DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Love Of The Woodland.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Orph'e au bois du Caystre.")
[Bk. I. ii.]
Orpheus, through the hellward wood
Hurried, ere the eve-star glowed,
For the fauns' lugubrious hoots
Followed, hollow, from crook'd roots;
Aeschylus, where Aetna smoked,
Gods of Sicily evoked
With the flute, till sulphur taint
Dulled and lulled the echoes faint;
Pliny, soon his style mislaid,
Dogged Miletus' merry maid,
As she showed eburnean limbs
All-multiplied by brooklet brims;
Plautus, see! like Plutus, hold
Bosomfuls of orchard-gold,
Learns he why that mystic core
Was sweet Venus' meed of yore?
Dante dreamt (while spirits pass
As in wizard's jetty glass)
Each black-bossed Briarian trunk
Waved live arms like furies drunk;
Winsome Will, 'neath Windsor Oak,
Eyed each elf that cracked a joke
At poor panting grease-hart fast - 
Obese, roguish Jack harassed;
At Versailles, Moli're did court
Cues from Pan (in heron port,
Half in ooze, half treeward raised),
"Words so witty, that Boileau's 'mazed!"
Foliage! fondly you attract!
Dian's faith I keep intact,
And declare that thy dryads dance
Still, and will, in thy green expanse!
Orange Lichens
by Paul Cameron Brown

Orange lichens, in sun-like clusters,
entomb the Rockface wall
a sheer ascent from the waterline
into glassy viscous green - -
the plummet from skyward
to lake face
passes breathless squadrons
of Dragon Flies
- devil's Darning Needles
threading the air
where Wolf Spiders
bivouac in web-castles,
thin Draculas to their insect host
each hairy mantle black
with burrow moats at high watermark;
yet unforeseen are the funnel lairs
for bull snakes
each water thrasher
gracing the rotund, behemoth Rock
lunging like a Spirit Presence up
from this watery chalice.
Our Own Sins Unseen.
by Robert Herrick

Other men's sins we ever bear in mind;
None sees the fardell of his faults behind.
Speculative
by Robert Browning

Others may need new life in Heaven,
Man, Nature, Art, made new, assume!
Man with new mind old sense to leaven,
Nature, new light to clear old gloom,
Art that breaks bounds, gets soaring-room.
I shall pray: 'Fugitive as precious,
Minutes which passed, return, remain!
Let earth's old life once more enmesh us,
You with old pleasure, me, old, pain,
So we but meet nor part again!'
Bygones
by Bert Leston Taylor

Or ever a lick of Art was done,
Or ever a one to care,
I was a Purple Polygon,
And you were a Sky-Blue Square.
You yearned for me across a void,
For I lay in a different plane,
I'd set my heart on a Red Rhomboid,
And your sighing was in vain.
You pined for me as well I knew,
And you faded day by day,
Until the Square that was heavenly Blue,
Had paled to an ashen grey.
A myriad years or less or more,
Have softly fluttered by,
Matters are much as they were before,
Except 'tis I that sigh.
I yearn for you, but I have no chance,
You lie in a different plane,
I break my heart for a single glance,
And I break said heart in vain.
And ever I grow more pale and wan,
And taste your old despair,
When I was a Purple Polygon,
And you were a Sky-Blue Square.
Others May Praise What They Like
by Walt Whitman

Others may praise what they like;
But I, from the banks of the running Missouri, praise nothing, in art, or aught else,
Till it has well inhaled the atmosphere of this river - also the western prairie-scent,
And fully exudes it again.
The Gipsy's Prayer.
by Samuel Griswold Goodrich

Our altar is the dewy sod 
Our temple yon blue throne of God:
No priestly rite our souls to bind 
We bow before the Almighty Mind.
Oh, Thou whose realm is wide as air 
Thou wilt not spurn the Gipsies' prayer:
Though banned and barred by all beside,
Be Thou the Outcast's guard and guide.
Poor fragments of a Nation wrecked 
Its story whelmed in Time's neglect 
We drift unheeded on the wave,
If God refuse the lost to save.
Yet though we name no Fatherland 
And though we clasp no kindred hand 
Though houseless, homeless wanderers we 
Oh give us Hope, and Heaven with Thee!
Alteram Partem
by Arthur Hugh Clough

Or shall I say, Vain word, false thought,
Since prudence hath her martyrs too,
And Wisdom dictates not to do,
Till doing shall be not for nought.
Not ours to give or lose is life;
Will Nature, when her brave ones fall,
Remake her work? or songs recall
Death's victim slain in useless strife?
That rivers flow into the sea
Is loss and waste, the foolish say,
Nor know that back they find their way,
Unseen, to where they wont to be.
Showers fall upon the hills, springs flow,
The river runneth still at hand,
Brave men are born into the land,
And whence the foolish do not know.
No! no vain voice did on me fall,
Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost,
''Tis better to have fought and lost,
Than never to have fought at all.'
The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - The Bad Prince.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Mentola al comun corpo.
Organ of rut, not reason, is the lord
Who from the body politic doth drain
Lust for himself, instead of toil and pain,
Leaving us lean as crickets on dry sward.
Well too if he like Love would filch our hoard
With pleasure to ourselves, sluicing our vein
And vigour to perpetuate the strain
Of life by spilth of life within us stored!
Love's cheat yields joy and profit. Kings, less kind,
Harm those they hoodwink; sow bare rock with seed;
Nor use our waste to propagate the breed.
Heaven help that body which a little mind,
Housed in a head, lacking ears, tongue, and eyes,
And senseless but for smell, can tyrannise!
The Sonnets LXXXI - Or I shall live your epitaph to make
by William Shakespeare

Or I shall live your epitaph to make,
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten;
From hence your memory death cannot take,
Although in me each part will be forgotten.
Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:
The earth can yield me but a common grave,
When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.
Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read;
And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,
When all the breathers of this world are dead;
You still shall live, such virtue hath my pen, 
Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.
For Once, Then, Something
by Robert Lee Frost

Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs
Always wrong to the light, so never seeing
Deeper down in the well than where the water
Gives me back in a shining surface picture
My myself in the summer heaven, godlike
Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.
Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,
I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,
Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,
Something more of the depths, and then I lost it.
Water came to rebuke the too clear water.
One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple
Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,
Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?
Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.
The Heritage
by Rudyard Kipling

Our Fathers in a wondrous age,
Ere yet the Earth was small,
Ensured to us a heritage,
And doubted not at all 
That we, the children of their heart,
Which then did beat so high,
In later time should play like part
For our posterity.
A thousand years they steadfast built,
To 'vantage us and ours,
The Walls that were a world's despair,
The sea-constraining Towers:
Yet in their midmost pride they knew,
And unto Kings made known,
Not all from these their strength they drew,
Their faith from brass or stone.
Youth's passion, manhood's fierce intent,
With age's judgment wise,
They spent, and counted not they spent,
At daily sacrifice. 
Not lambs alone nor purchased doves
Or tithe of trader's gold,
Their lives most dear, their dearer loves,
They offered up of old.
Refraining e'en from lawful things,
They bowed the neck to bear
The unadorned yoke that brings
Stark toil and sternest care.
Wherefore through them is Freedom sure;
Wherefore through them we stand,
From all but sloth and pride secure,
In a delightsome land.
Then, fretful, murmur not they gave
So great a charge to keep,
Nor dream that awestruck Time shall save
Their labour while we sleep.
Dear-bought and clear, a thousand year,
Our fathers' title runs.
Make we likewise their sacrifice,
Defrauding not our sons.
Anniversary Hymn
by Katharine Lee Bates

Our fathers, in the years grown dim, reared slowly, wall by wall
A holy dwelling-place for Him, that filleth all in all.
They wrought His house of faith and prayer, the rainbow round the Throne,
A precious temple builded fair on Christ the Cornerstone.
The Angel of the Golden Reed hath found the measure strait'
He hears the Great Foundation plead for ampler wall and gate.
The living pillars of the Truth grown on from morn to morn,
And still the heresy of youth is age's creed outworn.
But steadfast is their inner shrine wrought of the heart's fine gold,
Its hunger and its thirst divine, with jewels manifold,
Red sard of pain, hope's emerald gleam, white peace, no glory missed
Of righteous life and saintly dream, Jasper to amethyst.
Spirit of Truth, forbid that we who now God's temple are
And keep the faith with minds more free, our father's fabric mar.
Better than thoughts the stars that search is self still sacrificed,
For only Love can build the church whose corner-stone is Christ.
The Dog Who Carried His Master's Dinner (Prose Fable)
by Jean de La Fontaine

Our hands are no more proof against gold than our eyes are proof against beauty. There are but few who guard their treasures with care enough.
A certain dog who had been taught to carry to his master the mid-day meal was one day trotting along with the savoury burden slung around his neck. He was tempted to take a taste himself; but knew that it would be wrong to do so, and being a temperate, self-governed dog he refrained. We of the human race allow ourselves to be tempted by covetable things often enough; but, strange as it is, there seems to be more difficulty in teaching mankind to resist temptation than there is in teaching dogs to do so.
On this particular day the dog was met by a mastiff who at once wanted the dinner, but did not find it so easy to capture as he thought; for our dog put it down and stood guard over it. There was a mighty tussle. Soon others arrived; curs that were used to knocks and kicks while picking up a living in the streets. Seeing that he should be badly over-matched, and that his master's dinner was in danger of being devoured by the crowd, he bethought himself how he too might have his share, if shared it must be. So he very wisely exclaimed, "No fighting, gentlemen, my bit will suffice me. Do as you please with the rest." With these words he snapped up a portion, upon which all the rest began to pull and jostle to their utmost and feasted merrily.
In this I seem to see the picture of one of those unfortunate towns or states which occasionally have suffered from the greed of their ministers and officials. Each functionary has an eye to his own advantage, and the smartest sets a pattern for the others. The way in which the public funds disappear is amusing. If one sheriff or provost, having a scruple of conscience, finds a trifling argument in defence of the public interest the others show him that he is a fool if he utters half a word. So, with a very little trouble, he gives way, and often becomes the leading offender.
Lines Read At A Maple Sugar Social, April, 1888.
by James McIntyre

Our first Canadian job when boy,
In the big woods we did enjoy,
Large maple bush we then did tap
And to camp carried maple sap.
We stored it in great wooden trough,
Then in big kettles sugared off,
Though often it did try our mettle
To keep up fire beneath each kettle.
For it was a serious toil
To cut the wood to kettles boil,
To-night it is a pleasant joke,
No trouble from the fire and smoke.
Of old we thought our neck was broke
By having on it a neckyoke,
And on each side a heavy pail
Suspended from the yoke by bail.
We waded through the snow and slush
And stumbled o'er the logs in bush,
But no doubt the maple's sweeter
Than any other thing in meter.
Unless it is the lips of lass,
Which maple sugar doth surpass,
And may it be each young man's fate
For to secure a charming mate.
For birds will soon begin to sing
And seek their mates in early spring,
When found each pair do feel they're blest,
When they have finished their warm nest.
Let none at sugar making scoff,
Webster was rocked in a sap trough;
When boiling sap it is quite handy
To pour some in snow to make candy.
The Town Mouse And The Country Mouse.
by John Gay

'sop, Babrius, Horace, Prior, and Pope.
Our friend Dan Prior had, you know,
A tale exactly ' propos;
Name a town life - and, in a trice,
He had a story of two mice.
Once on a time (so runs the fable)
A country mouse - right hospitable - 
Received a town mouse at his board,
Just as a farmer might a lord.
A frugal mouse upon the whole,
Yet loved his friend, and had a soul;
Know what was handsome, and would do 't.
On just occasion coute qui coute.
He brought him bacon nothing lean,
Pudding that might have pleased a Dean;
Cheese, such as men of Suffolk make,
But wished it Stilton for his sake.
Yet to his guest by no means sparing,
He munched himself the rind and paring.
Our courtier scarce could touch a bit,
But showed his breeding and his wit,
And did his best to seem to eat - 
And said: "I vow you're mighty neat;
But, my dear friend, this savage scene! - 
I pray you come and live with men.
Consider mice, like men, must die;
Then crop the rosy hours that fly."
The veriest hermit in the nation
May yield, all know, to strong temptation:
Away they went, through thick and thin,
To a tall house near Lincoln's Inn.
The moonbeam fell upon the wall,
And tipped with silver roof and all, - 
Palladian walls, Venetian doors,
Grotesco roofs and stucco floors;
And, let it in one word be said,
The moon was up - the men abed - 
The guests withdrawn had left, though late,
When down the mice sat t'te ' t'te.
Our courtier walks from dish to dish,
And tastes of flesh, and fowl, and fish;
Tells all their names, lays down the law,
"Que 'a est bon! Ah, goutez 'a!
That jelly's rich, this malmsey's healing,
Pray dip your whiskers and your tail in!"
Was ever such a happy swain - 
He stuffs, and sips, and stuffs again!
"I'm quite ashamed - 'tis mighty rude
To eat so much - all is so good."
But as he spoke, bounce from the hall
Rushed chaplain, butler, dogs, and all.
Oh! for the heart of Homer's mice
Or gods, to save them in a trice;
It was by miracle they think,
For Roman stucco has no chink.
"But, please your honour," said the peasant,
"This same dessert is not so pleasant:
Give me again my hollow tree,
A crust of bread, and liberty!"
Children Of Light
by Robert Lowell

Our fathers wrung their bread from stocks and stones
And fenced their gardens with the Redmen's bones;
Embarking from the Nether Land of Holland,
Pilgrims unhouseled by Geneva's night,
They planted here the Serpent's seeds of light;
And here the pivoting searchlights probe to shock
The riotous glass houses built on rock,
And candles gutter by an empty altar,
And light is where the landless blood of Cain
Is burning, burning the unburied grain.
Translations. - The Fourty-Sixth Psalm. (Luther's Song-Book.)
by George MacDonald

Our God he is a castle strong,
A good mail-coat and weapon;
He sets us free from every wrong
That wickedness would heap on.
The ancient wicked foe
He means earnest now;
Force and cunning sly
His horrid policy,--
On earth there's no one like him!
Our strength is vain; do what we can
Our hopes are soon dejected;
But He fights for us, the right man,
By God himself elected.
Ask'st thou who is this?
Jesus Christ it is;
He is the Lord of Hosts
In whom his people boasts;
And he must win the battle.
And did the world with devils swarm
All gaping to devour us,
We fear not from them the least harm;
Success lies sure before us.
This world's prince accurst,
Let him rage his worst,
Only roars about;
His doom it is gone out,
A word can overthrow him.
The Word they'll have to let it bide,
Nor there claim any merit;
He is with us, and on our side
With his own gifts and spirit!
Let them take our life,
Goods, name, child, and wife--
Everything may go:
To them it is no gain;
The kingdom ours remaineth.
Charge Of "The Black-Horse"
by Hanford Lennox Gordon

Our columns are broken, defeated, and fled;
We are gathered, a few from the flying and dead,
Where the green flag is up and our wounded remain
Imploring for water and groaning in pain.
Lo the blood-spattered bosom, the shot-shattered limb,
The hand-clutch of fear as the vision grows dim,
The half-uttered prayer and the blood-fettered breath,
The cold marble brow and the calm face of death.
O proud were these forms at the dawning of morn,
When they sprang to the call of the shrill bugle-horn:
There are mothers and wives that await them afar;
God help them! Is this then the glory of war?
But hark! hear the cries from the field of despair;
"The Black-Horse" are charging the fugitives there;
They gallop the field o'er the dying and dead,
And their blades with the blood of their victims are red.
The cries of the fallen and flying are vain;
They saber the wounded and trample the slain;
And the plumes of the riders wave red in the sun,
As they stoop for the stroke and the murder goes on.
They halt for a moment they form and they stand;
Then with sabers aloft they ride down on our band
Like the samiel that sweeps o'er Arabia's sand.
"Halt! down with your sabers! the dying are here!
Let the foeman respect while the friend sheds a tear."
Nay; the merciless butchers were thirsting for blood,
And mad for the murder still onward they rode.
"Stand firm and be ready!" Our brave, gallant few
Have faced to the foe, and our rifles are true;
Fire! a score of grim riders go down in a breath
At the flash of our guns in the tempest of death!
They wheel, and they clutch in despair at the mane!
They reel in their saddles and fall to the plain!
The riderless steeds, wild with wounds and with fear,
Dash away o'er the field in unbridled career;
Their stirrups swing loose and their manes are all gore
From the mad cavaliers that shall ride them no more.
Of the hundred so bold that rode down on us there
But few rode away with the tale of despair;
Their proud, plum'd comrades so reckless, alas,
Slept their long, dreamless sleep on the blood-spattered grass.
To James Whitcomb Riley, In Affectionate Memory Of Other Days
by Freeman Edwin Miller

Our dearest joys forever flow
From fountains of the Long Ago,
That from the heights of pleasures past
Flood all the present valleys vast,
And with eternal glees provide
The future's endless ocean tide.
To ope each cage where a heartless age
Hath chained the birds of singing,
Till Love's own glee that is fond and free
Shall laugh where they are winging,--
Such is my wish. 'Tis true, hold I,
That songs, like birds, in bondage die.
Centennial Hymn
by John Greenleaf Whittier

I.
Our fathers' God! from out whose hand
The centuries fall like grains of sand,
We meet to-day, united, free,
And loyal to our land and Thee,
To thank Thee for the era done,
And trust Thee for the opening one.
II.
Here, where of old, by Thy design,
The fathers spake that word of Thine
Whose echo is the glad refrain
Of rended bolt and falling chain,
To grace our festal time, from all
The zones of earth our guests we call.
III.
Be with us while the New World greets
The Old World thronging all its streets,
Unveiling all the triumphs won
By art or toil beneath the sun;
And unto common good ordain
This rivalship of hand and brain.
IV.
Thou, who hast here in concord furled
The war flags of a gathered world,
Beneath our Western skies fulfil
The Orient's mission of good-will,
And, freighted with love's Golden Fleece,
Send back its Argonauts of peace.
V.
For art and labor met in truce,
For beauty made the bride of use,
We thank Thee; but, withal, we crave
The austere virtues strong to save,
The honor proof to place or gold,
The manhood never bought nor sold.
VI.
Oh make Thou us, through centuries long,
In peace secure, in justice strong;
Around our gift of freedom draw
The safeguards of Thy righteous law
And, cast in some diviner mould,
Let the new cycle shame the old!
Sonnets: Idea XXXII To The River Ankor
by Michael Drayton

Our floods' queen, Thames, for ships and swans is crowned,
And stately Severn for her shore is praised;
The crystal Trent for fords and fish renowned,
And Avon's fame to Albion's cliff is raised.
Carlegion Chester vaunts her holy Dee;
York many wonders of her Ouse can tell;
The Peak, her Dove, whose banks so fertile be;
And Kent will say her Medway doth excel.
Cotswold commends her Isis to the Thame;
Our northern borders boast of Tweed's fair flood;
Our western parts extol their Wilis' fame;
And the old Lea brags of the Danish blood.
Arden's sweet Ankor, let thy glory be,
That fair Idea only lives by thee!
A Father Of Women
by Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell

AD SOROREM E. B.
"Thy father was transfused into thy blood."
Dryden: Ode to Mrs. Anne Killigrew.
Our father works in us,
The daughters of his manhood.    Not undone
Is he, not wasted, though transmuted thus,
And though he left no son.
Therefore on him I cry
To arm me: "For my delicate mind a casque,
A breastplate for my heart, courage to die,
Of thee, captain, I ask.
"Nor strengthen only; press
A finger on this violent blood and pale,
Over this rash will let thy tenderness
A while pause, and prevail.
"And shepherd-father, thou
Whose staff folded my thoughts before my birth,
Control them now I am of earth, and now
Thou art no more of earth.
"O liberal, constant, dear!
Crush in my nature the ungenerous art
Of the inferior; set me high, and here,
Here garner up thy heart."
Like to him now are they,
The million living fathers of the War-
Mourning the crippled world, the bitter day-
Whose striplings are no more.
The crippled world!    Come then,
Fathers of women with your honour in trust;
Approve, accept, know them daughters of men,
Now that your sons are dust.
The Schoolfellow
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

Our game was his but yesteryear;
We wished him back; we could not know
The self-same hour we missed him here
He led the line that broke the foe.
Blood-red behind our guarded posts
Sank as of old and dying day;
The battle ceased; the mingled hosts
Weary and cheery went their way:
"To-morrow well may bring," we said,
"As fair a fight, as clear a sun."
Dear lad, before the world was sped,
For evermore thy goal was won.
Fragments On Nature And Life - The Earth
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our eyeless bark sails free
Though with boom and spar
Andes, Alp or Himmalee,
Strikes never moon or star.
Sonnets Upon The Punishment Of Death - In Series, 1839 - X - Our Bodily Life, Some Plead, That Life The Shrine
by William Wordsworth

Our bodily life, some plead, that life the shrine
Of an immortal spirit, is a gift
So sacred, so informed with light divine,
That no tribunal, though most wise to sift
Deed and intent, should turn the Being adrift
Into that world where penitential tear
May not avail, nor prayer have for God's ear
A voice that world whose veil no hand can lift
For earthly sight. "Eternity and Time,"
'They' urge, "have interwoven claims and rights
Not to be jeopardised through foulest crime:
The sentence rule by mercy's heaven-born lights."
Even so; but measuring not by finite sense
Infinite Power, perfect Intelligence.
The People's Response To Heroism.
by W. M. MacKeracher

Our hearts are set on pleasure and on gain.
Fine clothes, fair houses, more and daintier bread;
We have no strivings, and no hunger-pain
For spiritual food; our souls are dead.
So judged I till the day when news was rife
Of fire besieging scholars and their dames,
And bravely one gave up her own fair life
In saving the most helpless from the flames.
Then when I heard the instantaneous cheer
That broke with sobbing undertones from all
The multitude, and watched them drawing near,
Stricken and mute, around her funeral pall
In grief and exultation, I confest
My judgment erred, - we know and love the best.