DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
An Arrow-Slit.
by Jean Ingelow

I clomb full high the belfry tower
Up to yon arrow-slit, up and away,
I said 'let me look on my heart's fair flower
In the wall'd garden where she doth play.'
My care she knoweth not, no nor the cause,
White rose, red rose about her hung,
And I aloft with the doves and the daws.
They coo and call to their callow young.
Sing, 'O an she were a white rosebud fair
Dropt, and in danger from passing feet,
'T is I would render her service tender,
Upraised on my bosom with reverence meet.'
Playing at the ball, my dearest of all,
When she grows older how will it be,
I dwell far away from her thoughts to-day
That heed not, need not, or mine or me.
Sing, 'O an my love were a fledgeling dove
That flutters forlorn o' her shallow nest,
'T is I would render her service tender,
And carry her, carry her on my breast.'
A Dead Statesman
by Rudyard Kipling

I could not dig; I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?
Odes Of Anacreon - Ode VIII.
by Thomas Moore

[1]
I care not for the idle state
Of Persia's king, the rich, the great.
I envy not the monarch's throne,
Nor wish the treasured gold my own
But oh! be mine the rosy wreath,
Its freshness o'er my brow to breathe;
Be mine the rich perfumes that flow,
To cool and scent my locks of snow.
To-day I'll haste to quaff my wine
As if to-morrow ne'er would shine;
But if to-morrow comes, why then--
I'll haste to quaff my wine again.
And thus while all our days are bright,
Nor time has dimmed their bloomy light,
Let us the festal hours beguile
With mantling pup and cordial smile;
And shed from each new bowl of wine,
The richest drop on Bacchus' shrine
For death may come, with brow unpleasant,
May come, when least we wish him present,
And beckon to the Sable shore,
And grimly bid us--drink no more!
The Cardin' O'T.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "Salt-fish and dumplings."
I.
I coft a stane o' haslock woo',
To make a wat to Johnny o't;
For Johnny is my only jo,
I lo'e him best of ony yet.
The cardin' o't, the spinnin' o't,
The warpin' o't, the winnin' o't;
When ilka ell cost me a groat,
The tailor staw the lynin o't.
II.
For though his locks be lyart gray,
And tho' his brow be beld aboon;
Yet I hae seen him on a day,
The pride of a' the parishen.
The cardin' o't, the spinnin' o't,
The warpin' o't, the winnin' o't;
When ilka ell cost me a groat,
The tailor staw the lynin o't.
On A Heath
by Thomas Hardy

I could hear a gown-skirt rustling
Before I could see her shape,
Rustling through the heather
That wove the common's drape,
On that evening of dark weather
When I hearkened, lips agape.
And the town-shine in the distance
Did but baffle here the sight,
And then a voice flew forward:
Dear, is't you? I fear the night!"
And the herons flapped to norward
In the firs upon my right.
There was another looming
Whose life we did not see;
There was one stilly blooming
Full nigh to where walked we;
There was a shade entombing
All that was bright of me.
The Platonic Lady
by John Wilmot

I could love thee till I die,
Would'st thou love me modestly,
And ne'er press, whilst I live,
For more than willingly I would give:
Which should sufficient be to prove
I'd understand the art of love.
I hate the thing is called enjoyment:
Besides it is a dull employment,
It cuts off all that's life and fire
From that which may be termed desire;
Just like the bee whose sting is gone
Converts the owner to a drone.
I love a youth will give me leave
His body in my arms to wreathe;
To press him gently, and to kiss;
To sigh, and look with eyes that wish
For what, if I could once obtain,
I would neglect with flat disdain.
I'd give him liberty to toy
And play with me, and count it joy.
Our freedom should be full complete,
And nothing wanting but the feat.
Let's practice, then, and we shall prove
These are the only sweets of love.
Tarrant Moss
by Rudyard Kipling

I closed and drew for my love's sake
That now is false to me,
And I slew the Reiver of Tarrant Moss
And set Dumeny free.
They have gone down, they have gone down,
They are standing all arow,
Twenty knights in the peat-water,
That never struck a blow!
Their armour shall not dull nor rust,
Their flesh shall not decay,
For Tarrant Moss holds them in trust,
Until the Judgment Day.
Their soul went from them in their youth,
Ah God, that mine had gone,
Whenas I leaned on my love's truth
And not on my sword alone!
Whenas I leaned on lad's belief
And not on my naked blade,
And I slew a thief, and an honest thief,
For the sake of a worthless maid.
They have laid the Reiver low in his place,
They have set me up on high,
But the twenty knights in the peat-water
Are luckier than I!
And ever they give me gold and praise
And ever I mourn my loss,
For I struck the blow for my false love's sake
And not for the Men of the: Moss!
The Forest Way
by Madison Julius Cawein

I
I climbed a forest path and found
A dim cave in the dripping ground,
Where dwelt the spirit of cool sound,
Who wrought with crystal triangles,
And hollowed foam of rippled bells,
A music of mysterious spells.
II
Where Sleep her bubble-jewels spilled
Of dreams; and Silence twilight-filled
Her emerald buckets, star-instilled,
With liquid whispers of lost springs,
And mossy tread of woodland things,
And drip of dew that greenly clings.
III
Here by those servitors of Sound,
Warders of that enchanted ground,
My soul and sense were seized and bound,
And, in a dungeon deep of trees
Entranced, were laid at lazy ease,
The charge of woodland mysteries.
IV
The minions of Prince Drowsihead,
The wood-perfumes, with sleepy tread,
Tiptoed around my ferny bed:
And far away I heard report
Of one who dimly rode to Court,
The Faery Princess, Eve-Amort.
V
Her herald winds sang as they passed;
And there her beauty stood at last,
With wild gold locks, a band held fast,
Above blue eyes, as clear as spar;
While from a curved and azure jar
She poured the white moon and a star.
The Windhover: To Christ our Lord
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

I caught this morning morning's minion, kingdom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Fal- con, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstacy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, - the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: sh'er pl'd makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.
Cupid Slain
by Dora Sigerson Shorter

I come from a burial;
Hush! let me be:
I have put away my love,
Fair exceedingly.
Ah! the little gold curls
Soft about his face;
Now my heart is sorrowful
For his sleeping-place.
But he would pursue me,
Never let me rest;
Till I turned and slew him,
Knowing it were best.
Laid his bow beside him,
Shovelled in the clay;
To-morrow I'll forget him;
Let me weep to-day.
Song Of A Hyperborean.
by Thomas Moore

I come from a land in the sun bright deep,
Where golden gardens grow;
Where the winds of the north, be calmed in sleep,
Their conch-shells never blow.[1]
Haste to that holy Isle with me,
Haste--haste!
So near the track of the stars are we,
That oft on night's pale beams
The distant sounds of their harmony
Come to our ear, like dreams.
Then haste to that holy Isle with me, etc.
The Moon too brings her world so nigh,
That when the night-seer looks
To that shadowless orb, in a vernal sky,
He can number its hills and brooks.
Then, haste, etc.
To the Sun-god all our hearts and lyres[2]
By day, by night, belong;
And the breath we draw from his living fires,
We give him back in song.
Then, haste, etc.
From us descends the maid who brings
To Delos gifts divine;
And our wild bees lend their rainbow wings
To glitter on Delphi's shrine.
Then haste to that holy Isle with me,
Haste--haste!
I Conquer The World With Words
by Nizar Qabbani

I conquer the world with words,
conquer the mother tongue,
verbs, nouns, syntax.
I sweep away the beginning of things
and with a new language
that has the music of water the message of fire
I light the coming age
and stop time in your eyes
and wipe away the line
that separates
time from this single moment.
Nursery Rhyme. CCLXXXV. Games. Game Of The Gipsy.
by Unknown

GAME OF THE GIPSY.
[One child is selected for Gipsy, one for Mother, and one for Daughter Sue. The Mother says, - 
I charge my daughters every one
To keep good house while I am gone.
You and you (points) but specially you,
[Or sometimes, but specially Sue.]
Or else I'll beat you black and blue.
[During the Mother's absence, the Gipsy comes in, entices a child away, and hides her. This process is repeated till all the children are hidden, when the Mother has to find them.]
A Glimpse Of Pan.
by James Whitcomb Riley

I caught but a glimpse of him.    Summer was here,
And I strayed from the town and its dust and heat
And walked in a wood, while the noon was near,
Where the shadows were cool, and the atmosphere
Was misty with fragrances stirred by my feet
From surges of blossoms that billowed sheer
O'er the grasses, green and sweet.
And I peered through a vista of leaning trees,
Tressed with long tangles of vines that swept
To the face of a river, that answered these
With vines in the wave like the vines in the breeze,
Till the yearning lips of the ripples crept
And kissed them, with quavering ecstacies,
And gurgled and laughed and wept.
And there, like a dream in a swoon, I swear
I saw Pan lying, - his limbs in the dew
And the shade, and his face in the dazzle and glare
Of the glad sunshine; while everywhere,
Over, across, and around him blew
Filmy dragonflies hither and there,
And little white butterflies, two and two,
In eddies of odorous air.
Crazy Jane Reproved
by William Butler Yeats

I care not what the sailors say:
All those dreadful thunder-stones,
All that storm that blots the day
Can but show that Heaven yawns;
Great Europa played the fool
That changed a lover for a bull.
Fol de rol, fol de rol.
To round that shell's elaborate whorl,
Adorning every secret track
With the delicate mother-of-pearl,
Made the joints of Heaven crack:
So never hang your heart upon
A roaring, ranting journeyman.
Fol de rol, fol de rol.
The Four Ages.
by William Cowper

(a brief fragment of an extensive projected poem.)
'I could be well content, allowed the use
Of past experience, and the wisdom glean'd
From worn-out follies, now acknowledged such,
To recommence life's trial, in the hope
Of fewer errors, on a second proof!'
Thus, while grey evening lull'd the wind, and call'd
Fresh odours from the shrubbery at my side,
Taking my lonely winding walk, I mused,
And held accustom'd conference with my heart;
When from within it thus a voice replied:
'Could'st thou in truth? and art thou taught at length
This wisdom, and but this, from all the past?
Is not the pardon of thy long arrear,
Time wasted, violated laws, abuse
Of talents judgment, mercies, better far
Than opportunity vouchsafed to err
With less excuse, and, haply, worse effect?'
I heard, and acquiesced: then to and fro
Oft pacing, as the mariner his deck,
My gravelly bounds, from self to human kind
I pass'd, and next consider'd'what is man.
Knows he his origin? can he ascend
By reminiscence to his earliest date?
Slept he in Adam? And in those from him
Through numerous generations, till he found
At length his destined moment to be born?
Or was he not, till fashion'd in the womb?
Deep mysteries both! which schoolmen must have toil'd
To unriddle, and have left them mysteries still.
It is an evil incident to man,
And of the worst, that unexplored he leaves
Truths useful and attainable with ease,
To search forbidden deeps, where mystery lies
Not to be solved, and useless if it might.
Mysteries are food for angels; they digest
With ease, and find them nutriment; but man,
While yet he dwells below, must stoop to glean
His manna from the ground, or starve and die.
To ----
by George MacDonald

I cannot write old verses here,
Dead things a thousand years away,
When all the life of the young year
Is in the summer day.
The roses make the world so sweet,
The bees, the birds have such a tune,
There's such a light and such a heat
And such a joy this June,
One must expand one's heart with praise,
And make the memory secure
Of sunshine and the woodland days
And summer twilights pure.
Oh listen rather! Nature's song
Comes from the waters, beating tides,
Green-margined rivers, and the throng
Of streams on mountain-sides.
So fair those water-spirits are,
Such happy strength their music fills,
Our joy shall be to wander far
And find them on the hills.
Virginibus Puerisque . . .
by Alan Seeger

I care not that one listen if he lives
For aught but life's romance, nor puts above
All life's necessities the need to love,
Nor counts his greatest wealth what Beauty gives.
But sometime on an afternoon in spring,
When dandelions dot the fields with gold,
And under rustling shade a few weeks old
'Tis sweet to stroll and hear the bluebirds sing,
Do you, blond head, whom beauty and the power
Of being young and winsome have prepared
For life's last privilege that really pays,
Make the companion of an idle hour
These relics of the time when I too fared
Across the sweet fifth lustrum of my days.
A Rough Sketch
by James Whitcomb Riley

I caught, for a second, across the crowd -
Just for a second, and barely that -
A face, pox-pitted and evil-browed,
Hid in the shade of a slouch-rim'd hat -
With small gray eyes, of a look as keen
As the long, sharp nose that grew between.
And I said: 'Tis a sketch of Nature's own,
Drawn i' the dark o' the moon, I swear,
On a tatter of Fate that the winds have blown
Hither and thither and everywhere -
With its keen little sinister eyes of gray,
And nose like the beak of a bird of prey!
The Noontide Hour.
by Susanna Moodie

I come like an Eastern monarch dight
In my crown of beams, in my robe of light;
And nature droops at my ardent gaze,
And wraps the woods in a purple haze;
From my fiery glance the strong man shrinks,
Like a babe on the bosom of earth he sinks;
Yet cries, as he turns from the glowing ray,
"This is a glorious summer day!"
Such is manhood's fiery dower,
Passion's all-consuming power;
Glorious, beautiful, and bright,
But too dazzling to the sight!
The Fifteen Acres (The Rocky Road To Dublin)
by James Stephens

I cling and swing
On a branch, or sing
Through the cool, clear hush of Morning, O:
Or fling my wing
On the air, and bring
To sleepier birds a warning, O:
That the night's in flight,
And the sun's in sight,
And the dew is the grass adorning, O:
And the green leaves swing
As I sing, sing, sing,
Up by the river,
Down the dell,
To the little wee nest,
Where the big tree fell,
So early in the morning, O.
I flit and twit
In the sun for a bit
When his light so bright is shining, O:
Or sit and fit
My plumes, or knit
Straw plaits for the nest's nice lining, O:
And she with glee
Shows unto me
Underneath her wings reclining, O:
And I sing that Peg
Has an egg, egg, egg,
Up by the oat-field,
Round the mill,
Past the meadow,
Down the hill,
So early in the morning, O.
I stoop and swoop
On the air, or loop
Through the trees, and then go soaring, O
To group with a troop
On the gusty poop
While the wind behind is roaring, O:
I skim and swim
By a cloud's red rim
And up to the azure flooring, O:
And my wide wings drip
As I slip, slip, slip
Down through the rain-drops,
Back where Peg
Broods in the nest
On the little white egg,
So early in the morning, O.
The Modern Poet - A Song Of Derivations
by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

I come from nothing; but from where
Come the undying thoughts I bear?
Down, through long links of death and birth,
From the past poets of the earth.
My immortality is there.
I am like the blossom of an hour.
But long, long vanished sun and shower
Awoke my breath i' the young world's air.
I track the past back everywhere
Through seed and flower and seed and flower.
Or I am like a stream that flows
Full of the cold springs that arose
In morning lands, in distant hills;
And down the plain my channel fills
With melting of forgotten snows.
Voices, I have not heard, possessed
My own fresh songs; my thoughts are blessed
With relics of the far unknown.
And mixed with memories not my own
The sweet streams throng into my breast.
Before this life began to be,
The happy songs that wake in me
Woke long ago and far apart.
Heavily on this little heart
Presses this immortality.
Beware
by Dora Sigerson Shorter

I closed my hands upon a moth
And when I drew my palms apart,
Instead of dusty, broken wings
I found a bleeding human heart.
I crushed my foot upon a worm
That had my garden for its goal,
But when I drew my foot aside
I found a dying human soul.
The Morning Call. To The Honourable Lady--------.
by Thomas Gent

I dare not look at those dear eyes,
The sun was never half so bright,
There surely more of rapture lies
Than ever bless'd a mortal's sight.
In thy sweet face I see impress'd
Ten thousand thousand charms divine,
The sunbeams of thy guileless breast
Like Heaven's eternal mercies shine!
Angel of love! life's endless joy,
Our hope at morn, our evening prayer;
The bliss above would have alloy,
Unless dear--------- thou wert there!
Oh! Woman--what a charm hast thou
Our rebel nature thus to tame:
We ever must adore and bow.
While virtue guards thy holy fane!
Werthing.
Heart's Chill Between
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

(Athenaeum, October 21, 1848)
I did not chide him, though I knew
That he was false to me.
Chide the exhaling of the dew,
The ebbing of the sea,
The fading of a rosy hue, - 
But not inconstancy.
Why strive for love when love is o'er?
Why bind a restive heart? - 
He never knew the pain I bore
In saying: 'We must part;
Let us be friends and nothing more.'
- Oh, woman's shallow art!
But it is over, it is done, - 
I hardly heed it now;
So many weary years have run
Since then, I think not how
Things might have been, - but greet each one
With an unruffled brow.
What time I am where others be,
My heart seems very calm - 
Stone calm; but if all go from me,
There comes a vague alarm,
A shrinking in the memory
From some forgotten harm.
And often through the long, long night,
Waking when none are near,
I feel my heart beat fast with fright,
Yet know not what I fear.
Oh how I long to see the light,
And the sweet birds to hear!
To have the sun upon my face,
To look up through the trees,
To walk forth in the open space
And listen to the breeze, - 
And not to dream the burial-place
Is clogging my weak knees.
Sometimes I can nor weep nor pray,
But am half stupefied:
And then all those who see me say
Mine eyes are opened wide
And that my wits seem gone away - 
Ah, would that I had died!
Would I could die and be at peace,
Or living could forget!
My grief nor grows nor doth decrease,
But ever is: - and yet
Methinks, now, that all this shall cease
Before the sun shall set.
Ike Walton's Prayer
by James Whitcomb Riley

I crave, dear Lord,
No boundless hoard
Of gold and gear,
Nor jewels fine,
Nor lands, nor kine,
Nor treasure-heaps of anything.
Let but a little hut be mine
Where at the hearthstone I may hear
The cricket sing,
And have the shine
Of one glad woman's eyes to make,
For my poor sake,
Our simple home a place divine;
Just the wee cot - the cricket's chirr -
Love and the smiling face of her.
I pray not for
Great riches, nor
For vast estates and castle-halls,
Give me to hear the bare footfalls
Of children o'er
An oaken floor
New-rinsed with sunshine, or bespread
With but the tiny coverlet
And pillow for the baby's head;
And pray Thou, may
The door stand open and the day
Send ever in a gentle breeze,
With fragrance from the locust-trees,
And drowsy moan of doves, and blur
Of robin-chirps, and drone of bees,
With after-hushes of the stir
Of intermingling sounds, and then
The good-wife and the smile of her
Filling the silences again -
The cricket's call
And the wee cot,
Dear Lord of all,
Deny me not!
I pray not that
Men tremble at
My power of place
And lordly sway,
I only pray for simple grace
To look my neighbor in the face
Full honestly from day to day -
Yield me his horny palm to hold.
And I'll not pray
For gold;
The tanned face, garlanded with mirth,
It hath the kingliest smile on earth;
The swart brow, diamonded with sweat,
Hath never need of coronet.
And so I reach,
Dear Lord, to Thee,
And do beseech
Thou givest me
The wee cot, and the cricket's chirr,
Love and the glad sweet face of her!
To Electra
by Robert Herrick

I dare not ask a kiss,
I dare not beg a smile;
Lest having that, or this,
I might grow proud the while.
No, no, the utmost share
Of my desire shall be,
Only to kiss that air
That lately kissed thee,
Sonnets. XII
by John Milton

I did but prompt the age to quit their cloggs
By the known rules of antient libertie,
When strait a barbarous noise environs me
Of Owles and Cuckoes, Asses, Apes and Doggs.
As when those Hinds that were transform'd to Froggs
Raild at Latona's twin-born progenie
Which after held the Sun and Moon in fee.
But this is got by casting Pearl to Hoggs;
That bawle for freedom in their senceless mood,
And still revolt when truth would set them free.
Licence they mean when they cry libertie;
For who loves that, must first be wise and good;
But from that mark how far they roave we see
For all this wast of wealth, and loss of blood.
The Withering Of The Boughs
by William Butler Yeats

I cried when the moon was murmuring to the birds:
"Let peewit call and curlew cry where they will,
I long for your merry and tender and pitiful words,
For the roads are unending, and there is no place to my mind."
The honey-pale moon lay low on the sleepy hill,
And I fell asleep upon lonely Edge of streams.
i(No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind;)
i(The boughs have withered because I have told them my, dreams.)
I know of the leafy paths that the witches take
Who come with their crowns of pearl and their spindles of wool,
And their secret smile, out of the depths of the lake;
I know where a dim moon drifts, where the Danaan kind
Wind and unwind their dances when the light grows cool
On the island lawns, their feet where the pale foam gleams.
i(No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind;)
i(The boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams.)
I know of the sleepy country, where swans fly round
Coupled with golden chains, and sing as they fly.
A king and a queen are wandering there, and the sound
Has made them so happy and hopeless, so deaf and so blind
With wisdom, they wander till all the years have gone by;
I know, and the curlew and peewit on Echtge of streams.
i(No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind;)
i(The boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams.)
The Double
by Walter De La Mare

I curtseyed to the dovecote.
I curtseyed to the well.
I twirled me round and round about,
The morning sweets to smell.
When out I came from spinning so,
Lo, betwixt green and blue
Was the ghost of me - a Fairy Child - 
A-dancing - dancing, too.
Nought was of her wearing
That is the earth's array.
Her thistledown feet beat airy fleet
Yet set no blade astray.
The gossamer shining dews of June
Showed grey against the green;
Yet never so much as a bird-claw print
Of footfall to be seen.
Fading in the mounting sun
That image soon did pine.
Fainter than moonlight thinned the locks
That shone as clear as mine.
Vanished! Vanished! O, sad it is
To spin and spin - in vain;
And never to see the ghost of me
A-dancing there again.