DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Soeur Monique
by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

A RONDEAU BY COUPERIN
Quiet form of silent nun,
What has given you to my inward eyes?
What has marked you, unknown one,
In the throngs of centuries
That mine ears do listen through?
This old master's melody
That expresses you,
This admired simplicity,
Tender, with a serious wit,
And two words, the name of it,
'Soeur Monique.'
And if sad the music is,
It is sad with mysteries
Of a small immortal thing
That the passing ages sing,--
Simple music making mirth
Of the dying and the birth
Of the people of the earth.
No, not sad; we are beguiled,
Sad with living as we are;
Ours the sorrow, outpouring
Sad self on a selfless thing,
As our eyes and hearts are mild
With our sympathy for Spring,
With a pity sweet and wild
For the innocent and far,
With our sadness in a star,
Or our sadness in a child.
But two words, and this sweet air.
Soeur Monique,
Had he more, who set you there?
Was his music-dream of you
Of some perfect nun he knew,
Or of some ideal, as true?
And I see you where you stand
With your life held in your hand
As a rosary of days.
And your thoughts in calm arrays,
And your innocent prayers are told
On your rosary of days.
And the young days and the old
With their quiet prayers did meet
When the chaplet was complete.
Did it vex you, the surmise
Of this wind of words, this storm of cries,
Though you kept the silence so
In the storms of long ago,
And you keep it, like a star?
--Of the evils triumphing,
Strong, for all your perfect conquering,
Silenced conqueror that you are?
And I wonder at your peace, I wonder.
Would it trouble you to know,
Tender soul, the world and sin
By your calm feet trodden under
Long ago,
Living now, mighty to win?
And your feet are vanished like the snow.
Vanished; but the poet, he
In whose dream your face appears,
He who ranges unknown years
With your music in his heart,
Speaks to you familiarly
Where you keep apart,
And invents you as you were.
And your picture, O my nun!
Is a strangely easy one,
For the holy weed you wear,
For your hidden eyes and hidden hair,
And in picturing you I may
Scarcely go astray.
O the vague reality!
The mysterious certainty!
O strange truth of these my guesses
In the wide thought-wildernesses!
--Truth of one divined of many flowers;
Of one raindrop in the showers
Of the long-ago swift rain;
Of one tear of many tears
In some world-renowned pain;
Of one daisy 'mid the centuries of sun;
Of a little living nun
In the garden of the years.
Yes, I am not far astray;
But I guess you as might one
Pausing when young March is grey,
In a violet-peopled day;
All his thoughts go out to places that he knew,
To his child-home in the sun,
To the fields of his regret,
To one place i' the innocent March air,
By one olive, and invent
The familiar form and scent
Safely; a white violet
Certainly is there.
Soeur Monique, remember me.
'Tis not in the past alone
I am picturing you to be;
But my little friend, my own,
In my moment, pray for me.
For another dream is mine,
And another dream is true,
Sweeter even,
Of the little ones that shine
Lost within the light divine,--
Of some meekest flower, or you,
In the fields of Heaven.
Ode To Ferdinand.
by Thomas Moore

Quit the sword, thou King of men,
Grasp the needle once again;
Making petticoats is far
Safer sport than making war;
Trimming is a better thing,
Than the being trimmed, oh King!
Grasp the needle bright with which
Thou didst for the Virgin stitch
Garment, such as ne'er before
Monarch stitched or Virgin wore,
Not for her, oh semster nimble!
Do I now invoke thy thimble;
Not for her thy wanted aid is,
But for certain grave old ladies,
Who now sit in England's cabinet,
Waiting to be clothed in tabinet,
Or whatever choice 'toffe is
Fit for Dowagers in office.
First, thy care, oh King, devote
To Dame Eldon's petticoat.
Make it of that silk whose dye
Shifts for ever to the eye,
Just as if it hardly knew
Whether to be pink or blue.
Or--material fitter yet--
If thou couldst a remnant get
Of that stuff with which, of old,
Sage Penelope, we're told,
Still by doing and undoing,
Kept her suitors always wooing--
That's the stuff which I pronounce, is
Fittest for Dame Eldon's flounces.
After this, we'll try thy hand,
Mantua-making Ferdinand,
For old Goody Westmoreland;
One who loves, like Mother Cole,
Church and State with all her soul;
And has past her life in frolics
Worthy of our Apostolics.
Choose, in dressing this old flirt,
Something that won't show the dirt,
As, from habit, every minute
Goody Westmoreland is in it.
This is all I now shall ask,
Hie thee, monarch, to thy task;
Finish Eldon's frills and borders,
Then return for further orders.
Oh what progress for our sake,
Kings in millinery make!
Ribands, garters, and such things,
Are supplied by other Kings--
Ferdinand his rank denotes
By providing petticoats.
Clown's Courtship, The
by Unknown

Quoth John to Joan, will thou have me;
I prithee now, wilt? and I'll marry thee,
My cow, my calf, my house, my rents,
And all my lands and tenements:
Oh, say, my Joan, will not that do?
I cannot come every day to woo.
I've corn and hay in the barn hardby,
And three fat hogs pent up in the sty,
I have a mare and she is coal black,
I ride on her tail to save my back.
Then say, etc.
I have a cheese upon the shelf,
And I cannot eat it all myself;
I've three good marks that lie in a rag,
In a nook of the chimney, instead of a bag.
Then say, etc.
To marry I would have thy consent,
But faith I never could compliment;
I can say nought but "Hoy, gee ho!"
Words that belong to the cart and the plough.
So say, my Joan, will not that do,
I cannot come every day to woo.
The Stronghold
by John Collings Squire, Sir

Quieter than any twilight
Shed over earth's last deserts,
Quiet and vast and shadowless
Is that unfounded keep,
Higher than the roof of the night's high chamber
Deep as the shaft of sleep.
And solitude will not cry there,
Melancholy will not brood there,
Hatred, with its sharp corroding pain,
And fear will not come there at all:
Never will a tear or a heart-ache enter
Over that enchanted wall.
But, O, if you find that castle,
Draw back your foot from the gateway,
Let not its peace invite you,
Let not its offerings tempt you.
For faded and decayed like a garment,
Love to a dust will have fallen,
And song and laughter will have gone with sorrow,
And hope will have gone with pain;
And of all the throbbing heart's high courage
Nothing will remain.
Welcome And Farewell.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Quick throbb'd my heart: to norse! haste, haste,
And lo! 'twas done with speed of light;
The evening soon the world embraced,
And o'er the mountains hung the night.
Soon stood, in robe of mist, the oak,
A tow'ring giant in his size,
Where darkness through the thicket broke,
And glared with hundred gloomy eyes.
From out a hill of clouds the moon
With mournful gaze began to peer:
The winds their soft wings flutter'd soon,
And murmur'd in mine awe-struck ear;
The night a thousand monsters made,
Yet fresh and joyous was my mind;
What fire within my veins then play'd!
What glow was in my bosom shrin'd!
I saw thee, and with tender pride
Felt thy sweet gaze pour joy on me;
While all my heart was at thy side.
And every breath I breath'd for thee.
The roseate hues that spring supplies
Were playing round thy features fair,
And love for me ye Deities!
I hoped it, I deserved it ne'er!
But, when the morning sun return'd,
Departure filled with grief my heart:
Within thy kiss, what rapture burn'd!
But in thy look, what bitter smart!
I went thy gaze to earth first roved
Thou follow'dst me with tearful eye:
And yet, what rapture to be loved!
And, Gods, to love what ecstasy!
[Another of the love-songs addressed to Frederica.]
Gadara, A.D. 31
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

Rabbi, begone! Thy powers
Bring loss to us and ours.
Our ways are not as Thine.
Thou lovest men, we--swine.
Oh, get you hence, Omnipotence,
And take this fool of Thine!
His soul? What care we for his soul?
What good to us that Thou hast made him whole,
Since we have lost our swine?
And Christ went sadly.
He had wrought for them a sign
Of Love, and Hope, and Tenderness divine;
They wanted--swine.
Christ stands without your door and gently knocks;
But if your gold, or swine, the entrance blocks,
He forces no man's hold--he will depart,
And leave you to the treasures of your heart.
No cumbered chamber will the Master share,
But one swept bare
By cleansing fires, then plenished fresh and fair
With meekness, and humility, and prayer.
There will He come, yet, coming, even there
He stands and waits, and will no entrance win
Until the latch be lifted from within.
A Sailor's Wife
by Matthew Prior

Quoth Richard in jest looking wistly at Nelly,
Methinks child you seem something round in the belly.
Nell answer'd him snappishly, how can that be,
When my husband has been more than two years at sea?
Thy husband! quoth Dick, why that matter was carried
Most secretly, Nell; I ne'er thought thou wert married.
Astrophel and Stella - Sonnet IX
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

Queen Virtues Court, which some call Stellaes face,
Prepar'd by Natures choicest furniture,
Hath his front built of alabaster pure;
Gold is the couering of that stately place.
The door, by which sometimes comes forth her grace,
Red porphir is, which locke of pearl makes sure,
Whose porches rich (which name of chekes indure)
Marble, mixt red and white, doe interlace.
The windowes now, through which this heau'nly guest
Looks ouer the world, and can find nothing such,
Which dare claime from those lights the name of best,
Of touch they are, that without touch do touch,
Which Cupids self, from Beauties mine did draw:
Of touch they are, and poore I am their straw.
To The Moon - Rydal
by William Wordsworth

Queen of the stars! so gentle, so benign,
That ancient Fable did to thee assign,
When darkness creeping o'er thy silver brow
Warned thee these upper regions to forego,
Alternate empire in the shades below 
A Bard, who, lately near the wide-spread sea
Traversed by gleaming ships, looked up to thee
With grateful thoughts, doth now thy rising hail
From the close confines of a shadowy vale.
Glory of night, conspicuous yet serene,
Nor less attractive when by glimpses seen
Through cloudy umbrage, well might that fair face,
And all those attributes of modest grace,
In days when Fancy wrought unchecked by fear,
Down to the green earth fetch thee from thy sphere,
To sit in leafy woods by fountains clear!
O still beloved (for thine, meek Power, are charms
That fascinate the very Babe in arms,
While he, uplifted towards thee, laughs outright,
Spreading his little palms in his glad Mother's sight)
O still beloved, once worshiped! Time, that frowns
In his destructive flight on earthly crowns,
Spares thy mild splendour; still those far-shot beams
Tremble on dancing waves and rippling streams
With stainless touch, as chaste as when thy praise
Was sung by Virgin-choirs in festal lays;
And through dark trials still dost thou explore
Thy way for increase punctual as of yore,
When teeming Matrons yielding to rude faith
In mysteries of birth and life and death
And painful struggle and deliverance prayed
Of thee to visit them with lenient aid.
What though the rites be swept away, the fanes
Extinct that echoed to the votive strains;
Yet thy mild aspect does not, cannot, cease
Love to promote and purity and peace;
And Fancy, unreproved, even yet may trace
Faint types of suffering in thy beamless face.
Then silent Monitress! let us not blind
To worlds unthought of till the searching mind
Of Science laid them open to mankind 
Told, also, how the voiceless heavens declare
God's glory; and acknowledging thy share
In that blest charge; let us without offense
To aught of highest, holiest, influence 
Receive whatever good 'tis given thee to dispense.
May sage and simple, catching with one eye
The moral intimations of the sky,
Learn from thy course, where'er their own be taken,
"To look on tempests, and be never shaken;"
To keep with faithful step the appointed way
Eclipsing or eclipsed, by night or day,
And from example of thy monthly range
Gently to brook decline and fatal change;
Meek, patient, steadfast, and with loftier scope,
Than thy revival yields, for gladsome hope!
Cactus Seed
by Lola Ridge

Radiant notes
piercing my narrow-chested room,
beating down through my ceiling - 
smeared with unshapen
belly-prints of dreams
drifted out of old smokes - 
trillions of icily
peltering notes
out of just one canary,
all grown to song
as a plant to its stalk,
from too long craning at a sky-light
and a square of second-hand blue.
Silvery-strident throat - 
so assiduously serenading my brain,
flinching under
the glittering hail of your notes - 
were you not safe behind... rats know what thickness of... plastered wall...
I might fathom
your golden delirium
with throttle of finger and thumb
shutting valve of bright song.
II
But if... away off... on a fork of grassed earth
socketing an inlet reach of blue water...
if canaries (do they sing out of cages?)
flung such luminous notes,
they would sink in the spirit...
lie germinal...
housed in the soul as a seed in the earth...
to break forth at spring with the crocuses into young smiles
on the mouth.
Or glancing off buoyantly,
radiate notes in one key
with the sparkle of rain-drops
on the petal of a cactus flower
focusing the just-out sun.
Cactus... why cactus?
God... God...
somewhere... away off...
cactus flowers, star-yellow
ray out of spiked green,
and empties of sky
roll you over and over
like a mother her baby in long grass.
And only the wind scandal-mongers with gum trees,
pricking multiple leaves
at his amazing story.
Rahere
by Rudyard Kipling

Rahere, King Henry's jester, feared by all the Norman Lords
For his eye that pierced their bosoms, for his tongue that shamed their swords;
Feed and flattered by the Churchmen, well they knew how deep he stood
In dark Henry's crooked counsels, fell upon an evil mood.
Suddenly, his days before him and behind him seemed to stand
Stripped and barren, fixed and fruitless, as those leagues of naked sand
When St. Michael's ebb slinks outward to the bleak horizon-bound,
And the trampling wide-mouthed waters are withdrawn from sight and sound.
Then a Horror of Great Darkness sunk his spirit and, anon,
(Who had seen him wince and whiten as he turned to walk alone)
Followed Gilbert the Physician, and muttered in his ear,
'Thou hast it, O my brother?' 'Yea, I have it,' said Rahere.
'So it comes,' said Gilbert smoothly, 'man's most immanent distress.
'Tis a humour of the Spirit which abhorreth all excess;
And, whatever breed the surfeit, Wealth, or Wit, or Power, or Fame
(And thou hast each) the Spirit laboureth to expel the same.
'Hence the dulled eye's deep self-loathing hence the loaded leaden brow;
Hence the burden of Wanhope that aches thy soul and body now.
Ay, the merriest fool must face it, and the wisest Doctor learn;
For it comes, it comes,' said Gilbert, 'as it passes, to return.'
But Rahere was in his torment, and he wandered, dumb and far,
Till he came to reeking Smithfield where the crowded gallows are,
(Followed Gilbert the Physician) and beneath the wry-necked dead,
Sat a leper and his woman, very merry, breaking bread.
He was cloaked from chin to ankle, faceless, fingerless, obscene
Mere corruption swaddled man-wise, but the woman whole and clean;
And she waited on him crooning, and Rahere beheld the twain,
Each delighting in the other, and he checked and groaned again.
'So it comes,, it comes,' said Gilbert, 'as it came when Life began.
'Tis a motion of the Spirit that revealeth God to man
In the shape of Love exceeding, which regards not taint or fall,
Since in perfect Love, saith Scripture, can be no excess at all.
'Hence the eye that sees no blemish, hence the hour that holds no shame.
Hence the Soul assured the Essence and the Substance are the same.
Nay, the meanest need not miss it, though the mightier pass it by;
For it comes, it comes,' said Gilbert, 'and, thou seest, it does not die!'
Billy Of Queensland
by Henry Lawson

Queensland,' he heads his letters, that's all:
The date, and the month, and the year in brief;
He often sends me a cheerful scrawl,
With an undertone of ancient grief.
The first seems familiar, but might have changed,
As often the writing of wanderers will;
He seems all over the world to have ranged,
And he signs himself William, or Billy, or Bill.
He might have been an old mate of mine,
A shearer, or one of the station hands.
(There were some of 'em died, who drop me a line,
Signing other names, and in other hands.
There was one who carried his swag with me
On the western tracks, when the world was young,
And now he is spouting democracy
In another land with another tongue.)
He cheers me up like an old mate, quite,
And swears at times like an old mate, too;
(Perhaps he knows that I never write
Except to say that I'm going to).
He says he is tired of telling lies
For a Blank he knows for a Gory Scamp,
But, I note the tone where the sunset dies
On the Outside Track or the cattle camp.
Who are you, Billy? But never mind,
Come to think of it, I forgot,
There were so many in days behind,
And all so true that it matters not.
It may be out in the Mulga scrub,
In the southern seas, or a London street,
(I hope it's close to a bar or pu ,
But I have a feeling that we shall meet.
Andr' Le Chapelain.
by Henry Austin Dobson

(Clerk of Love, 1170.)
His Plaint To Venus Of The Coming Years.
"Plus ne suis ce que j'ay est'
Et ne le s'aurois jamais estre;
Mon beau printemps et mon est'
Ont fait le saut par la fenestre."
Queen Venus, round whose feet,
To tend thy sacred fire,
With service bitter-sweet
Nor youths nor maidens tire;--
Goddess, whose bounties be
Large as the un-oared sea;--
Mother, whose eldest born
First stirred his stammering tongue,
In the world's youngest morn,
When the first daisies sprung:--
Whose last, when Time shall die,
In the same grave shall lie:--
Hear thou one suppliant more!
Must I, thy Bard, grow old,
Bent, with the temples frore,
Not jocund be nor bold,
To tune for folk in May
Ballad and virelay?
Shall the youths jeer and jape,
"Behold his verse doth dote,--
Leave thou Love's lute to scrape,
And tune thy wrinkled throat
To songs of 'Flesh is Grass,'"--
Shall they cry thus and pass?
And the sweet girls go by?
"Beshrew the grey-beard's tune!--
What ails his minstrelsy
To sing us snow in June!"
Shall they too laugh, and fleet
Far in the sun-warmed street?
But Thou, whose beauty bright,
Upon thy wooded hill,
With ineffectual light
The wan sun seeketh still;--
Woman, whose tears are dried,
Hardly, for Adon's side,--
Have pity, Erycine!
Withhold not all thy sweets;
Must I thy gifts resign
For Love's mere broken meats;
And suit for alms prefer
That was thine Almoner?
Must I, as bondsman, kneel
That, in full many a cause,
Have scrolled thy just appeal?
Have I not writ thy Laws?
That none from Love shall take
Save but for Love's sweet sake;--
That none shall aught refuse
To Love of Love's fair dues;--
That none dear Love shall scoff
Or deem foul shame thereof;--
That none shall traitor be
To Love's own secrecy;--
Avert,--avert it, Queen!
Debarred thy listed sports,
Let me at least be seen
An usher in thy courts,
Outworn, but still indued
With badge of servitude.
When I no more may go,
As one who treads on air,
To string-notes soft and slow,
By maids found sweet and fair--
When I no more may be
Of Love's blithe company;--
When I no more may sit
Within thine own pleas'nce,
To weave, in sentence fit,
Thy golden dalliance;
When other hands than these
Record thy soft decrees;--
Leave me at least to sing
About thine outer wall,
To tell thy pleasuring,
Thy mirth, thy festival;
Yea, let my swan-song be
Thy grace, thy sanctity.
[Here ended Andr''s words:
But One that writeth, saith--
Betwixt his stricken chords
He heard the Wheels of Death;
And knew the fruits Love bare
But Dead-Sea apples were.]
Quick! We Have But A Second.
by Thomas Moore

Quick! we have but a second,
Fill round the cup, while you may;
For Time, the churl, hath beckoned,
And we must away, away!
Grasp the pleasure that's flying,
For oh, not Orpheus' strain
Could keep sweet hours from dying,
Or charm them to life again.
Then, quick! we have but a second,
Fill round the cup while you may;
For Time, the churl, hath beckoned,
And we must away, away!
See the glass, how it flushes.
Like some young Hebe's lip,
And half meets thine, and blushes
That thou shouldst delay to sip.
Shame, oh shame unto thee,
If ever thou see'st that day,
When a cup or lip shall woo thee,
And turn untouched away!
Then, quick! we have but a second,
Fill round, fill round, while you may;
For Time, the churl, hath beckoned,
And we must away, away!
The Phantom Horsewoman
by Thomas Hardy

I
Queer are the ways of a man I know:
He comes and stands
In a careworn craze,
And looks at the sands
And the seaward haze,
With moveless hands
And face and gaze,
Then turns to go . . .
And what does he see when he gazes so?
II
They say he sees as an instant thing
More clear than to-day,
A sweet soft scene
That once was in play
By that briny green;
Yes, notes alway
Warm, real, and keen,
What his back years bring -
A phantom of his own figuring.
III
Of this vision of his they might say more:
Not only there
Does he see this sight,
But everywhere
In his brain day, night,
As if on the air
It were drawn rose bright -
Yea, far from that shore
Does he carry this vision of heretofore:
IV
A ghost-girl-rider. And though, toil-tried,
He withers daily,
Time touches her not,
But she still rides gaily
In his rapt thought
On that shagged and shaly
Atlantic spot,
And as when first eyed
Draws rein and sings to the swing of the tide.
To Betty, The Grisette
by Jonathan Swift

Queen of wit and beauty, Betty,
Never may the Muse forget ye,
How thy face charms every shepherd,
Spotted over like a leopard!
And thy freckled neck, display'd,
Envy breeds in every maid;
Like a fly-blown cake of tallow,
Or on parchment ink turn'd yellow;
Or a tawny speckled pippin,
Shrivell'd with a winter's keeping.
And, thy beauty thus dispatch'd,
Let me praise thy wit unmatch'd.
Sets of phrases, cut and dry,
Evermore thy tongue supply;
And thy memory is loaded
With old scraps from plays exploded;
Stock'd with repartees and jokes,
Suited to all Christian folks:
Shreds of wit, and senseless rhymes,
Blunder'd out a thousand times;
Nor wilt thou of gifts be sparing,
Which can ne'er be worse for wearing.
Picking wit among collegians,
In the playhouse upper regions;
Where, in the eighteen-penny gallery,
Irish nymphs learn Irish raillery.
But thy merit is thy failing,
And thy raillery is railing.
Thus with talents well endued
To be scurrilous and rude;
When you pertly raise your snout,
Fleer and gibe, and laugh and flout;
This among Hibernian asses
For sheer wit and humour passes.
Thus indulgent Chloe, bit,
Swears you have a world of wit.
Qui Vive?
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Qui vive?" The sentry's musket rings,
The channelled bayonet gleams;
High o'er him, like a raven's wings
The broad tricolored banner flings
Its shadow, rustling as it swings
Pale in the moonlight beams;
Pass on! while steel-clad sentries keep
Their vigil o'er the monarch's sleep,
Thy bare, unguarded breast
Asks not the unbroken, bristling zone
That girds yon sceptred trembler's throne; - 
Pass on, and take thy rest!
"Qui vive?" How oft the midnight air
That startling cry has borne!
How oft the evening breeze has fanned
The banner of this haughty land,
O'er mountain snow and desert sand,
Ere yet its folds were torn!
Through Jena's carnage flying red,
Or tossing o'er Marengo's dead,
Or curling on the towers
Where Austria's eagle quivers yet,
And suns the ruffled plumage, wet
With battle's crimson showers!
"Qui vive?" And is the sentry's cry, - 
The sleepless soldier's hand, - 
Are these - the painted folds that fly
And lift their emblems, printed high
On morning mist and sunset sky - 
The guardians of a land?
No! If the patriot's pulses sleep,
How vain the watch that hirelings keep,
The idle flag that waves,
When Conquest, with his iron heel,
Treads down the standards and the steel
That belt the soil of slaves!
Nursery Rhyme. CCCCI. Lullabies.
by Unknown

[From Yorkshire. A nursery-cry.]
Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit-Pie!
Come, my ladies, come and buy;
Else your babies they will cry.