DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
I Love the Night.
by George Pope Morris

I love the night when the moon streams bright
On flowers that drink the dew--
When cascades shout as the stars peep out,
From boundless fields of blue;
But dearer far than moon or star,
Or flowers of gaudy hue,
Or murmuring trills of mountain-rills,
I love, I love, love--you!
I love to stray at the close of the day,
Through groves of forest-trees,
When gushing notes from song-birds' throats
Are vocal in the breeze.
I love the night--the glorious night--
When hearts beat warm and true;
But far above the night, I love,
I love, I love, love--you!
Night
by Anne Bronte

I love the silent hour of night,
For blissful dreams may then arise,
Revealing to my charmed sight
What may not bless my waking eyes!
And then a voice may meet my ear
That death has silenced long ago;
And hope and rapture may appear
Instead of solitude and woe.
Cold in the grave for years has lain
The form it was my bliss to see,
And only dreams can bring again
The darling of my heart to me.
Love's Plea.
by Alfred Castner King

I love thee, my darling, both now and forever,
My heart feels the thralldom of love's mystic spell,
'Tis fettered with shackles which nothing can sever,
To the heart which responds to its passionate swell.
I love thee, my darling, with love that is stronger,
Than all the fond ties which the heart holds enshrined;
Adversity, sorrow or pain can no longer
Detract from this heart, if with thine intertwined.
I love thee, my darling, with sacred affection,
Which death, nor the cycles of time shall efface;
Nor from my heart's mirror, erase thy reflection,
Nor tear thy fond heart from its fervent embrace.
The Awakening
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I love the tropics, where sun and rain
Go forth together, a joyous train,
To hold up the green, gay side of the world,
And to keep earth's banners of bloom unfurled.
I love the scents that are hidden there
By housekeeper Time, in her chests of air:
Strange and subtle and all a-rife,
With vague lost dreams of a bygone life.
They steal upon you by night and day,
But never a whiff can you take away:
And never a song of a tropic bird
Outside of its palm-decked land is heard.
And nowhere else can you know the sweet
Soft, 'joy-in-nothing,' that comes with the heat
Of tropic regions.    And yet, and yet,
If in evergreen worlds my way were set
I would span the waters of widest seas
To see the wonder of waking trees;
To feel the shock of sudden delight
That comes when the orchard has changed in a night,
From the winter nun to the bride of May,
And the harp of Spring is attuned to play
The wedding march, and the sun is priest,
And the world is bidden to join the feast.
Oh, never is felt in a tropic clime,
Where the singing of birds is a ceaseless chime,
That leap o' the blood, and the rapture thrill,
That comes to us here, with the first bird's trill;
And only the eye that has looked on snows
Can see the beauty that lies in a rose.
The lure of the tropics I understand,
But ho! for the Spring in my native land.
To An Insect
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

I Love to hear thine earnest voice,
Wherever thou art hid,
Thou testy little dogmatist,
Thou pretty Katydid
Thou mindest me of gentlefolks, - 
Old gentlefolks are they, - 
Thou say'st an undisputed thing
In such a solemn way.
Thou art a female, Katydid
I know it by the trill
That quivers through thy piercing notes,
So petulant and shrill;
I think there is a knot of you
Beneath the hollow tree, - 
A knot of spinster Katydids, - -
Do Katydids drink tea?
Oh tell me where did Katy live,
And what did Katy do?
And was she very fair and young,
And yet so wicked, too?
Did Katy love a naughty man,
Or kiss more cheeks than one?
I warrant Katy did no more
Than many a Kate has done.
Dear me! I'll tell you all about
My fuss with little Jane,
And Ann, with whom I used to walk
So often down the lane,
And all that tore their locks of black,
Or wet their eyes of blue, - 
Pray tell me, sweetest Katydid,
What did poor Katy do?
Ah no! the living oak shall crash,
That stood for ages still,
The rock shall rend its mossy base
And thunder down the hill,
Before the little Katydid
Shall add one word, to tell
The mystic story of the maid
Whose name she knows so well.
Peace to the ever-murmuring race!
And when the latest one
Shall fold in death her feeble wings
Beneath the autumn sun,
Then shall she raise her fainting voice,
And lift her drooping lid,
And then the child of future years
Shall hear what Katy did.
The Pleasant World.
by H. P. Nichols

I love to see the sun go down
Behind the western hill;
I love to see the night come on,
When everything is still.
I love to see the moon and stars
Shine brightly in the sky;
I love to see the rolling clouds
Above my head so high.
I love to see the little flowers
That grow up from the ground;
To hear the wind blow through the trees,
And make a rustling sound.
I love to see the sheep and lambs
So happy in their play;
I love to hear the small birds sing
Sweetly, at close of day.
I love to see them _all_, because
They are so bright and fair;
And He who made this pleasant world
Will listen to my prayer.
The Country Beautiful
by Paul Bewsher

I love the little daisies on the lawn
Which contemplate with wide and placid eyes
The blue and white enamel of the skies - 
The larks which sing their mattin-song at dawn,
High o'er the earth, and see the new Day born,
All stained with amethyst and amber dyes.
I love the shadowy woodland's hidden prize
Of fragrant violets, which the dewy morn
Doth open gently underneath the trees
To cast elusive perfume on each hour - 
The waving clover, full of drowsy bees,
That take their murmurous way from flower to flower.
Who could but think - deep in some sun-flecked glade - 
How God must love these things that He has made?
Eastchurch, 1916.
The First Julep.
by Bliss Carman (William)

I love the lazy Southern spring,
The way she melts around a chap
And lets the great magnolias fling
Their languid petals in his lap.
I love to travel down half-way
And meet her coming up the earth,
With hurdy-gurdy men who play
And make the children dance for mirth.
But best of all I love to steer
For quiet corners not too far,
Where the first juleps reappear
With fresh green mint behind the bar.
P. S. Perhaps you'll think it queer,
But I do not dislike a hint
To let the juleps disappear
And stick my nose into the mint.
Summer Morning.
by John Clare

I Love to peep out on a summer's morn,
Just as the scouting rabbit seeks her shed,
And the coy hare squats nestling in the corn,
Frit at the bow'd ear tott'ring o'er her head;
And blund'ring pheasant, that from covert springs,
His short sleep broke by early trampling feet,
Makes one to startle with his rustling wings,
As through the boughs he seeks more safe retreat.
The little flower, begemm'd around with drops
That shine at sunrise like to burnish'd gold,
'Tis sweet to view: the milk-maid often stops,
And wonders much such spangles to behold;
The hedger, too, admires them deck the thorn,--
And thinks he sees no beauties like the Morn.
The Bell
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

I love thy music, mellow bell,
I love thine iron chime,
To life or death, to heaven or hell,
Which calls the sons of Time.
Thy voice upon the deep
The home-bound sea-boy hails,
It charms his cares to sleep,
It cheers him as he sails.
To house of God and heavenly joys
Thy summons called our sires,
And good men thought thy sacred voice
Disarmed the thunder's fires.
And soon thy music, sad death-bell,
Shall lift its notes once more,
And mix my requiem with the wind
That sweeps my native shore.
Love Of Nature
by John Clare

I love thee, Nature, with a boundless love!
The calm of earth, the storm of roaring woods!
The winds breathe happiness where'er I rove!
There's life's own music in the swelling floods!
My heart is in the thunder-melting clouds,
The snow-cap't mountain, and the rolling sea!
And hear ye not the voice where darkness shrouds
The heavens? There lives happiness for me!
My pulse beats calmer while His lightnings play!
My eye, with earth's delusions waxing dim,
Clears with the brightness of eternal day!
The elements crash round me! It is He!
Calmly I hear His voice and never start.
From Eve's posterity I stand quite free,
Nor feel her curses rankle round my heart.
Love is not here. Hope is, and at His voice--
The rolling thunder and the roaring sea--
My pulses leap, and with the hills rejoice;
Then strife and turmoil are at end for me.
No matter where life's ocean leads me on,
For Nature is my mother, and I rest,
When tempests trouble and the sun is gone,
Like to a weary child upon her breast.
Death of the Flower
by Abram Joseph Ryan

I love my mother, the wildwood,
I sleep upon her breast;
A day or two of childhood,
And then I sink to rest.
I had once a lovely sister --
She was cradled by my side;
But one Summer day I missed her --
She had gone to deck a bride.
And I had another sister,
With cheeks all bright with bloom;
And another morn I missed her --
She had gone to wreathe a tomb.
And they told me they had withered,
On the bride's brow and the grave;
Half an hour, and all their fragrance
Died away, which heaven gave.
Two sweet-faced girls came walking
Thro' my lonely home one day,
And I overheard them talking
Of an altar on their way.
They were culling flowers around me,
And I said a little prayer
To go with them -- and they found me --
And upon an altar fair,
Where the Eucharist was lying
On its mystical death-bed,
I felt myself a-dying,
While the Mass was being said.
But I lived a little longer,
And I prayed there all the day,
Till the evening Benediction,
When my poor life passed away.
The Swallows. From Jean Pierre Claris Florian
by Robert Fuller Murray

I love to see the swallows come
At my window twittering,
Bringing from their southern home
News of the approaching spring.
'Last year's nest,' they softly say,
'Last year's love again shall see;
Only faithful lovers may
Tell you of the coming glee.'
When the first fell touch of frost
Strips the wood of faded leaves,
Calling all their winged host,
The swallows meet above the eaves
'Come away, away,' they cry,
'Winter's snow is hastening;
True hearts winter comes not nigh,
They are ever in the spring.'
If by some unhappy fate,
Victim of a cruel mind,
One is parted from her mate
And within a cage confined,
Swiftly will the swallow die,
Pining for her lover's bower,
And her lover watching nigh
Dies beside her in an hour.
Proem
by John Greenleaf Whittier

I love the old melodious lays
Which softly melt the ages through,
The songs of Spenser's golden days,
Arcadian Sidney's silvery phrase,
Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew.
Yet, vainly in my quiet hours
To breathe their marvellous notes I try;
I feel them, as the leaves and flowers
In silence feel the dewy showers,
And drink with glad, still lips the blessing of the sky.
The rigor of a frozen clime,
The harshness of an untaught ear,
The jarring words of one whose rhyme
Beat often Labor's hurried time,
Or Duty's rugged march through storm and strife, are here.
Of mystic beauty, dreamy grace,
No rounded art the lack supplies;
Unskilled the subtle lines to trace,
Or softer shades of Nature's face,
I view her common forms with unanointed eyes.
Nor mine the seer-like power to show
The secrets of the heart and mind;
To drop the plummet-line below
Our common world of joy and woe,
A more intense despair or brighter hope to find.
Yet here at least an earnest sense
Of human right and weal is shown;
A hate of tyranny intense,
And hearty in its vehemence,
As if my brother's pain and sorrow were my own.
O Freedom! if to me belong
Nor mighty Milton's gift divine,
Nor Marvell's wit and graceful song,
Still with a love as deep and strong
As theirs, I lay, like them, my best gifts on thy shrine
I Love Thee, Sweet Mary.
by John Clare

I love thee, sweet Mary, but love thee in fear;
Were I but the morning breeze, healthful and airy,
As thou goest a-walking I'd breathe in thine ear,
And whisper and sigh, how I love thee, my Mary!
I wish but to touch thee, but wish it in vain;
Wert thou but a streamlet, a-winding so clearly,
And I little globules of soft dropping rain,
How fond would I press thy white bosom, my Mary!
I would steal a kiss, but I dare not presume;
Wert thou but a rose in thy garden, sweet fairy,
And I a bold bee for to rifle its bloom,
A whole Summer's day would I kiss thee, my Mary!
I long to be with thee, but cannot tell how;
Wert thou but the elder that grows by thy dairy,
And I the blest woodbine to twine on the bough,
I'd embrace thee and cling to thee ever, my Mary!
Desert Pools
by Sara Teasdale

I love too much; I am a river
Surging with spring that seeks the sea,
I am too generous a giver,
Love will not stoop to drink of me.
His feet will turn to desert places
Shadowless, reft of rain and dew,
Where stars stare down with sharpened faces
From heavens pitilessly blue.
And there at midnight sick with faring,
He will stoop down in his desire
To slake the thirst grown past all bearing
In stagnant water keen as fire.
To-Day
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I love this age of energy and force,
Expectantly I greet each pregnant hour;
Emerging from the all-creative source,
Supreme with promise, imminent with power.
The strident whistle and the clanging bell,
The noise of gongs, the rush of motored things
Are but the prophet voices which foretell
A time when thought may use unfettered wings.
Too long the drudgery of earth has been
A barrier 'twixt man and his own mind.
Remove the stone, and lo! the Christ within;
For He is there, and who so seeks shall find.
The Great Inventor is the Modern Priest.
He paves the pathway to a higher goal.
Once from the grind of endless toil released
Man will explore the kingdom of his soul.
And all this restless rush, this strain and strife,
This noise and glare is but the fanfarade
That ushers in the more majestic life
Where faith shall walk with science, unafraid.
I feel the strong vibrations of the earth,
I sense the coming of an hour sublime,
And bless the star that watched above my birth
And let me live in this important time.
The "Ars Poetica" Of Horace
by Eugene Field

XXIII.
I love the lyric muse!
For when mankind ran wild in groves,
Came holy Orpheus with his songs
And turned men's hearts from bestial loves,
From brutal force and savage wrongs;
Came Amphion, too, and on his lyre
Made such sweet music all the day
That rocks, instinct with warm desire,
Pursued him in his glorious way.
I love the lyric muse!
Hers was the wisdom that of yore
Taught man the rights of fellow-man--
Taught him to worship God the more
And to revere love's holy ban;
Hers was the hand that jotted down
The laws correcting divers wrongs--
And so came honor and renown
To bards and to their noble songs.
I love the lyric muse!
Old Homer sung unto the lyre,
Tyrtaeus, too, in ancient days--
Still, warmed by their immortal fire,
How doth our patriot spirit blaze!
The oracle, when questioned, sings--
So we our way in life are taught;
In verse we soothe the pride of kings,
In verse the drama has been wrought.
I love the lyric muse!
Be not ashamed, O noble friend,
In honest gratitude to pay
Thy homage to the gods that send
This boon to charm all ill away.
With solemn tenderness revere
This voiceful glory as a shrine
Wherein the quickened heart may hear
The counsels of a voice divine!
A Ballad Of The Mist.
by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

"I love the Lady of Merle," he said.
"She is not for thee!" her suitor cried.
And in the valley the lovers fought
By the salt river's tide.
The braver fell on the dewy sward:
The unloved lover returned once more;
In yellow satin the lady came
And met him at the door.
"Hast thou heard, dark Edith," laughed he grim,
"Poor Hugh hath craved thee many a day?
Soon would it have been too late for him
His low-born will to say.
"I struck a blade where lay his heart's love,
And voice for thee have I left him none,
To brag he still seeks thee over the hills
When thou and I are one!"
Fearless across the wide country
Rode the dark Lady Edith of Merle;
She looked at the headlands soft with haze,
And the moor's mists of pearl.
The moon it struggled to see her pass
Through its half-lit veils of driving gray;
But moonbeams were slower than the steed
That Edith rode away.
Oh, what was her guerdon and her haste,
While cried the far screech-owl in the tree,
And to her heart crept its note so lone,
Beating tremulously?
About her a black scarf floated thin,
And over her cheek the mist fell cold,
And shuddered the moon between its rifts
Of dark cloud's silvery fold.
Oh, white fire of the nightly sky
When burns the moon's wonder wide and far,
And every cloud illumed with flame
Engulfs a shaken star!
*         *         *         *         *
Bright as comes morning from the hill,
There comes a face to her lover's eyes;
Her love she tells; and he, dying, smiles, - 
And smiles yet in the skies.
He is dead, and closer breathe the mists;
He is dead, the owlet moans remote;
He is buried, and the moon draws near,
To gaze and hide and float.
Fearless within the churchyard's spell
The white-browed lady doth stand and sigh;
She loves the mist, and the grave, and the moon,
And the owl's quivering cry.
Debris
by Lola Ridge

I love those spirits
That men stand off and point at,
Or shudder and hood up their souls - 
Those ruined ones,
Where Liberty has lodged an hour
And passed like flame,
Bursting asunder the too small house.
My Happiest Dream.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("J'aime ' me figure.")
[Bk. III. vii. and viii.]
I love to look, as evening fails,
On vestals streaming in their veils,
Within the fane past altar rails,
Green palms in hand.
My darkest moods will always clear
When I can fancy children near,
With rosy lips a-laughing - dear,
Light-dancing band!
Enchanting vision, too, displayed,
That of a sweet and radiant maid,
Who knows not why she is afraid, - 
Love's yet unseen!
Another - rarest 'mong the rare - 
To see the gaze of chosen fair
Return prolonged and wistful stare
Of eager een.
But - dream o'er all to stir my soul,
And shine the brightest on the roll,
Is when a land of tyrant's toll
By sword is rid.
I say not dagger - with the sword
When Right enchampions the horde,
All in broad day - so that the bard
May sing the victor with the starred
Bayard and Cid!
A Mother's Name.
by Eric Mackay

A Mother's Name.
I.
I love the sound! The sweetest under Heaven,
That name of mother, - and the proudest, too.
As babes we breathe it, and with seven times seven
Of youthful prayers, and blessings that accrue,
We still repeat the word, with tender steven.
Dearest of friends! dear mother! what we do
This side the grave, in purity of aim,
Is glorified at last by thy good name.
II.
But how forlorn the word, how full of woe,
When she who bears it lies beneath the clod.
In vain the orphan child would call her so, -
She comes not back: her place is up with God.
The wintry winds are wailing o'er the snow;
The flowers are dead that once did grace the sod.
Ah, lose not heart! Some flowers may fade in gloom,
But Hope's a plant grows brightest on the tomb!
The Oneness Of The Philosopher With Nature.
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

I love to see the little stars
All dancing to one tune;
I think quite highly of the Sun,
And kindly of the Moon.
The million forests of the Earth
Come trooping in to tea.
The great Niagara waterfall
Is never shy with me.
I am the tiger's confidant,
And never mention names:
The lion drops the formal "Sir,"
And lets me call him James.
Into my ear the blushing Whale
Stammers his love. I know
Why the Rhinoceros is sad,
--Ah, child! 'twas long ago.
I am akin to all the Earth
By many a tribal sign:
The aged Pig will often wear
That sad, sweet smile of mine.
My niece, the Barnacle, has got
My piercing eyes of black;
The Elephant has got my nose,
I do not want it back.
I know the strange tale of the Slug;
The Early Sin--the Fall--
The Sleep--the Vision--and the Vow--
The Quest--the Crown--the Call.
And I have loved the Octopus,
Since we were boys together.
I love the Vulture and the Shark:
I even love the weather.
I love to bask in sunny fields,
And when that hope is vain,
I go and bask in Baker Street,
All in the pouring rain.
Come snow! where fly, by some strange law,
Hard snowballs--without noise--
Through streets untenanted, except
By good unconscious boys.
Come fog! exultant mystery--
Where, in strange darkness rolled,
The end of my own nose becomes
A lovely legend old.
Come snow, and hail, and thunderbolts,
Sleet, fire, and general fuss;
Come to my arms, come all at once--
Oh photograph me thus!
Noontide Hymn
by George MacDonald

I love thy skies, thy sunny mists,
Thy fields, thy mountains hoar,
Thy wind that bloweth where it lists--
Thy will, I love it more.
I love thy hidden truth to seek
All round, in sea, on shore;
The arts whereby like gods we speak--
Thy will to me is more.
I love thy men and women, Lord,
The children round thy door;
Calm thoughts that inward strength afford--
Thy will than these is more.
But when thy will my life doth hold
Thine to the very core,
The world, which that same will doth mould,
I love, then, ten times more!
Ballad. "I love thee, sweet Mary, but love thee in fear"
by John Clare

I love thee, sweet Mary, but love thee in fear;
Were I but the morning breeze, healthy and airy,
As thou goest a walking I'd breathe in thine ear,
And whisper and sigh how I love thee, my Mary!
I wish but to touch thee, but wish it in vain;
Wert thou but a streamlet a winding so clearly,
And I little globules of soft dropping rain,
How fond would I press thy white bosom, my Mary!
I would steal a kiss, but I dare not presume;
Wert thou but a rose in thy garden, sweet fairy,
And I a bold bee for to rifle its bloom,
A whole summer's day would I kiss thee, my Mary!!
I long to be with thee, but cannot tell how;
Wert thou but the elder that grows by thy dairy,
And I the blest woodbine to twine on the bough,
I'd embrace thee and cling to thee ever, my Mary!
Swallow Flight
by Sara Teasdale

I love my hour of wind and light,
I love men's faces and their eyes,
I love my spirit's veering flight
Like swallows under evening skies.
I Love The Thought Of Ancient, Naked Days
by Charles Baudelaire

I love the thought of ancient, naked days
When Phoebus gilded statues with his rays.
Then women, men in their agility
Played without guile, without anxiety,
And, while the sky stroked lovingly their skin,
They tuned to health their excellent machine.
Cybele, in offering her bounty there,
Found mortals not a heavy weight to bear,
But, she-wolf full of common tenderness,
From her brown nipples fed the universe.
Man had the right, robust and flourishing,
Of pride in beauties who proclaimed him king;
Pure fruit unsullied, lovely to the sight,
Whose smooth, firm flesh went asking for the bite!
Today, the Poet, when he would conceive
These native grandeurs, where can now be seen
Women and men in all their nakedness,
Feels in his soul a chill of hopelessness
Before this terrible and bleak tableau.
Monstrosities that cry out to be clothed!
Bodies grotesque and only fit for masques!
Poor twisted trunks, scrawny or gone to flab,
Whose god, implacable Utility,
In brazen wraps, swaddles his progeny!
And pale as tapers, all you women too
Corruption gnaws and nourishes, and you
O virgins, heir to all matemal vice
And all the squalor of the fecund life!
It's true, we have in our corrupted states
Beauties unknown to ancient people's tastes:
Visages gnawed by sores of syphilis,
And one might say, beauties of listlessness;
But these inventions of our tardy muse
Never avert the sickly modem crew
From rendering to youth their deepest bow,
To holy youth, to smooth, untroubled brow,
To limpid eye, to air of innocence,
Who pours out on us all, indifferent
As flowers, birds, the blue of sky or sea,
His perfumes, songs, his sweet vitality!