DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Bad Wages For Good Service.
by Robert Herrick

In this misfortune kings do most excel,
To hear the worst from men when they do well.
Dupont's Round Fight.
by Herman Melville

(November, 1861.)
In time and measure perfect moves
All Art whose aim is sure;
Evolving ryhme and stars divine
Have rules, and they endure.
Nor less the Fleet that warred for Right,
And, warring so, prevailed,
In geometric beauty curved,
And in an orbit sailed.
The rebel at Port Royal felt
The Unity overawe,
And rued the spell. A type was here,
And victory of Law.
In Those Old Days
by John Frederick Freeman

In those old days you were called beautiful,
But I have worn the beauty from your face;
The flowerlike bloom has withered on your cheek
With the harsh years, and the fire in your eyes
Burns darker now and deeper, feeding on
Beauty and the remembrance of things gone.
Even your voice is altered when you speak,
Or is grown mute with old anxiety
For me.
Even as a fire leaps into flame and burns
Leaping and laughing in its lovely flight,
And then under the flame a glowing dome
Deepens slowly into blood-like light:--
So did you flame and in flame take delight,
So are you hollow'd now with aching fire.
But I still warm me and make there my home,
Still beauty and youth burn there invisibly
For me.
Now my lips falling on your silver'd skull,
My fingers in the valleys of your cheeks,
Or my hands in your thin strong hands fast caught,
Your body clutched to mine, mine bent to yours:
Now love undying feeds on love beautiful,
Now, now I am but thought kissing your thought ...
--And can it be in your heart's music speaks
A deeper rhythm hearing mine: can it be
Indeed for me?
Oil And Blood
by William Butler Yeats

In tombs of gold and lapis lazuli
Bodies of holy men and women exude
Miraculous oil, odour of violet.
But under heavy loads of trampled clay
Lie bodies of the vampires full of blood;
Their shrouds are bloody and their lips are wet.
The White Island: Or Place Of The Blest
by Robert Herrick

In this world, the Isle of Dreams,
While we sit by sorrow's streams,
Tears and terrors are our themes,
Reciting:
But when once from hence we fly,
More and more approaching nigh
Unto young eternity,
Uniting
In that whiter Island, where
Things are evermore sincere:
Candour here, and lustre there,
Delighting:
There no monstrous fancies shall
Out of hell an horror call,
To create, or cause at all
Affrighting.
There, in calm and cooling sleep,
We our eyes shall never steep,
But eternal watch shall keep,
Attending
Pleasures such as shall pursue
Me immortalized, and you;
And fresh joys, as never too
Have ending.
Absence
by Matthew Arnold

In this fair stranger's eyes of grey
Thine eyes, my love, I see.
I shudder: for the passing day
Had borne me far from thee.
This is the curse of life: that not
A nobler calmer train
Of wiser thoughts and feelings blot
Our passions from our brain;
But each day brings its petty dust
Our soon-chok'd souls to fill,
And we forget because we must,
And not because we will.
I struggle towards the light; and ye,
Once-long'd-for storms of love!
If with the light ye cannot be,
I bear that ye remove.
I struggle towards the light; but oh,
While yet the night is chill,
Upon Time's barren, stormy flow,
Stay with me, Marguerite, still!
F. W. Hohenzollern
by Oliver Herford

In things like this I've always tried
To look upon the Brighter Side;
And when I see the Prince, I say
"The Crown's worth something anyway."
A Strain Of Music
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

In through the open window
To the chamber where I lay,
There came the beat of merry feet,
From the dancers over the way.
And back on the wings of the music
That rose on the midnight air,
My rare youth came and spoke my name,
And lo!    I was young and fair.
Once more in the glitter of gaslight
I stood in my life's glad prime:
And heart and feet in a rhythm sweet
Were keeping the music's time.
Like a leaf in the breeze of summer
I drifted down the hall,
On an arm that is cold with death and mould,
And is hidden under the pall.
Once more at a low voice's whisper
(A voice that is long since stilled)
I felt the flush of a rising blush,
And my pulses leaped and thrilled.
Once more in a sea of faces,
I only saw one face;
And life grew bright with a new delight,
And sweet with a nameless grace.
A crash of passionate music,
A hush and a silence then;
The dancers rest in their pleasure quest,
And lo!    I am old again.
Old and alone in my chamber,
While the night wears wearily on,
And the pallid wraith of a broken faith -
Keeps watch with me till the dawn.
Corner Stone Laying.
by James McIntyre

The following lines were read at the festival after the stone had been laid by Grand Master Col. Moffat, of a church on the Culloden road, with Masonic honors.
In this quiet spot this day of June,
Which will not be forgotten soon,
For when your little church on hill
You overflowingly did fill,
You then resolved there should arise
Church worthy of your enterprise,
You've laid foundation broad and deep,
And showers of blessings may you reap.
Craft of King Hiram and Saint John
Have come to lay the corner stone,
At the call of our Grand Master
Who was invited by your pastor,
With silver trowel all so fair
He laid foundation on the square,
May you be blessed with Christian love,
And we all meet in Lodge above.
Memorials Of A Tour Of Scotland, 1803 VI. Glen-Almain, Or, The Narrow Glen
by William Wordsworth

In this still place, remote from men,
Sleeps Ossian, in the NARROW GLEN;
In this still place, where murmurs on
But one meek streamlet, only one:
He sang of battles, and the breath
Of stormy war, and violent death;
And should, methinks, when all was past,
Have rightfully been laid at last
Where rocks were rudely heaped, and rent
As by a spirit turbulent;
Where sights were rough, and sounds were wild,
And everything unreconciled;
In some complaining, dim retreat,
For fear and melancholy meet;
But this is calm; there cannot be
A more entire tranquillity.
Does then the Bard sleep here indeed?
Or is it but a groundless creed?
What matters it? I blame them not
Whose Fancy in this lonely Spot
Was moved; and in such way expressed
Their notion of its perfect rest.
A convent, even a hermit's cell,
Would break the silence of this Dell:
It is not quiet, is not ease;
But something deeper far than these:
The separation that is here
Is of the grave; and of austere
Yet happy feelings of the dead:
And, therefore, was it rightly said
That Ossian, last of all his race!
Lies buried in this lonely place.
Upon Prew His Maid
by Robert Herrick

In this little Urne is laid
Prewdence Baldwin (once my maid)
From whose happy spark here let
Spring the purple violet.
In These Fair Vales Hath Many A Tree
by William Wordsworth

In these fair vales hath many a Tree
At Wordsworth's suit been spared;
And from the builder's hand this Stone,
For some rude beauty of its own,
Was rescued by the Bard:
So let it rest; and time will come
When here the tender-hearted
May heave a gentle sigh for him,
As one of the departed.
Prologue[1] To His Royal Highness,
by John Dryden

UPON HIS FIRST APPEARANCE AT THE DUKE'S THEATRE, AFTER HIS RETURN FROM SCOTLAND, 1682.
In those cold regions which no summers cheer,
Where brooding darkness covers half the year,
To hollow caves the shivering natives go;
Bears range abroad, and hunt in tracks of snow:
But when the tedious twilight wears away,
And stars grow paler at the approach of day,
The longing crowds to frozen mountains run;
Happy who first can see the glimmering sun:
The surly savage offspring disappear,
And curse the bright successor of the year.
Yet, though rough bears in covert seek defence,
White foxes stay, with seeming innocence:
That crafty kind with daylight can dispense.
Still we are throng'd so full with Reynard's race,
That loyal subjects scarce can find a place:
Thus modest truth is cast behind the crowd:
Truth speaks too low: hypocrisy too loud.
Let them be first to flatter in success;
Duty can stay, but guilt has need to press.
Once, when true zeal the sons of God did call,
To make their solemn show at heaven's Whitehall,
The fawning Devil appear'd among the rest,
And made as good a courtier as the best.
The friends of Job, who rail'd at him before,
Came, cap in hand, when he had three times more.
Yet late repentance may, perhaps, be true;
Kings can forgive, if rebels can but sue:
A tyrant's power in rigour is express'd;
The father yearns in the true prince's breast.
We grant, an o'ergrown Whig no grace can mend;
But most are babes, that know not they offend.
The crowd, to restless motion still inclined,
Are clouds, that tack according to the wind.
Driven by their chiefs, they storms of hailstones pour;
Then mourn, and soften to a silent shower.
O welcome to this much-offending land,
The prince that brings forgiveness in his hand!
Thus angels on glad messages appear:
Their first salute commands us not to fear.
Thus Heaven, that could constrain us to obey,
(With reverence if we might presume to say)
Seems to relax the rights of sovereign sway:
Permits to man the choice of good and ill,
And makes us happy by our own free will.
The Giantess
by Charles Baudelaire

In times when madcap Nature in her verve
Conceived each day a hatch of monstrous spawn,
I might have lived near some young giantess,
Like a voluptuous cat before a queen
To watch her body tlower with her soul,
And grow up freely in her dreadful play;
To guess about a passion's sombre tlame
Bom in the mists that swim within her eyes.
At leisure to explore her mighty forms;
To climb the slopes of her enormous knees,
And sometimes, when the summer's tainted suns
Had lain her out across the countryside,
To drowse in nonchalance below her breast,
Like a calm village in the mountain's shade.
Epistle To Hugh Parker.
by Robert Burns

In this strange land, this uncouth clime,
A land unknown to prose or rhyme;
Where words ne'er crost the muse's heckles,
Nor limpet in poetic shackles:
A land that prose did never view it,
Except when drunk he stacher't thro' it,
Here, ambush'd by the chimla cheek,
Hid in an atmosphere of reek,
I hear a wheel thrum i' the neuk,
I hear it, for in vain I leuk.
The red peat gleams, a fiery kernel,
Enhusked by a fog infernal:
Here, for my wonted rhyming raptures,
I sit and count my sins by chapters;
For life and spunk like ither Christians,
I'm dwindled down to mere existence,
Wi' nae converse but Gallowa' bodies,
Wi' nae kend face but Jenny Geddes.[1]
Jenny, my Pegasean pride!
Dowie she saunters down Nithside,
And ay a westlin leuk she throws,
While tears hap o'er her auld brown nose!
Was it for this, wi' canny care,
Thou bure the bard through many a shire?
At howes or hillocks never stumbled,
And late or early never grumbled?
O had I power like inclination,
I'd heeze thee up a constellation,
To canter with the Sagitarre,
Or loup the ecliptic like a bar;
Or turn the pole like any arrow;
Or, when auld Phoebus bids good-morrow,
Down the zodiac urge the race,
And cast dirt on his godship's face;
For I could lay my bread and kail
He'd ne'er cast saut upo' thy tail.
Wi' a' this care and a' this grief,
And sma,' sma' prospect of relief,
And nought but peat reek i' my head,
How can I write what ye can read?
Tarbolton, twenty-fourth o' June,
Ye'll find me in a better tune;
But till we meet and weet our whistle,
Tak this excuse for nae epistle.
ROBERT BURNS.
The Village Street
by Abijah M. Ide

In these rapid, restless shadows,
Once I walked at eventide,
When a gentle, silent maiden,
Walked in beauty at my side
She alone there walked beside me
All in beauty, like a bride.
Pallidly the moon was shining
On the dewy meadows nigh;
On the silvery, silent rivers,
On the mountains far and high
On the ocean's star-lit waters,
Where the winds a-weary die.
Slowly, silently we wandered
From the open cottage door,
Underneath the elm's long branches
To the pavement bending o'er;
Underneath the mossy willow
And the dying sycamore.
With the myriad stars in beauty
All bedight, the heavens were seen,
Radiant hopes were bright around me,
Like the light of stars serene;
Like the mellow midnight splendor
Of the Night's irradiate queen.
Audibly the elm-leaves whispered
Peaceful, pleasant melodies,
Like the distant murmured music
Of unquiet, lovely seas:
While the winds were hushed in slumber
In the fragrant flowers and trees.
Wondrous and unwonted beauty
Still adorning all did seem,
While I told my love in fables
'Neath the willows by the stream;
Would the heart have kept unspoken
Love that was its rarest dream!
Instantly away we wandered
In the shadowy twilight tide,
She, the silent, scornful maiden,
Walking calmly at my side,
With a step serene and stately,
All in beauty, all in pride.
Vacantly I walked beside her.
On the earth mine eyes were cast;
Swift and keen there came unto me
Bitter memories of the past
On me, like the rain in Autumn
On the dead leaves, cold and fast.
Underneath the elms we parted,
By the lowly cottage door;
One brief word alone was uttered
Never on our lips before;
And away I walked forlornly,
Broken-hearted evermore.
Slowly, silently I loitered,
Homeward, in the night, alone;
Sudden anguish bound my spirit,
That my youth had never known;
Wild unrest, like that which cometh
When the Night's first dream hath flown.
Now, to me the elm-leaves whisper
Mad, discordant melodies,
And keen melodies like shadows
Haunt the moaning willow trees,
And the sycamores with laughter
Mock me in the nightly breeze.
Sad and pale the Autumn moonlight
Through the sighing foliage streams;
And each morning, midnight shadow,
Shadow of my sorrow seems;
Strive, O heart, forget thine idol!
And, O soul, forget thy dreams!
Lines Written In Kensington Gardens
by Matthew Arnold

In this lone, open glade I lie,
Screen'd by deep boughs on either hand;
And at its end, to stay the eye,
Those black-crown'd, red-boled pine-trees stand!
Birds here make song, each bird has his,
Across the girdling city's hum.
How green under the boughs it is!
How thick the tremulous sheep-cries come!
Sometimes a child will cross the glade
To take his nurse his broken toy;
Sometimes a thrush flit overhead
Deep in her unknown day's employ.
Here at my feet what wonders pass,
What endless, active life is here!
What blowing daisies, fragrant grass!
An air-stirr'd forest, fresh and clear.
Scarce fresher is the mountain-sod
Where the tired angler lies, stretch'd out,
And, eased of basket and of rod,
Counts his day's spoil, the spotted trout.
In the huge world, which roars hard by,
Be others happy if they can!
But in my helpless cradle I
Was breathed on by the rural Pan.
I, on men's impious uproar hurl'd,
Think often, as I hear them rave,
That peace has left the upper world
And now keeps only in the grave.
Yet here is peace for ever new!
When I who watch them am away,
Still all things in this glade go through
The changes of their quiet day.
Then to their happy rest they pass!
The flowers upclose, the birds are fed,
The night comes down upon the grass,
The child sleeps warmly in his bed.
Calm soul of all things! make it mine
To feel, amid the city's jar,
That there abides a peace of thine,
Man did not make, and cannot mar.
The will to neither strive nor cry,
The power to feel with others give!
Calm, calm me more! nor let me die
Before I have begun to live.
Moving On
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

In this war we're always moving,
Moving on;
When we make a friend another friend has gone;
Should a woman's kindly face
Make us welcome for a space,
Then it's boot and saddle, boys, we're
Moving on.
In the hospitals they're moving,
Moving on;
They're here today, tomorrow they are gone;
When the bravest and the best
Of the boys you know "go west",
Then you're choking down your tears and
Moving on.
Sonnet VI. Written At Lichfield, In An Eastern Apartment Of The Bishop's Palace, Which Commands A View Of Stow Valley.
by Anna Seward

In this chill morning of a wintry Spring
I look into the gloom'd and rainy vale;
The sullen clouds, the stormy winds assail,
Lour on the fields, and with impetuous wing
Disturb the lake: - but Love and Memory cling
To their known scene, in this cold influence pale;
Yet priz'd, as when it bloom'd in Summer's gale,
Ting'd by his setting sun. - When Sorrows fling,
Or slow Disease, thus, o'er some beauteous Form
Their shadowy languors, Form, devoutly dear
As thine to me, HONORA, with more warm
And anxious gaze the eyes of Love sincere
Bend on the charms, dim in their tintless snow,
Than when with health's vermilion hues they glow.
To Flowers.
by Robert Herrick

In time of life I graced ye with my verse;
Do now your flowery honours to my hearse.
You shall not languish, trust me; virgins here
Weeping shall make ye flourish all the year.
On Hearing The Princess Royal[1] Sing.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Dans ta haute demeure.")
[Bk. III. ix., 1881.]
In thine abode so high
Where yet one scarce can breathe,
Dear child, most tenderly
A soft song thou dost wreathe.
Thou singest, little girl - 
Thy sire, the King is he:
Around thee glories whirl,
But all things sigh in thee.
Thy thought may seek not wings
Of speech; dear love's forbidden;
Thy smiles, those heavenly things,
Being faintly born, are chidden.
Thou feel'st, poor little Bride,
A hand unknown and chill
Clasp thine from out the wide
Deep shade so deathly still.
Thy sad heart, wingless, weak,
Is sunk in this black shade
So deep, thy small hands seek,
Vainly, the pulse God made.
Thou art yet but highness, thou
That shaft be majesty:
Though still on thy fair brow
Some faint dawn-flush may be,
Child, unto armies dear,
Even now we mark heaven's light
Dimmed with the fume and fear
And glory of battle-might.
Thy godfather is he,
Earth's Pope, - he hails thee, child!
Passing, armed men you see
Like unarmed women, mild.
As saint all worship thee;
Thyself even hast the strong
Thrill of divinity
Mingled with thy small song.
Each grand old warrior
Guards thee, submissive, proud;
Mute thunders at thy door
Sleep, that shall wake most loud.
Around thee foams the wild
Bright sea, the lot of kings.
Happier wert thou, my child,
I' the woods a bird that sings!
NELSON R. TYERMAN.
On The Bust Of Helen By Canova.[576]
by George Gordon Byron

In this belov'd marble view
Above the works and thoughts of Man,
What Nature could but would not do,
And Beauty and Canova can!
Beyond Imagination's power,
Beyond the Bard's defeated art,
With Immortality her dower,
Behold the Helen of the heart.
November 23, 1816.
[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 61.]
The Monk's Walk
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

In this sombre garden close
What has come and passed, who knows?
What red passion, what white pain
Haunted this dim walk in vain?
Underneath the ivied wall,
Where the silent shadows fall,
Lies the pathway chill and damp
Where the world-quit dreamers tramp.
Just across, where sunlight burns,
Smiling at the mourning ferns,
Stand the roses, side by side,
Nodding in their useless pride.
Ferns and roses, who shall say
What you witness day by day?
Covert smile or dropping eye,
As the monks go pacing by.
Has the novice come to-day
Here beneath the wall to pray?
Has the young monk, lately chidden,
Sung his lyric, sweet, forbidden?
Tell me, roses, did you note
That pale father's throbbing throat?
Did you hear him murmur, "Love!"
As he kissed a faded glove?
Mourning ferns, pray tell me why
Shook you with that passing sigh?
Is it that you chanced to spy
Something in the Abbot's eye?
Here no dream, nor thought of sin,
Where no worlding enters in;
Here no longing, no desire,
Heat nor flame of earthly fire.
Branches waving green above,
Whisper naught of life nor love;
Softened winds that seem a breath,
Perfumed, bring no fear of death.
Is it living thus to live?
Has life nothing more to give?
Ah, no more of smile or sigh--
Life, the world, and love, good-bye.
Gray, and passionless, and dim,
Echoing of the solemn hymn,
Lies the walk, 'twixt fern and rose,
Here within the garden close.
The Winds
by John Frederick Freeman

In these green fields, in this green spring,
In this green world of burning sweet
That drives its sour from everything
And burns the Arctic with new heat,
That seems so slow and flies so fleet
On half-seen wing;
In this green world the birds are all
With motion mad, are wild with song;
The grass leaps like a sudden wall
Flung up against a foe that long
Strode round and wrought his frosty wrong.
The bright winds call,
The bright winds answer; the clouds rise
White from the grave, shaking their head,
Strewing the grave-clothes through the skies,
In languid drifting shadow shed
Upon the fields where, slowly spread,
Each shadow dies.
In every wood is green and gold,
The unbridged river runs all green
With queenly swan-clouds floating bold
Down to the mill's swift guillotine.
Beyond the mill each murdered queen
Floats white and cold.
--If I could rise up in a cloud
And look down on the new earth in flight,
Shadow-like cast my thought's thin shroud
Back upon these fields of light;
And hear the winds of day and night
Meet, singing loud!
Lines Written In A Mental Album.
by James McIntyre

Where each one expressed some sentiment.
In this album you may trace,
If not the lineaments of face,
There at least you will find
Photographs of the mind.
Some in earnest some in fun,
Some do lecture some do pun,
Here the maiden and the youth,
Each proclaim some precious truth.
And there is here some fine pages,
Written by maturer ages,
Where they show that time is brief,
That soon comes sere and yellow leaf.
The King Of Thule.*
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In Thule lived a monarch,
Still faithful to the grave,
To whom his dying mistress
A golden goblet gave.
Beyond all price he deem'd it,
He quaff'd it at each feast;
And, when he drain'd that goblet,
His tears to flow ne'er ceas'd.
And when he felt death near him,
His cities o'er he told,
And to his heir left all things,
But not that cup of gold.
A regal banquet held he
In his ancestral ball,
In yonder sea-wash'd castle,
'Mongst his great nobles all.
There stood the aged reveller,
And drank his last life's-glow, 
Then hurl'd the holy goblet
Into the flood below.
He saw it falling, filling,
And sinking 'neath the main,
His eyes then closed for ever,
He never drank again.
A Singer Asleep
by Thomas Hardy

(Algernon Charles Swinburne, 1837-1909)
I
In this fair niche above the unslumbering sea,
That sentrys up and down all night, all day,
From cove to promontory, from ness to bay,
The Fates have fitly bidden that he should be Pillowed eternally.
II
- It was as though a garland of red roses
Had fallen about the hood of some smug nun
When irresponsibly dropped as from the sun,
In fulth of numbers freaked with musical closes,
Upon Victoria's formal middle time
His leaves of rhythm and rhyme.
III
O that far morning of a summer day
When, down a terraced street whose pavements lay
Glassing the sunshine into my bent eyes,
I walked and read with a quick glad surprise
New words, in classic guise, -
IV
The passionate pages of his earlier years,
Fraught with hot sighs, sad laughters, kisses, tears;
Fresh-fluted notes, yet from a minstrel who
Blew them not naively, but as one who knew
Full well why thus he blew.
V
I still can hear the brabble and the roar
At those thy tunes, O still one, now passed through
That fitful fire of tongues then entered new!
Their power is spent like spindrift on this shore;
Thine swells yet more and more.
VI
- His singing-mistress verily was no other
Than she the Lesbian, she the music-mother
Of all the tribe that feel in melodies;
Who leapt, love-anguished, from the Leucadian steep
Into the rambling world-encircling deep
Which hides her where none sees.
VII
And one can hold in thought that nightly here
His phantom may draw down to the water's brim,
And hers come up to meet it, as a dim
Lone shine upon the heaving hydrosphere,
And mariners wonder as they traverse near,
Unknowing of her and him.
VIII
One dreams him sighing to her spectral form:
"O teacher, where lies hid thy burning line;
Where are those songs, O poetess divine
Whose very arts are love incarnadine?"
And her smile back: "Disciple true and warm,
Sufficient now are thine." . . .
IX
So here, beneath the waking constellations,
Where the waves peal their everlasting strains,
And their dull subterrene reverberations
Shake him when storms make mountains of their plains -
Him once their peer in sad improvisations,
And deft as wind to cleave their frothy manes -
I leave him, while the daylight gleam declines
Upon the capes and chines.
BONCHURCH, 1910.