DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Lines
by Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow

TO THE MEMORY OF PATRICK KELLEY, WHO BY HIS MANY GOOD QUALITIES DURING SOME YEARS' RESIDENCE IN MY FAMILY, GREATLY ENDEARED HIMSELF TO ME AND MINE.
From Erin's fair Isle to this country he came,
And found brothers and sisters to welcome him here;
Though then but a youth, yet robust seemed his frame,
And life promised fair for many a long year.
A place was soon found where around the same board,
He with two of his sisters did constantly meet;
And when his day's work had all been performed,
At the same fireside he found a third seat.
His faithfulness such, so true-hearted was he,
That love in return could not be denied;
As one of the family - he soon ceased to be
The stranger, who lately for work had applied.
Youth passed into manhood, and with it there came
New duties to fill, new plans to pursue;
But a fatal disease now seizes his frame,
And with health is his strength fast leaving him too.
From his home in the country to the city he went,
Where kind brothers procured him good medical aid;
But all was in vain - Death commissioned was sent,
And soon his remains in the cold grave were laid.
The broad waves of Atlantic lie rolling between
His brothers and sisters and parents on earth;
And never by parents may those children be seen,
Or the latter revisit the land of their birth.
But sooner or later they all must be borne
To that region of darkness from whence none return;
Oh! then may they meet on Canaan's bright shore,
An unbroken household to part nevermore.
Weston, Jan. 1852.
Sonnet LXXXII.
by Anna Seward

From a riv'd Tree, that stands beside the grave
Of the Self-slaughter'd, to the misty Moon
Calls the complaining Owl in Night's pale noon;
And from a hut, far on the hill, to rave
Is heard the angry Ban-Dog. With loud wave
The rous'd and turbid River surges down,
Swoln with the mountain-rains, and dimly shown
Appals the Sense. - Yet see! from yonder cave,
Her shelter in the recent, stormy showers,
With anxious brow, a fond expecting Maid
Steals towards the flood! - Alas! - for now appears
Her Lover's vacant boat! - the broken oars
Roll down the tide! - What images invade!
Aghast she stands, the Statue of her fears!
The Riddle Of The Sphinx.
by Charles Hamilton Musgrove

From age to age the haggard human train
Creeps wearily across Time's burning sands
To look into her face, and lift weak hands
In supplication to the calm disdain
That crowns her stony brow.... But all in vain
The riddle of mortality they try:
Doom speaks still from her unrelenting eye--
Doom deep as passion, infinite as pain.
From age to age the voice of Love is heard
Pleading above the tumult of the throng,
But evermore the inexorable word
Comes like the tragic burden of a song.
"The answer is the same," the stern voice saith:
"Death yesterday, today and still tomorrow--Death!"
The Sonnets I - From fairest creatures we desire increase
by William Shakespeare

From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And tender churl mak'st waste in niggarding:
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
The Old Times Were The Best
by James Whitcomb Riley

Friends, my heart is half aweary
Of its happiness to-night:
Though your songs are gay and cheery,
And your spirits feather-light,
There's a ghostly music haunting
Still the heart of every guest
And a voiceless chorus chanting
That the Old Times were the best.
CHORUS
All about is bright and pleasant
With the sound of song and jest,
Yet a feeling's ever present
That the Old Times were the best.
The Wax-Candle.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
From bowers of gods the bees came down to man.
On Mount Hymettus,[2] first, they say,
They made their home, and stored away
The treasures which the zephyrs fan.
When men had robb'd these daughters of the sky,
And left their palaces of nectar dry, - 
Or, as in French the thing's explain'd
When hives were of their honey drain'd - 
The spoilers 'gan the wax to handle,
And fashion'd from it many a candle.
Of these, one, seeing clay, made brick by fire,
Remain uninjured by the teeth of time,
Was kindled into great desire
For immortality sublime.
And so this new Empedocles[3]
Upon the blazing pile one sees,
Self-doom'd by purest folly
To fate so melancholy.
The candle lack'd philosophy:
All things are made diverse to be.
To wander from our destined tracks - 
There cannot be a vainer wish;
But this Empedocles of wax,
That melted in the chafing-dish,
Was truly not a greater fool
Than he of whom we read at school.
Ave Imperatrix!
by Rudyard Kipling

From every quarter of your land
They give God thanks who turned away
Death and the needy madman's hand,
Death-fraught, which menaced you that day.
One school of many made to make
Men who shall hold it dearest right
To battle for their ruler's sake,
And stake their being in the fight,
Sends greeting humble and sincere,
Though verse be rude and poor and mean,
To you, the greatest as most dear,
Victoria, by God's grace Our Queen!
Such greeting as should come from those
Whose fathers faced the Sepoy hordes,
Or served you in the Russian snows,
And, dying, left their sons their swords.
And some of us have fought for you
Already in the Afghan pass,
Or where the scarce-seen smoke-puffs flew
From Boer marksmen in the grass;
And all are bred to do your will
By land and sea, wherever flies
The Flag, to fight and follow still,
And work your Empire's destinies.
Once more we greet you, though unseen
Our greeting be, and coming slow.
Trust us, if need arise, O Queen,
We shall not tarry with the blow!
The Bishop Of Rum-Ti-Foo
by William Schwenck Gilbert

From east and south the holy clan
Of bishops gathered, to a man;
To synod, called Pan-Anglican;
In flocking crowds they came.
Among them was a Bishop, who
Had lately been appointed to
The balmy isle of Rum-ti-Foo,
And Peter was his name.
His people twenty-three in sum 
They played the eloquent tum-tum
And lived on scalps served up in rum 
The only sauce they knew,
When, first good Bishop Peter came
(For Peter was that Bishop's name),
To humor them, he did the same
As they of Rum-ti-Foo.
His flock, I've often heard him tell,
(His name was Peter) loved him well,
And summoned by the sound of bell,
In crowds together came.
"Oh, massa, why you go away?
Oh, Massa Peter, please to stay."
(They called him Peter, people say,
Because it was his name.)
He told them all good boys to be,
And sailed away across the sea.
At London Bridge that Bishop he
Arrived one Tuesday night 
And as that night he homeward strode
To his Pan-Anglican abode,
He passed along the Borough Road
And saw a gruesome sight.
He saw a crowd assembled round
A person dancing on the ground,
Who straight began to leap and bound
With all his might and main.
To see that dancing man he stopped.
Who twirled and wriggled, skipped and hopped,
Then down incontinently dropped,
And then sprang up again.
The Bishop chuckled at the sight,
"This style of dancing would delight
A simple Rum-ti-Foozle-ite.
I'll learn it, if I can,
To please the tribe when I get back."
He begged the man to teach his knack.
"Right Reverend Sir, in half a crack,"
Replied that dancing man.
The dancing man he worked away
And taught the Bishop every day 
The dancer skipped like any fay 
Good Peter did the same.
The Bishop buckled to his task
With battements, cuts, and pas de basque
(I'll tell you, if you care to ask,
That Peter was his name).
"Come, walk like this," the dancer said,
"Stick out your toes stick in your head.
Stalk on with quick, galvanic tread 
Your fingers thus extend;
The attitude's considered quaint,"
The weary Bishop, feeling faint,
Replied, "I do not say it ain't,
But 'Time!' my Christian friend!"
"We now proceed to something new 
Dance as the Paynes and Lauris do,
Like this one, two one, two one, two."
The Bishop, never proud,
But in an overwhelming heat
(His name was Peter, I repeat),
Performed the Payne and Lauri feat,
And puffed his thanks aloud.
Another game the dancer planned 
"Just take your ankle in your hand,
And try, my lord, if you can stand 
Your body stiff and stark.
If, when revisiting your see,
You learnt to hop on shore like me 
The novelty must striking be,
And must excite remark."
"No," said the worthy Bishop, "No;
That is a length to which, I trow,
Colonial Bishops cannot go.
You may express surprise
At finding Bishops deal in pride 
But, if that trick I ever tried,
I should appear undignified
In Rum-ti-Foozle's eyes.
"The islanders of Rum-ti-Foo
Are well-conducted persons, who
Approve a joke as much as you,
And laugh at it as such;
But if they saw their Bishop land,
His leg supported in his hand,
The joke they wouldn't understand 
'Twould pain them very much!"
A Serenade.
by Wilfred S. Skeats

From afar, in the dead of night,
By the moon's dim, uncertain light,
To salute thee with loving rite,
I come, sweetheart, I come.
Oh! refuse not to hear my lay;
From the depths of my soul I pray.
Let my accents my love betray
To thee, sweetheart, to thee.
As I sing in the shade below,
As the words of my greeting flow,
I am thrilled with the fervent glow
Of love, sweetheart, of love.
I have come from the silent moor,
In the still of the midnight hour;
I have come by my passion's power
For thee, sweetheart, for thee.
Then awake from thy slumbers light;
Ere he speed on his homeward flight,
Bid thy lover a last good-night.
Good-night, sweetheart, good-night!
How Pansies Or Hearts-Ease Came First
by Robert Herrick

Frolic virgins once these were,
Overloving, living here;
Being here their ends denied
Ran for sweet-hearts mad, and died.
Love, in pity of their tears,
And their loss in blooming years,
For their restless here-spent hours,
Gave them hearts-ease turn'd to flowers.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part II. - II - From False Assumption Rose
by William Wordsworth

From false assumption rose, and, fondly hailed
By superstition, spread the Papal power;
Yet do not deem the Autocracy prevailed
Thus only, even in error's darkest hour.
She daunts, forth-thundering from her spiritual tower,
Brute rapine, or with gentle lure she tames.
Justice and Peace through Her uphold their claims;
And Chastity finds many a sheltering bower.
Realm there is none that if controlled or swayed
By her commands partakes not, in degree,
Of good, o'er manners arts and arms, diffused:
Yes, to thy domination, Roman See,
Tho' miserably, oft monstrously, abused
By blind ambition, be this tribute paid.
Hare And Many Friends.
by John Gay

Friendship, as love, is but a name,
Save in a concentrated flame;
And thus, in friendships, who depend
On more than one, find not one friend.
A hare who, in a civil way,
Was not dissimilar to GAY,
Was well known never to offend,
And every creature was her friend.
As was her wont, at early dawn,
She issued to the dewy lawn;
When, from the wood and empty lair,
The cry of hounds fell on her ear.
She started at the frightful sounds,
And doubled to mislead the hounds;
Till, fainting with her beating heart,
She saw the horse, who fed apart.
"My friend, the hounds are on my track;
Oh, let me refuge on your back!"
The horse responded: "Honest Puss,
It grieves me much to see you thus.
Be comforted - relief is near;
Behold, the bull is in the rear."
Then she implored the stately bull,
His answer we relate in full:
"Madam, each beast alive can tell
How very much I wish you well;
But business presses in a heap,
I an appointment have to keep;
And now a lady's in the case, - 
When other things, you know, give place.
Behold the goat is just behind;
Trust, trust you'll not think me unkind."
The goat declared his rocky lairs
Wholly unsuited were to hares.
"There is the sheep," he said, "with fleece.
Adapted, now, to your release."
The sheep replied that she was sure
Her weight was too great to endure;
"Besides," she said, "hounds worry sheep."
Next was a calf, safe in a keep:
"Oh, help me, bull-calf - lend me aid!"
"My youth and inexperience weighed,"
Replied the bull-calf, "though I rue it,
Make me incompetent to do it;
My friends might take offence. My heart - 
You know my heart, my friend - we part,
I do assure you -    - Hark! adieu!
The pack, in full cry, is in view."
The Wood Giant
by John Greenleaf Whittier

From Alton Bay to Sandwich Dome,
From Mad to Saco river,
For patriarchs of the primal wood
We sought with vain endeavor.
And then we said: 'The giants old
Are lost beyond retrieval;
This pygmy growth the axe has spared
Is not the wood primeval.
'Look where we will o'er vale and hill,
How idle are our searches
For broad-girthed maples, wide-limbed oaks,
Centennial pines and birches.
'Their tortured limbs the axe and saw
Have changed to beams and trestles;
They rest in walls, they float on seas,
They rot in sunken vessels.
'This shorn and wasted mountain land
Of underbrush and boulder,
Who thinks to see its full-grown tree
Must live a century older.'
At last to us a woodland path,
To open sunset leading,
Revealed the Anakim of pines
Our wildest wish exceeding.
Alone, the level sun before;
Below, the lake's green islands;
Beyond, in misty distance dim,
The rugged Northern Highlands.
Dark Titan on his Sunset Hill
Of time and change defiant
How dwarfed the common woodland seemed,
Before the old-time giant!
What marvel that, in simpler days
Of the world's early childhood,
Men crowned with garlands, gifts, and praise
Such monarchs of the wild-wood?
That Tyrian maids with flower and song
Danced through the hill grove's spaces,
And hoary-bearded Druids found
In woods their holy places?
With somewhat of that Pagan awe
With Christian reverence blending,
We saw our pine-tree's mighty arms
Above our heads extending.
We heard his needles' mystic rune,
Now rising, and now dying,
As erst Dodona's priestess heard
The oak leaves prophesying.
Was it the half-unconscious moan
Of one apart and mateless,
The weariness of unshared power,
The loneliness of greatness?
O dawns and sunsets, lend to him
Your beauty and your wonder!
Blithe sparrow, sing thy summer song
His solemn shadow under!
Play lightly on his slender keys,
O wind of summer, waking
For hills like these the sound of seas
On far-off beaches breaking,
And let the eagle and the crow
Find shelter in his branches,
When winds shake down his winter snow
In silver avalanches.
The brave are braver for their cheer,
The strongest need assurance,
The sigh of longing makes not less
The lesson of endurance.
The Wood Giant
by John Greenleaf Whittier

From Alton Bay to Sandwich Dome,
From Mad to Saco river,
For patriarchs of the primal wood
We sought with vain endeavor.
And then we said: "The giants old
Are lost beyond retrieval;
This pygmy growth the axe has spared
Is not the wood primeval.
"Look where we will o'er vale and hill,
How idle are our searches
For broad-girthed maples, wide-limbed oaks,
Centennial pines and birches.
"Their tortured limbs the axe and saw
Have changed to beams and trestles;
They rest in walls, they float on seas,
They rot in sunken vessels.
"This shorn and wasted mountain land
Of underbrush and boulder,
Who thinks to see its full-grown tree
Must live a century older."
At last to us a woodland path,
To open sunset leading,
Revealed the Anakim of pines
Our wildest wish exceeding.
Alone, the level sun before;
Below, the lake's green islands;
Beyond, in misty distance dim,
The rugged Northern Highlands.
Dark Titan on his Sunset Hill
Of time and change defiant
How dwarfed the common woodland seemed,
Before the old-time giant!
What marvel that, in simpler days
Of the world's early childhood,
Men crowned with garlands, gifts, and praise
Such monarchs of the wild-wood?
That Tyrian maids with flower and song
Danced through the hill grove's spaces,
And hoary-bearded Druids found
In woods their holy places?
With somewhat of that Pagan awe
With Christian reverence blending,
We saw our pine-tree's mighty arms
Above our heads extending.
We heard his needles' mystic rune,
Now rising, and now dying,
As erst Dodona's priestess heard
The oak leaves prophesying.
Was it the half-unconscious moan
Of one apart and mateless,
The weariness of unshared power,
The loneliness of greatness?
O dawns and sunsets, lend to him
Your beauty and your wonder!
Blithe sparrow, sing thy summer song
His solemn shadow under!
Play lightly on his slender keys,
O wind of summer, waking
For hills like these the sound of seas
On far-off beaches breaking,
And let the eagle and the crow
Find shelter in his branches,
When winds shake down his winter snow
In silver avalanches.
The brave are braver for their cheer,
The strongest need assurance,
The sigh of longing makes not less
The lesson of endurance
Road-Mates
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

From deepest depth, O Lord, I cry to Thee.
"My Love runs quick to your necessity."
I am bereft; my soul is sick with loss.
"Dear one, I know.    My heart broke on the Cross."
What most I loved is gone.    I walk alone.
"My Love shall more than fill his place, my own."
The burden is too great for me to bear.
"Not when I'm here to take an equal share."
The road is long, and very wearisome.
"Just on in front I see the light of home."
The night is black; I fear to go astray.
"Hold My hand fast.    I'll lead you all the way."
My eyes are dim, with weeping all the night.
"With one soft kiss I will restore your sight."
And Thou wilt do all this for me?--for me?
"For this I came--to bear you company."
A Spanish Love Song
by Henry Kendall

From Andalusian gardens
I bring the rose and rue,
And leaves of subtle odour,
To weave a gift for you.
You'll know the reason wherefore
The sad is with the sweet;
My flowers may lie, as I would,
A carpet for your feet!
The heart the heart is constant;
It holds its secret, Dear!
But often in the night time
I keep awake for fear.
I have no hope to whisper,
I have no prayer to send,
God save you from such passion!
God help you from such end!
You first, you last, you false love!
In dreams your lips I kiss,
And thus I greet your Shadow,
'Take this, and this, and this!'
When dews are on the casement,
And winds are in the pine,
I have you close beside me
In sleep your mouth is mine.
I never see you elsewhere;
You never think of me;
But fired with fever for you
Content I am to be.
You will not turn, my Darling,
Nor answer when I call;
But yours are soul are body
And love of mine and all!
You splendid Spaniard! Listen
My passion leaps to flame
For neck and cheek and dimple,
And cunning shades of shame!
I tell you, I would gladly
Give Hell myself to keep,
To cling to, half a moment,
The lips I taste in sleep.
Interlude: Songs Out Of Sorrow
by Sara Teasdale

I. Spirit's House
From naked stones of agony
I will build a house for me;
As a mason all alone
I will raise it, stone by stone,
And every stone where I have bled
Will show a sign of dusky red.
I have not gone the way in vain,
For I have good of all my pain;
My spirit's quiet house will be
Built of naked stones I trod
On roads where I lost sight of God.
II. Mastery
I would not have a god come in
To shield me suddenly from sin,
And set my house of life to rights;
Nor angels with bright burning wings
Ordering my earthly thoughts and things;
Rather my own frail guttering lights
Wind blown and nearly beaten out;
Rather the terror of the nights
And long, sick groping after doubt;
Rather be lost than let my soul
Slip vaguely from my own control, 
Of my own spirit let me be
In sole though feeble mastery.
III. Lessons
Unless I learn to ask no help
From any other soul but mine,
To seek no strength in waving reeds
Nor shade beneath a straggling pine;
Unless I learn to look at Grief
Unshrinking from her tear-blind eyes,
And take from Pleasure fearlessly
Whatever gifts will make me wise, 
Unless I learn these things on earth,
Why was I ever given birth?
IV. Wisdom
When I have ceased to break my wings
Against the faultiness of things,
And learned that compromises wait
Behind each hardly opened gate,
When I can look Life in the eyes,
Grown calm and very coldly wise,
Life will have given me the Truth,
And taken in exchange, my youth.
V. In a Burying Ground
This is the spot where I will lie
When life has had enough of me,
These are the grasses that will blow
Above me like a living sea.
These gay old lilies will not shrink
To draw their life from death of mine,
And I will give my body's fire
To make blue flowers on this vine.
"O Soul," I said, "have you no tears?
Was not the body dear to you?"
I heard my soul say carelessly,
"The myrtle flowers will grow more blue."
VI. Wood Song
I heard a wood thrush in the dusk
Twirl three notes and make a star, 
My heart that walked with bitterness
Came back from very far.
Three shining notes were all he had,
And yet they made a starry call, 
I caught life back against my breast
And kissed it, scars and all.
VII. Refuge
From my spirit's gray defeat,
From my pulse's flagging beat,
From my hopes that turned to sand
Sifting through my close-clenched hand,
From my own fault's slavery,
If I can sing, I still am free.
For with my singing I can make
A refuge for my spirit's sake,
A house of shining words, to be
My fragile immortality.
To Lady Carteret
by Jonathan Swift

BY DR. SWIFT
FROM India's burning clime I'm brought,
With cooling gales like zephyrs fraught.
Not Iris, when she paints the sky,
Can show more different hues than I;
Nor can she change her form so fast,
I'm now a sail, and now a mast.
I here am red, and there am green,
A beggar there, and here a queen.
I sometimes live in house of hair,
And oft in hand of lady fair.
I please the young, I grace the old,
And am at once both hot and cold.
Say what I am then, if you can,
And find the rhyme, and you're the man.
The White Evening.
by Madison Julius Cawein

From gray, bleak hills 'neath steely skies
Thro' beards of ice the forests roar;
Along the river's humming shore
The skimming skater bird-like flies.
On windy meads where wave white breaks,
Where fettered briers' glist'ning hands
Reach to the cold moon's ghastly lands,
Hoots the lorn owl, and crouching quakes.
With frowsy snow blanched is the world;
Stiff sweeps the wind thro' murmuring pines,
Then fiend-like deep-entangled whines
Thro' the dead oak, that vagrant twirled
Phantoms the cliff o'er the wild wold:
Ghost-vested willows rim the stream,
Low hang lank limbs where in a dream
The houseless hare leaps o'er the cold
On snow-tressed crags that twinkling flash,
Like champions mailed for clanking war,
Glares down large Phosphor's quiv'ring star,
Where teeth of foam the fierce seas gnash.
Slim o'er the tree-tops weighed with white
The country church's spire doth swell,
A scintillating icicle,
While fitfully the village light
In sallow stars stabs the gray dark;
Homeward the creaking wagons strain
Thro' knee-deep drifts; the steeple's vane
A flitting ghost whirls in its sark.
Down from the flaky North with clash,
Swathed in his beard of flashing sleet,
With steeds of winds that jangling beat
Life from the world, and roaring dash, - 
Loud Winter! ruddy as a rose
Blown by the June's mild, musky lips;
The high moon dims her horn that dips,
And fold on fold roll down the snows.
The Revolution In Russia.
by W. M. MacKeracher

From Lapland to the land of Tamerlane,
Kamchatka to the confines of the Turk,
The spirit tyrants never can restrain
When once awake is mightily at work.
Liberty, frantic with a fearful hope,
Out of long darkness suddenly arisen,
Maddens the dull half-human herds who grope
And rend the bars of their ancestral prison.
Over the wan lone steppe her couriers speed,
The secret forest echoes her command,
She smites the sword that made her children bleed,
And Death and Havoc hold the famished land.
But God overrules, and oft man's greatest good
Is won through nights of dread and days of blood.