DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Insensibility
by Wilfred Edward Salter Owen

I
Happy are men who yet before they are killed
Can let their veins run cold.
Whom no compassion fleers
Or makes their feet
Sore on the alleys cobbled with their brothers.
The front line withers,
But they are troops who fade, not flowers
For poets' tearful fooling:
Men, gaps for filling
Losses who might have fought
Longer; but no one bothers.
II
And some cease feeling
Even themselves or for themselves.
Dullness best solves
The tease and doubt of shelling,
And Chance's strange arithmetic
Comes simpler than the reckoning of their shilling.
They keep no check on Armies' decimation.
III
Happy are these who lose imagination:
They have enough to carry with ammunition.
Their spirit drags no pack.
Their old wounds save with cold can not more ache.
Having seen all things red,
Their eyes are rid
Of the hurt of the colour of blood for ever.
And terror's first constriction over,
Their hearts remain small drawn.
Their senses in some scorching cautery of battle
Now long since ironed,
Can laugh among the dying, unconcerned.
IV
Happy the soldier home, with not a notion
How somewhere, every dawn, some men attack,
And many sighs are drained.
Happy the lad whose mind was never trained:
His days are worth forgetting more than not.
He sings along the march
Which we march taciturn, because of dusk,
The long, forlorn, relentless trend
From larger day to huger night.
V
We wise, who with a thought besmirch
Blood over all our soul,
How should we see our task
But through his blunt and lashless eyes?
Alive, he is not vital overmuch;
Dying, not mortal overmuch;
Nor sad, nor proud,
Nor curious at all.
He cannot tell
Old men's placidity from his.
VI
But cursed are dullards whom no cannon stuns,
That they should be as stones.
Wretched are they, and mean
With paucity that never was simplicity.
By choice they made themselves immune
To pity and whatever mourns in man
Before the last sea and the hapless stars;
Whatever mourns when many leave these shores;
Whatever shares
The eternal reciprocity of tears.
On A Similar Occasion. For The Year 1792.
by William Cowper

Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,
Atque metus omnes et inexorabile fatum
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari!'Virg.
Happy the mortal who has traced effects
To their first cause, cast fear beneath his feet
And death and roaring hell's voracious fires!
Thankless for favours from on high,
Man thinks he fades too soon;
Though 'tis his privilege to die,
Would he improve the boon.
But he, not wise enough to scan
His blest concerns aright,
Would gladly stretch life's little span
To ages, if he might.
To ages in a world of pain,
To ages, where he goes
Gall'd by affliction's heavy chain,
And hopeless of repose.
Strange fondness of the human heart,
Enamour'd of its harm!
Strange world, that costs it so much smart,
And still has power to charm!
Whence has the world her magic power?
Why deem we death a foe?
Recoil from weary life's best hour,
And covet longer woe?
The cause is Conscience'Conscience oft
Her tale of guilt renews:
Her voice is terrible though soft,
And dread of death ensues.
Then anxious to be longer spared,
Man mourns his fleeting breath:
All evils then seem light, compared
With the approach of death.
'Tis judgment shakes him: there's the fear
That prompts the wish to stay:
He has incurr'd a long arrear,
And must despair to pay.
Pay!'follow Christ, and all is paid;
His death your peace ensures;
Think on the grave where He was laid,
And calm descend to yours.
Sonnet CCXXVI.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Aspro core e selvaggio, e cruda voglia.
HOPE ALONE SUPPORTS HIM IN HIS MISERY.
Hard heart and cold, a stern will past belief,
In angel form of gentle sweet allure;
If thus her practised rigour long endure,
O'er me her triumph will be poor and brief.
For when or spring, or die, flower, herb, and leaf.
When day is brightest, night when most obscure,
Alway I weep. Great cause from Fortune sure,
From Love and Laura have I for my grief.
I live in hope alone, remembering still
How by long fall of small drops I have seen
Marble and solid stone that worn have been.
No heart there is so hard, so cold no will,
By true tears, fervent prayers, and faithful love
That will not deign at length to melt and move.
MACGREGOR.
Sonnet CLXXVII.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Beato in sogno, e di languir contento.
THOUGH SO LONG LOVE'S FAITHFUL SERVANT, HIS ONLY REWARD HAS BEEN TEARS.
Happy in visions, and content to pine,
Shadows to clasp, to chase the summer gale,
On shoreless and unfathom'd sea to sail,
To build on sand, and in the air design,
The sun to gaze on till these eyes of mine
Abash'd before his noonday splendour fail,
To chase adown some soft and sloping vale,
The wing'd stag with maim'd and heavy kine;
Weary and blind, save my own harm to all,
Which day and night I seek with throbbing heart,
On Love, on Laura, and on Death I call.
Thus twenty years of long and cruel smart,
In tears and sighs I've pass'd, because I took
Under ill stars, alas! both bait and hook.
MACGREGOR.
The Cottager's Welcome.
by George Pope Morris

Hard by I've a cottage that stands near the wood--
A stream glides in peace at the door--
Where all who will tarry, 'tis well understood,
Receive hospitality's store.
To cheer that the brook and the thicket afford,
The stranger we ever invite:
You're welcome to freely partake at the board,
And afterwards rest for the night.
The birds in the morning will sing from the trees,
And herald the young god of day;
Then, with him uprising, depart if you please--
We'll set you refreshed on the way:
You're coin for our service we sternly reject;
No traffic for gain we pursue,
And all the reward that we wish or expect
We take in the good that we do.
Mankind are all pilgrims on life's weary road,
And many would wander astray
In seeking Eternity's silent abode,
Did Mercy not point out the way!
If all would their duty discharge as they should
To those who are friendless and poor,
The world would resemble my cot near the wood,
And life the sweet stream at my door.
Oberon's Feast
by Robert Herrick

Hapcot! To thee the Fairy State
I with discretion, dedicate.
Because thou prizest things that are
Curious, and un-familiar.
Take first the feast; these dishes gone,
We'll see the Fairy Court anon.
A little mushroom table spread,
After short prayers, they set on bread;
A moon-parched grain of purest wheat,
With some small glit'ring grit, to eat
His choice bits with; then in a trice
They make a feast less great than nice.
But all this while his eye is serv'd,
We must not think his ear was sterv'd:
But that there was in place to stir
His spleen, the chirring grasshopper,
The merry cricket, the puling fly,
The piping gnat for minstralcy.
And now, we must imagine first,
The elves present to quench his thirst
A pure seed-pearl of infant dew,
Brought and besweetened in a blue
And pregnant violet; which done
His kitling eyes begin to run
Quite through the table, where he spies
The horns of papery butterflies,
Of which he eats, and tastes a little
Of that we call the "cuckoo's spittle."
A little fuzz-ball-pudding stands    
By, yet not blessed by his hands,
That was too coarse; but then forthwith
He ventures boldly on the pith
Of sugar'd rush, and eats the sag
And well bestrutted bee's sweet bag;
Gladding his palate with some store
Of emit's eggs; what would he more?
But beards of mice, a newt's stew'd thigh,
A bloated earwig, and a fly,
With the red-capp'd worm that's shut
Within the concave of a nut,
Brown as his tooth. a little moth
Late fatten'd in a piece of cloth;
With wither'd cherries, mandrake's ears,
Mole's eyes; to these, the slain stag's tears,
The unctuous dewlaps of a snail,
The broke-heart of a nightingale
O'er-come in music; with a wine,
Ne'er ravish'd from the flattering vine,
But gently press'd from the soft side
Of the most sweet and dainty bride,
Brought in a dainty daisy, which
He fully quaffs up to bewitch
His blood to height; this done, commended
Grace by his priest, the feast is ended.
How The Robin Came
by John Greenleaf Whittier

An Algonquin legend.
Happy young friends, sit by me,
Under May's blown apple-tree,
While these home-birds in and out
Through the blossoms flit about.
Hear a story, strange and old,
By the wild red Indians told,
How the robin came to be:
Once a great chief left his son,
Well-beloved, his only one,
When the boy was well-nigh grown,
In the trial-lodge alone.
Left for tortures long and slow
Youths like him must undergo,
Who their pride of manhood test,
Lacking water, food, and rest.
Seven days the fast he kept,
Seven nights he never slept.
Then the young boy, wrung with pain,
Weak from nature's overstrain,
Faltering, moaned a low complaint
"Spare me, father, for I faint!"
But the chieftain, haughty-eyed,
Hid his pity in his pride.
"You shall be a hunter good,
Knowing never lack of food;
You shall be a warrior great,
Wise as fox and strong as bear;
Many scalps your belt shall wear,
If with patient heart you wait
Bravely till your task is done.
Better you should starving die
Than that boy and squaw should cry
Shame upon your father's son!"
When next morn the sun's first rays
Glistened on the hemlock sprays,
Straight that lodge the old chief sought,
And boiled sainp and moose meat brought.
"Rise and eat, my son!" he said.
Lo, he found the poor boy dead!
As with grief his grave they made,
And his bow beside him laid,
Pipe, and knife, and wampum-braid,
On the lodge-top overhead,
Preening smooth its breast of red
And the brown coat that it wore,
Sat a bird, unknown before.
And as if with human tongue,
"Mourn me not," it said, or sung;
"I, a bird, am still your son,
Happier than if hunter fleet,
Or a brave, before your feet
Laying scalps in battle won.
Friend of man, my song shall cheer
Lodge and corn-land; hovering near,
To each wigwam I shall bring
Tidings of the corning spring;
Every child my voice shall know
In the moon of melting snow,
When the maple's red bud swells,
And the wind-flower lifts its bells.
As their fond companion
Men shall henceforth own your son,
And my song shall testify
That of human kin am I."
Thus the Indian legend saith
How, at first, the robin came
With a sweeter life from death,
Bird for boy, and still the same.
If my young friends doubt that this
Is the robin's genesis,
Not in vain is still the myth
If a truth be found therewith
Unto gentleness belong
Gifts unknown to pride and wrong;
Happier far than hate is praise,
He who sings than he who slays
Sonnet XVII: Happy Is England
by John Keats

Happy is England! I could be content
To see no other verdure than its own;
To feel no other breezes than are blown
Through its tall woods with high romances blent:
Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment
For skies Italian, and an inward groan
To sit upon an Alp as on a throne,
And half forget what world or worldling meant.
Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters;
Enough their simple loveliness for me,
Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging:
Yet do I often warmly burn to see
Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing,
And float with them about the summer waters.
Happy, Happy It Is To Be
by Walter De La Mare

"Happy, happy it is to be
Where the greenwood hangs o'er the dark blue sea;
To roam in the moonbeams clear and still
And dance with the elves
Over dale and hill;
To taste their cups, and with them roam
The field for dewdrops and honeycomb.
Climb then, and come, as quick as you can,
And dwell with the fairies, Elizabeth Ann!
"Never, never, comes tear or sorrow,
In the mansions old where the fairies dwell;
But only the harping of their sweet harp-strings,
And the lonesome stroke of a distant bell,
Where upon hills of thyme and heather,
The shepherd sits with his wandering sheep;
And the curlew wails, and the skylark hovers
Over the sand where the conies creep;
Climb then, and come, as quick as you can,
And dwell with the fairies, Elizabeth Ann!"
The Black Sheep
by Robert William Service

"The aristocratic ne'er-do-well in Canada frequently finds his way into the ranks of the Royal North-West Mounted Police." - Extract.
Hark to the ewe that bore him:
"What has muddied the strain?
Never his brothers before him
Showed the hint of a stain."
Hark to the tups and wethers;
Hark to the old gray ram:
"We're all of us white, but he's black as night,
And he'll never be worth a damn."
I'm up on the bally wood-pile at the back of the barracks yard;
"A damned disgrace to the force, sir", with a comrade standing guard;
Making the bluff I'm busy, doing my six months hard.
"Six months hard and dismissed, sir." Isn't that rather hell?
And all because of the liquor laws and the wiles of a native belle - 
Some "hooch" I gave to a siwash brave who swore that he wouldn't tell.
At least they SAY that I did it. It's so in the town report.
All that I can recall is a night of revel and sport,
When I woke with a "head" in the guard-room, and they dragged me sick into court.
And the O. C. said: "You are guilty", and I said never a word;
For, hang it, you see I couldn't - I didn't know WHAT had occurred,
And, under the circumstances, denial would be absurd.
But the one that cooked my bacon was Grubbe, of the City Patrol.
He fagged for my room at Eton, and didn't I devil his soul!
And now he is getting even, landing me down in the hole.
Plugging away on the wood-pile; doing chores round the square.
There goes an officer's lady - gives me a haughty stare - 
Me that's an earl's own nephew - that is the hardest to bear.
To think of the poor old mater awaiting her prodigal son.
Tho' I broke her heart with my folly, I was always the white-haired one.
(That fatted calf that they're cooking will surely be overdone.)
I'll go back and yarn to the Bishop; I'll dance with the village belle;
I'll hand round tea to the ladies, and everything will be well.
Where I have been won't matter; what I have seen I won't tell.
I'll soar to their ken like a comet. They'll see me with never a stain;
But will they reform me? - far from it. We pay for our pleasure with pain;
But the dog will return to his vomit, the hog to his wallow again.
I've chewed on the rind of creation, and bitter I've tasted the same;
Stacked up against hell and damnation, I've managed to stay in the game;
I've had my moments of sorrow; I've had my seasons of shame.
That's past; when one's nature's a cracked one, it's too jolly hard to mend.
So long as the road is level, so long as I've cash to spend.
I'm bound to go to the devil, and it's all the same in the end.
The bugle is sounding for stables; the men troop off through the gloom;
An orderly laying the tables sings in the bright mess-room.
(I'll wash in the prison bucket, and brush with the prison broom.)
I'll lie in my cell and listen; I'll wish that I couldn't hear
The laugh and the chaff of the fellows swigging the canteen beer;
The nasal tone of the gramophone playing "The Bandolier".
And it seems to me, though it's misty, that night of the flowing bowl,
That the man who potlatched the whiskey and landed me into the hole
Was Grubbe, that Unmerciful Bounder, Grubbe, of the City Patrol.
Sonnet XXXIV.
by Fernando Ant'nio Nogueira Pessoa

Happy the maimed, the halt, the mad, the blind--
All who, stamped separate by curtailing birth,
Owe no duty's allegiance to mankind
Nor stand a valuing in their scheme of worth!
But I, whom Fate, not Nature, did curtail,
By no exterior voidness being exempt,
Must bear accusing glances where I fail,
Fixed in the general orbit of contempt.
Fate, less than Nature in being kind to lacking,
Giving the ill, shows not as outer cause,
Making our mock-free will the mirror's backing
Which Fate's own acts as if in itself shows;
And men, like children, seeing the image there,
Take place for cause and make our will Fate bear.
To The Grasshopper.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

AFTER ANACREON.
[The strong resemblance of this fine poem to Cowley's Ode bearing the same name, and beginning "Happy insect! what can be," will be at once seen.]
Happy art thou, darling insect,
Who, upon the trees' tall branches,
By a modest draught inspired,
Singing, like a monarch livest!
Thou possessest as thy portion
All that on the plains thou seest,
All that by the hours is brought thee
'Mongst the husbandmen thou livest,
As a friend, uninjured by them,
Thou whom mortals love to honour,
Herald sweet of sweet Spring's advent!
Yes, thou'rt loved by all the Muses,
Phoebus' self, too, needs must love thee;
They their silver voices gave thee,
Age can never steal upon thee.
Wise and gentle friend of poets,
Born a creature fleshless, bloodless,
Though Earth's daughter, free from suff'ring,
To the gods e'en almost equal.
An Ancient Chess King.
by Jean Ingelow

Haply some Rajah first in the ages gone
Amid his languid ladies fingered thee,
While a black nightingale, sun-swart as he,
Sang his one wife, love's passionate oraison;
Haply thou may'st have pleased Old Prester John
Among his pastures, when full royally
He sat in tent, grave shepherds at his knee,
While lamps of balsam winked and glimmered on.
What doest thou here? Thy masters are all dead;
My heart is full of ruth and yearning pain
At sight of thee; O king that hast a crown
Outlasting theirs, and tell'st of greatness fled
Through cloud-hung nights of unabated rain
And murmurs of the dark majestic town.
Sonnet CCIX.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Parr' forse ad alcun, che 'n lodar quella.
HE INVITES THOSE TO WHOM HIS PRAISES SEEM EXCESSIVE TO BEHOLD THE OBJECT OF THEM.
Haply my style to some may seem too free
In praise of her who holds my being's chain,
Queen of her sex describing her to reign,
Wise, winning, good, fair, noble, chaste to be:
To me it seems not so; I fear that she
My lays as low and trifling may disdain,
Worthy a higher and a better strain;
--Who thinks not with me let him come and see.
Then will he say, She whom his wishes seek
Is one indeed whose grace and worth might tire
The muses of all lands and either lyre.
But mortal tongue for state divine is weak,
And may not soar; by flattery and force,
As Fate not choice ordains, Love rules its course.
MACGREGOR.
Translations. - The Hundred And Twenty-Eighth Psalm. (Luther's Song-Book.)
by George MacDonald

Happy who in God's fear doth stay,
And in it goeth on his way;
Thine own hand thee shall find thy food,
So liv'st thou right, and all is good.
So shall thy wife be, in thy house,
Like vine with clusters plenteous,
Thy children sit thy table round
Like olive plants all fresh and sound.
See, such rich blessing hangs him on
Whom God's fear maketh live a man;
From him the old curse away is worn
To which the sons of men are born.
From Zion God will prosper thee;
Thou shalt behold continually
Jerusalem's now happy case
So pleasing to the God of grace.
He will thy days prolong for thee,
With goodness ever nigh thee be
That thou with thy sons' sons may'st dwell,
And there be peace in Israel.
Of The True Endeavour
by Edward Dyson

Happy he in whom the honest love of fair endeavour lingers,
Who has strength to do his labour, and has pride to do it well,
Carve he gems of purest water with an artist's cunning fingers,
Hew the granite, forge the beam, or make a simple tale to tell
His to feel a glow ecstatic of the mighty exhultation
That arose when out of chaos all the wheeling planets stood.
Since when God beheld the wonder, saw the stir of His creation
In the busy scheme of heaven, and He said that it was good,
Never man has made with willing hands some thing of true intention,
Cut in bone a strange, rude picture to inspire the naked hordes,
Or contrived a subtle engine with laborious invention,
But has entered straight and freely to the joy that was the Lord's
Those so blessed have with them solace, balm to still the ache of sorrow,
One companion who will cleave when friends and kindred turn away;
But a jealous mistress is she, and be sure again to-morrow
She will draw you back repentant if ye wander far to-day.
Few there are that know the ardour. Some are weaving songs of beauty,
Some have harped the living music, some have built with noblest skill,
Some are simple men exulting in the moiler's primal duty,
When they swing their axes high or ring the hammer on the drill.
Not to all that love is given art, the clear, unfailing vision,
Not power to carve the perfect form, the bravest lances hurled,
But the humblest hand sincere desire has quickened to decision
Beats a line of grace eternal in the metal of the world.
Men have prayed for many blessings, for the boon of ease have ever
Plagued the God that drave out Adam to the tilling of the soil,
Speak a prayer of honest effort to the God of Vast Endeavour:
Give for each his toil, O Lord, for each the pride and joy of toil!
Beginning Difficult.
by Robert Herrick

Hard are the two first stairs unto a crown:
Which got, the third bids him a king come down.
Solitude
by Alexander Pope

Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air
In his own ground.
Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire;
Whose trees in summer yield shade,
In winter, fire.
Blest, who can unconcern'dly find
Hours, days, and years, slide soft away
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day.
Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mixed; sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please
With meditation.
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.
None Truly Happy Here.
by Robert Herrick

Happy's that man to whom God gives
A stock of goods, whereby he lives
Near to the wishes of his heart:
No man is blest through every part.
Where Is God?
by Charles Hamilton Musgrove

(Written during the hostilities in the Far East in 1900.)
Hard by the gates of Eden,
Where God first walked with man,
In the light of the new creation,
Ere the race of Cain began,
The world-wide hosts have gathered,
And their swords are drawn to slay:
God was with man in Eden,
But where is God today?
From the ice-bound steppes of the Cossack;
From the home of the fleur-de-lis,
From the vineyards that crown the Rhineland
To the shores of the phosphor sea,
The clans have gathered for battle,
And each for the signal waits,
While a million swords are flaming
At Eden's Eastern gates.
By the sign of the yellow dragon,
By the tri-color's bars of light;
By the double-throated eagle
That screams with the lust of fight,
By the Union Jack of Britannia,
By Columbia's stars and bars,
They pray to the god of battle
For the meed of a hundred wars.
Hard by the gates of Eden,
Where the passion flower of strife
First bloomed at its blood-red altar
At the price of a brother's life,
The children of Cain are gathered
To plunder and burn and slay:
God was with man in Eden,
But where is God today?