DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Falmouth Bell
by Katharine Lee Bates

Never was there lovelier town
Than our Falmouth by the sea.
Tender curves of sky look down
On her grace of knoll and lea.
Sweet her nestled Mayflower blows
Ere from prouder haunts the spring
Yet has brushed the lingering snows
With a violet-colored wing.
Bright the autumn gleams pervade
Cranberry marsh and bushy wold,
Till the children's mirth has made
Millionaires in leaves of gold;
And upon her pleasant ways,
Set with many a gardened home,
Flash through fret of drooping sprar
Visions far of ocean foam.
Happy bell of Paul Revere,
Sounding o'er such blest demesne
While a hundred times a year
Weaves the round from green to green.
Never were there friendlier folk
Than in Falmouth by the sea,
Neighbor-households that invoke
Pride of sailor-pedigree.
Here is princely interchange
Of the gifts of shore and field,
Starred with treasures rare and strange
That the liberal sea-chests yield.
Culture here burns breezy torch
Where gray captains, bronzed of neck
Tread their little length of porch
With a memory of the deck.
Ah, and here the tenderest hearts,
Here where sorrows sorest wring
And the widows shift their parts
Comforted and comforting.
Holy bell of Paul Revere
Calling such to prayer and praise.
While a hundred times the year
Herds her flock of faithful days!
Greetings to thee, ancient bell
Of our Falmouth by the sea!
Answered by the ocean swell,
Ring thy centuried Jubilee!
Like the white sails of the Sound,
Hast thou seen the years drift by,
From the dreamful, dim profound
To a goal beyond the eye.
Long thy maker lieth mute,
Hero of a faded strife;
Thou hast tolled from seed to fruit
Generations three of life.
Still thy mellow voice and clear
Floats o'er land and listening deep,
And we deem our fathers hear
From their shadowy hill of sleep.
Ring thy peals for centuries yet,
Living voice of Paul Revere!
Let the future not forget
That the past accounted dear!
Never The Time And The Place
by Robert Browning

Never the time and the place
And the loved one all together!
This path, how soft to pace!
This May, what magic weather!
Where is the loved one's face?
In a dream that loved one's face meets mine,
But the house is narrow, the place is bleak
Where, outside, rain and wind combine
With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak,
With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek,
With a malice that marks each word, each sign!
O enemy sly and serpentine,
Uncoil thee from the waking man!
Do I hold the Past
Thus firm and fast
Yet doubt if the Future hold I can?
This path so soft to pace shall lead
Thro' the magic of May to herself indeed!
Or narrow if needs the house must be,
Outside are the storms and strangers: we
Oh, close, safe, warm sleep I and she,
I and she!
A Walk In Mount Royal Park: Canadian Cities.
by W. M. MacKeracher

Next morning in the Park I took a stroll.
A walk upon Mount Royal is a thing,
Glorious at any time, but most of all
At early morning in the opening spring,
While yet the snow-wreaths to the rock-shelves cling,
And little streamlets lash the steaming side;
While on the air the April breezes fling
An appetizing vigor far and wide,
And make the steep ascent a pleasure and a pride.
The path ascends by stately Ravenscrag,
And past the monument which marks his rest,
Over whose history strange traditions drag
Their spectral robes - his memory's sole behest.
Here for a moment halting, all imprest
With other thoughts than find a ready tongue,
I view the leopard slope, the bristling crest,
The blue beyond, with cloud veils lightly hung,
And glory in a dream of time when earth was young.
I follow by the winding road until,
By taking at the sweep the northern arm,
I reach the summit. For the topmost hill
The scenery reserves her chiefest charm;
The upper sky is clear and light and warm;
The southern peaks that far away I wist,
Seem close upon me; round their lower form
A shroud is wrapped; their tops, by sunlight kiss'd,
High in mid-air appear and mighty in the mist.
Beneath, the River spreads his glist'ning sheen,
Spanned by not least of master workmanships,
Which sits as conscious daughter of a queen.
And here art thou, my city, and thou dip'st
Thy towers in the mist, whose magic strips
My spirit of the pall Time weaves - in vain;
Nor Time nor Disappointment can eclipse
Days of young bliss - they must and will remain:
Once more a wonder thou, half city of the brain.
Fair art thou, City of St. Lawrence' Isle;
Fair, City of the Hundred Spires; the seat
Of the Western Notre Dame, whose towered pile
Rivals the first, of many a stately street
And comely mansion, many a garden sweet,
Of Art and Nature, envious to please! -
Thou of the mountain brow, before whose feet
The Northern Amazon his tribute fees,
Fraught with the waters of five mighty inland seas!
And fair art thou, whilome the Capital -
Not what thou wert, but yet a gorgeous grave -
Fortress of fame, upon whose rocky wall
Records of glory awe the trembling wave,
Heights where the memories of heroes pave
The ancient streets and lustre all the scene!
Fair, too, thou city where our fasces have
Their present rest; none worthier I ween!
And fair, ay, very fair, thou city called "Queen!"
Sonnet CXC
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Passer mai solitario in alcun tetto.
FAR FROM HIS BELOVED, LIFE IS MISERABLE BY NIGHT AS BY DAY.
Never was bird, spoil'd of its young, more sad,
Or wild beast in his lair more lone than me,
Now that no more that lovely face I see,
The only sun my fond eyes ever had.
In ceaseless sorrow is my chief delight:
My food to poison turns, to grief my joy;
The night is torture, dark the clearest sky,
And my lone pillow a hard field of fight.
Sleep is indeed, as has been well express'd.
Akin to death, for it the heart removes
From the dear thought in which alone I live.
Land above all with plenty, beauty bless'd!
Ye flowery plains, green banks and shady groves!
Ye hold the treasure for whose loss I grieve!
MACGREGOR.
Ballata I.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Lassare il velo o per sole o per ombra.
PERCEIVING HIS PASSION, LAURA'S SEVERITY INCREASES.
Never thy veil, in sun or in the shade,
Lady, a moment I have seen
Quitted, since of my heart the queen
Mine eyes confessing thee my heart betray'd
While my enamour'd thoughts I kept conceal'd.
Those fond vain hopes by which I die,
In thy sweet features kindness beam'd:
Changed was the gentle language of thine eye
Soon as my foolish heart itself reveal'd;
And all that mildness which I changeless deem'd--
All, all withdrawn which most my soul esteem'd.
Yet still the veil I must obey,
Which, whatsoe'er the aspect of the day,
Thine eyes' fair radiance hides, my life to overshade.
CAPEL LOFFT.
Wherefore, my unkind fair one, say,
Whether the sun fierce darts his ray,
Or whether gloom o'erspreads the sky,
That envious veil is ne'er thrown by;
Though well you read my heart, and knew
How much I long'd your charms to view?
While I conceal'd each tender thought,
That my fond mind's destruction wrought,
Your face with pity sweetly shone;
But, when love made my passion known,
Your sunny locks were seen no more,
Nor smiled your eyes as heretofore;
Behind a jealous cloud retired
Those beauties which I most admired.
And shall a veil thus rule my fate?
O cruel veil, that whether heat
Or cold be felt, art doom'd to prove
Fatal to me, shadowing the lights I love!
NOTT.
An Image From A Past Life
by William Butler Yeats

(He.) Never until this night have I been stirred.
The elaborate starlight throws a reflection
On the dark stream,
Till all the eddies gleam;
And thereupon there comes that scream
From terrified, invisible beast or bird:
Image of poignant recollection.
(She.) An image of my heart that is smitten through
Out of all likelihood, or reason,
And when at last,
Youth's bitterness being past,
I had thought that all my days were cast
Amid most lovely places; smitten as though
It had not learned its lesson.
(He.) Why have you laid your hands upon my eyes?
What can have suddenly alarmed you
Whereon 'twere best
My eyes should never rest?
What is there but the slowly fading west,
The river imaging the flashing skies,
All that to this moment charmed you?
(She.) A Sweetheart from another life floats there
As though she had been forced to linger
From vague distress
Or arrogant loveliness,
Merely to loosen out a tress
Among the starry eddies of her hair
Upon the paleness of a finger.
(He.) But why should you grow suddenly afraid
And start -- I at your shoulder --
Imagining
That any night could bring
An image up, or anything
Even to eyes that beauty had driven mad,
But images to make me fonder?
(She.) Now She has thrown her arms above her head;
Whether she threw them up to flout me,
Or but to find,
Now that no fingers bind,
That her hair streams upon the wind,
I do not know, that know I am afraid
Of the hovering thing night brought me.
An Echo
by Jonathan Swift

Never sleeping, still awake,
Pleasing most when most I speak;
The delight of old and young,
Though I speak without a tongue.
Nought but one thing can confound me,
Many voices joining round me;
Then I fret, and rave, and gabble,
Like the labourers of Babel.
Now I am a dog, or cow,
I can bark, or I can low;
I can bleat, or I can sing,
Like the warblers of the spring.
Let the lovesick bard complain,
And I mourn the cruel pain;
Let the happy swain rejoice,
And I join my helping voice:
Both are welcome, grief or joy,
I with either sport and toy.
Though a lady, I am stout,
Drums and trumpets bring me out:
Then I clash, and roar, and rattle,
Join in all the din of battle.
Jove, with all his loudest thunder,
When I'm vext, can't keep me under;
Yet so tender is my ear,
That the lowest voice I fear;
Much I dread the courtier's fate,
When his merit's out of date,
For I hate a silent breath,
And a whisper is my death.
The Maid's Remonstrance
by Thomas Campbell

Never wedding, ever wooing,
Still a love-lorn heart pursuing,
Read you not the wrong you 're doing
In my cheek's pale hue?
All my life with sorrow strewing,
Wed, or cease to woo.
Rivals banished, bosoms plighted,
Still our days are disunited;
Now the lamp of hope is lighted,
Now half quenched appears,
Damped, and wavering, and benighted,
Midst my sighs and tears.
Charms you call your dearest blessing,
Lips that thrill at your caressing,
Eyes a mutual soul confessing,
Soon you 'll make them grow
Dim, and worthless your possessing,
Not with age, but woe!
May.
by Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncey Woolsey)

New flowery scents strewed everywhere,
New sunshine poured in largesse fair,
"We shall be happy now," we say.
A voice just trembles through the air,
And whispers, "May."
Nay, but we MUST! No tiny bud
But thrills with rapture at the flood
Of fresh young life which stirs to-day.
The same wild thrill irradiates our blood;
Why hint of "May"?
For us are coming fast and soon
The delicate witcheries of June;
July, with ankles deep in hay;
The bounteous Autumn. Like a mocking tune
Again sounds, "May."
Spring's last-born darling, clear-eyed, sweet,
Pauses a moment, with white twinkling feet,
And golden locks in breezy play,
Half teasing and half tender, to repeat
Her song of "May."
Ah, month of hope! all promised glee,
All merry meanings, lie in thee;
Surely no cloud can daunt thy day.
The ripe lips part in smiling mockery,
And murmur, "May."
Still from the smile a comfort may we glean;
Although our "must-be's," "shall-be's," idle seem,
Close to our hearts one little word we lay:
We may not be as happy as we dream,
But then we--may.
The Aurora
by Madison Julius Cawein

Night and the sea, and heaven overhead
Cloudless and vast, as 'twere of hollowed spar,
Wherein the facets gleamed of many a star,
And the half-moon a crystal radiance shed.
Then suddenly, with burning banners spread,
In pale celestial armour, as for war,
Into the heaven, flaming from afar,
The Northern Lights their phalanxed splendours led.
Night, for the moment, seemed to catch her breath,
And earth gazed, silent with astonishment,
As spear on spear the auroral armies came;
As when, triumphant over hell and death,
The victor angels thronged God's firmament
With sword on sword and burning oriflamme.
In The Dark None Dainty.
by Robert Herrick

Night hides our thefts, all faults then pardon'd be;
All are alike fair when no spots we see.
Lais and Lucrece in the night-time are
Pleasing alike, alike both singular:
Joan and my lady have at that time one,
One and the self-same priz'd complexion:
Then please alike the pewter and the plate,
The chosen ruby, and the reprobate.
"New Feet Within My Garden Go,"
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

New feet within my garden go,
New fingers stir the sod;
A troubadour upon the elm
Betrays the solitude.
New children play upon the green,
New weary sleep below;
And still the pensive spring returns,
And still the punctual snow!
To His Kinswoman, Mrs. Penelope Wheeler.
by Robert Herrick

Next is your lot, fair, to be number'd one,
Here, in my book's canonisation:
Late you come in; but you a saint shall be,
In chief, in this poetic liturgy.
Upon The Bishop Of Lincoln's Imprisonment.
by Robert Herrick

Never was day so over-sick with showers
But that it had some intermitting hours;
Never was night so tedious but it knew
The last watch out, and saw the dawning too;
Never was dungeon so obscurely deep
Wherein or light or day did never peep;
Never did moon so ebb, or seas so wane,
But they left hope-seed to fill up again.
So you, my lord, though you have now your stay,
Your night, your prison, and your ebb, you may
Spring up afresh, when all these mists are spent,
And star-like, once more gild our firmament.
Let but that mighty C'sar speak, and then
All bolts, all bars, all gates shall cleave; as when
That earthquake shook the house, and gave the stout
Apostles way, unshackled, to go out.
This, as I wish for, so I hope to see;
Though you, my lord, have been unkind to me,
To wound my heart, and never to apply,
When you had power, the meanest remedy.
Well, though my grief by you was gall'd the more,
Yet I bring balm and oil to heal your sore.
New Year's Day
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

New Year, be good to England. Bid her name
Shine sunlike as of old on all the sea:
Make strong her soul: set all her spirit free:
Bind fast her homeborn foes with links of shame
More strong than iron and more keen than flame:
Seal up their lips for shame's sake: so shall she
Who was the light that lightened freedom be,
For all false tongues, in all men's eyes the same.
O last-born child of Time, earth's eldest lord,
God undiscrowned of godhead, who for man
Begets all good and evil things that live,
Do thou, his new-begotten son, implored
Of hearts that hope and fear not, make thy span
Bright with such light as history bids thee give.
Semi-Centennial Celebration Of The New England Society New York, December 22, 1855
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

New England, we love thee; no time can erase
From the hearts of thy children the smile on thy face.
'T is the mother's fond look of affection and pride,
As she gives her fair son to the arms of his bride.
His bride may be fresher in beauty's young flower;
She may blaze in the jewels she brings with her dower.
But passion must chill in Time's pitiless blast;
The one that first loved us will love to the last.
You have left the dear land of the lake and the hill,
But its winds and its waters will talk with you still.
"Forget not," they whisper, "your love is our debt,"
And echo breathes softly, "We never forget."
The banquet's gay splendors are gleaming around,
But your hearts have flown back o'er the waves of the Sound;
They have found the brown home where their pulses were born;
They are throbbing their way through the trees and the corn.
There are roofs you remember, - their glory is fled;
There are mounds in the churchyard, - one sigh for the dead.
There are wrecks, there are ruins, all scattered around;
But Earth has no spot like that corner of ground.
Come, let us be cheerful, - remember last night,
How they cheered us, and - never mind - meant it all right;
To-night, we harm nothing, - we love in the lump;
Here's a bumper to Maine, in the juice of the pump!
Here 's to all the good people, wherever they be,
Who have grown in the shade of the liberty-tree;
We all love its leaves, and its blossoms and fruit,
But pray have a care of the fence round its root.
We should like to talk big; it's a kind of a right,
When the tongue has got loose and the waistband grown tight;
But, as pretty Miss Prudence remarked to her beau,
On its own heap of compost no biddy should crow.
Enough! There are gentlemen waiting to talk,
Whose words are to mine as the flower to the stalk.
Stand by your old mother whatever befall;
God bless all her children! Good night to you all!
For Anne Gregory
by William Butler Yeats

"Never shall a young man,
Thrown into despair
By those great honey-coloured
Ramparts at your ear,
Love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.'
"But I can get a hair-dye
And set such colour there,
Brown, or black, or carrot,
That young men in despair
May love me for myself alone
And not my yellow hair.'
"I heard an old religious man
But yesternight declare
That he had found a text to prove
That only God, my dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair."
The Fool's Song
by Walter De La Mare

Never, no never, listen too long,
To the chattering wind in the willow, the night bird's song.
'Tis sad in sooth to lie under the grass,
But none too gladsome to wake and grow cold where life's shadows pass.
Dumb the old Toll-Woman squats,
And, for every green copper battered and worn, doles out Nevers and Nots.
I know a Blind Man, too,
Who with a sharp ear listens and listens the whole world through.
Oh, sit we snug to our feast,
With platter and finger and spoon - and good victuals at least.
Marsyas In Hades
by Owen Seaman

(AFTER SIR L. M.)
Next I saw
A pensive gentleman of middle age,
That leaned against a Druid oak, his pipe
Pendent beneath his chin, a double one,
(Meaning the pipe); reluctant was his breath,
For he had mingled in the Morris dance
And rested blown; but damsels in their teens,
All decorous and decorously clad,
Their very ankles hardly visible,
Recalled his motions; while, for chaperon,
Good Mrs. Grundy up against the wall
Beamed approbation.
On his face I read
Signs of high sadness such as poets wear,
Being divinely discontented with
The praise of jeunes filles. Even as I looked,
He touched the portion of his pipe reserved
For minor poetry of solemn tone,
Checking the humorous stops intended for
Electioneering posters and the like;
And therewithal he made the following
Addition to his Songs Unsung, or else
His Unremarked Remarks:
"Dear Sir," he said,
"Excuse my saying 'Sir' like that; it is
Our way in Hades here among the damned;
For you must know that some of us are damned
Not only by faint praise but full applause
Of simple critics. Take my case. In me
Behold the good knight Marsyas, M.A.,
Three times a candidate for Parliament,
And twice retired; a Justice of the Peace;
Master of Arts (I said), and better known
In literary spheres as Master of
The Mediocre-Obvious; and read
By boarding-misses in their myriads.
These dote upon me. Sweetly have I sung
The commonplaces of philosophy
In common parlance.
You have read perhaps
The Cymric Triads? Poetry, they say,
Excels alone by sheer simplicity
Of language, subject, and invention. Sir!
The excellence of mine lay that way too.
But fate is partial. Heaven's fulgour moulds
'To happiness some, some to unhappiness!'
(Look you, the harp was Welsh that figured forth
That excellent last line.) I ask you, Sir,
What would you? Ill content with mortal praise,
And haply somewhat overbold, I sought
To be as gods be; sought, in fact, to filch
Apollo's bays!
Ah me! Dear me! I fain
Would use a stronger phrase, but hardly dare,
Being, whatever else, respectable.
I say I tired of vulgar homage, gift
Of ignorance. 'High failure overleaps
The bounds of low successes' (there, again,
The harp that twanged was Welsh, but with an echo
Of Browning). Godlike it must be, I thought,
To climb the giddy brink; to pen, for instance,
An Ode to the Imperial Institute,
And fall, if bound to, from a decent height.
I did and missed the laurel; still I go
On writing; what you hear just now is blank,
Distinctly blank, and might be measured by
The kilom'tre; yet I rhyme as well
A little; but it takes a lot of time,
And checks the lapse of my pellucid stream
Not all conveniently."
Thereat he paused,
And wrung the moisture from his pipe; but I,
As one that was intolerably bored,
Took even this occasion to be gone;
And, going, marked him how he took his stile,
Polished the waxen tablets, and began
To make a Royal P'an by request,
Or so he said.
The "Living Dog" And "The Dead Lion."
by Thomas Moore

Next week will be published (as "Lives" are the rage)
The whole Reminiscences, wondrous and strange,
Of a small puppy-dog that lived once in the cage
Of the late noble Lion at Exeter 'Change.
Tho' the dog is a dog of the kind they call "sad,"
'Tis a puppy that much to good breeding pretends;
And few dogs have such opportunities had
Of knowing how Lions behave--among friends;
How that animal eats, how he snores, how he drinks,
Is all noted down by this Boswell so small;
And 'tis plain from each sentence, the puppy-dog thinks
That the Lion was no such great things after all.
Tho' he roared pretty well--this the puppy allows--
It was all, he says, borrowed--all second-hand roar;
And he vastly prefers his own little bow-wows
To the loftiest war-note the Lion could pour.
'Tis indeed as good fun as a Cynic could ask,
To see how this cockney-bred setter of rabbits
Takes gravely the Lord of the Forest to task,
And judges of lions by puppy-dog habits.
Nay, fed as he was (and this makes it a dark case)
With sops every day from the Lion's own pan,
He lifts up his leg at the noble beast's carcass.
And does all a dog so diminutive can.
However, the book's a good book, being rich in
Examples and warnings to lions high-bred,
How they suffer small mongrelly curs in their kitchen,
Who'll feed on them living and foul them when dead.
T. PIDCOCK
Exeter 'Change,
Tibullus To Sulpicia.
by Thomas Moore

nulla tuum nobis subducet femina lectum, etc., Lib. iv. Carm. 13.
"Never shall woman's smile have power
"To win me from those gentle charms!"--
Thus swore I, in that happy hour,
When Love first gave thee to my arms.
And still alone thou charm'st my sight--
Still, tho' our city proudly shine
With forms and faces, fair and bright,
I see none fair or bright but thine.
Would thou wert fair for only me,
And couldst no heart but mine allure!--
To all men else unpleasing be,
So shall I feel my prize secure.
Oh, love like mine ne'er wants the zest
Of others' envy, others' praise;
But, in its silence safely blest,
Broods o'er a bliss it ne'er betrays.
Charm of my life! by whose sweet power
All cares are husht, all ills subdued--
My light in even the darkest hour,
My crowd in deepest solitude!
No, not tho' heaven itself sent down
Some maid of more than heavenly charms,
With bliss undreamt thy bard to crown,
Would he for her forsake those arms!
New Year
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

New Year, I look straight in your eyes -
Our ways and our interests blend;
You may be a foe in disguise,
But I shall believe you a friend.
We get what we give in our measure,
We cannot give pain and get pleasure;
I give you good will and good cheer,
And you must return it, New Year.
We get what we give in this life,
Though often the giver indeed
Waits long upon doubting and strife
Ere proving the truth of my creed.
But somewhere, some way, and for ever
Reward is the meed of endeavour;
And if I am really worth while,
New Year, you will give me your smile.
You hide in your mystical hand
No "luck" that I cannot control,
If I trust my own courage and stand
On the Infinite strength of my soul.
Man holds in his brain and his spirit
A power that is God-like, or near it,
And he who has measured his force
Can govern events and their course.
You come with a crown on your brow,
New Year, without blemish or spot;
Yet you, and not I, sir, must bow,
For time is the servant of thought
Whatever you bring me of trouble
Shall turn into good, and then double,
If my spirit looks up without fear
To the Source that you came from, New Year.