DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Poet To His Childhood
by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

In my thought I see you stand with a path on either hand,
--Hills that look into the sun, and there a river'd meadow-land.
And your lost voice with the things that it decreed across me thrills,
When you thought, and chose the hills.
'If it prove a life of pain, greater have I judged the gain.
With a singing soul for music's sake, I climb and meet the rain,
And I choose, whilst I am calm, my thought and labouring to be
Unconsoled by sympathy.'
But how dared you use me so?    For you bring my ripe years low
To your child's whim and a destiny your child-soul could not know.
And that small voice legislating I revolt against, with tears.
But you mark not, through the years.
'To the mountain leads my way.    If the plains are green to-day,
These my barren hills are flushing faintly, strangely, in the May,
With the presence of the Spring amongst the smallest flowers that grow.'
But the summer in the snow?
Do you know, who are so bold, how in sooth the rule will hold,
Settled by a wayward child's ideal at some ten years old?
--How the human arms you slip from, thoughts and love you stay not for,
Will not open to you more?
You were rash then, little child, for the skies with storms are wild,
And you faced the dim horizon with its whirl of mists, and smiled,
Climbed a little higher, lonelier, in the solitary sun,
To feel how the winds came on.
But your sunny silence there, solitude so light to bear,
Will become a long dumb world up in the colder sadder air,
And the little mournful lonelinesses in the little hills
Wider wilderness fulfils.
And if e'er you should come down to the village or the town,
With the cold rain for your garland, and the wind for your renown,
You will stand upon the thresholds with a face or dumb desire,
Nor be known by any fire.
It is memory that shrinks.    You were all too brave, methinks,
Climbing solitudes of flowering cistus and the thin wild pinks,
Musing, setting to a haunting air in one vague reverie
All the life that was to be.
With a smile do I complain in the safety of the pain,
Knowing that my feet can never quit their solitudes again;
But regret may turn with longing to that one hour's choice you had,
When the silence broodeth sad.
I rebel not, child gone by, but obey you wonderingly,
For you knew not, young rash speaker, all you spoke, and now will I,
With the life, and all the loneliness revealed that you thought fit,
Sing the Amen, knowing it.
Juliet's Nurse
by Walter De La Mare

In old-world nursery vacant now of children,
With posied walls, familiar, fair, demure,
And facing southward o'er romantic streets,
Sits yet and gossips winter's dark away
One gloomy, vast, glossy, and wise, and sly:
And at her side a cherried country cousin.
Her tongue claps ever like a ram's sweet bell;
There's not a name but calls a tale to mind - 
Some marrowy patty of farce or melodram;
There's not a soldier but hath babes in view;
There's not on earth what minds not of the midwife:
"O, widowhood that left me still espoused!"
Beauty she sighs o'er, and she sighs o'er gold;
Gold will buy all things, even a sweet husband,
Else only Heaven is left and - farewell youth!
Yet, strangely, in that money-haunted head,
The sad, gemmed crucifix and incense blue
Is childhood once again. Her memory
Is like an ant-hill which a twig disturbs,
But twig stilled never. And to see her face,
Broad with sleek homely beams; her babied hands,
Ever like 'lighting doves, and her small eyes - 
Blue wells a-twinkle, arch and lewd and pious - 
To darken all sudden into Stygian gloom,
And paint disaster with uplifted whites,
Is life's epitome. She prates and prates - 
A waterbrook of words o'er twelve small pebbles.
And when she dies - some grey, long, summer evening,
When the bird shouts of childhood through the dusk,
'Neath night's faint tapers - then her body shall
Lie stiff with silks of sixty thrifty years.
Unfulfilled.
by Madison Julius Cawein

In my dream last night it seemed I stood
With a boy's glad heart in my boyhood's wood.
The beryl green and the cairngorm brown
Of the day through the deep leaves sifted down.
The rippling drip of a passing shower
Rinsed wild aroma from herb and flower.
The splash and urge of a waterfall
Spread stairwayed rocks with a crystal caul.
And I waded the pool where the gravel gray,
And the last year's leaf, like a topaz lay.
And searched the strip of the creek's dry bed
For the colored keel and the arrow-head.
And I found the cohosh coigne the same,
Tossing with torches of pearly flame.
The owlet dingle of vine and brier,
That the butterfly-weed flecked fierce with fire.
The elder edge with its warm perfume,
And the sapphire stars of the bluet bloom;
The moss, the fern, and the touch-me-not
I breathed, and the mint-smell keen and hot.
And I saw the bird, that sang its best,
In the moted sunlight building its nest.
And I saw the chipmunk's stealthy face,
And the rabbit crouched in a grassy place.
And I watched the crows, that cawed and cried,
Hunting the hawk at the forest-side;
The bees that sucked in the blossoms slim,
And the wasps that built on the lichened limb.
And felt the silence, the dusk, the dread
Of the spot where they buried the unknown dead.
The water murmur, the insect hum,
And a far bird calling, Come, oh, come! 
What sweeter music can mortals make
To ease the heart of its human ache! 
And it seemed in my dream, that was all too true,
That I met in the woods again with you.
A sun-tanned face and brown bare knees,
And a hand stained red with dewberries.
And we stood a moment some thing to tell,
And then in the woods we said farewell.
But once I met you; yet, lo! it seems
Again and again we meet in dreams.
And I ask my soul what it all may mean;
If this is the love that should have been.
And oft and again I wonder, Can
What God intends be changed by man?
Poems From "A Shropshire Lad" - XLI
by Alfred Edward Housman

In my own shire, if I was sad
Homely comforters I had:
The earth, because my heart was sore,
Sorrowed for the son she bore;
And standing hills, long to remain,
Shared their short-lived comrade's pain.
And bound for the same bourn as I,
On every road I wandered by,
Trod beside me, close and dear,
The beautiful and death-struck year:
Whether in the woodland brown
I heard the beechnut rustle down,
And saw the purple crocus pale
Flower about the autumn dale;
Or littering far the fields of May
Lady-smocks a-bleaching lay,
And like a skylit water stood
The bluebells in the azured wood.
Yonder, lightening other loads,
The seasons range the country roads,
But here in London streets I ken
No such helpmates, only men;
And these are not in plight to bear,
If they would, another's care.
They have enough as 'tis: I see
In many an eye that measures me
The mortal sickness of a mind
Too unhappy to be kind.
Undone with misery, all they can
Is to hate their fellow man;
And till they drop they needs must still
Look at you and wish you ill.
Return of the Village Boy
by Alfred Lichtenstein

In my youth the world was a small pond,
Grandma and red roof, lowing
Of oxen and a clump of trees.
And all around the huge green meadow.
How lovely was this dreaming into distance.
This absolute nothingness as bright air and wind
And bird cries and fairy-tale books.
Far off the fabled iron snake whistled -
Love
by Walter Scott (Sir)

In peace, Love tunes the shepherd's reed;
In war, he mounts the warrior's steed;
In halls, in gay attire is seen;
In hamlets, dances on the green.
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,
And men below and saints above;
For love is heaven, and heaven is love.
Content.
by Thomas Gent

In some lone hamlet it were better far
To live unknown amid Contentment's isle,
Than court the bauble of an air-blown star,
Or barter honour for a prince's smile!
Hail! tranquil-brow'd Content, forth sylvan god,
Who lov'st to sit beside some cottage fire,
Where the brown presence of the blazing clod
Regales the aspect of the aged sire.
There, when the Winter's children, bleak and cold,
Are through December's gloomy regions led;
The church-yard tale of sheeted ghost is told,
While fix'd attention dares not turn its head.
Or if the tale of ghost, or pigmy sprite,
Is stripp'd by theme more cheerful of its power,
The song employs the early dim of night,
Till village-curfew counts a later hour.
And oft the welcome neighbour loves to stop,
To tell the market news, to laugh, and sing,
O'er the loved circling jug, whose old brown top
Is wet with kisses from the florid ring!
There, whilst the cricket chirps its chimney song,
Within some crumbling chink, with moss embrown'd,
The lighted stick diverts the infant throng,
And fans are waved, and ribbands twirl'd around.
Entwine for me the wreath of rural mirth,
And blast the murm'ring fiend, from chaos sent;
Then, while the house-dog snores upon the hearth,
I'll sit, and hail thy sacred name, CONTENT!
The Glowworm
by Paul Cameron Brown

In slow sutures of pale white -
dabbed in growing spume & mud dried earth,
a glowworm is obliterated by warm, soft light
coming up to elbow particles of near dappled clay
that plants dissect, warm as feasts, aloft a muscat lawn.
Pale, segmented tortoise -
trite in area and jellied purpose,
the glowworm oozes headlong
through an aroused dark
necking furiously with fungus turds
and truffles rooted from the
pig ground by mice sized swine
holidaying on scents and mildew salvaged
thru pores & nestling bowels
of their planet sized turf.
Sonnet V.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Quand' io movo i sospiri a chiamar voi.
HE PLAYS UPON THE NAME LAURETA OR LAURA.
In sighs when I outbreathe your cherish'd name,
That name which love has writ upon my heart,
LAUd instantly upon my doting tongue,
At the first thought of its sweet sound, is heard;
Your REgal state, which I encounter next,
Doubles my valour in that high emprize:
But TAcit ends the word; your praise to tell
Is fitting load for better backs than mine.
Thus all who call you, by the name itself,
Are taught at once to LAUd and to REvere,
O worthy of all reverence and esteem!
Save that perchance Apollo may disdain
That mortal tongue of his immortal boughs
Should ever so presume as e'en to speak.
ANON.
An April Fool Of Long Ago.
by Jean Blewett

In powdered wig and buckled shoe,
Knee-breeches, coat and waistcoat gay,
The wealthy squire rode forth to woo
Upon a first of April day.
He would forget his lofty birth,
His spreading acres, and his pride,
And Betty, fairest maid on earth,
Should be his own - his grateful bride.
The maid was young, and he was old;
The maid was good to look upon.
Naught cared she for his land or gold,
Her love was for the good squire's son.
He found her as the noonday hush
Lay on the world, and called her name.
She looked up, conscious, and her blush
A tender interest did proclaim.
For he was Hubert's sire, and she
To keep a secret tryst did go.
He said: "Methinks she cares for me" - 
That April fool of long ago.
The flattered squire his suit did press
Without delay. "Say, wilt thou come,"
He said, with pompous tenderness,
"And share my wealth and grace my home?"
"Kind sir," the lovely Betty cried,
"I'm but a lass of low degree."
"The love that is controlled by pride
Is not true love at all," quoth he.
"I hold a man should woo and wed
Where'er he wills - should please himself."
"There is the barrier strong," she said,
"Of pedigree, and place, and pelf.
"Could one so lowly hope to grace
Your home?" Right proud his air and tone:
"You're pure of heart and fair of face;
Dear Betty, you would grace a throne!"
"Since you so highly think of me" - 
Her tears and laughter were at strife - 
"You will not mind so much, maybe,
That I am Hubert's promised wife."
Pale went the good squire's florid cheek,
His wrath flamed out - but Betty stood,
Brown-haired, red-lipped, blue-eyed and meek,
A sight to make a bad man good.
She won on him. "But why this guile - 
This secrecy?" His voice was rough.
"We feared," she whispered, with a smile,
"You would not think me good enough."
"An April fool am I. Come, come - 
My offer stands. As Hubert's wife,"
He laughed, "you'll share my wealth and home
And brighten up a lonely life."
He kissed her cheek and rode away.
Unbroken was his heart, I wist,
For he was thinking of a day - 
A day back in youth's rosy mist - 
And of a form and of a face.
"My dear, dead love," he whispered low,
The while he rode at sober pace,
That April fool of long ago.
Sorrow and Joy.
by Hattie Howard

In sad procession borne away
To sound of funeral knell,
Affection's tribute thus we pay,
And in earth's shelt'ring bosom lay
The friend to whom but yesterday
We gave the sad farewell.
But scarce the melancholy sound
Has died upon the ear,
Before the mournful dirge is drowned
By wedding-anthems' glad rebound,
That stir the solemn air around
With merry peals and clear.
Within our home doth gladness tread
So closely upon grief
That, in the tears of sorrow shed
O'er our beloved, lamented dead,
We see reflected joy instead
That gives a blest relief.
A father and a daughter gone
Beyond our fireside - 
For one we loved and leaned upon
The skillful archer Death had drawn
His bow; and one in life's sweet dawn
Went out a happy bride.
We gave to Heaven, in manhood's prime,
Him whose brave strength and worth
Life's rugged steeps had taught to climb;
And her, for whom a tuneful rhyme
The bells of promise sweetly chime,
We consecrate to earth.
Thus each a mystic path, untried,
Has entered - God is just!
We leave with him our friend who died,
With him we leave our fair young bride
Who shall no more with us abide,
And in His goodness trust.
Oh, life and death, uncertainty,
Bright hopes and anxious fears,
Commingle so bewilderingly,
That perfect joy we may not see
Till all shall reunited be
Beyond this vale of tears!
The Flesh And The Spirit
by Anne Bradstreet

In secret place where once I stood
Close by the Banks of Lacrim flood,
I heard two sisters reason on
Things that are past and things to come.
One Flesh was call'd, who had her eye
On worldly wealth and vanity;
The other Spirit, who did rear
Her thoughts unto a higher sphere.
"Sister," quoth Flesh, "what liv'st thou on
Nothing but Meditation?
Doth Contemplation feed thee so
Regardlessly to let earth go?
Can Speculation satisfy
Notion without Reality?
Dost dream of things beyond the Moon
And dost thou hope to dwell there soon?
Hast treasures there laid up in store
That all in th' world thou count'st but poor?
Art fancy-sick or turn'd a Sot
To catch at shadows which are not?
Come, come. I'll show unto thy sense,
Industry hath its recompence.
What canst desire, but thou maist see
True substance in variety?
Dost honour like? Acquire the same,
As some to their immortal fame;
And trophies to thy name erect
Which wearing time shall ne'er deject.
For riches dost thou long full sore?
Behold enough of precious store.
Earth hath more silver, pearls, and gold
Than eyes can see or hands can hold.
Affects thou pleasure? Take thy fill.
Earth hath enough of what you will.
Then let not go what thou maist find
For things unknown only in mind."
The Heart
by Robert Herrick

In prayer the lips ne'er act the winning part
Without the sweet concurrence of the heart.
Sonnet 47
by Michael Drayton

In pride of wit, when high desire of fame
Gaue life and courage to my labouring pen,
And first the sound and vertue of my name,
Won grace and credit in the eares of men:
With those the thronged Theaters that presse,
I in the circuite for the Lawrell stroue,
Where the full praise I freely must confesse,
In heate of blood a modest minde might moue:
With showts and daps at euerie little pawse,
When the prowd round on euerie side hath rung,
Sadly I sit vnmou'd with the applawse,
As though to me it nothing did belong:
No publique glorie vainely I pursue,
The praise I striue, is to eternize you.
Country Lassie.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "The Country Lass."
I.
In simmer, when the hay was mawn,
And corn wav'd green in ilka field,
While claver blooms white o'er the lea,
And roses blaw in ilka bield;
Blithe Bessie in the milking shiel,
Says, I'll be wed, come o't what will;
Out spak a dame in wrinkled eild
O' guid advisement comes nae ill.
II.
It's ye hae wooers mony ane,
And, lassie, ye're but young ye ken;
Then wait a wee, and cannie wale,
A routhie butt, a routhie ben:
There's Johnie o' the Buskie-glen,
Fu' is his burn, fu' is his byre;
Tak this frae me, my bonnie hen,
It's plenty beets the luver's fire.
III.
For Johnie o' the Buskie-glen,
I dinna care a single flie;
He lo'es sae weel his craps and kye,
He has nae luve to spare for me:
But blithe's the blink o' Robie's e'e,
And weel I wat he lo'es me dear:
Ae blink o' him I wad nae gie
For Buskie-glen and a' his gear.
IV.
O thoughtless lassie, life's a faught;
The canniest gate, the strife is sair;
But ay fu' han't is fechtin best,
An hungry care's an unco care:
But some will spend, and some will spare,
An' wilfu' folk maun hae their will;
Syne as ye brew, my maiden fair,
Keep mind that ye maun drink the yill.
V.
O, gear will buy me rigs o' land,
And gear will buy me sheep and kye;
But the tender heart o' leesome luve,
The gowd and siller canna buy;
We may be poor--Robie and I,
Light is the burden luve lays on;
Content and luve brings peace and joy
What mair hae queens upon a throne?
In An Apple Tree.
by Kate Greenaway

In September, when the apples were red,
To Belinda I said,
"Would you like to go away
To Heaven, or stay
Here in this orchard full of trees
All your life?" And she said, "If you please
I'll stay here where I know,
And the flowers grow."
Prospectus
by Paul Cameron Brown

In salt flats,
idle pools
bunching off the ocean,
multi-legged crabs, worsted stalks -
sea crimson weed
weigh the panoply
to heighten my deepening fervour.
In the bedrock shanks
of spread tidal basins
clothed in spools of enveloping
brackish water,
a plethora teeming with aqua towns
and untold gadgetry exists -
replete with mimicry
including primeval
flotilla tanks
and broadsheets for spreading
their way of life.
Answer To Lines From May Fair[1]
by Jonathan Swift

I
In pity to the empty'ng Town,
Some God May Fair invented,
When Nature would invite us down,
To be by Art prevented.
II
What a corrupted taste is ours
When milk maids in mock state
Instead of garlands made of Flowers
Adorn their pails with plate.
III
So are the joys which Nature yields
Inverted in May Fair,
In painted cloth we look for fields,
And step in Booths for air.
IV
Here a Dog dancing on his hams
And puppets mov'd by wire,
Do far exceed your frisking lambs,
Or song of feather'd quire.
V
Howe'er, such verse as yours I grant
Would be but too inviting:
Were fair Ardelia not my Aunt,
Or were it Worsley's writing.[2]
Hawke
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

In seventeen hundred and fifty-nine,
When Hawke came swooping from the West,
The French King's Admiral with twenty of the line,
Was sailing forth to sack us, out of Brest.
The ports of France were crowded, the quays of France a-hum
With thirty thousand soldiers marching to the drum,
For bragging time was over and fighting time was come
When Hawke came swooping from the West.
'Twas long past noon of a wild November day
When Hawke came swooping from the West;
He heard the breakers thundering in Quiberon Bay,
But he flew the flag for battle, line abreast.
Down upon the quicksands roaring out of sight
Fiercely beat the storm-wind, darkly fell the night,
But they took the foe for pilot and the cannon's glare for light
When Hawke came swooping from the West.
The Frenchmen turned like a covey down the wind
When Hawke came swooping from the West;
One he sank with all hands, one he caught and pinned,
And the shallows and the storm took the rest.
The guns that should have conquered us they rusted on the shore,
The men that would have mastered us they drummed and marched no more,
For England was England, and a mighty brood she bore
When Hawke came swooping from the West.
The Creed Of Poverty.
by Robert Burns

In politics if thou would'st mix,
And mean thy fortunes be;
Bear this in mind, be deaf and blind;
Let great folks hear and see.
Cricket Is A Serious Thing
by Edward Dyson

In politics there's room for jest;
With frequent gibes are speeches met,
And measures which are of the best
Are themes for caustic humor yet.
E'en though the pulpiteer we fret
With sundry quiddities we fling,
We pray you never to forget
That cricket is a serious thing.
The crowd assembles at a Test,
And Hobbs at length is fairly set,
Though Gregory rocks 'em in with zest;
The barrackers may fume and fret
When Parkin has contrived to get
Five men of ours, we feel the sting,
And give expression to regret,
For cricket is a serious thing.
They have the lead; we would arrest
A sort of rot.No epithet
Is proper, though they've got our best
For next to nothing, and your bet
Is good as lost.Don't sit and sweat;
Due reverence to the problem bring.
We have a pile of runs to net,
Ah, cricket is a serious thing.
Dreams. To ... ....
by Thomas Moore

In slumber, I prithee how is it
That souls are oft taking the air,
And paying each other a visit,
While bodies are heaven knows where?
Last night, 'tis in vain to deny it,
Your soul took a fancy to roam,
For I heard her, on tiptoe so quiet,
Come ask, whether mine was at home.
And mine let her in with delight,
And they talked and they laughed the time through;
For, when souls come together at night,
There is no saying what they mayn't do!
And your little Soul, heaven bless her!
Had much to complain and to say,
Of how sadly you wrong and oppress her
By keeping her prisoned all day.
"If I happen," said she, "but to steal
"For a peep now and then to her eye,
"Or, to quiet the fever I feel,
"Just venture abroad on a sigh;
"In an instant she frightens me in
"With some phantom of prudence or terror,
"For fear I should stray into sin,
"Or, what is still worse, into error!
"So, instead of displaying my graces,
"By daylight, in language and mien,
"I am shut up in corners and places,
"Where truly I blush to be seen!"
Upon hearing this piteous confession,
My Soul, looking tenderly at her,
Declared, as for grace and discretion,
He did not know much of the matter;
"But, to-morrow, sweet Spirit!" he said,
"Be at home, after midnight, and then
"I will come when your lady's in bed,
"And we'll talk o'er the subject again."
So she whispered a word in his ear,
I suppose to her door to direct him,
And, just after midnight, my dear,
Your polite little Soul may expect him.
Fragment - Ghosts.
by Madison Julius Cawein

In soft sad nights, when all the still lagoon
Lolls in a wealth of golden radiance,
I sit like one enchanted in a trance,
And see them 'twixt the haunted mist and moon.
Lascivious eyes 'neath snow-pale sensual brows,
Flashing hot, killing lust, and tresses light,
Lose, satin streaming, purple as the night,
Night when the storm sings and the forest bows.
And then, meseems, along the wild, fierce hills
A whisper and a rustle of fleet feet,
As if tempestuous troops of M'nads meet
To drain deep bowls and shout and have their wills.
And once I see large, lustrous limbs revealed,
Moth-white and lawny, 'twixt sonorous trees;
And then a song, faint as of fairy seas,
Lulls all my senses till my eyes are sealed.
The Burden Of Desire
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
In some glad way I know thereof:
A garden glows down in my heart,
Wherein I meet and often part
With many an ancient tale of love
A Romeo garden, banked with bloom,
And trellised with the eglantine;
In which a rose climbs to a room,
A balcony one mass of vine,
Dim, haunted of perfume
A balcony, whereon she gleams,
The soft Desire of all Dreams,
And smiles and bends like Juliet,
Year after year.
While to her side, all dewy wet,
A rose stuck in his ear,
Love climbs to draw her near.
II.
And in another way I know:
Down in my soul a graveyard lies,
Wherein I meet, in ghostly wise,
With many an ancient tale of woe
A graveyard of the Capulets,
Deep-vaulted with ancestral gloom,
Through whose dark yews the moonlight jets
On many a wildly caryen tomb,
That mossy mildew frets
A graveyard where the Soul's Desire
Sleeps, pale-entombed; and, kneeling by her,
Love, like that hapless Montague,
Year after year,
Weary and worn and wild of hue,
Within her sepulchre,
Falls bleeding on her bier.