DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Boston To Florence
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Proud of her clustering spires, her new-built towers,
Our Venice, stolen from the slumbering sea,
A sister's kindliest greeting wafts to thee,
Rose of Val d' Arno, queen of all its flowers!
Thine exile's shrine thy sorrowing love embowers,
Yet none with truer homage bends the knee,
Or stronger pledge of fealty brings, than we,
Whose poets make thy dead Immortal ours.
Lonely the height, but ah, to heaven how near!
Dante, whence flowed that solemn verse of thine
Like the stern river from its Apennine
Whose name the far-off Scythian thrilled with fear:
Now to all lands thy deep-toned voice is dear,
And every language knows the Song Divine!
Danse macabre
by Charles Baudelaire

For Ernest Christophe
Proud, like one living, of her noble height,
With handkerchief and gloves, her great bouquet,
She has the graceful nonchalance that might
Befit a gaunt coquette with lavish ways.
At any ball does one see waist so slim?
In all their regal amplitude, her clothes
Unfurl down to a dry foot, pinched within
A pomponned shoe as lovely as a rose.
The frill that plays along her clavicles,
As a lewd streamlet rubs its stony shores,
Modestly shields from jeering ridicule
Enticements her revealing gown obscures.
Her eyes, made of the void, are deep and black;
Her skull, coiffured in flowers down her neck,
Sways slackly on the column of her back,
o charm of nothingness so madly decked!
You will be called by some, 'caricature',
Who do not know, lovers obsessed with flesh,
The grandeur of the human armature.
You please me, skeleton, above the rest!
Do you display your grimace to upset
Our festival of life? Some ancient fire,
Does it ignite your living carcass yet,
And push you to the sabbath of Desire?
Can you dismiss the nighnnare mocking you,
With candle glow and songs of violins,
And will you try what floods of lust can do
To cool the hell that brands the heart within?
Eternal well of folly and of fault!
Alembic of the old and constant griefs!
I notice how, along the latticed vault
Of ribs, the all-consuming serpent creeps.
Truly, your coquetry will not evoke
Any award that does not do it wrong;
Who of these mortal hearts can grasp the joke?
The charms of horror only suit the strong!
Full of atrocious thoughts, your eyes' abyss
Breathes vertigo - no dancer could begin
Without a bitter nausea to kiss
Two rows of teeth locked in a steady grin.
But who has not embraced a skeleton?
Who has not fed himself on carrion meat?
What matter clothes, or how you put them on?
The priggish dandy shows his self-deceit.
Noseless hetaera, captivating quean,
Tell all those hypocrites what you know best:
'Proud darlings though you powder and you preen,
O perfumed skeletons, you reek of death!
Favourites faded, withered-in the mob
Antinous, and many a lovelace
The ceaseless swirling of the danse macabre
Sweeps you along to some unheard-of place!
From steamy Ganges to the freezing Seine
The troop of mortal leaps and swoons, and does
Not see the Angel's trumpet aimed at them
Down through the ceiling, that black blunderbuss.
In every climate Death admires you
In your contortions, 0 Humanity,
And perfuming herself as you would do,
Into your madness blends her irony!'
Street Show.
by Kate Greenaway

Puff, puff, puff. How the trumpets blow
All you little boys and girls come and see the show.
One--two--three, the Cat runs up the tree;
But the little Bird he flies away--
"She hasn't got me!"
Nursery Rhyme. CCCCXXX. Jingles.
by Unknown

Pussicat, wussicat, with a white foot,
When is your wedding? for I'll come to't.
The beer's to brew, the bread's to bake,
Pussy-cat, pussy-cat, don't be too late.
The Brunswick Club.
by Thomas Moore

A letter having been addressed to a very distinguished personage, requesting him to become the Patron of this Orange Club, a polite answer was forthwith returned, of which we have been fortunate enough to obtain a copy.
Brimstone-hall, September 1, 1828.
Private,--Lord Belzebub presents
To the Brunswick Club his compliments.
And much regrets to say that he
Can not at present their Patron be.
In stating this, Lord Belzebub
Assures on his honor the Brunswick Club,
That 'tisn't from any lukewarm lack
Of zeal or fire he thus holds back--
As even Lord Coal himself is not[1]
For the Orange party more red-hot:
But the truth is, still their Club affords
A somewhat decenter show of Lords,
And on its list of members gets
A few less rubbishy Baronets,
Lord Belzebub must beg to be
Excused from keeping such company.
Who the devil, he humbly begs to know,
Are Lord Glandine, and Lord Dunlo?
Or who, with a grain of sense, would go
To sit and be bored by Lord Mayo?
What living creature--except his nurse--
For Lord Mountcashel cares a curse,
Or think 'twould matter if Lord Muskerry
Were 'tother side of the Stygian ferry?
Breathes there a man in Dublin town,
Who'd give but half of half-a-crown
To save from drowning my Lord Rathdowne,
Or who wouldn't also gladly hustle in
Lords Roden, Bandon, Cole and Jocelyn?
In short, tho' from his tenderest years,
Accustomed to all sorts of Peers,
Lord Belzebub much questions whether
He ever yet saw mixt together
As 'twere in one capacious tub.
Such a mess of noble silly-bub
As the twenty Peers of the Brunswick Club.
'Tis therefore impossible that Lord B.
Could stoop to such society,
Thinking, he owns (tho' no great prig),
For one in his station 'twere infra dig.
But he begs to propose, in the interim
(Till they find some properer Peers for him),
His Highness of Cumberland, as Sub
To take his place at the Brunswick Club--
Begging, meanwhile, himself to dub
Their obedient servant,
BELZEBUB.
It luckily happens, the Royal Duke
Resembles so much, in air and look,
The head of the Belzebub family,
That few can any difference see;
Which makes him of course the better suit
To serve as Lord B.'s substitute.
The Parallel
by Matthew Prior

Prometheus, forming Mr. Day,
Carved something like a man in clay:
The mortal's work might well miscarry;
He that does heaven and earth control
Has only power to form a soul;
His hand is evident in Harry,
Since one is but a moving clod,
Th' other the lively form of God.
'Squire Wallis, you will scarce be able
To prove all poetry but fable.
Proud Maisie
by Walter Scott (Sir)

Proud Maisie is in the wood,
Walking so early;
Sweet Robin sits on the bush,
Singing so rarely.
"Tell me, thou bonny bird,
When shall I marry me?"
"When six braw gentlemen
Kirkward shall carry ye."
"Who makes the bridal bed,
Birdie, say truly?"
"The gray-headed sexton
That delves the grave duly.
"The glow-worm o'er grave and stone
Shall light thee steady;
The owl from the steeple sing,
'Welcome, proud lady.' "
Princes And Favourites.
by Robert Herrick

Princes and fav'rites are most dear, while they
By giving and receiving hold the play;
But the relation then of both grows poor,
When these can ask, and kings can give no more.
Sonnet XXI.
by Anna Seward

Proud of our lyric Galaxy, I hear
Of faded Genius with supreme disdain;
As when we see the Miser bend insane
O'er his full coffers, and in accents drear
Deplore imagin'd want; - and thus appear
To me those moody Censors, who complain,
As [1]Shaftsbury plain'd in a now boasted reign,
That "POESY had left our darken'd sphere."
Whence may the present stupid dream be traced
That now she shines not as in days foregone?
Perchance neglected, often shine in waste
Her LIGHTS, from number into confluence run,
More than when thinly in th' horizon placed
Each Orb shone separate, and appear'd a Sun.
1: Of the Poets, who were cotemporary with Lord Shaftsbury, Dryden, Cowley, Pope, Prior, Congreve, Gay, Addison, &c. in the Period which this Age styles AUGUSTAN, his Lordship speaks with sovereign scorn. In his Characteristics he, without making any exception, labors to prove, that the compositions of Dryden are uniformly contemptible. See his advice to an Author in the second Volume of the Characteristics, and also his miscellaneous reflections in the third Volume; "If," says he to the authors, "your Poets are still to be Mr. Bayses, and your prose writers Sir Rogers, without offering at a better manner, must it follow that the manner is good, and the wit genuine?"
Thus it is that the jealousy People of literary fame often feel of each other, produces the foolish, and impolitic desire of decrying the general pretensions of the Age to Genius. Their narrow selfishness leads them to betray the common cause, which it is their true interest to support. They persuade the credulous Many, with whom envy of superior talents increases their willingness to despise, that Imagination is become enervated; designing, however, to have it understood, that in their individual instance exists the sole exception,
"For they wou'd each bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus."
Proud Were Ye, Mountains, When, In Times Of Old
by William Wordsworth

Proud were ye, Mountains, when, in times of old,
Your patriot sons, to stem invasive war,
Intrenched your brows; ye gloried in each scar:
Now, for your shame, a Power, the Thirst of Gold,
That rules o'er Britain like a baneful star,
Wills that your peace, your beauty, shall be sold,
And clear way made for her triumphal car
Through the beloved retreats your arms enfold!
Heard Ye that Whistle? As her long-linked Train
Swept onwards, did the vision cross your view?
Yes, ye were startled; and, in balance true,
Weighing the mischief with the promised gain,
Mountains, and Vales, and Floods, I call on you
To share the passion of a just disdain.
Nursery Rhyme. XLVII. Tales.
by Unknown

Punch and Judy,
Fought for a pie,
Punch gave Judy
A sad blow on the eye.
A Sonnet By Sir Edward Dyer
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

Prometheus, when first from heaven high
He brought down fire, till then on earth not seen;
Fond of delight, a satyr, standing by,
Gave it a kiss, as it like sweet had been.
Feeling forthwith the other burning power,
Wood with the smart, with shouts and shrieking shrill,
He sought his ease in river, field, and bower;
But, for the time, his grief went with him still.
So silly I, with that unwonted sight,
In human shape an angel from above,
Feeding mine eyes, th' impression there did light;
That since I run and rest as pleaseth love:
The difference is, the satyr's lips, my heart,
He for a while, I evermore, have smart.
Upon Puss And Her 'Prentice. Epig.
by Robert Herrick

Puss and her 'prentice both at drawgloves play;
That done, they kiss, and so draw out the day:
At night they draw to supper; then well fed,
They draw their clothes off both, so draw to bed.
Reunited
by Abram Joseph Ryan

[Written after the yellow fever epidemic of 1878.]
Purer than thy own white snow,
Nobler than thy mountains' height;
Deeper than the ocean's flow,
Stronger than thy own proud might;
O Northland! to thy sister land,
Was late thy mercy's generous deed and grand.
Nigh twice ten years the sword was sheathed:
Its mist of green o'er battle plain
For nigh two decades Spring had breathed;
And yet the crimson life-blood stain
From passive swards had never paled,
Nor fields, where all were brave and some had failed.
Between the Northland, bride of snow,
And Southland, brightest sun's fair bride,
Swept, deepening ever in its flow,
The stormy wake, in war's dark tide:
No hand might clasp across the tears
And blood and anguish of four deathless years.
When Summer, like a rose in bloom,
Had blossomed from the bud of Spring,
Oh! who could deem the dews of doom
Upon the blushing lips could cling?
And who could believe its fragrant light
Would e'er be freighted with the breath of blight?
Yet o'er the Southland crept the spell,
That e'en from out its brightness spread,
And prostrate, powerless, she fell,
Rachel-like, amid her dead.
Her bravest, fairest, purest, best,
The waiting grave would welcome as its guest.
The Northland, strong in love, and great,
Forgot the stormy days of strife;
Forgot that souls with dreams of hate
Or unforgiveness e'er were rife.
Forgotten was each thought and hushed;
Save -- she was generous and her foe was crushed.
No hand might clasp, from land to land;
Yea! there was one to bridge the tide!
For at the touch of Mercy's hand
The North and South stood side by side:
The Bride of Snow, the Bride of Sun,
In Charity's espousals are made one.
"Thou givest back my sons again,"
The Southland to the Northland cries;
"For all my dead, on battle plain,
Thou biddest my dying now uprise:
I still my sobs, I cease my tears,
And thou hast recompensed my anguished years.
"Blessings on thine every wave,
Blessings on thine every shore,
Blessings that from sorrow save,
Blessings giving more and more,
For all thou gavest thy sister land,
O Northland, in thy generous deed and grand."
Nursery Rhyme. DLXVII. Natural History.
by Unknown

Pussey cat sits by the fire,
How did she come there?
In walks the little dog,
Says, "Pussey! are you there?
How do you do, Mistress Pussey?
Mistress Pussey, how d'ye do?"
"I thank you kindly, little dog,
I fare as well as you!"
On The Death Of A Friend.
by Thomas Moore

Pure as the mantle, which, o'er him who stood
By Jordan's stream, descended from the sky,
Is that remembrance which the wise and good
Leave in the hearts that love them, when they die.
So pure, so precious shall the memory be,
Bequeathed, in dying, to our souls by thee--
So shall the love we bore thee, cherisht warm
Within our souls thro' grief and pain and strife,
Be, like Elisha's cruse, a holy charm,
Wherewith to "heal the waters" of this life!
The Spring.
by Madison Julius Cawein

"O Fons Bandusi'!"
Push back the brambles, berry-blue,
The hollowed spring is full in view;
Deep tangled with luxuriant fern
Its rock-imbedded crystal urn.
Not for the loneliness that keeps
The coigne wherein its silence sleeps;
Not for wild butterflies that sway
Their pansy pinions all the day
Above its mirror; nor the bee,
Nor dragon-fly which passing see
Themselves reflected in its spar;
Not for the one white, liquid star
That twinkles in its firmament,
Nor moon-shot clouds so slowly sent
Athwart it when the kindly night
Beads all its grasses with the light,
Small jewels of the dimpled dew;
Not for the day's reflected blue,
Nor the quaint, dainty colored stones
That dance within it where it moans;
Not for all these I love to sit
In silence and to gaze in it.
But, know, a nymph with merry eyes
Meets mine within its laughing skies;
A graceful, naked nymph who plays
All the long fragrant summer days
With instant sight of bees and birds,
And speaks with them in water-words.
One for whose nakedness the air
Weaves moony mists, and on whose hair,
Unfilleted, the night will set
That lone star as a coronet.
Another on "On the Gunpowder Plot."
by John Milton

Purgatorem animae derisit Jacobus ignem,
Et sine quo superum non adeunda domus.
Frenduit hoc trina monstrum Latiale corona
Movit & horrificum cornua dena minax.
Et nec inultus ait temnes mea sacra Britanne,
Supplicium spreta relligione dabis.
Et si stelligeras unquam penetraveris arces,
Non nisi per flammas triste patebit iter.
O quam funesto cecinisti proxima vero,
Verbaque ponderibus vix caritura suis!
Nam prope Tartareo sublime rotatus ab igni
Ibat ad aethereas umbra perusta plagas.
To His Mistresses.
by Robert Herrick

Put on your silks, and piece by piece
Give them the scent of ambergris;
And for your breaths, too, let them smell
Ambrosia-like, or nectarel;
While other gums their sweets perspire,
By your own jewels set on fire.
Brooklyn Bridge
by Lola Ridge

Pythoness body - arching
Over the night like an ecstasy - 
I feel your coils tightening...
And the world's lessening breath.
Put Nothing In Another's Way
by Edward Smyth Jones

Put nothing in another's way,
Who's plodding on through life,
But fill each heart with joy each day,
With peace instead of strife.
So then let not a missent word,
Or thought, or act, or deed
Be by our weaker brother heard
To cause his heart to bleed.
Put nothing in another's way,
It clear and ample leave;
For words and actions day by day
Life's great example weave.
'Tis then not meet that we should think
That we are solely free
In manners, dress, in food, or drink,
Or fulsome revelry.
Put nothing in another's way,
Just learn the Christian part
To let a holy, sunny ray
Shine in thy brother's heart.
Help him to bear his load of care,
His soul get edified - 
'Twas only for the soul's welfare
That Jesus bled and died.
Put nothing in another's way,
Ye who are sent to teach;
No dark cloud cast across the day,
Ye who the gospel preach.
Ye twain must set the truth aright
With joy and peace and love;
For in your souls shines forth the light
From Jesus Christ above.
Put nothing in another's way,
Belov'd Christian friends;
On through your toils, and cares, still pray,
Till life's fleet journey ends.
When at the resurrection dawn
Eternal life is given,
We'll get our harp, our robe, our crown,
The star-lit crown of heaven.
To .... .... On Seeing Her With A White Veil And A Rich Girdle.
by Thomas Moore

Put off the vestal Veil, nor, oh!
Let weeping angels View it;
Your cheeks belie its virgin snow.
And blush repenting through it.
Put off the fatal zone you wear;
The shining pearls around it
Are tears, that fell from Virtue there,
The hour when Love unbound it.
In A London Square
by Arthur Hugh Clough

Put forth thy leaf, thou lofty plane,
East wind and frost are safely gone;
With zephyr mild and balmy rain
The summer comes serenly on;
Earth, air, and sun and skies combine
To promise all that's kind and fair: -
But thou, O human heart of mine,
Be still, contain thyself, and bear.
December days were brief and chill,
The winds of March were wild and drear,
And, nearing and receding still,
Spring never would, we thought, be here.
The leaves that burst, the suns that shine,
Had, not the less, their certain date: -
And thou, O human heart of mine,
Be still, refrain thyself, and wait.
Stanzas.
by Freeman Edwin Miller

Put not trust nor tenderness to sleep,
In sorrow sad;
The heart, in which a little love may creep,
Is not all bad.
The darkest hours that wear a wondrous gloom,
Are somewhat light,
If but one ray of brilliancy illume
The brooding night.
The field in which the weed and bramble thrive
Has some of good,
If but a single blossom struggling live
Amid the rude.
The ocean vast is not all desolate,
The worlds between,
If on its waters bearing human freight
One sail is seen.
All is not harsh and cold amid the wood,
If warbled song
Resound, how feebly, through the solitude
Of tangled wrong.
The desert, barren, bleak, a waste of sand
Does never spread,
If spear of grass in verdure green expand
Above the dead.
Then put not trust nor tenderness to sleep
In sorrow sad;
The heart in which a little love may creep
Is not all bad.
Sonnets. III.
by John Milton

Qual in colle aspro, al imbrunir di sera
L'avezza giovinetta pastorella
Va bagnando l'herbetta strana e bella
Che mal si spande a disusata spera
Fuor di sua natia alma primavera,
Cosi Amor meco insu la lingua snella
Desta il fior novo di strania favella,
Mentre io di te, vezzosamente altera,
Canto, dal mio buon popol non inteso
E'l bel Tamigi cangio col bel Arno
Amor lo volse, ed io a l'altrui peso
Seppi ch' Amor cosa mai volse indarno.
Deh!    foss' il mio cuor lento e'l duro seno
A chi pianta dal ciel si buon terreno.
Hymn To Diana
by Ben Jonson

Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair,
State in wonted manner keep:
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright.
Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose;
Cynthia's shining orb was made
Heaven to clear when day did close:
Bless us then with wish'd sight,
Goddess excellently bright.
Lay thy bow of pearl apart,
And thy crystal-shining quiver;
Give unto the flying hart
Space to breathe, how short soever;
Thou that mak'st a day of night,
Goddess excellently bright.
Constantinople, March MCMXV
by Victoria Mary Sackville-West

I
Queen of a double empire still she stands,
And watches with superb indifferent eyes
The eager wooing of Imperial hands
Towards so fair and coveted a prize.
Royal and imperial suitors has she known
Pass one by one across her dreaming years,
And some a while have climbed the golden throne,
And some have passed away in blood and tears;
For many emperors have sought her grace
Since the first Constantine in sweeping cloak
Her seven hills with broad unhurrying pace
Measured, and rested not till Heaven spoke.
A haughty fatalist Byzantium waits
What chance the storing centuries bring forth:
Another lover almost at the gates,
Heralded by the cannon of the North,
A Northern King to wed the Eastern Queen,
An iron clasp to set the shining gem,
Thrice-changed Constantinople to be seen
The Jewel of a Russian diadem!
II
O Saint Sophia, where the footstep falls
Softly beneath the roofs of burnished gold,
Shields of the Caliphs hang upon thy walls,
Brand of bereaved dishonour ages old.
His charger raised on Christian corpses high,
O ravished bride of Christianity!, 
Here struck Mahomet's hand as he rode by,
And seared the lustre of the porphyry,
And, interrupted in the sacred feast,
Hearing the advent of the conqueror surge,
Into the wall miraculous the priest
Entered, and waits the summons to emerge.
So on that high and ceremonial day
When Russian Czar and prince, and Christian lord
Throng Saint Sophia in their packed array
To see the church's heritage restored,
When from mosaics re-established saints
Look down once more upon a Christian crowd,
And Echo startles into life, and faints
With rapture at Gregorian chanting loud,
And Mass magnificently moving on
Towards its climax, brings the moment near
After the lapse of many centuries gone
For Christ in priestly hands to reappear,
When the exultant organ's chord has ceased
And every head is bowed expectantly,
Then at the altar the Byzantine priest
Shall hold aloft the Host triumphantly!
Julia's Churching, Or Purification.
by Robert Herrick

Put on thy holy filletings, and so
To th' temple with the sober midwife go.
Attended thus, in a most solemn wise,
By those who serve the child-bed mysteries,
Burn first thine incense; next, whenas thou see'st
The candid stole thrown o'er the pious priest,
With reverend curtsies come, and to him bring
Thy free (and not decurted) offering.
All rites well ended, with fair auspice come
(As to the breaking of a bride-cake) home,
Where ceremonious Hymen shall for thee
Provide a second epithalamy.
She who keeps chastely to her husband's side
Is not for one, but every night his bride;
And stealing still with love and fear to bed,
Brings him not one, but many a maidenhead.
Pussy-Cat
by Walter Crane

Pussy-cat high, Pussy-cat low,
Pussy-cat was a fine teazer of tow.
Pussy-cat she came into the barn,
With her bag-pipes under her arm.
And then she told a tale to me,
How Mousey had married a humble bee.
Then was I ever so glad,
That Mousey had married so clever a lad.
The Statues
by William Butler Yeats

Pythagoras planned it. Why did the people stare?
His numbers, though they moved or seemed to move
In marble or in bronze, lacked character.
But boys and girls, pale from the imagined love
Of solitary beds, knew what they were,
That passion could bring character enough,
And pressed at midnight in some public place
Live lips upon a plummet-measured face.
No! Greater than Pythagoras, for the men
That with a mallet or a chisel" modeled these
Calculations that look but casual flesh, put down
All Asiatic vague immensities,
And not the banks of oars that swam upon
The many-headed foam at Salamis.
Europe put off that foam when Phidias
Gave women dreams and dreams their looking-glass.
One image crossed the many-headed, sat
Under the tropic shade, grew round and slow,
No Hamlet thin from eating flies, a fat
Dreamer of the Middle Ages. Empty eyeballs knew
That knowledge increases unreality, that
Mirror on mirror mirrored is all the show.
When gong and conch declare the hour to bless
Grimalkin crawls to Buddha's emptiness.
When Pearse summoned Cuchulain to his side.
What stalked through the post Office? What intellect,
What calculation, number, measurement, replied?
We Irish, born into that ancient sect
But thrown upon this filthy modern tide
And by its formless spawning fury wrecked,
Climb to our proper dark, that we may trace
The lineaments of a plummet-measured face.
April 9,