DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Translation From Catullus. Luctus De Norte Passeris.
by George Gordon Byron

Ye Cupids droop each little head,
Nor let your wings with joy be spread,
My Lesbia's favourite bird is dead,
Which dearer than her eyes she lov'd:
For he was gentle and so true,
Obedient to her call he flew,
No fear, no wild alarm he knew,
But lightly o'er her bosom mov'd.
And softly fluttering here, and there,
He never sought to cleave the air,
But chirrup'd oft, and free from care,
Tun'd to her ear his grateful strain.
But now he's pass'd the gloomy bourn,
From whence he never can return,
His death, and Lesbia's grief I mourn,
Who sighs alas! but sighs in vain.
Oh curst be thou! devouring grave!
Whose jaws eternal victims crave,
From whom no earthly power can save,
For thou hast ta'en the bird away.
From thee, my Lesbia's eyes o'erflow,
Her swollen cheeks with weeping glow,
Thou art the cause of all her woe,
Receptacle of life's decay.
Hunting Song
by Robert Bloomfield

Ye darksome Woods where Echo dwells,
Where every bud with freedom swells
To meet the glorious day:
The morning breaks; again rejoice;
And with old Ringwood's well-known voice
Bid tuneful Echo play.
We come, ye Groves, ye Hills, we come:
The vagrant Fox shall hear: his doom,
And dread our jovial train.
The shrill Horn sounds, the courser flies,
While every Sportsman joyful cries,
'There's Ringwood's voice again.'
Ye Meadows, hail the coming throng;
Ye peaceful Streams that wind along,
Repeat the Hark-away:
Far o'er the Downs, ye Gales that sweep,
The daring Oak that crowns the steep,
The roaring peal convey.
The chiming notes of chearful Hounds,
Hark! how the hollow Dale resounds;
The sunny Hills how gay.
But where's the note, brave Dog, like thine?
Then urge the Steed, the chorus join,
'Tis Ringwood leads the way.
Sardis. - Revelation iii.1-6.
by William Cowper

'Write to Sardis,' saith the Lord,
And write what he declares,
He whose Spirit, and whose word,
Upholds the seven stars:
'All thy works and ways I search,
Find thy zeal and love decay'd:
Thou art call'd a living church,
But thou art cold and dead.
'Watch, remember, seek, and strive,
Exert thy former pains;
Let thy timely care revive,
And strengthen what remains:
Cleanse thine heart, thy works amend
Former times to mind recall,
Lest my sudden stroke descend,
And smite thee once for all.
'Yet I number now in thee
A few that are upright;
These my Father's face shall see,
And walk with me in white.
When in judgment I appear,
They for mine shall be confest;
Let my faithful servants hear,
And woe be to the rest!'
From Iphigenia In Tauris.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

ACT IV. SCENE 5.
SONG OF THE FATES.
Ye children of mortals
The deities dread!
The mastery hold they
In hands all-eternal,
And use them, unquestioned,
What manner they like.
Let him fear them doubly,
Whom they have uplifted!
On cliffs and on clouds, oh,
Round tables all-golden,
he seats are made ready.
When rises contention,
The guests are humid downwards
With shame and dishonor
To deep depths of midnight,
And vainly await they,
Bound fast in the darkness,
A just condemnation.
But they remain ever
In firmness unshaken
Round tables all-golden.
On stride they from mountain
To mountain far distant:
From out the abysses'
Dark jaws, the breath rises
Of torment-choked Titans
Up tow'rds them, like incense
In light clouds ascending.
The rulers immortal
Avert from whole peoples
Their blessing-fraught glances,
And shun, in the children,
To trace the once cherish'd,
Still, eloquent features
Their ancestors wore.
Thus chanted the Parae;
The old man, the banish'd,
In gloomy vault lying,
Their song overheareth,
Sons, grandsons remembereth,
And shaketh his head.
Journalism
by Morris Rosenfeld

Written today, and read today,
And stale the news tomorrow!--
Upon the sands I build... I play!
I play, and weep in sorrow:
"Ah God, dear God! to find cessation
From this soul-crushing occupation!
If but one year ere Thou dost call me Thither,
Lord, at this blighting task let me not wither."
Ye Flags of Picadilly
by Arthur Hugh Clough

Ye flags of Piccadilly,
Where I posted up and down,
And wished myself so often
Well away from you and town.
Are the people walking quietly
And steady on their feet,
Cabs and omnibuses plying
Just as usual in the street?
Do the houses look as upright
As of old they used to be,
And does nothing seem affected
By the pitching of the sea?
Through the Green Park iron railings
Do the quick pedestrians pass?
Are the little children playing
Round the plane-tree in the grass?
This squally wild northwester
With which our vessel fights,
Does it merely serve with you to
Carry up some paper kites?
Ye flags of Piccadilly,
Which I hated so, I vow
I could wish with all my heart
You were underneath me now!
Strength.
by Jean Blewett

Write on Life's tablet all things tender, great and good,
Uncaring that full oft thou art misunderstood.
Interpretation true is foreign to the throng
That runs and reads; heed not its praise or blame. Be strong!
Write on with steady hand, and, smiling, say, "'Tis well!"
If when thy deeds spell Heaven
The rabble read out Hell.
Job Work
by James Whitcomb Riley

"Write me a rhyme of the present time".
And the poet took his pen
And wrote such lines as the miser minds
Hide in the hearts of men.
He grew enthused, as the poets used
When their fingers kissed the strings
Of some sweet lyre, and caught the fire
True inspiration brings,
And sang the song of a nation's wrong -
Of the patriot's galling chain,
And the glad release that the angel, Peace,
Has given him again.
He sang the lay of religion's sway,
Where a hundred creeds clasp hands
And shout in glee such a symphony
That the whole world understands.
He struck the key of monopoly,
And sang of her swift decay,
And traveled the track of the railway back
With a blithesome roundelay -
Of the tranquil bliss of a true love kiss;
And painted the picture, too,
Of the wedded life, and the patient wife,
And the husband fond and true;
And sang the joy that a noble boy
Brings to a father's soul,
Who lets the wine as a mocker shine
Stagnated in the bowl.
And he stabbed his pen in the ink again,
And wrote with a writhing frown,
"This is the end."    "And now, my friend,
You may print it - upside down!"
Write On, Write On. A Ballad.
by Thomas Moore

Air.--"Sleep on, sleep on, my Kathleen dear.
salvete, fratres Asini. ST. FRANCIS.
Write on, write on, ye Barons dear,
Ye Dukes, write hard and fast;
The good we've sought for many a year
Your quills will bring at last.
One letter more, Newcastle, pen,
To match Lord Kenyon's two,
And more than Ireland's host of men,
One brace of Peers will do.
Write on, write on, etc.
Sure never since the precious use
Of pen and ink began,
Did letters writ by fools produce
Such signal good to man.
While intellect, 'mong high and low,
Is marching on, they say,
Give me the Dukes and Lords who go
Like crabs, the other way.
Write on, write on, etc.
Even now I feel the coming light--
Even now, could Folly lure
My Lord Mountcashel too to write,
Emancipation's sure.
By geese (we read in history),
Old Rome was saved from ill;
And now to quills of geese we see
Old Rome indebted still.
Write on, write on, etc.
Write, write, ye Peers, nor stoop to style,
Nor beat for sense about--
Things little worth a Noble's while
You're better far without.
Oh ne'er, since asses spoke of yore,
Such miracles were done;
For, write but four such letters more,
And Freedom's cause is won!
Yad Mordechai
by Yehuda Amichai

Yad Mordechai. Those who fell here
still look out the windows like sick children
who are not allowed outside to play.
And on the hillside, the battle is reenacted
for the benefit of hikers and tourists. Soldiers of thin sheet iron
rise and fall and rise again. Sheet iron dead and a sheet iron life
and the voices all'sheet iron. And the resurrection of the dead,
sheet iron that clangs and clangs.
And I said to myself: Everyone is attached to his own lament
as to a parachute. Slowly he descends and slowly hovers
until he touches the hard place.
The Banks O' Doon. (Second Version.)
by Robert Burns

Tune - "Caledonian Hunt's Delight."
I.
Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair;
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae weary, fu' o' care!
Thou'lt break my heart, thou warbling bird,
That wantons thro' the flowering thorn:
Thou minds me o' departed joys,
Departed, never to return!
II.
Aft hae I rov'd by bonnie Doon,
To see the rose and woodbine twine;
And ilka bird sang o' its luve,
And fondly sae did I o' mine.
Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose,
Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree;
And my fause luver stole my rose,
But, ah! he left the thorn wi' me.
Fragment: 'Ye Gentle Visitations Of Calm Thought'.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Ye gentle visitations of calm thought -
Moods like the memories of happier earth,
Which come arrayed in thoughts of little worth,
Like stars in clouds by the weak winds enwrought, -
But that the clouds depart and stars remain,
While they remain, and ye, alas, depart!
Christ's All!
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

Our Boys Who Have Gone to the Front
("Be christs!"--was one of W.    T.    Stead's favourite sayings.    Not "Be like Christ!"--but--"Be christs!"    And he used the word no doubt in its original meaning,--anointed, ordained, chosen.    As such we, whose boys have gone to the Front, think of them.    For they have gone, most of them, from a simple, high sense of duty, and in many cases under direst feeling of personal repulsion against the whole ghastly business.    They have sacrificed everything, knowing full well that many of them will never return to us.)
Ye are all christs in this your self-surrender,--
True sons of God in seeking not your own.
Yours now the hardships,--yours shall be the splendour
Of the Great Triumph and THE KING'S "Well done!"
Yours these rough Calvaries of high endeavour,--
Flame of the trench, and foam of wintry seas.
Nor Pain, nor Death, nor aught that is can sever
You from the Love that bears you on His knees.
Yes, you are christs, if less at times your seeming.--
Christ walks the earth in many a simple guise.
We know you christs, when, in your souls' redeeming,
The Christ-light blazes in your steadfast eyes.
Here--or hereafter, you shall see it ended,--
This mighty work to which your souls are set.
If from beyond--then, with the vision splendid,
You shall smile back and never know regret.
Or soon, or late, for each--the Life Immortal!
And not for us to choose the How or When.
Or late, or soon,--what matter?--since the Portal
Leads but to glories passing mortal ken.
O Lads!    Dear Lads!    Our christs of God's anointing!
Press on in hope!    Your faith and courage prove!
Pass--by these High Ways of the Lord's appointing!
You cannot pass beyond our boundless love.
Sandys Ghost ; A Proper Ballad On The New Ovid's Metamorphosis
by Alexander Pope

Ye Lords and Commons, Men of Wit,
And Pleasure about Town;
Read this ere you translate one Bit
Of Books of high Renown.
Beware of Latin Authors all!
Nor think your Verses Sterling,
Though with a Golden Pen you scrawl,
And scribble in a Berlin:
For not the Desk with silver Nails,
Nor Bureau of Expense,
Nor standish well japann'd avails,
To writing of good Sense.
Hear how a Ghost in dead of Night,
With saucer Eyes of Fire,
In woeful wise did sore affright
A Wit and courtly 'Squire.
Rare Imp and Phoebus, hopeful Youth
Like Puppy tame that uses
To fetch and carry, in his Mouth,
The Works of all the Muses.
Ah! why did he write Poetry,
That hereto was so civil;
And sell his soul for vanity,
To Rhyming and the Devil?
A Desk he had of curious Work,
With glittering Studs about;
Within the same did Sandys lurk,
Though Ovid lay without.
Now as he scratch'd to fetch up Thought,
Forth popp'd the Sprite so thin;
And from the Key-hole bolted out,
All upright as a Pin.
With Whiskers, Band, and Pantaloon,
And Ruff composed most duly;
This 'Squire he dropp'd his Pen full soon,
While as the Light burnt bluely.
"Ho! Master Sam," quoth Sandys' sprite,
"Write on, nor let me scare ye;
Forsooth, if Rhymes fall in not right,
To Budgell seek, or Carey.
"I hear the Beat of Jacob's Drums,
Poor Ovid finds no Quarter!
See first the merry Pembroke comes
In Haste, without his Garter.
"Then Lords and Lordlings, 'Squires and Knights,
Wits, Witlings, Prigs and Peers!
Garth at St. James's, and at White's,
Beats up for Volunteers.
"What Fenton will not do, nor Gay,
Nor Congreve, Rowe, nor Stanyan,
Tom Burnet or Tom D'Urfey may,
John Dunton, Steele, or any one.
"If Justice Philips' costive head
Some frigid Rhymes disburses;
They shall like Persian Tales be read,
And glad both Babes and Nurses.
"Let Warwick's Muse with Ashurst join,
And Ozell's with Lord Hervey's:
Tickell and Addison combine,
And P'pe translate with Jervas.
"Landsdowne himself, that lively Lord,
Who bows to every Lady,
Shall join with Frowde in one Accord,
And be like Tate and Brady.
"Ye Ladies too draw forth your pen,
I pray where can the hurt lie?
Since you have Brains as well as Men,
As witness Lady Wortley.
"Now, Tonson, list thy Forces all,
Review them, and tell Noses;
For to poor Ovid shall befal
A strange Metamorphosis.
"A Metamorphosis more strange
Than all his Books can vapour;"
'To what' (quoth 'squire) 'shall Ovid change?'
Quoth Sandys: "To waste paper."
The Song of the Derelict
by John Alexander McCrae

Ye have sung me your songs, ye have chanted your rimes
(I scorn your beguiling, O sea!)
Ye fondle me now, but to strike me betimes.
(A treacherous lover, the sea!)
Once I saw as I lay, half-awash in the night
A hull in the gloom -- a quick hail -- and a light
And I lurched o'er to leeward and saved her for spite
From the doom that ye meted to me.
I was sister to 'Terrible', seventy-four,
(Yo ho! for the swing of the sea!)
And ye sank her in fathoms a thousand or more
(Alas! for the might of the sea!)
Ye taunt me and sing me her fate for a sign!
What harm can ye wreak more on me or on mine?
Ho braggart!    I care not for boasting of thine --
A fig for the wrath of the sea!
Some night to the lee of the land I shall steal,
(Heigh-ho to be home from the sea!)
No pilot but Death at the rudderless wheel,
(None knoweth the harbor as he!)
To lie where the slow tide creeps hither and fro
And the shifting sand laps me around, for I know
That my gallant old crew are in Port long ago --
For ever at peace with the sea!
To The Little Spinners.
by Robert Herrick

Ye pretty housewives, would ye know
The work that I would put ye to?
This, this it should be: for to spin
A lawn for me, so fine and thin
As it might serve me for my skin.
For cruel Love has me so whipp'd
That of my skin I all am stripp'd:
And shall despair that any art
Can ease the rawness or the smart,
Unless you skin again each part.
Which mercy if you will but do,
I call all maids to witness to
What here I promise: that no broom
Shall now or ever after come
To wrong a spinner or her loom.
Sandys' Ghost;[82] Or, A Proper New Ballad On The New Ovid's Metamorphoses: As It Was Intended To Be Translated By Persons Of Quality.
by Alexander Pope

1 Ye Lords and Commons, men of wit
And pleasure about town,
Read this, ere you translate one bit
Of books of high renown.
2 Beware of Latin authors all!
Nor think your verses sterling,
Though with a golden pen you scrawl,
And scribble in a berlin:
3 For not the desk with silver nails,
Nor bureau of expense,
Nor standish well japann'd, avails
To writing of good sense.
4 Hear how a ghost in dead of night,
With saucer eyes of fire,
In woeful wise did sore affright
A wit and courtly squire.
5 Rare imp of Phoebus, hopeful youth!
Like puppy tame that uses
To fetch and carry, in his mouth,
The works of all the Muses.
6 Ah! why did he write poetry,
That hereto was so civil;
And sell his soul for vanity
To rhyming and the devil?
7 A desk he had of curious work,
With glittering studs about;
Within the same did Sandys lurk,
Though Ovid lay without.
8 Now, as he scratch'd to fetch up thought,
Forth popp'd the sprite so thin,
And from the keyhole bolted out,
All upright as a pin.
9 With whiskers, band, and pantaloon,
And ruff composed most duly,
This squire he dropp'd his pen full soon,
While as the light burnt bluely.
10 'Ho! Master Sam,' quoth Sandys' sprite,
'Write on, nor let me scare ye!
Forsooth, if rhymes fall not in right,
To Budgell seek, or Carey.
11 'I hear the beat of Jacob's[83] drums,
Poor Ovid finds no quarter!
See first the merry P----[84] comes
In haste without his garter.
12 'Then lords and lordlings, squires and knights,
Wits, witlings, prigs, and peers:
Garth at St James's, and at White's
Beats up for volunteers.
13 'What Fenton will not do, nor Gay,
Nor Congreve, Rowe, nor Stanyan,
Tom Burnet, or Tom D'Urfey may,
John Dunton, Steele, or any one.
14 'If Justice Philips' costive head
Some frigid rhymes disburses:
They shall like Persian tales be read,
And glad both babes and nurses.
15 'Let Warwick's Muse with Ashurst join,
And Ozell's with Lord Hervey's,
Tickell and Addison combine,
And Pope translate with Jervas.
16 'L---- himself, that lively lord,
Who bows to every lady,
Shall join with F---- in one accord,
And be like Tate and Brady.
17 'Ye ladies, too, draw forth your pen;
I pray, where can the hurt lie?
Since you have brains as well as men,
As witness Lady Wortley.
18 'Now, Tonson, list thy forces all,
Review them, and tell noses:
For to poor Ovid shall befall
A strange metamorphosis;
19 'A metamorphosis more strange
Than all his books can vapour'--
'To what (quoth squire) shall Ovid change?'
Quoth Sandys, 'To waste paper.'
To Meadows
by Robert Herrick

Ye have been fresh and green,
Ye have been fill'd with flowers;
And ye the walks have been
Where maids have spent their hours.
You have beheld how they
With wicker arks did come,
To kiss and bear away
The richer cowslips home.
You've heard them sweetly sing,
And seen them in a round;
Each virgin, like a spring,
With honeysuckles crown'd.
But now, we see none here,
Whose silvery feet did tread
And with dishevell'd hair
Adorn'd this smoother mead.
Like unthrifts, having spent
Your stock, and needy grown
You're left here to lament
Your poor estates alone.
Inscriptions - Written At The Request Of Sir George Beaumont, Bart., And In His Name, For An Urn, Placed By Him At The Termination Of A Newly-Planted Avenue, In The Same Grounds
by William Wordsworth

Ye Lime-trees, ranged before this hallowed Urn,
Shoot forth with lively power at Spring's return;
And be not slow a stately growth to rear
Of pillars, branching off from year to year,
Till they have learned to frame a darksome aisle;
That may recall to mind that awful Pile
Where Reynolds, 'mid our country's noblest dead,
In the last sanctity of fame is laid.
There, though by right the excelling Painter sleep
Where Death and Glory a joint sabbath keep,
Yet not the less his Spirit would hold dear
Self-hidden praise, and Friendship's private tear:
Hence, on my patrimonial grounds, have I
Raised this frail tribute to his memory;
From youth a zealous follower of the Art
That he professed; attached to him in heart;
Admiring, loving, and with grief and pride
Feeling what England lost when Reynolds died.
Epitaph On Sir Palmes Fairbone's Tomb In Westminster Abbey.
by John Dryden

Sacred To The Immortal Memory Of Sir Palmes Fairbone, Knight, Governor Of Tangier; In Execution Of Which Command, He Was Mortally Wounded By A Shot From The Moors, Then Besieging The Town, In The Forty-Sixth Year Of His Age. October 24, 1680.
Ye sacred relics, which your marble keep,
Here, undisturb'd by wars, in quiet sleep:
Discharge the trust, which, when it was below,
Pairbone's undaunted soul did undergo,
And be the town's Palladium from the foe.
Alive and dead these walls he will defend:
Great actions great examples must attend.
The Candian siege his early valour knew,
Where Turkish blood did his young hands imbrue.
From thence returning with deserved applause,
Against the Moors his well-flesh'd sword he draws;
The same the courage, and the same the cause.
His youth and age, his life and death, combine,
As in some great and regular design,
All of a piece throughout, and all divine.
Still nearer heaven his virtues shone more bright,
Like rising flames expanding in their height;
The martyr's glory crown'd the soldier's fight.
More bravely British general never fell,
Nor general's death was e'er revenged so well;
Which his pleased eyes beheld before their close,
Follow'd by thousand victims of his foes.
To his lamented loss for time to come
His pious widow consecrates this tomb.
He Fell Among Thieves
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

"Ye have robbed," said he, "ye have slaughtered and made an end,
Take your ill-got plunder, and bury the dead:
What will ye more of your guest and sometime friend?"
"Blood for our blood," they said.
He laughed: "If one may settle the score for five,
I am ready; but let the reckoning stand til day:
I have loved the sunlight as dearly as any alive."
"You shall die at dawn," said they.
He flung his empty revolver down the slope,
He climbed alone to the Eastward edge of the trees;
All night long in a dream untroubled of hope
He brooded, clasping his knees.
He did not hear the monotonous roar that fills
The ravine where the Yassin river sullenly flows;
He did not see the starlight on the Laspur hills,
Or the far Afghan snows.
He saw the April noon on his books aglow,
The wistaria trailing in at the window wide;
He heard his father's voice from the terrace below
Calling him down to ride.
He saw the gray little church across the park,
The mounds that hid the loved and honoured dead;
The Norman arch, the chancel softly dark,
The brasses black and red.
He saw the School Close, sunny and green,
The runner beside him, the stand by the parapet wall,
The distant tape, and the crowd roaring between,
His own name over all.
He saw the dark wainscot and timbered roof,
The long tables, and the faces merry and keen;
The College Eight and their trainer dining aloof,
The Dons on the da's serene.
He watched the liner's stem ploughing the foam,
He felt her trembling speed and the thrash of her screw;
He heard the passengers' voices talking of home,
He saw the flag she flew.
And now it was dawn. He rose strong on his feet,
And strode to his ruined camp below the wood;
He drank the breath of the morning cool and sweet:
His murderers round him stood.
Light on the Laspur hills was broadening fast,
The blood-red snow-peaks chilled to dazzling white:
He turned, and saw the golden circle at last,
Cut by the Eastern height.
"O glorious Life, Who dwellest in earth and sun,
I have lived, I praise and adore Thee."
A sword swept.
Over the pass the voices one by one
Faded, and the hill slept.
Oxford, May 30, 1820
by William Wordsworth

Ye sacred Nurseries of blooming Youth!
In whose collegiate shelter England's Flowers
Expand, enjoying through their vernal hours
The air of liberty, the light of truth;
Much have ye suffered from Time's gnawing tooth:
Yet, O ye spires of Oxford! domes and towers!
Gardens and groves! your presence overpowers
The soberness of reason; till, in sooth,
Transformed, and rushing on a bold exchange,
I slight my own beloved Cam, to range
Where silver Isis leads my stripling feet;
Pace the long avenue, or glide adown
The stream-like windings of that glorious street
An eager Novice robed in fluttering gown!
Dragon-Seed
by Madison Julius Cawein

Ye have ploughed the field like cattle,
Ye have sown the dragon-seed,
Are ye ready now for battle?
For fighters are what we need.
Have ye done with taking and giving?
The old gods, Give and Take?
Then into the ranks of the living,
And fight for the fighting's sake.
Let who will thrive by cunning,
And lies be another's cure;
But girdle your loins for running,
And the goal of Never Sure.
Enough of idle shirking!
Though you hate like death your part
There is nothing helps like working
When you work with all your heart.
For the world is fact, not fiction,
And its battle is not with words;
And what helps is not men's diction,
But the temper of their swords.
For what each does is measure
Of that he is, I say:
And not by the ranks of Leisure
Is the battle won to-day.