DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
For Scotland
by Robert Fuller Murray

Beyond the Cheviots and the Tweed,
Beyond the Firth of Forth,
My memory returns at speed
To Scotland and the North.
For still I keep, and ever shall,
A warm place in my heart for Scotland,
Scotland, Scotland,
A warm place in my heart for Scotland.
Oh, cruel off St. Andrew's Bay
The winds are wont to blow!
They either rest or gently play,
When there in dreams I go.
And there I wander, young again,
With limbs that do not tire,
Along the coast to Kittock's Den,
With whinbloom all afire.
I climb the Spindle Rock, and lie
And take my doubtful ease,
Between the ocean and the sky,
Derided by the breeze.
Where coloured mushrooms thickly grow,
Like flowers of brittle stalk,
To haunted Magus Muir I go,
By Lady Catherine's Walk.
In dreams the year I linger through,
In that familiar town,
Where all the youth I ever knew,
Burned up and flickered down.
There's not a rock that fronts the sea,
There's not an inland grove,
But has a tale to tell to me
Of friendship or of love.
And so I keep, and ever shall,
The best place in my heart for Scotland,
Scotland, Scotland,
The best place in my heart for Scotland!
The Hare And The Partridge.
by Jean de La Fontaine

Beware how you deride
The exiles from life's sunny side:
To you is little known
How soon their case may be your own.
On this, sage Aesop gives a tale or two,
As in my verses I propose to do.
A field in common share
A partridge and a hare,
And live in peaceful state,
Till, woeful to relate!
The hunters' mingled cry
Compels the hare to fly.
He hurries to his fort,
And spoils almost the sport
By faulting every hound
That yelps upon the ground.
At last his reeking heat
Betrays his snug retreat.
Old Tray, with philosophic nose,
Snuffs carefully, and grows
So certain, that he cries,
'The hare is here; bow wow!'
And veteran Ranger now, - 
The dog that never lies, - 
'The hare is gone,' replies.
Alas! poor, wretched hare,
Back comes he to his lair,
To meet destruction there!
The partridge, void of fear,
Begins her friend to jeer: - 
'You bragg'd of being fleet;
How serve you, now, your feet?'
Scarce has she ceased to speak, - 
The laugh yet in her beak, - 
When comes her turn to die,
From which she could not fly.
She thought her wings, indeed,
Enough for every need;
But in her laugh and talk,
Forgot the cruel hawk!
Epode. "On The Ranges, Queensland."
by Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Beyond the night, down o'er the labouring East,
I see light's harbinger of dawn released:
Upon the false gleam of the ante-dawn,
Lo, the fair heaven of day-pursuing morn!
Beyond the lampless sleep and perishing death
That hold my heart, I feel my new life's breath,
I see the face my spirit-shape shall have
When this frail clay and dust have fled the grave.
Beyond the night, the death of doubt, defeat,
Rise dawn and morn, and life with light doth meet,
For the great Cause, too, - sure as the sun yon ray
Shoots up to strike the threatening clouds and say;
"I come, and with me comes the victorious Day!"
* * * * *
When I was young, the muse I worshipped took me,
Fearless, a lonely heart, to look on men.
"'Tis yours," said she, "to paint this show of them
Even as they are!" Then smiling she forsook me.
Wherefore with passionate patience I withdrew,
With eyes from which all loves, hates, hopes, and fears,
Joys aureole, and the blinding sheen of tears,
Were purged away. And what I saw I drew.
Then, as I worked remote, serene, alone,
A child-girl came to me and touched my cheek,
And lo her lips were pale, her limbs were weak,
Her eyes had thirst's desire and hunger's moan.
She said: "I am the soul of this sad day
Where thousands toil and suffer hideous Crime,
Where units rob and mock the empty time
With revel and rank prayer and deaths display!"
I said: "O child, how shall I leave my songs,
My songs and tales, the warp and subtle woof
Of this great work and web, in your behoof
To strive and passionately sing of wrongs?
"Child, is it nothing that I here fulfil
My heart and soul? that I may look and see
Where Homer bends and Shakspere smiles on me,
And Goethe praises the unswerving will?"
She hung her head, and straight, without a word,
Passed from me. And I raised my conscious face
To where, in beauteous power in her place,
She stood, the muse, my muse, and watched and heard.
Her proud and marble brow was faintly flushed;
Upon her flawless lips, and in her eyes
A mild light flickered as the young sunrise,
Glad, sacred, terrible, serene and hushed.
Then I cried out, and rose with pure wrath wild,
Desperate with hatred of Fate's slavery
And this cold cruel demon. With that cry,
I left her, and sought out the piteous child.
"Darling, 'tis nothing that I shed and weep
These tears of fire that wither all the heart,
These bloody sweats that drain and sear and smart,
I love you, and you'll kiss me when I sleep!"
May Song.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Between wheatfield and corn,
Between hedgerow and thorn,
Between pasture and tree,
Where's my sweetheart
Tell it me!
Sweetheart caught I
Not at home;
She's then, thought I.
Gone to roam.
Fair and loving
Blooms sweet May;
Sweetheart's roving,
Free and gay.
By the rock near the wave,
Where her first kiss she gave,
On the greensward, to me, 
Something I see!
Is it she?
The Mice And The Owl.
by Jean de La Fontaine

Beware of saying, 'Lend an ear,'
To something marvellous or witty.
To disappoint your friends who hear,
Is possible, and were a pity.
But now a clear exception see,
Which I maintain a prodigy - 
A thing which with the air of fable,
Is true as is the interest-table.
A pine was by a woodman fell'd,
Which ancient, huge, and hollow tree
An owl had for his palace held - 
A bird the Fates[1] had kept in fee,
Interpreter to such as we.
Within the caverns of the pine,
With other tenants of that mine,
Were found full many footless mice,
But well provision'd, fat, and nice.
The bird had bit off all their feet,
And fed them there with heaps of wheat.
That this owl reason'd, who can doubt?
When to the chase he first went out,
And home alive the vermin brought,
Which in his talons he had caught,
The nimble creatures ran away.
Next time, resolved to make them stay,
He cropp'd their legs, and found, with pleasure,
That he could eat them at his leisure;
It were impossible to eat
Them all at once, did health permit.
His foresight, equal to our own,
In furnishing their food was shown.
Now, let Cartesians, if they can,
Pronounce this owl a mere machine.
Could springs originate the plan
Of maiming mice when taken lean,
To fatten for his soup-tureen?
If reason did no service there,
I do not know it anywhere.
Observe the course of argument:
These vermin are no sooner caught than gone:
They must be used as soon, 'tis evident;
But this to all cannot be done.
And then, for future need,
I might as well take heed.
Hence, while their ribs I lard,
I must from their elopement guard.
But how? - A plan complete! - 
I'll clip them of their feet!
Now, find me, in your human schools,
A better use of logic's tools!
Upon your faith, what different art of thought
Has Aristotle or his followers taught?[2]
The West
by Alfred Edward Housman

Beyond the moor and the mountain crest
- Comrade, look not on the west - 
The sun is down and drinks away
From air and land the lees of day.
The long cloud and the single pine
Sentinel the ending line,
And out beyond it, clear and wan,
Reach the gulfs of evening on.
The son of woman turns his brow
West from forty countries now,
And, as the edge of heaven he eyes,
Thinks eternal thoughts, and sighs.
Oh wide's the world, to rest or roam,
With change abroad and cheer at home,
Fights and furloughs, talk and tale,
Company and beef and ale.
But if I front the evening sky
Silent on the west look I,
And my comrade, stride for stride,
Paces silent at my side,
Comrade, look not on the west:
'Twill have the heart out of your breast;
'Twill take your thoughts and sink them far,
Leagues beyond the sunset bar.
Oh lad, I fear that yon's the sea
Where they fished for you and me,
And there, from whence we both were ta'en,
You and I shall drown again.
Send not on your soul before
To dive from that beguiling shore,
And let not yet the swimmer leave
His clothes upon the sands of eve.
Too fast to yonder strand forlorn
We journey, to the sunken bourn,
To flush the fading tinges eyed
By other lads at eventide.
Wide is the world, to rest or roam,
And early 'tis for turning home:
Plant your heel on earth and stand,
And let's forget our native land.
When you and I are split on air
Long we shall be strangers there;
Friends of flesh and bone are best;
Comrade, look not on the west.
The Hunter
by W.J. Turner

"But there was one land he dared not enter."
Beyond the blue, the purple seas,
Beyond the thin horizon's line,
Beyond Antilla, Hebrides,
Jamaica, Cuba, Caribbees,
There lies the land of Yucatan.
The land, the land of Yucatan,
The low coast breaking into foam,
The dim hills where my thoughts shall roam
The forests of my boyhood's home,
The splendid dream of Yucatan!
I met thee first long, long ago
Turning a printed page, and I
Stared at a world I did not know
And felt my blood like fire flow
At that strange name of Yucatan.
O those sweet, far-off Austral days
When life had a diviner glow,
When hot Suns whipped my blood to know
Things all unseen, then I could go
Into thy heart O Yucatan!
I have forgotten what I saw,
I have forgotten what I knew,
And many lands I've set sail for
To find that marvellous spell of yore,
Never to set foot on thy shore
O haunting land of Yucatan!
But sailing I have passed thee by,
And leaning on the white ship's rail
Watched thy dim hills till mystery
Wrapped thy far stillness close to me
And I have breathed ''tis Yucatan!
''Tis Yucatan, 'tis Yucatan!'
The ship is sailing far away,
The coast recedes, the dim hills fade,
A bubble-winding track we've made,
And thou'rt a Dream O Yucatan!
The City.
by Archibald Lampman

Beyond the dusky corn-fields, toward the west,
Dotted with farms, beyond the shallow stream,
Through drifts of elm with quiet peep and gleam,
Curved white and slender as a lady's wrist,
Faint and far off out of the autumn mist,
Even as a pointed jewel softly set
In clouds of colour warmer, deeper yet,
Crimson and gold and rose and amethyst,
Toward dayset, where the journeying sun grown old
Hangs lowly westward darker now than gold,
With the soft sun-touch of the yellowing hours
Made lovelier, I see with dreaming eyes,
Even as a dream out of a dream, arise
The bell-tongued city with its glorious towers.
Sweet Closes The Evening.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "Craigie-burn-wood."
Chorus.
Beyond thee, dearie, beyond thee, dearie,
And O, to be lying beyond thee;
O sweetly, soundly, weel may he sleep
That's laid in the bed beyond thee!
I.
Sweet closes the evening on Craigie-burn-wood,
And blithely awaukens the morrow;
But the pride of the spring in the Craigie-burn-wood
Can yield to me nothing but sorrow.
II.
I see the spreading leaves and flowers,
I hear the wild birds singing;
But pleasure they hae nane for me,
While care my heart is wringing.
III.
I canna tell, I maunna tell,
I darena for your anger;
But secret love will break my heart,
If I conceal it langer.
IV.
I see thee gracefu', straight, and tall,
I see thee sweet and bonnie;
But oh! what will my torments be,
If thou refuse thy Johnnie!
V.
To see thee in anither's arms,
In love to lie and languish,
'Twad be my dead, that will be seen,
My heart wad burst wi' anguish.
VI.
But, Jeanie, say thou wilt be mine,
Say, thou lo'es nane before me;
And a' my days o' life to come
I'll gratefully adore thee.
Beyond thee, dearie, beyond thee, dearie,
And O, to be lying beyond thee;
O sweetly, soundly, weel may he sleep
That's laid in the bed beyond thee!
Constance.
by Madison Julius Cawein

Beyond the orchard, in the lane,
The crested red-bird sings again - 
O bird, whose song says, Have no care.
Should I not care when CONSTANCE there, - 
My CONSTANCE, with the bashful gaze,
Pink-gowned like some sweet hollyhock, - 
If I declare my love, just says
Some careless thing as if in mock?
Like - Past the orchard, in the lane,
How sweet the red-bird sings again!
There, while the red-bird sings his best,
His listening mate sits on the nest - 
O bird, whose patience says, All's well,
How can it be with me, now tell?
When CONSTANCE, with averted eyes, - 
Soft-bonneted as some sweet-pea, - 
If I speak marriage, just replies
With some such quaint irrelevancy,
As, While the red-bird sings his best,
His loving mate sits on the nest.
What shall I say? what can I do?
Would such replies mean aught to you,
O birds, whose gladness says, Be glad?
Have I not reason to be sad
When CONSTANCE, with demurest glance,
Her face a-poppy with distress,
If I reproach her, pouts, perchance,
And answers so in waywardness? - 
What shall I say? what can I do?
My meaning should be plain to you!
The Sonnets XLVII - Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took
by William Shakespeare

Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,
And each doth good turns now unto the other:
When that mine eye is famish'd for a look,
Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,
With my love's picture then my eye doth feast,
And to the painted banquet bids my heart;
Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,
And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:
So, either by thy picture or my love,
Thy self away, art present still with me;
For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,
And I am still with them, and they with thee;
Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
Awakes my heart, to heart's and eye's delight.
Oriental Romance
by Madison Julius Cawein

I
Beyond lost seas of summer she
Dwelt on an island of the sea,
Last scion of that dynasty,
Queen of a race forgotten long. - 
With eyes of light and lips of song,
From seaward groves of blowing lemon,
She called me in her native tongue,
Low-leaned on some rich robe of Yemen.
II
I was a king. Three moons we drove
Across green gulfs, the crimson clove
And cassia spiced, to claim her love.
Packed was my barque with gums and gold;
Rich fabrics; sandalwood, grown old
With odor; gems; and pearls of Oman, - 
Than her white breasts less white and cold; - 
And myrrh, less fragrant than this woman.
III
From Bassora I came. We saw
Her eagle castle on a claw
Of soaring precipice, o'erawe
The surge and thunder of the spray.
Like some great opal, far away
It shone, with battlement and spire,
Wherefrom, with wild aroma, day
Blew splintered lights of sapphirine fire.
IV
Lamenting caverns dark, that keep
Sonorous echoes of the deep,
Led upward to her castle steep....
Fair as the moon, whose light is shed
In Ramadan, was she, who led
My love unto her island bowers,
To find her.... lying young and dead
Among her maidens and her flowers.
Noormahal The Fair.[1]
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Entre deux rocs d'un noir d''b'ne.")
[XXVII., November, 1828.]
Between two ebon rocks
Behold yon sombre den,
Where brambles bristle like the locks
Of wool between the horns of scapegoat banned by men!
Remote in ruddy fog
Still hear the tiger growl
At the lion and strip'd dog
That prowl with rusty throats to taunt and roar and howl;
Whilst other monsters fast
The hissing basilisk;
The hippopotamus so vast,
And the boa with waking appetite made brisk!
The orfrey showing tongue,
The fly in stinging mood,
The elephant that crushes strong
And elastic bamboos an the scorpion's brood;
And the men of the trees
With their families fierce,
Till there is not one scorching breeze
But brings here its venom - its horror to pierce - 
Yet, rather there be lone,
'Mid all those horrors there,
Than hear the sickly honeyed tone
And see the swimming eyes of Noormahal the Fair!
Kissing Usury
by Robert Herrick

Biancha, let
Me pay the debt
I owe thee for a kiss
Thou lend'st to me;
And I to thee
Will render ten for this.
If thou wilt say,
Ten will not pay
For that so rich a one;
I'll clear the sum,
If it will come
Unto a million.
He must of right,
To th' utmost mite,
Make payment for his pleasure,
(By this I guess)
Of happiness
Who has a little measure.
To  ----
by Muriel Stuart

Between two common days this day was hung
When Love went to the ending that was his;
His seamless robe was rent, his brow was wrung,
He took at last the sponge's bitter kiss.
A simple day the dawn had watched unfold
Before the night had borne the death of love;
You took the bread I blessed, and love was sold
Upon your lips, and paid the price thereof.
I changed then, as when soul from body slips,
And casts its passion and its pain aside;
I pledged you with most spiritual lips,
And gave you hands that you had crucified.
You who betrayed, kissed, crucified, forgot,
You walked with Christ, poor fool, and knew it not!
On Hearing A Lady Play On The Musical Glasses.
by John Clare

Beyond expression, delicately fine,
Beneath her slender fingers swept the sound
Of 'witching tones, melodious, divine;
Soothing and soft upon the sense they wound,
Join'd with the syrens' music, as it were,
As her sweet voice came mingling on the ear.
Ah, who but knows what woman's voice can do!
To every soul such melody is dear;
Angelic harmony, and beauty too!
Our very hearts melt in the sounds we hear:
The breaks--the pauses--check our pulse's beats.
Enraptur'd memory still each air retains,--
And, as the mind the syren's songs repeats,
Creates sensations sweeter than her strains.
To Dr. John Brown - Sonnets
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Beyond the north wind lay the land of old
Where men dwelt blithe and blameless, clothed and fed
With joy's bright raiment and with love's sweet bread,
The whitest flock of earth's maternal fold.
None there might wear about his brows enrolled
A light of lovelier fame than rings your head,
Whose lovesome love of children and the dead
All men give thanks for: I far off behold
A dear dead hand that links us, and a light
The blithest and benignest of the night,
The night of death's sweet sleep, wherein may be
A star to show your spirit in present sight
Some happier island in the Elysian sea
Where Rab may lick the hand of Marjorie.
The Danish Boy, A Fragment
by William Wordsworth

I 
Between two sister moorland rills 
There is a spot that seems to lie 
Sacred to flowerets of the hills, 
And sacred to the sky. 
And in this smooth and open dell 
There is a tempest-stricken tree; 
A corner-stone by lightning cut, 
The last stone of a lonely hut; 
And in this dell you see 
A thing no storm can e'er destroy, 
The shadow of a Danish Boy. 
II 
In clouds above, the lark is heard, 
But drops not here to earth for rest; 
Within this lonesome nook the bird 
Did never build her nest. 
No beast, no bird hath here his home; 
Bees, wafted on the breezy air, 
Pass high above those fragrant bells 
To other flowers:to other dells 
Their burthens do they bear; 
The Danish Boy walks here alone: 
The lovely dell is all his own. 
III 
A Spirit of noon-day is he; 
Yet seems a form of flesh and blood; 
Nor piping shepherd shall he be, 
Nor herd-boy of the wood. 
A regal vest of fur he wears, 
In colour like a raven's wing; 
It fears not rain, nor wind, nor dew; 
But in the storm 'tis fresh and blue 
As budding pines in spring; 
His helmet has a vernal grace, 
Fresh as the bloom upon his face. 
IV 
A harp is from his shoulder slung; 
Resting the harp upon his knee, 
To words of a forgotten tongue 
He suits its melody. 
Of flocks upon the neighbouring hill 
He is the darling and the joy; 
And often, when no cause appears, 
The mountain-ponies prick their ears, 
They hear the Danish Boy, 
While in the dell he sings alone 
Beside the tree and corner-stone. 
V 
There sits he; in his face you spy 
No trace of a ferocious air, 
Nor ever was a cloudless sky 
So steady or so fair. 
The lovely Danish Boy is blest 
And happy in his flowery cove: 
From bloody deeds his thoughts are far; 
And yet he warbles songs of war, 
That seem like songs of love, 
For calm and gentle is his mien; 
Like a dead Boy he is serene.
A Prayer For My Son
by William Butler Yeats

Bid a strong ghost stand at the head
That my Michael may sleep sound,
Nor cry, nor turn in the bed
Till his morning meal come round;
And may departing twilight keep
All dread afar till morning's back.
That his mother may not lack
Her fill of sleep.
Bid the ghost have sword in fist:
Some there are, for I avow
Such devilish things exist,
Who have planned his murder, for they know
Of some most haughty deed or thought
That waits upon his future days,
And would through hatred of the bays
Bring that to nought.
Though You can fashion everything
From nothing every day, and teach
The morning stars to sing,
You have lacked articulate speech
To tell Your simplest want, and known,
Wailing upon a woman's knee,
All of that worst ignominy
Of flesh and bone;
And when through all the town there ran
The servants of Your enemy,
A woman and a man,
Unless the Holy Writings lie,
Hurried through the smooth and rough
And through the fertile and waste,
protecting, till the danger past,
With human love.
The Use Of Knowledge.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
Between two citizens
A controversy grew.
The one was poor, but much he knew:
The other, rich, with little sense,
Claim'd that, in point of excellence,
The merely wise should bow the knee
To all such money'd men as he.
The merely fools, he should have said;
For why should wealth hold up its head,
When merit from its side hath fled?
'My friend,' quoth Bloated-purse,
To his reverse,
'You think yourself considerable.
Pray, tell me, do you keep a table?
What comes of this incessant reading,
In point of lodging, clothing, feeding?
It gives one, true, the highest chamber,
One coat for June and for December,
His shadow for his sole attendant,
And hunger always in th' ascendant.
What profits he his country, too,
Who scarcely ever spends a sou - 
Will, haply, be a public charge?
Who profits more the state at large,
Than he whose luxuries dispense
Among the people wealth immense?
We set the streams of life a-flowing;
We set all sorts of trades a-going.
The spinner, weaver, sewer, vender,
And many a wearer, fair and tender,
All live and flourish on the spender - 
As do, indeed, the reverend rooks
Who waste their time in making books.'
These words, so full of impudence,
Received their proper recompense.
The man of letters held his peace,
Though much he might have said with ease.
A war avenged him soon and well;
In it their common city fell.
Both fled abroad; the ignorant,
By fortune thus brought down to want,
Was treated everywhere with scorn,
And roamed about, a wretch forlorn;
Whereas the scholar, everywhere,
Was nourish'd by the public care.
Let fools the studious despise;
There's nothing lost by being wise.
Upon Bice.
by Robert Herrick

Bice laughs, when no man speaks; and doth protest.
It is his own breech there that breaks the jest.