DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
To His Friend The Author, John Hoddesdon, On His Divine Epigrams.
by John Dryden

Thou hast inspired me with thy soul, and I
Who ne'er before could ken of poetry,
Am grown so good proficient, I can lend
A line in commendation of my friend.
Yet 'tis but of the second hand; if ought
There be in this, 'tis from thy fancy brought.
Good thief, who dar'st, Prometheus-like, aspire,
And fill thy poems with celestial fire:
Enliven'd by these sparks divine, their rays
Add a bright lustre to thy crown of bays.
Young eaglet, who thy nest thus soon forsook,
So lofty and divine a course hast took
As all admire, before the down begin
To peep, as yet, upon thy smoother chin;
And, making heaven thy aim, hast had the grace
To look the Sun of righteousness i' the face.
What may we hope, if thou go'st on thus fast,
Scriptures at first; enthusiasms at last!
Thou hast commenced, betimes, a saint; go on,
Mingling diviner streams with Helicon;
That they who view what epigrams here be,
May learn to make like, in just praise of thee.
Reader, I've done, nor longer will withhold
Thy greedy eyes; looking on this pure gold
Thou'lt know adulterate copper, which, like this,
Will only serve to be a foil to his.
To The Evening Star
by William Blake

Thou fair-haired angel of the evening,
Now, whilst the sun rests on the mountains, light
Thy bright torch of love; thy radiant crown
Put on, and smile upon our evening bed!
Smile on our loves, and while thou drawest the
Blue curtains of the sky, scatter thy silver dew
On every flower that shuts its sweet eyes
In timely sleep. Let thy west wing sleep on
The lake; speak silence with thy glimmering eyes,
And wash the dusk with silver. Soon, full soon,
Dost thou withdraw; then the wolf rages wide,
And the lion glares through the dun forest.
The fleeces of our flocks are covered with
Thy sacred dew; protect with them with thine influence.
The Hawk
by William Henry Davies

Thou dost not fly, thou art not perched,
The air is all around:
What is it that can keep thee set,
From falling to the ground?
The concentration of thy mind
Supports thee in the air;
As thou dost watch the small young birds,
With such a deadly care.
My mind has such a hawk as thou,
It is an evil mood;
It comes when there's no cause for grief,
And on my joys doth brood.
Then do I see my life in parts;
The earth receives my bones,
The common air absorbs my mind -
It knows not flowers from stones.
Autumn
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Thou comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain,
With banners, by great gales incessant fanned,
Brighter than brightest silks of Samarcand,
And stately oxen harnessed to thy wain!
Thou standest, like imperial Charlemagne,
Upon thy bridge of gold; thy royal hand
Outstretched with benedictions o'er the land,
Blessing the farms through all thy vast domain!
Thy shield is the red harvest moon, suspended
So long beneath the heaven's o'er-hanging eaves;
Thy steps are by the farmer's prayers attended;
Like flames upon an altar shine the sheaves;
And, following thee, in thy ovation splendid,
Thine almoner, the wind, scatters the golden leaves!
Thou Orb Aloft Full-Dazzling
by Walt Whitman

Thou orb aloft full-dazzling! thou hot October noon!
Flooding with sheeny light the gray beach sand,
The sibilant near sea with vistas far and foam,
And tawny streaks and shades and spreading blue;
O sun of noon rufulgent! my special word to thee.
Hear me illustrious!
Thy lover me, for always I have loved thee,
Even as basking babe, then happy boy alone by some wood edge, thy touching-distant beams enough,
Or man matured, or young or old, as now to thee I launch my invocation.
(Thou canst not with thy dumbness me deceive,
I know before the fitting man all Nature yields,
Though answering not in words, the skies, trees, hear his voice and thou O sun,
As for thy throes, thy perturbations, sudden breaks and shafts of flame gigantic,
I understand them, I know those flames, those perturbations well.)
Thou that with fructifying heat and light,
O'er myriad farms, o'er lands and waters North and South,
O'er Mississippi's endless course, o'er Texas' grassy plains, Kanada's woods,
O'er all the globe that turns its face to thee shining in space,
Thou that impartially infoldest all, not only continents, seas,
Thou that to grapes and weeds and little wild flowers givest so liberally,
Shed, shed thyself on mine and me, with but a fleeting ray out of thy million millions,
Strike through these chants.
Nor only launch thy subtle dazzle and thy strength for these,
Prepare the later afternoon of me myself prepare my lengthening shadows,
Prepare my starry nights.
Sonnet.
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

Thou poisonous laurel leaf, that in the soil
Of life, which I am doomed to till full sore,
Spring'st like a noisome weed!    I do not toil
For thee, and yet thou still com'st dark'ning o'er
My plot of earth with thy unwelcome shade.
Thou nightshade of the soul, beneath whose boughs
All fair and gentle buds hang withering!
Why hast thou wreathed thyself around my brows,
Casting from thence the blossoms of my spring,
Breathing on youth's sweet roses till they fade?
Alas! thou art an evil weed of woe,
Watered with tears and watched with sleepless care,
Seldom doth envy thy green glories spare;
And yet men covet thee - ah, wherefore do they so!
Robert Burns.
by George W. Doneghy

(A PARAPHRASE.)
I.
Thou lingering Star! No less'ning ray
Will e'er bedim thy natal morn,
Or usher in the unhallowed day
When we forget that thou wert born!
O Burns! Thou dear departed shade!
Where is thy place of blissful rest?
See'st thou again a Highland maid,
Who heard the groans that rent thy breast?
II.
That sacred day can we forget,
Can we forget the hallowed spot
Where by the winding Ayr was set
The sparkling jewel in lowly cot?
Eternity will not efface
The record dear of time that's past;
Thy memory sweet we still embrace,
And will as long as life shall last!
III.
Ayr, congeal'd to its pebbled shore,
O'erhung with wild woods, shorn of green;
The leafless birch and hawthorn hoar
Were planted round the wintry scene;
No flowers sprang wanton to be pressed--
No birds sang love on every spray--
But brightest yet o'er all the rest
Will ever shine thy natal day!
IV.
Still o'er thy songs our rapture wakes,
And memory broods with miser care!
Time but their music sweeter makes,
As streams their channels deeper wear.
O Burns! Thou dear departed shade!
Where is thy place of blissful rest?
See'st thou again a Highland maid,
Who heard the groans that rent thy breast?
Thou Reader
by Walt Whitman

Thou reader throbbest life and pride and love the same as I,
Therefore for thee the following chants.
To Apollo.
by Robert Herrick

Thou mighty lord and master of the lyre,
Unshorn Apollo, come and re-inspire
My fingers so, the lyric-strings to move,
That I may play and sing a hymn to Love.
Thou Leanest To The Shell Of Night
by James Joyce

Thou leanest to the shell of night,
Dear lady, a divining ear.
In that soft choiring of delight
What sound hath made thy heart to fear?
Seemed it of rivers rushing forth
From the grey deserts of the north?
That mood of thine
Is his, if thou but scan it well,
Who a mad tale bequeaths to us
At ghosting hour conjurable,
And all for some strange name he read
In Purchas or in Holinshed.
The Locust
by Madison Julius Cawein

Thou pulse of hotness, who, with reedlike breast,
Makest meridian music, long and loud,
Accentuating summer! Dost thy best
To make the sunbeams fiercer, and to crowd
With lonesomeness the long, close afternoon
When Labor leans, swart-faced and beady-browed,
Upon his sultry scythe thou tangible tune
Of heat, whose waves incessantly arise
Quivering and clear beneath the cloudless skies.
Thou singest, and upon his haggard hills
Drouth yawns and rubs his heavy eyes and wakes;
Brushes the hot hair from his face; and fills
The land with death as sullenly he takes
Downward his dusty way. 'Midst woods and fields
At every pool his burning thirst he slakes:
No grove so deep, no bank so high it shields
A spring from him; no creek evades his eye:
He needs but look and they are withered dry.
Thou singest, and thy song is as a spell
Of somnolence to charm the land with sleep;
A thorn of sound that pierces dale and dell,
Diffusing slumber over vale and steep.
Sleepy the forest, nodding sleepy boughs;
Sleepy the pastures with their sleepy sheep:
Sleepy the creek where sleepily the cows
Stand knee-deep; and the very heaven seems
Sleepy and lost in undetermined dreams.
Art thou a rattle that Monotony,
Summer's dull nurse, old sister of slow Time,
Shakes for Day's peevish pleasure, who in glee
Takes its discordant music for sweet rhyme?
Or oboe that the Summer Noontide plays,
Sitting with Ripeness 'neath the orchard tree,
Trying repeatedly the same shrill phrase,
Until the musky peach with weariness
Drops, and the hum of murmuring bees grows less?
Sonnets: Idea XXXVI Cupid Conjured
by Michael Drayton

Thou purblind boy, since thou hast been so slack
To wound her heart whose eyes have wounded me
And suffered her to glory in my wrack,
Thus to my aid I lastly conjure thee!
By hellish Styx, by which the Thund'rer swears,
By thy fair mother's unavoided power,
By Hecate's names, by Proserpine's sad tears,
When she was wrapt to the infernal bower!
By thine own lov'd Psyche, by the fires
Spent on thine altars flaming up to heaven,
By all true lovers' sighs, vows, and desires,
By all the wounds that ever thou hast given;
I conjure thee by all that I have named,
To make her love, or, Cupid, be thou damned!
To * * * * * *.
by John Clare

Thou lovely bud, with many weeds surrounded,
I once again address thee with a song;
To cheer thee up 'gainst Envy's adder-tongue
That deeply oft thy reputation wounded,
And did thy tender blossom mickle wrong.
But, look thou up!--'tis known in nature's law
That serpents seek the honey-hoarding bee,
Rosemary's sweets the loathsome toad will draw,
So beauty curdles envy's look on thee.
Fain would the peacock's tail the bow express
Which paints the clouds so sweet in April's rain,
And just the same, that imp of ugliness
Mimics thy lovely blossom,--but in vain;
And fain would poison what he can't possess.
Sonet 45
by Michael Drayton

Thou leaden braine, which censur'st what I write,
And say'st my lines be dull and doe not moue,
I meruaile not thou feelst not my delight,
Which neuer felt my fiery tuch of loue.
But thou whose pen hath like a Pack-horse seru'd,
Whose stomack vnto gaule hath turn'd thy foode,
Whose sences like poore prisoners hunger-staru'd,
Whose griefe hath parch'd thy body, dry'd thy blood.
Thou which hast scorned life, and hated death,
And in a moment mad, sober, glad, and sorry,
Thou which hast band thy thoughts and curst thy breath,
With thousand plagues more then in purgatory.
Thou thus whose spirit Loue in his fire refines,
Come thou and reade, admire, applaud my lines.
Veneration Of Images
by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

Thou man, first-comer, whose wide arms entreat,
Gather, clasp, welcome, bind,
Lack, or remember! whose warm pulses beat
With love of thine own kind;
Unlifted for a blessing on yon sea,
Unshrined on this high-way,
O flesh, O grief, thou too shalt have our knee,
Thou rood of every day!
Lines To An Auricula, Belonging To  ---- .
by John Carr (Sir)

Thou rear'st thy beauteous head, sweet flow'r
Gemm'd by the soft and vernal show'r;
Its drops still round thee shine:
The florist views thee with delight;
And, if so precious in his sight,
Oh! what art thou in mine?
For she, who nurs'd thy drooping form
When Winter pour'd her snowy storm,
Has oft consol'd me too;
For me a fost'ring tear has shed, - 
She has reviv'd my drooping head,
And bade me bloom anew.
When adverse Fortune bade us part,
And grief depress'd my aching heart,
Like yon reviving ray,
She from behind the cloud would move,
And with a stolen look of love
Would melt my cares away.
Sweet flow'r! supremely dear to me,
Thy lovely mistress blooms in thee,
For, tho' the garden's pride,
In beauty's grace and tint array'd,
Thou seem'st to court the secret shade,
Thy modest form to hide.
Oh! crown'd with many a roseate year,
Bless'd may she be who plac'd thee here,
Until the tear of love
Shall tremble in the eye to find
Her spirit, spotless and refin'd,
Borne to the realms above!
And oft for thee, sweet child of spring!
The Muse shall touch her tend'rest string;
And, as thou rear'st thine head,
She shall invoke the softest air,
Or ask the chilling storm to spare,
And bless thy humble bed.
To God.
by Robert Herrick

Thou hast promis'd, Lord, to be
With me in my misery;
Suffer me to be so bold
As to speak, Lord, say and hold.
Farewell To The Muse.
by George Gordon Byron

1.
Thou Power! who hast ruled me through Infancy's days,
Young offspring of Fancy, 'tis time we should part;
Then rise on the gale this the last of my lays,
The coldest effusion which springs from my heart.
2.
This bosom, responsive to rapture no more,
Shall hush thy wild notes, nor implore thee to sing;
The feelings of childhood, which taught thee to soar,
Are wafted far distant on Apathy's wing.
3.
Though simple the themes of my rude flowing Lyre,
Yet even these themes are departed for ever;
No more beam the eyes which my dream could inspire,
My visions are flown, to return, - alas, never!
4.
When drain'd is the nectar which gladdens the bowl,
How vain is the effort delight to prolong!
When cold is the beauty which dwelt in my soul, 
What magic of Fancy can lengthen my song?
5.
Can the lips sing of Love in the desert alone,
Of kisses and smiles which they now must resign?
Or dwell with delight on the hours that are flown?
Ah, no! for those hours can no longer be mine.
6.
Can they speak of the friends that I lived but to love? 
Ah, surely Affection ennobles the strain!
But how can my numbers in sympathy move,
When I scarcely can hope to behold them again?
7.
Can I sing of the deeds which my Fathers have done,
And raise my loud harp to the fame of my Sires?
For glories like theirs, oh, how faint is my tone!
For Heroes' exploits how unequal my fires!
8.
Untouch'd, then, my Lyre shall reply to the blast - 
'Tis hush'd; and my feeble endeavours are o'er;
And those who have heard it will pardon the past,
When they know that its murmurs shall vibrate no more.
9.
And soon shall its wild erring notes be forgot,
Since early affection and love is o'ercast:
Oh! blest had my Fate been, and happy my lot,
Had the first strain of love been the dearest, the last.
10.
Farewell, my young Muse! since we now can ne'er meet; 
If our songs have been languid, they surely are few:
Let us hope that the present at least will be sweet - 
The present - which seals our eternal Adieu.
The Author To Her Book
by Anne Bradstreet

Thou ill-form'd offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth did'st by my side remain,
Till snatcht from thence by friends, less wise than true,
Who thee abroad expos'd to public view,
Made thee in rags, halting to th' press to trudge,
Where errors were not lessened (all may judge).
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call.
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
Thy Visage was so irksome in my sight,
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could.
I wash'd thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.
I stretcht thy joints to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run'st more hobbling than is meet.
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save home-spun Cloth, i' th' house I find.
In this array, 'mongst Vulgars mayst thou roam.
In Critics' hands, beware thou dost not come,
And take thy way where yet thou art not known.
If for thy Father askt, say, thou hadst none;
And for thy Mother, she alas is poor,
Which caus'd her thus to send thee out of door.
Thou Hast Woven the Spell.
by George Pope Morris

Thou hast woven the spell that hath bound me,
Through all the sad changes of years;
And the smiles that I wore when I found thee,
Have faded and melted in tears!
Like the poor, wounded fawn from the mountain,
That seeks out the clear silver tide,
I have lingered in vain at the fountain
Of hope--with a shaft in my side!
Thou hast taught me that Love's rosy fetters
A pang from the thorns may impart;
That the coinage of vows and of letters
Comes not from the mint of the heart.
Like the lone bird that flutters her pinion,
And warbles in bondage her strain,
I have struggled to fly thy domain,
But find that the struggle is vain!
Germany And Her Princes.
by Friedrich Schiller

Thou hast produced mighty monarchs, of whom thou art not unworthy,
For the obedient alone make him who governs them great.
But, O Germany, try if thou for thy rulers canst make it
Harder as kings to be great, easier, though, to be men!
To The River Rhone
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Thou Royal River, born of sun and shower
In chambers purple with the Alpine glow,
Wrapped in the spotless ermine of the snow
And rocked by tempests!--at the appointed hour
Forth, like a steel-clad horseman from a tower,
With clang and clink of harness dost thou go
To meet thy vassal torrents, that below
Rush to receive thee and obey thy power.
And now thou movest in triumphal march,
A king among the rivers!    On thy way
A hundred towns await and welcome thee;
Bridges uplift for thee the stately arch,
Vineyards encircle thee with garlands gay,
And fleets attend thy progress to the sea!
To My Cottage.
by John Clare

Thou lowly cot, where first my breath I drew,
Past joys endear thee, childhood's past delight;
Where each young summer's pictur'd on my view;
And, dearer still, the happy winter-night,
When the storm pelted down with all his might,
And roar'd and bellow'd in the chimney-top,
And patter'd vehement 'gainst the window-light,
And on the threshold fell the quick eaves-drop.
How blest I've listen'd on my corner stool,
Heard the storm rage, and hugg'd my happy spot,
While the fond parent wound her whirring spool,
And spar'd a sigh for the poor wanderer's lot.
In thee, sweet hut, this happiness was prov'd,
And thee endear and make thee doubly lov'd.
The Victor.
by Margaret Steele Anderson

"Thou hast not lived! No aim of earth
Thy body serves, nor home nor birth;
No children's eyes look up to thee
To solace thy mortality."
"Thou hast not lived! Forbidden seas
Shut thee from Beauty's treasuries;
Not for those hungry eyes of thine
Her marbles gleam, her colors shine."
"Thou hast not lived! Hast never brought
To steadfast form thy hidden thought;
Striving to speak, thou still art mute.
And fain to bear, hast yet no fruit."
So spake the Tempter, at his plot,
But thee, my Soul, he counted not!
Who mad'st me stand, serene and free.
And give him answer dauntlessly:
"Yea, shapes of earth are sweet and near.
And home and child are very dear;
Yet do I live, to be denied
These things, and still be satisfied."
"Yea, Beauty's treasures all are barred
By one dark hand, so spare, so hard!
Yet do I live, who still can be
Their lover, though I may not see."
Yea, it is true that I have wrought
No form divine from secret thought;
Yet do I live, since fain am I
To work that marvel ere I die.
And if I fruitless seem to thee,
Yet hath my God some fruit of me;
Since I can hear thee out, and bear
A spirit still for dreams and prayer!"
A Prayer For The Followers Of Ideal Beauty
by Ethel Allen Murphy

(With a pencil sketch of an Angel by Botticelli)
Thou in whose All no work imperfect stands,
Thou who dost gaze on Beauty's unveiled face,
Grant to Thy children Thy sustaining grace,
When low at length have run the daylight sands,--
When, though their day was set to Thy commands,
They bow contritely in prayer's holy place,
Because through strivings beauty-wards they trace
The sad misshapings of their earthly hands:
Grant them at eve a soul devoutly still,
Grant them in dreams a vision of Thy light,
Grant them at morn a sorrow purged away
Into the peace of all-absolving night,
Star in the dawnlight of a fairer day,
Nearer the blossom of Thy perfect Will.
The Locust
by Madison Julius Cawein

Thou pulse of hotness, who, with reedlike breast,
Makest meridian music, long and loud,
Accentuating summer! - Dost thy best
To make the sunbeams fiercer, and to crowd
With lonesomeness the long, close afternoon - 
When Labor leans, swart-faced and beady-browed,
Upon his sultry scythe - thou tangible tune
Of heat, whose waves incessantly arise
Quivering and clear beneath the cloudless skies.
Thou singest, and upon his haggard hills
Drouth yawns and rubs his heavy eyes and wakes;
Brushes the hot hair from his face; and fills
The land with death as sullenly he takes
Downward his dusty way. 'Midst woods and fields
At every pool his burning thirst he slakes:
No grove so deep, no bank so high it shields
A spring from him; no creek evades his eye:
He needs but look and they are withered dry.
Thou singest, and thy song is as a spell
Of somnolence to charm the land with sleep;
A thorn of sound that pierces dale and dell,
Diffusing slumber over vale and steep.
Sleepy the forest, nodding sleepy boughs;
Sleepy the pastures with their sleepy sheep:
Sleepy the creek where sleepily the cows
Stand knee-deep; and the very heaven seems
Sleepy and lost in undetermined dreams.
Art thou a rattle that Monotony,
Summer's dull nurse, old sister of slow Time,
Shakes for Day's peevish pleasure, who in glee
Takes its discordant music for sweet rhyme?
Or oboe that the Summer Noontide plays,
Sitting with Ripeness 'neath the orchard tree,
Trying repeatedly the same shrill phrase,
Until the musky peach with weariness
Drops, and the hum of murmuring bees grows less?
To A Star.
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

Thou little star, that in the purple clouds
Hang'st, like a dew-drop, in a violet bed;
First gem of evening, glittering on the shrouds,
'Mid whose dark folds the day lies pale and dead:
As through my tears my soul looks up to thee,
Loathing the heavy chains that bind it here,
There comes a fearful thought that misery
Perhaps is found, even in thy distant sphere.
Art thou a world of sorrow and of sin,
The heritage of death, disease, decay,
A wilderness, like that we wander in,
Where all things fairest, soonest pass away?
And are there graves in thee, thou radiant world,
Round which life's sweetest buds fall withered,
Where hope's bright wings in the dark earth lie furled,
And living hearts are mouldering with the dead?
Perchance they do not die, that dwell in thee,
Perchance theirs is a darker doom than ours;
Unchanging woe, and endless misery,
And mourning that hath neither days nor hours.
Horrible dream! - Oh dark and dismal path,
Where I now weeping walk, I will not leave thee;
Earth has one boon for all her children - death:
Open thy arms, oh mother! and receive me!
Take off the bitter burthen from the slave,
Give me my birthright! give - the grave, the grave!
Veneration Of Images
by Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell

Thou man, first-comer, whose wide arms entreat,
Gather, clasp, welcome, bind,
Lack, or remember! whose warm pulses beat
With love of thine own kind;
Unlifted for a blessing on yon sea,
Unshrined on this high-way,
O flesh, O grief, thou too shalt have our knee,
Thou rood of every day!