DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Twilight of the Lords
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

I.
Is the sound a trumpet blown, or a bell for burial tolled,
Whence the whole air vibrates now to the clash of words like swords
'Let us break their bonds in sunder, and cast away their cords;
Long enough the world has mocked us, and marvelled to behold
How the grown man bears the curb whence his boyhood was controlled'?
Nay, but hearken: surer counsel more sober speech affords:
'Is the past not all inscribed with the praises of our Lords?
Is the memory dead of deeds done of yore, the love grown cold
That should bind our hearts to trust in their counsels wise and bold?
These that stand against you now, senseless crowds and heartless hordes,
Are not these the sons of men that withstood your kings of old?
Theirs it is to bind and loose; theirs the key that knows the wards,
Theirs the staff to lead or smite; yours, the spades and ploughs and hods:
Theirs to hear and yours to cry, Power is yours, O Lords our Gods.'
II.
Hear, O England: these are they that would counsel thee aright.
Wouldst thou fain have all thy sons sons of thine indeed, and free?
Nay, but then no more at all as thou hast been shalt thou be:
Needs must many dwell in darkness, that some may look on light;
Needs must poor men brook the wrong that ensures the rich man's right.
How shall kings and lords be worshipped, if no man bow the knee?
How, if no man worship these, may thy praise endure with thee?
How, except thou trust in these, shall thy name not lose its might?
These have had their will of thee since the Norman came to smite:
Sires on grandsires, even as wave after wave along the sea,
Sons on sires have followed, steadfast as clouds or hours in flight.
Time alone hath power to say, time alone hath eyes to see,
If your walls of rule be built but of clay-compacted sods,
If your place of old shall know you no more, O Lords our Gods.
III.
Through the stalls wherein ye sit sounds a sentence while we wait,
Set your house in order: is it not builded on the sand?
Set your house in order, seeing the night is hard at hand.
As the twilight of the Gods in the northern dream of fate
Is this hour that comes against you, albeit this hour come late.
Ye whom Time and Truth bade heed, and ye would not understand,
Now an axe draws nigh the tree overshadowing all the land,
And its edge of doom is set to the root of all your state.
Light is more than darkness now, faith than fear and hope than hate,
And what morning wills, behold, all the night shall not withstand.
Rods of office, helms of rule, staffs of wise men, crowns of great,
While the people willed, ye bare; now their hopes and hearts expand,
Time with silent foot makes dust of your broken crowns and rods,
And the lordship of your godhead is gone, O Lords our Gods.
To Mrs. ....... On Some Calumnies Against Her Character.
by Thomas Moore

Is not thy mind a gentle mind?
Is not that heart a heart refined?
Hast thou not every gentle grace,
We love in woman's mind and face?
And, oh! art thou a shrine for Sin
To hold her hateful worship in?
No, no, be happy--dry that tear--
Though some thy heart hath harbored near,
May now repay its love with blame;
Though man, who ought to shield thy fame,
Ungenerous man, be first to shun thee;
Though all the world look cold upon thee,
Yet shall thy pureness keep thee still
Unharmed by that surrounding chill;
Like the famed drop, in crystal found,[1]
Floating, while all was frozen round,--
Unchilled unchanging shalt thou be,
Safe in thy own sweet purity.
Life Or Death?
by George MacDonald

Is there a secret Joy, that may not weep,
For every flower that ends its little span,
For every child that groweth up to man,
For every captive bird a cage doth keep,
For every aching eye that went to sleep
Long ages back, when other eyes began
To see and know and love as now they can,
Unravelling God's wonders heap by heap?
Or doth the Past lie 'mid Eternity
In charnel dens that rot and reek alway,
A dismal light for those that go astray,
A pit of foul deformity--to be,
Beauty, a dreadful source of growth for thee
When thou wouldst lift thine eyes to greet the day?
Unencouraged Aspiration
by Madison Julius Cawein

Is mine the part of no companion hand
Of help, except my shadow's silent self?
A moonlight traveller in Fancy's land
Of leering gnome and hollow-laughing elf;
Whose forests deepen and whose moon goes down,
When Night's blind shadow shall usurp my own;
And, mid the dust and wreck of some old town,
The City of Dreams, I grope and fall alone.
All's Well!
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

Is the pathway dark and dreary?
God's in His heaven!
Are you broken, heart-sick, weary?
God's in His heaven!
Dreariest roads shall have an ending,
Broken hearts are for God's mending.
All's well! All's well!
All's ... well!
Are life's threads all sorely tangled?
God's in His heaven!
Are the sweet chords strained and jangled?
God's in His heaven!
Tangled threads are for Love's fingers,
Trembling chords make heaven's sweet singers.
All's well! All's well!
All's ... well!
Is the burden past your bearing?
God's in His heaven!
Hopeless?--Friendless?--No one caring?
God's in His heaven!
Burdens shared are light to carry,
Love shall come though long He tarry.
All's well! All's well!
All's ... well!
Is the light for ever failing?
God's in His heaven!
Is the faint heart ever quailing?
God's in His heaven!
God's strong arms are all around you,
In the dark He sought and found you.
All's well! All's well!
All's ... well!
Is the future black with sorrow?
God's in His heaven!
Do you dread each dark to-morrow?
God's in His heaven!
Nought can come without His knowing.
Come what may 'tis His bestowing.
All's well! All's well!
All's ... well!
Peace and heaven lie all about us.
God's in His heaven!
Peace within makes heaven without us.
God's in His heaven!
God's great love shall fail us never,
We are His, and His for ever.
All's well! All's well!
All's ... well!
Stanzas For The Times
by John Greenleaf Whittier

Is this the land our fathers loved,
The freedom which they toiled to win?
Is this the soil whereon they moved?
Are these the graves they slumber in?
Are we the sons by whom are borne
The mantles which the dead have worn?
And shall we crouch above these graves,
With craven soul and fettered lip?
Yoke in with marked and branded slaves,
And tremble at the driver's whip?
Bend to the earth our pliant knees,
And speak but as our masters please?
Shall outraged Nature cease to feel?
Shall Mercy's tears no longer flow?
Shall ruffian threats of cord and steel,
The dungeon's gloom, the assassin's blow,
Turn back the spirit roused to save
The Truth, our Country, and the slave?
Of human skulls that shrine was made,
Round which the priests of Mexico
Before their loathsome idol prayed;
Is Freedom's altar fashioned so?
And must we yield to Freedom's God,
As offering meet, the negro's blood?
Shall tongue be mute, when deeds are wrought
Which well might shame extremest hell?
Shall freemen lock the indignant thought?
Shall Pity's bosom cease to swell?
Shall Honor bleed? shall Truth succumb?
Shall pen, and press, and soul be dumb?
No; by each spot of haunted ground,
Where Freedom weeps her children's fall;
By Plymouth's rock, and Bunker's mound;
By Griswold's stained and shattered wall;
By Warren's ghost, by Langdon's shade;
By all the memories of our dead!
By their enlarging souls, which burst
The bands and fetters round them set;
By the free Pilgrim spirit nursed
Within our inmost bosoms, yet,
By all above, around, below,
Be ours the indignant answer, No!
No; guided by our country's laws,
For truth, and right, and suffering man,
Be ours to strive in Freedom's cause,
As Christians may, as freemen can!
Still pouring on unwilling ears
That truth oppression only fears.
What! shall we guard our neighbor still,
While woman shrieks beneath his rod,
And while he tramples down at will
The image of a common God?
Shall watch and ward be round him set,
Of Northern nerve and bayonet?
And shall we know and share with him
The danger and the growing shame?
And see our Freedom's light grow dim,
Which should have filled the world with flame?
And, writhing, feel, where'er we turn,
A world's reproach around us burn?
Is't not enough that this is borne?
And asks our haughty neighbor more?
Must fetters which his slaves have worn
Clank round the Yankee farmer's door?
Must he be told, beside his plough,
What he must speak, and when, and how?
Must he be told his freedom stands
On Slavery's dark foundations strong;
On breaking hearts and fettered hands,
On robbery, and crime, and wrong?
That all his fathers taught is vain,
That Freedom's emblem is the chain?
Its life, its soul, from slavery drawn!
False, foul, profane! Go, teach as well
Of holy Truth from Falsehood born!
Of Heaven refreshed by airs from Hell!
Of Virtue in the arms of Vice!
Of Demons planting Paradise!
Rail on, then, brethren of the South,
Ye shall not hear the truth the less;
No seal is on the Yankee's mouth,
No fetter on the Yankee's press!
From our Green Mountains to the sea,
One voice shall thunder, We are free
Is There A Power That Can Sustain And Cheer
by William Wordsworth

Is there a power that can sustain and cheer
The captive chieftain, by a tyrant's doom,
Forced to descend into his destined tomb
A dungeon dark! where he must waste the year,
And lie cut off from all his heart holds dear;
What time his injured country is a stage
Whereon deliberate Valour and the rage
Of righteous Vengeance side by side appear,
Filling from morn to night the heroic scene
With deeds of hope and everlasting praise:
Say can he think of this with mind serene
And silent fetters? Yes, if visions bright
Shine on his soul, reflected from the days
When he himself was tried in open light.
To A Pupil
by Walt Whitman

Is reform needed? Is it through you?
The greater the reform needed, the greater the personality you need to accomplish it.
You! do you not see how it would serve to have eyes, blood, complexion, clean and sweet?
Do you not see how it would serve to have such a Body and Soul, that when you enter the crowd, an atmosphere of desire and command enters with you, and every one is impress'd with your personality?
O the magnet! the flesh over and over!
Go, dear friend! if need be, give up all else, and commence to-day to inure yourself to pluck, reality, self-esteem, definiteness, elevatedness;
Rest not, till you rivet and publish yourself of your own personality.
An Ode To Spring In The Metropolis
by Owen Seaman

(AFTER R. LE G.)
Is this the Seine?
And am I altogether wrong
About the brain,
Dreaming I hear the British tongue?
Dear Heaven! what a rhyme!
And yet 'tis all as good
As some that I have fashioned in my time,
Like bud and wood;
And on the other hand you couldn't have a more precise or neater
Metre.
Is this, I ask, the Seine?
And yonder sylvan lane,
Is it the Bois?
Ma foi!
Comme elle est chic, my Paris, my grisette!
Yet may I not forget
That London still remains the missus
Of this Narcissus.
No, no! 'tis not the Seine!
It is the artificial mere
That permeates St. James's Park.
The air is bosom-shaped and clear;
And, Himmel! do I hear the lark,
The good old Shelley-Wordsworth lark?
Even now, I prithee,
Hark
Him hammer
On Heaven's harmonious stithy,
Dew-drunken, like my grammar!
And O the trees!
Beneath their shade the hairless coot
Waddles at ease,
Hushing the magic of his gurgling beak;
Or haply in Tree-worship leans his cheek
Against their blind
And hoary rind,
Observing how the sap
Comes humming upwards from the tap-
Root!
Thrice happy, hairless coot!
And O the sun!
See, see, he shakes
His big red hands at me in wanton fun!
A glorious image that! it might be Blake's;
As in my critical capacity I took occasion to remark elsewhere,
When heaping praise
On this exceptionally happy phrase,
Although I made it up myself.
But I and Blake, we really constitute a pair,
Each being rather like an artless woodland elf.
And O the stars! I cannot say
I see a star just now,
Not at this time of day;
But anyhow
The stars are all my brothers;
(This verse is shorter than the others).
O Constitution Hill!
(This verse is shorter still).
Ah! London, London in the Spring!
You are, you know you are,
So full of curious sights,
Especially by nights.
From gilded bar to gilded bar
Youth goes his giddy whirl,
His heart fulfilled of Music-Hall,
His arm fulfilled of girl!
I frankly call
That last effect a perfect pearl!
I know it's
Not given to many poets
To frame so fair a thing
As this of mine, of Spring.
Indeed, the world grows Lilliput
All but
A precious few, the heirs of utter godlihead,
Who wear the yellow flower of blameless bodlihead!
And they, with Laureates dead, look down
On smaller fry unworthy of the crown,
Mere mushroom men, puff-balls that advertise
And bravely think to brush the skies.
Great is advertisement with little men!
Moi, qui vous parle, L- G-ll, nn-,
Have told them so;
I ought to know!
Your Place
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

Is your place a small place?
Tend it with care!--
He set you there.
Is your place a large place?
Guard it with care!--
He set you there.
Whatever your place, it is
Not yours alone, but His
Who set you there.
A Paraneaticall Or Advice Verse To His Friend, Mr John Wicks
by Robert Herrick

Is this a life, to break thy sleep,
To rise as soon as day doth peep?
To tire thy patient ox or ass
By noon, and let thy good days pass,
Not knowing this, that Jove decrees
Some mirth, t' adulce man's miseries?
No; 'tis a life to have thine oil
Without extortion from thy soil;
Thy faithful fields to yield thee grain,
Although with some, yet little pain;
To have thy mind, and nuptial bed,
With fears and cares uncumbered
A pleasing wife, that by thy side
Lies softly panting like a bride;
This is to live, and to endear
Those minutes Time has lent us here.
Then, while fates suffer, live thou free,
As is that air that circles thee;
And crown thy temples too; and let
Thy servant, not thy own self, sweat,
To strut thy barns with sheaves of wheat.
Time steals away like to a stream,
And we glide hence away with them:
No sound recalls the hours once fled,
Or roses, being withered;
Nor us, my friend, when we are lost,
Like to a dew, or melted frost.
Then live we mirthful while we should,
And turn the iron age to gold;
Let's feast and frolic, sing and play,
And thus less last, than live our day.
Whose life with care is overcast,
That man's not said to live, but last;
Nor is't a life, seven years to tell,
But for to live that half seven well;
And that we'll do, as men who know,
Some few sands spent, we hence must go,
Both to be blended in the urn,
From whence there's never a return.
Holy Thursday
by William Blake

Is this a holy thing to see
In a rich and fruitful land,
Babes reduced to misery,
Fed with cold and usurous hand?
Is that trembling cry a song?
Can it be a song of joy?
And so many children poor?
It is a land of poverty!
And their son does never shine,
And their fields are bleak and bare,
And their ways are filled with thorns:
It is eternal winter there.
For where'er the sun does shine,
And where'er the rain does fall,
Babes should never hunger there,
Nor poverty the mind appall.
Old Testament Gospel. - Hebrews iv.2.
by William Cowper

Israel, in ancient days,
Not only had a view
Of Sinai in a blaze,
But learn'd the Gospel too;
The types and figures were a glass
In which they saw a Saviour's face.
The paschal sacrifice,
And blood-besprinkled door,[1]
Seen with enlighten'd eyes,
And once applied with power,
Would teach the need of other blood,
To reconcile an angry God.
The Lamb, the Dove, set forth
His perfect innocence,[2]
Whose blood of matchless worth
Should be the soul's defence;
For he who can for sin atone,
Must have no failings of his own.
The scape-goat on his head[3]
The people's trespass bore,
And, to the desert led,
Was to be seen no more:
In him our Surety seem'd to say,
'Behold, I bear your sins away.'
Dipt in his fellow's blood,
The living bird went free;[4]
The type, well understood,
Express'd the sinner's plea;
Described a guilty soul enlarged,
And by a Saviour's death discharged.
Jesus, I love to trace,
Throughout the sacred page,
The footsteps of thy grace,
The same in every age!
O grant that I may faithful be
To clearer light vouchsafed to me!
Brown Robyn's Confession
by Frank Sidgwick

The Text is the only one known, that printed by Buchan, Ballads of the North of Scotland, and copied into Motherwell's MS.
The Story, relating as it does a miracle of the Virgin, is, perhaps, the only one we possess of a class which, in other lands, is so extensive. A similar Scandinavian ballad has a tragical termination, except in one version.
The casting of lots to discover the Jonah of a ship is a feature common to many literatures.
BROWN ROBYN'S CONFESSION
1.
It fell upon a Wodensday
Brown Robyn's men went to sea,
But they saw neither moon nor sun,
Nor starlight wi' their ee.
2.
'We'll cast kevels us amang,
See wha the unhappy man may be;'
The kevel fell on Brown Robyn,
The master-man was he.
3.
'It is nae wonder,' said Brown Robyn,
'Altho I dinna thrive,
For wi' my mither I had twa bairns,
And wi' my sister five.
4.
'But tie me to a plank o' wude
And throw me in the sea;
And if I sink; ye may bid me sink,
But if I swim, just lat me bee.'
5.
They've tyed him to a plank o' wude,
And thrown him in the sea;
He didna sink, tho' they bade him sink;
He swim'd, and they bade lat him bee.
6.
He hadna been into the sea
An hour but barely three,
Till by it came Our Blessed Lady,
Her dear young son her wi'.
7.
'Will ye gang to your men again,
Or will ye gang wi' me?
Will ye gang to the high heavens,
Wi' my dear son and me?'
8.
'I winna gang to my men again,
For they would be feared at mee;
But I woud gang to the high heavens,
Wi' thy dear son and thee.'
9.
'It's for nae honour ye did to me, Brown Robyn,
It's for nae guid ye did to mee;
But a' is for your fair confession
You've made upon the sea.'
Get Up And Bar The Door
by Frank Sidgwick

The Text is from Herd's Ancient and Modern Scots Songs (1769), which is almost identical with a copy in Johnson's Museum. Another variant, also given in the Museum, was contributed by Burns, who made it shorter and more dramatic.
The Story of this farcical ballad has long been popular in many lands, European and Oriental, and has been introduced as an episode in English, French, and German plays. A close parallel to the ballad may be found in Straparola, Day VIII., first story.
GET UP AND BAR THE DOOR
1.
It fell about the Martinmas time,
And a gay time it was then,
When our goodwife got puddings to make,
And she's boil'd them in the pan.
2.
The wind sae cauld blew south and north,
And blew into the floor;
Quoth our goodman to our goodwife,
'Gae out and bar the door.'
3.
'My hand is in my hussyfskep,
Goodman, as ye may see;
An it shoud nae be barr'd this hundred year,
It's no be barr'd for me.'
4.
They made a paction 'tween them twa,
They made it firm and sure,
That the first word whae'er shoud speak,
Shoud rise and bar the door.
5.
Then by there came two gentlemen,
At twelve o'clock at night,
And they could neither see house nor hall,
Nor coal nor candle-light.
6.
'Now whether is this a rich man's house,
Or whether is it a poor?'
But ne'er a word wad ane o' them speak,
For barring of the door.
7.
And first they ate the white puddings,
And then they ate the black;
Tho' muckle thought the goodwife to hersel',
Yet ne'er a word she spake.
8.
Then said the one unto the other,
'Here, man, tak ye my knife;
Do ye tak aff the auld man's beard,
And I'll kiss the goodwife.'
9.
'But there's nae water in the house,
And what shall we do than?'
'What ails ye at the pudding-broo,
That boils into the pan?'
10.
O up then started our goodman,
An angry man was he:
'Will ye kiss my wife before my een,
And sca'd me wi' pudding-bree?'
11.
Then up and started our goodwife,
Gi'ed three skips on the floor:
'Goodman, you've spoken the foremost word,
Get up and bar the door.'
Uriel
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

It fell in the ancient periods
Which the brooding soul surveys,
Or ever the wild Time coined itself
Into calendar months and days.
This was the lapse of Uriel,
Which in Paradise befell.
Once, among the Pleiads walking,
Seyd overheard the young gods talking;
And the treason, too long pent,
To his ears was evident.
The young deities discussed
Laws of form, and metre just,
Orb, quintessence, and sunbeams,
What subsisteth, and what seems.
One, with low tones that decide,
And doubt and reverend use defied,
With a look that solved the sphere,
And stirred the devils everywhere,
Gave his sentiment divine
Against the being of a line.
'Line in nature is not found;
Unit and universe are round;
In vain produced, all rays return;
Evil will bless, and ice will burn.'
As Uriel spoke with piercing eye,
A shudder ran around the sky;
The stern old war-gods shook their heads,
The seraphs frowned from myrtle-beds;
Seemed to the holy festival
The rash word boded ill to all;
The balance-beam of Fate was bent;
The bounds of good and ill were rent;
Strong Hades could not keep his own,
But all slid to confusion.
A sad self-knowledge, withering, fell
On the beauty of Uriel;
In heaven once eminent, the god
Withdrew, that hour, into his cloud;
Whether doomed to long gyration
In the sea of generation,
Or by knowledge grown too bright
To hit the nerve of feebler sight.
Straightway, a forgetting wind
Stole over the celestial kind,
And their lips the secret kept,
If in ashes the fire-seed slept.
But now and then, truth-speaking things
Shamed the angels' veiling wings;
And, shrilling from the solar course,
Or from fruit of chemic force,
Procession of a soul in matter,
Or the speeding change of water,
Or out of the good of evil born,
Came Uriel's voice of cherub scorn,
And a blush tinged the upper sky,
And the gods shook, they knew not why.
Upon Zelot.
by Robert Herrick

Is Zelot pure? he is: yet! see he wears
The sign of circumcision in his ears.
Non Dolet
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

It does not hurt. She looked along the knife
Smiling, and watched the thick drops mix and run
Down the sheer blade; not that which had been done
Could hurt the sweet sense of the Roman wife,
But that which was to do yet ere the strife
Could end for each for ever, and the sun:
Nor was the palm yet nor was peace yet won
While pain had power upon her husband's life.
It does not hurt, Italia. Thou art more
Than bride to bridegroom; how shalt thou not take
The gift love's blood has reddened for thy sake?
Was not thy lifeblood given for us before?
And if love's heartblood can avail thy need,
And thou not die, how should it hurt indeed?