Of that cold spirit in the grass,
And leave my hill-top camp -
Its long gun pointing in the sky -
And take the Moon for lamp.
I stop beside the bright cold glint
Of that thin spirit in the grass,
So gay it is, so innocent!
I watch its sparkling footsteps pass
Lightly from smooth round stone to stone,
Hid in the dew-hung grass.
My lamp shines in the globes of dew,
And leaps into that crystal wind
Running along the shaken grass
To each dark hole that it can find -
The crystal wind, the Moon my lamp,
Have vanished in a wood that's blind.
High lies my small, my shadowy camp,
Crowded about by small dark hills;
With sudden small white flowers the sky
Above the woods' dark greenness fills;
And hosts of dark-browed, muttering trees
In trance the white Moon stills.
I move among their tall grey forms,
A thin moon-glimmering, wandering Ghost,
Who takes his lantern through the world
In search of life that he has lost,
While watching by that long lean gun
Up on his small hill post.
September On Cape Ann
by Madison Julius Cawein

The partridge-berry flecks with flame the way
That leads to ferny hollows where the bee
Drones on the aster. Far away the sea
Points its deep sapphire with a gleam of grey.
Here from this height where, clustered sweet, the bay
Clumps a green couch, the haw and barberry
Beading her hair, sad Summer, seemingly,
Has fallen asleep, unmindful of the day.
The chipmunk barks upon the old stone wall;
And in the shadows, like a shadow, stirs
The woodchuck where the boneset's blossom creams.
Was that a phoebe with its pensive call?
A sighing wind that shook the drowsy firs?
Or only Summer waking from her dreams?
The Peacock's Complaint
by Walter Crane

The Peacock considered it wrong
That he had not the nightingale's song;
So to Juno he went,
She replied, "Be content
With thy having, & hold thy fool's tongue!"
Do Not Quarrel With Nature
Neither Out Far Nor In Deep
by Robert Lee Frost

The people along the sand
All turn and look one way.
They turn their back on the land.
They look at the sea all day.
As long as it takes to pass
A ship keeps raising its hull;
The wetter ground like glass
Reflects a standing gull
The land may vary more;
But wherever the truth may be,
The water comes ashore,
And the people look at the sea.
They cannot look out far.
They cannot look in deep.
Btu when was that ever a bar
To any watch they keep?
Countess
by Paul Cameron Brown

The pig's head omelette - 
something akin to a tatoo
buried squarely on the upper
torso of the man
wielding an axe,
chopping wood.
Shoulders drooped,
the bizarre rendition
had a female
counterpart
- a snake, fitted like a
fish-net stocking,
coating the upper leg of
the dancer writhing to music,
so soporific,
near the copper shield
of the table,
ever-molten ash,
air-borne with the foetid smear
& puff of cigarette smoke.
Translations. - Lyrisches Intermezzo. Xxxviii. (From Heine.)
by George MacDonald

The phantoms of times forgotten
Arise from out their grave,
And show me how once in thy presence
I lived the life it gave.
In the day I wandered dreaming,
Through the streets with unsteady foot;
The people looked at me in wonder,
I was so mournful and mute.
At night, then it was better,
For empty was the town;
I and my shadow together
Walked speechless up and down.
My way, with echoing footstep,
Over the bridge I took;
The moon broke out of the waters,
And gave me a meaning look.
I stopped before thy dwelling,
And gazed, and gazed again--
Stood staring up at thy window,
My heart was in such pain.
I know that thou from thy window
Didst often look downward--and
Sawest me, there in the moonlight,
A motionless pillar stand.
Summer Storm
by Sara Teasdale

The panther wind
Leaps out of the night,
The snake of lightning
Is twisting and white,
The lion of thunder
Roars, and we
Sit still and content
Under a tree,
We have met fate together
And love and pain,
Why should we fear
The wrath of the rain!
The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - The People.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Il popolo ' una bestia.
The people is a beast of muddy brain,
That knows not its own force, and therefore stands
Loaded with wood and stone; the powerless hands
Of a mere child guide it with bit and rein:
One kick would be enough to break the chain;
But the beast fears, and what the child demands,
It does; nor its own terror understands,
Confused and stupefied by bugbears vain.
Most wonderful! with its own hand it ties
And gags itself--gives itself death and war
For pence doled out by kings from its own store.
Its own are all things between earth and heaven;
But this it knows not; and if one arise
To tell this truth, it kills him unforgiven.
The Peacock Complaining To Juno.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
The peacock[2] to the queen of heaven
Complain'd in some such words: - 
'Great goddess, you have given
To me, the laughing-stock of birds,
A voice which fills, by taste quite just,
All nature with disgust;
Whereas that little paltry thing,
The nightingale, pours from her throat
So sweet and ravishing a note,
She bears alone the honours of the spring.'
In anger Juno heard,
And cried, 'Shame on you, jealous bird!
Grudge you the nightingale her voice,
Who in the rainbow neck rejoice,
Than costliest silks more richly tinted,
In charms of grace and form unstinted, - 
Who strut in kingly pride,
Your glorious tail spread wide
With brilliants which in sheen do
Outshine the jeweller's bow window?
Is there a bird beneath the blue
That has more charms than you?
No animal in everything can shine.
By just partition of our gifts divine,
Each has its full and proper share;
Among the birds that cleave the air,
The hawk's a swift, the eagle is a brave one,
For omens serves the hoarse old raven,
The rook's of coming ills the prophet;
And if there's any discontent,
I've heard not of it.
'Cease, then, your envious complaint;
Or I, instead of making up your lack,
Will take your boasted plumage from your back.'
The City And The Sea
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The panting City cried to the Sea,
"I am faint with heat,--O breathe on me!"
And the Sea said, "Lo, I breathe! but my breath
To some will be life, to others death!"
As to Prometheus, bringing ease
In pain, come the Oceanides,
So to the City, hot with the flame
Of the pitiless sun, the east wind came.
It came from the heaving breast of the deep,
Silent as dreams are, and sudden as sleep.
Life-giving, death-giving, which will it be;
O breath of the merciful, merciless Sea?
"The Pedigree Of Honey"
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

The pedigree of honey
Does not concern the bee;
A clover, any time, to him
Is aristocracy.
Duval's Birds
by Conrad Potter Aiken

The parrot, screeching, flew out into the darkness,
Circled three times above the upturned faces
With a great whir of brilliant outspread wings,
And then returned to stagger on her finger.
She bowed and smiled, eliciting applause. . .
The property man hated her dirty birds.
But it had taken years - yes, years - to train them,
To shoulder flags, strike bells by tweaking strings,
Or climb sedately little flights of stairs.
When they were stubborn, she tapped them with a wand,
And her eyes glittered a little under the eyebrows.
The red one flapped and flapped on a swinging wire;
The little white ones winked round yellow eyes.
Introduction: More Beasts For Worse Children
by Hilaire Belloc

The parents of the learned child
(His father and his mother)
Were utterly aghast to note
The facts he would at random quote
On creatures curious, rare, and wild;
And wondering, ask each other:
'An idle little child like this,
How is it that he knows
What years of close analysis
Are powerless to disclose?
Our brains are trained, our books are big,
And yet we always fail
To answer why the Guinea-pig
Is born without a tail.
Or why the Wanderoo should rant
In wild, unmeaning rhymes,
Whereas the Indian Elephant
Will only read The Times.
Perhaps he found a way to slip
Unnoticed to the Zoo,
And gave the Pachyderm a tip,
Or pumped the Wanderoo.
Or even by an artful plan
Deceived our watchful eyes,
And interviewed the Pelican,
Who is extremely wise.'
'Oh! no,' said he, in humble tone,
With shy but conscious look,
'Such facts I never could have known
But for this little book.'
Hesperian - Proem
by Madison Julius Cawein

The path that winds by wood and stream
Is not the path for me to-day;
The path I take is one of dream,
That leads me down a twilight way.
By towns, where myths have only been;
By streams, no mortal foot hath crossed;
To gardens of hesperian sheen,
By halcyon seas for ever lost.
By forests, moonlight haunts alone,
(Diana with her silvery fawn;)
By fields, whereon the stars are sown,
(The wildflowers gathered of the Dawn.)
To orchards of eternal fruit,
That never mortal hand shall take;
Around whose central tree and root
Is coiled the never-sleeping Snake.
The Dragon, lost in listening, curled
Around the trunk whose fruit is gold:
The ancient wisdom of the world
Guarding the glory never old.
The one desire, that leads me now
Beyond endeavour still to try
And reach those peaks that overbrow
The islands of the sunset sky.
The purple crags, the rosy peaks
Of somewhere, nowhere; where you will;
But the one place where Beauty speaks
With the Greek rapture on her still.
Where still she joins with old Romance
And Myth and Legend pearl-white hands,
And leads the old immortal dance
Of Song in dim immortal lands.
The Patriot
by John Le Gay Brereton

The patriot from his walls of brass
Is singing loudly as I pass;
With fearless heart and open eyes,
He shouts the ancient battle cries;
And, where I pause to hear him sing,
A silent crowd is listening.
My country, God bestows by thee
The glory of the world to be
The glory thou alone canst give
To last amid things fugitive.
My country, an ideal form
I see thee splendid in the storm,
Directress of the power divine
That makes the expectant future thine.
My country, all the world shall bow
Before thy peace-conceiving brow,
And all the peoples humbly stand
Submissive to thy blessing hand.
My country, yea, the foes who raise
A tyrant flag shall learn to praise
Thy steadfast love that dares to fight
The horde of Satan for the right.
My country, loveliest, strongest, best,
Thou hast a mission to the rest,
And greater wealth and love shall be
The guerdon of thy ministry.
In every land I hear him sing;
In every land I see him fling
His country's flag against the skies
And gaze aloft with dazzled eyes;
And then his loud applause rings round
His walls of brass with brazen sound;
And deep below his cheering loud
I mark the murmur of the crowd.
A Letter To A Friend
by James Whitcomb Riley

The past is like a story
I have listened to in dreams
That vanished in the glory
Of the Morning's early gleams;
And - at my shadow glancing -
I feel a loss of strength,
As the Day of Life advancing
Leaves it shorn of half its length.
But it's all in vain to worry
At the rapid race of Time -
And he flies in such a flurry
When I trip him with a rhyme,
I'll bother him no longer
Than to thank you for the thought
That "my fame is growing stronger
As you really think it ought."
And though I fall below it,
I might know as much of mirth
To live and die a poet
Of unacknowledged worth;
For Fame is but a vagrant -
Though a loyal one and brave,
And his laurels ne'er so fragrant
As when scattered o'er the grave.
Quiquern
by Rudyard Kipling

The People of the Eastern Ice, they are melting like the snow,
They beg for coffee and sugar; they go where the white men go.
The People of the Western Ice, they learn to steal and fight;
They sell their furs to the trading-post; they sell their souls to the white.
The People of the Southern Ice, they trade with the whaler's crew;
Their women have many ribbons, but their tents are torn and few.
But the People of the Elder Ice, beyond the white man's ken,
Their spears are made of the narwhal-horn, and they are the last of the Men!
The Pibroch's Note
by William Wordsworth

The pibroch's note, discountenanced or mute;
The Roman kilt, degraded to a toy
Of quaint apparel for a half-spoilt boy;
The target mouldering like ungathered fruit;
The smoking steam-boat eager in pursuit,
As eagerly pursued; the umbrella spread
To weather-fend the Celtic herdsman's head
All speak of manners withering to the root,
And of old honours, too, and passions high:
Then may we ask, though pleased that thought should range
Among the conquests of civility,
Survives imagination, to the change
Superior? Help to virtue does she give?
If not, O Mortals, better cease to live!
The Glow-Worm
by Edward Shanks

The pale road winds faintly upward into the dark skies,
And beside it on the rough grass that the wind invisibly stirs,
Sheltered by sharp-speared gorse and the berried junipers,
Shining steadily with a green light, the glow-worm lies.
We regard it; and this hill and all the other hills
That fall in folds to the river, very smooth and steep,
And the hangers and brakes that the darkness thickly fills
Fade like phantoms round the light, and night is deep, so deep, -
That all the world is emptiness about the still flame,
And we are small shadows standing lost in the huge night.
We gather up the glow-worm, stooping with dazzled sight,
And carry it to the little enclosed garden whence we came,
And place it on the short grass. Then the shadowy flowers fade,
The walls waver and melt and the houses disappear
And the solid town trembles into insubstantial shade
Round the light of the burning glow-worm, steady and clear.
The Perpendicular Purple Polly
by Edward Lear

The Perpendicular Purple Polly,
who read the Newspaper and ate Parsnip Pie
with his Spectacles.
Stonepit
by John Clare

The passing traveller with wonder sees
A deep and ancient stonepit full of trees;
So deep and very deep the place has been,
The church might stand within and not be seen.
The passing stranger oft with wonder stops
And thinks he een could walk upon their tops,
And often stoops to see the busy crow,
And stands above and sees the eggs below;
And while the wild horse gives its head a toss,
The squirrel dances up and runs across.
The boy that stands and kills the black nosed bee
Dares down as soon as magpies' nests are found,
And wonders when he climbs the highest tree
To find it reaches scarce above the ground.
The Past.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

The past is such a curious creature,
To look her in the face
A transport may reward us,
Or a disgrace.
Unarmed if any meet her,
I charge him, fly!
Her rusty ammunition
Might yet reply!
Spring Night
by Sara Teasdale

The park is filled with night and fog,
The veils are drawn about the world,
The drowsy lights along the paths
Are dim and pearled.
Gold and gleaming the empty streets,
Gold and gleaming the misty lake,
The mirrored lights like sunken swords,
Glimmer and shake.
Oh, is it not enough to be
Here with this beauty over me?
My throat should ache with praise, and I
Should kneel in joy beneath the sky.
O, beauty, are you not enough?
Why am I crying after love,
With youth, a singing voice, and eyes
To take earth's wonder with surprise?
Why have I put off my pride,
Why am I unsatisfied,
I, for whom the pensive night
Binds her cloudy hair with light,
I, for whom all beauty burns
Like incense in a million urns?
O beauty, are you not enough?
Why am I crying after love?
On Death.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

THERE IS NO WORK, NOR DEVICE, NOR KNOWLEDGE, NOR WISDOM, IN THE GRAVE, WHITHER THOU GOEST. - Ecclesiastes.
The pale, the cold, and the moony smile
Which the meteor beam of a starless night
Sheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle,
Ere the dawning of morn's undoubted light,
Is the flame of life so fickle and wan
That flits round our steps till their strength is gone.
O man! hold thee on in courage of soul
Through the stormy shades of thy worldly way,
And the billows of cloud that around thee roll
Shall sleep in the light of a wondrous day,
Where Hell and Heaven shall leave thee free
To the universe of destiny.
This world is the nurse of all we know,
This world is the mother of all we feel,
And the coming of death is a fearful blow
To a brain unencompassed with nerves of steel;
When all that we know, or feel, or see,
Shall pass like an unreal mystery.
The secret things of the grave are there,
Where all but this frame must surely be,
Though the fine-wrought eye and the wondrous ear
No longer will live to hear or to see
All that is great and all that is strange
In the boundless realm of unending change.
Who telleth a tale of unspeaking death?
Who lifteth the veil of what is to come?
Who painteth the shadows that are beneath
The wide-winding caves of the peopled tomb?
Or uniteth the hopes of what shall be
With the fears and the love for that which we see?