DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Zacchaeus
by George MacDonald

To whom the heavy burden clings,
It yet may serve him like a staff;
One day the cross will break in wings,
The sinner laugh a holy laugh.
The dwarfed Zacchaeus climbed a tree,
His humble stature set him high;
The Lord the little man did see
Who sought the great man passing by.
Up to the tree he came, and stopped:
"To-day," he said, "with thee I bide."
A spirit-shaken fruit he dropped,
Ripe for the Master, at his side.
Sure never host with gladder look
A welcome guest home with him bore!
Then rose the Satan of rebuke
And loudly spake beside the door:
"This is no place for holy feet;
Sinners should house and eat alone!
This man sits in the stranger's seat
And grinds the faces of his own!"
Outspoke the man, in Truth's own might:
"Lord, half my goods I give the poor;
If one I've taken more than right
With four I make atonement sure!"
"Salvation here is entered in;
This man indeed is Abraham's son!"
Said he who came the lost to win--
And saved the lost whom he had won.
Fragment: "Igniculus Desiderii".
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

To thirst and find no fill - to wail and wander
With short unsteady steps - to pause and ponder -
To feel the blood run through the veins and tingle
Where busy thought and blind sensation mingle;
To nurse the image of unfelt caresses
Till dim imagination just possesses
The half-created shadow, then all the night
Sick...
Seeking The Beloved.
by William Cowper

To those who know the Lord I speak,
Is my beloved near?
The bridegroom of my soul I seek,
Oh! when will he appear?
Though once a man of grief and shame,
Yet now he fills a throne,
And bears the greatest, sweetest name,
That earth or heaven has known.
Grace flies before, and love attends
His steps where'er he goes;
Though none can see him but his friends,
And they were once his foes.
He speaks - obedient to his call,
Our warm affections move:
Did he but shine alike on all,
Then all alike would love.
Then love in every heart would reign,
And war would cease to roar;
And cruel and bloodthirsty men
Would thirst for blood no more.
Such Jesus is, and such his grace,
Oh, may he shine on you!
And tell him, when you see his face,
I long to see him too.[1]
The Virgin Mary.
by Robert Herrick

To work a wonder, God would have her shown
At once a bud and yet a rose full-blown.
Summer Is Ended.
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

To think that this meaningless thing was ever a rose
Scentless, colorless, this!
Will it ever be thus (who knows?)
Thus with our bliss,
If we wait till the close?
Though we care not to wait for the end, there comes the end
Sooner, later, at last,
Which nothing can mar, nothing mend:
An end locked fast,
Bent we cannot re-bend.
Lines
by John Charles McNeill

To you, dear mother heart, whose hair is gray
Above this page to-day,
Whose face, though lined with many a smile and care,
Grows year by year more fair,
Be tenderest tribute set in perfect rhyme,
That haply passing time
May cull and keep it for strange lips to pay
When we have gone our way;
And, to strange men, weary of field and street,
Should this, my song, seem sweet,
Yours be the joy, for all that made it so
You know, dear heart, you know.
To My Empty Purse
by Geoffrey Chaucer

To you, my purse, and to none other wight,
Complain I, for ye be my lady dere;
I am sorry now that ye be light,
For, certes, ye now make me heavy chere;
Me were as lefe be laid upon a bere,
For which unto your mercy thus I crie,
Be heavy againe, or els mote I die.
Now vouchsafe this day or it be night,
That I of you the blissful sowne may here,
Or see your color like the sunne bright,
That of yellowness had never pere;
Ye are my life, ye be my hertes stere,
Queen of comfort and of good companie,
Be heavy againe, or els mote I die.
Now purse, thou art to me my lives light,
And saviour, as downe in this world here,
Out of this towne helpe me by your might,
Sith that you will not be my treasure,
For I am slave as nere as any frere,
But I pray unto your curtesie,
Be heavy againe, or els mote I die.
Geoffrey Chaucer.
Epitaph III. On The Hon. Simon Harcourt, Only Son Of The Lord Chancellor Harcourt, At The Church Of Stanton Harcourt, In Oxfordshire, 1720.
by Alexander Pope

To this sad shrine, whoe'er thou art, draw near;
Here lies the friend most loved, the son most dear:
Who ne'er knew joy, but friendship might divide,
Or gave his father grief but when he died.
How vain is reason, eloquence how weak!
If Pope must tell what Harcourt cannot speak.
Oh, let thy once-loved friend inscribe thy stone,
And, with a father's sorrows, mix his own!
Satiety
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

To yearn for what we have not had, to sit
With hungry eyes glued on the Future's gate,
Why, that is heaven compared to having it
With all the power gone to appreciate.
Better to wait and yearn, and still to wait,
And die at last with unappeased desire,
Than live to be the jest of such a fate,
For that is my conception of hell-fire.
To Weave A Garland For The Rose. By Paul, The Silentiary.
by Thomas Moore

To weave a garland for the rose.
And think thus crown'd 'twould lovelier be,
Were far less vain than to suppose
That silks and gems add grace to thee.
Where is the pearl whose orient lustre
Would not, beside thee, look less bright?
What gold could match the glossy cluster
Of those young ringlets full of light?
Bring from the land, where fresh it gleams,
The bright blue gem of India's mine,
And see how soon, though bright its beams,
'Twill pale before one glance of thine:
Those lips, too, when their sounds have blest us
With some divine, mellifluous air,
Who would not say that Beauty's cestus
Had let loose all its witcheries there?
Here, to this conquering host of charms
I now give up my spell-bound heart.
Nor blush to yield even Reason's arms,
When thou her bright-eyed conqueror art.
Thus to the wind all fears are given;
Henceforth those eyes alone I see.
Where Hope, as in her own blue heaven,
Sits beckoning me to bliss and thee!
The Hare And The Tortoise.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
To win a race, the swiftness of a dart
Availeth not without a timely start.
The hare and tortoise are my witnesses.
Said tortoise to the swiftest thing that is,
'I'll bet that you'll not reach, so soon as I
The tree on yonder hill we spy.'
'So soon! Why, madam, are you frantic?'
Replied the creature, with an antic;
'Pray take, your senses to restore,
A grain or two of hellebore.'[2]
'Say,' said the tortoise, 'what you will;
I dare you to the wager still.'
'Twas done; the stakes were paid,
And near the goal tree laid - 
Of what, is not a question for this place,
Nor who it was that judged the race.
Our hare had scarce five jumps to make,
Of such as he is wont to take,
When, starting just before their beaks
He leaves the hounds at leisure,
Thence till the kalends of the Greeks,[3]
The sterile heath to measure.
Thus having time to browse and doze,
And list which way the zephyr blows,
He makes himself content to wait,
And let the tortoise go her gait
In solemn, senatorial state.
She starts; she moils on, modestly and lowly,
And with a prudent wisdom hastens slowly;
But he, meanwhile, the victory despises,
Thinks lightly of such prizes,
Believes it for his honour
To take late start and gain upon her.
So, feeding, sitting at his ease,
He meditates of what you please,
Till his antagonist he sees
Approach the goal; then starts,
Away like lightning darts:
But vainly does he run;
The race is by the tortoise won.
Cries she, 'My senses do I lack?
What boots your boasted swiftness now?
You're beat! and yet, you must allow,
I bore my house upon my back.'
Translations. - Knowledge. (From Schiller.)
by George MacDonald

In these epigrams I have altered the form, which in the original is the elegiac distich.
To this man, 'tis a goddess tall,
Who lifts a star-encircled head;
To that, a fine cow in a stall,
Which gives him butter to his bread.
A Burial
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

To-day I had a burial of my dead.
There was no shroud, no coffin, and no pall,
No prayers were uttered and no tears were shed -
I only turned a picture to the wall.
A picture that had hung within my room
For years and years; a relic of my youth.
It kept the rose of love in constant bloom
To see those eyes of earnestness and truth.
At hours wherein no other dared intrude,
I had drawn comfort from its smiling grace.
Silent companion of my solitude,
My soul held sweet communion with that face.
I lived again the dream so bright, so brief,
Though wakened as we all are by some Fate;
This picture gave me infinite relief,
And did not leave me wholly desolate.
To-day I saw an item, quite by chance,
That robbed me of my pitiful poor dole:
A marriage notice fell beneath my glance,
And I became a lonely widowed soul.
With drooping eyes, and cheeks a burning flame,
I turned the picture to the blank wall's gloom.
My very heart had died in me of shame,
If I had left it smiling in my room.
Another woman's husband.    So, my friend,
My comfort, my sole relic of the past,
I bury thee, and, lonely, seek the end.
Swift age has swept my youth from me at last.
The Hen With The Golden Eggs.
by Jean de La Fontaine

To this lesson in greed,
Pray, little ones, heed:
Each day, we are told,
A most wonderful Hen
Laid an egg made of gold
For this meanest of men.
So greedy was he,
He was not satisfied.
"What is one egg to me?
I want all that' inside!"
He cut off her head,
And began to explore.
But the poor hen was dead.
And could lay eggs no more.
A Waterloo Ballad.
by Thomas Hood

To Waterloo, with sad ado,
And many a sigh and groan,
Amongst the dead, came Patty Head,
To look for Peter Stone.
"O prithee tell, good sentinel,
If I shall find him here?
I'm come to weep upon his corse,
My Ninety-Second dear!
"Into our town a sergeant came,
With ribands all so fine,
A-flaunting in his cap - alas!
His bow enlisted mine!
"They taught him how to turn his toes,
And stand as stiff as starch;
I thought that it was love and May,
But it was love and March!
"A sorry March indeed to leave
The friends he might have kep', - 
No March of Intellect it was,
But quite a foolish step.
"O prithee tell, good sentinel,
If hereabout he lies?
I want a corpse with reddish hair,
And very sweet blue eyes."
Her sorrow on the sentinel
Appear'd to deeply strike: - 
"Walk in," he said, "among the dead,
And pick out which you like."
And soon she picked out Peter Stone,
Half turned into a corse;
A cannon was his bolster, and
His mattrass was a horse.
"O Peter Stone, O Peter Stone,
Lord, here has been a skrimmage!
What have they done to your poor breast
That used to hold my image?"
"O Patty Head, O Patty Head,
You're come to my last kissing;
Before I'm set in the Gazette
As wounded, dead, and missing!
"Alas! a splinter of a shell
Right in my stomach sticks;
French mortars don't agree so well
With stomachs as French bricks.
"This very night a merry dance
At Brussels was to be; - 
Instead of opening a ball,
A ball has open'd me.
"Its billet every bullet has,
And well it does fulfil it; - 
I wish mine hadn't come so straight.
But been a 'crooked billet.'
"And then there came a cuirassier
And cut me on the chest; - 
He had no pity in his heart,
For he had steel'd his breast.
"Next thing a lancer, with his lance,
Began to thrust away;
I call'd for quarter, but, alas!
It was not Quarter-day.
"He ran his spear right through my arm,
Just here above the joint; - 
O Patty dear, it was no joke,
Although it had a point.
"With loss of blood I fainted off,
As dead as women do - 
But soon by charging over me,
The Coldstream brought me to.
"With kicks and cuts, and balls and blows,
I throb and ache all over;
I'm quite convinc'd the field of Mars
Is not a field of clover!
"O why did I a soldier turn
For any royal Guelph?
I might have been a Butcher, and
In business for myself!
"O why did I the bounty take?
(And here he gasp'd for breath)
My shillingsworth of 'list is nail'd
Upon the door of death!
"Without a coffin I shall lie
And sleep my sleep eternal:
Not ev'n a shell - my only chance
Of being made a Kernel!
"O Patty dear, our wedding bells
Will never ring at Chester!
Here I must lie in Honor's bed,
That isn't worth a tester!
"Farewell, my regimental mates,
With whom I used to dress!
My corps is changed, and I am now
In quite another mess.
"Farewell, my Patty dear, I have
No dying consolations,
Except, when I am dead, you'll go
And see th' Illuminations."
Shortened Lives
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

To us it seemed his life was too soon done,
Ended, indeed, while scarcely yet begun;
God, with His clearer vision, saw that he
Was ready for a larger ministry.
Just so we thought of Him, whose life below
Was so full-charged with bitterness and woe,
Our clouded vision would have crowned Him King,
He chose the lowly way of suffering.
Remember, too, how short His life on earth,--
But three-and-thirty years 'twixt death and birth.
And of those years but three whereof we know,
Yet those three years immortal seed did sow.
It is not tale of years that tells the whole
Of Man's success or failure, but the soul
He brings to them, the songs he sings to them,
The steadfast gaze he fixes on the goal.
To His Honoured Kinsman, Sir Richard Stone.
by Robert Herrick

To this white temple of my heroes here,
Beset with stately figures everywhere
Of such rare saintships, who did here consume
Their lives in sweets, and left in death perfume,
Come, thou brave man! And bring with thee a stone
Unto thine own edification.
High are these statues here, besides no less
Strong than the heavens for everlastingness:
Where build aloft; and, being fix'd by these,
Set up thine own eternal images.
Song Of The Poco-Curante Society.
by Thomas Moore

haud curat Hippoclides.
ERASM. Adag.
To those we love we've drank tonight;
But now attend and stare not,
While I the ampler list recite
Of those for whom WE CARE NOT.
For royal men, howe'er they frown,
If on their fronts they bear not
That noblest gem that decks a crown,
The People's Love--WE CARE NOT.
For slavish men who bend beneath
A despot yoke, yet dare not
Pronounce the will whose very breath
Would rend its links--WE CARE NOT.
For priestly men who covet sway
And wealth, tho' they declare not;
Who point, like finger-posts, the way
They never go--WE CARE NOT.
For martial men who on their sword,
Howe'er it conquers, wear not
The pledges of a soldier's word,
Redeemed and pure--WE CARE NOT.
For legal men who plead for wrong.
And, tho' to lies they swear not,
Are hardly better than the throng
Of those who do--WE CARE NOT.
For courtly men who feed upon
The land, like grubs, and spare not
The smallest leaf where they can sun
Their crawling limbs--WE CARE NOT.
For wealthy men who keep their mines
In darkness hid, and share not
The paltry ore with him who pines
In honest want--WE CARE NOT.
For prudent men who hold the power
Of Love aloof, and bare not
Their hearts in any guardless hour
To Beauty's shaft--WE CARE NOT.
For all, in short, on land or sea,
In camp or court, who are not,
Who never were, or e'er will be
Good men and true--WE CARE NOT.
Verses Printed By Himself, On A Flood At Olney.
by William Cowper

To watch the storms, and hear the sky
Give all our almanacks the lie;
To shake with cold, and see the plains
In autumn drown'd with wintry rains;
'Tis thus I spend my moments here,
And wish myself a Dutch mynheer;
I then should have no need of wit;
For lumpish Hollander unfit!
Nor should I then repine at mud,
Or meadows deluged with a flood;
But in a bog live well content,
And find it just my element;
Should be a clod, and not a man;
Nor wish in vain for sister Ann,
With charitable aid to drag
My mind out of its proper quag;
Should have the genius of a boor,
And no ambition to have more.
Sonnet. To Melancholy.
by Thomas Gent

To thy unhappy courts a lonely guest
I come, corroding Melancholy, where,
Sequester'd from the world, this woe-worn breast
May yet indulge a solitary tear!
For what should cheer the wretch's struggling heart;
What lead him thro' misfortunes gloomy shades;
When retrospection wings her keenest dart,
And hope's dim land in misery's ocean fades?
Adieu, for ever! visionary joys,
Delusive shadows of a short-liv'd hour;
The rod of woe invincible, destroys
The light, the fairy fabric of your pow'r!
How short of bliss the sublunary reign,
How long the clouded days of misery and pain!
The Angel Of Patience
by John Greenleaf Whittier

A free paraphrase of the German.
To weary hearts, to mourning homes,
God's meekest Angel gently comes
No power has he to banish pain,
Or give us back our lost again;
And yet in tenderest love, our dear
And Heavenly Father sends him here.
There's quiet in that Angel's glance,
There 's rest in his still countenance!
He mocks no grief with idle cheer,
Nor wounds with words the mourner's ear;
But ills and woes he may not cure
He kindly trains us to endure.
Angel of Patience! sent to calm
Our feverish brows with cooling palm;
To lay the storms of hope and fear,
And reconcile life's smile and tear;
The throbs of wounded pride to still,
And make our own our Father's will.
O thou who mournest on thy way,
With longings for the close of day;
He walks with thee, that Angel kind,
And gently whispers, "Be resigned
Bear up, bear on, the end shall tell
The dear Lord ordereth all things well!"
Asolando - Dedication
by Robert Browning

TO MRS. ARTHUR BRONSON
To whom but you, dear Friend, should I dedicate verses'some few written, all of them supervised, in the comfort of your presence, and with yet another experience of the gracious hospitality now bestowed on me since so many a year,'adding a charm even to my residences at Venice, and leaving me little regret for the surprise and delight at my visits to Asolo in bygone days?
I unite, you will see, the disconnected poems by a title-name popularly ascribed to the inventiveness of the ancient secretary of Queen Cornaro whose palace-tower still over-looks us: Asolare''to disport in the open air, amuse one's self at random.' The objection that such a word nowhere occurs in the works of the Cardinal is hardly important'Bembo was too thorough a purist to conserve in print a term which in talk he might possibly toy with: but the word is more likely derived from a Spanish source. I use it for love of the place, and in reqital of your pleasant assurance that an early poem of mine first attracted you thither'where and elsewhere, at Mura as C' Alvisi, may all happiness attend you!
Gratefully and affectionately yours,
R. B.
Asolo: October 15,1889
Advice
by Walter Savage Landor

To write as your sweet mother does
Is all you wish to do.
Play, sing, and smile for others, Rose!
Let others write for you.
Or mount again your Dartmoor grey,
And I will walk beside,
Until we reach that quiet bay
Which only hears the tide.
Then wave at me your pencil, then
At distance bid me stand,
Before the cavern'd cliff, again
The creature of your hand.
And bid me then go past the nook
To sketch me less in size;
There are but few content to look
So little in your eyes.
Delight us with the gifts you have,
And wish for none beyond:
To some be gay, to some be grave,
To one (blest youth!) be fond.
Pleasures there are how close to Pain,
And better unpossest!
Let poetry's too throbbing vein
Lie quiet in your breast.
Christening
by George Parsons Lathrop

To-day I saw a little, calm-eyed child, - 
Where soft lights rippled and the shadows tarried
Within a church's shelter arched and aisled, - 
Peacefully wondering, to the altar carried;
White-robed and sweet, in semblance of a flower;
White as the daisies that adorned the chancel;
Borne like a gift, the young wife's natural dower,
Offered to God as her most precious hansel.
Then ceased the music, and the little one
Was silent, with the multitude assembled
Hearkening; and when of Father and of Son
He spoke, the pastor's deep voice broke and trembled.
But she, the child, knew not the solemn words,
And suddenly yielded to a troublous wailing,
As helpless as the cry of frightened birds
Whose untried wings for flight are unavailing.
How much the same, I thought, with older folk!
The blessing falls: we call it tribulation,
And fancy that we wear a sorrow's yoke,
Even at the moment of our consecration.
Pure daisy-child! Whatever be the form
Of dream or doctrine, - or of unbelieving, - 
A hand may touch our heads, amid the storm
Of grief and doubt, to bless beyond bereaving;
A voice may sound, in measured, holy rite
Of speech we know not, tho' its earnest meaning
Be clear as dew, and sure as starry light
Gathered from some far-off celestial gleaning.
Wise is the ancient sacrament that blends
This weakling cry of children in our churches
With strength of prayer or anthem that ascends
To Him who hearts of men and children searches;
Since we are like the babe, who, soothed again,
Within her mother's cradling arm lay nested,
Bright as a new bud, now, refreshed by rain:
And on her hair, it seemed, heaven's radiance rested.
Ghazal Of Tavakkul
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

To-day I saw Laila's breasts, the hills of a fair city
From which my heart might leap to heaven.
Her breasts are a garden of white roses
Having two drifted hills of fallen rose-leaves.
Her breasts are a garden where doves are singing
And doves are moaning with arrows because of her.
All her body is a flower and her face is Shalibagh;
She has fruits of beautiful colours and the doves abide there.
Over the garden of her breasts she combs the gold rain of her hair....
You have killed Tavakkul, the faithful pupil of Abdel Qadir Gilani.
From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century).
Mrs. George Reece
by Edgar Lee Masters

To this generation I would say:
Memorize some bit of verse of truth or beauty.
It may serve a turn in your life.
My husband had nothing to do
With the fall of the bank - he was only cashier.
The wreck was due to the president, Thomas Rhodes,
And his vain, unscrupulous son.
Yet my husband was sent to prison,
And I was left with the children,
To feed and clothe and school them.
And I did it, and sent them forth
Into the world all clean and strong,
And all through the wisdom of Pope, the poet:
"Act well your part, there all the honor lies."
Inevitable
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

To-day I was so weary and I lay
In that delicious state of semi-waking,
When baby, sitting with his nurse at play,
Cried loud for "mamma," all his toys forsaking.
I was so weary and I needed rest,
And signed to nurse to bear him from the room.
Then, sudden, rose and caught him to my breast,
And kissed the grieving mouth and cheeks of bloom.
For swift as lightning came the thought to me,
With pulsing heart-throes and a mist of tears,
Of days inevitable, that are to be,
If my fair darling grows to manhood's years;
Days when he will not call for "mamma," when
The world, with many a pleasure and bright joy,
Shall tempt him forth into the haunts of men
And I shall lose the first place with my boy;
When other homes and loves shall give delight,
When younger smiles and voices will seem best.
And so I held him to my heart to-night,
Forgetting all my need of peace and rest.
Spring
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots,
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.