DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
To A Boy Whistling
by James Whitcomb Riley

The smiling face of a happy boy
With its enchanted key
Is now unlocking in memory
My store of heartiest joy.
And my lost life again to-day,
In pleasant colors all aglow,
From rainbow tints, to pure white snow,
Is a panorama sliding away.
The whistled air of a simple tune
Eddies and whirls my thoughts around,
As fairy balloons of thistle-down
Sail through the air of June.
O happy boy with untaught grace!
What is there in the world to give
That can buy one hour of the life you live
Or the trivial cause of your smiling face!
Limbo
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The sole true Something, This! In Limbo Den
It frightens Ghosts as Ghosts here frighten men
For skimming in the wake it mock'd the care
Of the old Boat-God for his Farthing Fare ;
Tho' Irus' Ghost itself he ne'er frown'd blacker on,
The skin and skin-pent Druggist crost the Acheron,
Styx, and with Puriphlegethon Cocytus,
(The very names, methinks, might thither fright us)
Unchang'd it cross'd, & shall some fated Hour
Be pulveris'd by Demogorgon's power
And given as poison to annilate Souls
Even now It shrinks them! they shrink in as Moles
(Nature's mute Monks, live Mandrakes of the ground)
Creep back from Light, then listen for its Sound;
See but to dread, and dread they know not why
The natural Alien of their negative Eye.
'Tis a strange place, this Limbo! not a Place,
Yet name it so; where Time & weary Space
Fettered from flight, with night-mair sense of fleeing,
Strive for their last crepuscular half-being;
Lank Space, and scytheless Time with branny hands
Barren and soundless as the measuring sands,
Not mark'd by flit of Shades, unmeaning they
As Moonlight on the dial of the day!
But that is lovely, looks like Human Time,
An Old Man with a steady Look sublime,
That stops his earthly Task to watch the skies;
But he is blind, a Statue hath such Eyes;
Yet having moon-ward turn'd his face by chance,
Gazes the orb with moon-like countenance,
With scant white hairs, with foretop bald & high,
He gazes still, his eyeless Face all Eye;
As 'twere an organ full of silent Sight,
His whole Face seemeth to rejoice in Light!
Lip touching lip, all moveless, bust and limb,
He seems to gaze at that which seems to gaze on him!
No such sweet sights doth Limbo Den immure,
Wall'd round, and made a Spirit-jail secure,
By the mere Horror of blank Naught-at-all,
Whose circumambience doth these Ghosts enthral.
A lurid thought is growthless, dull Privation,
Yet that is but a Purgatory curse;
Hell knows a fear far worse,
A fear, a future fate. 'Tis positive Negation!
Lusitanian War-Song.
by Thomas Moore

The song of war shall echo thro' our mountains,
Till not one hateful link remains
Of slavery's lingering chains;
Till not one tyrant tread our plains,
Nor traitor lip pollute our fountains.
No! never till that glorious day
Shall Lusitania's sons be gay,
Or hear, oh Peace, thy welcome lay
Resounding thro' her sunny mountains.
The song of war shall echo thro' our mountains,
Till Victory's self shall, smiling, say,
"Your cloud of foes hath past away,
"And Freedom comes with new-born ray
"To gild your vines and light your fountains."
Oh, never till that glorious day
Shall Lusitania's sons be gay,
Or hear, sweet Peace, thy welcome lay
Resounding thro' her sunny mountains.
Hymn Of Apollo.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

1.
The sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie,
Curtained with star-inwoven tapestries
From the broad moonlight of the sky,
Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes, -
Waken me when their Mother, the gray Dawn,
Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone.
2.
Then I arise, and climbing Heaven's blue dome,
I walk over the mountains and the waves,
Leaving my robe upon the ocean foam;
My footsteps pave the clouds with fire; the caves
Are filled with my bright presence, and the air
Leaves the green Earth to my embraces bare.
3.
The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill
Deceit, that loves the night and fears the day;
All men who do or even imagine ill
Fly me, and from the glory of my ray
Good minds and open actions take new might,
Until diminished by the reign of Night.
4.
I feed the clouds, the rainbows and the flowers
With their aethereal colours; the moon's globe
And the pure stars in their eternal bowers
Are cinctured with my power as with a robe;
Whatever lamps on Earth or Heaven may shine
Are portions of one power, which is mine.
5.
I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven,
Then with unwilling steps I wander down
Into the clouds of the Atlantic even;
For grief that I depart they weep and frown:
What look is more delightful than the smile
With which I soothe them from the western isle?
6.
I am the eye with which the Universe
Beholds itself and knows itself divine;
All harmony of instrument or verse,
All prophecy, all medicine is mine,
All light of art or nature; - to my song
Victory and praise in its own right belong.
The Press
by Rudyard Kipling

The Soldier may forget his Sword,
The Sailorman the Sea,
The Mason may forget the Word
And the Priest his Litany:
The Maid may forget both jewel and gem,
And the Bride her wedding-dress,
But the Jew shall forget Jerusalem
Ere we forget the Press!
Who once hath stood through the loaded hour
Ere, roaring like the gale,
The Harrild and the Hoe devour
Their league-long paper-bale,
And has lit his pipe in the morning calm
That follows the midnight stress,
He hath sold his heart to the old Black Art
We call the daily Press.
Who once hath dealt in the widest game
That all of a man can play,
No later love, no larger fame
Will lure him long away.
As the war-horse snuffeth the battle afar,
The entered Soul, no less,
He saith: "Ha! Ha!" where the trumpets are
And the thunders of the Press!
Canst thou number the days that we fulfill,
Or the Times that we bring forth?
Canst thou send the lightnings to do thy will,
And cause them reign on earth?
Hast thou given a peacock goodly wings,
To please his foolishness?
Sit down at the heart of men and things,
Companion of the Press!
The Pope may launch his Interdict,
The Union its decree,
But the bubble is blown and the bubble is pricked
By Us and such as We.
Remember the battle and stand aside
While Thrones and Powers confess
That King over all the children of pride
Is the Press, the Press, the Press!
The Smiling Spring.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "The Bonnie Bell."
I.
The smiling Spring comes in rejoicing,
And surly Winter grimly flies;
Now crystal clear are the falling waters,
And bonnie blue are the sunny skies;
Fresh o'er the mountains breaks forth the morning,
The ev'ning gilds the ocean's swell;
All creatures joy in the sun's returning,
And I rejoice in my bonnie Bell.
II.
The flowery Spring leads sunny Summer,
And yellow Autumn presses near,
Then in his turn comes gloomy Winter,
Till smiling Spring again appear.
Thus Seasons dancing, life advancing,
Old Time and Nature their changes tell,
But never ranging, still unchanging,
I adore my bonnie Bell.
Gipsies
by John Clare

The snow falls deep; the forest lies alone;
The boy goes hasty for his load of brakes,
Then thinks upon the fire and hurries back;
The gipsy knocks his hands and tucks them up,
And seeks his squalid camp, half hid in snow,
Beneath the oak which breaks away the wind,
And bushes close in snow-like hovel warm;
There tainted mutton wastes upon the coals,
And the half-wasted dog squats close and rubs,
Then feels the heat too strong, and goes aloof;
He watches well, but none a bit can spare,
And vainly waits the morsel thrown away.
Tis thus they live--a picture to the place,
A quiet, pilfering, unprotected race.
Snowy Night
by Maurice Henry Hewlett

The snow lies deep, ice-fringes hem the thatch;
I knock my shoes, my Love lifts me the latch,
Shows me her eyes--O frozen stars, they shine
Kindly! I clasp her. Quick! her lips are mine.
The House Of Dust: Part 01: 05: The Snow Floats Down Upon Us, Mingled With Rain
by Conrad Potter Aiken

The snow floats down upon us, mingled with rain . . .
It eddies around pale lilac lamps, and falls
Down golden-windowed walls.
We were all born of flesh, in a flare of pain,
We do not remember the red roots whence we rose,
But we know that we rose and walked, that after a while
We shall lie down again.
The snow floats down upon us, we turn, we turn,
Through gorges filled with light we sound and flow . . .
One is struck down and hurt, we crowd about him,
We bear him away, gaze after his listless body;
But whether he lives or dies we do not know.
One of us sings in the street, and we listen to him;
The words ring over us like vague bells of sorrow.
He sings of a house he lived in long ago.
It is strange; this house of dust was the house I lived in;
The house you lived in, the house that all of us know.
And coiling slowly about him, and laughing at him,
And throwing him pennies, we bear away
A mournful echo of other times and places,
And follow a dream . . . a dream that will not stay.
Down long broad flights of lamplit stairs we flow;
Noisy, in scattered waves, crowding and shouting;
In broken slow cascades.
The gardens extend before us . . . We spread out swiftly;
Trees are above us, and darkness. The canyon fades . . .
And we recall, with a gleaming stab of sadness,
Vaguely and incoherently, some dream
Of a world we came from, a world of sun-blue hills . . .
A black wood whispers around us, green eyes gleam;
Someone cries in the forest, and someone kills.
We flow to the east, to the white-lined shivering sea;
We reach to the west, where the whirling sun went down;
We close our eyes to music in bright cafees.
We diverge from clamorous streets to streets that are silent.
We loaf where the wind-spilled fountain plays.
And, growing tired, we turn aside at last,
Remember our secret selves, seek out our towers,
Lay weary hands on the banisters, and climb;
Climbing, each, to his little four-square dream
Of love or lust or beauty or death or crime.
Felo De Se
by James Elroy Flecker

The song of a man who was dead
Ere any had heard of his song,
Or had seen this his ultimate song,
With the lines of it written in red,
And the sound of it steady and strong.
When you hear it, you know I am dead.
Not because I was weary of life
As pallid poets are:
My star was a conquering star,
My element strife.
I am young, I am strong, I am brave,
It is therefore I go to the grave.
Now to life and to life's desire,
And to youth and the glory of youth,
Farewell, for I go to acquire,
By the one road left me, Truth.
Though a great God slay me with fire
I will shout till he answer me. Why?
(One soul and a Universe, why?)
And for this it is pleasant to die.
For years and years I have slumbered,
And slumber was heavy and sweet,
But the last few moments are numbered
Like trampling feet that beat.
I shall walk with the stars in their courses,
And hear very soon, very soon,
The voice of the forge of the Forces,
And ride on a ridge of the moon,
And sing a celestial tune.
Hymn
by Joseph Addison

The spacious firmament on high, 
With all the blue ethereal sky, 
And spangled heavens, a shining frame, 
Their great Original proclaim. 
Th' unwearied Sun from day to day 
Does his Creator's power display; 
And publishes to every land 
The work of an Almighty hand. 
Soon as the evening shades prevail, 
The Moon takes up the wondrous tale; 
And nightly to the listening Earth 
Repeats the story of her birth: 
Whilst all the stars that round her burn, 
And all the planets in their turn, 
Confirm the tidings as they roll, 
And spread the truth from pole to pole. 
What though in solemn silence all 
Move round the dark terrestrial ball; 
What though nor real voice nor sound 
Amidst their radiant orbs be found? 
In Reason's ear they all rejoice, 
And utter forth a glorious voice; 
For ever singing as they shine, 
'The Hand that made us is divine.'
Nursery Rhyme. DVI. Natural History.
by Unknown

The sow came in with the saddle,
The little pig rock'd the cradle
The dish jump'd over the table
To see the pot with the ladle.
The broom behind the butt
Call'd the dish-clout a nasty slut:
Oh! Oh! says the gridiron, can't you agree?
I'm the head constable, - come along with me.
Ode to Creation
by Joseph Addison

The Spacious Firmament on high,
With all the blue Ethereal Sky,
And spangled Heav'ns, a Shining Frame,
Their great Original proclaim:
Th' unwearied Sun, from day to day,
Does his Creator's Pow'r display,
And publishes to every Land
The Work of an Almighty Hand.
Soon as the Evening Shades prevail,
The Moon takes up the wondrous Tale,
And nightly to the list'ning Earth
Repeats the Story of her Birth:
Whilst all the Stars that round her burn,
And all the Planets, in their turn,
Confirm the Tidings as they rowl,
And spread the Truth from Pole to Pole.
What though, in solemn Silence, all
Move round the dark terrestrial Ball?
What tho' nor real Voice nor Sound
Amid their radiant Orbs be found?
In Reason's Ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious Voice,
For ever singing, as they shine,
The Hand that made us is Divine.
A Fisher-Wife.
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

The soonest mended, nothing said;
And help may rise from east or west;
But my two hands are lumps of lead,
My heart sits leaden in my breast.
O north wind swoop not from the north,
O south wind linger in the south,
Oh come not raving raging forth,
To bring my heart into my mouth;
For I've a husband out at sea,
Afloat on feeble planks of wood;
He does not know what fear may be;
I would have told him if I could.
I would have locked him in my arms,
I would have hid him in my heart;
For oh! the waves are fraught with harms,
And he and I so far apart.
The Animals Sick Of The Plague.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
The sorest ill that Heaven hath
Sent on this lower world in wrath, - 
The plague (to call it by its name,)
One single day of which
Would Pluto's ferryman enrich, - 
Waged war on beasts, both wild and tame.
They died not all, but all were sick:
No hunting now, by force or trick,
To save what might so soon expire.
No food excited their desire;
Nor wolf nor fox now watch'd to slay
The innocent and tender prey.
The turtles fled;
So love and therefore joy were dead.
The lion council held, and said:
'My friends, I do believe
This awful scourge, for which we grieve,
Is for our sins a punishment
Most righteously by Heaven sent.
Let us our guiltiest beast resign,
A sacrifice to wrath divine.
Perhaps this offering, truly small,
May gain the life and health of all.
By history we find it noted
That lives have been just so devoted.
Then let us all turn eyes within,
And ferret out the hidden sin.
Himself let no one spare nor flatter,
But make clean conscience in the matter.
For me, my appetite has play'd the glutton
Too much and often upon mutton.
What harm had e'er my victims done?
I answer, truly, None.
Perhaps, sometimes, by hunger press'd,
I've eat the shepherd with the rest.
I yield myself, if need there be;
And yet I think, in equity,
Each should confess his sins with me;
For laws of right and justice cry,
The guiltiest alone should die.'
'Sire,' said the fox, 'your majesty
Is humbler than a king should be,
And over-squeamish in the case.
What! eating stupid sheep a crime?
No, never, sire, at any time.
It rather was an act of grace,
A mark of honour to their race.
And as to shepherds, one may swear,
The fate your majesty describes,
Is recompense less full than fair
For such usurpers o'er our tribes.'
Thus Renard glibly spoke,
And loud applause from flatterers broke.
Of neither tiger, boar, nor bear,
Did any keen inquirer dare
To ask for crimes of high degree;
The fighters, biters, scratchers, all
From every mortal sin were free;
The very dogs, both great and small,
Were saints, as far as dogs could be.
The ass, confessing in his turn,
Thus spoke in tones of deep concern: - 
'I happen'd through a mead to pass;
The monks, its owners, were at mass;
Keen hunger, leisure, tender grass,
And add to these the devil too,
All tempted me the deed to do.
I browsed the bigness of my tongue;
Since truth must out, I own it wrong.'
On this, a hue and cry arose,
As if the beasts were all his foes:
A wolf, haranguing lawyer-wise,
Denounced the ass for sacrifice - 
The bald-pate, scabby, ragged lout,
By whom the plague had come, no doubt.
His fault was judged a hanging crime.
'What? eat another's grass? O shame!
The noose of rope and death sublime,'
For that offence, were all too tame!
And soon poor Grizzle felt the same.
Thus human courts acquit the strong,
And doom the weak, as therefore wrong.
Exclusion.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

The soul selects her own society,
Then shuts the door;
On her divine majority
Obtrude no more.
Unmoved, she notes the chariot's pausing
At her low gate;
Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling
Upon her mat.
I've known her from an ample nation
Choose one;
Then close the valves of her attention
Like stone.
Sonnets From The Portuguese XIX
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The soul's Rialto hath its merchandize;
I barter curl for curl upon that mart,
And from my poet's forehead to my heart
Receive this lock which outweighs argosies,
As purply black, as erst to Pindar's eyes
The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart
The nine white Muse-brows. For this counterpart, . . .
The bay crown's shade, Belov'd, I surmise,
Still lingers on thy curl, it is so black!
Thus, with a fillet of smooth-kissing breath,
I tie the shadows safe from gliding back,
And lay the gift where nothing hindereth;
Here on my heart, as on thy brow, to lack
No natural heat till mine grows cold in death.
Lines On South Of Scotland.
by James McIntyre

The South of Scotland did produce
Heroic Wallace and the Bruce,
And even time will never blot
The record of her Burns and Scott,
And Tanahill renowned bard,
And that sweet songster Ettrick Shepherd.
The Light And Glory Of The Word.
by William Cowper

The Spirit breathes upon the Word,
And brings the truth to sight;
Precepts and promises afford
A sanctifying light.
A glory gilds the sacred page,
Majestic like the sun;
It gives a light to every age,
It gives, but borrows none.
The hand that gave it still supplies
The gracious light and heat:
His truths upon the nations rise,
They rise, but never set.
Let everlasting thanks be thine,
For such a bright display,
As makes a world of darkness shine
With beams of heavenly day.
My soul rejoices to pursue
The steps of him I love,
Till glory breaks upon my view
In brighter worlds above.
The Marmozet
by Hilaire Belloc

The species Man and Marmozet
Are intimately linked;
The Marmozet survives as yet,
But Men are all extinct.
Memorials Of A Tour On The Continent, 1820 - III. - Bruges
by William Wordsworth

The Spirit of Antiquity, enshrined
In sumptuous buildings, vocal in sweet song,
In picture, speaking with heroic tongue,
And with devout solemnities entwined,
Mounts to the seat of grace within the mind:
Hence Forms that glide with swan-like ease along,
Hence motions, even amid the vulgar throng,
To an harmonious decency confined:
As if the streets were consecrated ground,
The city one vast temple, dedicate
To mutual respect in thought and deed;
To leisure, to forbearances sedate;
To social cares from jarring passions freed;
A deeper peace than that in deserts found!
Sonnet CCIII.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

L' alto signor, dinanzi a cui non vale.
HIS SORROW FOR THE ILLNESS OF LAURA INCREASES, NOT LESSENS, HIS FLAME.
The sovereign Lord, 'gainst whom of no avail
Concealment, or resistance is, or flight,
My mind had kindled to a new delight
By his own amorous and ardent ail:
Though his first blow, transfixing my best mail
Were mortal sure, to push his triumph quite
He took a shaft of sorrow in his right,
So my soft heart on both sides to assail.
A burning wound the one shed fire and flame,
The other tears, which ever grief distils,
Through eyes for your weak health that are as rills.
But no relief from either fountain came
My bosom's conflagration to abate,
Nay, passion grew by very pity great.
MACGREGOR.
The Exodus. (August 3, 1492.) (Little Poems In Prose.)
by Emma Lazarus

1. The Spanish noon is a blaze of azure fire, and the dusty pilgrims crawl like an endless serpent along treeless plains and bleached highroads, through rock-split ravines and castellated, cathedral-shadowed towns.
2. The hoary patriarch, wrinkled as an almond shell, bows painfully upon his staff. The beautiful young mother, ivory-pale, well-nigh swoons beneath her burden; in her large enfolding arms nestles her sleeping babe, round her knees flock her little ones with bruised and bleeding feet. "Mother, shall we soon be there?"
3. The youth with Christ-like countenance speaks comfortably to father and brother, to maiden and wife. In his breast, his own heart is broken.
4. The halt, the blind, are amid the train. Sturdy pack-horses laboriously drag the tented wagons wherein lie the sick athirst with fever.
5. The panting mules are urged forward with spur and goad; stuffed are the heavy saddlebags with the wreckage of ruined homes.
6. Hark to the tinkling silver bells that adorn the tenderly-carried silken scrolls.
7. In the fierce noon-glare a lad bears a kindled lamp; behind its net-work of bronze the airs of heaven breathe not upon its faint purple star.
8. Noble and abject, learned and simple, illustrious and obscure, plod side by side, all brothers now, all merged in one routed army of misfortune.
9. Woe to the straggler who falls by the wayside! no friend shall close his eyes.
10. They leave behind, the grape, the olive, and the fig; the vines they planted, the corn they sowed, the garden-cities of Andalusia and Aragon, Estremadura and La Mancha, of Granada and Castile; the altar, the hearth, and the grave of their fathers.
11. The townsman spits at their garments, the shepherd quits his flock, the peasant his plow, to pelt with curses and stones; the villager sets on their trail his yelping cur.
12. Oh the weary march, oh the uptorn roots of home, oh the blankness of the receding goal!
13. Listen to their lamentation: They that ate dainty food are desolate in the streets; they that were reared in scarlet embrace dunghills. They flee away and wander about. Men say among the nations, they shall no more sojourn there; our end is near, our days are full, our doom is come.
14. Whither shall they turn? for the West hath cast them out, and the East refuseth to receive.
15. O bird of the air, whisper to the despairing exiles, that to-day, to-day, from the many-masted, gayly-bannered port of Palos, sails the world-unveiling Genoese, to unlock the golden gates of sunset and bequeath a Continent to Freedom!
Conclusion
by Madison Julius Cawein

The songs Love sang to us are dead:
Yet shall he sing to us again,
When the dull days are wrapped in lead,
And the red woodland drips with rain.
The lily of our love is gone,
That touched our spring with golden scent;
Now in the garden low upon
The wind-stripped way its stalk is bent.
Our rose of dreams is passed away,
That lit our summer with sweet fire;
The storm beats bare each thorny spray,
And its dead leaves are trod in mire.
The songs Love sang to us are dead;
Yet shall he sing to us again,
When the dull days are wrapped in lead,
And the red woodland drips with rain.
The marigold of memory
Shall fill our autumn then with glow;
Haply its bitterness will be
Sweeter than love of long ago.
The cypress of forgetfulness
Shall haunt our winter with its hue;
The apathy to us not less
Dear than the dreams our summer knew.
Spirit Song Over The Waters.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The soul of man
Resembleth water:
From heaven it cometh,
To heaven it soareth.
And then again
To earth descendeth,
Changing ever.
Down from the lofty
Rocky wall
Streams the bright flood,
Then spreadeth gently
In cloudy billows
O'er the smooth rock,
And welcomed kindly,
Veiling, on roams it,
Soft murmuring,
Tow'rd the abyss.
Cliffs projecting
Oppose its progress, 
Angrily foams it
Down to the bottom,
Step by step.
Now, in flat channel,
Through the meadowland steals it,
And in the polish'd lake
Each constellation
Joyously peepeth.
Wind is the loving
Wooer of waters;
Wind blends together
Billows all-foaming.
Spirit of man,
Thou art like unto water!
Fortune of man,
Thou art like unto wind!