DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
A Martyr
by Charles Baudelaire

Surrounded by flasks, and by spangled lames,
All matter of sumptuous goods,
Marble sculptures, fine paintings, and perfumed peignoirs
That trail in voluptuous folds,
In a room like a greenhouse, both stuffy and warm,
An atmosphere heavy with death,
Where arrangements of flowers encoffined in glass
Exhale their ultimate breath,
A headless cadaver spills out like a stream
On a pillow adorning the bed,
A flow of red blood, which the linen drinks up
With a thirsty meadow's greed.
Like pale apprehensions born in the dark,
And that enchain the eyes,
The head - the pile of its ebony mane
With precious jewels entwined
On the night table, like a ranunculus
Reposes; and a gaze,
Mindless and vague and as black as the dusk
Escapes from the pallid face.
On the bed the nude torso displays without shame
And most lasciviously,
The secret magnificence, fatal allure,
Of its nature's artistry;
On the leg, a pink stocking adorned with gold clocks
Remains like a souvenir;
The garter, a diamond-blazing eye,
Hurls a glance that is cold and severe.
The singular aspect of this solitude,
Like the portrait hung above
With eyes as enticing as languorous pose,
Reveals an unspeakable love,
Perverse entertainments and culpable joys
Full of devilish intimacies,
Which would make the dark angels swarm with delight
In the folds of the draperies;
And yet, to notice the elegant lines
Of the shoulder lean and lithe,
The haunch a bit pointed, the turn of the waist,
Like a snake aroused to strike,
She is still in her youth! Did her sickness of soul
And her senses gnawed by ennui
Open to her that depraved pack of lusts
And encourage them willingly?
That intractable man whom alive you could not,
Despite so much love, satisfy,
Did he there, on your still and amenable corpse,
His appetite gratify?
Tell me, cadaver! and by your stiff hair
Raising with feverous hand,
Terrible head, did he paste on your teeth
His kisses again and again?
Far away from the world, from the taunts of the mob,
Far from the prying police,
Strange creature, within your mysterious tomb
I bid you to sleep in peace.
Your bridegroom may roam, but the image of you
Stands by him wherever he rests;
As much as you, doubtless, the man will be true,
And faithful even till death.
Upon His Kinswoman, Mistress Bridget Herrick.
by Robert Herrick

Sweet Bridget blush'd, and therewithal
Fresh blossoms from her cheeks did fall.
I thought at first 'twas but a dream,
Till after I had handled them
And smelt them, then they smelt to me
As blossoms of the almond tree.
Nursery Rhyme. CCXLIX. Charms.
by Unknown

Swan swam over the sea - 
Swim, swan, swim;
Swan swam back again,
Well swam swan,
To A Brook
by John Clare

Sweet brook! I've met thee many a summer's day,
And ventured fearless in thy shallow flood,
And rambled oft thy sweet unwearied way,
'Neath willows cool that on thy margin stood,
With crowds of partners in my artless play--
Grasshopper, beetle, bee, and butterfly--
That frisked about as though in merry mood
To see their old companion sporting by.
Sweet brook! life's glories then were mine and thine;
Shade clothed thy spring that now doth naked lie;
On thy white glistening sand the sweet woodbine
Darkened and dipt its flowers. I mark, and sigh,
And muse o'er troubles since we met the last,
Like two fond friends whose happiness is past.
Itylus
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Swallow, my sister, O sister swallow,
How can thine heart be full of the spring?
A thousand summers are over and dead.
What hast thou found in the spring to follow?
What hast thou found in thine heart to sing?
What wilt thou do when the summer is shed?
O swallow, sister, O fair swift swallow,
Why wilt thou fly after spring to the south,
The soft south whither thine heart is set?
Shall not the grief of the old time follow?
Shall not the song thereof cleave to thy mouth?
Hast thou forgotten ere I forget?
Sister, my sister, O fleet sweet swallow,
Thy way is long to the sun and the south;
But I, fulfilled of my heart's desire,
Shedding my song upon height, upon hollow,
From tawny body and sweet small mouth
Feed the heart of the night with fire.
I the nightingale all spring through,
O swallow, sister, O changing swallow,
All spring through till the spring be done,
Clothed with the light of the night on the dew,
Sing, while the hours and the wild birds follow,
Take flight and follow and find the sun.
Sister, my sister, O soft light swallow,
Though all things feast in the spring's guest-chamber,
How hast thou heart to be glad thereof yet?
For where thou fliest I shall not follow,
Till life forget and death remember,
Till thou remember and I forget.
Swallow, my sister, O singing swallow,
I know not how thou hast heart to sing.
Hast thou the heart? is it all past over?
Thy lord the summer is good to follow,
And fair the feet of thy lover the spring:
But what wilt thou say to the spring thy lover?
O swallow, sister, O fleeting swallow,
My heart in me is a molten ember
And over my head the waves have met.
But thou wouldst tarry or I would follow,
Could I forget or thou remember,
Couldst thou remember and I forget.
O sweet stray sister, O shifting swallow,
The heart's division divideth us.
Thy heart is light as a leaf of a tree;
But mine goes forth among sea-gulfs hollow
To the place of the slaying of Itylus,
The feast of Daulis, the Thracian sea.
O swallow, sister, O rapid swallow,
I pray thee sing not a little space.
Are not the roofs and the lintels wet?
The woven web that was plain to follow,
The small slain body, the flowerlike face,
Can I remember if thou forget?
O sister, sister, thy first-begotten!
The hands that cling and the feet that follow,
The voice of the child's blood crying yet
Who hath remembered me? who hath forgotten?
Thou hast forgotten, O summer swallow,
But the world shall end when I forget.
A Romance Of The Saw-Dust.
by George Augustus Baker, Jr.

Suthin' to put in a story!
I couldn't think of a thing,
'N' it's nigh unto thirty year now
Since fust I went in the ring.
"The life excitin'?" Thunder!
"Variety," did you say?
You must have cur'us notions
'Bout circuses, anyway.
The things that look so risky
Aint nothin' to us but biz.
"Accidents" falls and sich like?
Sometimes, in course, there is.
But it's only a slip, or a stumble,
Some feller laid out flat,
It don't take more'n a second;
There aint no story in that.
'N' like as not, the tumble
Don't do no harm at all:
There's one gal here I tell yer,
She got an awful fall.
You know her Ma'am'selle Ida 
She's Jimmy Barnet's wife,
The prettiest little woman
You ever see in your life.
They was lovers when they was young uns,
No more'n two hands high.
She nussed Jim through a fever once,
When the doctors swore he'd die.
I taught 'em both the motions;
She never know'd no fear,
And they've done the trapeze together
For more'n a couple o' year.
Last Summer we took on a Spaniard,
A mis'rable kind of cuss,
Spry feller but awful tempered,
Always a-makin' a fuss.
He wanted to marry Ida 
His chance was pretty slim,
He did his best, but bless yer,
She'd never go back on Jim.
He acted up so foolish,
That Jim, one day, got riled
'N' guv him a reg'lar whalin';
That druv the Spaniard wild.
He talked like he was crazy,
'N' raved around, and swore
He'd kill 'em both; but Jim just laughed 
He'd heer'd such talk before.
One day, when we was showin'
In a little country town,
Jim mashed his hand with a hatchet,
Drivin' a tent stake down.
He couldn't work that night, nohow,
But the "trap" hed got to be done.
The Spaniard said he'd try it 
'N' they had to take him or none.
I knew Jim didn't like it,
'N' Ide looked scared and white 
"Look out for me, boys," she whispered,
"I'm goin' to fall to-night;"
Then she looked up with a shiver,
At the trapeze swingin' there,
A couple of bars and a rope or two
Forty feet up in the air.
But up she clumb he arter 
Stood up, but how Ide shook,
Then the Spaniard yelled like a devil,
"Now look, Jim Barnet! look!" 
With that he jumped 'n' gripped her;
She fought, but he broke her hold,
Grabbed at the rope, 'n' missed it 
Off of the bar they rolled,
Clinched, 'n' Ide a screamin';
Thud! they struck the ground;
I turned all sick and dizzy,
'N' everything went round.
How still it were for a second! 
It seemed like an hour 'n' then
The women was all a screechin',
'N' the ring was full of men.
Poor Jim was stoopin' to lift her,
But flopped right down, 'n' said,
Sez he, "Her lips is movin'!
She's breathin'! She isn't dead!"
For sure! he'd fallen under;
It kinder broke her fall;
Except the scare and a broken arm,
She wasn't hurt at all.
"The Spaniard?" Oh, it killed him;
It broke his cussed neck.
But nobody cried their eyes out,
As near as I reckeleck.
She married Jim soon arter,
They're doin' the trapeze still;
So, yer see, as I was sayin',
These falls don't always kill.
'N' as for things excitin'
To put in a story, well,
I'd really like to oblige yer,
But then there aint nothin' to tell.
On the Engraver of his Portrait.[1]
by William Cowper

Survey my Features--you will own it clear
That little skill has been exerted here.
My Friends, who know me not here smile to see
How ill the model and the work agree.
Another Translation of the Same.[2]
Look on myself--you will own at once
This Copy of me, taken by a Dunce.
My Friends, who gaze and guess not whom ye see,
Laugh! Would ye think it? He intended me!
Great Things
by Thomas Hardy

Sweet cyder is a great thing,
A great thing to me,
Spinning down to Weymouth town
By Ridgway thirstily,
And maid and mistress summoning
Who tend the hostelry:
O cyder is a great thing,
A great thing to me!
The dance it is a great thing,
A great thing to me,
With candles lit and partners fit
For night-long revelry;
And going home when day-dawning
Peeps pale upon the lea:
O dancing is a great thing,
A great thing to me!
Love is, yea, a great thing,
A great thing to me,
When, having drawn across the lawn
In darkness silently,
A figure flits like one a-wing
Out from the nearest tree:
O love is, yes, a great thing,
A great thing to me!
Will these be always great things,
Great things to me? . . .
Let it befall that One will call,
"Soul, I have need of thee:"
What then? Joy-jaunts, impassioned flings,
Love, and its ecstasy,
Will always have been great things,
Great things to me!
On the Engraver of his Portrait.1
by John Milton

Survey my Features, you will own it clear
That little skill has been exerted here.
My Friends, who know me not here smile to see
How ill the model and the work agree.
Another Translation of the Same.
Look on myself, you will own at once
This Copy of me, taken by a Dunce.
My Friends, who gaze and guess not whom ye see,
Laugh! Would ye think it? He intended me!
Upon Mrs Eliz. Wheeler, Under The Name Of Amarillis
by Robert Herrick

Sweet Amarillis, by a spring's
Soft and soul-melting murmurings,
Slept; and thus sleeping, thither flew
A Robin-red-breast; who at view,
Not seeing her at all to stir,
Brought leaves and moss to cover her:
But while he, perking, there did pry
About the arch of either eye,
The lid began to let out day,
At which poor Robin flew away;
And seeing her not dead, but all disleaved,
He chirpt for joy, to see himself deceived.
A Cradle Song
by William Blake

Sweet dreams, form a shade
O'er my lovely infant's head!
Sweet dreams of pleasant streams
By happy, silent, moony beams!
Sweet Sleep, with soft down
Weave thy brows an infant crown!
Sweet Sleep, angel mild,
Hover o'er my happy child!
Sweet smiles, in the night
Hover over my delight!
Sweet smiles, mother's smiles,
All the livelong night beguiles.
Sweet moans, dovelike sighs,
Chase not slumber from thy eyes!
Sweet moans, sweeter smiles,
All the dovelike moans beguiles.
Sleep, sleep, happy child!
All creation slept and smiled.
Sleep, sleep, happy sleep,
While o'er thee thy mother weep.
Sweet babe, in thy face
Holy image I can trace;
Sweet babe, once like thee
Thy Maker lay, and wept for me:
Wept for me, for thee, for all,
When He was an infant small.
Thou His image ever see,
Heavenly face that smiles on thee!
Smiles on thee, on me, on all,
Who became an infant small;
Infant smiles are His own smiles;
Heaven and earth to peace beguiles.
Sweet And Low
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Sweet and low, sweet and low,
Wind of the western sea,
Low, low, breathe and blow,
Wind of the western sea!
Over the rolling waters go,
Come from the dying moon, and blow,
Blow him again to me;
While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps.
Sleep and rest, sleep and rest,
Father will come to thee soon;
Rest, rest, on mother's breast,
Father will come to thee soon;
Father will come to his babe in the best,
Silver sails all out of the west,
Under the silver moon:
Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep.
A Song
by William Blake

Sweet dreams, form a shade
O'er my lovely infant's head!
Sweet dreams of pleasant streams
By happy, silent, moony beams!
Sweet Sleep, with soft down
Weave thy brows an infant crown
Sweet Sleep, angel mild,
Hover o'er my happy child!
Sweet smiles, in the night
Hover over my delight!
Sweet smiles, mother's smile,
All the livelong night beguile.
Sweet moans, dovelike sighs,
Chase not slumber from thine eyes!
Sweet moan, sweeter smile,
All the dovelike moans beguile.
Sleep, sleep, happy child!
All creation slept and smiled.
Sleep, sleep, happy sleep,
While o'er thee doth mother weep.
Sweet babe, in thy face
Holy image I can trace;
Sweet babe, once like thee
Thy Maker lay, and wept for me:
Wept for me, for thee, for all,
When He was an infant small.
Thou His image ever see,
Heavenly face that smiles on thee!
Smiles on thee, on me, on all,
Who became an infant small;
Infant smiles are his own smiles;
Heaven and earth to peace beguiles.
The Winter's Come
by John Clare

Sweet chestnuts brown like soling leather turn;
The larch trees, like the colour of the Sun;
That paled sky in the Autumn seemed to burn,
What a strange scene before us now does run--
Red, brown, and yellow, russet, black, and dun;
White thorn, wild cherry, and the poplar bare;
The sycamore all withered in the sun.
No leaves are now upon the birch tree there:
All now is stript to the cold wintry air.
See, not one tree but what has lost its leaves--
And yet the landscape wears a pleasing hue.
The winter chill on his cold bed receives
Foliage which once hung oer the waters blue.
Naked and bare the leafless trees repose.
Blue-headed titmouse now seeks maggots rare,
Sluggish and dull the leaf-strewn river flows;
That is not green, which was so through the year
Dark chill November draweth to a close.
Tis Winter, and I love to read indoors,
When the Moon hangs her crescent up on high;
While on the window shutters the wind roars,
And storms like furies pass remorseless by.
How pleasant on a feather bed to lie,
Or, sitting by the fire, in fancy soar
With Dante or with Milton to regions high,
Or read fresh volumes we've not seen before,
Or oer old Burton's Melancholy pore.
Single Life Most Secure.
by Robert Herrick

Suspicion, discontent, and strife
Come in for dowry with a wife.
Sweeping The Floor.
by George MacDonald

Sweep and sweep and sweep the floor,
Sweep the dust, pick up the pin;
Make it clean from fire to door,
Clean for father to come in!
Mother said that God goes sweeping,
Looking, sweeping with a broom,
All the time that we are sleeping,
For a shilling in the room:
Did he drop it out of glory,
Walking far above the birds?
Or did parson make the story
For the thinking afterwards?
If I were the swept-for shilling
I would hearken through the gloom;
Roll out fast, and fall down willing
Right before the sweeping broom!
Swags Up!
by John Le Gay Brereton

Swags up! and yet I turn upon the way.
The yellow hill against a dapple sky,
With tufts and clumps of thorn, the bush whereby
All through the wonder-pregnant night I lay
Until the silver stars were merged in grey
Our fragrant camp, demand a parting sigh:
New tracks, new camps, and hearts for ever high,
Yet brief regret with every welcome day.
Dear dreamy earth, receding flickering lamp,
Dear dust wherein I found this night a home,
Still for a memory's sake I turn and cling,
Then take the road for many a distant camp,
Among what hills, by what pale whispering foam,
With eager faith for ever wandering.
Edward Gray
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Sweet Emma Moreland of yonder town
Met me walking on yonder way;
'And have you lost your heart?' she said;
'And are you married yet, Edward Gray?'
Sweet Emma Moreland spoke to me;
Bitterly weeping I turn'd away:
'Sweet Emma Moreland, love no more
Can touch the heart of Edward Gray.
'Ellen Adair she loved me well,
Against her father's and mother's will;
To-day I sat for an hour and wept
By Ellen's grave, on the windy hill.
'Shy she was, and I thought her cold,
Thought her proud, and fled over the sea;
Fill'd I was with folly and spite,
When Ellen Adair was dying for me.
'Cruel, cruel the words I said!
Cruelly came they back to-day:
'You're too slight and fickle,' I said,
'To trouble the heart of Edward Gray.'
'There I put my face in the grass'
Whisper'd, 'Listen to my despair;
I repent me of all I did;
Speak a little, Ellen Adair!'
'Then I took a pencil, and wrote
On the mossy stone, as I lay,
'Here lies the body of Ellen Adair;
And here the heart of Edward Gray!'
'Love may come, and love may go,
And fly, like a bird, from tree to tree;
But I will love no more, no more,
Till Ellen Adair come back to me.
'Bitterly wept I over the stone;
Bitterly weeping I turn'd away.
There lies the body of Ellen Adair!
And there the heart of Edward Gray!'
Chimes
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Sweet chimes! that in the loneliness of night
Salute the passing hour, and in the dark
And silent chambers of the household mark
The movements of the myriad orbs of light!
Through my closed eyelids, by the inner sight,
I see the constellations in the arc
Of their great circles moving on, and hark!
I almost hear them singing in their flight.
Better than sleep it is to lie awake
O'er-canopied by the vast starry dome
Of the immeasurable sky; to feel
The slumbering world sink under us, and make
Hardly an eddy,--a mere rush of foam
On the great sea beneath a sinking keel.
Sweet Are The Flowers Of Life,[1]
by Louisa May Alcott

"Sweet are the flowers of life,
Swept o'er my happy days at home;
Sweet are the flowers of life
When I was a little child.
"Sweet are the flowers of life
That I spent with my father at home;
Sweet are the flowers of life
When children played about the house.
"Sweet are the flowers of life
When the lamps are lighted at night;
Sweet are the flowers of life
When the flowers of summer bloomed.
"Sweet are the flowers of life
Dead with the snows of winter;
Sweet are the flowers of life
When the days of spring come on.
(1) These lines were actually composed by a six-year old child.
Song. "Swamps Of Wild Rush-Beds"
by John Clare

Swamps of wild rush-beds, and sloughs' squashy traces,
Grounds of rough fallows with thistle and weed,
Flats and low vallies of kingcups and daisies,
Sweetest of subjects are ye for my reed:
Ye commons left free in the rude rags of nature,
Ye brown heaths be-clothed in furze as ye be,
My wild eye in nature adores every feature,
Ye are dear as this heart in my bosom to me.
O native endearments! I would not forsake ye,
I would not forsake ye for sweetest of scenes;
For sweetest of gardens that nature could make me,
I would not forsake ye, dear vallies and greens:
Tho' nature ne'er dropt ye a cloud-resting mountain,
Nor waterfalls tumble their music so free;
Had nature deny'd ye a bush, tree, or fountain,
Ye still had been lov'd as an Eden by me.
And long, my dear vallies, long, long may ye flourish,
Though rush-beds and thistles make most of your pride;
May showers never fail the green's daisies to nourish,
Nor suns dry the fountain that rills by its side.
Your skies may be gloomy, and misty your mornings,
Your flat swampy vallies unwholesome may be;
Still, refuse of nature, without her adornings
Ye are dear as this heart in my bosom to me.
To A Red Clover Blossom.
by John Clare

Sweet bottle-shaped flower of lushy red,
Born when the summer wakes her warmest breeze,
Among the meadow's waving grasses spread,
Or 'neath the shade of hedge or clumping trees,
Bowing on slender stem thy heavy head;
In sweet delight I view thy summer bed,
And list the drone of heavy humble-bees
Along thy honey'd garden gaily led,
Down corn-field, striped balks, and pasture-leas.
Fond warmings of the soul, that long have fled,
Revive my bosom with their kindlings still,
As I bend musing o'er thy ruddy pride;
Recalling days when, dropt upon a hill,
I cut my oaten trumpets by thy side.
On Julia's Lips.
by Robert Herrick

Sweet are my Julia's lips and clean,
As if o'erwashed in Hippocrene.
The Song Of Shadows
by Walter De La Mare

Sweep thy faint Strings, Musician,
With thy long lean hand;
Downward the starry tapers burn,
Sinks soft the waning sand;
The old hound whimpers couched in sleep,
The embers smoulder low;
Across the walls the shadows
Come, and go.
Sweep softly thy strings, Musician,
The minutes mount to hours;
Frost on the windless casement weaves
A labyrinth of flowers;
Ghosts linger in the darkening air,
Hearken at the open door;
Music hath called them, dreaming,
Home once more.
The Harp, And Despair, Of Cowper
by William Lisle Bowles

Sweet bard, whose tones great Milton might approve,
And Shakspeare, from high Fancy's sphere,
Turning to the sound his ear,
Bend down a look of sympathy and love;
Oh, swell the lyre again,
As if in full accord it poured an angel's strain!
But oh! what means that look aghast,
Ev'n whilst it seemed in holy trance,
On scenes of bliss above to glance!
Was it a fiend of darkness passed!
Oh, speak,
Paleness is upon his cheek,
On his brow the big drops stand,
To airy vacancy
Points the dread silence of his eye,
And the loved lyre it falls, falls from his nerveless hand!
Come, peace of mind, delightful guest!
Oh, come, and make thy downy nest
Once more on his sad heart!
Meek Faith, a drop of comfort shed;
Sweet Hope, support his aged head;
And Charity, avert the burning dart!
Fruitless the prayer, the night of deeper woes
Seems o'er the head even now to close;
In vain the path of purity he trod,
In vain, in vain,
He poured from Fancy's shell his sweetest hermit strain,
He has no hope on earth: forsake him not, O God!