DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
To The Countess Of Exeter. Playing On The Lute
by Matthew Prior

What charms you have, from what high race you sprung,
Have been the pleasing subjects of my song:
Unskill'd and young, yet something still I writ
Of Ca'ndish' beauty, join'd to Cecil's wit.
But when you please to show the labouring muse
What greater theme your music can produce,
My babbling praises I repeat no more,
But hear, rejoice, stand silent, and adore.
The Persians thus, first gazing on the sun,
Admired how high 'twas placed, how bright it shone;
But as his power was known their thoughts were raised,
And soon they worshipp'd what at first they praised.
Eliza's glory lives in Spenser's song,
And Cowley's verse keeps fair Orinda young;
That as in birth and beauty you excel,
The muse might dictate and the poet tell:
Your art no other art can speak; and you
To show how well you play, must play anew:
Your music's power your music must disclose,
For what light is 'tis only light that shows.
Strange force of harmony that thus controls
Our thoughts, and turns and sanctifies our souls.
While with its utmost art your sex could move
Our wonder only or at best our love,
You far above both these your god did place,
That your high power might worldly thoughts destroy,
That with your numbers you our zeal might raise,
And like himself communicate your joy.
When to your native heaven you shall repair,
And with your presence crown the blessings there,
Your lute may wind its strings but little higher
To tune their notes to that immortal quire.
Your art is perfect here; your numbers do
More than our books make the rude atheist know
That there's a heaven by what he hears below.
As in some piece while Luke his skill exprest,
A cunning angel came and drew the rest,
So when you play, some godhead does impart
Harmonious aid; divinity helps art;
Some cherub finishes what you begun,
And to a miracle improves a tune.
To burning Rome when frantic Nero play'd,
Viewing that face, no more he had survey'd
The raging flames, but, struck with strange surprise,
Confess'd them less than those of Anna's eyes;
But, had he heard thy lute, he soon had found
His rage eluded and his crime atoned:
Thine, like Amphion's hand, had waked the stone
And from destruction call'd the rising town;
Malice to music had been forced to yield,
Nor could he burn so fast as thou couldst build.
What Did It Mean?
by Thomas Hardy

What did it mean that noontide, when
You bade me pluck the flower
Within the other woman's bower,
Whom I knew nought of then?
I thought the flower blushed deeplier aye,
And as I drew its stalk to me
It seemed to breathe: "I am, I see,
Made use of in a human play."
And while I plucked, upstarted sheer
As phantom from the pane thereby
A corpse-like countenance, with eye
That iced me by its baleful peer -
Silent, as from a bier . . .
When I came back your face had changed,
It was no face for me;
O did it speak of hearts estranged,
And deadly rivalry
In times before
I darked your door,
To seise me of
Mere second love,
Which still the haunting first deranged?
A Forecast.
by Archibald Lampman

What days await this woman, whose strange feet
Breathe spells, whose presence makes men dream like wine,
Tall, free and slender as the forest pine,
Whose form is moulded music, through whose sweet
Frank eyes I feel the very heart's least beat,
Keen, passionate, full of dreams and fire:
How in the end, and to what man's desire
Shall all this yield, whose lips shall these lips meet?
One thing I know: if he be great and pure,
This love, this fire, this beauty shall endure;
Triumph and hope shall lead him by the palm:
But if not this, some differing thing he be,
That dream shall break in terror; he shall see
The whirlwind ripen, where he sowed the calm.
Sonnet CLXXXV.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Qual mio destin, qual forza o qual inganno.
THOUGH HER EYES DESTROY HIM, HE CANNOT TEAR HIMSELF AWAY.
What destiny of mine, what fraud or force,
Unarm'd again conducts me to the field,
Where never came I but with shame to yield
'Scape I or fall, which better is or worse?
--Not worse, but better; from so sweet a source
Shine in my heart those lights, so bright reveal'd
The fatal fire, e'en now as then, which seal'd
My doom, though twenty years have roll'd their course
I feel death's messengers when those dear eyes,
Dazzling me from afar, I see appear,
And if on me they turn as she draw near,
Love with such sweetness tempts me then and tries,
Tell it I cannot, nor recall in sooth,
For wit and language fail to reach the truth!
MACGREGOR.
Sonnets From The Portuguese VIII
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

What can I give thee back, O liberal
And princely giver, who hast brought the gold
And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold,
And laid them on the outside of the wall
For such as I to take or leave withal,
In unexpected largesse? am I cold,
Ungrateful, that for these most manifold
High gifts, I render nothing back at all?
Not so; not cold, but very poor instead.
Ask God who knows. For frequent tears have run
The colours from my life, and left so dead
And pale a stuff, it were not fitly done
To give the same as pillow to thy head.
Go farther! let it serve to trample on.
Nursery Rhyme. CCCCXLIV. Love And Matrimony.
by Unknown

What care I how black I be,
Twenty pounds will marry me;
If twenty won't, forty shall,
I am my mother's bouncing girl!
Genius Loci.
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
What deity for dozing laziness
Devised the lounging coziness of this
Enchanted nook? - and how! - did I distress
His musing ease that fled but now, or his
Laughed frolic with some forest-sister, fair
As those wild hill-carnations are and rare?
Too true, alas! - Feel! the wild moss is warm
And moist with late reclining, as the palm
Of what hot Hamadryad, who, a-nap,
Props her hale cheek upon it, while her arm
Weak wind-flowers bury; in her hair the balm
Of a whole Spring of blossoms and of sap?
II.
See, how the dented moss, that pads the hump
Of these distorted roots, elastic springs
From that god's late departure; lump by lump,
Pale tufts impressed twitch loose in nervous rings,
As crowding stars qualm thro' gray evening skies.
Indulgence grant thou my profane surprise,
Pray! - then to dream where thou didst dream before,
Benevolent! ... here where the veiny leaves
Bask broad the fuzzy bosoms of their hands
O'er wistful waters: 'neath this sycamore,
Smooth, giraffe-brindled, where each ripple weaves
A twinkling quiver as of marching bands
III.
Of Elfin chivalry, that, helmed with gold,
Split spilled the scaley sunbeams wrinkled off.
What brought thee here? - This wind that steals the old
Weird legends from the forests, with a scoff
To laugh them thro' their beards? Or, in those weeds,
The hermit brook so busy with his beads? - 
How many Aves, Paters doth he say
In one droned minute on his rosary
Of bubbles - wot'st thou? - Pucker-eyed didst mark
Yon lank hag-tapers, yellow by yon way,
A haggard company of seven? - See
How dry swim by such curled brown bits of bark?
IV.
Didst mark the ghostly gold of this grave, still,
Conceited minnow thro' these twisted roots,
Thrust o'er the smoky topaz of this rill,
Dull-slumbering here? Or did those insect flutes - 
Sleepy with sunshine - buzz thee that forlorn
Tale of Tithonus and the bashful Morn?
Until two tears gleamed in the stealing stream
Trembling its polish o'er the winking grail? - 
Nay! didst perplex thee with some poet plan
To drug this air with beauty to make dream, - 
Ah, discreet Cunning, watching in yon vale! - 
Me, wildwood-wandered from the marts of Man!
Silent Tears
by Henry Kendall

What bitter sorrow courses down
Yon mourner's faded cheek?
Those scalding drops betray a grief
Within, too full to speak.
Outspoken words cannot express
The pangs, the pains of years;
They're ne'er so deep or eloquent
As are those silent tears.
Here is a wound that in the breast
Must canker, hid'n from sight;
Though all without seems sunny day,
Within 'Tis ever night.
Yet sometimes from this secret source
The gloomy truth appears;
The wind's dark dungeon must have vent
If but in silent tears.
The world may deem from outward looks
That heart is hard and cold;
But oh! could they the mantle lift
What sorrows would be told!
Then, only then, the truth would show
Which most the bosom sears:
The pain portrayed by burning words
Or that by silent tears.
Commissioned.
by Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncey Woolsey)

"Do their errands; enter into the sacrifice with them; be a link yourself in the divine chain, and feel the joy and life of it."
- ADELINE D. T. WHITNEY
What can I do for thee, Beloved,
Whose feet so little while ago
Trod the same way-side dust with mine,
And now up paths I do not know
Speed, without sound or sign?
What can I do? The perfect life
All fresh and fair and beautiful
Has opened its wide arms to thee;
Thy cup is over-brimmed and full;
Nothing remains for me.
I used to do so many things,--
Love thee and chide thee and caress;
Brush little straws from off thy way,
Tempering with my poor tenderness
The heat of thy short day.
Not much, but very sweet to give;
And it is grief of griefs to bear
That all these ministries are o'er,
And thou, so happy, Love, elsewhere,
Never can need me more:--
And I can do for thee but this
(Working on blindly, knowing not
If I may give thee pleasure so):
Out of my own dull, burdened lot
I can arise, and go
To sadder lives and darker homes,
A messenger, dear heart, from thee
Who wast on earth a comforter,
And say to those who welcome me,
I am sent forth by her.
Feeling the while how good it is
To do thy errands thus, and think
It may be, in the blue, far space,
Thou watchest from the heaven's brink,--
A smile upon my face.
And when the day's work ends with day,
And star-eyed evening, stealing in,
Waves a cool hand to flying noon,
And restless, surging thoughts begin,
Like sad bells out of tune,
I'll pray: "Dear Lord, to whose great love
Nor bound nor limit line is set,
Give to my darling, I implore,
Some new sweet joy not tasted yet,
For I can give no more."
And with the words my thoughts shall climb
With following feet the heavenly stair
Up which thy steps so lately sped,
And, seeing thee so happy there,
Come back half comforted.
The Gift
by Sara Teasdale

What can I give you, my lord, my lover,
You who have given the world to me,
Showed me the light and the joy that cover
The wild sweet earth and the restless sea?
All that I have are gifts of your giving,
If I gave them again, you would find them old,
And your soul would weary of always living
Before the mirror my life would hold.
What shall I give you, my lord, my lover?
The gift that breaks the heart in me:
I bid you awake at dawn and discover
I have gone my way and left you free.
The Departure Of The Good Demon.
by Robert Herrick

What can I do in poetry
Now the good spirit's gone from me?
Why, nothing now but lonely sit
And over-read what I have writ.
Fragment
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

What being in rank-old nature should earlier have that breath been
That h're p'rsonal tells off these heart-song powerful peals? - 
A bush-browed, beetle-br'wed b'llow is it?
With a so'th-w'sterly w'nd bl'stering, with a tide rolls reels
Of crumbling, fore-foundering, thundering all-surfy seas in; seen
'nderneath, their glassy barrel, of a fairy green.
Or a jaunting vaunting vaulting assaulting trumpet telling
Sic Transit -
by Muriel Stuart

"What did she leave?" ...
Only these hungry miser-words, poor heart!
Not "Did she love?"    "Did she suffer?"    "Was she sad
From this green, bright and tossing world to part?"
No word of "Do they miss her? do they grieve?"
Only this wolf-thought for the gold she had...
"What did she leave?"
Debt
by Sara Teasdale

What do I owe to you
Who loved me deep and long?
You never gave my spirit wings
Or gave my heart a song.
But oh, to him I loved,
Who loved me not at all,
I owe the open gate
That led through heaven's wall.
Nursery Rhyme. DVII. Natural History.
by Unknown

"What do they call you?"
"Patchy Dolly."
"Where were you born?"
"In the cow's horn."
"Where were you bred?"
"In the cow's head."
"Where will you die?"
"In the cow's eye."
To Mr. Addison,
by Edward Young

On the Tragedy of Cato.
What do we see? Is Cato then become
A greater name in Britain than in Rome?
Does mankind now admire his virtues more,
Though Lucan, Horace, Virgil, wrote before?
How will posterity this truth explain?
"Cato begins to live in Anna's reign."
The world's great chiefs, in council or in arms,
Rise in your lines with more exalted charms;
Illustrious deeds in distant nations wrought,
And virtues by departed heroes taught,
Raise in your soul a pure immortal flame,
Adorn your life, and consecrate your fame;
To your renown all ages you subdue,
And C'sar fought, and Cato bled for you.
All Souls Coll. Oxon.
The Herd And The Mavis
by George MacDonald

"What gars ye sing," said the herd-laddie,
"What gars ye sing sae lood?"
"To tice them oot o' the yerd, laddie,
The worms for my daily food."
An' aye he sang, an' better he sang,
An' the worms creepit in an' oot;
An' ane he tuik, an' twa he loot gang,
An' still he carolled stoot.
"It's no for the worms, sir," said the herd;
"They comena for your sang!"
"Think ye sae, sir?" answered the bird,
"Maybe ye're no i' the wrang!"
But aye &c.
"Sing ye young Sorrow to beguile,
Or to gie auld Fear the flegs?"
"Na," quo' the mavis, "I sing to wile
My wee things oot o' her eggs."
An' aye &c.
"The mistress is plenty for that same gear
Though ye sangna air nor late!"
"I wud draw the deid frae the moul sae drear.
An' open the kirkyard-gate."
An' aye &c.
"Better ye sing nor a burn i' the mune,
Nor a wave ower san' that flows,
Nor a win' wi' the glintin stars abune,
An' aneth the roses in rows;
An' aye &c.
But a better sang it wud tak nor yer ain,
Though ye hae o' notes a feck,
To mak the auld Barebanes there sae fain
As to lift the muckle sneck!
An' aye &c.
An' ye wudna draw ae bairnie back
Frae the arms o' the bonny man
Though its minnie was greitin alas an' alack,
An' her cries to the bairnie wan!
An' aye &c.
An' I'll speir ye nae mair, sir," said the herd,
"I fear what ye micht say neist!"
"I doobt ye wud won'er, sir," said the bird,
"To see the thouchts i' my breist!"
An' aye he sang, an' better he sang,
An' the worms creepit in an' oot;
An' ane he tuik, an' twa he loot gang,
An' still he carolled stoot.
What We Need
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

What does our country need?    No armies standing
With sabres gleaming ready for the fight;
Not increased navies, skilful and commanding,
To bound the waters with an iron might;
Not haughty men with glutted purses trying
To purchase souls, and keep the power of place;
Not jewelled dolls with one another vying
For palms of beauty, elegance, and grace.
But we want women, strong of soul, yet lowly,
With that rare meekness, born of gentleness;
Women whose lives are pure and clean and holy,
The women whom all little children bless;
Brave, earnest women, helpful to each other,
With finest scorn for all things low and mean;
Women who hold the names of wife and mother
Far nobler than the title of a queen.
Oh! these are they who mould the men of story,
These mothers, ofttimes shorn of grace and youth,
Who, worn and weary, ask no greater glory
Than making some young soul the home of truth;
Who sow in hearts all fallow for the sowing
The seeds of virtue and of scorn for sin,
And, patient, watch the beauteous harvest growing
And weed out tares which crafty hands cast in;
Women who do not hold the gift of beauty
As some rare treasure to be bought and sold.
But guard it as a precious aid to duty - 
The outer framing of the inner gold;
Women who, low above their cradles bending,
Let flattery's voice go by, and give no heed,
While their pure prayers like incense are ascending
THESE are our country's pride, our country's need,
Towards Morning
by Alfred Lichtenstein

What do I care about the swift newspaper boys.
The approach of the late auto-beasts does not frighten me.
I rest on my moving legs.
My face is wet with rain.
Green remains of the night
Stick to my eyes.
That's the way I like it - 
Even as the sharp, secret
Drops of water crack on thousands of walls.
Plop from thousands of roofs.
Hop along shining streets...
And all the sullen houses
Listen to their
Eternal song.
Close behind me the burning night is ruined...
Its smelly corpse burdens my back.
But above me I feel the rushing,
Cool heaven.
Behold - I am in front of a
Streaming church.
Large and quiet it takes me in.
Here I shall stay for a while.
Immersed in its dreams.
Dreams out of gray
Silk that does not shimmer.
He Discourseth Of What Some Mortals Live For.
by Horatio Alger, Jr.

"What else do they live for in this world beside?"
What else but for Kittys or one of the same,
Do mothers their daughters at schools give the touch
That leaves them to live as a wife but in name
While position and fashion they frantically clutch.
What else do they live for, our girls so refined,
So forward, precocious, and gifted at ten
They are flirting and courting and things of the kind,
That never came under our grandmother's ken.
At fifteen so dressed up, and hooped up, I ween,
They're mothers full often before they're sixteen,
And fading and dowdy and sickly at twenty,
With one boy in trowsers and two girls in laces
Complaining of starving while dying of plenty
The fate is of ladies in fashionable places.
On Seeing The Beautiful Seat Of Lord Galloway.
by Robert Burns

What dost thou in that mansion fair?
Flit, Galloway, and find
Some narrow, dirty, dungeon cave,
The picture of thy mind!
Greeting Verses
by A. R. Ammons

What do I find right at the center of my interpersonal
relationships: a slightly dispersed but indisputably
tinctured core of brutality: go to the hospital
the question is not whether your life is at stake
but whether you can pay the bill, guaranteeing it on
admission (or no admission) and proving it (or not getting
out) on release (if any): this bit of realism
clutches our floating values underneath like a bracket
under a bouquet: if someone pauses to
congratulate me on some slight nothing, I see the
quiver of a curse undermine his lip: he
tries to make a better world even while it crumbles in
on him and us (a brutality): when I give my body to another
(or take another's) I sometimes fear more
body being taken than was offered, an overextension
of contract: hearts and flowers, scented sentiment, garden
varieties greet us, how lost we want to be in fictions and
fabrications: a worm cores this world's doings, look out.
To Laura In Death. Sonnet V.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Che fai? che pensi? che pur dietro guardi.
HE ENCOURAGES HIS SOUL TO LIFT ITSELF TO GOD, AND TO ABANDON THE VANITIES OF EARTH.
What dost thou? think'st thou? wherefore bend thine eye
Back on the time that never shall return?
The raging fire, where once 'twas thine to burn,
Why with fresh fuel, wretched soul, supply?
Those thrilling tones, those glances of the sky,
Which one by one thy fond verse strove to adorn,
Are fled; and--well thou knowest, poor forlorn!--
To seek them here were bootless industry.
Then toil not bliss so fleeting to renew;
To chase a thought so fair, so faithless, cease:
Thou rather that unwavering good pursue,
Which guides to heaven; since nought below can please.
Fatal for us that beauty's torturing view,
Living or dead alike which desolates our peace.
WRANGHAM.
What General Has A Good Army
by Walt Whitman

What General has a good army in himself, has a good army;
He happy in himself, or she happy in herself, is happy,
But I tell you you cannot be happy by others, any more than you can beget or conceive a child by others.
Strong Beer
by Robert von Ranke Graves

"What do you think
The bravest drink
Under the sky?"
"Strong beer," said I.
"There's a place for everything,
Everything, anything,
There's a place for everything
Where it ought to be:
For a chicken, the hen's wing;
For poison, the bee's sting;
For almond-blossom, Spring;
A beerhouse for me."
"There's a prize for every one
Every one, any one,
There's a prize for every one,
Whoever he may be:
Crags for the mountaineer,
Flags for the Fusilier,
For English poets, beer!
Strong beer for me!"
"Tell us, now, how and when
We may find the bravest men?"
"A sure test, an easy test:
Those that drink beer are the best,
Brown beer strongly brewed,
English drink and English food."
Oh, never choose as Gideon chose
By the cold well, but rather those
Who look on beer when it is brown,
Smack their lips and gulp it down.
Leave the lads who tamely drink
With Gideon by the water brink,
But search the benches of the Plough,
The Tun, the Sun, the Spotted Cow,
For jolly rascal lads who pray,
Pewter in hand, at close of day,
"Teach me to live that I may fear
The grave as little as my beer."
To Leucon'e I
by Eugene Field

What end the gods may have ordained for me,
And what for thee,
Seek not to learn, Leucon'e; we may not know.
Chaldean tables cannot bring us rest.
'T is for the best
To bear in patience what may come, or weal or woe.
If for more winters our poor lot is cast,
Or this the last,
Which on the crumbling rocks has dashed Etruscan seas,
Strain clear the wine; this life is short, at best.
Take hope with zest,
And, trusting not To-morrow, snatch To-day for ease!
Address. For the benefit of William Dunlap.
by George Pope Morris

(Spoken by Mrs. Sharpe)
What gay assemblage greets my wondering sight!
What scene of splendor--conjured here to-night!
What voices murmur, and what glances gleam!
Sure 'tis some flattering unsubstantial dream.
The house is crowded--everybody's here
For beauty famous, or to science dear;
Doctors and lawyers, judges, belles, and beaux,
Poets and painters--and Heaven only knows
Whom else beside!--And see, gay ladies sit
Lighting with smiles that fearful place, the pit--
(A fairy change--ah, pray continue it.)
Gray heads are here too, listening to my rhymes,
Full of the spirit of departed times;
Grave men and studious, strangers to my sight,
All gather round me on this brilliant night.
And welcome are ye all.    Not now ye come
To speak some trembling poet's awful doom;
With frowning eyes a "want of mind" to trace
In some new actor's inexperienced face,
Or e'en us old ones (oh, for shame!) to rate
"With study good--in time--but--never great:"
Not like you travelled native, just to say
"Folks in this country can act a play--
The can't 'pon honor!"    How the creature starts!
His wit and whiskers came from foreign parts!
Nay, madam, spare your blushes--you I mean--
There--close beside him--oh, you're full nineteen--
You need not shake your flowing locks at me--
The man, your sweetheart--then I'm dumb you see;
I'll let him off--you'll punish him in time,
Or I've no skill in prophecy or rhyme!
A nobler motive fills your bosoms now,
To wreathe the laurel round the silvered brow
Of one who merits it--if any can--
The artist, author, and the honest man.
With equal charms his pen and pencil drew
Bright scenes, to nature and to virtue true.
Full oft upon these boards hath youth appeared,
And oft your smiles his faltering footsteps cheered;
But not alone on budding genius smile,
Leaving the ripened sheaf unowned the while;
To boyish hope not every bounty give
And only youth and beauty bid to live.
Will you forget the services long past--
Turn the old war-horse out to die at last?--
When, his proud strength and noble fleetness o'er,
His faithful bosom dares the charge no more!
Ah, no!--The sun that loves his beams to shed
Round every opening floweret's tender head,
With smiles as kind his genial radiance throws
To cheer the sadness of the fading rose:
Thus he, whose merit claims this dazzling crowd,
Points to the past, and has his claims allowed;
Looks brightly forth, his faithful journey done,
And rests in triumph--like the setting sun.