DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Merlin
by John Le Gay Brereton

O Merlin, how the magic from your eyes
Bids the world flame about your idle feet,
And makes a marvel of the humming street,
The watchful bush, the starry-haunted skies!
Dear, do you know that all such magic dies
In foolish hearts that regularly beat?
Blinded with dust, the elders in retreat
Shake their thin locks to prove that they are wise.
God help them in their tameness: you are wild.
Hold fast your faith, for love has mightier spells
Than yet your mouth has chattered, sung or laughed;
Be drunk still with th' enchanted wine you've quaffed.
Awe spreads her wings above the hut where dwells,
Rapt in his glow of gramarye, the child.
Child Thoughts
by William Henry Drummond

O memory, take my hand to-day
And lead me thro' the darkened bridge
Washed by the wild Atlantic spray
And spanning many a wind-swept ridge
Of sorrow, grief, of love and joy,
Of youthful hopes and manly fears!
O! let me cross the bridge of years
And see myself again a boy!
The shadows pass- I see the light,
O morning light, how clear and strong!
My native skies are smiling bright,
No more I grope my way along,
It comes, the murmur of the tide
Upon my ear - I hear the cry
Of wandering sea birds as they fly
In trooping squadrons far and near.
The breeze that blows o'er Mullaghmore
I feel against my boyish cheek
The white-walled huts that strew the shore
From Castlegal to old Belleek,
The fisher folk of Donegal,
Kindly of heart and strong of arm,
Who plough the ocean's treacherous farm,
How plainly I behold them all!
The thrush'ssong, the blackbird's note,
The wren within the hawthorn hedge,
The robin 's swelling vibrant throat,
The leveretcrouching in the sedge!
In those dear days, ah! what was school?
When Nature made our pulses thrill!
The lessons we remember still
Were learnt at Nature's own footstool!
"The hounds are out!the beagles chase
Along the slopes of Tawley 's plain!"
I rise and follow in the race
Till fox, or hare, or both are slain,
With heart ablaze, I loose the reins
Of all my childish fierce desire,
My faith! 't is Ireland plants the fire
And iron in her children's veins!
The mountain linnet whistles sweet
Among the gorse of summer-time,
As up the hill with eager feet
The sun of morning sees me climb
Until at last I sink to rest
Where heatherbells swing to the tune
That Benbo breezes softly croon-
A tired child on the mother's breast!
And now in wisdom's riper years,
Ah, wisdom! what a price we pay
Of sorrow, grief, of smiles and tears,
Before we reach that wiser day!
We meet to greet in joy and mirth
The white-haired parent of us all
Our childhood's memories to recall
And bless the land that gave us birth.
The Sonnets CXLVIII - O me! what eyes hath Love put in my head
by William Shakespeare

O me! what eyes hath Love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true sight;
Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote
Love's eye is not so true as all men's: no,
How can it? O! how can Love's eye be true,
That is so vexed with watching and with tears?
No marvel then, though I mistake my view;
The sun itself sees not, till heaven clears.
O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind,
Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.
All Is Truth
by Walt Whitman

O me, man of slack faith so long!
Standing aloof--denying portions so long;
Only aware to-day of compact, all-diffused truth;
Discovering to-day there is no lie, or form of lie, and can be none, but grows as inevitably upon itself as the truth does upon itself,
Or as any law of the earth, or any natural production of the earth does.
(This is curious, and may not be realized immediately--But it must be realized;
I feel in myself that I represent falsehoods equally with the rest,
And that the universe does.)
Where has fail'd a perfect return, indifferent of lies or the truth?
Is it upon the ground, or in water or fire? or in the spirit of man? or in the meat and blood?
Meditating among liars, and retreating sternly into myself, I see
that there are really no liars or lies after all,
And that nothing fails its perfect return--And that what are called lies are perfect returns,
And that each thing exactly represents itself, and what has preceded it,
And that the truth includes all, and is compact, just as much as space is compact,
And that there is no flaw or vacuum in the amount of the truth--but that all is truth without exception;
And henceforth I will go celebrate anything I see or am,
And sing and laugh, and deny nothing.
Mary Leslie
by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Before Vittoria, June 20, 1813
O Mary Leslie, blithe and shrill
The bugles blew for Spain:
And you below the Castle Hill
Stood in the crowd your lane.
Then hearts were wild to watch us pass,
Yet laith to let us go!
While mine said, "Fare-ye-well, my lass!"
And yours, "God keep my Jo!"
Here by the bivouac fire, above
These fields of savage play,
I'll lift my love to meet thy love
Twa thousand miles away,
Where yonder, yonder by the stars,
Nightlong there rins a burn,
And maids with lovers at the wars
May list their wraiths' return.
More careless yet my spirit grows
Of fame, more sick of blood:
But I can think of Badajoz,
And yet that God is good.
Beyond the siege, beyond the stour,
Beyond the sack of towns,
I reach to pluck ae lily-floo'r
Where leaders press for crowns.
O Mary! lily! bow'd and wet
With mair than mornin's rain!
The bugles up the Lawnmarket
Shall sound us home again.
Then fare-ye-well, these foreign lands,
And be damn'd their bitter drouth.
With your dear face between my hands
And the cup held to my mouth,
My love,
It's clean cup to my mouth!
On A Similar Occasion. For The Year 1789.
by William Cowper

- Placid'que ibi demum morte quievit.'Virg.
There calm at length he breathed his soul away.
'O most delightful hour by man
Experienced here below,
The hour that terminates his span,
His folly and his woe!
'Worlds should not bribe me back to tread
Again life's dreary waste,
To see again my day o'erspread
With all the gloomy past.
'My home henceforth is in the skies,
Earth, seas, and sun, adieu!
All heaven unfolded to my eyes,
I have no sight for you.'
So spake Aspasio, firm possess'd
Of faith's supporting rod,
Then breathed his soul into its rest,
The bosom of his God.
He was a man among the few
Sincere on virtue's side;
And all his strength from Scripture drew,
To hourly use applied.
That rule he prized, by that he fear'd,
He hated, hoped, and loved;
Nor ever frown'd, or sad appear'd,
But when his heart had roved.
For he was frail as thou or I,
And evil felt within;
But when he felt it, heaved a sigh,
And loathed the thought of sin.
Such lived Aspasio; and at last
Call'd up from earth to heaven,
The gulf of death triumphant pass'd,
By gales of blessing driven.
His joys be mine, each reader cries,
When my last hour arrives:
They shall be yours, my verse replies,
Such only be your lives.
O Maytime Woods!
by Madison Julius Cawein

From the idyll "Wild Thorn and Lily"
O Maytime woods! O Maytime lanes and hours!
And stars, that knew how often there at night
Beside the path, where woodbine odors blew
Between the drowsy eyelids of the dusk, - 
When, like a great, white, pearly moth, the moon
Hung silvering long windows of your room, - 
I stood among the shrubs! The dark house slept.
I watched and waited for - I know not what! - 
Some tremor of your gown: a velvet leaf's
Unfolding to caresses of the Spring:
The rustle of your footsteps: or the dew
Syllabling avowal on a tulip's lips
Of odorous scarlet: or the whispered word
Of something lovelier than new leaf or rose - 
The word young lips half murmur in a dream:
Serene with sleep, light visions weigh her eyes:
And underneath her window blooms a quince.
The night is a sultana who doth rise
In slippered caution, to admit a prince,
Love, who her eunuchs and her lord defies.
Are these her dreams? or is it that the breeze
Pelts me with petals of the quince, and lifts
The Balm-o'-Gilead buds? and seems to squeeze
Aroma on aroma through sweet rifts
Of Eden, dripping through the rainy trees.
Along the path the buckeye trees begin
To heap their hills of blossoms. - Oh, that they
Were Romeo ladders, whereby I might win
Her chamber's sanctity! - where dreams must pray
About her soul! - That I might enter in! - 
A dream, - and see the balsam scent erase
Its dim intrusion; and the starry night
Conclude majestic pomp; the virgin grace
Of every bud abashed before the white,
Pure passion-flower of her sleeping face.
Sonnet CCXIII.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

O misera ed orribil visione.
HE CANNOT BELIEVE IN HER DEATH, BUT IF TRUE, HE PRAYS GOD TO TAKE HIM ALSO FROM LIFE.
O misery! horror! can it, then, be true,
That the sweet light before its time is spent,
'Mid all its pains which could my life content,
And ever with fresh hopes of good renew?
If so, why sounds not other channels through,
Nor only from herself, the great event?
No! God and Nature could not thus consent,
And my dark fears are groundless and undue.
Still it delights my heart to hope once more
The welcome sight of that enchanting face,
The glory of our age, and life to me.
But if, to her eternal home to soar,
That heavenly spirit have left her earthly place,
Oh! then not distant may my last day be!
MACGREGOR.
Lullaby
by Arthur Sherburne Hardy

O Mary, Mother, if the day we trod
In converse sweet the lily-fields of God,
From earth afar arose a cry of pain,
Would we not weep again?
(Sings) Hush, hush, O baby mine,
Mothers twain are surely thine,
One of earth and One divine.
O Mary, Mother, if the day the air
Was sweet with songs celestial, came a prayer
From earth afar and mingled with the strain,
Would we not pray again?
(Sings) Sleep, sleep, my baby dear,
Mothers twain are surely near,
One to pray and one to hear.
O Mary, Mother, if, as yesternight
A bird sought shelter at my casement light,
A wounded soul should flutter to thy breast,
Wouldst thou refuse it rest?
(Sings) Sleep, darling, peacefully,
Mary, Mother, comforts me;
Christ, her son, hath died for thee.
O Maytime Woods!
by Madison Julius Cawein

From the idyll "Wild Thorn and Lily"
O Maytime woods! O Maytime lanes and hours!
And stars, that knew how often there at night
Beside the path, where woodbine odors blew
Between the drowsy eyelids of the dusk,
When, like a great, white, pearly moth, the moon
Hung silvering long windows of your room,
I stood among the shrubs! The dark house slept.
I watched and waited for I know not what!
Some tremor of your gown: a velvet leaf's
Unfolding to caresses of the Spring:
The rustle of your footsteps: or the dew
Syllabling avowal on a tulip's lips
Of odorous scarlet: or the whispered word
Of something lovelier than new leaf or rose
The word young lips half murmur in a dream:
Serene with sleep, light visions weigh her eyes:
And underneath her window blooms a quince.
The night is a sultana who doth rise
In slippered caution, to admit a prince,
Love, who her eunuchs and her lord defies.
Are these her dreams? or is it that the breeze
Pelts me with petals of the quince, and lifts
The Balm-o'-Gilead buds? and seems to squeeze
Aroma on aroma through sweet rifts
Of Eden, dripping through the rainy trees.
Along the path the buckeye trees begin
To heap their hills of blossoms. Oh, that they
Were Romeo ladders, whereby I might win
Her chamber's sanctity! where dreams must pray
About her soul! That I might enter in!
A dream, and see the balsam scent erase
Its dim intrusion; and the starry night
Conclude majestic pomp; the virgin grace
Of every bud abashed before the white,
Pure passion-flower of her sleeping face.
Lord Gregory.
by Robert Burns

I.
O mirk, mirk is this midnight hour,
And loud the tempest's roar;
A waefu' wanderer seeks thy tow'r,
Lord Gregory, ope thy door!
II.
An exile frae her father's ha',
And a' for loving thee;
At least some pity on me shaw,
If love it may na be.
III.
Lord Gregory, mind'st thou not the grove
By bonnie Irwin-side,
Where first I own'd that virgin-love
I lang, lang had denied?
IV.
How often didst thou pledge and vow
Thou wad for ay be mine;
And my fond heart, itsel' sae true,
It ne'er mistrusted thine.
V.
Hard is thy heart, Lord Gregory,
And flinty is thy breast
Thou dart of heaven that flashest by,
O wilt thou give me rest!
VI.
Ye mustering thunders from above,
Your willing victim see!
But spare and pardon my fause love,
His wrangs to heaven and me!
Mary Morison.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "Bide ye yet."
I.
O Mary, at thy window be,
It is the wish'd, the trysted hour!
Those smiles and glances let me see
That make the miser's treasure poor:
How blithely wad I bide the stoure,
A weary slave frae sun to sun;
Could I the rich reward secure,
The lovely Mary Morison!
II.
Yestreen, when to the trembling string
The dance gaed thro' the lighted ha',
To thee my fancy took its wing,
I sat, but neither heard or saw:
Tho' this was fair, and that was braw,
And yon the toast of a' the town,
I sigh'd, and said amang them a',
"Ye are na Mary Morison."
III.
O Mary, canst thou wreck his peace,
Wha for thy sake wad gladly die?
Or canst thou break that heart of his,
Whase only faut is loving thee?
If love for love thou wilt na gie,
At least be pity to me shown;
A thought ungentle canna be
The thought o' Mary Morison.
The Destined Maid: A Prayer
by Richard Le Gallienne

(Chant Royal)
O MIGHTY Queen, our Lady of the fire,
The light, the music, and the honey, all
Blent in one Power, one passionate Desire
Man calleth Love - 'Sweet love,' the blessed call - :
I come a sad-eyed suppliant to thy knee,
If thou hast pity, pity grant to me;
If thou hast bounty, here a heart I bring
For all that bounty 'thirst and hungering.
O Lady, save thy grace, there is no way
For me, I know, but lonely sorrowing -
Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray!
I lay in darkness, face down in the mire,
And prayed that darkness might become my pall;
The rabble rout roared round me like some quire
Of filthy animals primordial;
My heart seemed like a toad eternally
Prisoned in stone, ugly and sad as he;
Sweet sunlight seemed a dream, a mythic thing,
And life some beldam's dotard gossiping.
Then, Lady, I bethought me of thy sway,
And hoped again, rose up this prayer to wing -
Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray!
Lady, I bear no high resounding lyre
To hymn thy glory, and thy foes appal
With thunderous splendour of my rhythmic ire;
A little lute I lightly touch and small
My skill thereon: yet, Lady, if it be
I ever woke ear-winning melody,
'Twas for thy praise I sought the throbbing string,
Thy praise alone - for all my worshipping
Is at thy shrine, thou knowest, day by day,
Then shall it be in vain my plaint to sing? -
Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray!
Yea! why of all men should this sorrow dire
Unto thy servant bitterly befall?
For, Lady, thou dost know I ne'er did tire
Of thy sweet sacraments and ritual;
In morning meadows I have knelt to thee,
In noontide woodlands hearkened hushedly
Thy heart's warm beat in sacred slumbering,
And in the spaces of the night heard ring
Thy voice in answer to the spheral lay:
Now 'neath thy throne my suppliant life I fling -
Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray!
I ask no maid for all men to admire,
Mere body's beauty hath in me no thrall,
And noble birth, and sumptuous attire,
Are gauds I crave not - yet shall have withal,
With a sweet difference, in my heart's own She,
Whom words speak not but eyes know when they see.
Beauty beyond all glass's mirroring,
And dream and glory hers for garmenting;
Her birth - O Lady, wilt thou say me nay? -
Of thine own womb, of thine own nurturing -
Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray!
ENVOI
Sweet Queen who sittest at the heart of spring,
My life is thine, barren or blossoming;
'Tis thine to flush it gold or leave it grey:
And so unto thy garment's hem I cling -
Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray.
(January 13, 1888.)
Meet Me To-Night
by John Clare

O meet me to-night by the bright starlight,
Now the pleasant Spring's begun.
My own dear maid, by the greenwood shade,
In the crimson set of the sun,
Meet me to-night.
The sun he goes down with a ruby crown
To a gold and crimson bed;
And the falling dew, from heaven so blue,
Hangs pearls on Phoebe's head.
Love, leave the town.
Come thou with me; 'neath the green-leaf tree
We'll crop the bonny sweet brere.
O come, dear maid, 'neath the hazlewood shade,
For love invites us there.
Come then with me.
The owl pops, scarce seen, from the ivy green,
With his spectacles on I ween:
See the moon's above and the stars twinkle, love;
Better time was never seen.
O come, my queen.
The fox he stops, and down he drops
His head beneath the grass.
The birds are gone; we're all alone;
O come, my bonny lass.
Come, O come!
The Old Man's Love.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("D'rision! que cet amour boiteux.")
[HERNANI, Act III.]
O mockery! that this halting love
That fills the heart so full of flame and transport,
Forgets the body while it fires the soul!
If but a youthful shepherd cross my path,
He singing on the way - I sadly musing,
He in his fields, I in my darksome alleys - 
Then my heart murmurs: "O, ye mouldering towers!
Thou olden ducal dungeon! O how gladly
Would I exchange ye, and my fields and forests,
Mine ancient name, mine ancient rank, my ruins - 
My ancestors, with whom I soon shall lie,
For his thatched cottage and his youthful brow!"
His hair is black - his eyes shine forth like thine.
Him thou might'st look upon, and say, fair youth,
Then turn to me, and think that I am old.
And yet the light and giddy souls of cavaliers
Harbor no love so fervent as their words bespeak.
Let some poor maiden love them and believe them,
Then die for them - they smile. Aye! these young birds,
With gay and glittering wing and amorous song,
Can shed their love as lightly as their plumage.
The old, whose voice and colors age has dimmed,
Flatter no more, and, though less fair, are faithful.
When we love, we love true. Are our steps frail?
Our eyes dried up and withered? Are our brows
Wrinkled? There are no wrinkles in the heart.
Ah! when the graybeard loves, he should be spared;
The heart is young - that bleeds unto the last.
I love thee as a spouse, - and in a thousand
Other fashions, - as sire, - as we love
The morn, the flowers, the overhanging heavens.
Ah me! when day by day I gaze upon thee,
Thy graceful step, thy purely-polished brow,
Thine eyes' calm fire, - I feel my heart leap up,
And an eternal sunshine bathe my soul.
And think, too! Even the world admires,
When age, expiring, for a moment totters
Upon the marble margin of a tomb,
To see a wife - a pure and dove-like angel - 
Watch over him, soothe him, and endure awhile
The useless old man, only fit to die;
A sacred task, and worthy of all honor,
This latest effort of a faithful heart;
Which, in his parting hour, consoles the dying,
And, without loving, wears the look of love.
Ah! thou wilt be to me this sheltering angel,
To cheer the old man's heart - to share with him
The burden of his evil years; - a daughter
In thy respect, a sister in thy pity.
DONNA SOL. My fate may be more to precede than follow.
My lord, it is no reason for long life
That we are young! Alas! I have seen too oft
The old clamped firm to life, the young torn thence;
And the lids close as sudden o'er their eyes
As gravestones sealing up the sepulchre.
G. MOIR.
Lines To Mary. - Old Bailey Ballads.
by Thomas Hood

(At No. 1, Newgate. Favored by Mr. Wontner.)
O Mary, I believed you true,
And I was blest in so believing;
But till this hour I never knew - 
That you were taken up for thieving!
Oh! when I snatch'd a tender kiss,
Or some such trifle when I courted,
You said, indeed, that love was bliss,
But never owned you were transported!
But then to gaze on that fair face - 
It would have been an unfair feeling
To dream that you had pilfered lace - 
And Flint's had suffered from your stealing!
Or when my suit I first preferred,
To bring your coldness to repentance,
Before I hammer'd out a word,
How could I dream you heard a sentence!
Or when with all the warmth of youth
I strove to prove my love no fiction,
How could I guess I urged a truth
On one already past conviction!
How could I dream that ivory part,
Your hand - where I have look'd and linger'd,
Altho' it stole away my heart,
Had been held up as one light-fingered!
In melting verse your charms I drew,
The charms in which my muse delighted - 
Alas! the lay I thought was new.
Spoke only what had been indicted!
Oh! when that form, a lovely one,
Hung on the neck its arms had flown to,
I little thought that you had run
A chance of hanging on your own too.
You said you pick'd me from the world,
My vanity it now must shock it - 
And down at once my pride is hurled,
You've pick'd me - and you've pick'd a pocket!
Oh! when our love had got so far,
The banns were read by Doctor Daly,
Who asked if there was any bar - 
Why did not some one shout "Old Bailey"?
But when you robed your flesh and bones
In that pure white that angel garb is,
Who could have thought you, Mary Jones,
Among the Joans that link with Darbies?
And when the parson came to say,
My goods were yours, if I had got any,
And you should honor and obey,
Who could have thought - "O Bay of Botany!"
But oh! - the worst of all your slips
I did not till this day discover - 
That down in Deptford's prison ships,
O Mary! you've a hulking lover!
Paraphrase. Psalm XLIV.
by Susanna Moodie

O mighty God! our fathers told
The wondrous works thou didst of yore;
Thy glories in the days of old,
Wrought on proud Egypt's hostile shore.
Thy wrath swept through that guilty land;
Before thy face the heathen fled;
His people, with an outstretched hand,
The Lord of Hosts in triumph led!
It was not counsel, spear, nor sword,
A heritage for Israel won;
It was Jehovah's awful word
That led our conquering armies on.
The heathen host--their warriors brave--
Were scattered when the Lord arose;
At his terrific glance, a grave
Was found by Jacob's haughty foes!
God of our strength! Almighty Power!
Our sure defence, our sword and shield,
Still guide our hosts in danger's hour,
Still lead our armies to the field.
In thee we trust--what foe can stand
The awful brightness of thine eye?
Both life and death are in thy hand,
And in thy smile is victory!
A Calendar Of Sonnets - May
by Helen Hunt Jackson

O month when they who love must love and wed!
Were one to go to worlds where May is naught,
And seek to tell the memories he had brought
From earth of thee, what were most fitly said?
I know not if the rosy showers shed
From apple-boughs, or if the soft green wrought
In fields, or if the robin's call be fraught
The most with thy delight. Perhaps they read
Thee best who in the ancient time did say
Thou wert the sacred month unto the old:
No blossom blooms upon thy brightest day
So subtly sweet as memories which unfold
In aged hearts which in thy sunshine lie,
To sun themselves once more before they die.