DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Braid The Raven Hair.
by William Schwenck Gilbert

Braid the raven hair,
Weave the supple tress,
Deck the maiden fair
In her loveliness;
Paint the pretty face,
Dye the coral lip.
Emphasize the grace
Of her ladyship!
Art and nature, thus allied,
Go to make a pretty bride!
Sit with downcast eye,
Let it brim with dew;
Try if you can cry,
We will do so, too.
When you're summoned, start
Like a frightened roe;
Flutter, little heart,
Color, come and go!
Modesty at marriage tide
Well becomes a pretty bride!
Christmas Hymn.
by Kate Seymour Maclean

Break over the waiting hill-tops,
White dawn of the Christmas morn!
For the angels have sung through the midnight,
That the wonderful Babe is born.
And still in the slumbering valleys,
The night's black tents are up,
And the young moon stands on the mountains,
Clear and fair as a silver cup.
Under the cottage rafters,
Silent and soft and deep,
On the swart low brow of the toiler,
Settles the dew of sleep.
And some that watch and waken,
Are dreaming of eyes whose ray
Was long ago quenched and hidden
Under the shroud away.
Oh, sing thy jubilant anthem
Over the frozen mould,
And tell that wonderful story
Again, that never grows old!
For under the year's broad shadow,
Along the upward way,
Our footsteps often falter,
And oftea wander astray.
Weary and weak and erring,
In sorrow and doubt and tears,
Shine through the mist and the darkness
Star of a thousand years!
Awhile from the dusty marches
Of life let us find release,
And pitch our tents in the shadow
Of the white-walled City of Peace,
Let us hear through the blessed starlight.
The angels of Bethlehem,
Singing Glory to God in the highest,
On earth good will to men.
White dawn of the Christmas morning,
Through the snow-wreaths shining pale.
Let the joy-bells ring through the valleys,
Hail to thy coming--hail!
Song.[1]
by George Gordon Byron

1.
Breeze of the night in gentler sighs
More softly murmur o'er the pillow;
For Slumber seals my Fanny's eyes,
And Peace must never shun her pillow.
2.
Or breathe those sweet 'olian strains
Stolen from celestial spheres above,
To charm her ear while some remains,
And soothe her soul to dreams of love.
3.
But Breeze of night again forbear,
In softest murmurs only sigh:
Let not a Zephyr's pinion dare
To lift those auburn locks on high.
4.
Chill is thy Breath, thou breeze of night!
Oh! ruffle not those lids of Snow;
For only Morning's cheering light
May wake the beam that lurks below.
5.
Blest be that lip and azure eye!
Sweet Fanny, hallowed be thy Sleep!
Those lips shall never vent a sigh,
Those eyes may never wake to weep.
The Quesion
by Rudyard Kipling

Brethren, how shall it fare with me
When the war is laid aside,
If it be proven that I am he
For whom a world has died?
If it be proven that all my good,
And the greater good I will make,
Were purchased me by a multitude
Who suffered for my sake?
That I was delivered by mere mankind
Vowed to one sacrifice,
And not, as I hold them, battle-blind,
But dying with open eyes?
That they did not ask me to draw the sword
When they stood to endure their lot,
That they only looked to me for a word,
And I answered I knew them not?
If it be found, when the battle clears,
Their death has set me free,
Then how shall I live with myself through the years
Which they have bought for me?
Brethren, how must it fare with me,
Or how am I justified,
If it be proven that I am he
For whom mankind has died,
If it be proven that I am he
Who, being questioned, denied?
Brethren, Go! A Valediction.
by Pamela S. Vining, (J. C. Yule)

Brethren, go! the day is bright'ning
As the sultry noon steals on,
And the fields, already whit'ning,
Tell of labor to be done.
There are toilsome days before you,
Burdens that you may not shun,
Clouds will gather darkly o'er you,
Reeds will fail you one by one.
Yet go forth to strong endeavor,
'Neath the shadow of the cross;
He who calls will leave you never, - 
Never let you suffer loss!
Go; the voices of the dying
Float on every passing breeze;
Tones of wild, imploring crying
Come from lands beyond the seas!
Go where pain and sorrow languish,
Go where Sin works strife and woe,
Cleanse Earth's stain, and heal her anguish,
Jesus calls you - brethren, go!
The Preference Declared
by Eugene Field

Boy, I detest the Persian pomp;
I hate those linden-bark devices;
And as for roses, holy Moses!
They can't be got at living prices!
Myrtle is good enough for us,--
For you, as bearer of my flagon;
For me, supine beneath this vine,
Doing my best to get a jag on!
On Julia's Breath.
by Robert Herrick

Breathe, Julia, breathe, and I'll protest,
Nay more, I'll deeply swear,
That all the spices of the east
Are circumfused there.
Innominatus
by Walter Scott (Sir)

Breathes there the man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
'This is my own, my native land!'
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.
Brantford.
by James McIntyre

In these sketches of towns in Southern Ontario we are not vain enough to suppose that because we have produced some lines thereon that said rhymes are poetry. If we furnish an occasional poetic gleam like a dewdrop sparkling in the sun, it is all we dare hope for.
Brantford as thriving city's famed,
And after Indian Chief is named,
And here the sparkling Grand River
It doth flow a joy forever.
Campbell he sang a dismal tale
Of horrors of Wyoming's vale,
The tale one's mind doth ever haunt,
The cruelties of monster Brant.
But the Chief's son to England went
And Campbell to him did lament,
And all the tale he did recant
About cruel butcheries of Brant.
Now pleasant thoughts it doth awake
When Brantford thinks of her namesake,
She evermore with pride will chant
The bold heroic name of Brant.
We sing of two great Indian names,
Tecumseh on the banks of Thames,
And the Grand River it doth vaunt
O'er the historic name of Brant.
The city's pride it doth find vent
In building him a monument,
And Indians will proudly stalk
Past memorial of great Mohawk.
To An Unborn Pauper Child
by Thomas Hardy

I
Breathe not, hid Heart: cease silently,
And though thy birth-hour beckons thee,
Sleep the long sleep:
The Doomsters heap
Travails and teens around us here,
And Time-wraiths turn our songsingings to fear.
II
Hark, how the peoples surge and sigh,
And laughters fail, and greetings die:
Hopes dwindle; yea,
Faiths waste away,
Affections and enthusiasms numb;
Thou canst not mend these things if thou dost come.
III
Had I the ear of wombed souls
Ere their terrestrial chart unrolls,
And thou wert free
To cease, or be,
Then would I tell thee all I know,
And put it to thee: Wilt thou take Life so?
IV
Vain vow! No hint of mine may hence
To theeward fly: to thy locked sense
Explain none can
Life's pending plan:
Thou wilt thy ignorant entry make
Though skies spout fire and blood and nations quake.
V
Fain would I, dear, find some shut plot
Of earth's wide wold for thee, where not
One tear, one qualm,
Should break the calm.
But I am weak as thou and bare;
No man can change the common lot to rare.
VI
Must come and bide. And such are we -
Unreasoning, sanguine, visionary -
That I can hope
Health, love, friends, scope
In full for thee; can dream thou'lt find
Joys seldom yet attained by humankind!
Braw Lads Of Galla Water.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "Galla Water."
Chorus.
Braw, braw lads of Galla Water;
O braw lads of Galla Water:
I'll kilt my coats aboon my knee,
And follow my love thro' the water.
I.
Sae fair her hair, sae brent her brow,
Sae bonny blue her een, my dearie;
Sae white her teeth, sae sweet her mou',
The mair I kiss she's ay my dearie.
II.
O'er yon bank and o'er yon brae,
O'er yon moss amang the heather;
I'll kilt my coats aboon my knee,
And follow my love thro' the water.
III.
Down amang the broom, the broom,
Down amang the broom, my dearie,
The lassie lost a silken snood,
That cost her mony a blirt and bleary.
Braw, braw lads of Galla Water;
O braw lads of Galla-Water:
I'll kilt my coats aboon my knee,
And follow my love thro' the water.
Chimes
by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

Brief, on a flying night,
From the shaken tower,
A flock of bells take flight,
And go with the hour.
Like birds from the cote to the gales,
Abrupt--O hark!
A fleet of bells set sails,
And go to the dark.
Sudden the cold airs swing.
Alone, aloud,
A verse of bells takes wing
And flies with the cloud.
A Song of Sixty-Five
by Robert William Service

Brave Thackeray has trolled of days when he was twenty-one,
And bounded up five flights of stairs, a gallant garreteer;
And yet again in mellow vein when youth was gaily run,
Has dipped his nose in Gascon wine, and told of Forty Year.
But if I worthy were to sing a richer, rarer time,
I'd tune my pipes before the fire and merrily I'd strive
To praise that age when prose again has given way to rhyme,
The Indian Summer days of life when I'll be Sixty-five;
For then my work will all be done, my voyaging be past,
And I'll have earned the right to rest where folding hills are green;
So in some glassy anchorage I'll make my cable fast, - 
Oh, let the seas show all their teeth, I'll sit and smile serene.
The storm may bellow round the roof, I'll bide beside the fire,
And many a scene of sail and trail within the flame I'll see;
For I'll have worn away the spur of passion and desire. . . .
Oh yes, when I am Sixty-five, what peace will come to me.
I'll take my breakfast in my bed, I'll rise at half-past ten,
When all the world is nicely groomed and full of golden song;
I'll smoke a bit and joke a bit, and read the news, and then
I'll potter round my peach-trees till I hear the luncheon gong.
And after that I think I'll doze an hour, well, maybe two,
And then I'll show some kindred soul how well my roses thrive;
I'll do the things I never yet have found the time to do. . . .
Oh, won't I be the busy man when I am Sixty-five.
I'll revel in my library; I'll read De Morgan's books;
I'll grow so garrulous I fear you'll write me down a bore;
I'll watch the ways of ants and bees in quiet sunny nooks,
I'll understand Creation as I never did before.
When gossips round the tea-cups talk I'll listen to it all;
On smiling days some kindly friend will take me for a drive:
I'll own a shaggy collie dog that dashes to my call:
I'll celebrate my second youth when I am Sixty-five.
Ah, though I've twenty years to go, I see myself quite plain,
A wrinkling, twinkling, rosy-cheeked, benevolent old chap;
I think I'll wear a tartan shawl and lean upon a cane.
I hope that I'll have silver hair beneath a velvet cap.
I see my little grandchildren a-romping round my knee;
So gay the scene, I almost wish 'twould hasten to arrive.
Let others sing of Youth and Spring, still will it seem to me
The golden time's the olden time, some time round Sixty-five.
The Frogs.
by Archibald Lampman

I.
Breathers of wisdom won without a quest,
Quaint uncouth dreamers, voices high and strange,
Flutists of lands where beauty hath no change,
And wintery grief is a forgotten guest,
Sweet murmurers of everlasting rest,
For whom glad days have ever yet to run,
And moments are as 'ons, and the sun
But ever sunken half-way toward the west.
Often to me who heard you in your day,
With close wrapt ears, it could not choose but seem
That earth, our mother, searching in what way,
Men's hearts might know her spirit's inmost dream,
Ever at rest beneath life's change and stir,
Made you her soul, and bade you pipe for her.
II.
In those mute days when spring was in her glee,
And hope was strong, we knew not why or how,
And earth, the mother, dreamed with brooding brow.
Musing on life, and what the hours might be,
When love should ripen to maternity,
Then like high flutes in silvery interchange
Ye piped with voices still and sweet and strange,
And ever as ye piped, on every tree
The great buds swelled; among the pensive woods
The spirits of first flowers awoke and flung
From buried faces the close fitting hoods,
And listened to your piping till they fell,
The frail spring-beauty with her perfumed bell,
The wind-flower, and the spotted adder-tongue.
III.
All the day long, wherever pools might be
Among the golden meadows, where the air
Stood in a dream, as it were moor'd there
Forever in a noon-tide reverie,
Or where the birds made riot of their glee
In the still woods, and the hot sun shone down,
Crossed with warm lucent shadows on the brown
Leaf-paven pools, that bubbled dreamily,
Or far away in whispering river meads
And watery marshes where the brooding noon,
Full with the wonder of its own sweet boon,
Nestled and slept among the noiseless reeds,
Ye sat and murmured, motionless as they,
With eyes that dreamed beyond the night and day.
IV.
And when, day passed and over heaven's height,
Thin with the many stars and cool with dew,
The fingers of the deep hours slowly drew
The wonder of the ever-healing night,
No grief or loneliness or wrapt delight
Or weight of silence ever brought to you
Slumber or rest; only your voices grew
More high and solemn; slowly with hushed flight
Ye saw the echoing hours go by, long-drawn,
Nor ever stirred, watching with fathomless eyes,
And with your countless clear antiphonies
Filling the earth and heaven, even till dawn,
Last-risen, found you with its first pale gleam,
Still with soft throats unaltered in your dream.
V.
And slowly as we heard you, day by day,
The stillness of enchanted reveries
Bound brain and spirit and half-clos'd eyes,
In some divine sweet wonder-dream astray;
To us no sorrow or upreared dismay
Nor any discord came, but evermore
The voices of mankind, the outer roar,
Grew strange and murmurous, faint and far away.
Morning and noon and midnight exquisitely,
Wrapt with your voices, this alone we knew,
Cities might change and fall, and men might die,
Secure were we, content to dream with you,
That change and pain are shadows faint and fleet,
And dreams are real, and life is only sweet.
"Paint Me As I Am, Warts And All"--Cromwell.
by Joseph Horatio Chant

Brave soul, 'twere well if all the same would say,
And artists aim their patron's wish t'obey.
What signifies a wart, or e'en a scar?
Leave both, skilled hand, and paint us as we are.
The crowfeet paint, the wrinkles on the brow,
The hollow cheek, the form inclined to bow,
The tear-dim'd eye, the hair well streaked with gray,
The hardened hand, begrim'd with soot and clay,
And if you use the seer's revealing glass,
Remember this, "All flesh is as the grass."
Wasteland
by Madison Julius Cawein

Briar and fennel and chinquapin,
And rue and ragweed everywhere;
The field seemed sick as a soul with sin,
Or dead of an old despair,
Born of an ancient care.
The cricket's cry and the locust's whirr,
And the note of a bird's distress,
With the rasping sound of a grasshopp'r,
Clung to the loneliness
Like burrs to a ragged dress.
So sad the field, so waste the ground,
So curst with an old despair,
A woodchuck's burrow, a blind mole's mound,
And a chipmunk's stony lair,
Seemed more than it could bear.
So solemn too, so more than sad,
So droning-lone with bees
I wondered what more could Nature add
To the sum of its miseries
And then I saw the trees.
Skeletons gaunt, that gnarled the place,
Twisted and torn they rose,
The tortured bones of a perished race
Of monsters no mortal knows.
They startled the mind's repose.
And a man stood there, as still as moss,
A lichen form that stared;
And an old blind hound, that seemed at loss,
Forever around him fared
With a snarling fang half-bared.
I looked at the man. I saw him plain.
Like a dead weed, gray and wan,
Or a breath of dust. I looked again
And man and dog were gone
Like wisps o' the graying dawn. . . .
Were they a part of the grim death'there?
Ragweed, fennel, and rue?
Or forms of the mind, an old despair,
That there into semblance grew
Out of the grief I knew?
Arms And The Man. - The Ancient Enemies.
by James Barron Hope

Brave was the foeman! well he held his ground!
But here defeat at kindred hands he found!
The shafts rained on him, in a righteous cause,
Came from the quiver of Old England's laws!
He fought in vain; and on this spot went down
The jus divinum, and the kingly crown.
But for those scenes Time long has made amends.
The ancient enemies are present friends;
Two swords, in Massachusetts, rich in dust,
And, better still, the peacefulness of rust,
Told the whole story in its double parts
To one who lives in two great nations' hearts;
And late above Old England's roar and din
Slow-tolling bells spoke sympathy of kin:
Victoria's wreath blooms on the sleeping breast
Of him just gone to his reward and rest,
And firm and fast between two mighty Powers
New treaties live in those undying flowers.
The Isles Of Huron
by John Campbell

Bright are the countless isles which crest
With waving woods wide Huron's breast,--
Her countless isles, that love too well
The crystal waters whence they rise,
Far from her azure depths to swell,
Or wanton with the wooing skies;
Nor, jealous, soar to keep the Day
From laughing in each rippling bay,
But floating on the flood they love,
Soft whispering, kiss her breast, and seek
No passions of the air above,
No fires that burn the thunder-peak.
Algoma o'er Ontario throws
Fair forest heights and mountain snows;
Strong Erie shakes the orchard plain
At great Niagara's defiles,
And river-gods o'er Lawrence reign,
But Love is king in Huron's isles.
Dirge
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Boys and girls that held her dear,
Do your weeping now;
All you loved of her lies here.
Brought to earth the arrogant brow,
And the withering tongue
Chastened; do your weeping now.
Sing whatever songs are sung,
Wind whatever wreath,
For a playmate perished young,
For a spirit spent in death.
Boys and girls that held her dear,
All you loved of her lies here.
In Memoriam. - Miss Catharine Ball,
by Lydia Howard Sigourney

Daughter of Hon. Judge BALL of Hoosick Falls, N.Y., died at the City of Washington, 1862.
Bright sunbeam of a father's heart
Whose earliest radiance shone
Delightful o'er a mother's eye
Like morning-star in cloudless sky,
Say, whither hast thou flown?
Fair inmate of a happy home
Whose love so gently shed
Could a serene enchantment make
And love in stranger bosoms wake,
Ah, whither art thou fled?
They know, who trust the Saviour's word
With faith no tear can dim,
That such as bear His spirit here
And do His will in duty's sphere
Shall rise to dwell with Him.
They know, who feel an Angel near,
Though hid from mortal sight
And reaching out to her their hand
Shall safer reach that Pleasant Land
Whose buds no blast can blight.
Even I, who but with fleeting glance
Beheld thee here below,
From its remembered sweetness gain
New impulse toward that heavenly train
Whose harps in never-ceasing strain
With God's high praises glow.
Love In Youth And Age.  First Reading.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Tornami al tempo.
Bring back the time when blind desire ran free,
With bit and rein too loose to curb his flight;
Give back the buried face, once angel-bright,
That hides in earth all comely things from me;
Bring back those journeys ta'en so toilsomely,
So toilsome-slow to one whose hairs are white;
Those tears and flames that in one breast unite;
If thou wilt once more take thy fill of me!
Yet Love! Suppose it true that thou dost thrive
Only on bitter honey-dews of tears.
Small profit hast thou of a weak old man.
My soul that toward the other shore doth strive,
Wards off thy darts with shafts of holier fears;
And fire feeds ill on brands no breath can fan.
Lily-Bell
by Louisa May Alcott

"Bright shines the summer sun,
Soft is the summer air;
Gayly the wood-birds sing,
Flowers are blooming fair.
"But, deep in the dark, cold rock,
Sadly I dwell,
Longing for thee, dear friend,
Lily-Bell! Lily-Bell!"
"Through sunlight and summer air
I have sought for thee long,
Guided by birds and flowers,
And now by thy song.
"Thistledown! Thistledown!
O'er hill and dell
Hither to comfort thee
Comes Lily-Bell."
The Bohemian
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Bring me the livery of no other man.
I am my own to robe me at my pleasure.
Accepted rules to me disclose no treasure:
What is the chief who shall my garments plan?
No garb conventional but I 'll attack it.
(Come, why not don my spangled jacket?)
To The Daisy
by William Wordsworth

Bright Flower! whose home is everywhere,
Bold in maternal Nature's care,
And all the long year through the heir
Of joy or sorrow;
Methinks that there abides in thee
Some concord with humanity,
Given to no other flower I see
The forest thorough!
Is it that Man is soon deprest?
A thoughtless Thing! who, once unblest,
Does little on his memory rest,
Or on his reason,
And Thou would'st teach him how to find
A shelter under every wind,
A hope for times that are unkind
And every season?
Thou wander'st the wide world about,
Unchecked by pride or scrupulous doubt,
With friends to greet thee, or without,
Yet pleased and willing;
Meek, yielding to the occasion's call,
And all things suffering from all
Thy function apostolical
In peace fulfilling.
E.A., Nov. 6, 1900
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

Bright stars of Faith and Hope, her eyes
Shall shine for us through all the years.
For all her life was Love, and fears
Touch not the love that never dies.
And Death itself, to her, was but
The wider opening of the door
That had been opening, more and more,
Through all her life, and ne'er was shut.
--And never shall be shut. She left
The door ajar for you and me,
And, looking after her, we see
The glory shining through the cleft.
And when our own time comes,--again
We'll meet her face to face;--again
Well see the star-shine; and again
She'll greet us with her soft, "Come ben!"
Sonnet. To A Balloon Laden With Knowledge.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Bright ball of flame that through the gloom of even
Silently takest thine aethereal way,
And with surpassing glory dimm'st each ray
Twinkling amid the dark blue depths of Heaven, -
Unlike the fire thou bearest, soon shalt thou
Fade like a meteor in surrounding gloom,
Whilst that, unquenchable, is doomed to glow
A watch-light by the patriot's lonely tomb;
A ray of courage to the oppressed and poor;
A spark, though gleaming on the hovel's hearth,
Which through the tyrant's gilded domes shall roar;
A beacon in the darkness of the Earth;
A sun which, o'er the renovated scene,
Shall dart like Truth where Falsehood yet has been.
Fragment: To The Moon.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Bright wanderer, fair coquette of Heaven,
To whom alone it has been given
To change and be adored for ever,
Envy not this dim world, for never
But once within its shadow grew
One fair as -
On The Same. (On Seeing The Beautiful Seat Of Lord Galloway.)
by Robert Burns

Bright ran thy line, O Galloway,
Thro' many a far-fam'd sire!
So ran the far-fam'd Roman way,
So ended in a mire.