DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Shires On The Moray Frith.
by James McIntyre

Worthy of either song or story
Are the shires round frith of Moray,
Here lies the valley of Strathspey,
Famed for its music, lively, gay,
Elgin cathedral's 'prentice aisle
Is glory of that ruined pile.
What modern chisel now could trace
Fine sculpture of that ancient place,
And Forres famed for Sweno's stane
In honor of that kingly Dane,
'Graved with warriors runes and rhymes,
Long prior to historic times,
For a thousand years its been forgot
Who was victor Dane or Scot,
It is the country of McBeth
Where good King Duncan met his death,
And barren heath that place of fear
Stood witches cauldron of Shakespeare,
Nairn's Cawdor castle strong remains
Full worthy of the ancient Thanes,
And nestled 'neath the hills and bens
Queen of the moors, the lochs and glens,
Full proudly stands in vale of bliss
Chief Highland town of Inverness,
Near here the famous falls of Foyers
Where Burns and others tuned their lyres,
And the fatal field of dark Culloden
Where doughty clans were once down trodden,
Here men yet wear the tartan plaid
Ready to join the Highland Brigade,
And when the Frith you look across
The eye beholds Sutherland and Ross,
Where Duke has harnessed mighty team,
Plows hills and rocks and moors by steam,
Perhaps it may in part atone
For cruel clearings days bygone,
And Cromarty, whose wondrous mason,
First learned his geologic lesson,
Friends may rear a stately pillar,
The old red sand stone of Hugh Miller,
Ben Wyvis towers like monarch crowned,
Conspicuous o'er the hills around,
With crest 'ere white with driven snow,
Strathpeffer's water cure below.
Words
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Words are great forces in the realm of life:
Be careful of their use.    Who talks of hate,
Of poverty, of sickness, but sets rife
These very elements to mar his fate.
When love, health, happiness, and plenty hear
Their names repeated over day by day,
They wing their way like answering fairies near,
Then nestle down within our homes to stay.
Who talks of evil conjures into shape
The formless thing and gives it life and scope.
This is the law:    then let no word escape
That does not breathe of everlasting hope.
The Desire Of The Moth
by Madison Julius Cawein

Woman's a star, a rose;
Man but a moth, a bee:
High now as heaven she glows,
Low now as earth and sea:
Star of the world and rose,
Clothed on with mystery.
Ever a goal, a lure,
Man, for his joy and woe,
Strives to attain to her,
Beating wild wings below,
Dying to make him sure
If she be flame or snow.
To A Faun. - Translations From Horace.
by Charles Stuart Calverley

OD. iii. 18.
Wooer of young Nymphs who fly thee,
Lightly o'er my sunlit lawn
Trip, and go, nor injured by thee
Be my weanling herds, O Faun:
If the kid his doomed head bows, and
Brims with wine the loving cup,
When the year is full; and thousand
Scents from altars hoar go up.
Each flock in the rich grass gambols
When the month comes which is thine;
And the happy village rambles
Fieldward with the idle kine:
Lambs play on, the wolf their neighbour:
Wild woods deck thee with their spoil;
And with glee the sons of labour
Stamp thrice on their foe, the soil.
Deliverance From A Fit Of Fainting
by Anne Bradstreet

Worthy art Thou, O Lord, of praise,
But ah! It's not in me.
My sinking heart I pray Thee raise
So shall I give it Thee.
My life as spider's webb's cut off,
Thus fainting have I said,
And living man no more shall see
But be in silence laid.
My feeble spirit Thou didst revive,
My doubting Thou didst chide,
And though as dead mad'st me alive,
I here a while might 'bide.
Why should I live but to Thy praise?
My life is hid with Thee.
O Lord, no longer be my days
Than I may fruitful be.
To Wordsworth
by John Clare

Wordsworth I love, his books are like the fields,
Not filled with flowers, but works of human kind;
The pleasant weed a fragrant pleasure yields,
The briar and broomwood shaken by the wind,
The thorn and bramble o'er the water shoot
A finer flower than gardens e'er gave birth,
The aged huntsman grubbing up the root--
I love them all as tenants of the earth:
Where genius is, there often die the seeds;
What critics throw away I love the more;
I love to stoop and look among the weeds,
To find a flower I never knew before;
Wordsworth, go on--a greater poet be;
Merit will live, though parties disagree!
The Faery Pipe
by Madison Julius Cawein

Woods of wonder, wonder ways,
Where the Faery Piper plays,
Bidding all to up and follow
Over haunted hill and hollow,
And behold again the Fays
Whirling in a moonlit maze.
He whom once our Childhood knew,
Piper of the Dream-come-true;
Who with music reared us towers
Of Adventure, where the Hours
Wove enchantments; peopled too
With the deeds of Daring-do.
Oh, to hear the pipe he blows
Saying all of Let's-Suppose!
Who once bade us brave the danger
Of the Dragon, for the stranger,
Princess, who, to tell her woes,
Dropped from her high Tower a rose.
She, for whom we would have died,
To whose Tower the pipe was guide,
And from Witchcraft's power delivered.
How the dungeon-tower shivered
When our trumpet blast defied,
Challenging its giant pride!
Oh, again to stand and see
Vision grow reality!
Hear the Elfland bugles blowing,
And, beyond all seeing, knowing,
Gallop to our empery
There again in Fa'rie!
Oh, again to leave regret,
Fever of the world and fret!
Tears and loss and work and worry!
For the Land of Song and Story,
For that Land none can forget,
Of which Thought is minion yet. . . .
Woods of wonder, wonder ways,
Where the Faery Piper plays,
Saying, "Quit your melancholy!
Leave the world of work and folly!
Follow me to where the Fays
Trip it as in Childhood's days."
Ben Karshook's Wisdom
by Robert Browning

'Would a man 'scape the rod?'
Rabbi Ben Karshook saith,
'See that he turn to God
The day before his death.'
'Ay could a man enquire
When it shall come!' I say,
The Rabbi's eye shoots fire 
'Then let him turn to-day! '
Quoth a young Sadducee:
'Reader of many rolls,
Is it so certain we
Have, as they tell us, souls?'
'Son, there is no reply!'
The Rabbi bit his beard:
'Certain, a soul have I 
We may have none,' he sneer'd.
Thus Karshook, the Hiram's-Hammer,
The Right-hand Temple-column,
Taught babes in grace their grammar,
And struck the simple, solemn.
Rome, April 27, 1854
The Exile's Desire.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Si je pouvais voir, O patrie!")
[Bk. III. xxxvii.]
Would I could see you, native land,
Where lilacs and the almond stand
Behind fields flowering to the strand - 
But no!
Can I - oh, father, mother, crave
Another final blessing save
To rest my head upon your grave? - 
But no!
In the one pit where ye repose,
Would I could tell of France's woes,
My brethren, who fell facing foes - 
But no!
Would I had - oh, my dove of light,
After whose flight came ceaseless night,
One plume to clasp so purely white. - 
But no!
Far from ye all - oh, dead, bewailed!
The fog-bell deafens me empaled
Upon this rock - I feel enjailed - 
Though free.
Like one who watches at the gate
Lest some shall 'scape the doom'd strait.
I watch! the tyrant, howe'er late,
Must fall!
Motive
by W. M. MacKeracher

Worthless, the man who works - he knows not why,
Whom naught inspires to his puny plan,
Who seeming plays his part instinctively:
Soulless, and falsely designated "man."
Wicked, who works from wish of worldly gain, -
His soul surrendered to th'accurs'd lust
Of pleasure partial, briefly to remain,
Of treasure liable to moth and rust.
Foolish and vain is he whose motive - fame,
Ruled by desire of honor and renown;
And fondly courting Fortune's fickle Dame, -
To-day she smiles, to-morrow she will frown.
But virtuous, noble, prompted from above,
Preluding now the perfect life again,
Is he, whose only inspiration, love,
Love to his God and to his fellow-men.
For love is naught but God's own nature, given,
In partial measure, down to man to come;
The sole delight of earth, the key to heaven;
Of all the virtues, centre, source, and sum.
On A Portrait Of Wordsworth By B. R. Haydon
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Wordsworth upon Helvellyn! Let the cloud
Ebb audibly along the mountain-wind,
Then break against the rock, and show behind
The lowland valleys floating up to crowd
The sense with beauty. He with forehead bowed
And humble-lidded eyes, as one inclined
Before the sovran thought of his own mind,
And very meek with inspirations proud,
Takes here his rightful place as poet-priest
By the high altar, singing prayer and prayer
To the higher Heavens. A noble vision free
Our Haydon's hand has flung out from the mist:
No portrait this, with Academic air!
This is the poet and his poetry.
The Workman And The Man With White Hands - A Dialogue
by Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

WORKMAN. Why do you come crawling up to us? What do ye want? You're none of us.... Get along!
MAN WITH WHITE HANDS. I am one of you, comrades!
THE WORKMAN. One of us, indeed! That's a notion! Look at my hands. D'ye see how dirty they are? And they smell of muck, and of pitch - but yours, see, are white. And what do they smell of?
THE MAN WITH WHITE HANDS (offering his hands). Smell them.
THE WORKMAN (sniffing his hands). That's a queer start. Seems like a smell of iron.
THE MAN WITH WHITE HANDS. Yes; iron it is. For six long years I wore chains on them.
THE WORKMAN. And what was that for, pray?
THE MAN WITH WHITE HANDS. Why, because I worked for your good; tried to set free the oppressed and the ignorant; stirred folks up against your oppressors; resisted the authorities.... So they locked me up.
THE WORKMAN. Locked you up, did they? Serve you right for resisting!
Two Years Later.
THE SAME WORKMAN TO ANOTHER. I say, Pete.... Do you remember, the year before last, a chap with white hands talking to you?
THE OTHER WORKMAN. Yes;... what of it?
THE FIRST WORKMAN. They're going to hang him to-day, I heard say; that's the order.
THE SECOND WORKMAN. Did he keep on resisting the authorities?
THE FIRST WORKMAN. He kept on.
THE SECOND WORKMAN. Ah!... Now, I say, mate, couldn't we get hold of a bit of the rope they're going to hang him with? They do say, it brings good luck to a house!
THE FIRST WORKMAN. You're right there. We'll have a try for it, mate.
April 1878.
The Mocking Fairy
by Walter De La Mare

"Won't you look out of your window, Mrs. Gill?"
Quoth the Fairy, nidding, nodding in the garden;
" Can't you look out of your window, Mrs. Gill?"
Quoth the Fairy, laughing softly in the garden;
But the air was still, the cherry boughs were still,
And the ivy-tod 'neath the empty sill,
And never from her window looked out Mrs. Gill
On the Fairy shrilly mocking in the garden.
"What have they done with you, you poor Mrs. Gill?"
Quoth the Fairy, brightly glancing in the garden;
"Where have they hidden you, you poor old Mrs. Gill?"
Quoth the Fairy dancing lightly in the garden;
But night's faint veil now wrapped the hill,
Stark 'neath the stars stood the dead-still Mill,
And out of her cold cottage never answered Mrs. Gill
The Fairy mimbling mambling in the garden.
For Hire
by Morris Rosenfeld

Work with might and main,
Or with hand and heart,
Work with soul and brain,
Or with holy art,
Thread, or genius' fire--
Make a vest, or verse--
If 'tis done for hire,
It is done the worse.
Nursery Rhyme. CLXI. Songs.
by Unknown

Wooley Foster has gone to sea,
With silver buckles at his knee,
When he comes back he'll marry me, - 
Bonny Wooley Foster!
Wooley Foster has a cow,
Black and white about the mow,
Open the gates and let her through,
Wooley Foster's ain cow!
Wooley Foster has a hen,
Cockle button, cockle ben,
She lay eggs for gentlemen,
But none for Wooley Foster!
The Lament Of The Looking-Glass
by Thomas Hardy

Words from the mirror softly pass
To the curtains with a sigh:
"Why should I trouble again to glass
These smileless things hard by,
Since she I pleasured once, alas,
Is now no longer nigh!"
"I've imaged shadows of coursing cloud,
And of the plying limb
On the pensive pine when the air is loud
With its aerial hymn;
But never do they make me proud
To catch them within my rim!
"I flash back phantoms of the night
That sometimes flit by me,
I echo roses red and white -
The loveliest blooms that be -
But now I never hold to sight
So sweet a flower as she."
World, Take Good Notice
by Walt Whitman

World, take good notice, silver stars fading,
Milky hue ript, weft of white detaching,
Coals thirty-eight, baleful and burning,
Scarlet, significant, hands off warning,
Now and henceforth flaunt from these shores.
In Memoriam. - Madam Pond,
by Lydia Howard Sigourney

Widow of the late CALEB POND, Esq., died at Hartford, February 19th 1861, aged 73.
Would any think who marked the smile
On yon untroubled face,
That threescore years and ten had fled
Without a wrinkling trace?
Yet age doth sometimes skill to guard
The beauty of its prime,
And hold a quenchless lamp above
The water-floods of time.
And she, for whom we mourn, maintained
Through every change and care,
Those hallowed virtues of the soul
That keep the features fair.
They raised a little child to look
Into the coffin deep,
Who dream'd the lovely lady lay
But in a transient sleep,
And gazed upon the face of death
With eye of tranquil ray,
Well pleased, as with the snowy flowers,
That on her bosom lay.
Then on the sad procession moved,
And mid funereal gloom,
The only son was there to lay
His mother in the tomb.
Oh, memories of an only child,
How strong and rich ye are!
A wealth of concentrated love
That none beside can share.
And hence, the filial grief that swells,
When breaks its latest tie,
Flows onward with a fuller tide
Than meets the common eye.
With voice of holy prayer she pass'd
Forth from her pleasant door,
Where tender recollections dwell
Though she returns no more.
Even so the pure and pious rise
From tents of pain and woe,
But leave a precious transcript here
To guide us where they go.
Denial In Women No Disheartening To Men.
by Robert Herrick

Women, although they ne'er so goodly make it,
Their fashion is, but to say no, to take it.
The Truth Of Woman
by Walter Scott (Sir)

Woman's faith, and woman's trust
Write the characters in the dust;
Stamp them on the running stream,
Print them on the moon's pale beam,
And each evanescent letter
Shall be clearer, firmer, better,
And more permanent, I ween,
Than the thing those letters mean.
I have strain'd the spider's thread
'Gainst the promise of a maid;
I have weigh'd a grain of sand
'Gainst her plight of heart and hand;
I told my true love of the token,
How her faith proved light, and her word was broken:
Again her word and truth she plight,
And I believed them again ere night.
Work, Neighbor, Work!
by Louisa May Alcott

"Work, neighbor, work!
Do not stop to play;
Wander far and wide,
Gather all you may.
We are never like
Idle butterflies,
But like the busy bees,
Industrious and wise."
Amour 23
by Michael Drayton

Wonder of Heauen, glasse of diuinitie,
Rare beautie, Natures joy, perfections Mother,
The worke of that vnited Trinitie,
Wherein each fayrest part excelleth other!
Loues Mithridate, the purest of perfection,
Celestiall Image, Load-stone of desire,
The soules delight, the sences true direction,
Sunne of the world, thou hart reuyuing fire!
Why should'st thou place thy Trophies in those eyes,
Which scorne the honor that is done to thee,
Or make my pen her name immortalize,
Who in her pride sdaynes once to look on me?
It is thy heauen within her face to dwell,
And in thy heauen, there onely, is my hell.
Work Lads!
by John Hartley

Work if tha can, it's thi duty to labor;
If able, show willin, - ther's plenty to do,
Ther's battles to feight withaat musket or sabre,
But if tha'll have pluck tha'll be safe to pool throo.
Ther's noa use sittin still wishin an sighin,
An waitin for Fortun to gie yo a lift;
For ther's others i'th' struggle an time keeps on flyin,
An him who wod conquer mun show he's some shift.
Ther's nobbut one friend 'at a chap can depend on,
If he's made up his mind to succeed in the strife;
A chap's but hissen 'at he can mak a friend on,
Unless he be blest wi' a sensible wife.
But nivver let wealth, wi' its glamour an glitter,
Be th' chief end o' life or yo'll find when too lat,
'At th' fruits ov yor labor will all have turned bitter,
An th' pleasures yo hoped for are all stale an flat.
Do gooid to yorsen, win wealth, fame, or power,
But i'th' midst ov it all keep this object i' view;
'At the mooar yo possess, let yor self-love sink lower,
An pure pleasur will spring from the gooid yo can do.
Oonts
by Rudyard Kipling

Wot makes the soldier's 'eart to penk, wot makes 'im to perspire?
It isn't standin' up to charge nor lyin' down to fire;
But it's everlastin' waitin' on a everlastin' road
For the commissariat camel an' 'is commissariat load.
O the oont*, O the oont, O the commissariat oont!
With 'is silly neck a-bobbin' like a basket full o' snakes;
We packs 'im like an idol, an' you ought to 'ear 'im grunt,
An' when we gets 'im loaded up 'is blessed girth-rope breaks.
Wot makes the rear-guard swear so 'ard when night is drorin' in,
An' every native follower is shiverin' for 'is skin?
It ain't the chanst o' being rushed by Paythans from the 'ills,
It's the commissariat camel puttin' on 'is bloomin' frills!
O the oont, O the oont, O the hairy scary oont!
A-trippin' over tent-ropes when we've got the night alarm!
We socks 'im with a stretcher-pole an' 'eads 'im off in front,
An' when we've saved 'is bloomin' life 'e chaws our bloomin' arm.
The 'orse 'e knows above a bit, the bullock's but a fool,
The elephant's a gentleman, the battery-mule's a mule;
But the commissariat cam-u-el, when all is said an' done,
'E's a devil an' a ostrich an' a orphan-child in one.
O the oont, O the oont, O the Gawd-forsaken oont!
The lumpy-'umpy 'ummin'-bird a-singin' where 'e lies,
'E's blocked the whole division from the rear-guard to the front,
An' when we get him up again, the beggar goes an' dies!
'E'll gall an' chafe an' lame an' fight, 'e smells most awful vile;
'E'll lose 'isself for ever if you let 'im stray a mile;
'E's game to graze the 'ole day long an' 'owl the 'ole night through,
An' when 'e comes to greasy ground 'e splits 'isself in two.
O the oont, O the oont, O the floppin', droppin' oont!
When 'is long legs give from under an' 'is meltin' eye is dim,
The tribes is up be'ind us, and the tribes is out in front,
It ain't no jam for Tommy, but it's kites an' crows for 'im.
So when the cruel march is done, an' when the roads is blind,
An' when we sees the camp in front an' 'ears the shots be'ind,
Ho! then we strips 'is saddle off, and all 'is woes is past:
'E thinks on us that used 'im so, and gets revenge at last.
O the oont, O the oont, O the floatin', bloatin' oont!
The late lamented camel in the water-cut 'e lies;
We keeps a mile be'ind 'im an' we keeps a mile in front,
But 'e gets into the drinkin'-casks, and then o' course we dies.
Woman! When I Behold Thee Flippant, Vain
by John Keats

Woman! when I behold thee flippant, vain,
Inconstant, childish, proud, and full of fancies;
Without that modest softening that enhances
The downcast eye, repentant of the pain
That its mild light creates to heal again:
E'en then, elate, my spirit leaps, and prances,
E'en then my soul with exultation dances
For that to love, so long, I've dormant lain:
But when I see thee meek, and kind, and tender,
Heavens! how desperately do I adore
Thy winning graces; to be thy defender
I hotly burn to be a Calidore
A very Red Cross Knight a stout Leander
Might I be loved by thee like these of yore.
Light feet, dark violet eyes, and parted hair;
Soft dimpled hands, white neck, and creamy breast,
Are things on which the dazzled senses rest
Till the fond, fixed eyes, forget they stare.
From such fine pictures, heavens! I cannot dare
To turn my admiration, though unpossess'd
They be of what is worthy, though not drest
In lovely modesty, and virtues rare.
Yet these I leave as thoughtless as a lark;
These lures I straight forget e'en ere I dine,
Or thrice my palate moisten: but when I mark
Such charms with mild intelligences shine,
My ear is open like a greedy shark,
To catch the tunings of a voice divine.
Ah! who can e'er forget so fair a being?
Who can forget her half retiring sweets?
God! she is like a milk-white lamb that bleats
For man's protection. Surely the All-seeing,
Who joys to see us with his gifts agreeing,
Will never give him pinions, who intreats
Such innocence to ruin, who vilely cheats
A dove-like bosom. In truth there is no freeing
One's thoughts from such a beauty; when I hear
A lay that once I saw her hand awake,
Her form seems floating palpable, and near;
Had I e'er seen her from an arbour take
A dewy flower, oft would that hand appear,
And o'er my eyes the trembling moisture shake.
Epigram On Hearing A Lady Talk Very Fast And Unintelligibly
by Thomas Oldham

Words upon words impetuous rush along,
And tread each other's brains out as they throng.
*        *        *        *        *
'Admire my wife! did ever mortal eyes'
Cornuto, in a rapture, boasting cries
'Such a fine set of teeth of ivory view?
And such a fine complexion's ivory hue?
Fool! hide thy head! both her and thee we scorn:
Oft the wife's ivory makes the husband's horn.
*        *        *        *        *
I'm told Sir Pigmy mimics me; what then?
Don't we all know that monkies mimic men?
'I cannot say your poem I admire;
It wants originality and fire;
Besides, I find it, by no means, correct;
You've written it in haste, I should suspect,'
"What! do you think me then a jackass, pray?"
'I shall think so if you so loudly bray.'
*        *        *        *        *
A worthy man of rags
Intreats for charity
A rogue of money-bags.
'Pshaw! it at home begins.'
Then serve thyself and me;
For it will be no less
A cover to thy sins,
Than to my nakedness.
The Fair-one, at her toilet, thus exprest
The ambitious aims that swell'd her panting breast:
'Pull, Fanny, pull again, with all your might;
I must, to-day, be laced up very tight;
For, to a glorious conquest I aspire:
Know, that two Noblemen my charms admire!
Pull, then, good girl! I'll be so tightly laced,
That half-a-yard will measure round my waist.'
'Hold!' Cupid cries, 'for Love's, for Pity's sake;
You'll strangle Beauty, and my bowstring break.'
*        *        *        *        *
In altering thus and shortening his oration,
Sure the Reporters do Lord Flimsy wrong;
It well may fill his Lordship with vexation,
When he has toil'd so hard to make it long.
'I've writ an epigram; here, read it, do.
The critics praise it highly: what think you?'
"I don't much like it." 'No! 'tis very fine.'
"It may be to your taste 'tis not to mine."
'I say 'tis finely pointed.' "Well! so be it!
The point may be too fine for me to see it."
'Then, let me tell you, Sir, you must be blind.'
"Many more like me I'm afraid you'll find."
*        *        *        *        *
Wise radicals! to make it bear more fruit,
They fain would tear the tree up by the root.
Young trees, we know, may sometimes thrive transplanted,
But old ones can't; 'tis by all gardeners granted.
'Twill die; and when the good old tree is dead,
What sort of tree, pray, will they plant instead?
The Squire has long imagined that his son
Is deeply studying Coke and Lyttelton.
They meet. 'Dear Tom! to see you gives me joy.
How get you on in Law? my clever boy!
In practice too? But Tom, what bills you draw!
Expensive work this studying of the law!'
The sly young Templar gulls his easy Sire:
"O! I get on, Sir, to my heart's desire;
In chamber-practice I have much to do."
His answer in a certain sense is true.
*        *        *        *        *
To move her lover, a coquetish Miss
Began to sob, pretending she should faint;
Her maid restored her straight by whispering this:
'I fear, my lady, you forget your paint.'
Beautiful Women
by Walt Whitman

Women sit, or move to and fro--some old, some young;
The young are beautiful--but the old are more beautiful than the young.
Michelangelo
by Vachel Lindsay

Would I might wake in you the whirl-wind soul
Of Michelangelo, who hewed the stone
And Night and Day revealed, whose arm alone
Could draw the face of God, the titan high
Whose genius smote like lightning from the sky - 
And shall he mold like dead leaves in the grave?
Nay he is in us!    Let us dare and dare.
God help us to be brave.