DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Upon Julia's Riband.
by Robert Herrick

As shows the air when with a rainbow grac'd,
So smiles that riband 'bout my Julia's waist:
Or like - nay 'tis that zonulet of love,
Wherein all pleasures of the world are wove.
Hope
by William Lisle Bowles

As one who, long by wasting sickness worn,
Weary has watched the lingering night, and heard
Unmoved the carol of the matin bird
Salute his lonely porch; now first at morn
Goes forth, leaving his melancholy bed;
He the green slope and level meadow views,
Delightful bathed with slow-ascending dews;
Or marks the clouds, that o'er the mountain's head
In varying forms fantastic wander white;
Or turns his ear to every random song,
Heard the green river's winding marge along,
The whilst each sense is steeped in still delight.
So o'er my breast young Summer's breath I feel,
Sweet Hope! thy fragrance pure and healing incense steal!
Dedication - The Seaside And The Fireside
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

As one who, walking in the twilight gloom,
Hears round about him voices as it darkens,
And seeing not the forms from which they come,
Pauses from time to time, and turns and hearkens;
So walking here in twilight, O my friends!
I hear your voices, softened by the distance,
And pause, and turn to listen, as each sends
His words of friendship, comfort, and assistance.
If any thought of mine, or sung or told,
Has ever given delight or consolation,
Ye have repaid me back a thousand-fold,
By every friendly sign and salutation.
Thanks for the sympathies that ye have shown!
Thanks for each kindly word, each silent token,
That teaches me, when seeming most alone,
Friends are around us, though no word be spoken.
Kind messages, that pass from land to land;
Kind letters, that betray the heart's deep history,
In which we feel the pressure of a hand,--
One touch of fire,--and all the rest is mystery!
The pleasant books, that silently among
Our household treasures take familiar places,
And are to us as if a living tongue
Spice from the printed leaves or pictured faces!
Perhaps on earth I never shall behold,
With eye of sense, your outward form and semblance;
Therefore to me ye never will grow old,
But live forever young in my remembrance.
Never grow old, nor change, nor pass away!
Your gentle voices will flow on forever,
When life grows bare and tarnished with decay,
As through a leafless landscape flows a river.
Not chance of birth or place has made us friends,
Being oftentimes of different tongues and nations,
But the endeavor for the selfsame ends,
With the same hopes, and fears, and aspirations.
Therefore I hope to join your seaside walk,
Saddened, and mostly silent, with emotion;
Not interrupting with intrusive talk
The grand, majestic symphonies of ocean.
Therefore I hope, as no unwelcome guest,
At your warm fireside, when the lamps are lighted,
To have my place reserved among the rest,
Nor stand as one unsought and uninvited!
To The Lady Castlemain,[1] Upon Her Encouraging His First Play.
by John Dryden

As seamen, shipwreck'd on some happy shore,
Discover wealth in lands unknown before;
And, what their art had labour'd long in vain,
By their misfortunes happily obtain:
So my much-envied Muse, by storms long tost,
Is thrown upon your hospitable coast,
And finds more favour by her ill success,
Than she could hope for by her happiness.
Once Cato's virtue did the gods oppose;
While they the victor, he the vanquish'd chose:
But you have done what Cato could not do,
To choose the vanquish'd, and restore him too.
Let others triumph still, and gain their cause
By their deserts, or by the world's applause;
Let merit crowns, and justice laurels give,
But let me happy by your pity live.
True poets empty fame and praise despise;
Fame is the trumpet, but your smile the prize.
You sit above, and see vain men below
Contend for what you only can bestow:
But those great actions others do by chance,
Are, like your beauty, your inheritance;
So great a soul, such sweetness join'd in one,
Could only spring from noble Grandison.[2]
You, like the stars, not by reflection bright,
Are born to your own heaven, and your own light;
Like them are good, but from a nobler cause,
From your own knowledge, not from nature's laws.
Your power you never use, but for defence,
To guard your own, or other's innocence:
Your foes are such as they, not you, have made,
And virtue may repel, though not invade.
Such courage did the ancient heroes show,
Who, when they might prevent, would wait the blow:
With such assurance as they meant to say,
We will o'ercome, but scorn the safest way.
What further fear of danger can there be?
Beauty, which captives all things, sets me free.
Posterity will judge by my success.
I had the Grecian poet's happiness,
Who, waving plots, found out a better way;
Some god descended, and preserved the play.
When first the triumphs of your sex were sung
By those old poets, beauty was but young,
And few admired the native red and white,
Till poets dress'd them up to charm the sight;
So beauty took on trust, and did engage
For sums of praises till she came to age.
But this long-growing debt to poetry
You justly, madam, have discharged to me,
When your applause and favour did infuse
New life to my condemn'd and dying Muse.
Qua Cursum Ventus
by Arthur Hugh Clough

As ships, becalmed at eve, that lay
With canvas drooping, side by side,
Two towers of sail at dawn of day
Are scarce long leagues apart descried;
When fell the night, upsprung the breeze,
And all the darkling hours they plied,
Nor dreamt but each the selfsame seas
By each was cleaving, side by side:
E'en so--but why the tale reveal
Of those, whom year by year unchanged,
Brief absence joined anew to feel,
Astounded, soul from soul estranged?
At dead of night their sails were filled,
And onward each rejoicing steered--
Ah, neither blame, for neither willed,
Or wist, what first with dawn appeared!
To veer, how vain! On, onward strain,
Brave barks! In light, in darkness too,
Through winds and tides one compass guides--
To that, and your own selves, be true.
But O blithe breeze! and O great seas,
Though ne'er, that earliset parting past,
On your wide plain they join again,
Together lead them home at last.
One port, methought, alike they sought,
One purpose hold where'er they fare,--
O bounding breeze, O rushing seas!
At last, at last, unite them there!
Her Confession
by Thomas Hardy

As some bland soul, to whom a debtor says
"I'll now repay the amount I owe to you,"
In inward gladness feigns forgetfulness
That such a payment ever was his due
(His long thought notwithstanding), so did I
At our last meeting waive your proffered kiss
With quick divergent talk of scenery nigh,
By such suspension to enhance my bliss.
And as his looks in consternation fall
When, gathering that the debt is lightly deemed,
The debtor makes as not to pay at all,
So faltered I, when your intention seemed
Converted by my false uneagerness
To putting off for ever the caress.
W. P. V., 1865-67.
Heaven-Born Beauty. First Reading.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Per ritornar l'.
As one who will reseek her home of light,
Thy form immortal to this prison-house
Descended, like an angel piteous,
To heal all hearts and make the whole world bright.
'Tis this that thralls my soul in love's delight,
Not thy clear face of beauty glorious;
For he who harbours virtue, still will choose
To love what neither years nor death can blight.
So fares it ever with things high and rare
Wrought in the sweat of nature; heaven above
Showers on their birth the blessings of her prime:
Nor hath God deigned to show Himself elsewhere
More clearly than in human forms sublime;
Which, since they image Him, alone I love.
A Library.
by W. M. MacKeracher

As one, who, from an antechamber dim,
Is ushered suddenly to his surprise
Before a gathering of the great and wise,
Feels for the moment all his senses swim,
Then looks around him like a veteran grim
When peerless armies pass before his eyes,
Or Michael when he marshals in the skies
The embattled legions of the cherubim;
So shall the scholar pause within this door
With startled reverence, and proudly stand,
And feel that though the ages' flags are furled
By Time's rude breath, their spoils are here in store,
The riches of the race are at his hand,
And well-nigh all the glory of the world.
Uncalled
by Madison Julius Cawein

As one, who, journeying westward with the sun,
Beholds at length from the up-towering hills,
Far off, a land unspeakable beauty fills,
Circean peaks and vales of Avalon:
And, sinking weary, watches, one by one,
The big seas beat between; and knows it skills
No more to try; that now, as Heaven wills,
This is the helpless end, that all is done:
So 'tis with him, whom long a vision led
In quest of Beauty, and who finds at last
She lies beyond his effort. All the waves
Of all the world between them: While the dead,
The myriad dead, who people all the Past
With failure, hail him from forgotten graves.
Sonnet 12 To Lunacie
by Michael Drayton

As other men, so I my selfe doe muse,
Why in this sort I wrest Inuention so,
And why these giddy metaphors I vse,
Leauing the path the greater part doe goe;
I will resolue you; I am lunaticke,
And euer this in mad men you shall finde,
What they last thought on when the braine grew sick,
In most distraction keepe that still in minde.
Thus talking idely in this bedlam fit,
Reason and I, (you must conceiue) are twaine,
'Tis nine yeeres, now, since first I lost my wit
Beare with me, then, though troubled be my braine;
With diet and correction, men distraught,
(Not too farre past) may to their wits be brought.
Sonnets: Idea IX
by Michael Drayton

As other men, so I myself do muse
Why in this sort I wrest invention so,
And why these giddy metaphors I use,
Leaving the path the greater part do go.
I will resolve you. I'm a lunatic;
And ever this in madmen you shall find,
What they last thought of when the brain grew sick,
In most distraction they keep that in mind.
Thus talking idly in this bedlam fit,
Reason and I, you must conceive, are twain;
'Tis nine years now since first I lost my wit.
Bear with me then though troubled be my brain.
With diet and correction men distraught,
Not too far past, may to their wits be brought.
Cruisers
by Rudyard Kipling

As our mother the Frigate, bepainted and fine,
Made play for her bully the Ship of the Line;
So we, her bold daughters by iron and fire,
Accost and decoy to our masters' desire.
Now, pray you, consider what toils we endure,
Night-walking wet sea-lanes, a guard and a lure;
Since half of our trade is that same pretty sort
As mettlesome wenches do practise in port.
For this is our office to spy and make room,
As hiding yet guiding the foe to their doom;
Surrounding, confounding, we bait and betray
And tempt them to battle the seas' width away.
The pot-bellied merchant foreboding no wrong
With headlight and sidelight he lieth along,
Till, lightless and lightfoot and lurking, leap we
To force him discover his business by sea.
And when we have wakened the lust of a foe,
To draw him by flight toward our bullies we go,
Till, 'ware of strange smoke stealing nearer, he flies
Ere our bullies close in for to make him good prize.
So, when we have spied on the path of their host,
One flieth to carry that word to the coast;
And, lest by false doublings they turn and go free,
One lieth behind them to follow and see.
Anon we return, being gathered again,
Across the sad valleys all drabbled with rain 
Across the grey ridges all crisped and curled 
To join the long dance round the curve of the world.
The bitter salt spindrift, the sun-glare likewise,
The moon-track a-tremble, bewilders our eyes,
Where, linking and lifting, our sisters we hail
'Twixt wrench of cross-surges or plunge of head-gale.
As maidens awaiting the bride to come forth
Make play with light jestings and wit of no worth,
So, widdershins circling the bride-bed of death,
Each fleereth her neighbour and signeth and saith: 
"What see ye? Their signals, or levin afar?
"What hear ye? God's thunder, or guns of our war?
"What mark ye? Their smoke, or the cloud-rack outblown?
"What chase ye? Their lights, or the Daystar low down?"
So, times past all number deceived by false shows,
Deceiving we cumber the road of our foes,
For this is our virtue: to track and betray;
Preparing great battles a sea's width away.
Now peace is at end and our peoples take heart,
For the laws are clean gone that restrained our art;
Up and down the near headlands and against the far wind
We are loosed (O be swift!) to the work of our kind!
Sweet-Knot And Galamus
by James Whitcomb Riley

AN OLD SWEETHEART.
As one who cons at evening o'er an album all alone,
And muses on the faces of the friends that he has known,
So I turn the leaves of fancy till, in shadowy design,
I find the smiling features of an old sweetheart of mine.
The lamplight seems to glimmer with a flicker of surprise,
As I turn it low to rest me of the dazzle in my eyes,
And light my pipe in silence, save a sigh that seems to yoke
Its fate with my tobacco and to vanish with the smoke.
'Tis a fragrant retrospection - for the loving thoughts that start
Into being are like perfumes from the blossom of the heart;
And to dream the old dreams over is a luxury divine -
When my truant fancy wanders with that old sweeheart of mine.
Though I hear, beneath my study, like a fluttering of wings,
The voices of my children, and the mother as she sings,
I feel no twinge of conscience to deny me any theme
When care has cast her anchor in the harbor of a dream
In fact, to speak in earnest, I believe it adds a charm
To spice the good a trifle with a little dust of harm -
For I find an extra flavor in Memory's mellow wine
That makes me drink the deeper to that old sweetheart of mine.
A face of lily-beauty, with a form of airy grace,
Floats out of my tobacco as the genii from the vase;
And I thrill beneath the glances of a pair of azure eyes
As glowing as the summer and as tender as the skies.
I can see the pink sunbonnet and the little checkered dress
She wore when first I kissed her and she answered the caress
With the written declaration that, "as surely as the vine
Grew 'round the stump," she loved me - that old sweetheart of mine.
And again I feel the pressure of her slender little hand,
As we used to talk together of the future we had planned -
When I should be a poet, and with nothing else to do
But write the tender verses that she set the music to:
When we should live together in a cozy little cot
Hid in a nest of roses, with a fairy garden-spot,
Where the vines were ever fruited, and the weather ever fine,
And the birds were ever singing for that old sweetheart of mine:
When I should be her lover forever and a day,
And she my faithful sweetheart till the golden hair was gray;
And we should be so happy that when either's lips were dumb
They would not smile in Heaven till the other's kiss had come.
*        *        *        *        *
But, ah! my dream is broken by a step upon the stair,
And the door is softly opened, and - my wife is standing there;
Yet with eagerness and rapture all my visions I resign
To greet the living presence of that old sweetheart of mine.
Uncalled
by Madison Julius Cawein

As one, who, journeying westward with the sun,
Beholds at length from the up-towering hills,
Far-off, a land unspeakable beauty fills,
Circean peaks and vales of Avalon:
And, sinking weary, watches, one by one,
The big seas beat between; and knows it skills
No more to try; that now, as Heaven wills,
This is the helpless end, that all is done:
So 'tis with him, whom long a vision led
In quest of Beauty; and who finds at last
She lies beyond his effort; all the waves
Of all the world between them: while the dead,
The myriad dead, who people all the past
With failure, hail him from forgotten graves.
Sic Semper Liberatoribus!
by Emma Lazarus

March 13, 1881.
As one who feels the breathless nightmare grip
His heart-strings, and through visioned horrors fares,
Now on a thin-ledged chasm's rock-crumbling lip,
Now on a tottering pinnacle that dare
The front of heaven, while always unawares
Weird monsters start above, around, beneath,
Each glaring from some uglier mask of death,
So the White Czar imperial progress made
Through terror-haunted days.    A shock, a cry
Whose echoes ring the globe - the spectre's laid.
Hurled o'er the abyss, see the crowned martyr lie
Resting in peace - fear, change, and death gone by.
Fit end for nightmare - mist of blood and tears,
Red climax to the slow, abortive years.
The world draws breath - one long, deep-shuddering sigh,
At that which dullest brain prefigured clear
As swift-sure bolt from thunder-threatening sky.
How heaven-anointed humblest lots appear
Beside his glittering eminence of fear;
His spiked crown, sackcloth purple, poisoned cates,
His golden palace honey-combed with hates.
Well is it done!    A most heroic plan,
Which after myriad plots succeeds at last
In robbing of his life this poor old man,
Whose sole offense - his birthright - has but passed
To fresher blood, with younger strength recast.
What men are these, who, clamoring to be free,
Would bestialize the world to what they be?
Whose sons are they who made the snow-wreathed head
Their frenzy's target?    In their Russian veins,
What alien current urged on to smite him dead,
Whose word had loosed a million Russian chains?
What brutes were they for whom such speechless pains,
So royally endured, no human thrill
Awoke, in hearts drunk with the lust to kill?
Not brutes!    No tiger of the wilderness,
No jackal of the jungle, bears such brand
As man's black heart, who shrinks not to confess
The desperate deed of his deliberate hand.
Our kind, our kin, have done this thing.    We stand
Bowed earthward, red with shame, to see such wrong
Prorogue Love's cause and Truth's - God knows how long!
With a Copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets on Leaving College
by Alan Seeger

As one of some fat tillage dispossessed,
Weighing the yield of these four faded years,
If any ask what fruit seems loveliest,
What lasting gold among the garnered ears, - 
Ah, then I'll say what hours I had of thine,
Therein I reaped Time's richest revenue,
Read in thy text the sense of David's line,
Through thee achieved the love that Shakespeare knew.
Take then his book, laden with mine own love
As flowers made sweeter by deep-drunken rain,
That when years sunder and between us move
Wide waters, and less kindly bonds constrain,
Thou may'st turn here, dear boy, and reading see
Some part of what thy friend once felt for thee.
Whear Natur Missed it.
by John Hartley

As Rueben wor smookin his pipe tother neet,
Bi th' corner o'th' little "Slip Inn;"
He spied some fowk marchin, an fancied he heeard
A varry queer sooart ov a din.
As nearer they coom he sed, "Bless mi life!
What means all this hullaballoo?
If they dooant stop that din they'll sewer get run in,
An just sarve 'em reight if they do."
But as they approached, he saw wi' surprise,
They seemed a respectable lot;
An th' hymn at they sung he'd net heeard for soa long,
Wol he felt fairly rooited to th' spot.
I'th' front wor a woman who walked backards rooad,
Beatin time wi' a big umberel,
An he sed, "Well, aw'll bet, that licks all aw've seen yet,
What they'll do next noa mortal can tell."
On they coom like a flood, an shoo saw Rueben stood, - 
An her een seemed fair blazin wi' leet;
"Halt!" shoo cried, an shoo went an varry sooin sent
Rueben's pipe flyin off into th' street.
"Young man," shoo began, "if yo had been born
To smoke that old pipe, then insteead,
Ov a nice crop o' hair Natur wod a put thear
A chimly at top o' thi heead."
Rueben felt rather mad, for 'twor all th' pipe he had,
An he sed, "Well, that happen mud be;
But aw'm nobbut human, an thee bein a woman
Has proved a salvation to thee.
If a chap had done that aw'd ha knocked him daan flat,
But wi' yo its a different thing;
But aw'm thinkin someha, th' same law will allaa
Me too smook, at allaas yo to sing."
Shoo gloored in his face an went back to her place,
As shoo gave him a witherin luk;
An swung her umbrel, - ovverbalanced, an fell
An ligg'd sprawlin her length amang th' muck.
All her army seemed dumb, an th' chap wi' th' big drum,
Turned a bulnex, an let on her chest;
Wol th' fiddles an flute wor ivvery one mute,
An th' tamborines tuk a short rest.
Then Rueben drew near, an he sed in her ear,
As he lifted her onto her feet;
"Sometimes its as wise when we start to advise,
To be mindful we're net indiscreet.
If yo'd been intended to walk backardsway,
To save yo from gettin that bump,
Dame Natur, in kindness, aw'll ventur to say,
Wod ha planted a e'e i' yor bustle."
Chance Upon
by Paul Cameron Brown

As she's lying there in sherbet panties
looking somewhat disaffected, a nez perce
expression bordered by sleep,
think of the Sultan's regalia
his entourage of kings
chance upon dark laughter from Saladein's[1] concubines,
Nell's[2] white turn of the knee
or the pretty bosom of a Confederate
officer's belle . . . all satin & lace ...
perhaps, again, the splendid neck
of Titian's choicest nude.
To further turn the phrase,
ponder a basket of fruit - 
the sexual omnipotence
of its texture a dreamy sensuality
thickened by red Emperor grapes
ripened against the elongated nails
of a Pompadour's[3] milk white hand.
[1] Richard the Lion Hearted's adversary
[2] The Merrie Monarch's favourite mistress
[3] Louis xv's courtesan and adviser
The Heron.
by Madison Julius Cawein

EVENING.
As slaughter red the long creek crawls
From solitary forest walls,
Out where the eve's wild glory falls.
One wiry leg drowned in his breast,
Neck-shrunk, flame-gilded with the West,
Stark-stately he the evening wears.
NIGHT.
The whimp'ring creek breaks on the stone;
The new moon came, but now is gone;
White, tingling stars wink out alone.
Lank specter of wet, windy lands,
The melancholy heron stands;
Then, clamoring, dives into the stars.
Camma
by Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde

(To Ellen Terry)
As one who poring on a Grecian urn
Scans the fair shapes some Attic hand hath made,
God with slim goddess, goodly man with maid,
And for their beauty's sake is loth to turn
And face the obvious day, must I not yearn
For many a secret moon of indolent bliss,
When in midmost shrine of Artemis
I see thee standing, antique-limbed, and stern?
And yet methinks I'd rather see thee play
That serpent of old Nile, whose witchery
Made Emperors drunken, come, great Egypt, shake
Our stage with all thy mimic pageants! Nay,
I am grown sick of unreal passions, make
The world thine Actium, me thine Anthony!
The House-Hunter.
by W. M. MacKeracher

As one who finds his house no longer fit,
Too narrow for his needs, in nothing right,
Wanting in every homelike requisite,
Devoid of beauty, barren of delight,
Goes forth from door to door and street to street,
With eager-eyed expectancy to find
A new abode for his convenience meet,
Spacious, commodious, fair, and to his mind;
So living souls recurrently outgrow
Their mental tenements; their tastes appear
Too sordid, and their aims too cramped and low.
And they keep moving onward year by year,
Each dwelling in its turn prepared to leave
For one more like the mansion they conceive.