DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Father And Son
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

My grand-dame, vigorous at eighty-one,
Delights in talking of her only son,
My gallant father, long since dead and gone.
'Ah, but he was the lad!'
She says, and sighs, and looks at me askance.
How well I read the meaning of that glance - 
'Poor son of such a dad;
Poor weakling, dull and sad.'
I could, but would not tell her bitter truth
About my father's youth.
She says:    'Your father laughed his way through earth:
He laughed right in the doctor's face at birth,
Such joy of life he had, such founts of mirth.
Ah, what a lad was he!'
And then she sighs.    I feel her silent blame,
Because I brought her nothing but his name.
Because she does not see
Her worshipped son in me.
I could, but would not, speak in my defence,
Anent the difference.
She says:    'He won all prizes in his time:
He overworked, and died before his prime.
At high ambition's door I lay the crime.
Ah, what a lad he was!'
Well, let her rest in that deceiving thought,
Of what avail to say, 'His death was brought
By broken sexual laws,
The ancient sinful cause.'
I could, but would not, tell the good old dame
The story of his shame.
I could say:    'I am crippled, weak, and pale,
Because my father was an unleashed male.
Because he ran so fast, I halt and fail
(Ah, yes, he was the lad),
Because he drained each cup of sense-delight
I must go thirsting, thirsting, day and night.
Because he was joy-mad,
I must be always sad.
Because he learned no law of self-control,
I am a blighted soul.'
Of what avail to speak and spoil her joy.
Better to see her disapproving eyes,
And silent, hear her say, between her sighs,
'Ah, but he was the boy!'
The Headache.
by Robert Herrick

My head doth ache,
O Sappho! take
Thy fillet,
And bind the pain,
Or bring some bane
To kill it.
But less that part
Than my poor heart
Now is sick;
One kiss from thee
Will counsel be
And physic.
Arms And The Man. - The Flag Of The Republic.
by James Barron Hope

My harp soon ceases; but I here allege
Its strings are in my heart and tremble there:
My Song's last strain shall be a claim and pledge - 
A claim, a pledge, a prayer!
I stand, as stood, in storied days of old,
Vasco Balboa staring o'er bright seas
When fair Pacific's tide of limpid gold
Surged up against his knees.
For haughty Spain, her banner in his hand,
He claimed a New World, sea, and plain, and crag - 
I claim the Future's Ocean for this land
And here I plant her flag!
Float out, oh flag, from Freedom's burnished lance!
Float out, oh flag, in Red, and White, and Blue!
The Union's colors and the hues of France
Commingled on the view!
Float out, oh flag, and all thy splendors wake!
Float out, oh flag, above our Hero's bed!
Float out, oh flag, and let thy blazon take
New glories from the dead!
Float out, oh flag, o'er Freedom's noblest types!
Float out, oh flag, all free of blot or stain!
Float out, oh flag, the "Roses" in thy stripes
Forever blent again!
Float out, oh flag, and float in every clime!
Float out, oh flag, and blaze on every sea!
Float out, oh flag, and float as long as Time
And Space themselves shall be!
Float out, oh flag, o'er Freedom's onward march!
Float out, oh flag, in Freedom's starry sheen!
Float out, oh flag, above the Union's arch
Where Washington is seen!
Float out, oh flag, above a smiling Land!
Float out, oh flag, above a peaceful sod!
Float out, oh flag, thy staff within the hand
Beneficent of God!
Jehovah Our Righteousness. - Jeremiah xxiii.6.
by William Cowper

My God, how perfect are thy ways!
But mine polluted are;
Sin twines itself about my praise,
And slides into my prayer.
When I would speak what thou hast done,
To save me from my sin,
I cannot make thy mercies known,
But self-applause creeps in.
Divine desire, that holy flame
Thy grace creates in me;
Alas! impatience is its name,
When it returns to thee.
This heart, a fountain of vile thoughts,
How does it overflow!
While self upon the surface floats,
Still bubbling from below.
Let others in the gaudy dress
Of fancied merit shine;
The Lord shall be my righteousness,
The Lord for ever mine.
Letter XIII. From The Wood-Pigeon To The Owl. (The Bird And Insects' Post-Office.)
by Robert Bloomfield

MY GOOD, OLD, WISE, SECLUDED, AND QUIET FRIEND,
I write to you in the fulness of my heart, for I have been grossly insulted by the Magpie, in a letter received this morning; in which I am abused for what my forefathers did long before I was born. I know of nothing more base, or more unjust, than thus raking up old quarrels [4] and reproaching those who had nothing to do with them. The letter must have come through your office, but I know you have not the authority to break open and examine letters passing between those who should be friends; I therefore do not accuse you; but sometimes the heart is relieved by stating its troubles even when no redress can be expected. I know that you cannot bring to punishment that slanderer, that babbler of the woods, any more than I can; but I wish you would give me a word of comfort, if it is ever so short.
From the plantation of firs,
Near the forest-side,
WOOD-PIGEON.
[4] The poor pigeon, I think, must here allude to the old well-known quarrel between the two families about building their nests. The magpie once undertook to teach the pigeon how to build a more substantial and commodious dwelling, and certainly it would have become the learner to have observed her progress, and not interrupt the teacher; but the pigeon kept on her usual cry, "Take two, Taffy, take two" (for thus it is translated in Suffolk), but Mag insisted this was wrong, and that one stick at a time was quite enough; still the pigeon kept on her cry, "Take two, take two," until the teacher in a violent passion gave up the undertaking, exclaiming, "I say that one at a time is plenty, and if you think otherwise, you may act about the work yourself, for I will have no more to do with it." Since that time the wood-pigeon has built a wretched nest, sure enough, so thin that you may frequently see her two eggs through it, and if not placed near the body of a tree, or on strong branches, it is often thrown down by the wind, or the eggs rolled out; yet the young of this bird, before they are half grown, will defend themselves against any intruder, at which time the parent bird will dash herself down amongst the standing corn or high grass, and behave as though her wings were broken, and she was utterly disabled; and this she does to draw off the enemy from her young; so that this bird is not so foolish as Mag would make us believe. - R. B.
Geraldine
by Henry Kendall

My head is filled with olden rhymes beside this moaning sea,
But many and many a day has gone since I was dear to thee!
I know my passion fades away, and therefore oft regret
That some who love indeed can part and in the years forget.
Ah! through the twilights when we stood the wattle trees between,
We did not dream of such a time as this, fair Geraldine.
I do not say that all has gone of passion and of pain;
I yearn for many happy thoughts I shall not think again!
And often when the wind is up, and wailing round the eaves,
You sigh for withered Purpose shred and scattered like the leaves,
The Purpose blooming when we met each other on the green;
The sunset heavy in your curls, my golden Geraldine.
I think we lived a loftier life through hours of Long Ago,
For in the largened evening earth our spirits seemed to grow.
Well, that has passed, and here I stand, upon a lonely place,
While Night is stealing round the land, like Time across my face;
But I can calmly recollect our shadowy parting scene,
And swooning thoughts that had no voice no utterance, Geraldine.
My Harp Has One Unchanging Theme. (Swedish Air.)
by Thomas Moore

My harp has one unchanging theme,
One strain that still comes o'er
Its languid chord, as 'twere a dream
Of joy that's now no more.
In vain I try, with livelier air,
To wake the breathing string;
That voice of other times is there,
And saddens all I sing.
Breathe on, breathe on, thou languid strain,
Henceforth be all my own;
Tho' thou art oft so full of pain
Few hearts can bear thy tone.
Yet oft thou'rt sweet, as if the sigh,
The breath that Pleasure's wings
Gave out, when last they wantoned by.
Were still upon thy strings.
Fragment: Death In Life.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

My head is heavy, my limbs are weary,
And it is not life that makes me move.
Sea-Magic
by Walter De La Mare

TO R.I.
My heart faints in me for the distant sea.
The roar of London is the roar of ire
The lion utters in his old desire
For Libya out of dim captivity.
The long bright silver of Cheapside I see,
Her gilded weathercocks on roof and spire
Exulting eastward in the western fire;
All things recall one heart-sick memory: - 
Ever the rustle of the advancing foam,
The surges' desolate thunder, and the cry
As of some lone babe in the whispering sky;
Ever I peer into the restless gloom
To where a ship clad dim and loftily
Looms steadfast in the wonder of her home.
Others' Burdens
by Joseph Horatio Chant

My greatest grief is not my own;
That often proves a blessing,
For in my grief God's care is shown,
And as I am not left alone,
It never proves distressing;
But when my brother's grief I bear
The weight then seems excessive;
His heavy load I inly share,
And loaded down by double care,
My burden feels oppressive.
Yet I remember Him who bore
The world's great load of sorrow,
And know that He on me will pour
The needed grace to bear the more,
To-day and on the morrow.
Sir Galahad
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

My good blade carves the casques of men,
My tough lance thrusteth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure.
The shattering trumpet shrilleth high,
The hard brands shiver on the steel,
The splinter'd spear-shafts crack and fly,
The horse and rider reel:
They reel, they roll in clanging lists,
And when the tide of combat stands,
Perfume and flowers fall in showers,
That lightly rain from ladies' hands.
How sweet are looks that ladies bend
On whom their favours fall !
For them I battle till the end,
To save from shame and thrall:
But all my heart is drawn above,
My knees are bow'd in crypt and shrine:
I never felt the kiss of love,
Nor maiden's hand in mine.
More bounteous aspects on me beam,
Me mightier transports move and thrill;
So keep I fair thro' faith and prayer
A virgin heart in work and will.
When down the stormy crescent goes,
A light before me swims,
Between dark stems the forest glows,
I hear a noise of hymns:
Then by some secret shrine I ride;
I hear a voice but none are there;
The stalls are void, the doors are wide,
The tapers burning fair.
Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth,
The silver vessels sparkle clean,
The shrill bell rings, the censer swings,
And solemn chaunts resound between.
Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres
I find a magic bark;
I leap on board: no helmsman steers:
I float till all is dark.
A gentle sound, an awful light !
Three arngels bear the holy Grail:
With folded feet, in stoles of white,
On sleeping wings they sail.
Ah, blessed vision! blood of God!
My spirit beats her mortal bars,
As down dark tides the glory slides,
And star-like mingles with the stars.
When on my goodly charger borne
Thro' dreaming towns I go,
The cock crows ere the Christmas morn,
The streets are dumb with snow.
The tempest crackles on the leads,
And, ringing, springs from brand and mail;
But o'er the dark a glory spreads,
And gilds the driving hail.
I leave the plain, I climb the height;
No branchy thicket shelter yields;
But blessed forms in whistling storms
Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields.
A maiden knight--to me is given
Such hope, I know not fear;
I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven
That often meet me here.
I muse on joy that will not cease,
Pure spaces clothed in living beams,
Pure lilies of eternal peace,
Whose odours haunt my dreams;
And, stricken by an angel's hand,
This mortal armour that I wear,
This weight and size, this heart and eyes,
Are touch'd, are turn'd to finest air.
The clouds are broken in the sky,
And thro' the mountain-walls
A rolling organ-harmony
Swells up, and shakes and falls.
Then move the trees, the copses nod,
Wings flutter, voices hover clear:
'O just and faithful knight of God!
Ride on ! the prize is near.'
So pass I hostel, hall, and grange;
By bridge and ford, by park and pale,
All-arm'd I ride, whate'er betide,
Until I find the holy Grail.
At Her Feet
by Richard Le Gallienne

My head is at your feet,
Two Cytherean doves,
The same, O cruel sweet,
As were the Queen of Love's;
They brush my dreaming brows
With silver fluttering beat,
Here in your golden house,
Beneath your feet.
No man that draweth breath
Is in such happy case:
My heart to itself saith - 
Though kings gaze on her face,
I would not change my place;
To lie here is more sweet,
Here at her feet.
As one in a green land
Beneath a rose-bush lies,
Two petals in his hand,
With shut and dreaming eyes,
And hears the rustling stir,
As the young morning goes,
Shaking abroad the myrrh
Of each awakened rose;
So to me lying there
Comes the soft breath of her, - 
O cruel sweet! - 
There at her feet.
O little careless feet
That scornful tread
Upon my dreaming head,
As little as the rose
Of him who lies there knows
Nor of what dreams may be
Beneath your feet;
Know you of me,
Ah! dreams of your fair head,
Its golden treasure spread,
And all your moonlit snows,
Yea! all your beauty's rose
That blooms to-day so fair
And smells so sweet - 
Shoulders of ivory,
And breasts of myrrh - 
Under my feet.
My God! O Let Me Call Thee Mine!
by Anne Bronte

My God! O let me call Thee mine!
Weak wretched sinner though I be,
My trembling soul would fain be Thine,
My feeble faith still clings to Thee,
My feeble faith still clings to Thee.
Not only for the past I grieve,
The future fills me with dismay;
Unless Thou hasten to relieve,
I know my heart will fall away,
I know my heart will fall away.
I cannot say my faith is strong,
I dare not hope my love is great;
But strength and love to Thee belong,
O, do not leave me desolate!
O, do not leave me desolate!
I know I owe my all to Thee,
O, take this heart I cannot give.
Do Thou my Strength my Saviour be;
And make me to Thy glory live!
And make me to Thy glory live!
Persistence
by Walter Savage Landor

My hopes retire; my wishes as before
Struggle to find their resting-place in vain:
The ebbing sea thus beats against the shore;
The shore repels it; it returns again.
Returned Birds
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

My heart to-day is like a southern wood,
Through summer months it has been drunk with heat;
And slumbered on unmindful of the beat
Of life beyond it: sleep alone seemed good.
Now milder Autumn's tints are in the sky;
The fervid heats of summer noons depart;
And backward to the old haunts in my heart
The golden robins and the blue birds fly.
I hear the flutter of their airy wings,
They flock about the Spring's deserted nest,
And suddenly I feel within my breast
The stirring of sweet half-forgotten things.
Bright sunny mornings -golden growing hours -
The building of glad birds among the trees;
Wide open windows and the kindly breeze
Bringing the perfume of half-open flowers.
A blithe face at the window fair with truth;
A mellow laugh that falls like silver spray;
Down through the sunlight of the perfect day,
Ecstatic hopes, that bud with Spring and Youth.
The morning time grew rank with summer blight;
The birds flew northward, fresher fields to find;
And in our hearts we closed the folding blind,
While drooping blossoms withered in the light.
The fair face at the window could not stay;
The laugh grew weary, with a minor strain
That borders on the foreign realm of pain,
And hopes that blossomed, ripened to decay.
Come, happy birds, and sing of vanished joy,
Of that sweet Spring for ever passed away;
No winter lies between us and that day.
(But what is sadder than the sweets that cloy.)
My heart is green with leafage; come and wake
The old-time echoes with the songs of glee,
For only echoes now are left to me,
Though bloom and beauty cling to bush and brake.
The Heart Of The Wood
by Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory

My hope and my love, we will go for a while into the wood, scattering the dew, where we will see the trout, we will see the blackbird on its nest; the deer and the buck calling, the little bird that is sweetest singing on the branches; the cuckoo on the top of the fresh green; and death will never come near us for ever in the sweet wood.
A Birthday
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.
Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves, and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves, and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.
Sonnet.
by Thomas Hood

My heart is sick with longing, tho' I feed
On hope; Time goes with such a heavy pace
That neither brings nor takes from thy embrace,
As if he slept - forgetting his old speed:
For, as in sunshine only we can read
The march of minutes on the dial's face,
So in the shadows of this lonely place
There is no love, and Time is dead indeed.
But when, dear lady, I am near thy heart,
Thy smile is time, and then so swift it flies,
It seems we only meet to tear apart,
With aching hands and lingering of eyes.
Alas, alas! that we must learn hours' flight
By the same light of love that makes them bright!
Forgiveness
by John Greenleaf Whittier

My heart was heavy, for its trust had been
Abused, its kindness answered with foul wrong;
So, turning gloomily from my fellow-men,
One summer Sabbath day I strolled among
The green mounds of the village burial-place;
Where, pondering how all human love and hate
Find one sad level; and how, soon or late,
Wronged and wrongdoer, each with meekened face,
And cold hands folded over a still heart,
Pass the green threshold of our common grave,
Whither all footsteps tend, whence none depart,
Awed for myself, and pitying my race,
Our common sorrow, like a mighty wave,
Swept all my pride away, and trembling I forgave
My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold
by William Wordsworth

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
Sonnet--My Heart Shall Be Thy Garden
by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

My heart shall be thy garden.    Come, my own,
Into thy garden; thine be happy hours
Among my fairest thoughts, my tallest flowers,
From root to crowning petal, thine alone.
Thine is the place from where the seeds are sown
Up to the sky enclosed, with all its showers.
But ah, the birds, the birds!    Who shall build bowers
To keep these thine?    O friend, the birds have flown.
For as these come and go, and quit our pine
To follow the sweet season, or, new-comers,
Sing one song only from our alder-trees.
My heart has thoughts, which, though thine eyes hold mine,
Flit to the silent world and other summers,
With wings that dip beyond the silver seas.
Longing
by George MacDonald

My heart is full of inarticulate pain,
And beats laborious. Cold ungenial looks
Invade my sanctuary. Men of gain,
Wise in success, well-read in feeble books,
No nigher come, I pray: your air is drear;
'Tis winter and low skies when ye appear.
Beloved, who love beauty and fair truth,
Come nearer me; too near ye cannot come;
Make me an atmosphere with your sweet youth;
Give me your souls to breathe in, a large room;
Speak not a word, for, see, my spirit lies
Helpless and dumb; shine on me with your eyes.
O all wide places, far from feverous towns;
Great shining seas; pine forests; mountains wild;
Rock-bosomed shores; rough heaths, and sheep-cropt downs;
Vast pallid clouds; blue spaces undefiled--
Room! give me room! give loneliness and air--
Free things and plenteous in your regions fair!
White dove of David, flying overhead,
Golden with sunlight on thy snowy wings,
Outspeeding thee my longing thoughts are fled
To find a home afar from men of things;
Where in his temple, earth o'erarched with sky,
God's heart to mine may speak, my heart reply.
O God of mountains, stars, and boundless spaces,
O God of freedom and of joyous hearts,
When thy face looketh forth from all men's faces,
There will be room enough in crowded marts!
Brood thou around me, and the noise is o'er,
Thy universe my closet with shut door.
Heart, heart, awake! The love that loveth all
Maketh a deeper calm than Horeb's cave.
God in thee, can his children's folly gall?
Love may be hurt, but shall not love be brave?--
Thy holy silence sinks in dews of balm;
Thou art my solitude, my mountain-calm!
The Altar
by Edgar Lee Masters

My heart is an altar whereon
Many sacrificial fires have been kindled
In praise of spring and Aphrodite.
My heart is an altar of chalcedony,
Crowned with a tablet of bronze,
Blacked with smoke, scarred with fire,
And scented with the aromatic bitterness
Of dead incense.
Albeit let us murmur a little Doric prayer
Over the ashes which lie scattered around the altar;
For the April rain has wept over them,
And from them the crocus smelts its Roman gold.
What though there are remnants here
Of faded coronals,
And bits of silver string
Torn from forgotten harps?
Perfect amid the ashes sleeps a cup of amethyst.
Let us take it and pour the sea from it,
And while the savor of dead lips is washed away,
Let us lift our hands to this sky of hyacinth.
Let us light the altar newly, for lo! it is spring.
Bring from the re-kindled woodland
Flames of columbine, jewel-weed and trumpet-creeper,
There where the woodman burns the fallen tree,
And scented smoke arises
On azure wings between the branches,
Budding with adolescent life.
With these let us light the altar,
That a scarlet flame may lean
Against the silver sea.
For thou art fire also,
And air, and water, and the resurgent earth,
For thou art woman, thou art love.
Thou art April of the Arcadian moon,
Thou art the swift sun racing through snowy clouds,
Thou art the creative silence of flowering valleys.
Thy face is the apple tree in bloom;
Thine eyes the glimpses of green water
When the tree's blossoms shake
As soft winds fan them.
Thy hair is flame blown against the sea's mist - 
Thou art spring.
The fire on the altar burns brightly,
And the sea sparkles in the sun.
Let us murmur a Doric prayer
For the gift of love,
For the gift of life,
Oh Life! Oh Love! We lift our hands to thee!
Sonnets: Idea II
by Michael Drayton

My heart was slain, and none but you and I;
Who should I think the murder should commit?
Since but yourself there was no creature by
But only I, guiltless of murdering it.
It slew itself; the verdict on the view
Do quit the dead, and me not accessary.
Well, well, I fear it will be proved by you,
The evidence so great a proof doth carry.
But O see, see, we need inquire no further!
Upon your lips the scarlet drops are found,
And in your eye the boy that did the murder,
Your cheeks yet pale since first he gave the wound!
By this I see, however things be past,
Yet heaven will still have murder out at last.
My Heart's In The Highlands.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "Failte na Miosg."
I.
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.
Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
The birth-place of valour, the country of worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.
II.
Farewell to the mountains high cover'd with snow;
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below:
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods;
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.