DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
From Life Without Freedom.
by Thomas Moore

From life without freedom, say, who would not fly?
For one day of freedom, oh! who would not die?
Hark!--hark! 'tis the trumpet! the call of the brave,
The death-song of tyrants, the dirge of the slave.
Our country lies bleeding--haste, haste to her aid;
One arm that defends is worth hosts that invade.
In death's kindly bosom our last hope remains--
The dead fear no tyrants, the grave has no chains.
On, on to the combat! the heroes that bleed
For virtue and mankind are heroes indeed.
And oh, even if Freedom from this world be driven,
Despair not--at least we shall find her in heaven.
Duality
by George William Russell

"From me spring good and evil."
Who gave thee such a ruby flaming heart,
And such a pure cold spirit?     Side by side
I know these must eternally abide
In intimate war, and each to each impart
Life from their pain, with every joy a dart
To wound with grief or death the self-allied.
Red life within the spirit crucified,
The eyes eternal pity thee, thou art
Fated with deathless powers at war to be,
Not less the martyr of the world than he
Whose thorn-crowned brow usurps the due of tears
We would pay to thee, ever ruddy life,
Whose passionate peace is still to be at strife,
O'erthrown but in the unconflicting spheres.
--March 15, 1896    (This is unsigned, but in AE's "Collected Poems")
Madrigale III.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Nova angeletta sovra l' ale accorta.
HE ALLEGORICALLY DESCRIBES THE ORIGIN OF HIS PASSION.
From heaven an angel upon radiant wings,
New lighted on that shore so fresh and fair,
To which, so doom'd, my faithful footstep clings:
Alone and friendless, when she found me there,
Of gold and silk a finely-woven net,
Where lay my path, 'mid seeming flowers she set:
Thus was I caught, and, for such sweet light shone
From out her eyes, I soon forgot to moan.
MACGREGOR.
Canzone XVII.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Di pensier in pensier, di monte in monte.
DISTANCE AND SOLITUDE.
From hill to hill I roam, from thought to thought,
With Love my guide; the beaten path I fly,
For there in vain the tranquil life is sought:
If 'mid the waste well forth a lonely rill,
Or deep embosom'd a low valley lie,
In its calm shade my trembling heart's still;
And there, if Love so will,
I smile, or weep, or fondly hope, or fear.
While on my varying brow, that speaks the soul,
The wild emotions roll,
Now dark, now bright, as shifting skies appear;
That whosoe'er has proved the lover's state
Would say, He feels the flame, nor knows his future fate.
On mountains high, in forests drear and wide,
I find repose, and from the throng'd resort
Of man turn fearfully my eyes aside;
At each lone step thoughts ever new arise
Of her I love, who oft with cruel sport
Will mock the pangs I bear, the tears, the sighs;
Yet e'en these ills I prize,
Though bitter, sweet, nor would they were removed
For my heart whispers me, Love yet has power
To grant a happier hour:
Perchance, though self-despised, thou yet art loved:
E'en then my breast a passing sigh will heave,
Ah! when, or how, may I a hope so wild believe?
Where shadows of high rocking pines dark wave
I stay my footsteps, and on some rude stone
With thought intense her beauteous face engrave;
Roused from the trance, my bosom bathed I find
With tears, and cry, Ah! whither thus alone
Hast thou far wander'd, and whom left behind?
But as with fixed mind
On this fair image I impassion'd rest,
And, viewing her, forget awhile my ills,
Love my rapt fancy fills;
In its own error sweet the soul is blest,
While all around so bright the visions glide;
Oh! might the cheat endure, I ask not aught beside.
Her form portray'd within the lucid stream
Will oft appear, or on the verdant lawn,
Or glossy beech, or fleecy cloud, will gleam
So lovely fair, that Leda's self might say,
Her Helen sinks eclipsed, as at the dawn
A star when cover'd by the solar ray:
And, as o'er wilds I stray
Where the eye nought but savage nature meets,
There Fancy most her brightest tints employs;
But when rude truth destroys
The loved illusion of those dreamed sweets,
I sit me down on the cold rugged stone,
Less coid, less dead than I, and think, and weep alone.
Where the huge mountain rears his brow sublime,
On which no neighbouring height its shadow flings,
Led by desire intense the steep I climb;
And tracing in the boundless space each woe,
Whose sad remembrance my torn bosom wrings,
Tears, that bespeak the heart o'erfraught, will flow:
While, viewing all below,
From me, I cry, what worlds of air divide
The beauteous form, still absent and still near!
Then, chiding soft the tear,
I whisper low, haply she too has sigh'd
That thou art far away: a thought so sweet
Awhile my labouring soul will of its burthen cheat.
Go thou, my song, beyond that Alpine bound,
Where the pure smiling heavens are most serene,
There by a murmuring stream may I be found,
Whose gentle airs around
Waft grateful odours from the laurel green;
Nought but my empty form roams here unblest,
There dwells my heart with her who steals it from my breast.
DACRE.
The Enchanted Hill
by Walter De La Mare

From height of noon, remote and still,
The sun shines on the empty hill.
No mist, no wind, above, below;
No living thing strays to and fro.
No bird replies to bird on high,
Cleaving the skies with echoing cry.
Like dreaming water, green and wan,
Glassing the snow of mantling swan,
Like a clear jewel encharactered
With secret symbol of line and word,
Asheen, unruffled, slumbrous, still,
The sunlight streams on the empty hill.
But soon as Night's dark shadows ride
Across its shrouded Eastern side,
When at her kindling, clear and full,
Star beyond star stands visible;
Then course pale phantoms, fleet-foot deer
Lap of its waters icy-clear;
Mounts the large moon, and pours her beams
On bright-fish-flashing, singing streams;
Voices re-echo; coursing by,
Horsemen, like clouds, wheel silently.
Glide then from out their pitch-black lair
Beneath the dark's ensilvered arch,
Witches becowled into the air;
And iron pine and emerald larch,
Tents of delight for ravished bird,
Are by loud music thrilled and stirred.
Winging the light, with silver feet,
Beneath their bowers of fragrance met,
In dells of rose and meadowsweet,
In mazed dance the fairies flit;
While drives his share the Ploughman high
Athwart the daisy-powdered sky:
Till far away, in thickening dew,
Piercing the Eastern shadows through
Rilling in crystal clear and still,
Light 'gins to tremble on the hill.
And like a mist on faint winds borne,
Silent, forlorn, wells up the morn.
Then the broad sun with burning beams
Steeps slope and peak and gilded streams.
Then no foot stirs; the brake shakes not;
Soundless and wet in its green grot
As if asleep, the leaf hangs limp;
The white dews drip untrembling down,
From bough to bough, orblike, unblown;
And in strange quiet, shimmering and still,
Morning enshrines the empty hill.
To Laura In Death. Sonnet XLIX.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Tranquillo porto avea mostrato Amore.
DEATH HAS ROBBED HIM IN ONE MOMENT OF THE FRUIT OF HIS LIFE.
From life's long storm of trouble and of tears
Love show'd a tranquil haven and fair end
'Mid better thoughts which riper age attend,
That vice lays bare and virtue clothes and cheers.
She saw my true heart, free from doubts and fears,
And its high faith which could no more offend;
Ah, cruel Death! how quick wert thou to rend
In so few hours the fruit of many years!
A longer life the time had surely brought
When in her chaste ear my full heart had laid
The ancient burthen of its dearest thought;
And she, perchance, might then have answer made,
Forth-sighing some blest words, whilst white and few
Our locks became, and wan our cheeks in hue.
MACGREGOR.
The Eve Of Election
by John Greenleaf Whittier

From gold to gray
Our mild sweet day
Of Indian Summer fades too soon;
But tenderly
Above the sea
Hangs, white and calm, the hunter's moon.
In its pale fire,
The village spire
Shows like the zodiac's spectral lance;
The painted walls
Whereon it falls
Transfigured stand in marble trance!
O'er fallen leaves
The west-wind grieves,
Yet comes a seed-time round again;
And morn shall see
The State sown free
With baleful tares or healthful grain.
Along the street
The shadows meet
Of Destiny, whose hands conceal
The moulds of fate
That shape the State,
And make or mar the common weal.
Around I see
The powers that be;
I stand by Empire's primal springs;
And princes meet,
In every street,
And hear the tread of uncrowned kings!
Hark! through the crowd
The laugh runs loud,
Beneath the sad, rebuking moon.
God save the land
A careless hand
May shake or swerve ere morrow's noon!
No jest is this;
One cast amiss
May blast the hope of Freedom's year.
Oh, take me where
Are hearts of prayer,
And foreheads bowed in reverent fear!
Not lightly fall
Beyond recall
The written scrolls a breath can float;
The crowning fact
The kingliest act
Of Freedom is the freeman's vote!
For pearls that gem
A diadem
The diver in the deep sea dies;
The regal right
We boast to-night
Is ours through costlier sacrifice;
The blood of Vane,
His prison pain
Who traced the path the Pilgrim trod,
And hers whose faith
Drew strength from death,
And prayed her Russell up to God!
Our hearts grow cold,
We lightly hold
A right which brave men died to gain;
The stake, the cord,
The axe, the sword,
Grim nurses at its birth of pain.
The shadow rend,
And o'er us bend,
O martyrs, with your crowns and palms;
Breathe through these throngs
Your battle songs,
Your scaffold prayers, and dungeon psalms!
Look from the sky,
Like God's great eye,
Thou solemn moon, with searching beam,
Till in the sight
Of thy pure light
Our mean self-seekings meaner seem.
Shame from our hearts
Unworthy arts,
The fraud designed, the purpose dark;
And smite away
The hands we lay
Profanely on the sacred ark.
To party claims
And private aims,
Reveal that august face of Truth,
Whereto are given
The age of heaven,
The beauty of immortal youth.
So shall our voice
Of sovereign choice
Swell the deep bass of duty done,
And strike the key
Of time to be,
When God and man shall speak as one
A Song For St Cecilia's Day,[1] 1687.
by John Dryden

FROM harmony, from heavenly harmony
This universal frame began:
When nature underneath a heap
Of jarring atoms lay,
And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
Arise, ye more than dead.
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,
In order to their stations leap,
And Music's power obey.
From harmony, from heavenly harmony
This universal frame began:
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it rail,
The diapason closing full in Man.
What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
When Jubal struck the chorded shell,
His listening brethren stood around,
And, wondering, on their faces fell
To worship that celestial sound.
Less than a God they thought there could not dwell
Within the hollow of that shell,
That spoke so sweetly and so well.
What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
The trumpet's loud clangour
Excites us to arms,
With shrill notes of anger,
And mortal alarms.
The double double double beat
Of the thundering drum
Cries, hark! the foes come;
Charge, charge!'tis too late to retreat.
The soft complaining flute
In dying notes discovers
The woes of hopeless lovers,
Whose dirge is whisper'd by the warbling lute.
Sharp violins proclaim
Their jealous pangs, and desperation,
Fury, frantic indignation,
Depth of pains, and height of passion,
For the fair, disdainful dame.
But oh! what art can teach,
What human voice can reach,
The sacred organ's praise?
Notes inspiring holy love,
Notes that wing their heavenly ways
To mend the choirs above.
Orpheus could lead the savage race;
And trees uprooted left their place,
Sequacious of the lyre:
But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher:
When to her organ vocal breath was given,
An angel heard, and straight appear'd,
Mistaking earth for heaven.
GRAND CHORUS.
As from the power of sacred lays
The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator's praise
To all the bless'd above;
So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And Music shall untune the sky.
Translations. - Another Christ-Song. (Luther's Song-Book.)
by George MacDonald

From heaven the angel-troop come near
And to the shepherds plain appear:
A tender little child, they cry,
In a rough manger lies hard by,
In Bethlehem, David's town of old,
As Prophet Micah has foretold;
'Tis the Lord Jesus Christ, I wis,
Who of you all the saviour is.
And ye may well break out in mirth
That God is one with you henceforth;
For he is born your flesh and blood--
Your brother is the eternal Good.
He will nor can from you go hence;
Put you in him your confidence.
However many you assail,
Defy them--He can never fail!
What can death do to you, or sin?
The true God is to you come in.
Let hell and Satan raging go--
The Son of God's your comrade now!
At last you must approval win,
For you are now become God's kin:
For this go thanking God alway,
Happy and patient every day. Amen.
The Wallet.[1]
by Jean de La Fontaine

From heaven, one day, did Jupiter proclaim,
'Let all that live before my throne appear,
And there if any one hath aught to blame,
In matter, form, or texture of his frame,
He may bring forth his grievance without fear.
Redress shall instantly be given to each.
Come, monkey, now, first let us have your speech.
You see these quadrupeds, your brothers;
Comparing, then, yourself with others,
Are you well satisfied?' 'And wherefore not?'
Says Jock. 'Haven't I four trotters with the rest?
Is not my visage comely as the best?
But this my brother Bruin, is a blot
On thy creation fair;
And sooner than be painted I'd be shot,
Were I, great sire, a bear.'
The bear approaching, doth he make complaint?
Not he; - himself he lauds without restraint.
The elephant he needs must criticize;
To crop his ears and stretch his tail were wise;
A creature he of huge, misshapen size.
The elephant, though famed as beast judicious,
While on his own account he had no wishes,
Pronounced dame whale too big to suit his taste;
Of flesh and fat she was a perfect waste.
The little ant, again, pronounced the gnat too wee;
To such a speck, a vast colossus she.
Each censured by the rest, himself content,
Back to their homes all living things were sent.
Such folly liveth yet with human fools.
For others lynxes, for ourselves but moles.
Great blemishes in other men we spy,
Which in ourselves we pass most kindly by.
As in this world we're but way-farers,
Kind Heaven has made us wallet-bearers.
The pouch behind our own defects must store,
The faults of others lodge in that before.
The Ballad Of Hampstead Heath
by James Elroy Flecker

From Heaven's Gate to Hampstead Heath
Young Bacchus and his crew
Came tumbling down, and o'er the town
Their bursting trumpets blew.
The silver night was wildly bright,
And madly shone the Moon
To hear a song so clear and strong,
With such a lovely tune.
From London's houses, huts and flats,
Came busmen, snobs, and Earls,
And ugly men in bowler hats
With charming little girls.
Sir Moses came with eyes of flame,
Judd, who is like a bloater,
The brave Lord Mayor in coach and pair,
King Edward, in his motor.
Far in a rosy mist withdrawn
The God and all his crew,
Silenus pulled by nymphs, a faun,
A satyr drenched in dew,
Smiled as they wept those shining tears
Only Immortals know,
Whose feet are set among the stars,
Above the shifting snow.
And one spake out into the night,
Before they left for ever,
"Rejoice, rejoice!" and his great voice
Rolled like a splendid river.
He spake in Greek, which Britons speak
Seldom, and circumspectly;
But Mr. Judd, that man of mud,
Translated it correctly.
And when they heard that happy word,
Policemen leapt and ambled:
The busmen pranced, the maidens danced,
The men in bowlers gambolled.
A wistful Echo stayed behind
To join the mortal dances,
But Mr Judd, with words unkind,
Rejected her advances.
And passing down through London Town
She stopped, for all was lonely,
Attracted by a big brass plate
Inscribed, FOR MEMBERS ONLY.
And so she went to Parliament,
But those ungainly men
Woke up from sleep, and turned about,
And fell asleep again.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part III. - XXXIV - Mutability
by William Wordsworth

From low to high doth dissolution climb,
And sink from high to low, along a scale
Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail;
A musical but melancholy chime,
Which they can hear who meddle not with crime,
Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care.
Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear
The longest date do melt like frosty rime,
That in the morning whitened hill and plain
And is no more; drop like the tower sublime
Of yesterday, which royally did wear
His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain
Some casual shout that broke the silent air,
Or the unimaginable touch of Time.
The Immigrants.
by W. M. MacKeracher

From lands where old abuses sit entrenched
And stern restriction thwarts aspiring merit,
And by gaunt men a meagre dole is wrenched
From the unkind conditions they inherit;
From teeming cities where the ceaseless moan
Of want is burthen to the traffic's hum,
From shrouded mills, and fields they ne'er might own,
From servitude and blank despair, they come.
And every ship that sails across the foam,
And every train that rushes from the sea,
And every sun that brightens heaven's dome,
And every breeze that stirs the leafing tree,
Sings to the pilgrims a glad song of home,
With freedom, joy and opportunity.
Baktschi Serai By Night
by Adam Bernard Mickiewicz

From out the mosques the pious wend their way;
Muezzin voices tremble through the night;
Within the sky the pallid King of Light
Wraps silvered ermine round him while he may,
And Heaven's harem greets its star array.
One lone white cloud rests in the azure height--
A veiled court lady in some sorrow's plight--
Whom cruel love and day have cast away.
The mosques stand there; and here tall cypress trees;
There--mountains, towering, black as demons frown,
Which Lucifer in rage from God cast down.
Like sword blades lightning flickers over these,
And on an Arab steed the wild Khan rides
Who goes to Baktschi Serai which night hides.
Evening On The Farm
by Madison Julius Cawein

From out the hills where twilight stands,
Above the shadowy pasture lands,
With strained and strident cry,
Beneath pale skies that sunset bands,
The bull-bats fly.
A cloud hangs over, strange of shape,
And, colored like the half-ripe grape,
Seems some uneven stain
On heaven's azure; thin as crape,
And blue as rain.
By ways, that sunset's sardonyx
O'erflares, and gates the farm-boy clicks,
Through which the cattle came,
The mullein-stalks seem giant wicks
Of downy flame.
From woods no glimmer enters in,
Above the streams that, wandering, win
To where the wood pool bids,
Those haunters of the dusk begin,
The katydids.
Adown the dark the firefly marks
Its flight in gold and emerald sparks;
And, loosened from his chain,
The shaggy mastiff bounds and barks,
And barks again.
Each breeze brings scents of hill-heaped hay;
And now an owlet, far away,
Cries twice or thrice, "T-o-o-w-h-o-o";
And cool dim moths of mottled gray
Flit through the dew.
The silence sounds its frog-bassoon,
Where, on the woodland creek's lagoon,
Pale as a ghostly girl
Lost 'mid the trees, looks down the moon
With face of pearl.
Within the shed where logs, late hewed,
Smell forest-sweet, and chips of wood
Make blurs of white and brown,
The brood-hen cuddles her warm brood
Of teetering down.
The clattering guineas in the tree
Din for a time; and quietly
The henhouse, near the fence,
Sleeps, save for some brief rivalry
Of cocks and hens.
A cowbell tinkles by the rails,
Where, streaming white in foaming pails,
Milk makes an uddery sound;
While overhead the black bat trails
Around and round.
The night is still. The slow cows chew
A drowsy cud. The bird that flew
And sang is in its nest.
It is the time of falling dew,
Of dreams and rest.
The beehives sleep; and round the walk,
The garden path, from stalk to stalk
The bungling beetle booms,
Where two soft shadows stand and talk
Among the blooms.
The stars are thick: the light is dead
That dyed the west: and Drowsyhead,
Tuning his cricket-pipe,
Nods, and some apple, round and red,
Drops over-ripe.
Now down the road, that shambles by,
A window, shining like an eye
Through climbing rose and gourd,
Shows Age and young Rusticity
Seated at board.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part III. - XXXI - Funeral Service
by William Wordsworth

From the Baptismal hour, thro' weal and woe,
The Church extends her care to thought and deed;
Nor quits the Body when the Soul is freed,
The mortal weight cast off to be laid low.
Blest Rite for him who hears in faith, "I know
That my Redeemer liveth," hears each word
That follows, striking on some kindred chord
Deep in the thankful heart; yet tears will flow.
Man is as grass that springeth up at morn,
Grows green, and is cut down and withereth
Ere nightfall, truth that well may claim a sigh,
Its natural echo; but hope comes reborn
At Jesu's bidding. We rejoice, "O Death,
Where is thy Sting? O Grave, where is thy Victory?"
Snatch
by Richard Le Gallienne

From tavern to tavern
Youth passes along,
With an armful of girl
And a heart full of song.
From flower to flower
The butterfly sips,
O passionate limbs
And importunate lips!
From candle to candle
The moth loves to fly,
O sweet, sweet to burn!
And still sweeter to die!
To Cordelia
by Mark Akenside

From pompous life's dull masquerade,
From Pride's pursuits, and Passion's war,
Far, my Cordelia, very far,
To thee and me may Heaven assign
The silent pleasures of the shade,
The joys of peace, unenvied, though divine!
Safe in the calm embowering grove,
As thy own lovely brow serene;
Behold the world's fantastic scene!
What low pursuits employ the great,
What tinsel things their wishes move,
The forms of Fashion, and the toys of State.
In vain are all Contentment's charms,
Her placid mien, her cheerful eye;
For look, Cordelia, how they fly!
Allur'd by Power, Applause, or Gain,
They fly her kind protecting arms;
Ah, blind to pleasure, and in love with pain!
Turn and indulge a fairer view,
Smile on the joys which here conspire;
O joys harmonious as my lyre!
O prospect of enchanting things,
As ever slumbering poet knew,
When Love and Fancy wrapt him in their wings!
Here, no rude storm of Passion blows,
But Sports, and Smiles, and Virtues play,
Cheer'd by Affection's purest ray;
The air still breathes Contentment's balm,
And the clear stream of Pleasure flows
For ever active, yet for ever calm.
The Fall
by John Frederick Freeman

From that warm height and pure,
The peak undreamed of out of heavy air
Rising to heaven more strange and rare;
From that amazed brief sojourn, exquisite, insecure;
Fallen from thence to this,
From all immortal sunk to mortal sweet,
To slow gross joys from joy so fleet,
Fallen to mere remembrance of unsustainable bliss....
O harsh, O heavy air,
Difficult endurance, pain of common things!
The slow sun east to westward swings,
The flat-faced moon climbs labouring with a senseless stare.
From that inconceivable height----
O inward eyes that saw and ears that heard,
Spiritual swift wings that stirred
In that warm-flushing air and unendurable light;
When I was as mere down
On a swift-running youthful wind uptaken
Over tall trees, white mountains, shaken,
Into the uttermost azure lifted, lifted alone.
From that peak can it be
That I am fallen, fallen that was so high?
Or was that truly, surely I?
Who is it crawls here now, sad, uncontentedly?
Fallen from that high content,
--Fool, thou that wast content merely with bliss!
Happy those lovers that will not kiss;
Never to be fulfilled was the heart's endless passion meant.
Never on joys attainable
To linger, never on easy near delight--
O bitter, unreached infinite,
Merciful defeat, availless anguish, hunger unendurable!
O who shall be in longing wise,
Skilled in refusal, in embracing free,
Glad with earth's innocent ecstasy,
Yet all the uncomprehended heaven in his eyes!