DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Ghost, The Gallant, The Gael, And The Goblin
by William Schwenck Gilbert

O'er unreclaimed suburban clays
Some years ago were hobblin'
An elderly ghost of easy ways,
And an influential goblin.
The ghost was a sombre spectral shape,
A fine old five-act fogy,
The goblin imp, a lithe young ape,
A fine low-comedy bogy.
And as they exercised their joints,
Promoting quick digestion,
They talked on several curious points,
And raised this delicate question:
"Which of us two is Number One
The ghostie, or the goblin?"
And o'er the point they raised in fun
They fairly fell a-squabblin'.
They'd barely speak, and each, in fine,
Grew more and more reflective:
Each thought his own particular line
By chalks the more effective.
At length they settled some one should
By each of them be haunted,
And so arrange that either could
Exert his prowess vaunted.
"The Quaint against the Statuesque"
By competition lawful
The goblin backed the Quaint Grotesque,
The ghost the Grandly Awful.
"Now," said the goblin, "here's my plan
In attitude commanding,
I see a stalwart Englishman
By yonder tailor's standing.
"The very fittest man on earth
My influence to try on
Of gentle, p'r'aps of noble birth,
And dauntless as a lion!
Now wrap yourself within your shroud
Remain in easy hearing
Observe you'll hear him scream aloud
When I begin appearing!
The imp with yell unearthly wild
Threw off his dark enclosure:
His dauntless victim looked and smiled
With singular composure.
For hours he tried to daunt the youth,
For days, indeed, but vainly
The stripling smiled! to tell the truth,
The stripling smiled inanely.
For weeks the goblin weird and wild,
That noble stripling haunted;
For weeks the stripling stood and smiled,
Unmoved and all undaunted.
The sombre ghost exclaimed, "Your plan
Has failed you, goblin, plainly:
Now watch yon hardy Hieland man,
So stalwart and ungainly.
"These are the men who chase the roe,
Whose footsteps never falter,
Who bring with them, where'er they go,
A smack of old SIR WALTER.
Of such as he, the men sublime
Who lead their troops victorious,
Whose deeds go down to after-time,
Enshrined in annals glorious!
"Of such as he the bard has said
'Hech thrawfu' raltie rorkie!
Wi' thecht ta' croonie clapperhead
And fash' wi' unco pawkie!'
He'll faint away when I appear,
Upon his native heather;
Or p'r'aps he'll only scream with fear,
Or p'r'aps the two together."
The spectre showed himself, alone,
To do his ghostly battling,
With curdling groan and dismal moan,
And lots of chains a-rattling!
But no the chiel's stout Gaelic stuff
Withstood all ghostly harrying;
His fingers closed upon the snuff
Which upwards he was carrying.
For days that ghost declined to stir,
A foggy shapeless giant
For weeks that splendid officer
Stared back again defiant.
Just as the Englishman returned
The goblin's vulgar staring,
Just so the Scotchman boldly spurned
The ghost's unmannered scaring.
For several years the ghostly twain
These Britons bold have haunted,
But all their efforts are in vain
Their victims stand undaunted.
This very day the imp, and ghost,
Whose powers the imp derided,
Stand each at his allotted post
The bet is undecided.
O'er The Wide Earth, On Mountain And On Plain
by William Wordsworth

O'er the wide earth, on mountain and on plain,
Dwells in the affections and the soul of man
A Godhead, like the universal PAN;
But more exalted, with a brighter train:
And shall his bounty be dispensed in vain,
Showered equally on city and on field,
And neither hope nor steadfast promise yield
In these usurping times of fear and pain?
Such doom awaits us. Nay, forbid it Heaven!
We know the arduous strife, the eternal laws
To which the triumph of all good is given,
High sacrifice, and labour without pause,
Even to the death: else wherefore should the eye
Of man converse with immortality?
O, a Beautiful Thing Is the Flower That Fadeth!
by Alfred Castner King

O, a beautiful thing is the flower that fadeth,
And perishing, smiles on the chill autumn wind;
A sweet desolation its ruin pervadeth,
A fragrant remembrance still lingers behind.
O, a beautiful thing is the glad consummation
Of a life that is upright, untarnished and pure;
That spirit, when freed from this earth's animation,
Shall live, as the heavens eternal endure!
Arms And The Man. - Nelson And The Gunners.
by James Barron Hope

O'er town, and works, and waves amain
Far fell grim Ruin's furious rain,
O'er parapet and mast,
And riding on the thunder-swell
Far flew the shot, far flew the shell
Red Havoc on the blast!
Then as the flashing cannon sowed
Their iron crop brave Nelson rode,
His bridle bit all foam,
Up to the gunners, and said he:
"Batter yon mansion down for me" - 
"Basement, and walls, and dome!"
And better to sharpen those gunners' wits,
"Five guineas," he cried, "for each shot that hits!" - 
That mansion was his home!
To John M'Murdo, Esq.
by Robert Burns

O, could I give thee India's wealth,
As I this trifle send!
Because thy joy in both would be
To share them with a friend.
But golden sands did never grace
The Heliconian stream;
Then take what gold could never buy,
An honest Bard's esteem.
New Year's Eve, 1913
by Gordon Bottomley

O, Cartmel bells ring soft to-night,
And Cartmel bells ring clear,
But I lie far away to-night,
Listening with my dear;
Listening in a frosty land
Where all the bells are still
And the small-windowed bell-towers stand
Dark under heath and hill.
I thought that, with each dying year,
As long as life should last
The bells of Cartmel I should hear
Ring out an aged past:
The plunging, mingling sounds increase
Darkness's depth and height,
The hollow valley gains more peace
And ancientness to-night:
The loveliness, the fruitfulness,
The power of life lived there
Return, revive, more closely press
Upon that midnight air.
But many deaths have place in men
Before they come to die;
Joys must be used and spent, and then
Abandoned and passed by.
Earth is not ours; no cherished space
Can hold us from life's flow,
That bears us thither and thence by ways
We knew not we should go.
O, Cartmel bells ring loud, ring clear,
Through midnight deep and hoar,
A year new-born, and I shall hear
The Cartmel bells no more.
Husband And Heathen
by Sam Walter Foss

O'er the men of Ethiopia she would pour her cornucopia,
And shower wealth and plenty on the people of Japan,
Send down jelly cake and candies to the Indians of the Andes,
And a cargo of plum pudding to the men of Hindoostan;
And she said she loved 'em so,
Bushman, Finn, and Eskimo.
If she had the wings of eagles to their succour she would fly
Loaded down with jam and jelly,
Succotash and vermicelli,
Prunes, pomegranates, plums and pudding, peaches, pineapples, and pie.
She would fly with speedy succour to the natives of Molucca
With whole loads of quail and salmon, and with tons of fricassee
And give cake in fullest measure
To the men of Australasia
And all the Archipelagoes that dot the southern sea;
And the Anthropophagi,
All their lives deprived of pie,
She would satiate and satisfy with custards, cream, and mince;
And those miserable Australians
And the Borrioboolighalians,
She would gorge with choicest jelly, raspberry, currant, grape, and quince.
But like old war-time hardtackers, her poor husband lived on crackers,
Bought at wholesale from a baker, eaten from the mantelshelf;
If the men of Madagascar,
And the natives of Alaska,
Had enough to sate their hunger, let him look out for himself.
And his coat had but one tail
And he used a shingle nail
To fasten up his galluses when he went out to his work;
And she used to spend his money
To buy sugar-plums and honey
For the Terra del Fuegian and the Turcoman and Turk.
The Olden Time.
by Walter R. Cassels

O! well I mind the olden time,
The sweet, sweet olden time;
When I did long for eve all day,
And watch'd upon the new-mown grass
The shadows slowly eastward pass,
And o'er the meadows glide away,
Till I could steal, with heart elate,
Unto the little cottage-gate,
In the sweet, sweet olden time.
O! well I mind the olden time,
The sweet, sweet olden time;
How all the night I long'd for morn,
And bless'd the thrush whose early note
The silver chords of silence smote
With greetings to the day new-born;
For then again, with heart elate,
I hoped to meet her at the gate,
In the sweet, sweet olden time.
But now hath pass'd the olden time,
That sweet, sweet olden time;
And there is neither morn nor night
That bears a freight of hopes and fears,
To bless my soul in coming years
With any harvest of delight;
For never more, with heart elate,
Can I behold her at the gate,
As in the sweet, sweet olden time.
For the sake of that dear olden time,
That sweet, sweet olden time,
I look forth ever sadly still,
And hope the time may come again,
When Life hath borne its meed of pain,
And stoutly struggled up the hill,
When I once more, with heart elate,
May meet her at _another_ gate,
Beyond the blighting breath of fate,
That chill'd the sweet, sweet olden time.
To Fancy
by Thomas Oldham

O! what a nameless feeling of delight
Stole o'er my wondering spirit, like a gleam
From opening heaven! dost thou, then, Fancy, deign
Once more to visit me? thou dost! thou dost!
That breath of extacy, that heavenly light,
Flow'd from the wafture of thy angel wings,
And from thy smiling eyes: divinest Power!
Welcome, thrice welcome! O vouchsafe to make
My breast thy temple, and my heart thy shrine!
Still will I worship thee, and thou shalt keep,
In peace, thy new abode, nor fear the approach
Of aught profane or hostile, to disturb
Thy holy mysteries; for I will chase
Far from the hallow'd precincts where thou dwell'st
Each worldly passion, every grovelling thought,
And all the train of Vice; striving to make
The shrine well-worthy its celestial guest.
Still will I worship thee, and oft invoke
Thine inspirations, and with transport yield
To thy sweet, magic influence all my soul:
The slightest breath of thine inspiring voice
Shall wake my nerves, most feelingly alive,
And bid them tremble with poetic bliss.
The frown of Reason thou no more shalt fear;
Did I say Reason's frown? no! 'twas the frown
Of false Philosophy, her foolish pride.
Reason and Thou are sisters, born to rule
Unitedly, in happiest harmony,
The mind of man; and in the heaven-sent hour
Of inspiration, from the self-same source
Ye pour the stream of mingled light and flame
That animates, illumes, and warms the soul.
How could I e'er desert thee, loveliest Nymph!
To court thy rival, false Philosophy?
How could I quit thy verdant, flowery walks,
To tread with painful toil the briary maze
Of metaphysic lore? Indulgent Power!
The offence forgive. Lured by the specious name,
Philosophy, and by her meteor rays
Misled, with fond presumptuousness I strove
To penetrate the dark, unfathom'd depth
Where Truth in awful mystery resides.
Not deigning in thy mirror to behold
Her image, though in loveliest beauty clad,
With lawless curiosity I sought
To view the Goddess in her naked form.
But heaven to man, nor angel gives to scan
Truth's very self; she lives for ever hid,
Shrined in the bosom of Divinity.
Long wandering mid the chaos, I at length
Approach'd the border of the cold, dark waste,
The bottomless abyss, the dreadful void
Of scepticism; affrighted, back I shrunk.
O Fancy! ne'er will I forsake thee more,
Nor view thee with severe, truth-searching eye,
Melting thy fairy visions into air.
Thy paradise, delighted, let me rove,
There study nature, and with grateful heart,
In thy serene, translucent stream behold
The light of truth reflected, and the smile
Of heaven's benevolence, and in that glass
The loveliness of every Virtue woo
And every Grace. There let me, too, behold
In all her beauty, bright-eyed Poesy,
That heavenly Maid who charm'd my youthful heart;
And let the love of glory fire my breast;
And let me see, to stimulate my powers,
The new-born crescent of my fame ascend,
While on its pointed horn the Fairy, Hope,
On tiptoe stands, fluttering her airy wings
To fan its beams and joyful hails the hour
When in its full-orb'd glory it shall shine.
Growth.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

O'Er field and plain, in childhood's artless days,
Thou sprang'st with me, on many a spring-morn fair.
"For such a daughter, with what pleasing care,
Would I, as father, happy dwellings raise!"
And when thou on the world didst cast thy gaze,
Thy joy was then in household toils to share.
"Why did I trust her, why she trust me e'er?
For such a sister, how I Heaven should praise!"
Nothing can now the beauteous growth retard;
Love's glowing flame within my breast is fann'd.
Shall I embrace her form, my grief to end?
Thee as a queen must I, alas, regard:
So high above me placed thou seem'st to stand;
Before a passing look I meekly bend.
The Sonnets XIII - O! that you were your self; but, love you are
by William Shakespeare

O! that you were your self; but, love you are
No longer yours, than you your self here live:
Against this coming end you should prepare,
And your sweet semblance to some other give:
So should that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination; then you were
Yourself again, after yourself's decease,
When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,
Which husbandry in honour might uphold,
Against the stormy gusts of winter's day
And barren rage of death's eternal cold?
O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,
You had a father: let your son say so.
Holmes.
by James McIntyre

O'er flowery fields full oft he roams,
The learned and pleasing genial Holmes.
Sonnet--Spring On The Alban Hills
by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

O'er the Campagna it is dim warm weather;
The Spring comes with a full heart silently,
And many thoughts; a faint flash of the sea
Divides two mists; straight falls the falling feather.
With wild Spring meanings hill and plain together
Grow pale, or just flush with a dust of flowers.
Rome in the ages, dimmed with all her towers,
Floats in the midst, a little cloud at tether.
I fain would put my hands about thy face,
Thou with thy thoughts, who art another Spring,
And draw thee to me like a mournful child.
Thou lookest on me from another place;
I touch not this day's secret, nor the thing
That in the silence makes thy sweet eyes wild.
The Domineering Eagle And The Inventive Bratling
by Guy Wetmore Carryl

O'er a small suburban borough
Once an eagle used to fly,
Making observations thorough
From his station in the sky,
And presenting the appearance
Of an animated V,
Like the gulls that lend coherence
Unto paintings of the sea.
Looking downward at a church in
This attractive little shire,
He beheld a smallish urchin
Shooting arrows at the spire;
In a spirit of derision,
"Look alive!" the eagle said;
And, with infinite precision,
Dropped a feather on his head.
Then the boy, annoyed distinctly
By the freedom of the bird,
Voiced his anger quite succinctly
In a single scathing word;
And he sat him on a barrow,
And he fashioned of this same
Eagle's feather such an arrow
As was worthy of the name.
Then he tried his bow, and, stringing
It with caution and with care,
Sent that arrow singing, winging
Towards the eagle in the air.
Straight it went, without an error,
And the target, bathed in blood,
Lurched, and lunged, and fell to terra
Firma, landing with a thud.
"Bird of freedom," quoth the urchin,
With an unrelenting frown,
"You shall decorate a perch in
The menagerie in town;
But of feathers quite a cluster
I shall first remove for Ma:
Thanks to you, she'll have a duster
For her precious objets d'art."
And THE MORAL is that pride is
The precursor of a fall.
Those beneath you to deride is
Not expedient at all.
Howsoever meek and humble
Your inferiors may be,
They perchance may make you tumble,
So respect them. Q. E. D.
Jock And Jean.
by A. H. Laidlaw

JOCK.
O'er the deep wi' me, lassie,
Will you, will you?
Sail the sounding sea, lassie,
Will you, will you?
Where the Sacramento flows,
'Twixt the peaks of sifted snows,
Past the fadeless Southron rose,
Sweeter than the heather-blows,
Lassie, lassie?
JEAN.
O'er the deep wi' thee, laddie,
Will I, will I,
Sail the sounding sea, laddie,
Will I, will I,
Whether rivers fail or flow,
Whether roses blanch or blow,
Where thou goest, I will go,
As your loving Jean, my Jo,
Laddie, laddie!
JOCK.
O'er the deep wi' me, lassie,
Will you, will you?
Sail the sounding sea, lassie,
Will you, will you?
Where the mountains, crowned with pine,
Dipping to the western brine,
Shade, with everlasting vine,
Golden grape and countless kine,
Lassie, lassie?
JEAN.
O'er the deep wi' thee, laddie,
Will I, will I,
Sail the sounding sea, laddie,
Will I, will I,
Whether mountains dip or bear
Heavenward through our future air,
Princely feast or peasant fare,
What thou darest, I will dare,
Laddie, laddie!
JOCK.
O'er the deep wi' me, lassie,
Will you, will you?
Sail the sounding sea, lassie,
Will you, will you?
Where the lambies, on the braes,
Gambol in the golden haze,
And the solar disc delays
Heaven throughout the happy days,
Lassie, lassie?
JEAN.
O'er the deep wi' thee, laddie,
Will I, will I,
Sail the sounding sea, laddie,
Will I, will I,
Wheresoe'er thy feet delay,
Drenched in rain or golden spray,
To the end of life's long day,
I will love thee as I say,
Laddie, laddie!
JOCK AND JEAN.
O'er the deep wi' thee, dearie,
Will I, will I,
Sail the sounding sea, dearie,
Will I, will I,
'Neath the starred or starless sky,
Heaven is where the heart beats high,
With a love that cannot die;
So we wander, you and I,
Dearie, dearie!
A Meeting
by Bj'rnstjerne Martinius Bj'rnson

(See Note 71)
... O'er uplands fresh swift sped my sleigh ...
A light snow fell; along the way
Stood firs and birches slender.
The former pondered deep, alone,
The latter laughed, their white boughs shone; - 
All brings a picture tender.
So light and free is now the air;
Of all its burdens stripped it bare
The snow with playful sally.
I glimpse behind its veil so thin
A landscape gay, and high within
A snow-peak o'er the valley.
But from the border white and brown,
Where'er I look, there's peeping down
A face ... but whose, whose is it?
I bore my gaze 'neath cap and brim
And see the snowflakes swarm and swim; - 
Will some one here me visit?
A star fell on my glove ... right here ...
And here again ... its unlike peer; ...
They will with riddles pose me.
And smiles that in the air abound
From eyes so good ... I look around ...
'T is memory besnows me.
The stars spin fine their filigree,
Can hidden spirits in it be?
There haunts me something awing ...
You finer birch, you snow unstained,
You purer air, - a soul you've gained?
Who is it here now drawing
His features dear in nature's face,
In all this fascinating grace,
In falling stars that cheat me, - 
In these white gleams that finely glance,
In all this silent rhythmic dance? ...
Hans Brecke! - comes to meet me.
To M--
by Edgar Allan Poe

O! I care not that my earthly lot
Hath little of Earth in it,
That years of love have been forgot
In the fever of a minute:
I heed not that the desolate
Are happier, sweet, than I,
But that you meddle with my fate
Who am a passer by.
It is not that my founts of bliss
Are gushing, strange! with tears,
Or that the thrill of a single kiss
Hath palsied many years,
'Tis not that the flowers of twenty springs
Which have wither'd as they rose
Lie dead on my heart-strings
With the weight of an age of snows.
Not that the grass, O! may it thrive!
On my grave is growing or grown,
But that, while I am dead yet alive
I cannot be, lady, alone.
Exmoor Verses III. Dereliction
by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

O'er the tears that we shed, dear
The bitter vines twist,
And the hawk and the red deer
They keep where we kiss'd:
All broken lies the shieling
That sheltered from rain,
With a star to pierce the ceiling,
And the dawn an empty pane.
Thro' the mist, up the moorway,
Fade hunters and pack;
From the ridge to thy doorway
Happy voices float back ...
O, between the threads o' mist, love,
Reach your hands from the house.
Only mind that we kiss'd, love,
And forget the broken vows!
The Outlaw
by Walter Scott (Sir)

O, Brignall banks are wild and fair,
And Greta woods are green,
And you may gather garlands there,
Would grace a summer queen:
And as I rode by Dalton Hall,
Beneath the turrets high,
A Maiden on the castle wall
Was singing merrily:
'O, Brignall banks are fresh and fair,
And Greta woods are green!
I'd rather rove with Edmund there
Than reign our English Queen.'
'If, Maiden, thou wouldst wend with me
To leave both tower and town,
Thou first must guess what life lead we,
That dwell by dale and down:
And if thou canst that riddle read,
As read full well you may,
Then to the green-wood shalt thou speed
As blithe as Queen of May.'
Yet sung she, 'Brignall banks are fair,
And Greta woods are green!
I'd rather rove with Edmund there
Than reign our English Queen.
'I read you by your bugle horn
And by your palfrey good,
I read you for a Ranger sworn
To keep the King's green-wood.'
'A Ranger, Lady, winds his horn,
And 'tis at peep of light;
His blast is heard at merry morn,
And mine at dead of night.'
Yet sung she, 'Brignall banks are fair,
And Greta woods are gay!
I would I were with Edmund there,
To reign his Queen of May!
'With burnish'd brand and musketoon
So gallantly you come,
I read you for a bold Dragoon,
That lists the tuck of drum.'
'I list no more the tuck of drum,
No more the trumpet hear;
But when the beetle sounds his hum,
My comrades take the spear.
'And O! though Brignall banks be fair,
And Greta woods be gay,
Yet mickle must the maiden dare,
Would reign my Queen of May!
'Maiden! a nameless life I lead,
A nameless death I'll die;
The fiend whose lantern lights the mead
Were better mate than I!
And when I'm with my comrades met
Beneath the green-wood bough,
What once we were we all forget,
Nor think what we are now.'
Chorus
Yet Brignall banks are fresh and fair,
And Greta woods are green,
And you may gather flowers there
Would grace a summer queen.
The Sonnets LXXII - O! lest the world should task you to recite
by William Shakespeare

O! lest the world should task you to recite
What merit lived in me, that you should love
After my death, dear love, forget me quite,
For you in me can nothing worthy prove;
Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,
To do more for me than mine own desert,
And hang more praise upon deceased I
Than niggard truth would willingly impart:
O! lest your true love may seem false in this
That you for love speak well of me untrue,
My name be buried where my body is,
And live no more to shame nor me nor you.
For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,
And so should you, to love things nothing worth.
O' Lyric Love
by Robert Browning

O' Lyric Love, half angel and half bird,
And all a wonder and a wild desire,
Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun,
Took sanctuary within the holier blue,
And sang a kindred soul out to his face,
Yet human at the red-ripe of the heart
When the first summons from the darkling earth
Reached thee amid thy chambers, blanched their blue,
And bared them of the glory to drop down,
To toil for man, to suffer or to die,
This is the same voice: can thy soul know change?
Hail then, and hearken from the realms of help!
Never may I commence my song, my due
To God who best taught song by gift of thee,
Except with bent head and beseeching hand
That still, despite the distance and the dark,
What was, again may be; some interchange
Of grace, some splendor once thy very thought,
Some benediction anciently thy smile:
Never conclude, but raising hand and head
Thither where eyes, that cannot reach, yet yearn
For all hope, all sustainment, all reward,
Their upmost up and on, so blessing back
In those thy realms of help, that heaven thy home,
Some whiteness which, I judge, thy face makes proud,
Some wanness where, I think, thy foot may fall!
Hanrahan Speaks To The Lovers Of His Songs In Coming Days
by William Butler Yeats

O, Colleens, kneeling by your altar rails long hence,
When songs I wove for my beloved hide the prayer,
And smoke from this dead heart drifts through the violet air
And covers away the smoke of myrrh and frankincense;
Bend down and pray for the great sin I wove in song,
Till Maurya of the wounded heart cry a sweet cry,
And call to my beloved and me: 'No longer fly
'Amid the hovering, piteous, penitential throng.'