DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Rebecca's Hymn
by Walter Scott (Sir)

When Israel, of the Lord beloved,
Out from the land of bondage came,
Her father's God before her moved,
An awful Guide, in smoke and flame.
By day, along the astonished lands
The cloudy pillar glided slow;
By night, Arabia's crimsoned sands
Returned the fiery column's glow.
There rose the choral hymn of praise,
And trump and timbrel answer'd keen,
And Zion's daughters pour'd their lays,
With priest's and warrior's voice between.
No portents now our foes amaze,
Forsaken Israel wanders lone:
Our fathers would not know Thy ways,
And Thou hast left them to their own.
But present still, though now unseen,
When brightly shines the prosperous day,
Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screen,
To temper the deceitful ray.
And O, when gathers on our path,
In shade and storm, the frequent night,
Be Thou, long suffering, slow to wrath,
A burning and a shining light!
Our harps we left by Babel's streams,
The tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn;
No censer round our altar beams,
And mute are timbrel, harp, and horn.
But Thou hast said, The blood of goat,
The flesh of rams I will not prize;
A contrite heart, a humble thought,
Are mine accepted sacrifice.
United By Steel Rails.
by James McIntyre

When Indian tribes in the Northwest
Rebelled against the Eastern laws,
Canadian courage it did test,
All were united in the cause.
But how shall volunteers proceed
Such distance, several thousand miles,
Will they in their dark hour of need
Ask Uncle Sam with pleasant smiles
For to allow our volunteers
To pass o'er their north railroad,
Perhaps subject to doubts and fears,
Where British soldiers never trod.
But there went up a glad hurrah
When it was found that in our land,
Almost finished was railway,
And trains do wait for word command,
To bear away our volunteers
To those far North distant lands,
But dispelled were all their fears
When they rode over those steel bands,
Which bound young nation all in one,
Before detached and all apart,
Shoulder to shoulder now each one
Feels patriot feelings in his heart,
First time we truly realize
The value of this great railway,
Its benefits each now doth prize,
Highway to Japan and Australia.
The policy it has proved wise,
Which did build this great railway,
The vast Northwest to colonize,
And bear its products far away.
Canadian flags are now unfurled
In the ports of the Chinese,
Short route to Oriental world
Gives Canada her cheap fine teas.
On Accidentally Meeting A Lady Now No More
by William Lisle Bowles

When last we parted, thou wert young and fair
How beautiful let fond remembrance say!
Alas! since then old Time has stol'n away
Nigh forty years, leaving my temples bare:
So hath it perished, like a thing of air,
That dream of love and youth: we now are gray;
Yet still remembering youth's enchanted way,
Though time has changed my look, and blanched my hair,
Though I remember one sad hour with pain,
And never thought, long as I yet might live,
And parted long, to hear that voice again;
I can a sad, but cordial greeting, give,
And for thy welfare breathe as warm a prayer,
Lady, as when I loved thee young and fair!
The Sergeant's Song
by Thomas Hardy

When Lawyers strive to heal a breach,
And Parsons practise what they preach;
Then Little Boney he'll pounce down,
And march his men on London town!
Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lorum,
Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lay!
When Justices hold equal scales,
And Rogues are only found in jails;
Then Little Boney he'll pounce down,
And march his men on London town!
Rollicum-rorum, &c.
When Rich Men find their wealth a curse,
And fill therewith the Poor Man's purse;
Then Little Boney he'll pounce down,
And march his men on London town!
Rollicum-rorum, &c.
When Husbands with their Wives agree,
And Maids won't wed from modesty;
Then Little Boney he'll pounce down,
And march his men on London town!
Rollicum-rorum, tol-tol-lorum,
Rollicum-rorum, tol-lol-lay!
1878.
Published in "The Trumpet-Major," 1880.
Bessy Bell.
by George Pope Morris

When life looks drear and lonely, love,
And pleasant fancies flee,
Then will the Muses only, love,
Bestow a thought on me!
Mine is a harp which Pleasure, love,
To waken strives in vain;
To Joy's entrancing measure, love,
It ne'er can thrill again!--
Why mock me, Bessy Bell?
Oh, do not ask me ever, love,
For rapture-woven rhymes;
For vain is each endeavor, love,
To sound Mirth's play-bell chimes!
Yet still believe me, dearest love,
Though sad my song may be,
This heart still dotes sincerest, love,
And grateful turns to thee--
My once fond Bessy Bell!
Those eyes still rest upon me, love!
I feel their magic spell!
With that same look you won me, love,
Fair, gentle Bessy Bell!
My doom you've idly spoken, love,
You never can be mine!
But though my heart is broken, love,
Still, Bessy, it is thine!
Adieu, false Bessy Bell!
Sonnets: Idea LVI An Allusion To The Eaglets
by Michael Drayton

When like an eaglet I first found my love,
For that the virtue I thereof would know,
Upon the nest I set it forth to prove
If it were of that kingly kind or no;
But it no sooner saw my sun appear,
But on her rays with open eyes it stood,
To show that I had hatched it for the air,
And rightly came from that brave mounting brood;
And when the plumes were summed with sweet desire,
To prove the pinions it ascends the skies;
Do what I could, it needsly would aspire
To my soul's sun, those two celestial eyes.
Thus from my breast, where it was bred alone,
It after thee is like an eaglet flown.
Laws.
by Robert Herrick

When laws full power have to sway, we see
Little or no part there of tyranny.
Prologue To Thomson's 'Sophonisba.'[59]
by Alexander Pope

When Learning, after the long Gothic night,
Fair, o'er the western world, renew'd its light,
With arts arising, Sophonisba rose;
The tragic Muse, returning, wept her woes.
With her th' Italian scene first learn'd to glow,
And the first tears for her were taught to flow:
Her charms the Gallic Muses next inspired;
Corneille himself saw, wonder'd, and was fired.
What foreign theatres with pride have shown,
Britain, by juster title, makes her own.
When freedom is the cause, 'tis hers to fight,
And hers, when freedom is the theme, to write.
For this a British author bids again
The heroine rise, to grace the British scene:
Here, as in life, she breathes her genuine flame,
She asks, What bosom has not felt the same?
Asks of the British youth--is silence there?
She dares to ask it of the British fair.
To-night our homespun author would be true,
At once to nature, history, and you.
Well pleased to give our neighbours due applause,
He owns their learning, but disdains their laws;
Not to his patient touch, or happy flame,
'Tis to his British heart he trusts for fame.
If France excel him in one freeborn thought,
The man, as well as poet, is in fault.
Nature! informer of the poet's art,
Whose force alone can raise or melt the heart,
Thou art his guide; each passion, every line,
Whate'er he draws to please, must all be thine.
Be thou his judge: in every candid breast
Thy silent whisper is the sacred test.
The Triumph
by Siegfried Loraine Sassoon

When life was a cobweb of stars for Beauty who came
In the whisper of leaves or a bird's lone cry in the glen,
On dawn-lit hills and horizons girdled with flame
I sought for the triumph that troubles the faces of men.
With death in the terrible flickering gloom of the fight
I was cruel and fierce with despair; I was naked and bound;
was stricken: and Beauty returned through the shambles of night;
In the faces of men she returned; and their triumph I found.
Latter-Day Warnings
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

When legislators keep the law,
When banks dispense with bolts and looks,
When berries - whortle, rasp, and straw - 
Grow bigger downwards through the box, - 
When he that selleth house or land
Shows leak in roof or flaw in right, - 
When haberdashers choose the stand
Whose window hath the broadest light, - 
When preachers tell us all they think,
And party leaders all they mean, - 
When what we pay for, that we drink,
From real grape and coffee-bean, - 
When lawyers take what they would give,
And doctors give what they would take, - 
When city fathers eat to live,
Save when they fast for conscience' sake, - 
When one that hath a horse on sale
Shall bring his merit to the proof,
Without a lie for every nail
That holds the iron on the hoof, - 
When in the usual place for rips
Our gloves are stitched with special care,
And guarded well the whalebone tips
Where first umbrellas need repair, - 
When Cuba's weeds have quite forgot
The power of suction to resist,
And claret-bottles harbor not
Such dimples as would hold your fist, - 
When publishers no longer steal,
And pay for what they stole before, - 
When the first locomotive's wheel
Rolls through the Hoosac Tunnel's bore; - 
Till then let Cumming blaze away,
And Miller's saints blow up the globe;
But when you see that blessed day,
Then order your ascension robe.
It's Got To Be
by James Whitcomb Riley

"When it's got to be," - like! always say,
As I notice the years whiz past,
And know each day is a yesterday,
When we size it up, at last, -
Same as I said when my boyhood went
And I knowed we had to quit, -
"It's got to be, and it's goin' to be!" -
So I said "Good-by" to it.
It's got to be, and it's goin' to be!
So at least I always try
To kind o' say in a hearty way, -
"Well, it's got to be. Good-by!"
The time jes melts like a late, last snow, -
When it's got to be, it melts!
But I aim to keep a cheerful mind,
Ef I can't keep nothin' else!
I knowed, when I come to twenty-one,
That I'd soon be twenty-two, -
So I waved one hand at the soft young man,
And I said, "Good-by to you!"
It's got to be, and it's goin' to be!
So at least I always try
To kind o' say, in a cheerful way, -
"Well, it's got to be. - Good-by!"
They kep' a-goin', the years and years,
Yet still I smiled and smiled, -
For I'd said "Good-by" to my single life,
And I now had a wife and child:
Mother and son and the father - one, -
Till, last, on her bed of pain,
She jes' smiled up, like she always done, -
And I said "Good-by" again.
It's got to be, and it's goin' to be!
So at least I always try
To kind o' say, in a humble way, -
"Well, it's got to be. Good-by!"
And then my boy - as he growed to be
Almost a man in size, -
Was more than a pride and joy to me,
With his mother's smilin' eyes. -
He gimme the slip, when the War broke out,
And followed me. And I
Never knowed till the first right's end ...
I found him, and then, ... "Good-by."
It's got to be, and it's goin' to be!
So at least I always try
To kind o' say, in a patient way,
"Well, it's got to be. Good-by!"
I have said, "Good-by! - Good-by! - Good-by!"
With my very best good will,
All through life from the first, - and I
Am a cheerful old man still:
But it's got to end, and it's goin' to end!
And this is the thing I'll do, -
With my last breath I will laugh, O Death,
And say "Good-by" to you!...
It's got to be! And again I say, -
When his old scythe circles high,
I'll laugh - of course, in the kindest way, -
As I say "Good-by! - Good-by!"
Fancy's Knell
by Alfred Edward Housman

When lads were home from labour
At Abdon under Clee,
A man would call his neighbor
And both would send for me.
And where the light in lances
Across the mead was laid,
There to the dances
I fetched my flute and played.
Ours were idle pleasures,
Yet oh, content we were,
The young to wind the measures,
The old to heed the air;
And I to lift with playing
From tree and tower and steep
The light delaying,
And flute the sun to sleep.
The youth toward his fancy
Would turn his brow of tan,
And Tom would pair with Nancy
And Dick step off with Fan;
The girl would lift her glances
To his, and both be mute:
Well went the dances
At evening to the flute.
Wenlock Edge was umbered,
And bright was Abdon Burf,
And warm between them slumbered
The smooth green miles of turf;
Until from grass and clover
The upshot beam would fade,
And England over
Advanced the lofty shade.
The lofty shade advances,
I fetch my flute and play:
Come, lads, and learn the dances
And praise the tune to-day.
To-morrow, more's the pity,
Away we both must hie,
To air the ditty,
And to earth I.
The Judgement Of Venus
by Matthew Prior

When Kneller's works, of various grace,
Were to fair Venus shown,
The Goddess spied in every face
Some features of her own.
Just so, (and pointing with her hand)
So shone, says she, my eyes,
When from two goddesses I gain'd
An apple for a prize.
When in the glass and river too
My face I lately view'd,
Such was I, if the glass be true,
If true the crystal flood.
In colours of this glorious kind
Apelles painted me;
My hair, thus flowing with the wind
Sprung from my native sea.
Like this disorder'd, wild, forlorn,
Big with ten thousand fears,
Thee, my Adonis, did I mourn
E'en beautiful in tears.
But viewing Myra placed apart,
I fear, says she, I fear,
Appelles, that Sir Godfrey's art
Has far surpass'd thine here:
Or I, a goddess of the skies,
By Mary am undone,
And must resign to her the prize,
The apple, which I won.
But soon as she had Myra seen,
Majestically fair,
The sparkling eye, the look serene,
The gay and easy air.
With fiery emulation fill'd
The wondering goddess cried,
Apelles must to Kneller yield,
Or Venus must to Hyde.
Don Juan In Hades
by Charles Baudelaire

When Juan sought the subterranean flood,
And paid his obolus on the Stygian shore,
Charon, the proud and sombre beggar, stood
With one strong, vengeful hand on either oar.
With open robes and bodies agonised,
Lost women writhed beneath that darkling sky;
There were sounds as of victims sacrificed:
Behind him all the dark was one long cry.
And Sganarelle, with laughter, claimed his pledge;
Don Luis, with trembling finger in the air,
Showed to the souls who wandered in the sedge
The evil son who scorned his hoary hair.
Shivering with woe, chaste Elvira the while,
Near him untrue to all but her till now,
Seemed to beseech him for one farewell smile
Lit with the sweetness of the first soft vow.
And clad in armour, a tall man of stone
Held firm the helm, and clove the gloomy flood;
But, staring at the vessel's track alone,
Bent on his sword the unmoved hero stood.
The Battle for the Mississipppi.
by Herman Melville

(April, 1862.)
When Israel camped by Migdol hoar,
Down at her feet her shawm she threw,
But Moses sung and timbrels rung
For Pharaoh's standed crew.
So God appears in apt events - 
The Lord is a man of war!
So the strong wind to the muse is given
In victory's roar.
Deep be the ode that hymns the fleet - 
The fight by night - the fray
Which bore our Flag against the powerful stream,
And led it up to day.
Dully through din of larger strife
Shall bay that warring gun;
But none the less to us who live
It peals - an echoing one.
The shock of ships, the jar of walls,
The rush through thick and thin - 
The flaring fire-rafts, glare and gloom - 
Eddies, and shells that spin - 
The boom-chain burst, the hulks dislodged,
The jam of gun-boats driven,
Or fired, or sunk - made up a war
Like Michael's waged with leven.
The manned Varuna stemmed and quelled
The odds which hard beset;
The oaken flag-ship, half ablaze,
Passed on and thundered yet;
While foundering, gloomed in grimy flame,
The Ram Manassas - hark the yell! - 
Plunged, and was gone; in joy or fright,
The River gave a startled swell.
They fought through lurid dark till dawn;
The war-smoke rolled away
With clouds of night, and showed the fleet
In scarred yet firm array,
Above the forts, above the drift
Of wrecks which strife had made;
And Farragut sailed up to the town
And anchored - sheathed the blade.
The moody broadsides, brooding deep,
Hold the lewd mob at bay,
While o'er the armed decks' solemn aisles
The meek church-pennons play;
By shotted guns the sailors stand,
With foreheads bound or bare;
The captains and the conquering crews
Humble their pride in prayer.
They pray; and after victory, prayer
Is meet for men who mourn their slain;
The living shall unmoor and sail,
But Death's dark anchor secret deeps detain.
Yet glory slants her shaft of rays
Far through the undisturbed abyss;
There must be other, nobler worlds for them
Who nobly yield their lives in this.
Upon Her Blush.
by Robert Herrick

When Julia blushes she does show
Cheeks like to roses when they blow.
When Januar' Wind.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "The lass that made the bed for me."
I.
When Januar' wind was blawing cauld,
As to the north I took my way,
The mirksome night did me enfauld,
I knew na where to lodge till day.
II.
By my good luck a maid I met,
Just in the middle o' my care;
And kindly she did me invite
To walk into a chamber fair.
III.
I bow'd fu' low unto this maid,
And thank'd her for her courtesie;
I bow'd fu' low unto this maid,
And bade her mak a bed to me.
IV.
She made the bed baith large and wide,
Wi' twa white hands she spread it down;
She put the cup to her rosy lips,
And drank, "Young man, now sleep ye soun'."
V.
She snatch'd the candle in her hand,
And frae my chamber went wi' speed;
But I call'd her quickly back again
To lay some mair below my head.
VI.
A cod she laid below my head,
And served me wi' due respect;
And to salute her wi' a kiss,
I put my arms about her neck.
VII.
"Haud aff your hands, young man," she says,
"And dinna sae uncivil be:
If ye hae onto love for me,
O wrang na my virginitie!"
VIII.
Her hair was like the links o' gowd,
Her teeth were like the ivorie;
Her cheeks like lilies dipt in wine,
The lass that made the bed to me.
IX.
Her bosom was the driven snaw,
Twa drifted heaps sae fair to see;
Her limbs the polish'd marble stane,
The lass that made the bed to me.
X.
I kiss'd her owre and owre again,
And ay she wist na what to say;
I laid her between me and the wa'
The lassie thought na lang till day.
XI.
Upon the morrow when we rose,
I thank'd her for her courtesie;
But aye she blush'd, and aye she sigh'd,
And said, "Alas! ye've ruin'd me."
XII.
I clasp'd her waist, and kiss'd her syne,
While the tear stood twinklin' in her e'e;
I said, "My lassie, dinna cry,
For ye ay shall mak the bed to me."
XIII.
She took her mither's Holland sheets,
And made them a' in sarks to me:
Blythe and merry may she be,
The lass that made the bed to me.
XIV.
The bonnie lass made the bed to me,
The braw lass made the bed to me:
I'll ne'er forget till the day I die,
The lass that made the bed to me!
Birthday Of Daniel Webster (January 18, 1856)
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

When life hath run its largest round
Of toil and triumph, joy and woe,
How brief a storied page is found
To compass all its outward show!
The world-tried sailor tires and droops;
His flag is rent, his keel forgot;
His farthest voyages seem but loops
That float from life's entangled knot.
But when within the narrow space
Some larger soul hath lived and wrought,
Whose sight was open to embrace
The boundless realms of deed and thought, - 
When, stricken by the freezing blast,
A nation's living pillars fall,
How rich the storied page, how vast,
A word, a whisper, can recall!
No medal lifts its fretted face,
Nor speaking marble cheats your eye,
Yet, while these pictured lines I trace,
A living image passes by:
A roof beneath the mountain pines;
The cloisters of a hill-girt plain;
The front of life's embattled lines;
A mound beside the heaving main.
These are the scenes: a boy appears;
Set life's round dial in the sun,
Count the swift arc of seventy years,
His frame is dust; his task is done.
Yet pause upon the noontide hour,
Ere the declining sun has laid
His bleaching rays on manhood's power,
And look upon the mighty shade.
No gloom that stately shape can hide,
No change uncrown its brow; behold I
Dark, calm, large-fronted, lightning-eyed,
Earth has no double from its mould.
Ere from the fields by valor won
The battle-smoke had rolled away,
And bared the blood-red setting sun,
His eyes were opened on the day.
His land was but a shelving strip
Black with the strife that made it free
He lived to see its banners dip
Their fringes in the Western sea.
The boundless prairies learned his name,
His words the mountain echoes knew,
The Northern breezes swept his fame
From icy lake to warm bayou.
In toil he lived; in peace he died;
When life's full cycle was complete,
Put off his robes of power and pride,
And laid them at his Master's feet.
His rest is by the storm-swept waves
Whom life's wild tempests roughly trie
Whose heart was like the streaming eaves
Of ocean, throbbing at his side.
Death's cold white hand is like the snow
Laid softly on the furrowed hill,
It hides the broken seams below,
And leaves the summit brighter still.
In vain the envious tongue upbraids;
His name a nation's heart shall keep
Till morning's latest sunlight fades
On the blue tablet of the deep.
The Rose In Winter
by Richard Le Gallienne

When last I saw this opening rose
That holds the summer in its hand,
And with its beauty overflows
And sweetens half a shire of land,
It was a black and cindered thing,
Drearily rocking in the cold,
The relic of a vanished spring,
A rose abominably old.
Amid the stainless snows it grinned,
A foul and withered shape, that cast
Ribbed shadows, and the gleaming wind
Went rattling through it as it passed;
It filled the heart with a strange dread,
Hag-like, it made a whimpering sound,
And gibbered like the wandering dead
In some unhallowed burial-ground.
Whoso on that December day
Had seen it so deject and lorn,
So lone a symbol of decay,
Had dreamed of it this summer morn?
Divined the power that should relume
A flame so spent, and once more bring
That blackened being back to bloom, - 
Who could have dreamed so strange a thing?
Shadow
by Richard Le Gallienne

When leaf and flower are newly made,
And bird and butterfly and bee
Are at their summer posts again;
When all is ready, lo! 'tis she,
Suddenly there after soft rain - 
The deep-lashed dryad of the shade.
Shadow! the fairest gift of June,
Gone like the rose the winter through,
Save in the ribbed anatomy
Of ebon line the moonlight drew,
Stark on the snow, of tower or tree,
Like letters of a dead man's rune.
Dew-breathing shade! all summer lies
In the cool hollow of thy breast,
Thou moth-winged creature darkly fair;
The very sun steals down to rest
Within thy swaying tendrilled hair,
And forest-flicker of thine eyes.
Made of all shapes that flit and sway,
And mass, and scatter in the breeze,
And meet and part, open and close;
Thou sister of the clouds and trees,
Thou daintier phantom of the rose,
Thou nun of the hot and honeyed day.
Misdeemed art thou of those who hold
Darkness thy soul, thy dwelling place
Night and its stars; nay! all of light
Wert though begot, all flowers thy face,
And, hushed in thee, all colours bright
Hide from the noon their blue and gold.
Thy voice the song of hidden rills,
The sigh deep-bosomed silence heaves
From the full heart of happy things, - 
The lap of water-lily leaves,
The noiseless language of the wings
Of evening making strange the hills.
Psalm CXIV
by John Milton

When Israel by Jehovah call'd
From Egypt's hostile plain,
Pour'd forth in numbers as the Sand
And sought the adjacent main:
Then God descended from on high
To lead the favour'd Race
To rule o'er Jacob, & his Name
In Judah's Tribe to place.
The Sea at their approach alarm'd
In wild amazement fled
And Jordan's flood was driven back
Within it's fountainhead.
The Mountains from their basis shook
Confess'd the Parent God!
With sudden throws like Rams they skipp'd
And broken, fell abroad.
The little Hills by the same power
Were from their Center torn
Like Lambs resistless they gave way
In Tumult wild, upborn.
Ye Waves what strange amazement, say,
Seiz'd on you that you fled?
Thou Jordan too! On Israel's march,
Why driven to thy Head?
Ye Mountains whence this sudden fright
That shook you from your base?
And whence, ye little Hills, your flight
From Israel's chosen Race?
Tremble thou Earth! Jehovah leads,
And guards the might Host!
That God, who by his awful Word,
Commands the Stream to flow
From flinty Rocks; & pouring thence,
To form the Lake below.
Tears Are Tongues.
by Robert Herrick

When Julia chid I stood as mute the while
As is the fish or tongueless crocodile.
Air coin'd to words my Julia could not hear,
But she could see each eye to stamp a tear;
By which mine angry mistress might descry
Tears are the noble language of the eye.
And when true love of words is destitute
The eyes by tears speak, while the tongue is mute.