DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Spring Morning
by Alfred Edward Housman

Star and coronal and bell
April underfoot renews,
And the hope of man as well
Flowers among the morning dews.
Now the old come out to look,
Winter past and winter's pains.
How the sky in pool and brook
Glitters on the grassy plains.
Easily the gentle air
Wafts the turning season on;
Things to comfort them are there,
Though 'tis true the best are gone.
Now the scorned unlucky lad
Rousing from his pillow gnawn
Mans his heart and deep and glad
Drinks the valiant air of dawn.
Half the night he longed to die,
Now are sown on hill and plain
Pleasures worth his while to try
Ere he longs to die again.
Blue the sky from east to west
Arches, and the world is wide,
Though the girl he loves the best
Rouses from another's side.
Stella To Dr. Swift On His Birth-Day, Nov. 30, 1721
by Jonathan Swift

St. Patrick's Dean, your country's pride,
My early and my only guide,
Let me among the rest attend,
Your pupil and your humble friend,
To celebrate in female strains
The day that paid your mother's pains;
Descend to take that tribute due
In gratitude alone to you.
When men began to call me fair,
You interposed your timely care:
You early taught me to despise
The ogling of a coxcomb's eyes;
Show'd where my judgment was misplaced;
Refined my fancy and my taste.
Behold that beauty just decay'd,
Invoking art to nature's aid:
Forsook by her admiring train,
She spreads her tatter'd nets in vain;
Short was her part upon the stage;
Went smoothly on for half a page;
Her bloom was gone, she wanted art,
As the scene changed, to change her part;
She, whom no lover could resist,
Before the second act was hiss'd.
Such is the fate of female race
With no endowments but a face;
Before the thirtieth year of life,
A maid forlorn, or hated wife.
Stella to you, her tutor, owes
That she has ne'er resembled those:
Nor was a burden to mankind
With half her course of years behind.
You taught how I might youth prolong,
By knowing what was right and wrong;
How from my heart to bring supplies
Of lustre to my fading eyes;
How soon a beauteous mind repairs
The loss of changed or falling hairs;
How wit and virtue from within
Send out a smoothness o'er the skin:
Your lectures could my fancy fix,
And I can please at thirty-six.
The sight of Chloe at fifteen,
Coquetting, gives not me the spleen;
The idol now of every fool
Till time shall make their passions cool;
Then tumbling down Time's steepy hill,
While Stella holds her station still.
O! turn your precepts into laws,
Redeem the women's ruin'd cause,
Retrieve lost empire to our sex,
That men may bow their rebel necks.
Long be the day that gave you birth
Sacred to friendship, wit, and mirth;
Late dying may you cast a shred
Of your rich mantle o'er my head;
To bear with dignity my sorrow,
One day alone, then die to-morrow.
A Midsummer Holiday:- IV. The Mill Garden
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Stately stand the sunflowers, glowing down the garden-side,
Ranged in royal rank arow along the warm grey wall,
Whence their deep disks burn at rich midnoon afire with pride,
Even as though their beams indeed were sunbeams, and the tall
Sceptral stems bore stars whose reign endures, not flowers that fall.
Lowlier laughs and basks the kindlier flower of homelier fame,
Held by love the sweeter that it blooms in Shakespeare's name,
Fragrant yet as though his hand had touched and made it thrill,
Like the whole world's heart, with warm new life and gladdening flame.
Fair befall the fair green close that lies below the mill!
Softlier here the flower-soft feet of refluent seasons glide,
Lightlier breathes the long low note of change's gentler call.
Wind and storm and landslip feed the lone sea's gulf outside,
Half a seamew's first flight hence; but scarce may these appal
Peace, whose perfect seal is set for signet here on all.
Steep and deep and sterile, under fields no plough can tame,
Dip the cliffs full-fledged with poppies red as love or shame,
Wide wan daisies bleak and bold, or herbage harsh and chill;
Here the full clove pinks and wallflowers crown the love they claim.
Fair befall the fair green close that lies below the mill!
All the place breathes low, but not for fear lest ill betide,
Soft as roses answering roses, or a dove's recall.
Little heeds it how the seaward banks may stoop and slide,
How the winds and years may hold all outer things in thrall,
How their wrath may work on hoar church tower and boundary wall.
Far and wide the waste and ravin of their rule proclaim
Change alone the changeless lord of things, alone the same:
Here a flower is stronger than the winds that work their will,
Or the years that wing their way through darkness toward their aim.
Fair befall the fair green close that lies below the mill!
Friend, the home that smiled us welcome hither when we came,
When we pass again with summer, surely should reclaim
Somewhat given of heart's thanksgiving more than words fulfil
More than song, were song more sweet than all but love, might frame.
Fair befall the fair green close that lies below the mill!
To William H. Seward
by John Greenleaf Whittier

Statesman, I thank thee! and, if yet dissent
Mingles, reluctant, with my large content,
I cannot censure what was nobly meant.
But, while constrained to hold even Union less
Than Liberty and Truth and Righteousness,
I thank thee in the sweet and holy name
Of peace, for wise calm words that put to shame
Passion and party. Courage may be shown
Not in defiance of the wrong alone;
He may be bravest who, unweaponed, bears
The olive branch, and, strong in justice, spares
The rash wrong-doer, giving widest scope
To Christian charity and generous hope.
If, without damage to the sacred cause
Of Freedom and the safeguard of its laws
If, without yielding that for which alone
We prize the Union, thou canst save it now
From a baptism of blood, upon thy brow
A wreath whose flowers no earthly soil have known,
Woven of the beatitudes, shall rest,
And the peacemaker be forever blest!
Blue
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Standin' at de winder,
Feelin' kind o' glum,
Listenin' to de raindrops
Play de kettle drum,
Lookin' crost de medders
Swimmin' lak a sea;
Lawd 'a' mussy on us,
What's de good o' me?
Can't go out a-hoein',
Wouldn't ef I could;
Groun' too wet fu' huntin',
Fishin' ain't no good.
Too much noise fo' sleepin',
No one hyeah to chat;
Des mus' stan' an' listen
To dat pit-a-pat.
Hills is gittin' misty,,
Valley's gittin' dahk;
Watch-dog's 'mence a-howlin',
Rathah have 'em ba'k
Dan a-moanin' solemn
Somewhaih out o' sight;
Rain-crow des a-chucklin'--
Dis is his delight.
Mandy, bring my banjo,
Bring de chillen in,
Come in f'om de kitchen,
I feel sick ez sin.
Call in Uncle Isaac,
Call Aunt Hannah, too,
Tain't no use in talkin',
Chile, I's sholy blue.
Songs of the Fleet - The Little Admiral
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

Stand by to reckon up your battleships
Ten, twenty, thirty, there they go.
Brag about your cruisers like Leviathans--
A thousand men a-piece down below.
But here's just one little Admiral
We're all of us his brothers and his sons,
And he's worth, O he's worth at the very least
Double all your tons and all your guns.
Stand by, etc.
See them on the forebridge signalling--
A score of men a-hauling hand to hand,
And the whole fleet flying like the wild geese
Moved by some mysterious command.
Where's the mighty will that shows the way to them,
The mind that sees ahead so quick and clear?
He's there, Sir, walking all alone there--
The little man whose voice you never hear.
Stand by, etc.
There are queer things that only come to sailormen;
They're true, but they're never understood;
And I know one thing about the Admiral,
That I can't tell rightly as I should.
I've been with him when hope sank under us--
He hardly seemed a mortal like the rest,
I could swear that he had stars upon his uniform,
And one sleeve pinned across his breast.
Stand by, etc.
Some day we're bound to sight the enemy,
He's coming, tho' he hasn't yet a name.
Keel to keel and gun to gun he'll challenge us
To meet him at the Great Armada game.
None knows what may be the end of it,
But we'll all give our bodies and our souls
To see the little Admiral a-playing him
A rubber of the old Long Bowls!
Stand by, etc.
Sonnet To Homer
by John Keats

Standing aloof in giant ignorance,
Of thee I hear and of the Cyclades,
As one who sits ashore and longs perchance
To visit dolphin-coral in deep seas.
So thou wast blind; but then the veil was rent,
For Jove uncurtain'd Heaven to let thee live,
And Neptune made for thee a spumy tent,
And Pan made sing for thee his forest-hive;
Aye on the shores of darkness there is light,
And precipices show untrodden green
There is a budding morrow in the midnight,
There is a triple sight in blindness keen;
Such seeing hadst thou, as it once befel
To Dian, Queen of Earth, and Heaven, and Hell.
The Bather.
by George Parsons Lathrop

Standing here alone,
Let me pause awhile,
Drinking in the light
Ere, with plunge of white limbs prone,
I raise the sparkling flight
Of foam-flakes volatile.
Now, in natural guise,
I woo the deathless breeze,
Through me rushing fleet
The joy of life, in swift surprise:
I grow with growing wheat,
And burgeon with the trees.
Lo! I fetter Time,
So he cannot run;
And in Eden again - 
Flash of memory sublime! - 
Dwell naked, without stain,
Beneath the dazed sun.
All yields brotherhood;
Each least thing that lives,
Wrought of primal spores,
Deepens this wild sense of good
That, on these shaggy shores,
Return to nature gives.
Oh, that some solitude
Were ours, in woodlands deep,
Where, with lucent eyes,
Living lithe and limber-thewed,
Our life's shape might arise
Like mountains fresh from sleep!
To sounds of water falling,
Hosts of delicate dreams
Should lull us and allure
With a dim, enchanted calling,
Blameless to live and pure
Like these sweet springs and streams.
But in a wilderness
Alone may such life be?
Why of all things framed,
In my human form confessed
Should I be ashamed,
And blush for honesty?
Rounded, strengthy limbs
That knit me to my kind - 
Your glory turns to grief!
Shall I for my soul sing hymns,
Yet for my body find
No clear, divine belief?
Let me rather die,
Than by faith uphold
Dogmas weak that dare
The form that once Christ wore deny
Afraid with him to share
A purity twofold;
Yet, while sin remains
On this saddened earth,
Humbly walk my ways!
For my garments are as chains;
And I fear to praise
My frame with careless mirth.
Joy and penance go
Hand in hand, I see!
Would I could live so well,
Soul of me should never know
When my coverings fell,
Nor feel this nudity!
To His Worthy Friend, M. Thos. Falconbirge.
by Robert Herrick

Stand with thy graces forth, brave man, and rise
High with thine own auspicious destinies:
Nor leave the search, and proof, till thou canst find
These, or those ends, to which thou wast design'd.
Thy lucky genius and thy guiding star
Have made thee prosperous in thy ways thus far:
Nor will they leave thee till they both have shown
Thee to the world a prime and public one.
Then, when thou see'st thine age all turn'd to gold,
Remember what thy Herrick thee foretold,
When at the holy threshold of thine house
He boded good luck to thy self and spouse.
Lastly, be mindful, when thou art grown great,
That towers high rear'd dread most the lightning's threat:
Whenas the humble cottages not fear
The cleaving bolt of Jove the thunderer.
The Red Cross.
by Charles Hamilton Musgrove

St. George, I learned to love thee in my youth
When of thy deeds I read in deathless song;
And now, when I behold the dragon Wrong
Hard by the castle-gates of Love and Truth,
I feel the world's great need of thee, forsooth,
To strike the heavy blow delayed too long.
Then turning from the medi'val throng,
Where thou wert bravest, yet the first in ruth,
I watch thy votaries by land and sea
Armed with thy sacred sign go forth to fight
Anew the battle of humanity
Beneath the flag of mercy and of right;
No holier band a holier realm e'er trod
Than this--the world's knight-errantry of God!
The Mouse
by John Frederick Freeman

Standing close by you
In the cold light
Of two tall candles
That measure the dark of night,
I hear the mouse,
The only thing that's moving
In the quiet house.
Don't you hear it,
That furious mouse?
How can you sleep so deep
And that noise in the house?
Won't you stir
At the furious scratching
In the cupboard there?
No! a sharper sound
Would wake you not;
Not the sweetest fluting
Tease you back to thought.
Yet the scratching mouse
Makes all my flesh a nervous
Haunted house.
O, the dream, the dream
Must be sweet and deep
If life's scratching's heard not
On your cold sleep.
Yet if you should hear it,
So furious and fretful--
How could you bear it?
An Hymn To Juno.
by Robert Herrick

Stately goddess, do thou please,
Who are chief at marriages,
But to dress the bridal bed
When my love and I shall wed;
And a peacock proud shall be
Offered up by us to thee.
To A Butterfly
by William Wordsworth

Stay near me, do not take thy flight!
A little longer stay in sight!
Much converse do I find I thee,
Historian of my infancy!
Float near me; do not yet depart!
Dead times revive in thee:
Thou bring'st, gay creature as thou art!
A solemn image to my heart,
My father's family!
Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days,
The time, when, in our childish plays,
My sister Emmeline and I
Together chased the butterfly!
A very hunter did I rush
Upon the prey: with leaps and spring
I followed on from brake to bush;
But she, God love her, feared to brush
The dust from off its wings.
Nursery Rhyme. DCLVIII. Relics.
by Unknown

St. Thomas's-day is past and gone,
And Christmas is a-most a-come,
Maidens arise,
And make your pies,
And save poor tailor Bobby some.
Nursery Rhyme. LXXX. Proverbs.
by Unknown

St. Swithin's day, if thou dost rain,
For forty days it will remain:
St. Swithin's day, if thou be fair,
For forty days 'twill rain na mair.
The Saint And The Hunchback
by William Butler Yeats

Hunchback.	Stand up and lift your hand and bless
A man that finds great bitterness
In thinking of his lost renown.
A Roman Caesar is held down
Under this hump.
Saint.	God tries each man
According to a different plan.
I shall not cease to bless because
I lay about me with the taws
That night and morning I may thrash
Greek Alexander from my flesh,
Augustus Caesar, and after these
That great rogue Alcibiades.
Hunchback.	To all that in your flesh have stood
And blessed, I give my gratitude,
Honoured by all in their degrees,
But most to Alcibiades.
Lines Inscribed Upon A Cup Formed From A Skull. [1]
by George Gordon Byron

1.
Start not - nor deem my spirit fled:
In me behold the only skull,
From which, unlike a living head,
Whatever flows is never dull.
2.
I lived, I loved, I quaff'd, like thee:
I died: let earth my bones resign;
Fill up - thou canst not injure me;
The worm hath fouler lips than thine.
3.
Better to hold the sparkling grape,
Than nurse the earth-worm's slimy brood;
And circle in the goblet's shape
The drink of Gods, than reptile's food.
4.
Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone,
In aid of others' let me shine;
And when, alas! our brains are gone,
What nobler substitute than wine?
5.
Quaff while thou canst: another race,
When thou and thine, like me, are sped,
May rescue thee from earth's embrace,
And rhyme and revel with the dead.
6.
Why not? since through life's little day
Our heads such sad effects produce;
Redeem'd from worms and wasting clay,
This chance is theirs, to be of use.
Christmas Day And Every Day
by George MacDonald

Star high,
Baby low:
'Twixt the two
Wise men go;
Find the baby,
Grasp the star--
Heirs of all things
Near and far!
Fafaia
by Rupert Brooke

Stars that seem so close and bright,
Watched by lovers through the night,
Swim in emptiness, men say,
Many a mile and year away.
And yonder star that burns so white,
May have died to dust and night
Ten, maybe, or fifteen year,
Before it shines upon my dear.
Oh! often among men below,
Heart cries out to heart, I know,
And one is dust a many years,
Child, before the other hears.
Heart from heart is all as far,
Fafaia, as start from star.
Star of My Heart
by Vachel Lindsay

Star of my heart, I follow from afar.
Sweet Love on high, lead on where shepherds are,
Where Time is not, and only dreamers are.
Star from of old, the Magi-Kings are dead
And a foolish Saxon seeks the manger-bed.
O lead me to Jehovah's child
Across this dreamland lone and wild,
Then will I speak this prayer unsaid,
And kiss his little haloed head - 
"My star and I, we love thee, little child."
Except the Christ be born again to-night
In dreams of all men, saints and sons of shame,
The world will never see his kingdom bright.
Stars of all hearts, lead onward thro' the night
Past death-black deserts, doubts without a name,
Past hills of pain and mountains of new sin
To that far sky where mystic births begin,
Where dreaming ears the angel-song shall win.
Our Christmas shall be rare at dawning there,
And each shall find his brother fair,
Like a little child within:
All hearts of the earth shall find new birth
And wake, no more to sin.
Epitaph IV. On James Craggs, Esq. In Westminster Abbey.
by Alexander Pope

Jacobus Craggs Regi Magnae Britannia A Secretis Et Consiliis Sanctioribus, Principis Pariter Ac Populi Amor Et Deliciae: Vixit Titulis Et Invidia Major Annos, Heu Paucos, Xxxv. Ob. Feb. Xvi. Mdccxx.
Statesman, yet friend to Truth! of soul sincere,
In action faithful, and in honour clear!
Who broke no promise, served no private end,
Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend;
Ennobled by himself, by all approved,
Praised, wept, and honour'd by the Muse he loved.
States!
by Walt Whitman

States!
Were you looking to be held together by the lawyers?
By an agreement on a paper? Or by arms?
Away!
I arrive, bringing these, beyond all the forces of courts and arms,
These! to hold you together as firmly as the earth itself is held together.
The old breath of life, ever new,
Here! I pass it by contact to you, America.
O mother! have you done much for me?
Behold, there shall from me be much done for you.
There shall from me be a new friendship It shall be called after my name,
It shall circulate through The States, indifferent of place,
It shall twist and intertwist them through and around each other 
Compact shall they be, showing new signs,
Affection shall solve every one of the problems of freedom,
Those who love each other shall be invincible,
They shall finally make America completely victorious, in my name.
One from Massachusetts shall be comrade to a Missourian,
One from Maine or Vermont, and a Carolinian and an Oregonese, shall be friends triune, more precious to each other than all the riches of the earth.
To Michigan shall be wafted perfume from Florida,
To the Mannahatta from Cuba or Mexico,
Not the perfume of flowers, but sweeter, and wafted beyond death.
No danger shall balk Columbia's lovers,
If need be, a thousand shall sternly immolate themselves for one,
The Kanuck shall be willing to lay down his life for the Kansian, and the Kansian for the Kanuck, on due need.
It shall be customary in all directions, in the houses and streets, to see manly affection,
The departing brother or friend shall salute the remaining brother or friend with a kiss.
There shall be innovations,
There shall be countless linked hands namely, the Northeasterner's, and the Northwesterner's, and the Southwesterner's, and those of the interior, and all their brood,
These shall be masters of the world under a new power,
They shall laugh to scorn the attacks of all the remainder of the world.
The most dauntless and rude shall touch face to face lightly,
The dependence of Liberty shall be lovers,
The continuance of Equality shall be comrades.
These shall tie and band stronger than hoops of iron,
I, extatic, O partners! O lands! henceforth with the love of lovers tie you.
To a Cat
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

I
Stately, kindly, lordly friend,
Condescend
Here to sit by me, and turn
Glorious eyes that smile and burn,
Golden eyes, love's lustrous meed,
On the golden page I read.
All your wondrous wealth of hair,
Dark and fair,
Silken-shaggy, soft and bright
As the clouds and beams of night,
Pays my reverent hand's caress
Back with friendlier gentleness.
Dogs may fawn on all and some
As they come;
You, a friend of loftier mind,
Answer friends alone in kind.
Just your foot upon my hand
Softly bids it understand.
Morning round this silent sweet
Garden-seat
Sheds its wealth of gathering light,
Thrills the gradual clouds with might,
Changes woodland, orchard, heath,
Lawn, and garden there beneath.
Fair and dim they gleamed below:
Now they glow
Deep as even your sunbright eyes,
Fair as even the wakening skies.
Can it not or can it be
Now that you give thanks to see?
May not you rejoice as I,
Seeing the sky
Change to heaven revealed, and bid
Earth reveal the heaven it hid
All night long from stars and moon,
Now the sun sets all in tune?
What within you wakes with day
Who can say?
All too little may we tell,
Friends who like each other well,
What might haply, if we might,
Bid us read our lives aright.
II
Wild on woodland ways your sires
Flashed like fires;
Fair as flame and fierce and fleet
As with wings on wingless feet
Shone and sprang your mother, free,
Bright and brave as wind or sea.
Free and proud and glad as they,
Here to-day
Rests or roams their radiant child,
Vanquished not, but reconciled,
Free from curb of aught above
Save the lovely curb of love.
Love through dreams of souls divine
Fain would shine
Round a dawn whose light and song
Then should right our mutual wrong,
Speak, and seal the love-lit law
Sweet Assisi's seer foresaw.
Dreams were theirs; yet haply may
Dawn a day
When such friends and fellows born,
Seeing our earth as fair at morn,
May for wiser love's sake see
More of heaven's deep heart than we.
The Observer.
by Friedrich Schiller

Stern as my conscience, thou seest the points wherein I'm deficient;
Therefore I've always loved thee, as my own conscience I've loved.
Dedication. To The Memory Of Sir Cecil Spring-Rice
by Alfred Noyes

I.
Steadfast as any soldier of the line
He served his England, with the imminent death
Poised at his heart. Nor could the world divine
The constant peril of each burdened breath.
England, and the honour of England, he still served
Walking the strict path, with the old high pride
Of those invincible knights who never swerved
One hair's breadth from the way until they died.
Quietness he loved, and books, and the grave beauty
Of England's Helicon, whose eternal light
Shines like a lantern on that road of duty,
Discerned by few in this chaotic night.
And his own pen, foretelling his release,
Told us that he foreknew "the end was peace."
II.
Soldier of England, he shall live unsleeping
Among his friends, with the old proud flag above;
For even today her honour is in his keeping.
He has joined the hosts that guard her with their love.
They shine like stars, unnumbered happy legions,
In that high realm where all our darkness dies.
He moves, with honour, in those loftier regions,
Above this "world of passion and of lies":
For so he called it, keeping his own pure passion
A silent flame before the true and good;
Not fawning on the throng in this world's fashion
To come and see what all might see who would.
Soldier of England, brave and gentle knight,
The soul of Sidney welcomes you tonight.
Song. To - [Harriet].
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Stern, stern is the voice of fate's fearful command,
When accents of horror it breathes in our ear,
Or compels us for aye bid adieu to the land,
Where exists that loved friend to our bosom so dear,
'Tis sterner than death o'er the shuddering wretch bending,
And in skeleton grasp his fell sceptre extending,
Like the heart-stricken deer to that loved covert wending,
Which never again to his eyes may appear -
And ah! he may envy the heart-stricken quarry,
Who bids to the friend of affection farewell,
He may envy the bosom so bleeding and gory,
He may envy the sound of the drear passing knell,
Not so deep is his grief on his death couch reposing,
When on the last vision his dim eyes are closing!
As the outcast whose love-raptured senses are losing,
The last tones of thy voice on the wild breeze that swell!
Those tones were so soft, and so sad, that ah! never,
Can the sound cease to vibrate on Memory's ear,
In the stern wreck of Nature for ever and ever,
The remembrance must live of a friend so sincere.
AUGUST, 1810.