DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Sonnet Of Michel Angelo Buonarotti
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Never did sculptor's dream unfold
A form which marble doth not hold
In its white block; yet it therein shall find
Only the hand secure and bold
Which still obeys the mind.
So hide in thee, thou heavenly dame,
The ill I shun, the good I claim;
I alas! not well alive,
Miss the aim whereto I strive.
Not love, nor beauty's pride,
Nor Fortune, nor thy coldness, can I chide,
If, whilst within thy heart abide
Both death and pity, my unequal skill
Fails of the life, but draws the death and ill.
Rich And Poor.
by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

'Neath the radiance faint of the starlit sky
The gleaming snow-drifts lay wide and high;
O'er hill and dell stretched a mantle white,
The branches glittered with crystal bright;
But the winter wind's keen icy breath
Was merciless, numbing and chill as death.
It clamored around a handsome pile - 
Abode of modern wealth and style
Where smiling guests had gathered to greet
Its master's birth-day with welcome meet;
And clink of glasses and loud gay tone,
With song and jest, drowned the wind's wild moan.
Yet, farther on, another abode
Its pillared portico proudly showed.
From its windows high flowed streams of light,
Mingling with outside shadows of night;
And the strains of music rapid, gay - 
Told well how within sped the hours away.
Steal but one glance at that magic scene,
And long you will spell-bound gaze, I ween,
On mirrors and flowers, and paintings old,
And side-boards heaped with vessels of gold;
Proud, stately men and women most fair,
Glitt'ring in toilets, marvellous, rare.
Sharp grief may torture many a heart,
But its pangs are hid with wond'rous art;
Breasts may harbor hate, envy or guile,
But all is concealed 'neath the studied smile;
And carelessly gay is each well-trained face,
As the dancers flash past with magic grace.
Not far away, down yon narrow lane,
Where poverty herds with guilt and pain,
Are homes where the wind finds entrance free,
Searching each cranny with savage glee,
And freezing the blood of those within,
Through their wretched garments, scant and thin.
List to the music that meets the ear!
No sweet strains of Strauss will greet you here,
But the moan of sickness, the feeble wail
Of suff'ring childhood - of mothers pale,
The groan of despair, or, alas, still worse!
The blasphemous jest, or fierce, deep curse.
See! on yon board is their banquet spread,
Coarse broken remnants of mouldy bread;
No cheerful flame in the fire-place bare
To temper the cold of the biting air,
Or the chill of the snow on the rotting floor,
Drifting beneath the ill-closed door.
O, woman, one gem from those that deck
Thy taper fingers, white brow or neck;
Young girl, a rose from thy glossy hair,
One inch of that lace so costly and rare,
Would give food and heat, and cheerful light
To that wretched home, for at least one night.
Revellers met round the festive board,
A hot house fruit from your dainty hoard,
The price of one draught of that wine, so old
That it seems as precious as liquid gold,
Would bring joy to more than one aching breast,
And smiles to lips unused to such guest.
Children of fashion, children of wealth,
Who hear harsh truths, as it were, by stealth,
An hour will come to all who live
Of their stewardship here strict account to give
Before the Great Judge, wise, stern and pure,
Who will justice mete to both rich and poor.
Well for you then if kind word and deed,
Or generous alms to those in need,
Have marked the course of your life's brief dream,
They'll plead for you in that hour supreme,
Outweigh past errors, and justice move
To the side of mercy and pitying love.
To ....  ....
by Thomas Moore

Never mind how the pedagogue proses,
You want not antiquity's stamp;
A lip, that such fragrance discloses,
Oh! never should smell of the lamp.
Old Cloe, whose withering kiss
Hath long set the Loves at defiance,
Now, done with the science of bliss,
May take to the blisses of science.
But for you to be buried in books--
Ah, Fanny, they're pitiful sages,
Who could not in one of your looks
Read more than in millions of pages.
Astronomy finds in those eyes
Better light than she studies above;
And Music would borrow your sighs
As the melody fittest for Love.
Your Arithmetic only can trip
If to count your own charms you endeavor;
And Eloquence glows on your lip
When you swear that you'll love me for ever.
Thus you see, what a brilliant alliance
Of arts is assembled in you;--
A course of more exquisite science
Man never need wish to pursue.
And, oh!--if a Fellow like me
May confer a diploma of hearts,
With my lip thus I seal your degree,
My divine little Mistress of Arts!
Cruelties.
by Robert Herrick

Nero commanded; but withdrew his eyes
From the beholding death and cruelties.
Knife-Grinder, The
by George Canning

Friend of Humanity
"Needy Knife-grinder! whither are you going?
Rough is the road, your wheel is out of order,
Bleak blows the blast; your hat has got a hole in't,
So have your breeches!
"Weary Knife-grinder! little think the proud ones,
Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike-
Road, what hard work 'tis crying all day' Knives and
Scissors to grind O!'
"Tell me, Knife-grinder, how you came to grind knives?
Did some rich man tyrannically use you?
Was it the squire? or parson of the parish?
Or the attorney?
"Was it the squire, for killing of his game? or
Covetous parson, for his tithes distraining?
Or roguish lawyer, made you lose your little
All in a law-suit?
"(Have you not read the Rights of Man, by Tom Paine?)
Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids,
Ready to fall, as soon as you have told your
Pitiful story."
Knife-grinder
"Story! God bless you! I have none to tell, sir,
Only last night, a-drinking at the Chequers,
This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were
Tom in a scuffle.
"Constables came up for to take me into
Custody; they took me before the justice;
Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish-
Stocks for a vagrant.
"I should be glad to drink your Honour's health in
A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence;
But for my part, I never love to meddle
With politics, sir."
Friend of Humanity
"I give thee sixpence! I will see thee damn'd first,
Wretch! whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance,
Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded,
Spiritless outcast!"
[Kicks the Knife-grinder, overturns his wheel, and exit in a transport of Republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy.]
In A Year
by Robert Browning

I.
Never any more,
While I live,
Need I hope to see his face
As before.
Once his love grown chill,
Mine may strive 
Bitterly we re-embrace,
Single still.
II.
Was it something said,
Something done,
Vexed him? was it touch of hand,
Turn of head?
Strange! that very way
Love begun:
I as little understand
Love's decay.
III.
When I sewed or drew,
I recall
How he looked as if I sung,
Sweetly too.
If I spoke a word,
First of all
Up his cheek the colour sprang,
Then he heard.
IV.
Sitting by my side,
At my feet,
So he breathed but air I breathed,
Satisfied!
I, too, at love's brim
Touched the sweet:
I would die if death bequeathed
Sweet to him.
V.
'Speak, I love thee best!'
He exclaimed:
'Let thy love my own foretell!'
I confessed:
'Clasp my heart on thine
Now unblamed,
Since upon thy soul as well
Hangeth mine!'
VI.
Was it wrong to own,
Being truth?
Why should all the giving prove
His alone?
I had wealth and ease,
Beauty, youth 
Since my lover gave me love,
I gave these.
VII.
That was all I meant,
To be just,
And the passion I had raised,
To content.
Since he chose to change
Gold for dust,
If I gave him what he praised
Was it strange?
VIII.
Would he loved me yet,
On and on,
While I found some way undreamed
Paid my debt!
Gave more life and more,
Till, all gone,
He should smile 'She never seemed
Mine before.
IX.
'What, she felt the while,
Must I think?
Love's so different with us men!'
He should smile:
'Dying for my sake 
White and pink!
Can't we touch these bubbles then
But they break?'
X.
Dear, the pang is brief,
Do thy part,
Have thy pleasure! How perplext
Grows belief!
Well, this cold clay clod
Was man's heart:
Crumble it and what comes next?
Is it God?
The Fire
by John Frederick Freeman

Near the house flowed, or paused, the black Canal,
Edged by the timber piles so black and tall.
From the rotten fence I watched the horses pull
Along the footpath, slow and beautiful,
Moving with strength and ease, in their great size
And untired movement wonderful to my eyes;
Their dull brass clanking as each shaggy foot
Stamped the soft cinder track as fine as soot.
The driver lurched old and forbidding by,
Not seeing the child that feared to meet his eye.
I watched the rope dip, tighten, and the water flash
In falling, and then heard the hiss and splash;
I watched the barge drag slowly on and on,
Not dreaming how lovely a ship could ride the water upon,
Not dreaming how lovely flowing water was,
Sung to by trees and fingered by long grass,
Or running from the bosom of a hill
Down, where it flows so deep that it seems still.
But it was by that rotten fence one night
I saw the timber piles break into light,
Suddenly leaping into a heavenly flame
That played with the wind and one with the wind became.
Pile to pile gave its fire, till they were like
Bright angels with flashing swords before they strike,
Terrible and lovely. But men those angels fought,
Small and humble and patient all night wrought,
And all day wrought and night and day again,
And night and day, pouring their hissing rain,
Until the angels tired and one by one died.
Then their black spectres haunted the waterside,
Charred ruins, broken-limbed, no more erect,
Or heaped black dust, with cold white ashes flecked.
But I had seen the angel-quelling men,
With blackened and bruised face, the horses thin,
The glittering harness, the leaky, bubbling mains,
The broad smoke, and the steam from the leaping rains:--
O I had seen what I should not forget,
Men that defeated ruinous angels and shall still defeat.
Quandary
by Robert Lee Frost

Never have I been glad or sad
That there was such a thing as bad.
There had to be, I understood,
For there to have been any good.
It was by having been contrasted
That good and bad so long had lasted.
That's why discrimination reigns.
That's why we need a lot of brains
If only to discriminate
'Twixt what to love and what to hate.
To quote the oracle at Delphi,
Love thy neighbor as thyself, aye,
And hate him as thyself thou hatest.
There quandary is at its greatest.
We learned from the forbidden fruit
For brains there is no substitute.
'Unless it's sweetbreads, ' you suggest
With innuendo I detest.
You drive me to confess in ink:
Once I was fool enough to think
That brains and sweetbreads were the same,
Till I was caught and put to shame,
First by a butcher, then a cook,
Then by a scientific book.
But ' twas by making sweetbreads do
I passed with such a high I.Q.
To The High And Noble Prince George, Duke, Marquis, And Earl Of Buckingham.
by Robert Herrick

Never my book's perfection did appear
Till I had got the name of Villars here:
Now 'tis so full that when therein I look
I see a cloud of glory fills my book.
Here stand it still to dignify our Muse,
Your sober handmaid, who doth wisely choose
Your name to be a laureate wreath to her
Who doth both love and fear you, honoured sir.
A Requiem
by Ernest Christopher Dowson

Neobule, being tired,
Far too tired to laugh or weep,
From the hours, rosy and gray,
Hid her golden face away.
Neobule, fain of sleep,
Slept at last as she desired!
Neobule! is it well,
That you haunt the hollow lands,
Where the poor, dead people stray,
Ghostly, pitiful and gray,
Plucking, with their spectral hands,
Scentless blooms of asphodel?
Neobule, tired to death
Of the flowers that I threw
On her flower-like, fair feet,
Sighed for blossoms not so sweet,
Lunar roses pale and blue,
Lilies of the world beneath.
Neobule! ah, too tired
Of the dreams and days above!
Where the poor, dead people stray,
Ghostly, pitiful and gray,
Out of life and out of love,
Sleeps the sleep which she desired.
The Owls - (Twelve Translations From Charles Baudelaire)
by John Collings Squire, Sir

'Neath their black yews in solemn state
The owls are sitting in a row
Like foreign gods; and even so
Blink their red eyes; they meditate.
Quite motionless they hold them thus
Until at last the day is done,
And driving down the slanting sun,
The sad night is victorious.
They teach the wise who gives them ear
That in this world he most should fear
All things which loud or restless be.
Who, dazzled by a passing shade,
Follows it, never will be free
Till the dread penalty be paid.
Jim
by Robert William Service

Never knew Jim, did you? Our boy Jim?
Bless you, there was the likely lad;
Supple and straight and long of limb,
Clean as a whistle, and just as glad.
Always laughing, wasn't he, dad?
Joy, pure joy to the heart of him,
And, oh, but the soothering ways he had,
Jim, our Jim!
But I see him best as a tiny tot,
A bonny babe, though it's me that speaks;
Laughing there in his little cot,
With his sunny hair and his apple cheeks.
And my! but the blue, blue eyes he'd got,
And just where his wee mouth dimpled dim
Such a fairy mark like a beauty spot - 
That was Jim.
Oh, the war, the war! How my eyes were wet!
But he says: "Don't be sorrowing, mother dear;
You never knew me to fail you yet,
And I'll be back in a year, a year."
'Twas at Mons he fell, in the first attack;
For so they said, and their eyes were dim;
But I laughed in their faces: "He'll come back,
Will my Jim."
Now, we'd been wedded for twenty year,
And Jim was the only one we'd had;
So when I whispered in father's ear,
He wouldn't believe me - would you, dad?
There! I must hurry . . . hear him cry?
My new little baby. . . . See! that's him.
What are we going to call him? Why,
Jim, just Jim.
Jim! For look at him laughing there
In the same old way in his tiny cot,
With his rosy cheeks and his sunny hair,
And look, just look . . . his beauty spot
In the selfsame place. . . . Oh, I can't explain,
And of course you think it's a mother's whim,
But I know, I know it's my boy again,
Same wee Jim.
Just come back as he said he would;
Come with his love and his heart of glee.
Oh, I cried and I cried, but the Lord was good;
From the shadow of Death he set Jim free.
So I'll have him all over again, you see.
Can you wonder my mother-heart's a-brim?
Oh, how happy we're going to be!
Aren't we, Jim?
Never More, Sailor
by Walter De La Mare

Never more, Sailor,
Shalt thou be
Tossed on the wind-ridden,
Restless sea.
Its tides may labour;
All the world
Shake 'neath that weight
Of waters hurled:
But its whole shock
Can only stir
Thy dust to a quiet
Even quieter.
Thou mock'd'st at land
Who now art come
To such a small
And shallow home;
Yet bore the sea
Full many a care
For bones that once
A sailor's were.
And though the grave's
Deep soundlessness
Thy once sea-deafened
Ear distress,
No robin ever
On the deep
Hopped with his song
To haunt thy sleep.
Near the Lake.
by George Pope Morris

Near the lake where drooped the willow,
Long time ago!--
Where the rock threw back the billow
Brighter than snow--
Dwelt a maid, beloved and cherished
By high and low;
But with autumn's leaf she perished,
Long time ago!
Rock and tree and flowing water,
Long time ago!--
Bee and bird and blossom taught her
Love's spell to know!
While to my fond words she listened,
Murmuring low,
Tenderly her dove-eyes glistened,
Long time ago!
Mingled were our hearts for ever,
Long time ago!
Can I now forget her?--Never!
No--lost one--no!
To her grave these tears are given,
Ever to flow:
She's the star I missed from heaven,
Long time ago!
Want.
by Robert Herrick

Need is no vice at all, though here it be
With men a loathed inconveniency.
A Greek Libel
by James Williams

ARCHILOCHUS.
Neobule, yesternight
Saw I thee in beauty dight,
On thy head a myrtle spray
Cast its shadow as the day
By the stars was put to flight.
Twining on thy temples white
Roses gave the myrtle light,
Sign thou wilt not say me nay,
Neobule.
Loosened from its coil'd height
Streamed thy hair in thy despite
On thy shoulders soft to stray
And to bid the bard essay
Never but of thee to write,
Neobule.
NEOBULE.
Sorry poet, who dost dare
Cast bold glances on my hair,
Let thy most presumptuous eyes
Seek another enterprise,
Ceasing now to linger there.
Hearken, I can tell thee where
Grow the bushes that will spare
Rods to teach thee humbler guise,
Sorry poet.
Know I not that I am fair?
Need thy halting verse declare
What my mirror daily cries?
Rid me of thy silly sighs,
Rid me of thy hateful stare,
Sorry poet.
ARCHILOCHUS.
Neobule, poets see
Dreams of things that are to be.
Vengeance is the poet's trade,
Come, iambus, to my aid
'Gainst the fools who scoff at me.
All the world will laugh with glee
When they mark my verses free
Grasp thee like a pillory,
And thy scorn with scorn repaid,
Neobule.
E'en in death thou canst not flee
From the doom the Fates decree.
When my satire's keenest blade
Cuts thee to the heart, fond maid,
I shall laugh, but what of thee,
Neobule?
A Life's Parallels.
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Never on this side of the grave again,
On this side of the river,
On this side of the garner of the grain,
Never, -
Ever while time flows on and on and on,
That narrow noiseless river,
Ever while corn bows heavy-headed, wan,
Ever, -
Never despairing, often fainting, ruing,
But looking back, ah never!
Faint yet pursuing, faint yet still pursuing
Ever.
Never Seek To Tell Thy Love
by William Blake

Never seek to tell thy love
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind does move
Silently, invisibly.
I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart,
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears
Ah, she doth depart.
Soon as she was gone from me
A traveller came by
Silently, invisibly
O, was no deny.
The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - The True Kings.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Neron fu Re.
Nero was king by accident in show;
But Socrates by nature in good sooth;
By right of both Augustus; luck and truth
Less perfectly were blent in Scipio.
The spurious prince still seeks to extirpate
The seed of natures born imperial--
Like Herod, Caiaphas, Meletus, all
Who by bad acts sustain their stolen state.
Slaves whose souls tell them that they are but slaves,
Strike those whose native kinghood all can see:
Martyrdom is the stamp of royalty.
Dead though they be, these govern from their graves:
The tyrants fall, nor can their laws remain;
While Paul and Peter rise o'er Rome to reign.
A Christmas Hymn
by John Charles McNeill

Near where the shepherds watched by night
And heard the angels o'er them,
The wise men saw the starry light
Stand still at last before them.
No armored castle there to ward
His precious life from danger,
But, wrapped in common cloth, our Lord
Lay in a lowly manger.
No booming bells proclaimed his birth,
No armies marshalled by,
No iron thunders shook the earth,
No rockets clomb the sky;
The temples builded in his name
Were shapeless granite then,
And all the choirs that sang his fame
Were later breeds of men.
But, while the world about him slept,
Nor cared that he was born,
One gentle face above him kept
Its mother watch till morn;
And, if his baby eyes could tell
What grace and glory were,
No roar of gun, no boom of bell
Were worth the look of her.
Now praise to God that ere his grace
Was scorned and he reviled
He looked into his mother's face,
A little helpless child;
And praise to God that ere men strove
About his tomb in war
One loved him with a mother's love,
Nor knew a creed therefor.
The Stranger
by Robert Malise Bowyer Nichols

Never am I so alone
As when I walk among the crowd -
Blurred masks of stern or grinning stone,
Unmeaning eyes and voices loud.
Gaze dares not encounter gaze, ...
Humbled, I turn my head aside;
When suddenly there is a face ...
Pale, subdued and grievous-eyed.
Ah, I know that visage meek,
Those trembling lips, the eyes that shine
But turn from that which they would seek
With an air piteous, divine!
There is not a line or scar,
Seal of a sorrow or disgrace,
But I know like sigils are
Burned in my heart and on my face.
Speak! O speak! Thou art the one!
But thou hast passed with sad head bowed;
And never am I so alone
As when I walk among the crowd.
The Return Of The Children
by Rudyard Kipling

Neither the harps nor the crowns amused, nor the cherubs' dove-winged races,
Holding hands forlornly the Children wandered beneath the Dome,
Plucking the splendid robes of the passers-by, and with pitiful! faces
Begging what Princes and Powers refused: "Ah, please will you let us go home?"
Over the jewelled floor, nigh weeping, ran to them Mary the Mother,
Kneeled and caressed and made promise with kisses, and drew them along to the gateway,
Yea, the all-iron unbribeable Door which Peter must guard and none other.
Straightway She took the Keys from his keeping, and opened and freed them straightway.
Then, to Her Son, Who had seen and smiled, She said: "On the night that I bore Thee,
What didst Thou care for a love beyond mine or a heaven that was not my arm?
Didst Thou push from the nipple, 0 Child, to hear the angels adore Thee
When we two lay in the breath of the kine?" And He said, "Thou hast done no harm."
So through the Void the Children ran homeward merrily hand in hand,
Looking neither to left nor right where the breathless Heavens stood still.
And the Guards of the Void resheathed their swords, for they heard the Command:
"Shall I that have suffered the Children to come to Me hold them against their will? "
Nearer To Thee
by Louisa May Alcott

"Nearer, my God, to thee,
E'en though a cross it be
That raiseth me,
Still all my song shall be,
Nearer, my God, to thee.
Nearer to thee!"
Shivratri (the Night of Shiva)
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

(While the procession passed at Ramesram)
Nearer and nearer cometh the car
Where the Golden Goddess towers,
Sweeter and sweeter grows the air
From a thousand trampled flowers.
We two rest in the Temple shade
Safe from the pilgrim flood,
This path of the Gods in olden days
Ran royally red with blood.
Louder and louder and louder yet
Throbs the sorrowful drum - 
That is the tortured world's despair,
Never a moment dumb.
Shriller and shriller shriek the flutes,
Nature's passionate need - 
Paler and paler grow my lips,
And still thou bid'st them bleed.
Deeper and deeper and deeper still,
Never a pause for pain - 
Darker and darker falls the night
That golden torches stain.
Closer, ah! closer, and still more close,
Till thy soul reach my soul - 
Further, further, out on the tide
From the shores of self-control.
Glowing, glowing, to whitest heat,
Thy feverish passions burn,
Fiercer and fiercer, cruelly fierce,
To thee my senses yearn.
Fainter and fainter runs my blood
With desperate fight for breath - 
This, my Beloved, thou sayest is Love,
Or I should have deemed it Death!
Spring Lilies.
by Mary Gardiner Horsford

'Neath their green and cool cathedrals,
In the garden lilies bloom,
Casting to the fresh Spring Zephyrs
Peal on peal of sweet perfume.
Often have I, pausing near them
When the sunset flushed the sky,
Seen the coral bells vibrating
With their fragrant harmony.
And, within my quiet dwelling,
I have now a Lily fair,
Whose young spirit's sweet Spring budding
Watch I with unfailing care:
God, in placing her beside me,
Made my being most complete,
And my heart keeps time for ever
With the music of her feet.
I remember not, while gazing
In her earnest eyes of blue,
That the earth has aught of sorrow
Aught less innocent and true;
And the restlessness and longing
Wakened by the cares of day,
With the burden and the tumult,
In her presence fall away.
Shield my Lily, Holy Father!
Shield her from the whirlwind's might,
But protracted sunshine temper
With a soft and starry night;
'Neath the burning suns of Summer,
Withered, scorched, the spring-flower lies,
Human hearts contract, when strangers
Long to clouds and tearful eyes.
Give her purpose strong and holy,
Faith and self-devotion high;
These Life's common by-ways brighten
Every hope intensify.
Teach her all the brave endurance
That the sons of earth require;
May she, with a patient labor,
To the great and good aspire.
Should some mighty grief oppress her,
Heavier than she can bear,
Oh! sustain her by Thy presence,
Hear and answer Thou her prayer:
And whene'er the storms of winter
Round my precious Lily reign,
To a fairer clime transplant her,
There to live and bloom again.