DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Frederik Hegel
by Bj'rnstjerne Martinius Bj'rnson

(See Note 79)
I
DEDICATION
You never came here; but I go
Here often and am met by you.
Each room and road here must renew
The thought of you and your form show
Standing with helpful hand extended,
As when long since in trust and deed
My home you from my foes defended.
...
So often, while I wrote this book,
The light shone from your genial eye;
Then we were one, both you and I
And what in silence being took;
So here and there the book possesses
Your spirit and your heart's fresh faith,
And therefore now your name it blesses.
I love the air, when growing colder
It, clear and high,
The purer sky
Broadens with sense of freedom bolder.
I find in forests joy the keenest
In autumn days
When fancy plays,
And not when they are young and greenest.
I knew a man: in autumn clearness
His even course, - 
His heart's fine force
Like autumn sky in soft-hued sheerness.
His memory is, as - when a-swarming
The cold blasts first
Of winter burst - 
The gentle flame my room first warming.
When all our outward longings falter,
And summer's mind
Within we find,
Is friendship's feast round autumn's altar.
The Moral
by Rudyard Kipling

You mustn't groom an Arab with a file.
You hadn't ought to tension-spring a mule.
You couldn't push a brumby fifty mile
And drop him in a boiler-shed to cool.
I'll sling you through six counties in a day.
I'll hike you up a grade of one in ten.
I am Duty, Law and Order under way,
I'm the Mentor of banana-fingered men!
I will make you I know your left hand from your right.
I will teach you not to drink about your biz.
I'm the only temperance advocate in sight!
I am all the Education Act there is!
Via, Et Veritas, Et Vita
by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

"You never attained to Him?" "If to attain
Be to abide, then that may be."
"Endless the way, followed with how much pain!"
"The way was He."
You Never Can Tell
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

You never can tell when you send a word,
Like an arrow shot from a bow
By an archer blind, be it cruel or kind,
Just where it may chance to go!
It may pierce the breast of your dearest friend,
Tipped with its poison or balm;
To a stranger's heart in life's great mart,
It may carry its pain or its calm.
You never can tell when you do an act
Just what the result will be;
But with every deed you are sowing a seed,
Though the harvest you may not see.
Each kindly act is an acorn dropped
In God's productive soil.
You may not know, but the tree shall grow,
With shelter for those who toil.
You never can tell what your thoughts will do,
In bringing you hate or love;
For thoughts are things, and their airy wings
Are swifter than carrier doves.
They follow the law of the universe - 
Each thing must create its kind;
And they speed o'er the track to bring you back
WHATEVER WENT OUT FROM YOUR MIND.
How Fortunate The Man With None
by Bertolt Brecht

From the play "Mother Courage"
You saw sagacious Solomon
You know what came of him,
To him complexities seemed plain.
He cursed the hour that gave birth to him
And saw that everything was vain.
How great and wise was Solomon.
The world however did not wait
But soon observed what followed on.
It's wisdom that had brought him to this state.
How fortunate the man with none.
You saw courageous Caesar next
You know what he became.
They deified him in his life
Then had him murdered just the same.
And as they raised the fatal knife
How loud he cried: you too my son!
The world however did not wait
But soon observed what followed on.
It's courage that had brought him to that state.
How fortunate the man with none.
You heard of honest Socrates
The man who never lied:
They weren't so grateful as you'd think
Instead the rulers fixed to have him tried
And handed him the poisoned drink.
How honest was the people's noble son.
The world however did not wait
But soon observed what followed on.
It's honesty that brought him to that state.
How fortunate the man with none.
Here you can see respectable folk
Keeping to God's own laws.
So far he hasn't taken heed.
You who sit safe and warm indoors
Help to relieve our bitter need.
How virtuously we had begun.
The world however did not wait
But soon observed what followed on.
It's fear of god that brought us to that state.
How fortunate the man with none.
Maggie A Lady.
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

You must not call me Maggie, you must not call me Dear,
For I'm Lady of the Manor now stately to see;
And if there comes a babe, as there may some happy year,
'T will be little lord or lady at my knee.
O, but what ails you, my sailor cousin Phil,
That you shake and turn white like a cockcrow ghost?
You're as white as I turned once down by the mill,
When one told me you and ship and crew were lost:
Philip my playfellow, when we were boy and girl
(It was the Miller's Nancy told it to me),
Philip with the merry life in lip and curl,
Philip my playfellow drowned in the sea!
I thought I should have fainted, but I did not faint;
I stood stunned at the moment, scarcely sad,
Till I raised my wail of desolate complaint
For you, my cousin, brother, all I had.
They said I looked so pale, - some say so fair, -
My lord stopped in passing to soothe me back to life:
I know I missed a ringlet from my hair
Next morning; and now I am his wife.
Look at my gown, Philip, and look at my ring,
I'm all crimson and gold from top to toe:
All day long I sit in the sun and sing,
Where in the sun red roses blush and blow.
And I'm the rose of roses says my lord;
And to him I'm more than the sun in the sky,
While I hold him fast with the golden cord
Of a curl, with the eyelash of an eye.
His mother said "fie," and his sisters cried "shame,"
His high-born ladies cried "shame" from their place:
They said "fie" when they only heard my name,
But fell silent when they saw my face.
Am I so fair, Philip? Philip, did you think
I was so fair when we played boy and girl,
Where blue forget-me-nots bloomed on the brink
Of our stream which the mill-wheel sent awhirl?
If I was fair then sure I'm fairer now,
Sitting where a score of servants stand,
With a coronet on high days for my brow
And almost a sceptre for my hand.
You're but a sailor, Philip, weatherbeaten brown,
A stranger on land and at home on the sea,
Coasting as best you may from town to town:
Coasting along do you often think of me?
I'm a great lady in a sheltered bower,
With hands grown white through having naught to do:
Yet sometimes I think of you hour after hour
Till I nigh wish myself a child with you.
You Remember Ellen.
by Thomas Moore

You remember Ellen, our hamlet's pride,
How meekly she blest her humble lot,
When the stranger, William, had made her his bride,
And love was the light of their lowly cot.
Together they toiled through winds and rains,
Till William, at length, in sadness said,
"We must seek our fortune on other plains;"--
Then, sighing, she left her lowly shed.
They roamed a long and a weary way,
Nor much was the maiden's heart at ease,
When now, at close of one stormy day,
They see a proud castle among the trees.
"To-night," said the youth, "we'll shelter there;
"The wind blows cold, the hour is late:"
So he blew the horn with a chieftain's air,
And the Porter bowed, as they past the gate.
"Now, welcome, Lady," exclaimed the youth,--
"This castle is thine, and these dark woods all!"
She believed him crazed, but his words were truth,
For Ellen is Lady of Rosna Hall!
And dearly the Lord of Rosna loves
What William the stranger wooed and wed;
And the light of bliss, in these lordly groves,
Shines pure as it did in the lowly shed.
Sleeping Beauty. A Parable.
by George Augustus Baker, Jr.

You remember the nursery legend 
We heard in the early days,
Ere we knew of the world's deception
Or walked in its dusty ways,
And dwelt in a land of the fairies
Where the air was golden haze 
Of the maid, o'er whom the Summers
Of youth passed, like a swell
Of melody all unbroken,
Till evil wrought its spell,
And dream-embroidered curtains
Of slumber round her fell.
The wood grew up round her castle,
The centuries o'er it rolled,
Wrapping its slumb'rous turrets
In clinging robes of mould,
And her name became a legend
By Winter fire-sides told.
Till the Prince came over the mountains
In the morning-glow of youth;
The forest sank before him
Like wrong before the truth,
And he passed the dim old portal,
With its warders so uncouth,
Woke with a kiss the Princess,
And broke enchantment's chain,
The sleepy old castle wondered,
In its cobweb-cumbered brain,
At the tide of life and pleasure
That poured through each stony vein.
And so love conquered an evil
Centuries old in might,
Scattering drowsy glamour,
Piercing the murky night,
Leading from thrall and darkness
Beauty, and joy, and light.
To Caroline. [1]
by George Gordon Byron

1.
You say you love, and yet your eye
No symptom of that love conveys,
You say you love, yet know not why,
Your cheek no sign of love betrays.
2.
Ah! did that breast with ardour glow,
With me alone it joy could know,
Or feel with me the listless woe,
Which racks my heart when far from thee.
3.
Whene'er we meet my blushes rise,
And mantle through my purpled cheek,
But yet no blush to mine replies,
Nor e'en your eyes your love bespeak.
4.
Your voice alone declares your flame,
And though so sweet it breathes my name,
Our passions still are not the same;
Alas! you cannot love like me.
5.
For e'en your lip seems steep'd in snow,
And though so oft it meets my kiss,
It burns with no responsive glow,
Nor melts like mine in dewy bliss.
6.
Ah! what are words to love like mine,
Though uttered by a voice like thine,
I still in murmurs must repine,
And think that love can ne'er be true,
7.
Which meets me with no joyous sign,
Without a sigh which bids adieu;
How different is my love from thine,
How keen my grief when leaving you.
8.
Your image fills my anxious breast,
Till day declines adown the West,
And when at night, I sink to rest,
In dreams your fancied form I view.
9.
'Tis then your breast, no longer cold,
With equal ardour seems to burn,
While close your arms around me fold,
Your lips my kiss with warmth return.
10.
Ah! would these joyous moments last;
Vain HOPE! the gay delusion's past,
That voice! - ah! no, 'tis but the blast,
Which echoes through the neighbouring grove.
11.
But when awake, your lips I seek,
And clasp enraptur'd all your charms,
So chill's the pressure of your cheek,
I fold a statue in my arms.
12.
If thus, when to my heart embrac'd,
No pleasure in your eyes is trac'd,
You may be prudent, fair, and chaste,
But ah! my girl, you do not love.
Upon A Free Maid, With A Foul Breath.
by Robert Herrick

You say you'll kiss me, and I thank you for it;
But stinking breath, I do as hell abhor it.
The Phantom Ball
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

You remember the hall on the corner?
To-night as I walked down street
I heard the sound of music,
And the rhythmic beat and beat,
In time to the pulsing measure
Of lightly tripping feet.
And I turned and entered the doorway - 
It was years since I had been there - 
Years, and life seemed altered:
Pleasure had changed to care.
But again I was hearing the music
And watching the dancers fair.
And then, as I stood and listened,
The music lost its glee;
And instead of the merry waltzers
There were ghosts of the Used-to-be - 
Ghosts of the pleasure-seekers
Who once had danced with me.
Oh, 'twas a ghastly picture!
Oh, 'twas a gruesome crowd!
Each bearing a skull on his shoulder,
Each trailing a long white shroud,
As they whirled in the dance together,
And the music shrieked aloud.
As they danced, their dry bones rattled
Like shutters in a blast;
And they stared from eyeless sockets
On me as they circled past;
And the music that kept them whirling
Was a funeral dirge played fast.
Some of them wore their face-cloths,
Others were rotted away.
Some had mould on their garments,
And some seemed dead but a day.
Corpses all, but I knew them
As friends, once blithe and gay.
Beauty and strength and manhood - 
And this was the end of it all:
Nothing but phantoms whirling
In a ghastly skeleton ball.
But the music ceased - and they vanished,
And I came away from the hall.
Love's Arithmetic
by Richard Le Gallienne

You often ask me, love, how much I love you,
Bidding my fancy find
An answer to your mind;
I say: "Past count, as there are stars above you."
You shake your head and say,
"Many and bright are they,
But that is not enough."
Again I try:
"If all the leaves on all the trees
Were counted over,
And all the waves on all the seas,
More times your lover,
Yea! more than twice ten thousand times am I."
"'Tis not enough," again you make reply.
"How many blades of grass," one day I said,
"Are there from here to China? how many bees
Have gathered honey through the centuries?
Tell me how many roses have bloomed red
Since the first rose till this rose in your hair?
How many butterflies are born each year?
How many raindrops are there in a shower?
How many kisses, darling, in an hour?"
Thereat you smiled, and shook your golden head;
"Ah! not enough!" you said.
Then said I: "Dear, it is not in my power
To tell how much, how many ways, my love;
Unnumbered are its ways even as all these,
Nor any depth so deep, nor height above,
May match therewith of any stars or seas."
"I would hear more," you smiled . . .
"Then, love," I said,
"This will I do: unbind me all this gold
Too heavy for your head,
And, one by one, I'll count each shining thread,
And when the tale of all its wealth is told . . ."
"As much as that!" you said - 
"Then the full sum of all my love I'll speak,
To the last unit tell the thing you ask . . ."
Thereat the gold, in gleaming torrents shed,
Fell loose adown each cheek,
Hiding you from me; I began my task.
"'Twill last our lives," you said.
Leaf Doctor
by Paul Cameron Brown

You said happiness was a bird
- a hand extended
could bend its perch.
span the perfect wings.
I spoke of swallows.
lived off flies
ebbed when flying.
seldom came to rest.
To The Artists.
by Francis William Lauderdale Adams

You tell me these great lords have raised up Art:
I say they have degraded it. Look you,
When ever did they let the poet sing,
The painter paint, the sculptor hew and cast,
The music raise her heavenly voice, except
To praise them and their wretched rule o'er men?
Behold our English poets that were poor
Since these great lords were rich and held the state:
Behold the glories of the German land,
Poets, musicians, driven, like them, to death
Unless they'd tune their spirits' harps to play
Drawing-room pieces for the chattering fools
Who aped the taste for Art or for a leer.
Go to, no Art was ever noble yet,
Noble and high, the speech of godlike men,
When fetters bound it, be they gold or flowers.
All that is noblest, highest, greatest, best,
Comes from the Galilean peasant's hut, comes from
The Stratford village, the Ayrshire plough, the shop
That gave us Chaucer, the humble Milton's trade - 
Bach's, Mozart's, great Beethoven's, - And these are they
Who knew the People, being what they knew!
Go to, if in the future years no strain,
No picture of earth's glory like to what
Your Artists raised for that small clique or this
Of supercilious imbecilities - 
O if no better demi-gods of Art
Can rise save those whose barbarous tinsel yet
Makes hideous all the beauty of old homes - 
Then let us seek the comforts of despair
In democratic efforts dead and gone:
Weep with Pheideian Athens, sigh an hour
With Raffaelle's Florence, beat the head and breast
O'er Shakspere's England that from Milton's took
In lips the name that leaped from lead and flame
From out her heart against the Spanish guns!
Tommy Corrigan
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

You talk of riders on the flat, of nerve and pluck and pace,
Not one in fifty has the nerve to ride a steeplechase.
It's right enough, while horses pull and take their faces strong,
To rush a flier to the front and bring the field along;
Bur what about the last half-mile, with horses blown and beat,
When every jump means means all you know to keep him on his feet.
When any slip means sudden death, with wife and child to keep,
It needs some nerve to draw the whip and flog him at the leap,
But Corrigan would ride them out, by danger undismayed,
He never flinched at fence or wall, he never was afraid;
With easy seat and nerve of steel, light hand and smiling face,
He held the rushing horses back, and made the sluggards race.
He gave the shirkers extra heart, he steadied down the rash,
He rode great clumsy boring brutes, and chanced a fatal smash;
He got the rushing Wymlet home that never jumped at all,
But clambered over every fence and clouted every wall.
You should have heard the cheers, my boys, that shook the members' stand
Whenever Tommy Corrigan weighed out to ride Lone Hand.
They were, indeed, a glorious pair, the great upstanding horse,
The gamest jockey on his back that ever faced a course.
Though weight was big and pace was hot and fences stiff and tall,
"You follow Tommy Corrigan" was passed to one and all.
And every man on Ballarat raised all he could command
To put on Tommy Corrigan when riding old Lone Hand.
But now we'll keep his memory green while horsemen come and go;
We may not see his like again where silks and satins glow.
We'll drink to him in silence, boys, he's followed down the track
Where many a good man went before, but never one came back.
And, let us hope, in that far land where the shades of brave men reign,
The gallant Tommy Corrigan will ride Lone Hand again.
Atrocities
by Siegfried Loraine Sassoon

You told me, in your drunken-boasting mood,
How once you butchered prisoners. That was good!
I'm sure you felt no pity while they stood
Patient and cowed and scared, as prisoners should.
How did you do them in? Come, don't be shy:
You know I love to hear how Germans die,
Downstairs in dug-outs. "Camerad!" they cry;
Then squeal like stoats when bombs begin to fly.
*        *        *        *        *
And you? I know your record. You went sick
When orders looked unwholesome: then, with trick
And lie, you wangled home. And here you are,
Still talking big and boozing in a bar.
Archibald Lampman.
by Jean Blewett

"Poet by the grace of God."
You sing of winter gray and chill,
Of silent stream and frozen lake,
Of naked woods, and winds that wake
To shriek and sob o'er vale and hill.
And straight we breathe the bracing air,
And see stretched out before our eyes
A white world spanned by brooding skies,
And snowflakes drifting everywhere.
You sing of tender things and sweet,
Of field, of brook, of flower, of bush,
The lilt of bird, the sunset flush,
The scarlet poppies in the wheat.
Until we feel the gleam and glow
Of summer pulsing through our veins,
And hear the patter of the rains,
And watch the green things sprout and grow.
You sing of joy, and we do mark
How glad a thing is life, and dear;
Of sorrow, and we seem to hear
The sound of sobbing in the dark.
The subtle power to sway and move,
The stamp of genius strong and true,
This, friend, was heaven's gift to you,
This made you great and won you love.
Your song goes ringing clear and sweet - 
Though on earth's bosom, bare and brown,
All willingly you laid you down,
The music is not incomplete.
Sleep on, it is not by the years
We measure life when all is done;
Your rest is earned, your laurels won;
Sleep, softly sleep, we say with tears.
To E.T.: 1917
by Walter De La Mare

You sleep too well - too far away,
For sorrowing word to soothe or wound;
Your very quiet seems to say
How longed-for a peace you have found.
Else, had not death so lured you on,
You would have grieved - 'twixt joy and fear - 
To know how my small loving son
Had wept for you, my dear.
Love Me Little, Love Me Long.
by Robert Herrick

You say, to me-wards your affection's strong;
Pray love me little, so you love me long.
Slowly goes far: the mean is best: desire,
Grown violent, does either die or tire.
Astrophel and Stella - Sonnet XV
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

You that do search for euery purling spring
Which from the ribs of old Parnassus flowes,
And euery flower, not sweet perhaps, which growes
Neere thereabouts, into your poesie wring;
Ye that do dictionaries methode bring
Into your rimes, running in rattling rowes;
You that poore Petrarchs long deceased woes
With new-borne sighes and denisen'd wit do sing;
You take wrong wayes; those far-fet helps be such
As do bewray a want of inward tuch,
And sure, at length stol'n goods doe come to light:
But if, both for your loue and skill, your name
You seek to nurse at fullest breasts of Fame,
Stella behold, and then begin to indite.
Epilogue To The Indian Queen.
by John Dryden

SPOKEN BY MONTEZUMA.
You see what shifts we are enforced to try,
To help out wit with some variety;
Shows may be found that never yet were seen,
'Tis hard to find such wit as ne'er has been:
You have seen all that this old world can do,
We therefore try the fortune of the new,
And hope it is below your aim to hit
At untaught nature with your practised wit:
Our naked Indians, then, when wits appear,
Would as soon choose to have the Spaniards here.
'Tis true, you have marks enough, the plot, the show,
The poet's scenes, nay, more, the painter's too;
If all this fail, considering the cost,
'Tis a true voyage to the Indies lost:
But if you smile on all, then these designs,
Like the imperfect treasure of our minds,
Will pass for current wheresoe'er they go,
When to your bounteous hands their stamps they owe.
Proof To No Purpose
by Robert Herrick

You see this gentle stream that glides,
Shoved on, by quick-succeeding tides:
Try if this sober stream you can
Follow to th' wider ocean,
And see, if there it keeps unspent
In that congesting element.
Next, from that world of waters, then
By pores and caverns back again
Induct that inadultrate same
Stream to the spring from whence it came.
This with a wonder when ye do,
As easy, and else easier too:
Then ye may recollect the grains
Of my particular remains,
After a thousand lusters hurled,
By roughing winds, around the world.
Blinded!
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

You that still have your sight,
Remember me!--
I risked my life, I lost my eyes,
That you might see.
Now in the dark I go,
That you have light.
Yours, all the joy of day,
I have but night.
Yours still, the faces dear,
The fields, the sky.
For me--ah me!--there's nought
But this black misery!
In this unending night,
I can but see
What once I saw, and fain
Would see again.
O, midnight of black pain!
Come, Comrade Death,
Come quick, and set me free,
And give me back my eyes again!
*            *            *            *            *
Nay then, Christ's vicar,
You who bear our pain,
Ours be it now to see
Your dark days lighted,
And your way made plain.
Quirl.
by Friedrich Schiller

You tell me that you feel surprise
Because Quirl's paper's grown in size;
And yet they're crying through the street
That there's a rise in bread and meat.
To Lanthe
by Walter Savage Landor

You smil'd, you spoke, and I believ'd,
By every word and smile deceiv'd.
Another man would hope no more;
Nor hope I what I hop'd before:
But let not this last wish be vain;                
Deceive, deceive me once again!
The Poet's Simple Faith.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

You say, "Where goest thou?" I cannot tell,
And still go on. If but the way be straight,
It cannot go amiss! before me lies
Dawn and the Day; the Night behind me; that
Suffices me; I break the bounds; I see,
And nothing more; believe, and nothing less.
My future is not one of my concerns.
PROF. E. DOWDEN.
On A Perfumed Lady
by Robert Herrick

You say you're sweet: how should we know
Whether that you be sweet or no?
From powders and perfumes keep free;
Then we shall smell how sweet you be!
A Reply To A Young Lady.
by James Barron Hope

"I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done
Than to be one of the twenty to follow my own teaching,"
- Merchant of Venice.
"Do as I tell you, and not as I do."
- Old Saying.
You say, a "moral sign-post" I
Point out the road towards the sky;
And then with glance so very shy
You archly ask me, lady, why
I hesitate myself to go
In the direction which I show?
To answer is an easy task,
If you allow me but to ask
One little question, sweet, of you: - 
'Tis this: should sign-posts travel too
What would bewildered pilgrims do - 
Celestial pilgrims, such as you?