DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Song.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

1.
Rarely, rarely, comest thou,
Spirit of Delight!
Wherefore hast thou left me now
Many a day and night?
Many a weary night and day
'Tis since thou art fled away.
2.
How shall ever one like me
Win thee back again?
With the joyous and the free
Thou wilt scoff at pain.
Spirit false! thou hast forgot
All but those who need thee not.
3.
As a lizard with the shade
Of a trembling leaf,
Thou with sorrow art dismayed;
Even the sighs of grief
Reproach thee, that thou art not near,
And reproach thou wilt not hear.
4.
Let me set my mournful ditty
To a merry measure;
Thou wilt never come for pity,
Thou wilt come for pleasure;
Pity then will cut away
Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.
5.
I love all that thou lovest,
Spirit of Delight!
The fresh Earth in new leaves dressed,
And the starry night;
Autumn evening, and the morn
When the golden mists are born.
6.
I love snow, and all the forms
Of the radiant frost;
I love waves, and winds, and storms,
Everything almost
Which is Nature's, and may be
Untainted by man's misery.
7.
I love tranquil solitude,
And such society
As is quiet, wise, and good
Between thee and me
What difference? but thou dost possess
The things I seek, not love them less.
8.
I love Love - though he has wings,
And like light can flee,
But above all other things,
Spirit, I love thee -
Thou art love and life! Oh, come,
Make once more my heart thy home.
Your Body Is My Map
by Nizar Qabbani

raise me more love... raise me
my prettiest fits of madness
O' dagger's journey... in my flesh
and knife's plunge...
sink me further my lady...
the sea calls me
add to me more death ...
perhaps as death slays me... I'm revived
your body is my map...
the world's map no longer concerns me...
I am the oldest capital of sadness...
and my wound a Pharaonic engraving
my pain.... extends like an oil patch
from Beirut... to China...
my pain... a caravan...dispatched
by the Caliphs of "A'Chaam"... to China...
in the seventh century of the "Birth"...
and lost in a dragon's mouth...
bird of my heart... "naysani"
O' sand of the sea, and forests of olives
O' taste of snow, and taste of fire...
my heathen flavor, and insight
I feel scared of the unknown... shelter me
I feel scared of the darkness... embrace me
I feel cold... cover me up
tell me children stories...
rest beside me...
Chant to me...
since from the start of creation
I've been searching for a homeland to my forehead...
for a woman's hair...
that writes me on the walls... then erases me...
for a woman's love... to take me
to the borders of the sun... and throws me...
from a woman's lip... as she makes me
like dust of powdered gold...
shine of my life. my fan
my lantern. declaration of my orchards
stretch me a bridge with the scent of oranges...
and place me like an ivory comb...
in the darkness of your hair... then forget me
I am a drop of water... ambivalent
remaining in the notebook of October
your love crushes me...
like a mad horse from the Caucasus throwing me under its hoofs...
and gargles with the water of my eyes...
add to me more fury... add to me
O' prettiest fits of my madness
for your sake I set free my women
and effaced my birth certificate
and cut all my arteries...
The Tourney
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Ralph would fight in Edith's sight,
For Ralph was Edith's lover,
Ralph went down like a fire to the fight,
Struck to the left and struck to the right,
Roll'd them over and over.
'Gallant Sir Ralph,' said the king.
Casques were crack'd and hauberks hack'd,
Lances snapt in sunder,
Rang the stroke, and sprang the blood,
Knights were thwack'd and riven, and hew'd
Like broad oaks with thunder.
'O what an arm,' said the king.
Edith bow'd her stately head,
Saw them lie confounded,
Edith Montfort bow'd her head,
Crown'd her knight's, and flush'd as red
As poppies when she crown'd it.
'Take her Sir Ralph,' said the king.
A Light In The Window
by Madison Julius Cawein

Rain and wind and candlelight
And let us pray a prayer to-night:
For every soul, since life is brief,
Little of trouble and less of grief.
And set a light at the windowpane,
To guide Love home through the night and rain.
Rain and wind and candlelight
And what shall we pray again to-night?
For every life, whose way is dim,
The grace of God and trust in Him.
A word, a song, till the tears be dried,
And Faith and Hope sit down beside.
Rain and wind and candlelight
And one last prayer to pray to-night:
For every heart in the dark and rain
To know its prayer is not in vain:
A door flung wide, and a face aglow
Love come back from the Long-Ago.
Then let the rain and the wind without
Threaten their worst and rave and shout:
For who will care, though the night is black
Love to his own has wandered back.
Has wandered back through the rain and night,
Led home again by her candle's light.
In Memoriam. - Herbert Foss,
by Lydia Howard Sigourney

Only son of SAMUEL S. FOSS, Esq., died May 23d, 1859, aged three years and three months.
"Read more, Papa," the loving infant cried,--
And meekly bow'd the listening ear, and fix'd
The ardent eye, devouring every word
Of his dear picture book. And then he spread
His arms, and folded thrice the father's neck.
--The mother came from church, and lull'd her boy
To quiet sleep, and laid him in his crib;
And as they watch'd the smile of innocence
That sometimes lightly floated o'er his brow
That Sabbath eve, they to each other said,
"How beautiful."
There was another scene,--
The child lay compass'd round with Spring's white flowers,
Yet heav'd no breath to stir their lightest leaf.
And many a one who on that coffin look'd
And went their way, in tender whisper said
"How beautiful!"
Oh parents, ye who sit
Mourning for HERBERT, in your empty room,
What if the darling of your fondest care
Scarce woke from his brief dream and went to Heaven?
--Our dream is longer, but 'tis mixed with tears.
For we are dreamers all, and only those
Fully awake, who dwell where naught deceives.
So, when time's vision o'er, you reach the land
Which hath no need of sun, or waning moon
To give it light, how sweet to hear your child
Bid you "good morning" with his cherub tongue.
His last words to his father, who was reading to him in a favorite book, were, "Read, more, papa, please read more." Soon after, and almost without warning, he died.
Charles George Gordon.
by Henry Austin Dobson

"Rather be dead than praised," he said,
That hero, like a hero dead,
In this slack-sinewed age endued
With more than antique fortitude!
"Rather be dead than praised!" Shall we,
Who loved thee, now that Death sets free
Thine eager soul, with word and line
Profane that empty house of thine?
Nay,--let us hold, be mute. Our pain
Will not be less that we refrain;
And this our silence shall but be
A larger monument to thee.
A Ghost And A Dream
by Madison Julius Cawein

Rain will fall on the fading flowers,
Winds will blow through the dripping tree,
When Fall leads in her tattered Hours
With Death to keep them company.
All night long in the weeping weather,
All night long in the garden grey,
A ghost and a dream will talk together
And sad are the things they will have to say:
Old sad things of the bough that's broken;
Heartbreak things of the leaf that's dead;
Old sad things no tongue hath spoken;
Sorrowful things no man hath said.
Upon Rasp. Epig.
by Robert Herrick

Rasp plays at nine-holes; and 'tis known he gets
Many a tester by his game and bets:
But of his gettings there's but little sign;
When one hole wastes more than he gets by nine.
Life Laughs Onward
by Thomas Hardy

Rambling I looked for an old abode
Where, years back, one had lived I knew;
Its site a dwelling duly showed,
But it was new.
I went where, not so long ago,
The sod had riven two breasts asunder;
Daisies throve gaily there, as though
No grave were under.
I walked along a terrace where
Loud children gambolled in the sun;
The figure that had once sat there
Was missed by none.
Life laughed and moved on unsubdued,
I saw that Old succumbed to Young:
'Twas well. My too regretful mood
Died on my tongue.
Raving Winds Around Her Blowing.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "Macgregor of Rura's Lament."
I.
Raving winds around her blowing,
Yellow leaves the woodlands strowing,
By a river hoarsely roaring,
Isabella stray'd deploring,
"Farewell hours that late did measure
Sunshine days of joy and pleasure;
Hail, thou gloomy night of sorrow,
Cheerless night that knows no morrow!
II.
"O'er the past too fondly wandering,
On the hopeless future pondering;
Chilly grief my life-blood freezes,
Fell despair my fancy seizes.
Life, thou soul of every blessing,
Load to misery most distressing,
Gladly how would I resign thee,
And to dark oblivion join thee!"
We To Sigh Instead Of Sing.
by James Whitcomb Riley

"Rain and rain! and rain and rain!"
Yesterday we muttered
Grimly as the grim refrain
That the thunders uttered:
All the heavens under cloud - 
All the sunshine sleeping;
All the grasses limply bowed
With their weight of weeping.
Sigh and sigh! and sigh and sigh!
Never end of sighing;
Rain and rain for our reply - 
Hopes half-drowned and dying;
Peering through the window-pane,
Naught but endless raining - 
Endless sighing, and, as vain,
Endlessly complaining.
Shine and shine! and shine and shine!
Ah! to-day the splendor! - 
All this glory yours and mine - 
God! but God is tender!
We to sigh instead of sing,
Yesterday, in sorrow,
While the Lord was fashioning
This for our To-morrow!
In Memoriam. - Rev. Henry Albertson Post,
by Lydia Howard Sigourney

Died at Warrensburgh, New York, November 12th, 1861, aged 26.
[1]Read me rejoicing Psalms,
Oh dearest one, and best!
I go from war to peace,
From pain to glorious rest,
Where the bright life-tree sheds
Around its precious balms,
So, while I linger here
Read me rejoicing psalms.
And when my place I take
Amid the ransom'd throng
Who through a Saviour's love
Uplift the immortal song,
Repress the tear of grief
That washes faith away,
And brave in zeal and love
Await our meeting-day.
Yes, let thy course below
Through all its fleeting days
In its angelic ministries
Be as a psalm of praise.
In The Channel, Between The Coast Of Cumberland And The Isle Of Man
by William Wordsworth

Ranging the heights of Scawfell or Blackcomb,
In his lone course the Shepherd oft will pause,
And strive to fathom the mysterious laws
By which the clouds, arrayed in light or gloom,
On Mona settle, and the shapes assume
Of all her peaks and ridges. What he draws
From sense, faith, reason, fancy, of the cause,
He will take with him to the silent tomb.
Or, by his fire, a child upon his knee,
Haply the untaught Philosopher may speak
Of the strange sight, nor hide his theory
That satisfies the simple and the meek,
Blest in their pious ignorance, though weak
To cope with Sages undevoutly free.
Amour 41
by Michael Drayton

Rare of-spring of my thoughts, my dearest Loue,
Begot by fancy on sweet hope exhortiue,
In whom all purenes with perfection stroue,
Hurt in the Embryon makes my ioyes abhortiue.
And you, my sighes, Symtomas of my woe,
The dolefull Anthems of my endelesse care,
Lyke idle Ecchoes euer answering; so,
The mournfull accents of my loues dispayre.
And thou, Conceite, the shadow of my blisse,
Declyning with the setting of my sunne,
Springing with that, and fading straight with this,
Now hast thou end, and now thou wast begun:
Now was thy pryme, and loe! is now thy waine;
Now wast thou borne, now in thy cradle slayne.
Upon Reape.
by Robert Herrick

Reape's eyes so raw are that, it seems, the flies
Mistake the flesh, and fly-blow both his eyes;
So that an angler, for a day's expense,
May bait his hook with maggots taken thence.
The Old Inn
by Madison Julius Cawein

Red-Winding from the sleepy town,
One takes the lone, forgotten lane
Straight through the hills. A brush-bird brown
Bubbles in thorn-flowers, sweet with rain,
Where breezes bend the gleaming grain,
And cautious drip of higher leaves
The lower dips that drip again.
Above the tangled trees it heaves
Its gables and its haunted eaves.
One creeper, gnarled and blossomless,
O'erforests all its eastern wall;
The sighing cedars rake and press
Dark boughs along the panes they sprawl;
While, where the sun beats, drone and drawl
The mud-wasps; and one bushy bee,
Gold-dusty, hurls along the hall
To buzz into a crack. To me
The shadows seem too seared to flee.
Of ragged chimneys martins make
Huge pipes of music; twittering, here
They build and roost. My footfalls wake
Strange stealing echoes, till I fear
I'll see my pale self drawing near,
My phantom face as in a glass;
Or one, men murdered, buried where?
Dim in gray stealthy glimmer, pass
With lips that seem to moan 'Alas.'
The Sleet
by Nancy Rebecca Campbell Glass

Regal the earth seems with diamonds today,
Gemming all nature in blazing array;
A picture more fairy-like never could be
Than this wonderful icicle filigree.
A crystallized world! What a marvelous sight,
Gorgeous and grand in the March sunlight!
The frost-king magician has changed the spring showers
To turquois and topaz and sapphire bowers.
And what is the lesson we learn from the sleet,
As toiling life's road with wearying feet,
Upward we strive, but failing so oft
In the struggles that bear us aright and aloft?
'Tis this that the hard breath of winter's chill blast
Alone can this mantle of loveliness cast;
And thus our sharp winds of trial may prove
Angels to weave us bright garments of love.
Purgatory.
by Robert Herrick

Readers, we entreat ye pray
For the soul of Lucia;
That in little time she be
From her purgatory free:
In the interim she desires
That your tears may cool her fires.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part I. - XXXV - Richard I
by William Wordsworth

Redoubted King, of courage leonine,
I mark thee, Richard! urgent to equip
Thy warlike person with the staff and scrip;
I watch thee sailing o'er the midland brine;
In conquered Cyprus see thy Bride decline
Her blushing cheek, love-vows upon her lip,
And see love-emblems streaming from thy ship,
As thence she holds her way to Palestine.
My Song, a fearless homager, would attend
Thy thundering battle-axe as it cleaves the press
Of war, but duty summons her away
To tell how, finding in the rash distress
Of those Enthusiasts a subservient friend,
To giddier heights hath clomb the Papal sway.
Another Inscription For A Stone Erected On A Similar Occasion At The Same Place In The Following Year.
by William Cowper

Reader! behold a monument
That asks no sigh or tear,
Though it perpetuate the event
Of a great burial here.
June 1790. Anno 1791.
Thomas Trevelyan
by Edgar Lee Masters

Reading in Ovid the sorrowful story of Itys,
Son of the love of Tereus and Procne, slain
For the guilty passion of Tereus for Philomela,
The flesh of him served to Tereus by Procne,
And the wrath of Tereus, the murderess pursuing
Till the gods made Philomela a nightingale,
Lute of the rising moon, and Procne a swallow
Oh livers and artists of Hellas centuries gone,
Sealing in little thuribles dreams and wisdom,
Incense beyond all price, forever fragrant,
A breath whereof makes clear the eyes of the soul
How I inhaled its sweetness here in Spoon River!
The thurible opening when I had lived and learned
How all of us kill the children of love, and all of us,
Knowing not what we do, devour their flesh;
And all of us change to singers, although it be
But once in our lives, or change - alas! - to swallows,
To twitter amid cold winds and falling leaves!
Concord
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Reconciled by death's mild hand, that giving
Peace gives wisdom, not more strong than mild,
Love beholds them, each without misgiving
Reconciled.
Each on earth alike of earth reviled,
Hated, feared, derided, and forgiving,
Each alike had heaven at heart, and smiled.
Both bright names, clothed round with man's thanksgiving,
Shine, twin stars above the storm-drifts piled,
Dead and deathless, whom we saw not living
Reconciled.
Greater Love
by Wilfred Edward Salter Owen

Red lips are not so red
As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.
Kindness of wooed and wooer
Seems shame to their love pure.
O Love, your eyes lose lure
When I behold eyes blinded in my stead!
Your slender attitude
Trembles not exquisite like limbs knife-skewed,
Rolling and rolling there
Where God seems not to care;
Till the fierce Love they bear
Cramps them in death's extreme decrepitude.
Your voice sings not so soft,--
Though even as wind murmuring through raftered loft,--
Your dear voice is not dear,
Gentle, and evening clear,
As theirs whom none now hear
Now earth has stopped their piteous mouths that coughed.
Heart, you were never hot,
Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot;
And though your hand be pale,
Paler are all which trail
Your cross through flame and hail:
Weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not.
Redbirds
by Sara Teasdale

Redbirds, redbirds,
Long and long ago,
What a honey-call you had
In hills I used to know;
Redbud, buckberry,
Wild plum-tree
And proud river sweeping
Southward to the sea,
Brown and gold in the sun
Sparkling far below,
Trailing stately round her bluffs
Where the poplars grow.
Redbirds, redbirds,
Are you singing still
As you sang one May day
On Saxton's Hill?
Paraphrase. Isaiah XL.
by Susanna Moodie

Rejoice O my people! Jehovah hath spoken!
The dark chain of sin and oppression is broken;
Thy warfare is over, thy bondage is past,
The Lord hath looked down on his chosen at last.
A voice from the wilderness breaks on mine ear--
O Israel, rejoice! thy redemption is near:
A path for our God the wild desert shall yield;
He comes in the light of salvation revealed;
His word hath declared, who speaks not in vain;
He bends the high mountain, exalts the low plain;
All flesh shall behold him, far nations shall bring
Their glad songs of triumph to welcome their King!
As the grass of the field in the morning is green,
So man, in his beauty and vigour, is seen
A perishing glory, the beam of a day,
A flower that will fade with the evening away:
The breath of the Lord o'er its verdure shall pass;
The freshness shall wither and fade like the grass;
The flower from its stem the rude whirlwind may sever,
But the word of our God is established for ever!
O Zion, that bringeth good tidings of peace,
Raise thy voice in the song, thy afflictions shall cease;
Arise in thy strength, banish every base fear,
Tell the cities of Judah redemption is near:
He comes! and his works shall his glory reveal;
He comes! his lost children to succour and heal;
In mercy and truth to establish his throne,
That his name to the ends of the earth may be known!
The Ballad Of The Red Earl
by Rudyard Kipling

Red Earl, and will ye take for guide
The silly camel-birds,
That ye bury your head in an Irish thorn,
On a desert of drifting words?
Ye have followed a man for a God, Red Earl,
As the Lord o' Wrong and Right;
But the day is done with the setting sun
Will ye follow into the night?
He gave you your own old words, Red Earl,
For food on the wastrel way;
Will ye rise and eat in the night, Red Earl,
That fed so full in the day?
Ye have followed fast, ye have followed far,
And where did the wandering lead?
From the day that ye praised the spoken word
To the day ye must gloss the deed.
And as ye have given your hand for gain,
So must ye give in loss;
And as ye ha' come to the brink of the pit,
So must ye loup across.
For some be rogues in grain, Red Earl,
And some be rogues in fact,
And rogues direct and rogues elect;
But all be rogues in pact.
Ye have cast your lot with these, Red Earl;
Take heed to where ye stand.
Ye have tied a knot with your tongue, Red Earl,
That ye cannot loose with your hand.
Ye have travelled fast, ye have travelled far,
In the grip of a tightening tether,
Till ye find at the end ye must take for friend
The quick and their dead together.
Ye have played with the Law between your lips,
And mouthed it daintilee;
But the gist o' the speech is ill to teach,
For ye say: "Let wrong go free."
Red Earl, ye wear the Garter fair,
And gat your place from a King:
Do ye make Rebellion of no account,
And Treason a little thing?
And have ye weighed your words, Red Earl,
That stand and speak so high?
And is it good that the guilt o' blood,
Be cleared at the cost of a sigh?
And is it well for the sake of peace,
Our tattered Honour to sell,
And higgle anew with a tainted crew, 
Red Earl, and is it well?
Ye have followed fast, ye have followed far,
On a dark and doubtful way,
And the road is hard, is hard, Red Earl,
And the price is yet to pay.
Ye shall pay that price as ye reap reward
For the toil of your tongue and pen, 
In the praise of the blamed and the thanks of the shamed,
And the honour o' knavish men.
They scarce shall veil their scorn, Red Earl,
And the worst at the last shall be,
When you tell your heart that it does not know
And your eye that it does not see.
The Doves.
by William Cowper

Reasoning at every step he treads,
Man yet mistakes his way;
While meaner things, whom instinct leads,
Are rarely known to stray.
One silent eve I wander'd late,
And heard the voice of love;
The turtle thus address'd her mate,
And soothed the listening dove:
Our mutual bond of faith and truth
No time shall disengage,
Those blessings of our early youth
Shall cheer our latest age:
While innocence without disguise,
And constancy sincere,
Shall fill the circles of those eyes,
And mine can read them there;
Those ills, that wait on all below,
Shall ne'er be felt by me,
Or gently felt, and only so,
As being shared with thee.
When lightnings flash among the trees,
Or kites are hovering near,
I fear lest thee alone they seize,
And know no other fear.
'Tis then I feel myself a wife,
And press thy wedded side,
Resolved a union form'd for life
Death never shall divide.
But oh! if, fickle and unchaste
(Forgive a transient thought),
Thou couldst become unkind at last,
And scorn thy present lot;
No need of lightnings from on high,
Or kites with cruel beak;
Denied the endearments of thine eye,
This widow'd heart would break.
Thus sang the sweet sequester'd bird,
Soft as the passing wind;
And I recorded what I heard,
A lesson for mankind.
The Tree (From Arne)
by Bj'rnstjerne Martinius Bj'rnson

Ready with leaves and with buds stood the tree.
"Shall I take them?" the frost said, now puffing with glee.
"Oh my, no, let them stand,
Till flowers are at hand!"
All trembling from tree-top to root came the plea.
Flowers unfolding the birds gladly sung.
"Shall I take them?" the wind said and merrily swung.
"Oh my, no, let them stand,
Till cherries are at hand!"
Protested the tree, while it quivering hung.
The cherries came forth 'neath the sun's glowing eye.
"Shall I take them?" a rosy young girl's eager cry.
"Oh my, yes, you can take,
I've kept them for your sake!"
Low bending its branches, the tree brought them nigh.
Lines Written En Badinage, After Visiting A Paper-Mill Near Tunbridge-Wells, In Consequence Of The Lovely Miss W ---- , Who Excels In Drawing, Requesting The Author To Describe The Process Of Making Paper, In Verse.
by John Carr (Sir)

Reader! I do not wish to brag;
But, to display Eliza's skill,
I'd proudly be the vilest rag
That ever went to paper-mill.
Content in pieces to be cut;
Tho' sultry were the summer-skies,
Pleas'd between flannel I'd be put,
And after bath'd in jellied size.
Tho' to be squeez'd and hang'd I hate,
For thee, sweet girl! upon my word,
When the stout press had forc'd me flat,
I'd be suspended on a cord.
And then, when dried and fit for use,
Eliza! I would pray to thee,
If with thy pen thou would'st amuse,
That thou would'st deign to write on me.
Gad's bud! how pleasant it would prove
Her pretty chit-chat to convey,
P'rhaps be the record of her love,
Told in some coy enchanting way.
Or, if her pencil she would try,
On me, oh! may she still imprint
Those forms that fix th' admiring eye,
Each graceful line, each glowing tint!
Then shall I reason have to brag,
For thus, to high importance grown,
The world will see a simple rag
Become a treasure rarely known.