DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
San Gabriel, On The Pacific Coast.
by John Campbell

Grey-cowled monk, whose faith so earnest
Guides these Indians' childlike hearts,
As their hands to toil thou turnest,
Teaching them the Builder's arts,
Speak thy thought! as now they gather
Round the white walls on the plain,
Rearing them for God the Father,
And the glory of New Spain.
"Thou, St. Gabriel, knowest only
Why thy holy bells I raise,
To no turret proud and lonely,
There to sound the hours of praise;--
Why I keep them close beside me,
Framed within the church's walls,
Here where heathen lands shall hide me
Until death to judgment calls."
Then St Gabriel in high heaven
Told the saints this mortal's lot,
As the Angelus at even
Rose to day that dieth not;
And from out the nightly wonder
Of the darkened world would float,
Mingling with the near sea's thunder,
Yonder belfry's golden note.
"Two there were, whose loves were blighted
By the Spanish pride abhorred,
And their vows and wealth they plighted
To the Missions of the Lord.
For his church these bells she gave him,
When within their glowing mould,
She had cast what were her treasures,
--All her ornaments of gold.
"So do these, that to his seeming
Were but good as touched by her,
Ring to seek for love redeeming
All who sorrow, all who err.
Yes, though human love be ever
Heard upon the throbbing air,
This shall make his life's endeavour
Stronger through a woman's prayer.
"God is not a Lord requiring
Sacrifice of memories dear,
And their love in life untiring
To His life hath brought then near.
Thus his wish to have beside him
That which seems her voice, is good:
Lovingly the Lord hath tried him,
And his heart hath understood."
Ghazal Of Majid Shah
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

Grief is hard upon me, Master, for she has left me;
The black dust has covered my pretty one.
My heart is black, for the tomb has taken my friend;
How pleasantly would go the days if my friend were here.
I can only dream of the stature of my friend;
The flowers are dying in my heart, my breast is a fading garden.
Her breast is a sweet garden now, and her garments are gold flowers;
I am an orchard at night, for my friend has gone a journey.
I am Majid Shah, a slave that ministers to the dead;
Abdel Qadir Gilani, even the Master, shall not save me.
From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century).
Upon Grudgings.
by Robert Herrick

Grudgings turns bread to stones, when to the poor
He gives an alms, and chides them from his door.
The Many
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Greene, garlanded with February's few flowers
Ere March came in with Marlowe's rapturous rage;
Peele, from whose hand the sweet white locks of age
Took the mild chaplet woven of honored hours;
Nash, laughing hard; Lodge, flushed from lyric bowers;
And Lilly, a goldfinch in a twisted cage
Fed by some gay great lady's pettish page
Till short sweet songs gush clear like short spring showers;
Kid, whose grim sport still gamboled over graves;
And Chettle, in whose fresh funereal verse
Weeps Marian yet on Robin's wildwood hearse;
Cooke, whose light boat of song one soft breath saves,
Sighed from a maiden's amorous mouth averse;
Live likewise ye, Time takes not you for slaves.
Grief, Thou Hast Lost An Ever-Ready Friend
by William Wordsworth

Grief, thou hast lost an ever-ready friend
Now that the cottage Spinning-wheel is mute;
And Care, a comforter that best could suit
Her froward mood, and softliest reprehend;
And Love, a charmer's voice, that used to lend,
More efficaciously than aught that flows
From harp or lute, kind influence to compose
The throbbing pulse, else troubled without end:
Even Joy could tell, Joy craving truce and rest
From her own overflow, what power sedate
On those revolving motions did await
Assiduously to soothe her aching breast;
And, to a point of just relief, abate
The mantling triumphs of a day too blest.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
by Henry Austin Dobson

Emigravit, October Vi., Mdcccxcii.
Grief there will be, and may,
When King Apollo's bay
Is cut midwise;
Grief that a song is stilled,
Grief for the unfulfilled
Singer that dies.
Not so we mourn thee now,
Not so we grieve that thou,
MASTER, art passed,
Since thou thy song didst raise,
Through the full round of days,
E'en to the last.
Grief there may be, and will,
When that the Singer still
Sinks in the song;
When that the wing'd rhyme
Fails of the promised prime,
Ruined and wrong.
Not thus we mourn thee--we--
Not thus we grieve for thee,
MASTER and Friend;
Since, like a clearing flame,
Clearer thy pure song came
E'en to the end.
Nay--nor for thee we grieve
E'en as for those that leave
Life without name;
Lost as the stars that set,
Empty of men's regret,
Empty of fame.
Rather we count thee one
Who, when his race is run,
Layeth him down,
Calm--through all coming days,
Filled with a nation's praise,
Filled with renown.
Passageways
by Paul Cameron Brown

Greet the days -
greet the moon,
gather the stars.. .
Man is not at one with himself -
collars the infidel ways of his
race under pressure domes of widening silence.
I scan the horizon barely cognizant
of the metallic bits that pierce
the night's crown - no
jewelled orb stabs this queen's spectre.
I am running and lost. . . ever slow
to breech this reasoning.
Honeysuckle mist with armfuls
of orange lilies with scent stronger
than the carriage needed in their gathering.
Place the constellations upon their heads,
the colour so transcends.
And then there are the bludgeoned
stars fallen into the eyes of
my farmhouse scene.
The sphinx moth that darns the night
with her acrobatics escapes the wreath
of troubled moon that places about
her proboscised head.
Let her stone the night in peace,
feel palpitations on her ocean breast.
The darting of stone cracks in fissures
along the causeway to the stonehouse
is certain and sure.
A definite mood projects
the starling tunnels,
forlorn now with limpid darkness,
crushed lavender from the pews
of thoughtful night.
There are armfuls of crushed bats
in the passageway to my heart,
each reeking with squeals
to alarm the most frightened princess.
Only one has stained the pass key
and I must find her.
A toad abides the thoughtful recess
broken under the wall.
He is a good toad and mourns
the night creaking from the river bed.
A monster dragon to the insects
making a living near the light -
a source of amused contempt to lepidoptrists
squeezing the eye's circle,
pressing her to release her giddy charms.
At morning, skeletal remains
shall stain the blighted chain (mood collector, toad, moth)
but, for now, only the night buzzes with alarm,
cracking her secrets with each tiny monster
hurled at light's intrusion into dark.
Perchance I shall narrow
down the divide, position alarms,
remind myself I am inured to the
mood & scent that mans this cosmic bandwagon.
I hold up flowers to remind me
light escapes through jelly
and that rare LUMINESCENCE exists only
in lost bat chambers
buried deep near the recesses
of the snake.
The cry of havoc,
all those armfuls of collapsed lilies
breaking under the toil of enforced handshakes
leaves me like a broken lamp.
I have no more shades to patch
the plinths or barricade my heart.
I have left my love on bended knee
in a land I choose to forget.
The Homecoming
by Thomas Hardy

Gruffly growled the wind on Toller downland broad and bare,
And lonesome was the house, and dark; and few came there.
"Now don't ye rub your eyes so red; we're home and have no cares;
Here's a skimmer-cake for supper, peckled onions, and some pears;
I've got a little keg o' summat strong, too, under stairs:
- What, slight your husband's victuals? Other brides can tackle theirs!"
The wind of winter mooed and mouthed their chimney like a horn,
And round the house and past the house 'twas leafless and lorn.
"But my dear and tender poppet, then, how came ye to agree
In Ivel church this morning? Sure, there-right you married me!"
- "Hoo-hoo! - I don't know - I forgot how strange and far 'twould be,
An' I wish I was at home again with dear daddee!"
Gruffly growled the wind on Toller downland broad and bare,
And lonesome was the house and dark; and few came there.
"I didn't think such furniture as this was all you'd own,
And great black beams for ceiling, and a floor o' wretched stone,
And nasty pewter platters, horrid forks of steel and bone,
And a monstrous crock in chimney. 'Twas to me quite unbeknown!"
Rattle rattle went the door; down flapped a cloud of smoke,
As shifting north the wicked wind assayed a smarter stroke.
"Now sit ye by the fire, poppet; put yourself at ease:
And keep your little thumb out of your mouth, dear, please!
And I'll sing to 'ee a pretty song of lovely flowers and bees,
And happy lovers taking walks within a grove o' trees."
Gruffly growled the wind on Toller Down, so bleak and bare,
And lonesome was the house, and dark; and few came there.
"Now, don't ye gnaw your handkercher; 'twill hurt your little tongue,
And if you do feel spitish, 'tis because ye are over young;
But you'll be getting older, like us all, ere very long,
And you'll see me as I am - a man who never did 'ee wrong."
Straight from Whit'sheet Hill to Benvill Lane the blusters pass,
Hitting hedges, milestones, handposts, trees, and tufts of grass.
"Well, had I only known, my dear, that this was how you'd be,
I'd have married her of riper years that was so fond of me.
But since I can't, I've half a mind to run away to sea,
And leave 'ee to go barefoot to your d-d daddee!"
Up one wall and down the other - past each window-pane -
Prance the gusts, and then away down Crimmercrock's long lane.
"I - I - don't know what to say to't, since your wife I've vowed to be;
And as 'tis done, I s'pose here I must bide - poor me!
Aye - as you are ki-ki-kind, I'll try to live along with 'ee,
Although I'd fain have stayed at home with dear daddee!"
Gruffly growled the wind on Toller Down, so bleak and bare,
And lonesome was the house and dark; and few came there.
"That's right, my Heart! And though on haunted Toller Down we be,
And the wind swears things in chimley, we'll to supper merrily!
So don't ye tap your shoe so pettish-like; but smile at me,
And ye'll soon forget to sock and sigh for dear daddee!"
December 1901.
Bobbie's Statue
by Henry Lawson

Grown tired of mourning for my sins,
And brooding over merits,
The other night with aching heart
I went amongst the spirits;
And I met one that I knew well:
'O Scotty's Ghost! is that you?
And did you see the fearsome crowd
At Bobbie Burns's statue?
'They hurried up in hansom cabs,
Tall-hatted and frock-coated;
They trained it in from all the towns,
The weird and hairy-throated;
They spoke in some outlandish tongue,
They cut some comic capers,
And ilka man was wild to get
His name in all the papers.
'They showed no sign of intellect,
Those frauds who rushed before us;
They knew one verse of 'Auld Lang Syne',
The first one and the chorus.
They clacked the clack o' Scotlan''s Bard,
They glibly talked of 'Rabby';
But what if he had come to them
Without a groat and shabby?
'They drank and wept for Rabbie's sake,
They stood and brayed like asses
(The living bard's a drunken rake,
The dead one loved the lasses);
If Bobbie Burns were here, they'd sit
As still as any mouse is;
If Bobbie Bums should come their way,
They'd turn him out their houses.
'O weep for bonny Scotland's Bard!
And praise the Scottish nation,
Who made him spy and let him die
Heart-broken in privation:
Exciseman, so that he might live
Through northern winters' rigours,
Just as in southern lands they give
The hard-up rhymer figures.
'We need some songs of stinging fun
To wake the States and light 'em;
I wish a man like Robert Burns
Were here to-day to write 'em!
But still the mockery shall survive
Till Day o' Judgement crashes,
The men we scorn when we're alive
With praise insult our ashes.'
And Scotty's Ghost said: 'Never mind
The fleas that you inherit;
The living bard can flick 'em off,
They cannot hurt his spirit.
The crawlers round the poet's name
Shall crawl through all the ages;
His work's the living thing, and they
Are fly-dirt on the pages.'
Mother And Sphinx
by Eugene Field

(EGYPTIAN FOLK-SONG)
Grim is the face that looks into the night
Over the stretch of sands;
A sullen rock in a sea of white--
A ghostly shadow in ghostly light,
Peering and moaning it stands.
"Oh, is it the king that rides this way--
Oh, is it the king that rides so free?
I have looked for the king this many a day,
But the years that mock me will not say
Why tarrieth he!"
'T is not your king that shall ride to-night,
But a child that is fast asleep;
And the horse he shall ride is the Dream-horse white--
Aha, he shall speed through the ghostly light
Where the ghostly shadows creep!
"My eyes are dull and my face is sere,
Yet unto the word he gave I cling,
For he was a Pharaoh that set me here--
And, lo! I have waited this many a year
For him--my king!"
Oh, past thy face my darling shall ride
Swift as the burning winds that bear
The sand clouds over the desert wide--
Swift to the verdure and palms beside
The wells off there!
"And is it the mighty king I shall see
Come riding into the night?
Oh, is it the king come back to me--
Proudly and fiercely rideth he,
With centuries dight!"
I know no king but my dark-eyed dear
That shall ride the Dream-Horse white;
But see! he wakes at my bosom here,
While the Dream-Horse frettingly lingers near
To speed with my babe to-night!
And out of the desert darkness peers
A ghostly, ghastly, shadowy thing
Like a spirit come out of the mouldering years,
And ever that waiting spectre hears
The coming king!
Sonnet LIV. A Persian King To His Son.
by Anna Seward

FROM A PROSE TRANSLATION IN SIR WILLIAM JONES' ESSAY ON THE POETRY OF THE EASTERN NATIONS.
Guard thou, my Son, the Helpless and the Poor,
Nor in the chains of thine own indolence
Slumber enervate, while the joys of sense
Engross thee; and thou say'st, "I ask no more." - 
Wise Men the Shepherd's slumber will deplore
When the rapacious Wolf has leapt the fence,
And ranges thro' the fold. - My Son, dispense
Those laws, that justice to the Wrong'd restore. - 
The Common-Weal shou'd be the first pursuit
Of the crown'd Warrior, for the royal brows
The People first enwreath'd. - They are the Root,
The King the Tree. Aloft he spreads his boughs
Glorious; but learn, impetuous Youth, at length,
Trees from the Root alone derive their strength.
Upon Gubbs. Epig.
by Robert Herrick

Gubbs calls his children kitlings: and would bound,
Some say, for joy, to see those kitlings drown'd.
Memorials Of A Tour In Italy, 1837 - XV. - At The Convent Of Camaldoli
by William Wordsworth

Grieve for the Man who hither came bereft,
And seeking consolation from above;
Nor grieve the less that skill to him was left
To paint this picture of his lady-love:
Can she, a blessed saint, the work approve?
And oh, good Brethren of the cowl, a thing
So fair, to which with peril he must cling,
Destroy in pity, or with care remove.
That bloom, those eyes, can they assist to bind
Thoughts that would stray from Heaven? The dream must cease
To be; by Faith, not sight, his soul must live;
Else will the enamoured Monk too surely find
How wide a space can part from inward peace
The most profound repose his cell can give.
At The Keyhole
by Walter De La Mare

'Grill me some bones,' said the Cobbler,
'Some bones, my pretty Sue;
I'm tired of my lonesome with heels and soles,
Springsides and uppers too;
A mouse in the wainscot is nibbling;
A wind in the keyhole drones;
And a sheet webbed over my candle, Susie, - -
Grill me some bones!'
'Grill me some bones,' said the Cobbler,
I sat at my tic-tac-to;
And a footstep came to my door and stopped,
And a hand groped to and fro;
And I peered up over my boot and last;
And my feet went cold as stones:
I saw an eye at the keyhole, Susie! - -
Grill me some bones!'
In May
by Archibald Lampman

Grief was my master yesternight;
To-morrow I may grieve again;
But now along the windy plain
The clouds have taken flight.
The sowers in the furrows go;
The lusty river brimmeth on;
The curtains from the hills are gone;
The leaves are out; and lo,
The silvery distance of the day,
The light horizons, and between
The glory of the perfect green,
The tumult of the May.
The bobolinks at noonday sing
More softly than the softest flute,
And lightlier than the lightest lute
Their fairy tambours ring.
The roads far off are towered with dust;
The cherry-blooms are swept and thinned;
In yonder swaying elms the wind
Is charging gust on gust.
But here there is no stir at all;
The ministers of sun and shadow
Horde all the perfumes of the meadow
Behind a grassy wall.
An infant rivulet wind-free
Adown the guarded hollow sets,
Over whose brink the violets
Are nodding peacefully.
From pool to pool it prattles by;
The flashing swallows dip and pass,
Above the tufted marish grass,
And here at rest am I.
I care not for the old distress,
Nor if to-morrow bid me moan;
To-day is mine, and I have known
An hour of blessedness.
Sonnet. From The Italian Of Dante.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Dante Alighieri To Guido Cavalcanti:
Guido, I would that Lapo, thou, and I,
Led by some strong enchantment, might ascend
A magic ship, whose charmed sails should fly
With winds at will where'er our thoughts might wend,
So that no change, nor any evil chance
Should mar our joyous voyage; but it might be,
That even satiety should still enhance
Between our hearts their strict community:
And that the bounteous wizard then would place
Vanna and Bice and my gentle love,
Companions of our wandering, and would grace
With passionate talk, wherever we might rove,
Our time, and each were as content and free
As I believe that thou and I should be.
By Wold And Wood.
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
Green, watery jets of light let through
The rippling foliage drenched with dew;
Bland glow-worm glamours warm and dim
Above the mystic vistas swim,
Where, 'round the fountain's oozy urn,
The limp, loose fronds of limber fern
Wave dusky tresses thin and wet,
Blue-filleted with violet.
O'er roots that writhe in snaky knots
The moss in amber cushions clots;
From wattled walls of brier and brush
The elder's misty attars gush;
And, Argus-eyed, by knoll and bank
The affluent wild rose flowers rank;
And stol'n in shadowy retreats,
In black, rich soil, your vision greets
The colder undergrowths of woods,
Damp, lushy-leaved, whose gloomier moods
Turn all the life beneath to death
And rottenness for their own breath.
May-apples waxen-stemmed and large
With their bloom-screening breadths of targe;
Wake robins dark-green leaved, their stems
Tipped with green, oval clumps of gems,
As if some woodland Bacchus there
A-braiding of his yellow hair
With ivy-tod had idly tost
His thyrsus there, and so had lost.
Low blood root with its pallid bloom,
The red life of its mother's womb
Through all its ardent pulses fine
Beating in scarlet veins of wine.
And where the knotty eyes of trees
Stare wide, like Fauns' at Dryades
That lave smooth limbs in founts of spar,
Shines many a wild-flower's tender star.
II.
The scummy pond sleeps lazily,
Clad thick with lilies, and the bee
Reels boisterous as a Bassarid
Above the bloated green frog hid
In lush wan calamus and grass,
Beside the water's stagnant glass.
The piebald dragon-fly, like one
A-weary of the world and sun,
Comes blindly blundering along,
A pedagogue, gaunt, lean, and long,
Large-headed naturalist with wise,
Great, glaring goggles on his eyes.
And dry and hot the fragrant mint
Pours grateful odors without stint
From cool, clay banks of cressy streams,
Rare as the musks of rich hareems,
And hot as some sultana's breath
With turbulent passions or with death.
A haze of floating saffron; sound
Of shy, crisp creepings o'er the ground;
The dip and stir of twig and leaf;
Tempestuous gusts of spices brief
From elder bosks and sassafras;
Wind-cuffs that dodge the laughing grass;
Sharp, sudden songs and whisperings
That hint at untold hidden things,
Pan and Sylvanus that of old
Kept sacred each wild wood and wold.
A wily light beneath the trees
Quivers and dusks with ev'ry breeze;
Mayhap some Hamadryad who,
Culling her morning meal of dew
From frail accustomed cups of flowers - 
Some Satyr watching through the bowers - 
Had, when his goat hoof snapped and pressed
A brittle branch, shrunk back distressed,
Startled, her wild, tumultuous hair
Bathing her limbs one instant there.
Merrion Square (The Rocky Road To Dublin)
by James Stephens

Grey clouds on the tinted sky,
A drifting moon, a quiet breeze
Drooping mournfully to cry
In the branches of the trees.
The crying wind, the sighing trees,
The ruffled stars, the darkness falling
Down the sky, and on the breeze
A belated linnet calling.
Improvisation On An Old Song
by Duncan Campbell Scott

(The refrain is quoted by Edward Fitzgerald in one of his letters)
I
Growing, growing, all the glory going;
Flashing out of fire and light, burning to a husk,
All the world's a-dying and failing in the dusk - 
Growing, growing, all the glory going.
Rust is on the door-latch, ashes at the root,
Dry rot in the ridge-pole, canker in the fruit;
Growing, growing, all the glory going.
Plot, ye subtle statesmen, - a trace of melted wax;
Bind, ye haughty prelates, - a thread of ravelled flax;
Growing, growing, all the glory going.
March, ye mighty captains, - an eddy in the dust;
Rave, ye furious lovers, - a stain of crimson rust;
Growing, growing, all the glory going.
Pictures, poems, music - their essential soul,
Idle as dry roses in a silver bowl;
Growing, growing, all the glory going.
London is a hearsay, Paris but a myth,
Rome a wand of sweet-flag withered to the pith;
Growing, growing, all the glory going.
Palsy shakes the planets, frost has chilled the sun,
In a crushing silence the All is dead and done.
Growing, growing, all the glory going.
II
Going, going, all the glory growing,
See it stir and flutter; that is singing, hark!
Singing in the caverns of the primal dark.
Going, going, all the glory growing.
What is in the making, what immortal plan
Draws to its unfolding? 'Tis the Soul of man.
Going, going, all the glory growing.
See it mount and hover, singing as it goes,
Battling with the darkness, nourished by its woes;
Going, going, all the glory growing.
The bale-fires of midnight glaring in its eyes,
Past the phantom shadows see it rush and rise;
Going, going, all the glory growing.
The supernal morning on its dewy wings,
Soaring and scorning the lust of earthy things;
Going, going, all the glory growing.
The beatific noontide on its eager breast
Springing and singing to its halcyon rest;
Going, going, all the glory growing.
In its starry vesture not a vestige of the sod,
Winging still and singing to the heart of God.
Going, going, all the glory growing.
Upon Guess. Epig.
by Robert Herrick

Guess cuts his shoes, and limping, goes about
To have men think he's troubled with the gout;
But 'tis no gout, believe it, but hard beer,
Whose acrimonious humour bites him here.
To Albius Tibullus II
by Eugene Field

Grieve not, my Albius, if thoughts of Glycera may haunt you,
Nor chant your mournful elegies because she faithless proves;
If now a younger man than you this cruel charmer loves,
Let not the kindly favors of the past rise up to taunt you.
Lycoris of the little brow for Cyrus feels a passion,
And Cyrus, on the other hand, toward Pholoe inclines;
But ere this crafty Cyrus can accomplish his designs
She-goats will wed Apulian wolves in deference to fashion.
Such is the will, the cruel will, of love-inciting Venus,
Who takes delight in wanton sport and ill-considered jokes,
And brings ridiculous misfits beneath her brazen yokes,--
A very infelicitous proceeding, just between us.
As for myself, young Myrtale, slave-born and lacking graces,
And wilder than the Adrian tides which form Calabrian bays,
Entangled me in pleasing chains and compromising ways,
When--just my luck--a better girl was courting my embraces.
On Tomasin Parsons.
by Robert Herrick

Grow up in beauty, as thou dost begin,
And be of all admired, Tomasin.