DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Lines On The Portrait Of A Celebrated Publisher
by John Greenleaf Whittier

A moony breadth of virgin face,
By thought unviolated;
A patient mouth, to take from scorn
The hook with bank-notes baited!
Its self-complacent sleekness shows
How thrift goes with the fawner;
An unctuous unconcern of all
Which nice folks call dishonor!
A pleasant print to peddle out
In lands of rice and cotton;
The model of that face in dough
Would make the artist's fortune.
For Fame to thee has come unsought,
While others vainly woo her,
In proof how mean a thing can make
A great man of its doer.
To whom shall men thyself compare,
Since common models fail 'em,
Save classic goose of ancient Rome,
Or sacred ass of Balaam?
The gabble of that wakeful goose
Saved Rome from sack of Brennus;
The braying of the prophet's ass
Betrayed the angel's menace!
So when Guy Fawkes, in petticoats,
And azure-tinted hose on,
Was twisting from thy love-lorn sheets
The slow-match of explosion
An earthquake blast that would have tossed
The Union as a feather,
Thy instinct saved a perilled land
And perilled purse together.
Just think of Carolina's sage
Sent whirling like a Dervis,
Of Quattlebum in middle air
Performing strange drill-service!
Doomed like Assyria's lord of old,
Who fell before the Jewess,
Or sad Abimelech, to sigh,
"Alas! a woman slew us!"
Thou saw'st beneath a fair disguise
The danger darkly lurking,
And maiden bodice dreaded more
Than warrior's steel-wrought jerkin.
How keen to scent the hidden plot!
How prompt wert thou to balk it,
With patriot zeal and pedler thrift,
For country and for pocket!
Thy likeness here is doubtless well,
But higher honor's due it;
On auction-block and negro-jail
Admiring eyes should view it.
Or, hung aloft, it well might grace
The nation's senate-chamber
A greedy Northern bottle-fly
Preserved in Slavery's amber
The Mountain In Labour.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
A mountain was in travail pang;
The country with her clamour rang.
Out ran the people all, to see,
Supposing that the birth would be
A city, or at least a house.
It was a mouse!
In thinking of this fable,
Of story feign'd and false,
But meaning veritable,
My mind the image calls
Of one who writes, "The war I sing
Which Titans waged against the Thunder-king."[2]
As on the sounding verses ring,
What will be brought to birth?
Why, dearth.
An Epistle To An Editor
by Henry Austin Dobson

"Jamais les arbres verts n'ont essaye d'etre bleus."--
THEOPHILE GAUTIER.
"A new Review!" You make me tremble
(Though as to that, I can dissemble
Till I hear more). But is it "new"?
And will it be a real Review?--
I mean, a Court wherein the scales
Weigh equally both him that fails,
And him that hits the mark?--a place
Where the accus'd can plead his case,
If wrong'd? All this I need to know
Before I (arrogant!) say "Go."
"We, that are very old" (the phrase
Is STEELE'S, not mine!), in former days,
Have seen so many "new Reviews"
Arise, arraign, absolve, abuse;--
Proclaim their mission to the top
(Where there's still room!), then slowly drop,
Shrink down, fade out, and sans preferment,
Depart to their obscure interment;--
We should be pardon'd if we doubt
That a new venture can hold out.
It will, you say. Then don't be "new";
Be "old." The Old is still the True.
Nature (said GAUTIER) never tries
To alter her accustom'd dyes;
And all your novelties at best
Are ancient puppets, newly drest.
What you must do, is not to shrink
From speaking out the thing you think;
And blaming where 'tis right to blame,
Despite tradition and a Name.
Yet don't expand a trifling blot,
Or ban the book for what it's not
(That is the poor device of those
Who cavil where they can't oppose!);
Moreover (this is very old!),
Be courteous--even when you scold!
Blame I put first, but not at heart.
You must give Praise the foremost part;--
Praise that to those who write is breath
Of Life, if just; if unjust, Death.
Praise then the things that men revere;
Praise what they love, not what they fear;
Praise too the young; praise those who try;
Praise those who fail, but by and by
May do good work. Those who succeed,
You'll praise perforce,--so there's no need
To speak of that. And as to each,
See you keep measure in your speech;--
See that your praise be so exprest
That the best man shall get the best;
Nor fail of the fit word you meant
Because your epithets are spent.
Remember that our language gives
No limitless superlatives;
And SHAKESPEARE, HOMER, should have more
Than the last knocker at the door!
"We, that are very old!"--May this
Excuse the hint you find amiss.
My thoughts, I feel, are what to-day
Men call vieux jeu. Well!--"let them say."
The Old, at least, we know: the New
(A changing Shape that all pursue!)
Has been,--may be, a fraud.
--But there!
Wind to your sail! Vogue la galere!
Our Lady Of The Snows
by Rudyard Kipling

A nation spoke to a Nation,
A Queen sent word to a Throne:
'Daughter am I in my mother's house,
But mistress in my own.
The gates are mine to open,
As the gates are mine to close,
And I set my house in order,'
Said our Lady of the Snows.
'Neither with laughter nor weeping,
Fear or the child's amaze,
Soberly under the White Man's law
My white men go their ways.
Not for the Gentiles' clamour,
Insult or threat of blows,
Bow we the knee to Baal,'
Said our Lady of the Snows.
'My speech is clean and single,
I talk of common things,
Words of the wharf and the market-place
And the ware the merchant brings:
Favour to those I favour,
But a stumbling-block to my foes.
Many there be that hate us,'
Said our Lady of the Snows.
'I called my chiefs to council
In the din of a troubled year;
For the sake of a sign ye would not see,
And a word ye would not hear.
This is our message and answer;
This is the path we chose:
For we be also a people,'
Said our Lady of the Snows.
'Carry the word to my sisters,
To the Queens of the East and the South.
I have proven faith in the Heritage
By more than the word of the mouth.
They that are wise may follow
Ere the world's war-trumpet blows,,
But I, I am first in the battle,'
Said our Lady of the Snows.
A Nation spoke to a Nation
A Throne sent word to a Throne:
'Daughter am I in my mother's house
But mistress in my own.
The gates are mine to open,
As the gates are mine to close,
And I abide by my Mother's House,'
Said our Lady of the Snows.
Verses Occasioned By The Foregoing Presents (Verses Left With A Silver Standish On The Dean Of St. Patrick's Desk, On His Birth-Day. By Dr. Delany)
by Jonathan Swift

A paper book is sent by Boyle,
Too neatly gilt for me to soil.
Delany sends a silver standish,
When I no more a pen can brandish.
Let both around my tomb be placed:
As trophies of a Muse deceased;
And let the friendly lines they writ,
In praise of long-departed wit,
Be graved on either side in columns,
More to my praise than all my volumes,
To burst with envy, spite, and rage,
The Vandals of the present age.
The Kite And The Nightingale.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
A noted thief, the kite,
Had set a neighbourhood in fright,
And raised the clamorous noise
Of all the village boys,
When, by misfortune, - sad to say, - 
A nightingale fell in his way.
Spring's herald begg'd him not to eat
A bird for music - not for meat.
'O spare!' cried she, 'and I'll relate
'The crime of Tereus and his fate.' - 
'What's Tereus?[2] Is it food for kites?' - 
'No, but a king, of female rights
The villain spoiler, whom I taught
A lesson with repentance fraught;
And, should it please you not to kill,
My song about his fall
Your very heart shall thrill,
As it, indeed, does all.' - 
Replied the kite, a 'pretty thing!
When I am faint and famishing,
To let you go, and hear you sing?' - 
'Ah, but I entertain the king!' - 
'Well, when he takes you, let him hear
Your tale, full wonderful, no doubt;
For me, a kite, I'll go without.'
An empty stomach hath no ear.[3]
Nationality.
by Thomas Osborne Davis

I.
A Nation's voice, a nation's voice--
It is a solemn thing!
It bids the bondage-sick rejoice--
'Tis stronger than a king.
'Tis like the light of many stars,
The sound of many waves,
Which brightly look through prison bars,
And sweetly sound in caves.
Yet is it noblest, godliest known,
When righteous triumph swells its tone.
II.
A nation's flag, a nation's flag--
If wickedly unrolled,
May foes in adverse battle drag
Its every fold from fold.
But in the cause of Liberty,
Guard it 'gainst Earth and Hell;
Guard it till Death or Victory--
Look you, you guard it well!
No saint or king has tomb so proud
As he whose flag becomes his shroud.
III.
A nation's right, a nation's right--
God gave it, and gave, too,
A nation's sword, a nation's might,
Danger to guard it through.
'Tis freedom from a foreign yoke,
'Tis just and equal laws,
Which deal unto the humblest folk,
As in a noble's cause.
On nations fixed in right and truth,
God would bestow eternal youth.
IV.
May Ireland's voice be ever heard
Amid the world's applause!
And never be her flag-staff stirred,
But in an honest cause!
May Freedom be her very breath,
Be Justice ever dear;
And never an ennobled death
May son of Ireland fear!
So the Lord God will ever smile,
With guardian grace, upon our isle.
Taking Orders. A Tale, Founded On Fact.
by Thomas Gent

A parson once--and poorer he
Than ever parson ought to be;
Yet not so proud as some from College,
Who fancy they alone have knowledge;
Who only learn to dress and drink,
And, strange to say, still seem to think
That no real talent's to be found
Except within their classic ground;
Yet prove that Cam's nor Oxon's plains
Can't furnish empty skulls with brains.
But for my tale--Our churchman came,
And, in religion's honour'd name,
Sought Cam's delightful classic borders,
To be prefer'd to Holy Orders.
Chance led him to the Trav'llers' Inn,
Where living's cheap, and often whim
Enlivens many a weary soul,
And helps, in the o'erflowing bowl,
In spite of fogs, and threatening weather,
To drown both grief and gloom together:--
(Oh, Wit! thou'rt like a little blue,
Soft cloud, in summer breaking through
A frowning one, and lighting it
Till darkness fadeth bit by bit;
And Whim to thee is near allied,
And follows closely at thy side;
So oft, oh, Wit! I'm told that she
By some folks is mista'en for thee;
Yet I may say unto my eyes,
Just whereabouts the difference lies;
One's diamond quite, and, to my taste,
The other is but Dovey's Paste.)--
He there a ready welcome found
From one who travell'd England round:
"Sir, your obedient--quite alone?
I'm truly happy you are come:
Pray, sir, be seated;--business dull;--
Or else this room had now been full;
Orders and cash are strangers here,
And every thing looks dev'lish queer;
Bad times these, sir, sad lack of wealth;
Must hope for better;--Sir, your health!"
Then added, with inquiring face,
"Come to take Orders in this place?"
"Yes, sir, I am," replied the priest:
"With that intent I came at least."
"Ha! ha! I knew it very well;
We business-men can others tell:
Often before I've seen your face,
Though memory can't recal the place--
Ah! now I have it; head of mine!
You travel in the button line?"
"Begging your pardon, sir, I fear
Some error has arisen here;
You have mista'en my trade divine,
But, sir, the worldly loss is mine--
I travel in a much worse line."
Prologue. Spoken At The Opening Of The New House, March 26, 1674.
by John Dryden

A plain-built[1] house, after so long a stay,
Will send you half unsatisfied away;
When, fallen from your expected pomp, you find
A bare convenience only is design'd.
You, who each day can theatres behold,
Like Nero's palace, shining all with gold,
Our mean ungilded stage will scorn, we fear,
And, for the homely room, disdain the cheer.
Yet now cheap druggets to a mode are grown,
And a plain suit, since we can make but one,
Is better than to be by tarnish'd gawdry known.
They, who are by your favours wealthy made,
With mighty sums may carry on the trade:
We, broken bankers, half destroy'd by fire,
With our small stock to humble roofs retire:
Pity our loss, while you their pomp admire.
For fame and honour we no longer strive,
We yield in both, and only beg to live:
Unable to support their vast expense,
Who build and treat with such magnificence;
That, like the ambitious monarchs of the age,
They give the law to our provincial stage.
Great neighbours enviously promote excess,
While they impose their splendour on the less.
But only fools, and they of vast estate,
The extremity of modes will imitate,
The dangling knee-fringe, and the bib-cravat.
Yet if some pride with want may be allow'd,
We in our plainness may be justly proud:
Our royal master will'd it should be so;
Whate'er he's pleased to own, can need no show:
That sacred name gives ornament and grace,
And, like his stamp, makes basest metals pass.
'Twere folly now a stately[2] pile to raise,
To build a playhouse, while you throw down plays;
While scenes, machines, and empty operas reign,
And for the pencil you the pen disdain:
While troops of famish'd Frenchmen hither drive,
And laugh at those upon whose alms they live:
Old English authors vanish, and give place
To these new conquerors of the Norman race.
More tamely than your fathers you submit;
You're now grown vassals to them in your wit.
Mark, when they play, how our fine fops advance
The mighty merits of their men of France,
Keep time, cry _Bon_, and humour the cadence.
Well, please yourselves; but sure 'tis understood,
That French machines have ne'er done England good.
I would not prophesy our house's fate:
But while vain shows and scenes you over-rate,
Tis to be fear'd--
That as a fire the former house o'erthrew,
Machines and tempests will destroy the new.
Memory
by William Wordsworth

A pen, to register; a key
That winds through secret wards
Are well assigned to Memory
By allegoric Bards.
As aptly, also, might be given
A Pencil to her hand;
That, softening objects, sometimes even
Outstrips the heart's demand;
That smooths foregone distress, the lines
Of lingering care subdues,
Long-vanished happiness refines,
And clothes in brighter hues;
Yet, like a tool of Fancy, works
Those Spectres to dilate
That startle Conscience, as she lurks
Within her lonely seat.
Oh! that our lives, which flee so fast,
In purity were such,
That not an image of the past
Should fear that pencil's touch!
Retirement then might hourly look
Upon a soothing scene,
Age steal to his allotted nook
Contented and serene;
With heart as calm as lakes that sleep,
In frosty moonlight glistening;
Or mountain rivers, where they creep
Along a channel smooth and deep,
To their own far-off murmurs listening.
The Lion Beaten By The Man.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
A picture once was shown,
In which one man, alone,
Upon the ground had thrown
A lion fully grown.
Much gloried at the sight the rabble.
A lion thus rebuked their babble: - 
'That you have got the victory there,
There is no contradiction.
But, gentles, possibly you are
The dupes of easy fiction:
Had we the art of making pictures,
Perhaps our champion had beat yours!'
Cabbage Soup
by Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

A peasant woman, a widow, had an only son, a young man of twenty, the best workman in the village, and he died.
The lady who was the owner of the village, hearing of the woman's trouble, went to visit her on the very day of the burial.
She found her at home.
Standing in the middle of her hut, before the table, she was, without haste, with a regular movement of the right arm (the left hung listless at her side), scooping up weak cabbage soup from the bottom of a blackened pot, and swallowing it spoonful by spoonful.
The woman's face was sunken and dark; her eyes were red and swollen ... but she held herself as rigid and upright as in church.
'Heavens!' thought the lady, 'she can eat at such a moment ... what coarse feelings they have really, all of them!'
And at that point the lady recollected that when, a few years before, she had lost her little daughter, nine months old, she had refused, in her grief, a lovely country villa near Petersburg, and had spent the whole summer in town! Meanwhile the woman went on swallowing cabbage soup.
The lady could not contain herself, at last. 'Tatiana!' she said ...
'Really! I'm surprised! Is it possible you didn't care for your son? How is it you've not lost your appetite? How can you eat that soup!'
'My Vasia's dead,' said the woman quietly, and tears of anguish ran once more down her hollow cheeks. 'It's the end of me too, of course; it's tearing the heart out of me alive. But the soup's not to be wasted; there's salt in it.'
The lady only shrugged her shoulders and went away. Salt did not cost her much.
May 1878.
How A Cat Was Annoyed And A Poet Was Booted
by Guy Wetmore Carryl

A poet had a cat.
There is nothing odd in that--
(I might make a little pun about the Mews!)
But what is really more
Remarkable, she wore
A pair of pointed patent-leather shoes.
And I doubt me greatly whether
E'er you heard the like of that:
Pointed shoes of patent-leather
On a cat!
His time he used to pass
Writing sonnets, on the grass--
(I might say something good on pen and sward!)
While the cat sat near at hand,
Trying hard to understand
The poems he occasionally roared.
(I myself possess a feline,
But when poetry I roar
He is sure to make a bee-line
For the door.)
The poet, cent by cent,
All his patrimony spent--
(I might tell how he went from werse to werse!)
Till the cat was sure she could,
By advising, do him good
So addressed him in a manner that was terse:
"We are bound toward the scuppers,
And the time has come to act,
Or we'll both be on our uppers
For a fact!"
On her boot she fixed her eye,
But the boot made no reply--
(I might say: "Couldn't speak to save its sole!")
And the foolish bard, instead
Of responding, only read
A verse that wasn't bad upon the whole:
And it pleased the cat so greatly,
Though she knew not what it meant,
That I'll quote approximately
How it went:--
"If I should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree"--
(I might put in: "I think I'd just as leaf!")
"Let them smile, as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough"--
Well, he'd plagiarized it bodily, in brief!
But that cat of simple breeding
Couldn't read the lines between,
So she took it to a leading
Magazine.
She was jarred and very sore
When they showed her to the door.
(I might hit off the door that was a jar!)
To the spot she swift returned
Where the poet sighed and yearned,
And she told him that he'd gone a little far.
"Your performance with this rhyme has
Made me absolutely sick,"
She remarked. "I think the time has
Come to kick!"
I could fill up half the page
With descriptions of her rage--
(I might say that she went a bit too fur!)
When he smiled and murmured: "Shoo!"
"There is one thing I can do!"
She answered with a wrathful kind of purr.
"You may shoo me, and it suit you,
But I feel my conscience bid
Me, as tit for tat, to boot you!"
(Which she did.)
The Moral of the plot
(Though I say it, as should not!)
Is: An editor is difficult to suit.
But again there're other times
When the man who fashions rhymes
Is a rascal, and a bully one to boot!
The Confiding Peasant And The Maladroit Bear
by Guy Wetmore Carryl

A peasant had a docile bear,
A bear of manners pleasant,
And all the love she had to spare
She lavished on the peasant:
She proved her deep affection plainly
(The method was a bit ungainly).
The peasant had to dig and delve,
And, as his class are apt to,
When all the whistles blew at twelve
He ate his lunch, and napped, too,
The bear a careful outlook keeping
The while her master lay a-sleeping.
As thus the peasant slept one day,
The weather being torrid,
A gnat beheld him where he lay
And lit upon his forehead,
And thence, like all such winged creatures,
Proceeded over all his features.
The watchful bear, perceiving that
The gnat lit on her master,
Resolved to light upon the gnat
And plunge him in disaster;
She saw no sense in being lenient
When stones lay round her, most convenient.
And so a weighty rock she aimed
With much enthusiasm:
"Oh, lor'!" the startled gnat exclaimed,
And promptly had a spasm:
A natural proceeding this was,
Considering how close the miss was.
Now by his dumb companion's pluck,
Which caused the gnat to squall so,
The sleeping man was greatly struck
(And by the bowlder, also).
In fact, his friends who idolized him
Remarked they hardly recognized him.
Of course the bear was greatly grieved,
But, being just a dumb thing,
She only thought: "I was deceived,
But still, I did hit something!"
Which showed this masculine achievement
Had somewhat soothed her deep bereavement.
THE MORAL: If you prize your bones
Beware of females throwing stones.
Things Should Be Judged By Merit.
by James McIntyre

A picture hung in a public hall,
And it was much admired by all,
Painted by a true artist's hand,
The subject it was truly grand.
Its fame o'er the whole world resounds,
Valued at ten thousand pounds,
Beauteous lady none 'ere passed her,
She was the work of an old master.
At last a critic keen did gaze
And saw 'twas work of modern days,
Then quick it was pronounced a daub,
And artist but a money grab.
The true, the noble and the grand,
Will lend to struggling helping hand,
Then let no man of dues be shorn,
If he a subject doth adorn.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part I. - XXX - Canute
by William Wordsworth

A pleasant music floats along the Mere,
From Monks in Ely chanting service high,
While-as Canute the King is rowing by:
"My Oarsmen," quoth the mighty King, "draw near,
"That we the sweet song of the Monks may hear!"
He listens (all past conquests, and all schemes
Of future, vanishing like empty dreams)
Heart-touched, and haply not without a tear.
The Royal Minstrel, ere the choir is still,
While his free Barge skims the smooth flood along,
Gives to that rapture an accordant Rhyme.
O suffering Earth! be thankful: sternest clime
And rudest age are subject to the thrill
Of heaven-descended Piety and Song.
Epilogue To Amboyna.
by John Dryden

A Poet once the Spartans led to fight,
And made them conquer in the muse's right;
So would our poet lead you on this day,
Showing your tortured fathers in his play.
To one well born the affront is worse, and more,
When he's abused and baffled by a boor:
With an ill grace the Dutch their mischiefs do,
They've both ill nature and ill manners too.
Well may they boast themselves an ancient nation,
For they were bred ere manners were in fashion,
And their new commonwealth has set them free,
Only from honour and civility.
Venetians do not more uncouthly ride,
Than did their lubber state mankind bestride;
Their sway became them with as ill a mien,
As their own paunches swell above their chin:
Yet is their empire no true growth, but humour,
And only two kings' touch can cure the tumour.
As Cato did his Afric fruits display,
So we before your eyes their Indies lay:
All loyal English will, like him, conclude,
Let C'sar live, and Carthage be subdued!
The Fable of the Peasant and his Landlord.
by John Milton

A Peasant to his lord yearly court,
Presenting pippins of so rich a sort
That he, displeased to have a part alone,
Removed the tree, that all might be his own.
The tree, too old to travel, though before
So fruitful, withered, and would yield no more.
The squire, perceiving all his labour void,
Cursed his own pains, so foolishly employed,
And "Oh," he cried, "that I had lived content
With tribute, small indeed, but kindly meant!
My avarice has expensive proved to me,
Has cost me both my pippins and my tree."