DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
An Angler
by William Browne

Now as an angler melancholy standing
Upon a green bank yielding room for landing,
A wriggling yellow worm thrust on his hook,
Now in the midst he throws, then in a nook:
Here pulls his line, there throws it in again,
Mendeth his cork and bait, but all in vain,
He long stands viewing of the curled stream;
At last a hungry pike, or well-grown bream
Snatch at the worm, and hasting fast away,
He knowing it a fish of stubborn sway,
Pulls up his rod, but soft, as having skill,
Wherewith the hook fast holds the fish's gill;
Then all his line he freely yieldeth him,
Whilst furiously all up and down doth swim
Th' insnared fish, here on the top doth scud,
There underneath the banks, then in the mud,
And with his frantic fits so scares the shoal,
That each one takes his hide, or starting hole:
By this the pike, clean wearied, underneath
A willow lies.
From Britannia's Pastorals.
The Orphan Maid
by Walter Scott (Sir)

November's hail-cloud drifts away,
November's sunbeam wan
Looks coldly on the castle grey,
When forth comes Lady Anne.
The orphan by the oak was set,
Her arms, her feet, were bare;
The hail drops had not melted yet,
Amid her raven hair.
"And, dame," she said, "by all the ties
That child and mother know,
Aid one who never knew these joys,
Relieve an orphan's woe."
The lady said, "An orphan's state
Is hard and sad to bear;
Yet worse the widow'd mother's fate
Who mourns both lord and heir.
"Twelve times the rolling year has sped,
Since, when from vengeance wild
Of fierce Strathallan's Chief I fled
Forth's eddies whelm'd my child."
"Twelve times the year its course has borne,"
The wandering maid replied;
"Since fishers on Saint Bridget's morn
Drew nets on Campsie side.
"Saint Bridget sent no scaly spoil;
An infant, wellnigh dead,
They saved, and rear'd in want and toil,
To beg from you her bred."
That orphan maid the lady kiss'd,
"My husband's looks you bear;
Saint Bridget and her morn be bless'd!
You are his widow's heir."
They've robed that maid, so poor and pale
In silk and sandals rare;
And pearls, for drops of frozen hail,
Are glistening in her hair.
Noble Sisters
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

'Now did you mark a falcon,
Sister dear, sister dear,
Flying toward my window
In the morning cool and clear?
With jingling bells about her neck,
But what beneath her wing?
It may have been a ribbon,
Or it may have been a ring.'--
'I marked a falcon swooping
At the break of day;
And for your love, my sister dove,
I 'frayed the thief away.'--
'Or did you spy a ruddy hound,
Sister fair and tall,
Went snuffing round my garden bound,
Or crouched by my bower wall?
With a silken leash about his neck;
But in his mouth may be
A chain of gold and silver links,
Or a letter writ to me.'--
'I heard a hound, highborn sister,
Stood baying at the moon;
I rose and drove him from your wall
Lest you should wake too soon.'--
'Or did you meet a pretty page
Sat swinging on the gate;
Sat whistling whistling like a bird,
Or may be slept too late;
With eaglets broidered on his cap,
And eaglets on his glove?
If you had turned his pockets out,
You had found some pledge of love.'--
'I met him at this daybreak,
Scarce the east was red:
Lest the creaking gate should anger you,
I packed him home to bed.'--
'Oh patience, sister. Did you see
A young man tall and strong,
Swift-footed to uphold the right
And to uproot the wrong,
Come home across the desolate sea
To woo me for his wife?
And in his heart my heart is locked,
And in his life my life.'--
'I met a nameless man, sister,
Hard by your chamber door:
I said: Her husband loves her much.
And yet she loves him more.'--
'Fie, sister, fie, a wicked lie,
A lie, a wicked lie,
I have none other love but him,
Nor will have till I die.
And you have turned him from our door,
And stabbed him with a lie:
I will go seek him thro' the world
In sorrow till I die.'--
'Go seek in sorrow, sister,
And find in sorrow too:
If thus you shame our father's name
My curse go forth with you.'
A Soliloquy of the Full Moon, She Being in a Mad Passion
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Now as Heaven is my Lot, they're the Pests of the Nation!
Wherever they can come
With clankum and blankum
'Tis all Botheration, & Hell & Damnation,
With fun, jeering
Conjuring
Sky-staring,
Loungering,
And still to the tune of Transmogrification,
Those muttering
Spluttering
Ventriloquogusty
Poets
With no Hats
Or Hats that are rusty.
They're my Torment and Curse
And harass me worse
And bait me and bay me, far sorer I vow
Than the Screech of the Owl
Or the witch-wolf's long howl,
Or sheep-killing Butcher-dog's inward Bow wow
For me they all spite, an unfortunate Wight.
And the very first moment that I came to Light
A Rascal call'd Voss the more to his scandal,
Turn'd me into a sickle with never a handle.
A Night or two after a worse Rogue there came,
The head of the Gang, one Wordsworth by name,
`Ho! What's in the wind?' 'Tis the voice of a Wizzard!
I saw him look at me most terribly blue!
He was hunting for witch-rhymes from great A to Izzard,
And soon as he'd found them made no more ado
But chang'd me at once to a little Canoe.
From this strange Enchantment uncharm'd by degrees
I began to take courage & hop'd for some Ease,
When one Coleridge, a Raff of the self-same Banditti
Past by, & intending no doubt to be witty,
Because I'd th' ill-fortune his taste to displease,
He turn'd up his nose,
And in pitiful Prose
Made me into the half of a small Cheshire Cheese.
Well, a night or two past - it was wind, rain & hail,
And I ventur'd abroad in a thick Cloak & veil,
But the very first Evening he saw me again
The last mentioned Ruffian popp'd out of his Den -
I was resting a moment on the bare edge of Naddle
I fancy the sight of me turn'd his Brains addle -
For what was I now?
A complete Barley-mow
And when I climb'd higher he made a long leg,
And chang'd me at once to an Ostrich's Egg -
But now Heaven be praised in contempt of the Loon,
I am I myself I, the jolly full Moon.
Yet my heart is still fluttering -
For I heard the Rogue muttering -
He was hulking and skulking at the skirt of a Wood
When lightly & brightly on tip-toe I stood
On the long level Line of a motionless Cloud
And ho! what a Skittle-ground! quoth he aloud
And wish'd from his heart nine Nine-pins to see
In brightness & size just proportion'd to me.
So I fear'd from my soul,
That he'd make me a Bowl,
But in spite of his spite
This was more than his might
And still Heaven be prais'd! in contempt of the Loon
I am I myself I, the jolly full Moon.
The Hut by the Black Swamp
by Henry Kendall

Now comes the fierce north-easter, bound
About with clouds and racks of rain,
And dry, dead leaves go whirling round
In rings of dust, and sigh like pain
Across the plain.
Now twilight, with a shadowy hand
Of wild dominionship, doth keep
Strong hold of hollow straits of land,
And watery sounds are loud and deep
By gap and steep.
Keen, fitful gusts, that fly before
The wings of storm when day hath shut
Its eyes on mountains, flaw by flaw,
Fleet down by whistling box-tree butt,
Against the hut.
And, ringed and girt with lurid pomp,
Far eastern cliffs start up, and take
Thick steaming vapours from a swamp
That lieth like a great blind lake,
Of face opaque.
The moss that, like a tender grief,
About an English ruin clings
What time the wan autumnal leaf
Faints, after many wanderings
On windy wings
That gracious growth, whose quiet green
Is as a love in days austere,
Was never seen hath never been
On slab or roof, deserted here
For many a year.
Nor comes the bird whose speech is song
Whose songs are silvery syllables
That unto glimmering woods belong,
And deep, meandering mountain dells
By yellow wells.
But rather here the wild-dog halts,
And lifts the paw, and looks, and howls;
And here, in ruined forest vaults,
Abide dim, dark, death-featured owls,
Like monks in cowls.
Across this hut the nettle runs,
And livid adders make their lair
In corners dank from lack of suns,
And out of foetid furrows stare
The growths that scare.
Here Summer's grasp of fire is laid
On bark and slabs that rot, and breed
Squat ugly things of deadly shade,
The scorpion, and the spiteful seed
Of centipede.
Unhallowed thunders, harsh and dry,
And flaming noontides, mute with heat,
Beneath the breathless, brazen sky,
Upon these rifted rafters beat
With torrid feet.
And night by night the fitful gale
Doth carry past the bittern's boom,
The dingo's yell, the plover's wail,
While lumbering shadows start, and loom,
And hiss through gloom.
No sign of grace no hope of green,
Cool-blossomed seasons marks the spot;
But chained to iron doom, I ween,
'Tis left, like skeleton, to rot
Where ruth is not.
For on this hut hath murder writ,
With bloody fingers, hellish things;
And God will never visit it
With flower or leaf of sweet-faced Springs,
Or gentle wings.
A Fresh Morning
by John Collings Squire, Sir

Now am I a tin whistle
Through which God blows,
And I wish to God I were a trumpet
But why, God only knows.
The Magi
by William Butler Yeats

Now as at all times I can see in the mind's eye,
In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones
Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky
With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,
And all their helms of silver hovering side by side,
And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more,
Being by Calvary's turbulence unsatisfied,
The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.
The Eldritch Dark
by Clark Ashton Smith

Now as the twilight's doubtful interval
Closes with night's accomplished certainty,
A wizard wind goes crying eerily;
And in the glade unsteady shadows crawl,
Timed to the trees, whose voices rear and fall
As with some dreadful witches' ecstasy,
Flung upward to the dark, whence glitters free
The crooked moon, impendent over all.
Twin veils of covering cloud and silence thrown
Across the movement and the sound of things,
Make blank the night, till in the broken west
The moon's ensanguined blade awhile is shown....
The night grows whole again.... The shadows rest,
Gathered beneath a greater shadow's wings.
The Gramaphone at Fond-Du-Lac
by Robert William Service

Now Eddie Malone got a swell grammyfone to draw all the trade to his store;
An' sez he: "Come along for a season of song, which the like ye had niver before."
Then Dogrib, an' Slave, an' Yellow-knife brave, an' Cree in his dinky canoe,
Confluated near, to see an' to hear Ed's grammyfone make its dayboo.
Then Ed turned the crank, an' there on the bank they squatted like bumps on a log.
For acres around there wasn't a sound, not even the howl of a dog.
When out of the horn there sudden was born such a marvellous elegant tone;
An' then like a spell on that auddyence fell the voice of its first grammyfone.
"BAD MEDICINE!" cried Old Tom, the One-eyed, an' made for to jump in the lake;
But no one gave heed to his little stampede, so he guessed he had made a mistake.
Then Roll-in-the-Mud, a chief of the blood, observed in choice Chippewayan:
"You've brought us canned beef, an' it's now my belief that this here's a case of 'CANNED MAN'."
Well, though I'm not strong on the Dago in song, that sure got me goin' for fair.
There was Crusoe an' Scotty, an' Ma'am Shoeman Hank, an' Melber an' Bonchy was there.
'Twas silver an' gold, an' sweetness untold to hear all them big guinneys sing;
An' thick all around an' inhalin' the sound, them Indians formed in a ring.
So solemn they sat, an' they smoked an' they spat, but their eyes sort o' glistened an' shone;
Yet niver a word of approvin' occurred till that guy Harry Lauder came on.
Then hunter of moose, an' squaw an' papoose jest laughed till their stummicks was sore;
Six times Eddie set back that record an' yet they hollered an' hollered for more.
I'll never forget that frame-up, you bet; them caverns of sunset agleam;
Them still peaks aglow, them shadders below, an' the lake like a petrified dream;
The teepees that stood by the edge of the wood; the evenin' star blinkin' alone;
The peace an' the rest, an' final an' best, the music of Ed's grammyfone.
Then sudden an' clear there rang on my ear a song mighty simple an' old;
Heart-hungry an' high it thrilled to the sky, all about "silver threads in the gold".
'Twas tender to tears, an' it brung back the years, the mem'ries that hallow an' yearn;
'Twas home-love an' joy, 'twas the thought of my boy . . . an' right there I vowed I'd return.
Big Four-finger Jack was right at my back, an' I saw with a kind o' surprise,
He gazed at the lake with a heartful of ache, an' the tears irrigated his eyes.
An' sez he: "Cuss me, pard! but that there hits me hard; I've a mother does nuthin' but wait.
She's turned eighty-three, an' she's only got me, an' I'm scared it'll soon be too late."
* * * * *
On Fond-du-lac's shore I'm hearin' once more that blessed old grammyfone play.
The summer's all gone, an' I'm still livin' on in the same old haphazardous way.
Oh, I cut out the booze, an' with muscles an' thews I corralled all the coin to go back;
But it wasn't to be: he'd a mother, you see, so I - SLIPPED IT TO FOUR-FINGER JACK.
A Prayer For The Past.
by George MacDonald

Now far from my old northern land,
I live where gentle winters pass;
Where green seas lave a wealthy strand,
And unsown is the grass;
Where gorgeous sunsets claim the scope
Of gazing heaven to spread their show,
Hang scarlet clouds in the topmost cope,
With fringes flaming low;
With one beside me in whose eyes
Once more old Nature finds a home;
There treasures up her changeful skies,
Her phosphorescent foam.
O'er a new joy this day we bend,
Soft power from heaven our souls to lift;
A wondering wonder thou dost lend
With loan outpassing gift--
A little child. She sees the sun--
Once more incarnates thy old law:
One born of two, two born in one,
Shall into one three draw.
But is there no day creeping on
Which I should tremble to renew?
I thank thee, Lord, for what is gone--
Thine is the future too!
And are we not at home in Thee,
And all this world a visioned show,
That, knowing what Abroad is, we
What Home is too may know?
May
by John Clare

Now comes the bonny May, dancing and skipping
Across the stepping-stones of meadow streams,
Bearing no kin to April showers a-weeping,
But constant Sunshine as her servant seems.
Her heart is up--her sweetness, all a-maying,
Streams in her face, like gems on Beauty's breast;
The swains are sighing all, and well-a-daying,
Lovesick and gazing on their lovely guest.
The Sunday paths, to pleasant places leading,
Are graced by couples linking arm in arm,
Sweet smiles enjoying or some book a-reading,
Where Love and Beauty are the constant charm;
For while the bonny May is dancing by,
Beauty delights the ear, and Beauty fills the eye.
Birds sing and build, and Nature scorns alone
On May's young festival to be a widow;
The children, too, have pleasures all their own,
In gathering lady-smocks along the meadow.
The little brook sings loud among the pebbles,
So very loud, that water-flowers, which lie
Where many a silver curdle boils and dribbles,
Dance too with joy as it goes singing by.
Among the pasture mole-hills maidens stoop
To pluck the luscious marjoram for their bosoms;
The greensward's littered o'er with buttercups,
And whitethorns, they are breaking down with blossoms.
'T is Nature's livery for the bonny May,
Who keeps her court, and all have holiday.
Princess of Months (so Nature's choice ordains,)
And Lady of the Summer still she reigns.
In spite of April's youth, who charms in tears,
And rosy June, who wins with blushing face;
July, sweet shepherdess, who wreathes the shears
Of shepherds with her flowers of winning grace;
And sun-tanned August, with her swarthy charms,
The beautiful and rich; and pastoral, gay
September, with her pomp of fields and farms;
And wild November's sybilline array;--
In spite of Beauty's calendar, the Year
Garlands with Beauty's prize the bonny May.
Where'er she goes, fair Nature hath no peer,
And months do love their queen when she's away.
Song For A Highland Drover Returning From England.
by Robert Bloomfield

Now fare-thee-well, England; no further I'll roam;
But follow my shadow that points the way home;
Your gay southern Shores shall not tempt me to stay;
For my Maggy's at Home, and my Children at play!
Tis this makes my Bonnet set light on my brow,
Gives my sinews their strength and my bosom its glow.
Farewell, Mountaineers! my companions, adieu;
Soon, many long miles when I'm severed from you,
I shall miss your white Horns on the brink of the Bourne,
And o'er the rough Heaths, where you'll never return:
But in brave English pastures you cannot complain,
While your Drover speeds back to his Maggy again.
O Tweed! gentle Tweed, as I pass your green vales,
More than life, more than Love, my tir'd Spirit inhales;
There Scotland, my darling, lies full in my view,
With her bare-footed Lasses and Mountains so blue:
To the Mountains away; my heart bounds like the Hind;
For home is so sweet, and my Maggy so kind.
As day after day I still follow my course,
And in fancy trace back every Stream to its source,
Hope cheers me up hills, where the road lies before
O'er hills just as high, and o'er tracks of wild Moor;
The keen polar Star nightly rising to view;
But Maggy's my Star, just as steady and true.
O Ghosts of my Fathers! O heroes, look down!
Fix my wandering thoughts on your deeds of renown,
For the glory of Scotland reigns warm in my breast,
And fortitude grows both from toil and from rest;
May your deeds and your worth be for ever in view,
And may Maggy bear sons not unworthy of you.
Love, why do you urge me, so weary and poor?
I cannot step faster, I cannot do more;
I've pass'd silver Tweed; e'en the Tay flows behind:
Yet fatigue I'll disdain; - my reward I shall find:
Thou, sweet smile of innocence, thou art my prize;
And the joy that will sparkle in Maggy's blue eyes.
She'll watch to the southward; - perhaps she will sigh,
That the way is so long, and the Mountains so high;
Perhaps some huge Rock in the dusk she may see,
And will say in her fondness, 'That surely is he!'
Good Wife, you're deceiv'd; I'm still far from my home;
Go, sleep, my dear Maggy, - to-morrow I'll come.
Mrs. Merdle Discourseth Of Things Eatable.
by Horatio Alger, Jr.

Now Colonel, to husband you need not be winking,
While wiping the soup with a smile from your lips;
I know just as well as he does how you're thinking
The soup is as tasteless as though made of chips.
You need not deny it, and swear that no better
Concocted was ever in London or Paris;
Remember the praises you gave in your letter
Of cooking and eating you wrote to Miss Harris.
Now, Colonel, don't offer a word more to flatter--
The soup may be so-so, but wait for the meat;
And after you've seen the last dish, plate, or platter,
You'll own then, I'm certain, we've nothing to eat--
That is compared, as described to Miss Harris,
With all the best tables you eat at in Paris.
Envoi
by Guy Wetmore Carryl

Now don't go and say you'd a dim
Idea of these stories before,
For I've frankly confessed them from Grimm,
The monarch of magical lore:
And if, by repeating, I took
Your time, I will candidly vow
This moral (the last in the book)
Has never been published till now!
The Moral: The skeleton's Grimm,
But I have supplied the apparel,
So it's fifty per cent, of it Him,
And it's fifty per cent. of it Carryl.
But still (from the personal severing,
For it isn't my nature to grump,)
I acknowledge a measure of Levering
Levering-ed the whole of the lump!
To A Friend Whose Work Has Come To Nothing
by William Butler Yeats

Now all the truth is out,
Be secret and take defeat
From any brazen throat,
For how can you compete,
Being honour bred, with one
Who, were it proved he lies,
Were neither shamed in his own
Nor in his neighbours' eyes?
Bred to a harder thing
Than Triumph, turn away
And like a laughing string
Whereon mad fingers play
Amid a place of stone,
Be secret and exult,
Because of all things known
That is most difficult
At Midnight
by Sara Teasdale

Now at last I have come to see what life is,
Nothing is ever ended, everything only begun,
And the brave victories that seem so splendid
Are never really won.
Even love that I built my spirit's house for,
Comes like a brooding and a baffled guest,
And music and men's praise and even laughter
Are not so good as rest.
The Two Lives
by William Henry Davies

Now how could I, with gold to spare,
Who know the harlot's arms, and wine,
Sit in this green field all alone,
If Nature was not truly mine?
That Pleasure life wakes stale at morn,
From heavy sleep that no rest brings:
This life of quiet joy wakes fresh,
And claps its wings at morn, and sings.
So here sit I, alone till noon,
In one long dream of quiet bliss;
I hear the lark and share his joy,
With no more winedrops than were his.
Such, Nature, is thy charm and power, 
Since I have made the Muse my wife, 
To keep me from the harlot's arms,
And save me from a drunkard's life.
To Live Merrily, And To Trust To Good Verses
by Robert Herrick

Now is the time for mirth,
Nor cheek or tongue be dumb;
For with the flow'ry earth
The golden pomp is come.
The golden pomp is come;
For now each tree does wear,
Made of her pap and gum,
Rich beads of amber here.
Now reigns the rose, and now
Th' Arabian dew besmears
My uncontrolled brow
And my retorted hairs.
Homer, this health to thee,
In sack of such a kind
That it would make thee see
Though thou wert ne'er so blind.
Next, Virgil I'll call forth
To pledge this second health
In wine, whose each cup's worth
An Indian commonwealth.
A goblet next I'll drink
To Ovid, and suppose,
Made he the pledge, he'd think
The world had all one nose.
Then this immensive cup
Of aromatic wine,
Catullus, I quaff up
To that terse muse of thine.
Wild I am now with heat;
O Bacchus! cool thy rays!
Or frantic, I shall eat
Thy thyrse, and bite the bays.
Round, round the roof does run;
And being ravish'd thus,
Come, I will drink a tun
To my Propertius.
Now, to Tibullus, next,
This flood I drink to thee;
But stay, I see a text
That this presents to me.
Behold, Tibullus lies
Here burnt, whose small return
Of ashes scarce suffice
To fill a little urn.
Trust to good verses then;
They only will aspire,
When pyramids, as men,
Are lost i' th' funeral fire.
And when all bodies meet,
In Lethe to be drown'd,
Then only numbers sweet
With endless life are crown'd.
Song of Ramesram Temple Girl
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

Now is the season of my youth,
Not thus shall I always be,
Listen, dear Lord, thou too art young,
Take thy pleasure with me.
My hair is straight as the falling rain,
And fine as morning mist,
I am a rose awaiting thee
That none have touched or kissed.
Do as thou wilt with mine and me,
Beloved, I only pray,
Follow the promptings of thy youth.
Let there be no delay!
A leaf that flutters upon the bough,
A moment, and it is gone, - 
A bubble amid the fountain spray, - 
Ah, pause, and think thereon;
For such is youth and its passing bloom
That wait for thee this hour,
If aught in thy heart incline to me
Ah, stoop and pluck thy flower!
Come, my Lord, to the temple shade,
Where cooling fountains play,
If aught in thy heart incline to love
Let there be no delay!
Many shall faint with love of me
And I shall slake their thirst,
But Fate has brought thee hither to-day
That thou shouldst be the first.
Old, so old are the temple-walls,
Love is older than they;
But I am the short-lived temple rose,
Blooming for thee to-day.
Thine am I, Prince, and only thine,
What is there more so say ?
If aught in thy heart incline to love
Let there be no delay!
He Imploreth Merry For Other Unfortunate Beings.
by Horatio Alger, Jr.

Now heaven in mercy be kind to the wretches
Who stay on the earth like this Mrs. Merdle!
More wretched than ever a wretch on the hurdle
Was drawn by all England's official Jack Ketches;
More wretched, if can be, at church on a Sunday
A woman, who worships, than God, more her dress,
Would be if she heard or e'en thought Mrs. Grundy
Would sneer at the set of a bonnet or tress;
Or say that she thought Miss Freelove's new pattern
Of laces, or collars, or yard flowing sleeves,
Looked more like the dress of a real Miss Slattern
And not "so becoming"'s the first one of Eve's.