DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Upon Rook. Epig.
by Robert Herrick

Rook he sells feathers, yet he still doth cry
Fie on this pride, this female vanity.
Thus, though the Rook does rail against the sin,
He loves the gain that vanity brings in.
Upon Roots. Epig.
by Robert Herrick

Roots had no money; yet he went o' the score,
For a wrought purse; can any tell wherefore?
Say, what should Roots do with a purse in print,
That had not gold nor silver to put in't?
The Roses On The Terrace
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Rose, on this terrace fifty years ago,
When I was in my June, you in your May,
Two words, 'My Rose,' set all your face aglow,
And now that I am white and you are gray,
That blush of fifty years ago, my dear,
Blooms in the past, but close to me to-day,
As this red rose, which on our terrace here
Glows in the blue of fifty miles away.
Fragment: Rome And Nature.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Rome has fallen, ye see it lying
Heaped in undistinguished ruin:
Nature is alone undying.
Spring in Tuscany
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Rose-red lilies that bloom on the banner;
Rose-cheeked gardens that revel in spring;
Rose-mouthed acacias that laugh as they climb,
Like plumes for a queen's hand fashioned to fan her
With wind more soft than a wild dove's wing,
What do they sing in the spring of their time
If this be the rose that the world hears singing,
Soft in the soft night, loud in the day,
Songs for the fireflies to dance as they hear;
If that be the song of the nightingale, springing
Forth in the form of a rose in May,
What do they say of the way of the year?
What of the way of the world gone Maying,
What of the work of the buds in the bowers,
What of the will of the wind on the wall,
Fluttering the wall-flowers, sighing and playing,
Shrinking again as a bird that cowers,
Thinking of hours when the flowers have to fall?
Out of the throats of the loud birds showering,
Out of the folds where the flag-lilies leap,
Out of the mouths of the roses stirred,
Out of the herbs on the walls reflowering,
Out of the heights where the sheer snows sleep,
Out of the deep and the steep, one word.
One from the lips of the lily-flames leaping,
The glad red lilies that burn in our sight,
The great live lilies for standard and crown;
One from the steeps where the pines stand sleeping,
One from the deep land, one from the height,
One from the light and the might of the town.
The lowlands laugh with delight of the highlands,
Whence May winds feed them with balm and breath
From hills that beheld in the years behind
A shape as of one from the blest souls' islands,
Made fair by a soul too fair for death,
With eyes on the light that should smite them blind.
Vallombrosa remotely remembers,
Perchance, what still to us seems so near
That time not darkens it, change not mars,
The foot that she knew when her leaves were September's,
The face lift up to the star-blind seer,
That saw from his prison arisen his stars.
And Pisa broods on her dead, not mourning,
For love of her loveliness given them in fee;
And Prato gleams with the glad monk's gift
Whose hand was there as the hand of morning;
And Siena, set in the sand's red sea,
Lifts loftier her head than the red sand's drift.
And far to the fair south-westward lightens,
Girdled and sandalled and plumed with flowers,
At sunset over the love-lit lands,
The hill-side's crown where the wild hill brightens,
Saint Fina's town of the Beautiful Towers,
Hailing the sun with a hundred hands.
Land of us all that have loved thee dearliest,
Mother of men that were lords of man,
Whose name in the world's heart work a spell
My last song's light, and the star of mine earliest,
As we turn from thee, sweet, who wast ours for a span,
Fare well we may not who say farewell.
Dick's River.
by George W. Doneghy

I.
Rock-sentineled, romantic stream!
Thy waters flow with silvery gleam
Where glassy pools and visions greet
Embosomed in some cool retreat;
Then rippling o'er a pebbly bed,
With current fleet thy course is led
To where, walled in by beetling cliffs,
It plunges o'er the hidden rifts.
II.
Past where the meadows gently sweep
The limpid waters silent creep,
Until, o'erhung with cooling shade,
They lave the shores of sylvan glade,
And many a wild-flower blooming there
Its incense flings upon the air;
And spreading o'er each sloping side
An emerald carpet stretches wide.
III.
Now gliding out, the waters gleam
And sparkle with the sun's warm beam,
Reflecting then some mirrored cloud
Like specter wrapt in filmy shroud--
Till pouring down with fretful whirl
They o'er the mill-dam rush and curl,
And foaming round in eddies deep,
The circles wide and wider creep!
IV.
Oh, by thy wave I've loved to stray
On many a balmy summer's day--
When youth, and hope, and life were sweet--
Thy wooded banks and cliffs to greet!
And often back to days of yore
My fancy strays along thy shore,
And musing thus I fondly dream
I see again thy waters gleam!
Robin Hood, An Outlaw.
by James Henry Leigh Hunt

Robin Hood is an outlaw bold
Under the greenwood tree;
Bird, nor stag, nor morning air
Is more at large than he.
They sent against him twenty men,
Who joined him laughing-eyed;
They sent against him thirty more,
And they remained beside.
All the stoutest of the train,
That grew in Gamelyn wood,
Whether they came with these or not,
Are now with Robin Hood.
And not a soul in Locksley town
Would speak him an ill word;
The friars raged; but no man's tongue,
Nor even feature stirred;
Except among a very few
Who dined in the Abbey halls;
And then with a sigh bold Robin knew
His true friends from his false.
There was Roger the monk, that used to make
All monkery his glee;
And Midge, on whom Robin had never turned
His face but tenderly;
With one or two, they say, besides,
Lord! that in this life's dream
Men should abandon one true thing,
That would abide with them.
We cannot bid our strength remain,
Our cheeks continue round;
We cannot say to an aged back,
Stoop not towards the ground;
We cannot bid our dim eyes see
Things as bright as ever;
Nor tell our friends, though friends from youth,
That they'll forsake us never:
But we can say, I never will,
Friendship, fall off from thee;
And, oh sound truth and old regard,
Nothing shall part us three.
Fighting Hard
by Henry Lawson

Rolling out to fight for England, singing songs across the sea;
Rolling North to fight for England, and to fight for you and me.
Fighting hard for France and England, where the storms of Death are hurled;
Fighting hard for Australasia and the honour of the World!
Fighting hard.
Fighting hard for Sunny Queensland, fighting for Bananaland,
Fighting hard for West Australia, and the mulga and the sand;
Fighting hard for Plain and Wool-Track, and the haze of western heat, 
Fighting hard for South Australia and the bronze of Farrar's Wheat!
Fighting hard.
Fighting hard for fair Victoria, and the mountain and the glen;
(And the Memory of Eureka, there were other tyrants then),
For the glorious Gippsland forests and the World's great Singing Star, 
For the irrigation channels where the cabbage gardens are, 
Fighting hard.
Fighting hard for gale and earthquake, and the wind-swept ports between;
For the wild flax and manuka and the terraced hills of green.
Fighting hard for wooden homesteads, where the mighty kauris stand, 
Fighting hard for fern and tussock!, Fighting hard for Maoriland!
Fighting hard.
Fighting hard for little Tassy, where the apple orchards grow;
(And the Northern Territory just to give the place a show),
Fighting hard for Home and Empire, while the Commonwealth prevails, 
And, in spite of all her blunders, dying hard for New South Wales.
Dying hard.
Fighting for the Pride of Old Folk, and the people that you know;
And the girl you left behind you, (ah! the time is passing slow).
For the proud tears of a sister! come you back, or never come!
And the weary Elder Brother, looking after things at home, 
Fighting Hard! You Lucky Devils!
Fighting hard.
The "Lumberyack"
by William F. Kirk

"Roll out!" yell cookee
"It ban morning," say he,
"It ban daylight in svamps, all yu guys!"
So out of varm bunk
Ve skol falling kerplunk,
And rubbing lak blazes our eyes.
Breakfast, den hustle; dinner, den yump!
Lumberyack faller ban yolly big chump.
"Eat qvick!" say the cook.
"Oder fallers skol look
For chance to get grub yust lak yu!"
So under our yeans
Ve pack planty beans,
And Yim dandy buckvheat cakes, tu.
Den out on the skidvay, vorking lak mule.
Lumberyack faller ban yolly big fule.
"Vatch out!" foreman say.
Den tree fall yure vay,
And missing yure head 'bout an inch.
Ef timber ban green,
Ve skol rub kerosene
On places var coss cut skol pinch.
Sawing and chopping, freeze and den sveat.
Lumberyack faller ban yackass, yu bet.
Ven long com the spring,
Ve drenk and we sing;
And calling town faller gude frend,
He help us to blow
Our whole venter's dough,
But ant got no panga to lend.
Drenk and headache, headache and drenk.
Lumberyack faller ban sucker, ay tenk.
Nursery Rhyme. III. Historical
by Unknown

[The following song relating to Robin Hood, the celebrated outlaw, is well known at Worksop, in Nottinghamshire, where it constitutes one of the nursery series.]
Robin Hood, Robin Hood,
Is in the mickle wood!
Little John, Little John,
He to the town is gone.
Robin Hood, Robin Hood,
Is telling his beads,
All in the green wood,
Among the green weeds.
Little John, Little John,
If he comes no more,
Robin Hood, Robin Hood,
He will fret full sore!
To The Terrestrial Globe. By A Miserable Wretch
by William Schwenck Gilbert

Roll on, thou ball, roll on!
Through pathless realms of Space
Roll on!
What, though I'm in a sorry case?
What, though I cannot meet my bills?
What, though I suffer toothache's ills?
What, though I swallow countless pills?
Never you mind!
Roll on!
Roll on, thou ball, roll on!
Through seas of inky air
Roll on!
It's true I've got no shirts to wear;
It's true my butcher's bill is due;
It's true my prospects all look blue 
But don't let that unsettle you!
Never you mind!
Roll on!
(It rolls on.)
Urbs Sacra Aeterna
by Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde

Rome! what a scroll of History thine has been;
In the first days thy sword republican
Ruled the whole world for many an age's span:
Then of the peoples wert thou royal Queen,
Till in thy streets the bearded Goth was seen;
And now upon thy walls the breezes fan
(Ah, city crowned by God, discrowned by man!)
The hated flag of red and white and green.
When was thy glory! when in search for power
Thine eagles flew to greet the double sun,
And the wild nations shuddered at thy rod?
Nay, but thy glory tarried for this hour,
When pilgrims kneel before the Holy One,
The prisoned shepherd of the Church of God.
Poem: Urbs Sacra Aeterna
by Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde

Rome! what a scroll of History thine has been;
In the first days thy sword republican
Ruled the whole world for many an age's span:
Then of the peoples wert thou royal Queen,
Till in thy streets the bearded Goth was seen;
And now upon thy walls the breezes fan
(Ah, city crowned by God, discrowned by man!)
The hated flag of red and white and green.
When was thy glory! when in search for power
Thine eagles flew to greet the double sun,
And the wild nations shuddered at thy rod?
Nay, but thy glory tarried for this hour,
When pilgrims kneel before the Holy One,
The prisoned shepherd of the Church of God.
MONTRE MARIO.
Rose-Cheeked Laura
by Thomas Campion

Rose-cheeked Laura, come,
Sing thou smoothly with thy beauty's
Silent music, either other
Sweetly gracing.
Lovely forms do flow
From concert divinely framed;
Heav'n is music, and thy beauty's
Birth is heavenly.
These dull notes we sing
Discords need for helps to grace them;
Only beauty purely loving
Knows no discord,
But still moves delight,
Like clear springs renewed by flowing,
Ever perfect, ever in them-
Selves eternal.
Romance
by Edgar Allan Poe

Romance, who loves to nod and sing,
With drowsy head and folded wing,
Among the green leaves as they shake
Far down within some shadowy lake,
To me a painted paroquet
Hath been, a most familiar bird,
Taught me my alphabet to say,
To lisp my very earliest word
While in the wild wood I did lie,
A child, with a most knowing eye.
Of late, eternal Condor years
So shake the very Heaven on high
With tumult as they thunder by,
I have no time for idle cares
Through gazing on the unquiet sky.
And when an hour with calmer wings
Its down upon my spirit flings,
That little time with lyre and rhyme
To while away, forbidden things!
My heart would feel to be a crime
Unless it trembled with the strings.
Nursery Rhyme. CCCCXXXV. Jingles.
by Unknown

Rompty-iddity, row, row, row,
If I had a good supper, I could eat it now.
Rock A Bye, Babies
by Louisa May Alcott

"Rock a bye, babies,
Your cradle hangs high;
Soft down your pillow,
Your curtain the sky.
Father will feed you,
While mother will sing,
And shelter our darlings
With her warm wing."
Love In A Life
by Robert Browning

Room after room,
I hunt the house through
We inhabit together.
Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her
Next time, herself! not the trouble behind her
Left in the curtain, the couch's perfume!
As she brushed it, the cornice-wreath blossomed anew,
Yon looking-glass gleaned at the wave of her feather.
Yet the day wears,
And door succeeds door;
I try the fresh fortune
Range the wide house from the wing to the centre.
Still the same chance! She goes out as I enter.
Spend my whole day in the quest, who cares?
But 'tis twilight, you see, with such suites to explore,
Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune!
Robin Shure In Hairst.
by Robert Burns

I.
Robin shure in hairst,
I shure wi' him,
Fient a heuk had I,
Yet I stack by him.
II.
I gaed up to Dunse,
To warp a wab o' plaiden,
At his daddie's yett,
Wha met me but Robin.
III.
Was na Robin bauld,
Tho' I was a cotter,
Play'd me sic a trick,
And me the eller's dochter?
Robin share in hairst, &c.
IV.
Robin promis'd me
A' my winter vittle;
Fient haet he had but three
Goose feathers and a whittle.
Robin share in hairst, &c.
A Lown Nicht
by George MacDonald

Rose o' my hert,
Open yer leaves to the lampin mune;
Into the curls lat her keek an' dert,
She'll tak the colour but gie ye tune.
Buik o' my brain,
Open yer faulds to the starry signs;
Lat the e'en o' the holy luik an' strain,
Lat them glimmer an' score atween the lines.
Cup o' my soul,
Goud an' diamond an' ruby cup,
Ye're noucht ava but a toom dry bowl
Till the wine o' the kingdom fill ye up.
Conscience-glass,
Mirror the en'less All in thee;
Melt the boundered and make it pass
Into the tideless, shoreless sea.
Warl o' my life,
Swing thee roun thy sunny track;
Fire an' win' an' water an' strife,
Carry them a' to the glory back.
Song of the Colours: by Taj Mahomed
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

Rose-colour
Rose Pink am I, the colour gleams and glows
In many a flower; her lips, those tender doors
By which, in time of love, love's essence flows
From him to her, are dyed in delicate Rose.
Mine is the earliest Ruby light that pours
Out of the East, when day's white gates unclose.
On downy peach, and maiden's downier cheek
I, in a flush of radiant bloom, alight,
Clinging, at sunset, to the shimmering peak
I veil its snow in floods of Roseate light.
Azure
Mine is the heavenly hue of Azure skies,
Where the white clouds lie soft as seraphs' wings,
Mine the sweet, shadowed light in innocent eyes,
Whose lovely looks light only on lovely things.
Mine the Blue Distance, delicate and clear,
Mine the Blue Glory of the morning sea,
All that the soul so longs for, finds not here,
Fond eyes deceive themselves, and find in me.
Scarlet
Hail! to the Royal Red of living Blood,
Let loose by steel in spirit-freeing flood,
Forced from faint forms, by toil or torture torn
Staining the patient gates of life new born.
Colour of War and Rage, of Pomp and Show,
Banners that flash, red flags that flaunt and glow,
Colour of Carnage, Glory, also Shame,
Raiment of women women may not name.
I hide in mines, where unborn Rubies dwell,
Flicker and flare in fitful fire in Hell,
The outpressed life-blood of the grape is mine,
Hail! to the Royal Purple Red of Wine.
Strong am I, over strong, to eyes that tire,
In the hot hue of Rapine, Riot, Flame.
Death and Despair are black, War and Desire,
The two red cards in Life's unequal game.
Green
I am the Life of Forests, and Wandering Streams,
Green as the feathery reeds the Florican love,
Young as a maiden, who of her marriage dreams,
Still sweetly inexperienced in ways of Love.
Colour of Youth and Hope, some waves are mine,
Some emerald reaches of the evening sky.
See, in the Spring, my sweet green Promise shine,
Never to be fulfilled, of by and by.
Never to be fulfilled; leaves bud, and ever
Something is wanting, something falls behind;
The flowered Solstice comes indeed, but never
That light and lovely summer men divined.
Violet
I were the colour of Things, (if hue they had)
That are hard to name.
Of curious, twisted thoughts that men call "mad"
Or oftener "shame."
Of that delicate vice, that is hardly vice,
So reticent, rare,
Ethereal, as the scent of buds and spice,
In this Eastern air.
On palm-fringed shores I colour the Cowrie shell,
With its edges curled;
And, deep in Datura poison buds, I dwell
In a perfumed world.
My lilac tinges the edge of the evening sky
Where the sunset clings.
My purple lends an Imperial Majesty
To the robes of kings.
Yellow
Gold am I, and for me, ever men curse and pray,
Selling their souls and each other, by night and day.
A sordid colour, and yet, I make some things fair,
Dying sunsets, fields of corn, and a maiden's hair.
Thus they discoursed in the daytime, - Violet, Yellow, and Blue,
Emerald, Scarlet, and Rose-colour, the pink and perfect hue.
Thus they spoke in the sunshine, when their beauty was manifest,
Till the Night came, and the Silence, and gave them an equal rest.
Lullaby
by Lola Ridge

Rock-a-by baby, woolly and brown...
(There's a shout at the door an' a big red light...)
Lil' coon baby, mammy is down...
Han's that hold yuh are steady an' white...
Look piccaninny - such a gran' blaze
Lickin' up the roof an' the sticks of home - 
Ever see the like in all yo' days!
- Cain't yuh sleep, mah bit-of-honey-comb?
Rock-a-by baby, up to the sky!
Look at the cherries driftin' by - 
Bright red cherries spilled on the groun' - 
Piping-hot cherries at nuthin' a poun'!
Hush, mah lil' black-bug - doan yuh weep.
Daddy's run away an' mammy's in a heap
By her own fron' door in the blazin' heat
Outah the shacks like warts on the street...
An' the singin' flame an' the gleeful crowd
Circlin' aroun'... won't mammy be proud!
With a stone at her hade an' a stone on her heart,
An' her mouth like a red plum, broken apart...
See where the blue an' khaki prance,
Adding brave colors to the dance
About the big bonfire white folks make - 
Such gran' doin's fo' a lil' coon's sake!
Hear all the eagah feet runnin' in town - 
See all the willin' han's reach outah night - 
Han's that are wonderful, steady an' white!
To toss up a lil' babe, blinkin' an' brown...
Rock-a-by baby - higher an' higher!
Mammy is sleepin' an' daddy's run lame...
(Soun' may yuh sleep in yo' cradle o' fire!)
Rock-a-by baby, hushed in the flame...
(An incident of the East St. Louis Race Riots, when some white women flung a living colored baby into the heart of a blazing fire.)
To Virgil
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

I.
Roman Virgil, thou that singest
Ilion's lofty temples robed in fire,
Ilion falling, Rome arising,
wars, and filial faith, and Dido's pyre;
II.
Landscape-lover, lord of language
more than he that sang the 'Works and Days,'
All the chosen coin of fancy
flashing out from many a golden phrase;
III.
Thou that singest wheat and woodland,
tilth and vineyard, hive and horse and herd;
All the charm of all the Muses
often flowering in a lonely word;
IV.
Poet of the happy Tityrus
piping underneath his beechen bowers;
Poet of the poet-satyr
whom the laughing shepherd bound with flowers;
V.
Chanter of the Pollio, glorying
in the blissful years again to be,
Summers of the snakeless meadow,
unlaborious earth and oarless sea;
VI.
Thou that se'st Universal
Nature moved by Universal Mind;
Thou majestic in thy sadness
at the doubtful doom of human kind;
VII.
Light among the vanish'd ages;
star that gildest yet this phantom shore;
Golden branch amid the shadows,
kings and realms that pass to rise no more;
VIII.
Now thy Forum roars no longer,
fallen every purple C'sar's dome'
Tho' thine ocean-roll of rhythm
sound forever of Imperial Rome'
IX.
Now the Rome of slaves hath perish'd,
and the Rome of freemen holds her place,
I, from out the Northern Island
sunder'd once from all the human race,
X.
I salute thee, Mantovano,
I that loved thee since my day began,
Wielder of the stateliest measure
ever moulded by the lips of man.
Nursery Rhyme. CCCXCI. Lullabies.
by Unknown

Rock-a-bye, baby, thy cradle is green;
Father's a nobleman, mother's a queen;
And Betty's a lady, and wears a gold ring;
And Johnny's a drummer, and drums for the king.
To Rose
by Sara Teasdale

Rose, when I remember you,
Little lady, scarcely two,
I am suddenly aware
Of the angels in the air.
All your softly gracious ways
Make an island in my days
Where my thoughts fly back to be
Sheltered from too strong a sea.
All your luminous delight
Shines before me in the night
When I grope for sleep and find
Only shadows in my mind.
Rose, when I remember you,
White and glowing, pink and new,
With so swift a sense of fun
Altho' life has just begun;
With so sure a pride of place
In your very infant face,
I should like to make a prayer
To the angels in the air:
"If an angel ever brings
Me a baby in her wings,
Please be certain that it grows
Very, very much like Rose."
The Feud
by Madison Julius Cawein

Rocks, trees and rocks; and down a mossy stone
The murmuring ooze and trickle of a stream
Through bushes, where the mountain spring lies lone,
A gleaming cairngorm where the shadows dream,
And one wild road winds like a saffron seam.
Here sang the thrush, whose pure, mellifluous note
Dropped golden sweetness on the fragrant June;
Here cat and blue-bird and wood-sparrow wrote
Their presence on the silence with a tune;
And here the fox drank 'neath the mountain moon.
Frail ferns and dewy mosses and dark brush
Impenetrable briers, deep and dense,
And wiry bushes, brush, that seemed to crush
The struggling saplings with its tangle, whence
Sprawled out the ramble of an old rail-fence.
A wasp buzzed by; and then a butterfly
In orange and amber, like a floating flame;
And then a man, hard-eyed and very sly,
Gaunt-checked and haggard and a little lame,
With an old rifle, down the mountain came.
He listened, drinking from a flask he took
Out of the ragged pocket of his coat;
Then all around him cast a stealthy look;
Lay down; and watched an eagle soar and float,
His fingers twitching at his hairy throat.
The shades grew longer; and each Cumberland height
Loomed, framed in splendours of the dolphin dusk.
Around the road a horseman rode in sight;
Young, tall, blonde-bearded. Silent, grim, and brusque,
He in the thicket aimed The gun ran husk;
And echoes barked among the hills and made
Repeated instants of the shot's distress.
then silence and the trampled bushes swayed;
Then silence, packed with murder and the press
Of distant hoofs that galloped riderless.
Macbeth
by Walter De La Mare

Rose, like dim battlements, the hills and reared
Steep crags into the fading primrose sky;
But in the desolate valleys fell small rain,
Mingled with drifting cloud. I saw one come,
Like the fierce passion of that vacant place,
His face turned glittering to the evening sky;
His eyes, like grey despair, fixed satelessly
On the still, rainy turrets of the storm;
And all his armour in a haze of blue.
He held no sword, bare was his hand and clenched,
As if to hide the inextinguishable blood
Murder had painted there. And his wild mouth
Seemed spouting echoes of deluded thoughts.
Around his head, like vipers all distort,
His locks shook, heavy-laden, at each stride.
If fire may burn invisible to the eye;
O, if despair strive everlastingly;
Then haunted here the creature of despair,
Fanning and fanning flame to lick upon
A soul still childish in a blackened hell.