DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Lark And Her Young Ones With The Owner Of A Field.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
"Depend upon yourself alone,"
Has to a common proverb grown.
'Tis thus confirm'd in Aesop's way: - 
The larks to build their nests are seen
Among the wheat-crops young and green;
That is to say,
What time all things, dame Nature heeding,
Betake themselves to love and breeding - 
The monstrous whales and sharks,
Beneath the briny flood,
The tigers in the wood,
And in the fields, the larks.
One she, however, of these last,
Found more than half the spring-time past
Without the taste of spring-time pleasures;
When firmly she set up her will
That she would be a mother still,
And resolutely took her measures; - 
First, got herself by Hymen match'd;
Then built her nest, laid, sat, and hatch'd.
All went as well as such things could.
The wheat-crop ripening ere the brood
Were strong enough to take their flight,
Aware how perilous their plight,
The lark went out to search for food,
And told her young to listen well,
And keep a constant sentinel.
'The owner of this field,' said she,
'Will come, I know, his grain to see.
Hear all he says; we little birds
Must shape our conduct by his words.'
No sooner was the lark away,
Than came the owner with his son.
'This wheat is ripe,' said he: 'now run
And give our friends a call
To bring their sickles all,
And help us, great and small,
To-morrow, at the break of day.'
The lark, returning, found no harm,
Except her nest in wild alarm.
Says one, 'We heard the owner say,
Go, give our friends a call
To help, to-morrow, break of day.'
Replied the lark, 'If that is all,
We need not be in any fear,
But only keep an open ear.
As gay as larks, now eat your victuals. - '
They ate and slept - the great and littles.
The dawn arrives, but not the friends;
The lark soars up, the owner wends
His usual round to view his land.
'This grain,' says he, 'ought not to stand.
Our friends do wrong; and so does he
Who trusts that friends will friendly be.
My son, go call our kith and kin
To help us get our harvest in.'
This second order made
The little larks still more afraid.
'He sent for kindred, mother, by his son;
The work will now, indeed, be done.'
'No, darlings; go to sleep;
Our lowly nest we'll keep.'
With reason said; for kindred there came none.
Thus, tired of expectation vain,
Once more the owner view'd his grain.
'My son,' said he, 'we're surely fools
To wait for other people's tools;
As if one might, for love or pelf,
Have friends more faithful than himself!
Engrave this lesson deep, my son.
And know you now what must be done?
We must ourselves our sickles bring,
And, while the larks their matins sing,
Begin the work; and, on this plan,
Get in our harvest as we can.'
This plan the lark no sooner knew,
Than, 'Now's the time,' she said, 'my chicks;'
And, taking little time to fix,
Away they flew;
All fluttering, soaring, often grounding,
Decamp'd without a trumpet sounding.
Breitmann in La Sorbonne
by Charles G. Leland

Der Breitmann sits in la Sorbonne,
A note-pook in his hand,
'Tvas dere he vent to lectures,
Und in oldt Louis le Grand.
Id's more ash two und dwendy years
Since here I used mein pen;
Oh, where ish all de characders,
Dat I hafe known since denn?
Der cratest boet efer vas,
Der pest I efer known,
Vent lecdures here, too, shoost like me,
Le Sieur Fran?oys Villon.
He raise de teufel all arount,
He hear de Sorbonne chime;
Crate shpirid ender in mein heart,
Und mofe mein soul to rhyme.
Ballade.
Dictes moy in what shpirit land
Ish Clara Lafontaine?
Or Pomar', or La Frisette,
Who blazed on soosh a train?
Shveet Echo flings de quesdion pack,
O'er lake or shdreamlet lone;
All eartly peauty fades afay,
Vhere ish dem lofed ones gone?
Oh, vhere ish Lola Montez now,
So loved in efery land?
How oft I shmoked dose cigarettes
She rollt mit vairy hand!
Dat mighdy soul, dat shplendit brick,
A saint's pecome to be,
For mit soosh saints der Breitmann make
His Hagiologie.
Und vhere ish La Pochardinette?
Ish she too mit de dead?
She loafed de Latin Quarter mit
A hat und fedder on her het.
Lebe wohl petite Pochardinette!
Qui ne safait refuser,
Ni la ponche ' la bleine ferre,
Ni sa pouche ' un paiser.
O Prince! dese quesdions all are nix,
I sit here all alone,
Mit von refrain to end de shdrain,
Vhere ish mein lofed vons gone?
Vhen Marcovitch has cut und run,
Und Schneider's off de ving,
Some cray old reprobate like me
Vill of dese lofed vons sing.
Sonnet.
by Thomas Runciman

"Despairless? Hopeless? Join the cheerful hunt
Whose hounds are Science, high Desires the steeds,
And Misery the quarry. Use and Wont
No help to human anguish bring, that bleeds
For all two thousand years of Christian deeds.
Let Use and Wont in styes still feed and grunt,
Or, bovine, graze knee-deep in flowering meads.
Mount! follow! Onward urge Life's dragon-hunt!"
- So cries the sportsman brisk at break of day.
"The sound of hound and horn is well for thee,"
Thus I reply, "but I have other prey;
And friendly is my quest as you may see.
Though slow my pace, full surely in the dark
I'll chance on it at last, though none may mark."
Port Ceiriad Bay
by Ben Jonson

Descended to the shore, odd how we left
the young girl with us to herself, and went
straight to examine the stratified cliffs,
forgot her entirely in our interest.
You marvelled at the shapes the clockwork sea
had worn the stone, talking keenly, until
the pace of this random sculpture recalled
your age to you, and then its anodynes.
And so you turned, pretending youth, courting
the girl as if you were a boy again,
leaving the wry cliffs to their erosion
and me to my observant solitude.
Desire We Past Illusions To Recall
by William Wordsworth

Desire we past illusions to recall?
To reinstate wild Fancy, would we hide
Truths whose thick veil Science has drawn aside?
No, let this Age, high as she may, install
In her esteem the thirst that wrought man's fall,
The universe is infinitely wide;
And conquering Reason, if self-glorified,
Can nowhere move uncrossed by some new wall
Or gulf of mystery, which thou alone,
Imaginative Faith! canst overleap,
In progress toward the fount of Love, the throne
Of Power whose ministers the records keep
Of periods fixed, and laws established, less
Flesh to exalt than prove its nothingness.
A Maypole.
by Jonathan Swift

Deprived of root, and branch and rind,
Yet flowers I bear of every kind:
And such is my prolific power,
They bloom in less than half an hour;
Yet standers-by may plainly see
They get no nourishment from me.
My head with giddiness goes round,
And yet I firmly stand my ground:
All over naked I am seen,
And painted like an Indian queen.
No couple-beggar in the land
E'er join'd such numbers hand in hand.
I join'd them fairly with a ring;
Nor can our parson blame the thing.
And though no marriage words are spoke,
They part not till the ring is broke;
Yet hypocrite fanatics cry,
I'm but an idol raised on high;
And once a weaver in our town,
A damn'd Cromwellian, knock'd me down.
I lay a prisoner twenty years,
And then the jovial cavaliers
To their old post restored all three - 
I mean the church, the king, and me.
My Lady April
by Ernest Christopher Dowson

Dew on her robe and on her tangled hair;
Twin dewdrops for her eyes; behold her pass,
With dainty step brushing the young, green grass,
The while she trills some high, fantastic air,
Full of all feathered sweetness: she is fair,
And all her flower-like beauty, as a glass,
Mirrors out hope and love: and still, alas!
Traces of tears her languid lashes wear.
Say, doth she weep for very wantonness?
Or is it that she dimly doth foresee
Across her youth the joys grow less and less
The burden of the days that are to be:
Autumn and withered leaves and vanity,
And winter bringing end in barrenness.
In Time Of Sorrow
by Robert Fuller Murray

Despair is in the suns that shine,
And in the rains that fall,
This sad forsaken soul of mine
Is weary of them all.
They fall and shine on alien streets
From those I love and know.
I cannot hear amid the heats
The North Sea's freshening flow
The people hurry up and down,
Like ghosts that cannot lie;
And wandering through the phantom town
The weariest ghost am I.
When Tommy Came Marching Home
by Edward Dyson

Devine came back the other day.
We'd planned a great home-comin'.
No long trombone we had to play,
No fine, heroic drummin'.
With two sticks and a milk-can Borne
Put up a martial clatter,
While Carter blew a bullock-horn
Says Tom Devine, with healthy scorn;
'Gorstruth! what is the matter?'
We set three colored petticoats
From Baker's chimneys blowin'
('Tis not the bravest flag that floats,
Yet 'twas the finest goin');
We cheered our hero all we knew,
No song of praise neglectin',
To show our pride as he limped through
He merely spat and snorted, 'Who
'The deuce are yous expectin'?'
They lured him to my shop somehow,
And sued for news of battle.
Says Tom: 'Who rides the mail track now?
Who herdin' Stringer's cattle?'
A dint the Turk put in his head.
He covers with a ringlet.
He'd won a medal, so we read.
'I might 'ave 'ad it pinched,' he said-
'I've sewn it in my singlet!'
Says Cole 'But, 'struth, you must 'ave seen
A fearful swag of scrappin'.'
And Tom agrees 'Where men are keen
That's pretty sure to 'appen.
One night a little bloke from Hay
Who plugged a Pentridge warder
Got such a doin' that at day,
Amazed, they ticked him for a stray
Distinguished Service Order.
'Then Sydney Bob was rather vexed
With Green, who'd pinched his braces,
That was 'continued in our next'
In half a score of places.
McCubbin threw his grub at Lea
(You know how sticky stew is);
They fought till neither man could see.
You talk of fight, Gorstrike me, we
Saw stacks of it at Suez!'
Macedonia, 1903
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

Devils' work!
Devils' work, my masters!
Britain, your hands are red!
You may close your heart, but you cannot shirk
This terrible fact,--We--kept--the--Turk.
His day was past and we knew his work,
But he played our game, so we kept the Turk,
For our own sake's sake we kept the Turk.
Britain, your hands are red!
Red are the walls and the ways,
And--Britain, your hands are red!
There is blood on the hearth, and blood in the well,
And the whole fair land is a red, red hell,--
Britain, your hands are red!
"Come over! Come over and help us!"
We are deaf to the ancient cry.
--"For the sake of our women and children!"
And Britain stands quietly by.
O Britain, your hands are red!
Cleanse your hands, Britain!
Yea, cleanse them in blood if it must be!
For blood that is shed in the cause of right
Has power, as of old, to wash souls white.
Cleanse your hands, Britain!
O for the fiery grace of old,--
The heart and the masterful hand!
But grace grows dim and the fire grows cold,
We are heavy with greed and lust and gold,
And life creeps low in the land.
Break your bonds, Britain!
Stand up once again for the right!
We have stained our hands in the times that are past,
Before God, we would wash them white.
For the Nations are in the proving;
Each day is Judgment Day;
And the peoples He finds wanting
Shall pass--by the winding way.
In Memoriam C. G. Gordon
by Mary Hannay Foott

Devotion! When thy name is named,
What matchless visions rise!
The Hebrew, leaving Pharoah's house,
To Israel's rescue flies;
The Moabitess, gleans, content,
Beneath the burning skies.
The flower of Christendom is given
To gain the Holy Grave;
O'er Acre and o'er Askelon
The blessed banners wave;
By Edward's bed I see thee kneel,
O Queen beloved and brave!
Who art thou, girl, in warrior garb,
St. Catherine's sword in hand?
'Tis La Pucelle, and France is free;
O shame that thou must stand
Bound, helpless, at the cruel stake,
To wait the headman's brand!
And now upon the wild North Sea
From Lindisfarne's bleak shore,
To save the lives of shipwrecked men
A maiden plies the oar;
Seamen and landsmen honour thee,
Grace Darling, evermore!
And swifter, closer, as I muse,
The splendid spectres loom;
And stately stands among them one
To glory passed from gloom,
But late, by waters of the Nile,
In walls of lost Khartoum!
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part II. - IV - Deplorable His Lot Who Tills The Ground
by William Wordsworth

Deplorable his lot who tills the ground,
His whole life long tills it, with heartless toil
Of villain-service, passing with the soil
To each new Master, like a steer or hound,
Or like a rooted tree, or stone earth-bound;
But mark how gladly, through their own domains,
The Monks relax or break these iron chains;
While Mercy, uttering, through their voice, a sound
Echoed in Heaven, cries out, "Ye Chiefs, abate
These legalized oppressions! Man whose name
And nature God disdained not; Man whose soul
Christ died for, cannot forfeit his high claim
To live and move exempt from all control
Which fellow-feeling doth not mitigate!"
Astrophel and Stella - Sonnet LXXII
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

Desire, though thou my old companion art,
And oft so clings to my pure loue that I
One from the other scarcely can discrie,
While each doth blowe the fier of my hart;
Now from thy fellowship I needs must part;
Venus is taught with Dians wings to flie;
I must no more in thy sweet passions lie;
Vertues gold must now head my Cupids dart.
Seruice and honour, wonder with delight,
Feare to offend, will worthie to appeare,
Care shining in mine eyes, faith in my sprite;
These things are left me by my onely Deare:
But thou, Desire, because thou wouldst haue all,
Now banisht art; but yet, alas, how shall?
A Wrangdillion
by James Whitcomb Riley

Dexery-tethery! down in the dike,
Under the ooze and the slime,
Nestles the wraith of a reticent Gryke,
Blubbering bubbles of rhyme:
Though the reeds touch him and tickle his teeth -
Though the Graigroll and the Cheest
Pluck at the leaves of his laureate-wreath,
Nothing affects him the least.
He sinks to the dregs in the dead o' the night,
And he shuffles the shadows about
As he gathers the stars in a nest of delight
And sets there and hatches them out:
The Zhederrill peers from his watery mine
In scorn with the Will-o'-the-wisp,
As he twinkles his eyes in a whisper of shine
That ends in a luminous lisp.
The Morning is born like a baby of gold,
And it lies in a spasm of pink,
And rallies the Cheest for the horrible cold
He has dragged to the willowy brink,
The Gryke blots his tears with a scrap of his grief,
And growls at the wary Graigroll
As he twunkers a tune on a Tiljicum leaf
And hums like a telegraph pole.
Soliloquy Of A Turkey
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Dey 's a so't o' threatenin' feelin' in de blowin' of de breeze,
An' I 's feelin' kin' o' squeamish in de night;
I 's a-walkin' 'roun' a-lookin' at de diffunt style o' trees,
An' a-measurin' dey thickness an' dey height.
Fu' dey 's somep'n mighty 'spicious in de looks de da'kies give,
Ez dey pass me an' my fambly on de groun,'
So it 'curs to me dat lakly, ef I caihs to try an' live,
It concehns me fu' to 'mence to look erroun'.
Dey's a cu'ious kin' o' shivah runnin' up an' down my back,
An' I feel my feddahs rufflin' all de day,
An' my laigs commence to trimble evah blessid step I mek;
W'en I sees a ax, I tu'ns my head away.
Folks is go'gin' me wid goodies, an' dey 's treatin' me wid caih,
An' I 's fat in spite of all dat I kin do.
I 's mistrus'ful of de kin'ness dat's erroun' me evahwhaih,
Fu' it 's jes' too good, an' frequent, to be true.
Snow 's a-fallin' on de medders, all erroun' me now is white,
But I 's still kep' on a-roostin' on de fence;
Isham comes an' feels my breas'bone, an' he hefted me las' night,
An' he 's gone erroun' a-grinnin' evah sence.
'T ain't de snow dat meks me shivah; 't ain't de col' dat meks me shake;
'T ain't de wintah-time itse'f dat's 'fectin' me;
But I t'ink de time is comin', an' I 'd bettah mek a break,
Fu' to set wid Mistah Possum in his tree.
Wen you hyeah de da'kies singin', an' de quahtahs all is gay,
'T ain't de time fu' birds lak me to be 'erroun';
Wen de hick'ry chip is flyin', an' de log 's been ca'ied erway,
Den hit's dang'ous to be roostin' nigh he groun'.
Grin on, Isham! Sing on, da'kies! But I flop my wings an' go
Fu' de sheltah of de ve'y highest tree,
Fu' dey 's too much close ertention--an' dey's too much fallin' snow--
An' it's too nigh Chris'mus mo'nin' now fu' me.
Deprive This Strange and Complex World.
by Alfred Castner King

Deprive this strange and complex world
Of all the charms of art;
Deprive it of those sweeter joys
Which music doth impart;
But oh, preserve that smile, which tells
The secret of the heart!
The world may lose its massive piles
Which point their spires above;
May spare the tuneful nightingale
And gently cooing dove;
But woe betide it, if it lose
The sentiment of love!
Despairing Cries
by Walt Whitman

Despairing cries float ceaselessly toward me, day and night,
The sad voice of Death--the call of my nearest lover, putting forth, alarmed, uncertain,
This sea I am quickly to sail, come tell me,
Come tell me where I am speeding--tell me my destination.
I understand your anguish, but I cannot help you,
I approach, hear, behold--the sad mouth, the look out of the eyes, your mute inquiry,
Whither I go from the bed I now recline on, come tell me;
Old age, alarmed, uncertain--A young woman's voice appealing to me, for comfort,
A young man's voice, Shall I not escape?
Epitaphs VI. Destined To War From Very Infancy
by William Wordsworth

Destined to war from very infancy
Was I, Roberto Dati, and I took
In Malta the white symbol of the Cross:
Nor in life's vigorous season did I shun
Hazard or toil; among the sands was seen
Of Libya; and not seldom, on the banks
Of wide Hungarian Danube, 'twas my lot
To hear the sanguinary trumpet sounded.
So lived I, and repined not at such fate:
This only grieves me, for it seems a wrong,
That stripped of arms I to my end am brought
On the soft down of my paternal home.
Yet haply Arno shall be spared all cause
To blush for me. Thou, loiter not nor halt
In thy appointed way, and bear in mind
How fleeting and how frail is human life!
To An Impersonator Of Rosalind
by Thomas Hardy

Did he who drew her in the years ago -
Till now conceived creator of her grace -
With telescopic sight high natures know,
Discern remote in Time's untravelled space
Your soft sweet mien, your gestures, as do we,
And with a copyist's hand but set them down,
Glowing yet more to dream our ecstasy
When his Original should be forthshown?
For, kindled by that animated eye,
Whereto all fairnesses about thee brim,
And by thy tender tones, what wight can fly
The wild conviction welling up in him
That he at length beholds woo, parley, plead,
The "very, very Rosalind" indeed!
8 ADELPHI TERRACE, 21st April 1867.
Nursery Rhyme. DCII. Local.
by Unknown

Dick and Tom, Will and John,
Brought me from Nottingham.
A Dialogue Between Two Shepherds
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

Uttered in a Pastoral Show at Wilton.
WILL.    Dick, since we cannot dance, come, let a cheerful voice
Show that we do not grudge at all when others do rejoice.
DICK.    Ah Will, though I grudge not, I count it feeble glee,
With sight made dim with daily tears another's sport to see.
Whoever lambkins saw, yet lambkins love to play,
To play when that their loved dams are stolen or gone astray?
If this in them be true, as true in men think I,
A lustless song forsooth thinks he that hath more lust to cry.
WILL.    A time there is for all, my mother often says,
When she, with skirts tucked very high, with girls at football plays
When thou hast mind to weep, seek out some smoky room:
Now let those lightsome sights we see thy darkness overcome.
DICK.    What joy the joyful sun gives unto bleared eyes;
That comfort in these sports you like, my mind his comfort tries.
WILL.    What?    Is thy bagpipe broke, or are thy lambs miswent;
Thy wallet or thy tar-box lost; or thy new raiment-rent?
DICK.    I would it were but thus, for thus it were too well.
WILL.    Thou see'st my ears do itch at it:    good Dick thy sorrow tell.
DICK.    Hear then, and learn to sigh:    a mistress I do serve,
Whose wages make me beg the more, who feeds me till I starve;
Whose livery is such, as most I freeze apparelled most,
And looks so near unto my cure, that I must needs be lost.
WILL.    What?    These are riddles sure:    art thou then bound to her?
DICK.    Bound as I neither power have, nor would have power, to stir.
WILL.    Who bound thee?
DICK.    Love, my lord.
WILL.    What witnesses thereto?
DICK.    Faith in myself, and Worth in her, which no proof can undo.
WILL.    What seal?
DICK.    My heart deep graven.
WILL.    Who made the band so fast?
DICK.    Wonder that, by two so black eyes the glitt'ring stars be past.
WILL.    What keepeth safe thy band?
DICK.    Remembrance is the chest
Lock'd fast with knowing that she is of worldly things the best.
WILL.    Thou late of wages plain'dst:    what wages may'sh thou have?
DICK.    Her heavenly looks, which more and more do give me cause to crave.
WILL.    If wages make you want, what food is that she gives?
DICK.    Tear's drink, sorrow's meat, wherewith not I, but in me my death lives.
WILL.    What living get you then?
DICK.    Disdain; but just disdain;
So have I cause myself to plain, but no cause to complain.
WILL.    What care takes she for thee?
DICK.    Her care is to prevent
My freedom, with show of her beams, with virtue, my content.
WILL.    God shield us from such dames!    If so our dames be sped,
The shepherds will grow lean I trow, their sheep will be ill-fed.
But Dick, my counsel mark:    run from the place of woo:
The arrow being shot from far doth give the smaller blow.
DICK.    Good Will, I cannot take thy good advice; before
That foxes leave to steal, they find they die therefore.
WILL.    Then, Dick, let us go hence lest we great folks annoy:
For nothing can more tedious be than plaint in time of joy.
DICK.    Oh hence!    O cruel word! which even dogs do hate:
But hence, even hence, I must needs go; such is my dogged fate.
Written In Montaignes Essays. Given To The Duke Of Shrewsbury In France, After The Peace
by Matthew Prior

Dictate, O mighty judge, what thou hast seen
Of cities and of courts, of books and men,
And deign to let thy servant hold the pen.
Through ages, thus, I may presume to live,
And from the transcript of thy prose receive
What my own short-lived verse can never give.
Thus shall fair Britain, with a gracious smile,
Accept the work, and the instructed isle
For more than treaties made shall bless my toil.
Nor longer hence the Gallic style preferr'd,
Wisdom in English idiom shall be heard,
While Talbot tells the world where Montaigne err'd.
Arlo Will
by Edgar Lee Masters

Did you ever see an alligator
Come up to the air from the mud,
Staring blindly under the full glare of noon?
Have you seen the stabled horses at night
Tremble and start back at the sight of a lantern?
Have you ever walked in darkness
When an unknown door was open before you
And you stood, it seemed, in the light of a thousand candles
Of delicate wax?
Have you walked with the wind in your ears
And the sunlight about you
And found it suddenly shine with an inner splendor?
Out of the mud many times
Before many doors of light
Through many fields of splendor,
Where around your steps a soundless glory scatters
Like new - fallen snow,
Will you go through earth, O strong of soul,
And through unnumbered heavens
To the final flame!