DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Epigram On Hearing Mr. **** Boast That He Could Translate Virgil
by Thomas Oldham

Thou able, boaster! Virgil to translate!
Can'st thou, then, be so vain, so shallow-pated?
To a far higher intellectual state,
Coxcomb! thou must, thyself, be first translated.
*    *    *    *    *
A lady had a sickly son;
A skeleton but for his skin:
Her pretty maid he woo'd, and won;
The mother chid him for his sin.
'Her charms were not to be withstood,
Too tempting for frail flesh and blood!
As you, dear Ma'am, must fairly own.'
"That's no excuse for skin and bone."
Christmas Folk-Song
by Duncan Campbell Scott

Those who die on Christmas Day
(I heard the triumphant Seraph say)
Will be remembered, for they died
Upon the Holy Christmastide;
When they attain to Paradise,
The Angels with the tranquil Eyes
Will ask if Jesus rules on Earth
The Anniversary of His Birth;
This Question do they ask alway
Of those who die on Christmas Day.
Those who are born on Christmas Day
(I heard the triumphant Seraph say)
Will bring again the Peace on Earth
That came with gentle Christ His Birth;
They may be lowly Folk and poor
Living about the Manger Door,
They may be Kings of Mighty Line,
Their Lives alike will be benign;
To them belongeth Peace alway,
Those who are born on Christmas Day.
I Am The Way
by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

Thou art the Way.
Hadst Thou been nothing but the goal,
I cannot say
If Thou hadst ever met my soul.
I cannot see--
I, child of process--if there lies
An end for me,
Full of repose, full of replies.
I'll not reproach
The way that goes, my feet that stir.
Access, approach,
Art Thou, time, way, and wayfarer.
To an Umbrella.
by W. M. MacKeracher

Thou art the belonging blest
Of the maid I love the best:
Gardened in some tropic grove,
Nurtured by the powers above,
Was thy wood so rich and rare
For her hand so small and fair;
Deftly carved by cunning craft
For her hold thy finished haft;
And thy silken folds so soft,
Where the gentle breezes waft
Fragrance from the clustered vines,
Where the sun so warmly shines,
Where the skies of purest hue
Bend above in deepest blue,
There so soft and fine were wove,
Woven only for my love.
But it is not that thy haft
Carved is by cunning craft
Of a wood so rich and rare,
That thy folds are soft and fair,
Vying only with her hair;
Not for this that I addrest
Thee in song, and called thee blest
But what thou for her hast done:
Shaded from the scorching sun
On the burning summer day
'Neath thy silken canopy;
Sheltered from the falling rain,
Lest her hallowed cheek it stain;
Shielded from the stormy blast,
As it hurried wildly past.
Surely thou art blest for such. -
Oh! that I might do as much!
Thou Art, O God.
by Thomas Moore

(Air.--Unknown.)[1]
"The day is thine, the night is also thine: thou hast prepared the light and the sun.
"Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: thou hast made summer and winter."
--Psalm lxxiv. 16, 17.
Thou art, O God, the life and light
Of all this wondrous world we see;
Its glow by day, its smile by night,
Are but reflections caught from Thee.
Where'er we turn, thy glories shine,
And all things fair and bright are Thine!
When Day, with farewell beam, delays
Among the opening clouds of Even,
And we can almost think we gaze
Thro' golden vistas into Heaven--
Those hues, that make the Sun's decline
So soft, so radiant, LORD! are Thine.
When Night, with wings of starry gloom,
O'ershadows all the earth and skies,
Like some dark, beauteous bird, whose plume
Is sparkling with unnumbered eyes--
That sacred gloom, those fires divine,
So grand, so countless, LORD! are Thine.
When youthful Spring around us breathes,
Thy Spirit warms her fragrant sigh;
And every flower the Summer wreaths
Is born beneath that kindling eye.
Where'er we turn, thy glories shine,
And all things fair and bright are Thine.
Sovereignty Of God And Free Agency Of Man.
by Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow

Thou art a perfect Sovereign, oh my God!
And I rejoice to think that thou art so;
That all events are under thy control,
And that thou knowest all I think and do.
But some may ask, "then why am I to blame
Because I sin, if God hath made me thus?"
Stop, stop, my friend, God tempteth not to sin,
Thou dost it of thy own free will and choice.
Though God is Sovereign, we free agents are,
Accountable to him for all we do,
Feel, think, or say; and at the last great day,
A most exact account must render too.
With this conclusion be thou satisfied - 
For all who will accept him, Christ hath died.
Sept. 19, 1862.
*        *        *        *        *
God is a Sovereign, man free agent too;
How these to reconcile I do not know:
But this I know, if lost, the blame is mine,
If saved, the praise, oh God! be only thine.
To Margaret Jane H----, On Her Birth-Day, 17 June.
by Thomas Gent

Thou art indeed a lovely flower,
And I, just like the fleeting hour,
Which few will heed on folly's brink,
So rarely deigns the world to think.
Yet, ere I go, child of my heart--
One faithful offering I'll impart
To thee--thy parents' sole delight:
To me--an angel, pure as light.
Sent on this earth to cheer and bless,
Like sunbeam in a wilderness,
With fascination's form and face,
And all the charms that please and grace.
A guileless heart, a lovely mind,
A temper ardent, yet refined,
And in the early dawn of youth,
Taught to love honour, faith, and truth.
Ah! these--when all the transient joys
Of idle life, when all its toys
Shall fade like mist before the sun,
Yet, ere thy little day is done,
Shall give that calm, that true delight,
Which gilds the darkling hues of night,
The sunset of a well spent day,
A glorious immortality!
To The Life Eternal
by George MacDonald

Thou art my thought, my heart, my being's fortune,
The search for thee my growth's first conscious date;
For nought, for everything, I thee importune;
Thou art my all, my origin and fate!
Bellona
by Adam Lindsay Gordon

Thou art moulded in marble impassive,
False goddess, fair statue of strife,
Yet standest on pedestal massive,
A symbol and token of life.
Thou art still, not with stillness of languor,
And calm, not with calm boding rest;
For thine is all wrath and all anger
That throbs far and near in the breast
Of man, by thy presence possess'd.
With the brow of a fallen archangel,
The lips of a beautiful fiend,
And locks that are snake-like to strangle,
And eyes from whose depths may be glean'd
The presence of passions, that tremble
Unbidden, yet shine as they may
Through features too proud to dissemble,
Too cold and too calm to betray
Their secrets to creatures of clay.
Thy breath stirreth faction and party,
Men rise, and no voice can avail
To stay them, rose-tinted Astarte
Herself at thy presence turns pale.
For deeper and richer the crimson
That gathers behind thee throws forth
A halo thy raiment and limbs on,
And leaves a red track in the path
That flows from thy wine-press of wrath.
For behind thee red rivulets trickle,
Men fall by thy hands swift and lithe,
As corn falleth down to the sickle,
As grass falleth down to the scythe,
Thine arm, strong and cruel, and shapely,
Lifts high the sharp, pitiless lance,
And rapine and ruin and rape lie
Around thee. The Furies advance,
And Ares awakes from his trance.
We, too, with our bodies thus weakly,
With hearts hard and dangerous, thus
We owe thee, the saints suffered meekly
Their wrongs, it is not so with us.
Some share of thy strength thou hast given
To mortals refusing in vain
Thine aid. We have suffered and striven
Till we have grown reckless of pain,
Though feeble of heart and of brain.
Fair spirit, alluring if wicked,
False deity, terribly real,
Our senses are trapp'd, our souls tricked
By thee and thy hollow ideal.
The soldier who falls in his harness,
And strikes his last stroke with slack hand,
On his dead face thy wrath and thy scorn is
Imprinted. Oh! seeks he a land
Where he shall escape thy command?
When the blood of thy victims lies red on
That stricken field, fiercest and last,
In the sunset that gilds Armageddon
With battle-drift still overcast,
When the smoke of thy hot conflagrations
O'ershadows the earth as with wings,
Where nations have fought against nations,
And kings have encounter'd with kings,
When cometh the end of all things,
Then those who have patiently waited,
And borne, unresisting, the pain
Of thy vengeance unglutted, unsated,
Shall they be rewarded again?
Then those who, enticed by thy laurels,
Or urged by thy promptings unblest,
Have striven and stricken in quarrels,
Shall they, too, find pardon and rest?
We know not, yet hope for the best.
Retort
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

"Thou art a fool," said my head to my heart,
"Indeed, the greatest of fools thou art,
To be led astray by the trick of a tress,
By a smiling face or a ribbon smart;"
And my heart was in sore distress.
Then Phyllis came by, and her face was fair,
The light gleamed soft on her raven hair;
And her lips were blooming a rosy red.
Then my heart spoke out with a right bold air:
"Thou art worse than a fool, O head!"
Reply Of The Messenger Bird.
by Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney

Thou art come from the spirits' land, thou bird!
Thou art come from the spirits' land:
Through the dark pine grove let thy voice be heard,
And tell of the shadowy band!
* * * * *
But tell us, thou bird of the solemn strain,
Can those who have loved, forget?
We call and they answer not again 
Do they love, do they love us yet?
F. HEMANS.
Yes! yes, I have come from the spirits' land,
From the land that is bright and fair,
I come with a voice from the shadowy band,
To tell that they love you there!
To say, if a wish or a fond regret
Could live in Elysian bowers,
'Twould be for the friends they could ne'er forget,
The loved of their youthful hours;
To whisper the dear deserted band,
Who smiled on their tarriance here,
That a faithful guard in the dreamless land
Are the friends they have loved so dear.
They have gone to be seen of men no more;
But oft on a shadowy hill,
Or the crest of a wave where the moonbeams pour,
They are watching around you still.
And oft on a fleecy cloud they sail,
And oft on the hurrying blast,
When slumber her light and magic veil
O'er man and his woes has cast.
'Tis true, in the silent night you call,
And they answer you not again 
For the spirits of bliss are voiceless all;
Sound only was made for pain.
That their land is bright and they weep no more,
I have warbled from hill to hill,
But my plaintive strains should have told before,
They love, oh! they love you still.
They bid me say that unfading flowers
You'll find in the path they trod,
And a welcome true to their deathless bowers
Pronounced by the voice of God.
The Lover's Year (Moods Of Love.)
by George Parsons Lathrop

Thou art my morning, twilight, noon, and eve,
My Summer and my Winter, Spring and Fall;
For Nature left on thee a touch of all
The moods that come to gladden or to grieve
The heart of Time, with purpose to relieve
From lagging sameness. So do these forestall
In thee such o'erheaped sweetnesses as pall
Too swiftly, and the taster tasteless leave.
Scenes that I love to me always remain
Beautiful, whether under summer's sun
Beheld, or, storm-dark, stricken across with rain.
So, through all humors, thou 'rt the same sweet one:
Doubt not I love thee well in each, who see
Thy constant change is changeful constancy.
Love, The Interpreter.
by Madison Julius Cawein

Thou art the music that I hear in sleep,
The poetry that lures me on in dreams;
The magic, thou, that holds my thought with themes
Of young romance in revery's mystic keep.
The lily's aura, and the damask deep
That clothes the rose; the whispering soul that seems
To haunt the wind; the rainbow light that streams,
Like some wild spirit, 'thwart the cataract's leap
Are glimmerings of thee and thy loveliness,
Pervading all my world; interpreting
The marvel and the wonder these disclose:
For, lacking thee, to me were meaningless
Life, love and hope, the joy of every thing,
And all the beauty that the wide world knows.
Justus quidem tu es, Domine, si disputem tecum: verum-tamen justa loquar ad te: Quare via impiorum prospera- tur? &c.
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.
Why do sinners' ways prosper? and why must
Disappointment all I endeavour end?
Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend,
How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost
Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust
Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,
Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes
Now, leav'd how thick! lac'd they are again
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes
Them; birds build - but not I build; no, but strain,
Time's eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.
Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.
Ministering Women
by Nancy Rebecca Campbell Glass

And Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna and many others who ministered unto him of their substance. Luke 8:3. Mark 14:3-9. John 12:3-8. Matthew 26:6-13. Luke 7:37-50. John 11:3.
Those women who their Christ and Lord
Aided by gentle ministry,
Have gained their race a rich reward,
Treasured in sacred history.
Joanna is unknown at court,
Although entitled to be there;
The record of her life's report
In fadeless glory has its share.
Susanna's name is intertwined,
A gem as sparkling and as clear
As those with which it is enshrined;
And this is all we know of her.
And those whose names have not been given
Are now in realms of light and love,
Praising him mid the choirs of heaven,
Crowned with his joy and peace and love.
Mary of Magdala was brought
From mysteries strange and dark and drear
To heights with joy and gladness fraught;
She radiates a luster clear.
Those chimes from Bethany will ring
With power that will not, cannot die;
Martha's and Mary's names will sing
Long as the flitting centuries fly.
That spikenard, which 'twas wholly meet
Mary should pour upon his head,
Has filled with fragrance rare and sweet
Succeeding ages as they've fled.
And when a critic standing near
Censured her act, misunderstood,
Christ spoke so that the world might hear;
He said, "She hath done what she could."
This her memorial while the sun
Traverses the blue dome of heaven,
Fulfilling while time's cycles run
Christ's prophecy which then was given.
Unto the end these faithful few,
Regardless of all pain and loss,
Did what their hearts and hands could do,
Though bowed with wonder at the cross.
Such love they could not understand,
Such love unto his latest breath;
That love had our redemption planned
Both in his life and in his death.
They haunt the tomb in which he lay,
Grief-stricken, desolate, and lone;
But Magdalene at break of day
Found that her precious charge was gone.
Two angels said, "Why weepest thou?"
The angels knew ere they inquired.
They knew her heart could triumph now,
These sinless ones by love inspired.
She, weeping, told her loss and woe,
Then answered thus a questioner near:
"Sir, if thou dost his refuge know,
Tell me. I seek him vainly here."
"Mary!" She listened to her name
Uttered by Christ, her risen Lord.
"Master?" her trembling lips exclaim,
Then wondered, worshipped, and adored.
Her joy is ours! Oh, may we see
That joy more plainly every day!
Christ lives and loves eternally, 
Swift feet such tidings should convey.
Eternal life and heavenly rest
He purchased by death's agony,
That whosoever will be blest
With glorious immortality.
May we our sisters of the past
In life and character revere,
Like them be faithful to the last,
Like them be loving and sincere.
First must the gospel plan of love
To every land and tribe be given,
Ere He'll return who from above
Is God's best gift to earth from heaven.
To Wordsworth
by Walter Savage Landor

Those who have laid the harp aside
And turn'd to idler things,
From very restlessness have tried
The loose and dusty strings.
And, catching back some favourite strain,
Run with it o'er the chords again.
But Memory is not a Muse,
O Wordsworth! though 'tis said
They all descend from her, and use
To haunt her fountain-head:
That other men should work for me
In the rich mines of Poesie,
Pleases me better than the toil
Of smoothing under hardened hand,
With Attic emery and oil,
The shining point for Wisdom's wand,
Like those thou temperest 'mid the rills
Descending from thy native hills.
Without his governance, in vain
Manhood is strong, and Youth is bold
If oftentimes the o'er-piled strain
Clogs in the furnace, and grows cold
Beneath his pinions deep and frore,
And swells and melts and flows no more,
That is because the heat beneath
Pants in its cavern poorly fed.
Life springs not from the couch of Death,
Nor Muse nor Grace can raise the dead;
Unturn'd then let the mass remain,
Intractable to sun or rain.
A marsh, where only flat leaves lie,
And showing but the broken sky,
Too surely is the sweetest lay
That wins the ear and wastes the day,
Where youthful Fancy pouts alone
And lets not Wisdom touch her zone.
He who would build his fame up high,
The rule and plummet must apply,
Nor say, 'I'll do what I have plann'd,'
Before he try if loam or sand
Be still remaining in the place
Delved for each polisht pillar's base.
With skilful eye and fit device
Thou raisest every edifice,
Whether in sheltered vale it stand
Or overlook the Dardan strand,
Amid the cypresses that mourn
Laodameia's love forlorn.
We both have run o'er half the space
Listed for mortal's earthly race;
We both have crost life's fervid line,
And other stars before us shine:
May they be bright and prosperous
As those that have been stars for us!
Our course by Milton's light was sped,
And Shakespeare shining overhead:
Chatting on deck was Dryden too,
The Bacon of the rhyming crew;
None ever crost our mystic sea
More richly stored with thought than he;
Tho' never tender nor sublime,
He wrestles with and conquers Time.
To learn my lore on Chaucer's knee,
I left much prouder company;
Thee gentle Spenser fondly led,
But me he mostly sent to bed.
I wish them every joy above
That highly blessed spirits prove,
Save one: and that too shall be theirs,
But after many rolling years,
When 'mid their light thy light appears.
I Am The Way
by Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell

Thou art the Way.
Hadst Thou been nothing but the goal,
I cannot say
If Thou hadst ever met my soul.
I cannot see -
I, child of process - if there lies
An end for me,
Full of repose, full of replies.
I'll not reproach
The way that goes, my feet that stir.
Access, approach,
Art Thou, time, way, and wayfarer.
A Song
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Thou art the soul of a summer's day,
Thou art the breath of the rose.
But the summer is fled
And the rose is dead
Where are they gone, who knows, who knows?
Thou art the blood of my heart o' hearts,
Thou art my soul's repose,
But my heart grows numb
And my soul is dumb
Where art thou, love, who knows, who knows?
Thou art the hope of my after years--
Sun for my winter snows
But the years go by
'Neath a clouded sky.
Where shall we meet, who knows, Who knows?
Madeline
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

I.
Thou art not steep'd in golden languors,
No tranced summer calm is thine,
Ever varying Madeline.
Thro' light and shadow thou dost range,
Sudden glances, sweet and strange,
Delicious spites and darling angers,
And airy forms of flitting change.
II.
Smiling, frowning, evermore,
Thou art perfect in love-lore.
Revealings deep and clear are thine
Of wealthy smiles; but who may know
Whether smile or frown be fleeter?
Whether smile or frown be sweeter,
Who may know?
Frowns perfect-sweet along the brow
Light-glooming over eyes divine,
Like little clouds sun-fringed, are thine,
Ever varying Madeline.
Thy smile and frown are not aloof
From one another,
Each to each is dearest brother;
Hues of the silken sheeny woof
Momently shot into each other.
All the mystery is thine;
Smiling, frowning, evermore,
Thou art perfect in love-lore,
Every varying Madeline.
III.
A subtle, sudden flame,
By veering passion fann'd,
About thee breaks and dances:
When I would kiss thy hand,
The flush of anger'd shame
O'erflows thy calmer glances,
And o'er black brows drops down
A sudden-curved frown:
But when I turn away,
Thou, willing me to stay,
Wooest not, nor vainly wranglest,
But, looking fixedly the while,
All my bounding heart entanglest
In a golden-nettled smile;
Then in madness and in bliss,
If my lips should dare to kiss
Thy taper fingers amorously,
Again thou blushest angrily;
And o'er black brows drops down
A sudden-curved frown.
Thou Art To Me
by Arthur Macy

Thou art to me
As are soft breezes to a summer sea;
As stars unto the night;
Or when the day is born,
As sunrise to the morn;
As peace unto the fading of the light.
Thou art to me
As one sweet flower upon a barren lea;
As rest to toiling hands;
As one clear spring amid the desert sands;
As smiles to maidens' lips;
As hope to friends that wait for absent ships;
As happiness to youth;
As purity to truth;
As sweetest dreams to sleep;
As balm to wounded hearts that weep.
All, all that I would have thee be
Thou art to me.
Fragments Of Ancient Poetry, Fragment IX
by James Macpherson

Thou askest, fair daughter of the
isles! whose memory is preserved
in these tombs? The memory of Ronnan
the bold, and Connan the chief of
men; and of her, the fairest of maids,
Rivine the lovely and the good. The
wing of time is laden with care. Every
moment hath woes of its own. Why
seek we our grief from afar? or give our
tears to those of other times? But thou
commanded, and I obey, O fair daughter
of the isles!
Conar was mighty in war. Caul
was the friend of strangers. His gates
were open to all; midnight darkened
not on his barred door. Both lived upon
the sons of the mountains. Their bow
was the support of the poor.
Connan was the image of Conar's
soul. Caul was renewed in Ronnan his
son. Rivine the daughter of Conar was
the love of Ronnan; her brother Connan
was his friend. She was fair as the
harvest-moon setting in the seas of
Molochasquir. Her soul was settled on
Ronnan; the youth was the dream of her
nights.
Rivine, my love! says Ronnan, I go
to my king in Norway[A]. A year and
a day shall bring me back. Wilt thou
be true to Ronnan?
[Footnote A: Supposed to be Fergus II. This fragment is reckoned not altogether so ancient as most of the rest.]
Ronnan! a year and a day I will
spend in sorrow. Ronnan, behave like
a man, and my soul shall exult in thy
valour. Connan my friend, says Ronnan,
wilt thou preserve Rivine thy sister?
Durstan is in love with the maid;
and soon shall the sea bring the stranger
to our coast.
Ronnan, I will defend: Do thou
securely go.--He went. He returned
on his day. But Durstan returned
before him.
Give me thy daughter, Conar, says
Durstan; or fear and feel my power.
He who dares attempt my sister, says
Connan, must meet this edge of steel.
Unerring in battle is my arm: my
sword, as the lightning of heaven.
Ronnan the warriour came; and
much he threatened Durstan.
But, saith Euran the servant of
gold, Ronnan! by the gate of the north
shall Durstan this night carry thy fair-one
away. Accursed, answers Ronnan, be this arm if death meet him not there.
Connan! saith Euran, this night
shall the stranger carry thy sister away.
My sword shall meet him, replies Connan,
and he shall lie low on earth.
The friends met by night, and they
fought. Blood and sweat ran down
their limbs as water on the mossy rock.
Connan falls; and cries, O Durstan,
be favourable to Rivine!--And is it my
friend, cries Ronnan, I have slain? O
Connan! I knew thee not.
He went, and he fought with Durstan.
Day began to rise on the combat,
when fainting they fell, and expired.
Rivine came out with the morn;
and--O what detains my Ronnan!
--She saw him lying pale in his blood;
and her brother lying pale by his side.
What could she say: what could she
do? her complaints were many and vain.
She opened this grave for the warriours;
and fell into it herself, before it
was closed; like the sun snatched away
in a storm.
Thou hast heard this tale of grief,
O fair daughter of the isles! Rivine was
fair as thyself: shed on her grave a
tear.