DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The St. Lawrence.
by W. M. MacKeracher

Though like Ulysses, fam'd of old,
I travell'd, or the wandering Jew,
No nobler sight could I behold
Than one which daily meets my view,
This mighty stream, my country's pride,
St. Lawrence' broad, majestic tide.
By Babylonia's waters, 'mong
Unwonted scenes, disconsolate,
Their harps upon the willows hung,
The Jewish exiles weeping sate,
Recall'd the river of their land,
And yearn'd to tread its winding strand.
When stern Elisha bade him lave
Seven times in Jordan and be clean,
His Syrian upland's flashing wave
Seem'd better to the Damascene.
"Albana, Pharpar far excel,"
He said, "the streams of Israel."
In India Ganges was rever'd,
In Egypt worshipp'd was the Nile,
To Romans Tiber was endear'd
From Apennine to Sacred Isle;
And Rhine and Danube, Thames and Rhone
A people's votive love have known.
And we to this imposing flood
A cordial homage needs must pay,
Who in the solemn night have stood
Upon its banks, and day by day
Been fill'd with gladness to behold
Its floor of silver flush'd with gold.
It brings the nations to our marts,
It bears our commerce to the sea,
Has virtue, too, to cleanse our hearts,
And make our spirits strong and free;
It flows, our struggling lives to bless,
With volume, grace and cheerfulness.
Sacrifice
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Though love repine, and reason chafe,
There came a voice without reply,--
''T is man's perdition to be safe,
When for the truth he ought to die.'
Long-Looked-For Comes At Last.
by Robert Herrick

Though long it be, years may repay the debt;
None loseth that which he in time may get.
The Emigrant Laddie.
by Jean Blewett

Though long, long leagues of land and sea
Stretch out between Braemar and me,
I'll win home late or soon,
Will take the old familiar way
Past Isla Glen, up bold Glenshee,
By sun-kissed hill and valley gray - 
These feet of mine will find their way
At midnight or at noon.
The hearth-fire, and the cot of stone
Set 'mong the fir trees tall and lone,
I'll see before my eyes;
Hear rough winds kiss the heath-clad hill,
The murmur gay of loch and rill,
The mavis singing sweet and shrill,
Hear, warm and soft as notes that thrill
The souls in paradise.
A voice all tremulous and glad
Cries out: "A welcome home, my lad!"
Pebbles
by Herman Melville

I
Though the Clerk of the Weather insist,
And lay down the weather-law,
Pintado and gannet they wist
That the winds blow whither they list
In tempest or flaw.
II
Old are the creeds, but stale the schools,
Revamped as the mode may veer,
But Orm from the schools to the beaches strays
And, finding a Conch hoar with time, he delays
And reverent lifts it to ear.
That Voice, pitched in far monotone,
Shall it swerve? shall it deviate ever?
The Seas have inspired it, and Truth--
Truth, varying from sameness never.
III
In hollows of the liquid hills
Where the long Blue Ridges run,
The flattery of no echo thrills,
For echo the seas have none;
Nor aught that gives man back man's strain--
The hope of his heart, the dream in his brain.
IV
On ocean where the embattled fleets repair,
Man, suffering inflictor, sails on sufferance there.
V
Implacable I, the old Implacable Sea:
Implacable most when most I smile serene--
Pleased, not appeased, by myriad wrecks in me.
VI
Curled in the comb of yon billow Andean,
Is it the Dragon's heaven-challenging crest?
Elemental mad ramping of ravening waters--
Yet Christ on the Mount, and the dove in her nest!
VII
Healed of my hurt, I laud the inhuman Sea--
Yea, bless the Angels Four that there convene;
For healed I am ever by their pitiless breath
Distilled in wholesome dew named rosmarine.
Valentines From An Inconstant-Constant
by Arthur Macy

(After Henri Murger)
Though I love many maidens fair
As fondly as a heart may dare,
Yet still are you the only one
True goddess of my pantheon.
And though my life is like a song,
Each maid a stanza, clear and strong,
Yet always I return again
To you who are the sweet refrain.
The Lion In Love
by Walter Crane

Though the Lion in love let them draw
All his teeth, and pare down every claw,
He'd no bride for his pains,
For they beat out his brains
Ere he set on his maiden a paw.
Our Very Means May Defeat Our Ends
Though The Bold Wings Of Poesy Affect
by William Wordsworth

Though the bold wings of Poesy affect
The clouds, and wheel around the mountain tops
Rejoicing, from her loftiest height she drops
Well pleased to skim the plain with wild flowers deckt
Or muse in solemn grove whose shades protect
The lingering dew there steals along, or stops
Watching the least small bird that round her hops,
Or creeping worm, with sensitive respect.
Her functions are they therefore less divine,
Her thoughts less deep, or void of grave intent
Her simplest fancies? Should that fear be thine,
Aspiring Votary, ere thy hand present
One offering, kneel before her modest shrine,
With brow in penitential sorrow bent!
Rondel*
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

Though I wander far-off ways,
Dearest, never doubt thou me:
Mine is not the love that strays,
Though I wander far-off ways:
Faithfully for all my days
I have vowed myself to thee:
Though I wander far-off ways,
Dearest, never doubt thou me.
On A Corkscrew
by Jonathan Swift

Though I, alas! a prisoner be,
My trade is prisoners to set free.
No slave his lord's commands obeys
With such insinuating ways.
My genius piercing, sharp, and bright,
Wherein the men of wit delight.
The clergy keep me for their ease,
And turn and wind me as they please.
A new and wondrous art I show
Of raising spirits from below;
In scarlet some, and some in white;
They rise, walk round, yet never fright.
In at each mouth the spirits pass,
Distinctly seen as through a glass:
O'er head and body make a rout,
And drive at last all secrets out;
And still, the more I show my art,
The more they open every heart.
A greater chemist none than I
Who, from materials hard and dry,
Have taught men to extract with skill
More precious juice than from a still.
Although I'm often out of case,
I'm not ashamed to show my face.
Though at the tables of the great
I near the sideboard take my seat;
Yet the plain 'squire, when dinner's done,
Is never pleased till I make one;
He kindly bids me near him stand,
And often takes me by the hand.
I twice a-day a-hunting go;
Nor ever fail to seize my foe;
And when I have him by the poll,
I drag him upwards from his hole;
Though some are of so stubborn kind,
I'm forced to leave a limb behind.
I hourly wait some fatal end;
For I can break, but scorn to bend.
Song Of The Wandering Jew
by William Wordsworth

Though the torrents from their fountains
Roar down many a craggy steep,
Yet they find among the mountains
Resting-places calm and deep.
Clouds that love through air to hasten,
Ere the storm its fury stills,
Helmet-like themselves will fasten
On the heads of towering hills.
What, if through the frozen centre
Of the Alps the Chamois bound,
Yet he has a home to enter
In some nook of chosen ground:
And the Sea-horse, though the ocean
Yield him no domestic cave,
Slumbers without sense of motion,
Couched upon the rocking wave.
If on windy days the Raven
Gambol like a dancing skiff,
Not the less she loves her haven
In the bosom of the cliff.
The fleet Ostrich, till day closes,
Vagrant over desert sands,
Brooding on her eggs reposes
When chill night that care demands.
Day and night my toils redouble,
Never nearer to the goal;
Night and day, I feel the trouble
Of the Wanderer in my soul.
H. P. B. (In Memoriam.)
by George William Russell

Though swift the days flow from her day,
No one has left her day unnamed:
We know what light broke from her ray
On us, who in the truth proclaimed
Grew brother with the stars and powers
That stretch away--away to light,
And fade within the primal hours,
And in the wondrous First unite.
We lose with her the right to scorn
The voices scornful of her truth:
With her a deeper love was born
For those who filled her days with ruth.
To her they were not sordid things:
In them sometimes--her wisdom said--
The Bird of Paradise had wings;
It only dreams, it is not dead.
We cannot for forgetfulness
Forego the reverence due to them,
Who wear at times they do not guess
The sceptre and the diadem.
With wisdom of the olden time
She made the hearts of dust to flame;
And fired us with the hope sublime
Our ancient heritage to claim;
That turning from the visible,
By vastness unappalled nor stayed,
Our wills might rule beside that Will
By which the tribal stars are swayed;
And entering the heroic strife,
Tread in the way their feet have trod
Who move within a vaster life,
Sparks in the Fire--Gods amid God.
--August 15, 1894
The Lady Of The Hills.
by Madison Julius Cawein

Though red my blood hath left its trail
For five far miles, I shall not fail,
As God in Heaven wills!
The way was long through that black land.
With sword on hip and horn in hand,
At last before thy walls I stand,
O Lady of the Hills!
No seneschal shall put to scorn
The summons of my bugle-horn!
No man-at-arms shall stay!
Yea! God hath helped my strength too far
By bandit-caverned wood and scar
To give it pause now, or to bar
My all-avenging way.
This hope still gives my body strength
To kiss her eyes and lips at length
Where all her kin can see;
Then 'mid her towers of crime and gloom,
Sin-haunted like the Halls of Doom,
To smite her dead in that wild room
Red-lit with revelry.
Madly I rode; nor once did slack.
Before my face the world rolled, black
With nightmare wind and rain.
Witch-lights mocked at me on the fen;
And through the forest followed then
Gaunt eyes of wolves; and ghosts of men
Moaned by me on the plain.
Still on I rode. My way was clear
From that wild time when, spear to spear,
Deep in the wind-torn wood,
I met him!... Dead he lies beneath
Their trysting oak. I clenched my teeth
And rode. My wound scarce let me breathe,
That filled my eyes with blood.
And here I am. The blood may blind
My eyesight now ... yet I shall find
Her by some inner eye!
For God, He hath this deed in care!
Yea! I shall kiss again her hair,
And tell her of her leman there,
Then smite her dead, and die.
The Meadow Lark
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Though the winds be dank,
And the sky be sober,
And the grieving Day
In a mantle gray
Hath let her waiting maiden robe her,--
All the fields along
I can hear the song
Of the meadow lark,
As she flits and flutters,
And laughs at the thunder when it mutters.
O happy bird, of heart most gay
To sing when skies are gray!
When the clouds are full,
And the tempest master
Lets the loud winds sweep
From his bosom deep
Like heralds of some dire disaster,
Then the heart alone
To itself makes moan;
And the songs come slow,
While the tears fall fleeter,
And silence than song by far seems sweeter.
Oh, few are they along the way
Who sing when skies are gray!
The Way To Behave.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Though tempers are bad and peevish folks swear,
Remember to ruffle thy brows, friend, ne'er;
And let not the fancies of women so fair
E'er serve thy pleasure in life to impair.
The Post That Fitted
by Rudyard Kipling

Though tangled and twisted the course of true love
This ditty explains,
No tangle's so tangled it cannot improve
If the Lover has brains.
Ere the seamer bore him Eastward, Sleary was engaged to marry
An attractive girl at Tunbridge, whom he called "my little Carrie."
Sleary's pay was very modest; Sleary was the other way.
Who can cook a two-plate dinner on eight poor rupees a day?
Long he pondered o'er the question in his scantly furnished quarters,
Then proposed to Minnie Boffkin, eldest of Judge Boffkin's daughters.
Certainly an impecunious Subaltern was not a catch,
But the Boffkins knew that Minnie mightn't make another match.
So they recognised the business and, to feed and clothe the bride,
Got him made a Something Something somewhere on the Bombay side.
Anyhow, the billet carried pay enough for him to marry,
As the artless Sleary put it: "Just the thing for me and Carrie."
Did he, therefore, jilt Miss Boffkin, impulse of a baser mind?
No! He started epileptic fits of an appalling kind.
[Of his modus operandi only this much I could gather:,
"Pears's shaving sticks will give you little taste and lots of lather."]
Frequently in public places his affliction used to smite
Sleary with distressing vigour, always in the Boffkins' sight.
Ere a week was over Minnie weepingly returned his ring,
Told him his "unhappy weakness" stopped all thought of marrying.
Sleary bore the information with a chastened holy joy,,
Epileptic fits don't matter in Political employ,,
Wired three short words to Carrie, took his ticket, packed his kit,
Bade farewell to Minnie Boffkin in one last, long, lingering fit.
Four weeks later, Carrie Sleary read, and laughed until she wept,
Mrs. Boffkin's warning letter on the "wretched epilept"...
Year by year, in pious patience, vengeful Mrs. Boffkin sits
Waiting for the Sleary babies to develop Sleary's fits.
The End
by Edward Smyth Jones

Though man through life so swiftly wends,
And o'er its journey runs his race;
Though rough, or smooth, or 'round the bends,
In distance putting fleetest friend:
Alas! there comes a halting place,
A place of rest - the journey's end!
To May
by William Wordsworth

Though many suns have risen and set
Since thou, blithe May, wert born,
And Bards, who hailed thee, may forget
Thy gift, thy beauty scorn;
There are who to a birthday strain
Confine not harp and voice,
But evermore throughout thy reign
Are grateful and rejoice!
Delicious odor! music sweet,
Too sweet to pass away!
Oh for a deathless song to meet
The soul's desire, a lay
That, when a thousand year are told,
Should praise thee, genial Power!
Through summer heat, autumnal cold,
And winter's dreariest hour.
Earth, sea, thy presence feel, nor less,
If yon ethereal blue
With its soft smile the truth express,
The heavens have felt it too.
The inmost heart of man if glad
Partakes a livelier cheer;
And eye that cannot but be sad
Let fall a brightened tear.
Since thy return, through days and weeks
Of hope that grew by stealth,
How many wan and faded cheeks
Have kindled into health!
The Old, by thee revived, have said,
"Another year is ours;"
And wayworn Wanderers, poorly fed,
Have smiled upon thy flowers.
Who tripping lisps a merry song
Amid his playful peers?
The tender Infant who was long
A prisoner of fond fears;
But now, when every sharp-edged blast
Is quiet in its sheath,
His Mother leaves him free to taste
Earth's sweetness in thy breath.
Thy help is with the weed that creeps
Along the humblest ground;
No cliff so bare but on its steeps
Thy favors may be found;
But most on some peculiar nook
That our own hands have drest,
Thou and thy train are proud to look,
And seem to love it best.
And yet how pleased we wander forth
When May is whispering, "Come!
"Choose from the bowers of virgin earth
The happiest for your home;
Heaven's bounteous love through me is spread
From sunshine, clouds, winds, waves,
Drops on the mouldering turret's head,
And on your turf-clad graves!"
Such greeting heard, away with sighs
For lilies that must fade,
Or ' the rathe primrose as it dies
Forsaken' in the shade!
Vernal fruitions and desires
Are linked in endless chase;
While, as one kindly growth retires,
Another takes its place.
And what if thou, sweet May, hast known
Mishap by worm and blight;
If expectations newly blown
Have perished in thy sight;
If loves and joys, while up they sprung,
Were caught as in a snare;
Such is the lot of all the young,
However bright and fair.
Lo! Streams that April could not check
Are patient of thy rule;
Gurgling in foamy water-break,
Loitering in glassy pool:
By thee, thee only, could be sent
Such gentle mists as glide,
Curling with unconfirmed intent,
On that green mountain's side.
How delicate the leafy veil
Through which yon house of God
Gleams 'mid the peace of this deep dale
By few but shepherds trod!
And lowly huts, near beaten ways,
No sooner stand attired
In thy fresh wreaths, than they for praise
Peep forth, and are admired.
Season of fancy and of hope,
Permit not for one hour,
A blossom from thy crown to drop,
Nor add to it a flower!
Keep, lovely May, as if by touch
Of self restraining art,
This modest charm of not too much,
Part seen, imagined part!
To Erinna.
by Alexander Pope

Though sprightly Sappho force our love and praise,
A softer wonder my pleased soul surveys,
The mild Erinna, blushing in her bays.
So, while the sun's broad beam yet strikes the sight,
All mild appears the moon's more sober light;
Serene, in virgin majesty she shines,
And, unobserved, the glaring sun declines.
Epitaph On Fop, A Dog Belonging To Lady Throckmorton.
by William Cowper

Though once a puppy, and though Fop by name,
Here moulders one whose bones some honour claim.
No sycophant, although of spaniel race,
And though no hound, a martyr to the chace'
Ye squirrels, rabbits, leverets, rejoice,
Your haunts no longer echo to his voice;
This record of his fate exulting view,
He died worn out with vain pursuit of you.
'Yes,''the indignant shade of Fop replies'
'And worn with vain pursuit, man also dies.'
The End Of Fear
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Though the whole heaven be one-eyed with the moon,
Though the dead landscape seem a thing possessed,
Yet I go singing through that land oppressed
As one that singeth through the flowers of June.
No more, with forest-fingers crawling free
O'er dark flint wall that seems a wall of eyes,
Shall evil break my soul with mysteries
Of some world-poison maddening bush and tree.
No more shall leering ghosts of pimp and king
With bloody secrets veiled before me stand.
Last night I held all evil in my hand
Closed: and behold it was a little thing.
I broke the infernal gates and looked on him
Who fronts the strong creation with a curse;
Even the god of a lost universe,
Smiling above his hideous cherubim.
And pierced far down in his soul's crypt unriven
The last black crooked sympathy and shame,
And hailed him with that ringing rainbow name
Erased upon the oldest book in heaven.
Like emptied idiot masks, sin's loves and wars
Stare at me now: for in the night I broke
The bubble of a great world's jest, and woke
Laughing with laughter such as shakes the stars.
The Bride
by Theodosia Garrison

I
Though other eyes were turned to him,
He turned to look in mine;
Though others filled the cup abrim,
He might not taste the wine.
I am so glad my eyes were first
In which his own might sink;
I am so glad he went athirst
Until I bade him drink.
II
The Well-Belov'd took my hand
And led me to his fair abode,
The home that Love and he had planned.
(Strange that so well I knew the road.)
And through the open door we went,
And at our feet the hearth-light fell,
And I--I laughed in all content,
Seeing I knew the place so well.
Ah, to no stranger Love displayed
Its every nook, its every grace,
This was the House of Dreams I made
Long, long before I saw his face.
III
I jested over-much in days of old,
I looked on sorrow once and did not care,
Now Love hath crowned my head with very gold,
I will be worthy of the joy I wear.
There is not one a-hungered or a-cold
Shall seek my door but that he too shall share
Something of this vast happiness I hold;
I will be worthy of the joy I wear.
For I was hungered and Love spread the feast,
Cold--and He touched my heart and warmed it there,
Yea, crowned me Queen--I neediest of His least,
I will be worthy of the joy I wear.
Christmas, 1884
by George MacDonald

Though in my heart no Christmas glee,
Though my song-bird be dumb,
Jesus, it is enough for me
That thou art come.
What though the loved be scattered far,
Few at the board appear,
In thee, O Lord, they gathered are,
And thou art here.
And if our hearts be low with lack,
They are not therefore numb;
Not always will thy day come back--
Thyself will come!
The Coming Of Wisdom With Time
by William Butler Yeats

Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth.
Revulsion
by Thomas Hardy

Though I waste watches framing words to fetter
Some spirit to mine own in clasp and kiss,
Out of the night there looms a sense 'twere better
To fail obtaining whom one fails to miss.
For winning love we win the risk of losing,
And losing love is as one's life were riven;
It cuts like contumely and keen ill-using
To cede what was superfluously given.
Let me then feel no more the fateful thrilling
That devastates the love-worn wooer's frame,
The hot ado of fevered hopes, the chilling
That agonizes disappointed aim!
So may I live no junctive law fulfilling,
And my heart's table bear no woman's name.
1866.
To The Planet Venus, An Evening Star - Composed At Loch Lomond
by William Wordsworth

Though joy attend Thee orient at the birth
Of dawn, it cheers the lofty spirit most
To watch thy course when Day-light, fled from earth,
In the grey sky hath left his lingering Ghost,
Perplexed as if between a splendour lost
And splendour slowly mustering. Since the Sun,
The absolute, the world-absorbing One,
Relinquished half his empire to the host
Emboldened by thy guidance, holy Star,
Holy as princely, who that looks on thee,
Touching, as now, in thy humility
The mountain borders of this seat of care,
Can question that thy countenance is bright,
Celestial Power, as much with love as light?
To Ligurinus I
by Eugene Field

Though mighty in Love's favor still,
Though cruel yet, my boy,
When the unwelcome dawn shall chill
Your pride and youthful joy,
The hair which round your shoulder grows
Is rudely cut away,
Your color, redder than the rose,
Is changed by youth's decay,--
Then, Ligurinus, in the glass
Another you will spy.
And as the shaggy face, alas!
You see, your grief will cry:
"Why in my youth could I not learn
The wisdom men enjoy?
Or why to men cannot return
The smooth cheeks of the boy?"
Waratah And Wattle
by Henry Lawson

Though poor and in trouble I wander alone,
With rebel cockade in my hat,
Though friends may desert me, and kindred disown,
My country will never do that!
You may sing of the Shamrock, the Thistle, the rose,
Or the three in a bunch, if you will;
But I know of a country that gathered all those,
And I love the great land where the Waratah grows.
And the Wattle-bough blooms on the hill.
Australia! Australia! so fair to behold-
While the blue sky is arching above;
The stranger should never have need to be told,
That the Wattle-bloom means that her heart is of gold.
And the Waratah's red with her love.
Australia! Australia! most beautiful name,
Most kindly and bountiful land;
I would die every death that might save her from shame,
If a black cloud should rise on the stand;
But whatever the quarrel, whoever her foes,
Let them come! Let them come when they will!
Though the struggle be grim, 'tis Australia that knows
That her children shall fight while the Waratah grows,
And the Wattle blooms out on the hill.