DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Winds.
by William Cullen Bryant

I.
Ye winds, ye unseen currents of the air,
Softly ye played a few brief hours ago;
Ye bore the murmuring bee; ye tossed the hair
O'er maiden cheeks, that took a fresher glow;
Ye rolled the round white cloud through depths of blue;
Ye shook from shaded flowers the lingering dew;
Before you the catalpa's blossoms flew,
Light blossoms, dropping on the grass like snow.
II.
How are ye changed! Ye take the cataract's sound;
Ye take the whirlpool's fury and its might;
The mountain shudders as ye sweep the ground;
The valley woods lie prone beneath your flight.
The clouds before you shoot like eagles past;
The homes of men are rocking in your blast;
Ye lift the roofs like autumn leaves, and cast,
Skyward, the whirling fragments out of sight.
III.
The weary fowls of heaven make wing in vain,
To escape your wrath; ye seize and dash them dead.
Against the earth ye drive the roaring rain;
The harvest-field becomes a river's bed;
And torrents tumble from the hills around,
Plains turn to lakes, and villages are drowned,
And wailing voices, midst the tempest's sound,
Rise, as the rushing waters swell and spread.
IV.
Ye dart upon the deep, and straight is heard
A wilder roar, and men grow pale, and pray;
Ye fling its floods around you, as a bird
Flings o'er his shivering plumes the fountain's spray.
See! to the breaking mast the sailor clings;
Ye scoop the ocean to its briny springs,
And take the mountain billow on your wings,
And pile the wreck of navies round the bay.
V.
Why rage ye thus? no strife for liberty
Has made you mad; no tyrant, strong through fear,
Has chained your pinions till ye wrenched them free,
And rushed into the unmeasured atmosphere;
For ye were born in freedom where ye blow;
Free o'er the mighty deep to come and go;
Earth's solemn woods were yours, her wastes of snow,
Her isles where summer blossoms all the year.
VI.
O ye wild winds! a mightier Power than yours
In chains upon the shore of Europe lies;
The sceptred throng, whose fetters he endures,
Watch his mute throes with terror in their eyes:
And armed warriors all around him stand,
And, as he struggles, tighten every band,
And lift the heavy spear, with threatening hand,
To pierce the victim, should he strive to rise.
VII.
Yet oh, when that wronged Spirit of our race
Shall break, as soon he must, his long-worn chains,
And leap in freedom from his prison-place,
Lord of his ancient hills and fruitful plains,
Let him not rise, like these mad winds of air,
To waste the loveliness that time could spare,
To fill the earth with wo, and blot her fair
Unconscious breast with blood from human veins.
VIII.
But may he like the spring-time come abroad,
Who crumbles winter's gyves with gentle might,
When in the genial breeze, the breath of God,
Come spouting up the unsealed springs to light;
Flowers start from their dark prisons at his feet,
The woods, long dumb, awake to hymnings sweet,
And morn and eve, whose glimmerings almost meet,
Crowd back to narrow bounds the ancient night.
Lincoln
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
Yea, this is he, whose name is synonym
Of all that's noble, though but lowly born;
Who took command upon a stormy morn
When few had hope. Although uncouth of limb,
Homely of face and gaunt, but never grim,
Beautiful he was with that which none may scorn.
With love of God and man and things forlorn,
And freedom mighty as the soul in him.
Large at the helm of State he leans and looms
With the grave, kindly look of those who die
Doing their duty. Staunch, unswervingly
Onward he steers beneath portentous glooms,
And overwhelming thunders of the sky,
Till, safe in port, he sees a people free.
II.
Safe from the storm; the harbour-lights of Peace
Before his eyes; the burden of dark fears
Cast from him like a cloak; and in his ears
The heart-beat music of a great release,
Captain and pilot, back upon the seas,
Whose wrath he'd weathered, back he looks with tears,
Seeing no shadow of the Death that nears,
Stealthy and sure, with sudden agonies.
So let him stand, brother to every man,
Ready for toil or battle; he who held
A Nation's destinies within his hand:
Type of our greatness; first American,
By whom the hearts of all men are compelled,
And with whose name Freedom unites our Land.
III.
He needs no praise of us, who wrought so well,
Who has the Master's praise; who at his post
Stood to the last. Yet, now, from coast to coast,
Let memory of him peal like some great bell.
Of him as woodsman, workman let it tell!
Of him as lawyer, statesman, without boast!
And for what qualities we love him most,
And recollections that no time can quell.
He needs no praise of us, yet let us praise,
Albeit his simple soul we may offend,
That liked not praise, being most diffident.
Still let us praise him, praise him in such ways
As his were, and in words, that shall transcend
Marble, and outlast any monument.
The Sons Of Old Killie.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "Shawnboy."
I.
Ye sons of old Killie, assembled by Willie,
To follow the noble vocation;
Your thrifty old mother has scarce such another
To sit in that honoured station.
I've little to say, but only to pray,
As praying's the ton of your fashion;
A prayer from the muse you well may excuse,
'Tis seldom her favourite passion.
II.
Ye powers who preside o'er the wind and the tide,
Who marked each element's border;
Who formed this frame with beneficent aim,
Whose sovereign statute is order;
Within this dear mansion, may wayward contention
Or withered envy ne'er enter;
May secrecy round be the mystical bound,
And brotherly love be the centre.
On The Platonic 'Ideal' As It Was Understood By Aristotle.
by William Cowper

Ye sister Pow'rs who o'er the sacred groves
Preside, and, Thou, fair mother of them all
Mnemosyne,[1] and thou, who in thy grot
Immense reclined at leisure, hast in charge
The Archives and the ord'nances of Jove,
And dost record the festivals of heav'n,
Eternity!--Inform us who is He,
That great Original by Nature chos'n
To be the Archetype of Human-kind,
Unchangeable, Immortal, with the poles
Themselves coaeval, One, yet ev'rywhere,
An image of the god, who gave him Being?
Twin-brother of the Goddess born from Jove,[2]
He dwells not in his Father's mind, but, though
Of common nature with ourselves, exists
Apart, and occupies a local home.
Whether, companion of the stars, he spend
Eternal ages, roaming at his will
From sphere to sphere the tenfold heav'ns, or dwell
On the moon's side that nearest neighbours Earth,
Or torpid on the banks of Lethe[3] sit
Among the multitude of souls ordair'd
To flesh and blood, or whether (as may chance)
That vast and giant model of our kind
In some far-distant region of this globe
Sequester'd stalk, with lifted head on high
O'ertow'ring Atlas, on whose shoulders rest
The stars, terrific even to the Gods.
Never the Theban Seer,[4] whose blindness proved
His best illumination, Him beheld
In secret vision; never him the son
Of Pleione,[5] amid the noiseless night
Descending, to the prophet-choir reveal'd;
Him never knew th'Assyrian priest,[6] who yet
The ancestry of Ninus[7] chronicles,
And Belus, and Osiris far-renown'd;
Nor even Thrice-great Hermes,[7] although skill'd
So deep in myst'ry, to the worshippers
Of Isis show'd a prodigy like Him.
And thou,[8] who hast immortalized the shades
Of Academus, if the school received
This monster of the Fancy first from Thee,
Either recall at once the banish'd bards
To thy Republic, or, thyself evinc'd
A wilder Fabulist, go also forth.
Gunnar's Howe Above The House At Lithend.
by William Morris

Ye who have come o'er the sea
to behold this grey minster of lands,
Whose floor is the tomb of time past,
and whose walls by the toil of dead hands
Show pictures amidst of the ruin
of deeds that have overpast death,
Stay by this tomb in a tomb
to ask of who lieth beneath.
Ah! the world changeth too soon,
that ye stand there with unbated breath,
As I name him that Gunnar of old,
who erst in the haymaking tide
Felt all the land fragrant and fresh,
as amidst of the edges he died.
Too swiftly fame fadeth away,
if ye tremble not lest once again
The grey mound should open and show him
glad-eyed without grudging or pain.
Little labour methinks to behold him
but the tale-teller laboured in vain.
Little labour for ears that may hearken
to hear his death-conquering song,
Till the heart swells to think of the gladness
undying that overcame wrong.
O young is the world yet meseemeth
and the hope of it flourishing green,
When the words of a man unremembered
so bridge all the days that have been,
As we look round about on the land
that these nine hundred years he hath seen.
Dusk is abroad on the grass
of this valley amidst of the hill:
Dusk that shall never be dark
till the dawn hard on midnight shall fill
The trench under Eyiafell's snow,
and the grey plain the sea meeteth grey.
White, high aloft hangs the moon
that no dark night shall brighten ere day,
For here day and night toileth the summer
lest deedless his time pass away.
The Village Atheist
by Edgar Lee Masters

Ye young debaters over the doctrine
Of the soul's immortality
I who lie here was the village atheist,
Talkative, contentious, versed in the arguments
Of the infidels. But through a long sickness
Coughing myself to death I read the
Upanishads and the poetry of Jesus.
And they lighted a torch of hope and intuition
And desire which the Shadow
Leading me swiftly through the caverns of darkness,
Could not extinguish.
Listen to me, ye who live in the senses
And think through the senses only:
Immortality is not a gift,
Immortality is an achievement;
And only those who strive mightily
Shall possess it.
Lilith
by Madison Julius Cawein

Yea, there are some who always seek
The love that lasts an hour;
And some who in love's language speak,
Yet never know his power.
Of such was I, who knew not what
Sweet mysteries may rise
Within the heart when 't is its lot
To love and realize.
Of such was I, ah me! till, lo,
Your face on mine did gleam,
And changed that world, I used to know,
Into an evil dream.
That world wherein, on hill and plain,
Great blood-red poppies bloomed,
Their hot hearts thirsty for the rain,
And sleepily perfumed.
Above, below, on every part
A crimson shadow lay,
As if the red sun streamed athwart
And sunset was alway.
I know not how, I know not when,
I only know that there
She met me in the haunted glen,
A poppy in her hair.
Her face seemed fair as Mary's is,
That knows no sin or wrong;
Her presence filled the silences
As music fills a song.
And she was clad like the Mother of God,
As 't were for Christ's sweet sake,
But when she moved and where she trod
A hiss went of a snake.
Though seeming sinless, till I die
I shall not know for sure
Why to my soul she seemed a lie
And otherwise than pure.
Nor why I kissed her soon and late
And for her felt desire,
While loathing of her passion ate
Into my soul like fire.
Was it because my soul could tell
That, like the poppy-flower,
She had no soul? a thing of Hell,
That o'er it had no power.
Or was it that your love at last
My soul so long had craved,
From the sweet sin that held me fast
At that last moment saved?
My Rights.
by Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncey Woolsey)

Yes, God has made me a woman,
And I am content to be
Just what He meant, not reaching out
For other things, since He
Who knows me best and loves me most has ordered this for me.
A woman, to live my life out
In quiet womanly ways,
Hearing the far-off battle,
Seeing as through a haze
The crowding, struggling world of men fight through their busy days.
I am not strong or valiant,
I would not join the fight
Or jostle with crowds in the highways
To sully my garments white;
But I have rights as a woman, and here I claim my right.
The right of a rose to bloom
In its own sweet, separate way,
With none to question the perfumed pink
And none to utter a nay
If it reaches a root or points, a thorn, as even a rose-tree may.
The right of the lady-birch to grow,
To grow as the Lord shall please,
By never a sturdy oak rebuked,
Denied nor sun nor breeze,
For all its pliant slenderness, kin to the stronger trees.
The right to a life of my own,--
Not merely a casual bit
Of somebody else's life, flung out
That, taking hold of it,
I may stand as a cipher does after a numeral writ.
The right to gather and glean
What food I need and can
From the garnered store of knowledge
Which man has heaped for man,
Taking with free hands freely and after an ordered plan.
The right--ah, best and sweetest!--
To stand all undismayed
Whenever sorrow or want or sin
Call for a woman's aid,
With none to call or question, by never a look gainsaid.
I do not ask for a ballot;
Though very life were at stake,
I would beg for the nobler justice
That men for manhood's sake
Should give ungrudgingly, nor withhold till I must fight and take.
The fleet foot and the feeble foot
Both seek the self-same goal,
The weakest soldier's name is writ
On the great army-roll,
And God, who made man's body strong, made too the woman's soul
Droggie.
by David Rorie M.D.

Yersel' is't? Imphm! Man that's bad!
A kin' o' thinness o' the blude?
Gaed aff las' nicht intil a dwam?
Keep's a'! But that's rale nesty, Tam!
An' lossin' taste noo for the dram?
(An' may it dae ye muckle gude!)
Noo! See the libel! "Thrice a day
A tablespunefu' efter food."
Drogues is nae better than they're ca'ed?
Some drumlie-like? Losh! ye're a lad!
The taste'll be byordnar' bad?
(An' may it dae ye muckle gude!)
Weel, here's your mixtur'-auchteen pence,
I'd mak' it cheaper gin I could.
For beast or body maist fowk ken
Best's cheapest at the hin'er en',
An' on my drogues ye may depen'.
(An' may they dae ye muckle gude!)
Forgot your siller? Hae ye though?
Ye're in a richt forgetfu' mood!
Gie't ye on tick? I ken ye fine?
An' whustle on my fingers, syne!
Lat's see that bottle! Here's your line!
(An' may it dae ye muckle gude!)
Distant View Of England From The Sea
by William Lisle Bowles

Yes! from mine eyes the tears unbidden start,
As thee, my country, and the long-lost sight
Of thy own cliffs, that lift their summits white
Above the wave, once more my beating heart
With eager hope and filial transport hails!
Scenes of my youth, reviving gales ye bring,
As when erewhile the tuneful morn of spring
Joyous awoke amidst your hawthorn vales,
And filled with fragrance every village lane:
Fled are those hours, and all the joys they gave!
Yet still I gaze, and count each rising wave
That bears me nearer to my home again;
If haply, 'mid those woods and vales so fair,
Stranger to Peace, I yet may meet her there.
Departed Days
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Yes, dear departed, cherished days,
Could Memory's hand restore
Your morning light, your evening rays,
From Time's gray urn once more,
Then might this restless heart be still,
This straining eye might close,
And Hope her fainting pinions fold,
While the fair phantoms rose.
But, like a child in ocean's arms,
We strive against the stream,
Each moment farther from the shore
Where life's young fountains gleam;
Each moment fainter wave the fields,
And wider rolls the sea;
The mist grows dark, - the sun goes down, - 
Day breaks, - and where are we?
The Crown Of Years
by Robert Fuller Murray

Years grow and gather--each a gem
Lustrous with laughter and with tears,
And cunning Time a crown of years
Contrives for her who weareth them.
No chance can snatch this diadem,
It trembles not with hopes or fears,
It shines before the rose appears,
And when the leaves forsake her stem.
Time sets his jewels one by one.
Then wherefore mourn the wreaths that lie
In attic chambers of the past?
They withered ere the day was done.
This coronal will never die,
Nor shall you lose it at the last.
Anselmo
by James Whitcomb Riley

Years did I vainly seek the good Lord's grace,
Prayed, fasted, and did penance dire and dread;
Did kneel, with bleeding knees and rainy face,
And mouth the dust, with ashes on my head;
Yea, still with knotted scourge the flesh I flayed,
Rent fresh the wounds, and moaned and shrieked insanely;
And froth oozed with the pleadings that I made,
And yet I prayed on vainly, vainly, vainly!
A time, from out of swoon I lifted eye,
To find a wretched outcast, gray and grim,
Bathing my brow, with many a pitying sigh,
And I did pray God's grace might rest on him.
Then, lo! A gentle voice fell on mine ears -
"Thou shalt not sob in suppliance hereafter;
Take up thy prayers and wring them dry of tears,
And lift them, white and pure with love and laughter!"
So is it now for all men else I pray;
So is it I am blest and glad alway.
The Sunday Children.
by Friedrich Schiller

Years has the master been laboring, but always without satisfaction;
To an ingenious race 'twould be in vision conferred.
What they yesterday learned, to-day they fain would be teaching:
Small compassion, alas, is by those gentlemen shown!
Fragment
by Anne Bronte

Yes I will take a cheerful tone
And feign to share their heartless glee,
But I would rather weep alone
Than laugh amid their revelry.
Answer To Cloe Jealous. The Author Sick
by Matthew Prior

Yes, fairest Proof of Beauty's Pow'r,
Dear Idol of My panting Heart,
Nature points This my fatal Hour:
And I have liv'd; and We must part.
While now I take my last Adieu,
Heave Thou no Sigh, nor shed a Tear;
Lest yet my half-clos'd Eye may view
On Earth an Object worth it's Care.
From Jealousy's tormenting Strife
For ever be Thy Bosom free'd:
That nothing may disturb Thy Life,
Content I hasten to the Dead.
Yet when some better-fated Youth
Shall with his am'rous Parly move Thee;
Reflect One Moment on His Truth,
Who dying Thus, persists to love Thee.
Odes Of Anacreon - Ode XLII.
by Thomas Moore

[1]
Yes, be the glorious revel mine,
Where humor sparkles from the wine.
Around me, let the youthful choir
Respond to my enlivening lyre;
And while the red cup foams along,
Mingle in soul as well as song.
Then, while I sit, with flowerets crowned,
To regulate the goblets round.
Let but the nymph, our banquet's pride,
Be seated smiling by my side,
And earth has not a gift or power
That I would envy, in that hour.
Envy!--oh never let its blight
Touch the gay hearts met here tonight.
Far hence be slander's sidelong wounds,
Nor harsh dispute, nor discord's sounds
Disturb a scene, where all should be
Attuned to peace and harmony.
Come, let us hear the harp's gay note
Upon the breeze inspiring float,
While round us, kindling into love,
Young maidens through the light dance move.
Thus blest with mirth, and love, and peace,
Sure such a life should never cease!
The Lady's Yes
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"Yes!" I answered you last night;
"No!" this morning, Sir, I say!
Colours, seen by candle-light,
Will not look the same by day.
When the tabors played their best,
Lamps above, and laughs below
Love me sounded like a jest,
Fit for Yes or fit for No!
Call me false, or call me free
Vow, whatever light may shine,
No man on your face shall see
Any grief for change on mine.
Yet the sin is on us both
Time to dance is not to woo
Wooer light makes fickle troth
Scorn of me recoils on you!
Learn to win a lady's faith
Nobly, as the thing is high;
Bravely, as for life and death
With a loyal gravity.
Lead her from the festive boards,
Point her to the starry skies,
Guard her, by your truthful words,
Pure from courtship's flatteries.
By your truth she shall be true
Ever true, as wives of yore
And her Yes, once said to you,
SHALL be Yes for evermore.
George Washington
by William F. Kirk

Yeorge Vashington ban honest man.
Ven dis har country first began,
Yeorge ban a yen'ral, and yu bet
Dese English fallers know it yet.
Ven he ban small, his fader say,
"Ef yu skol breng in vood to-day,
And feeding cow and chickens, tu,
Ay skol yust blow myself on yu."
Val, sure enuff, ven Yeorge du chore,
His fader hike for hardvare store,
And buy gude hatchet, only it
Ban second-hand a little bit.
Dar ban on edge some little dents,
It ban marked down to saxty cents.
He pay sax cents to sharpen axe,
And so it cost him saxty-sax.
He tak it home to Yeorgie, tu,
And say, "Ay ant ban fuling you."
Next day Yeorge tak dis hatchet out,
And start to rubber all about
For someteng he can chop, yu see,
And den he pipe nice cherry-tree.
"By Yudas! Dis ban soft!" say he.
"Ef dis har axe ban any gude,
Dis tree skol sune ban kindling vood."
So Yeorge give cherry-tree gude whack,
And sveng dis axe lak lumberyack;
And yust ven tree ban falling down,
His fader coming back from town.
Yeorge see old yent ban standing dar,
Smoking gude fifteen-cent cigar;
And so he say: "Val, holy yee!
Ay guess the yig ban op vith me.
Dear fader, AY chopped down dis tree!"
Dar ban gude moral har for youth:
Ven lie ban fulish, tal the truth!
Nursery Rhyme. XCVII. Proverbs.
by Unknown

[In Suffolk, children are frequently reminded of the decorum due to the Sabbath by the following lines.]
Yeow mussent sing a' Sunday,
Becaze it is a sin,
But yeow may sing a' Monday
Till Sunday cums agin.
Yes! Thou Art Fair, Yet Be Not Moved
by William Wordsworth

Yes! thou art fair, yet be not moved
To scorn the declaration,
That sometimes I in thee have loved
My fancy's own creation.
Imagination needs must stir;
Dear Maid, this truth believe,
Minds that have nothing to confer
Find little to perceive.
Be pleased that nature made thee fit
To feed my heart's devotion,
By laws to which all Forms submit
In sky, air, earth, and ocean.
Epigram - Yes, Every Poet Is A Fool
by Matthew Prior

Yes, every poet is a fool;
By demonstration, Ned can show it:
Happy could Ned's inverted rule
Prove every fool to be a poet.
The American Girls.
by A. H. Laidlaw

Yes! The land we love
Is a land of pretty girls,
In grand variety;
With their many colored eyes
And their multi-colored curls,
They'll steal thy heart from thee.
If you travel in the North,
One will gleam in glory forth,
With her blue eyes, O, so blue!
And her flash of golden hair
Will be flirting in the air,
While entrancing all the soul in you.
Oho! My Boy! Oho!
Always for your weal and never for your woe,
Your little heart will gallop on the go,
And it will not give you rest
Within your manly breast,
Till you land yourself in toto at her toe.
Oho! My Boy! Oho!
If you travel in the South,
You will find a rosy mouth,
And a black eye, O so black!
And some strands of raven hair
Will purloin your heart just there,
And you'll never get the poor thing back.
Oho! My Boy! Oho! Etc.
If you travel in the East,
Your dear soul will have a feast
On a sweet eye, O so sweet!
And a most seductive curl
Will there give your heart a twirl
That will fling you at two queenly feet.
Oho! My Boy! Oho! Etc.
If you travel in the West,
One shy glance will pierce your breast
From a bright eye, O so bright!
And an auburn heaven of hair
Will so glorify the air,
You'll surrender all your soul at sight.
Oho! My Boy! Oho!
Always for your weal and never for your woe,
Your little heart will gallop on the go,
And it will not give you rest
Within your manly breast,
Till you land yourself in toto at her toe.
Oho! My Boy! Oho!
Thus, the land we love
Is a land of pretty girls,
In grand variety;
With their many colored eyes
And their multi-colored curls,
They'll steal thy heart from thee.