DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Bird Song.
by Kate Seymour Maclean

Art thou not sweet,
Oh world, and glad to the inmost heart of thee!
All creatures rejoice
With one rapturous voice.
As I, with the passionate beat
Of my over-full heart feel thee sweet,
And all things that live, and are part of thee!
Light, light as a cloud
Swimming, and trailing its shadow under me
I float in the deep
As a bird-dream in sleep,
And hear the wind murmuring loud,
Far down, where the tree-tops are bowed,--
And I see where the secret place of the thunders be
Oh! the sky free and wide,
With all the cloud-banners flung out in it
Its singing wind blows
As a grand river flows,
And I swim down its rhythmical tide,
And still the horizon spreads wide,
With the birds' and the poets' songs like a shout in it!
Oh life, thou art sweet
Sweet--sweet to the inmost heart of thee!
I drink with my eyes
Thy limitless skies,
And I feel with the rapturous beat
Of my wings thou art sweet--
And I,--I am alive, and a part of thee!
Art.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Artist, fashion! talk not long!
Be a breath thine only song!
Melody To A Scene Of Former Times.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Posthumous Fragments Of Margaret Mcholson.
Being Poems found amongst the Papers of that noted Female who attempted the life of the King in 1786. Edited by John Fitzvictor.
[The "Posthumous Fragments", published at Oxford by Shelley, appeared in November, 1810.]
Melody To A Scene Of Former Times.
Art thou indeed forever gone,
Forever, ever, lost to me?
Must this poor bosom beat alone,
Or beat at all, if not for thee?
Ah! why was love to mortals given,
To lift them to the height of Heaven,
Or dash them to the depths of Hell?
Yet I do not reproach thee, dear!
Ah, no! the agonies that swell
This panting breast, this frenzied brain,
Might wake my - 's slumb'ring tear.
Oh! Heaven is witness I did love,
And Heaven does know I love thee still,
Does know the fruitless sick'ning thrill,
When reason's judgement vainly strove
To blot thee from my memory;
But which might never, never be.
Oh! I appeal to that blest day
When passion's wildest ecstasy
Was coldness to the joys I knew,
When every sorrow sunk away.
Oh! I had never lived before,
But now those blisses are no more.
And now I cease to live again,
I do not blame thee, love; ah, no!
The breast that feels this anguished woe.
Throbs for thy happiness alone.
Two years of speechless bliss are gone,
I thank thee, dearest, for the dream.
'Tis night - what faint and distant scream
Comes on the wild and fitful blast?
It moans for pleasures that are past,
It moans for days that are gone by.
Oh! lagging hours, how slow you fly!
I see a dark and lengthened vale,
The black view closes with the tomb;
But darker is the lowering gloom
That shades the intervening dale.
In visioned slumber for awhile
I seem again to share thy smile,
I seem to hang upon thy tone.
Again you say, 'Confide in me,
For I am thine, and thine alone,
And thine must ever, ever be.'
But oh! awak'ning still anew,
Athwart my enanguished senses flew
A fiercer, deadlier agony!
To The Reader
by Richard Le Gallienne

Art was a palace once, things great and fair,
And strong and holy, found a temple there:
Now 'tis a lazar-house of leprous men.
O shall me hear an English song again!
Still English larks mount in the merry morn,
An English May still brings an English thorn,
Still English daisies up and down the grass,
Still English love for English lad and lass -
Yet youngsters blush to sing an English song!
Thou nightingale that for six hundred years
Sang to the world - O art thou husht at last!
For, not of thee this new voice in our ears,
Music of France that once was of the spheres;
And not of thee these strange green flowers that spring
From daisy roots and seemed to bear a sting.
Thou Helicon of numbers 'undefiled,'
Forgive that 'neath the shadow of thy name,
England, I bring a song of little fame;
Not as one worthy but as loving thee,
Not as a singer, only as a child.
To The Moon.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

1.
Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth, -
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?
2.
Thou chosen sister of the Spirit,
That grazes on thee till in thee it pities...
Lonely Brother
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

Art thou lonely, O my brother?
Share thy little with another!
Stretch a hand to one unfriended,
And thy loneliness is ended.
So both thou and he
Shall less lonely be.
And of thy one loneliness
Shall come two's great happiness.
The Mother.
by Jean Blewett

As "Peace on earth!" the glad world sings one glorious Christmas morn,
"Peace, peace on earth! Good-will to men! Peace, peace! the Christ is born!"
As through the courts, the wondrous courts, of heaven hosannas ring,
As harpers strike their harps of gold and "Glory! Glory!" sing,
Upon the City's threshold fair
A woman steps, and lingers there.
The eyes she turns on Peter's face with unshed tears are dim,
"Tell Christ," she says, "a mother waits who fain would speak with Him."
Through all the music, far above the highest, grandest note
Of triumph, and of joy and praise, her soft voice seems to float;
And hearing it, straight from His throne
Comes down to her the Kingly One
With shining face and eyes that hold
Such wealth of love and peace,
She feels her trembling heart grow bold,
Her doubt and grieving cease.
"Dear Lord!" she cries, and lowly kneels, "I have a prayer to make;
O do Thou hear and answer it for Thine own mercy's sake,
Since heaven will not seem fair to me
If one dear face I may not see.
"Dear Christ, a mother's love is great
To shield, to guide, to watch, to wait.
The last kiss that I gave on earth was to my wayward son,
Whose soul, though deeply stain'd by sin, may yet by love be won
To penitence, to higher walk, to purer, holier way;
O wilt Thou let me to go to him and guard him night and day?
"Thou wert a babe in Bethlehem, a mother guarded Thee.
I pray Thee now, for her dear sake, to hearken unto me!
Remember how she held Thee close, and crooned Thee, sweet and low,
The lullabies that mothers sang long centuries ago,
And bared her snowy breast to Thee,
And stroked Thy forehead tenderly.
"And kissed Thee oft, and told herself, again and yet again,
To hold Thee thus one hour outweighed the travail and the pain!
Dear Christ, this city is most fair; its glories thrill and move;
O doth it grieve Thee that my heart cleaves to an earthly love?
That on mine eyes heaven's beauties dim
Because my heart is back with him?
"With him - the wandering son of mine, the wayward one - whose need
Of patient love and guiding hand is very great indeed!
Think not I love Thee not, dear Lord, nor long for heaven's rest;
'Tis only that the mother-heart throbs fiercely in my breast.
On this glad morning of Thy birth,
O grant me leave to visit earth!"
Lo! on her head she feels the touch of tender wounded hand,
"Fear not," she hears, "a love like thine the Christ can understand.
No mother prays in vain to Me on this day of the year,
For when the faltering words she speaks fall on My waiting ear,
I do remember that My cheek
Lay on a bosom warm,
I do remember Bethlehem,
And Mary's cradling arm."
Moonlight
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

As a pale phantom with a lamp
Ascends some ruin's haunted stair,
So glides the moon along the damp
Mysterious chambers of the air.
Now hidden in cloud, and now revealed,
As if this phantom, full of pain,
Were by the crumbling walls concealed,
And at the windows seen again.
Until at last, serene and proud
In all the splendor of her light,
She walks the terraces of cloud,
Supreme as Empress of the Night.
I look, but recognize no more
Objects familiar to my view;
The very pathway to my door
Is an enchanted avenue.
All things are changed.    One mass of shade,
The elm-trees drop their curtains down;
By palace, park, and colonnade
I walk as in a foreign town.
The very ground beneath my feet
Is clothed with a diviner air;
White marble paves the silent street
And glimmers in the empty square.
Illusion!    Underneath there lies
The common life of every day;
Only the spirit glorifies
With its own tints the sober gray.
In vain we look, in vain uplift
Our eyes to heaven, if we are blind,
We see but what we have the gift
Of seeing; what we bring we find.
The Death Of Artemidora
by Walter Savage Landor

'Artemidora! Gods invisible,
While thou art lying faint along the couch,
Have tied the sandal to thy veined feet,
And stand beside thee, ready to convey
Thy weary steps where other rivers flow.
Refreshing shades will waft thy weariness
Away, and voices like thine own come nigh,
Soliciting, nor vainly, thy embrace.'
Artemidora sigh'd, and would have press'd
The hand now pressing hers, but was too weak.
Fate's shears were over her dark hair unseen
While thus Elpenor spake: he look'd into
Eyes that had given light and life erewhile
To those above them, those now dim with tears
And watchfulness. Again he spake of joy,
Eternal. At that word, that sad word, joy,
Faithful and fond her bosom heav'd once more,
Her head fell back: one sob, one loud deep sob
Swell'd through the darken'd chamber; 't was not hers:
With her that old boat incorruptible,
Unwearied, undiverted in its course,
Had plash'd the water up the farther strand.
Song To Oblivion
by Clark Ashton Smith

Art thou more fair
For all the beauty gathered up in thee,
As gold and gems within some lightless sea?
For light of flowers, and bloom of tinted air,
Art thou more fair?
Art thou more strong
For powers that turn to thee as unto sleep?
For world and star that find thy ways more deep
Than light may tread, too wearisome for song
Art thou more strong?
Nay! thou art bare
For power and beauty on thine impotence
Bestowed by fruitful Time's magnificence;
For fruit of all things strong, and bloom of fair,
Thou still art bare.
Birds in May
by William Browne

As (woo'd by May's delights) I have been borne
To take the kind air of a wistful morn
Near Tavy's voiceful stream (to whom I owe
More strains than from my pipe can ever flow),
Here have I heard a sweet bird never lin
To chide the river for his clam'rous din;
There seem'd another in his song to tell,
That what the fair stream did he liked well;
And going further heard another too,
All varying still in what the others do;
A little thence, a fourth with little pain
Conn'd all their lessons, and them sung again;
So numberless the songsters are that sing
In the sweet groves of the too-careless spring,
That I no sooner could the hearing lose
Of one of them, but straight another rose,
And perching deftly on a quaking spray,
Nigh tir'd herself to make her hearer stay.
.        .        .        .        .
Shrill as a thrush upon a morn of May.
From Britannia's Pastorals.
As 'Twere To-Night (Song)
by Thomas Hardy

As 'twere to-night, in the brief space
Of a far eventime,
My spirit rang achime
At vision of a girl of grace;
As 'twere to-night, in the brief space
Of a far eventime.
As 'twere at noontide of to-morrow
I airily walked and talked,
And wondered as I walked
What it could mean, this soar from sorrow;
As 'twere at noontide of to-morrow
I airily walked and talked.
As 'twere at waning of this week
Broke a new life on me;
Trancings of bliss to be
In some dim dear land soon to seek;
As 'twere at waning of this week
Broke a new life on me!
In Memory - James T. Fields
by John Greenleaf Whittier

As a guest who may not stay
Long and sad farewells to say
Glides with smiling face away,
Of the sweetness and the zest
Of thy happy life possessed
Thou hast left us at thy best.
Warm of heart and clear of brain,
Of thy sun-bright spirit's wane
Thou hast spared us all the pain.
Now that thou hast gone away,
What is left of one to say
Who was open as the day?
What is there to gloss or shun?
Save with kindly voices none
Speak thy name beneath the sun.
Safe thou art on every side,
Friendship nothing finds to hide,
Love's demand is satisfied.
Over manly strength and worth,
At thy desk of toil, or hearth,
Played the lambent light of mirth,
Mirth that lit, but never burned;
All thy blame to pity turned;
Hatred thou hadst never learned.
Every harsh and vexing thing
At thy home-fire lost its sting;
Where thou wast was always spring.
And thy perfect trust in good,
Faith in man and womanhood,
Chance and change and time, withstood.
Small respect for cant and whine,
Bigot's zeal and hate malign,
Had that sunny soul of thine.
But to thee was duty's claim
Sacred, and thy lips became
Reverent with one holy Name.
Therefore, on thy unknown way,
Go in God's peace! We who stay
But a little while delay.
Keep for us, O friend, where'er
Thou art waiting, all that here
Made thy earthly presence dear;
Something of thy pleasant past
On a ground of wonder cast,
In the stiller waters glassed!
Keep the human heart of thee;
Let the mortal only be
Clothed in immortality.
And when fall our feet as fell
Thine upon the asphodel,
Let thy old smile greet us well;
Proving in a world of bliss
What we fondly dream in this,
Love is one with holiness
Mona Lisa.
by Mary Gardiner Horsford

Leonardo da Vinci is said to have been four years employed upon the portrait of Mona Lisa, a fair Florentine, without being able to come up to the idea of her beauty.
Artist! lay the brush aside;
Twilight gathers chill and gray;
Turn the picture to the wall, - 
Thou hast wrought in vain to-day.
Thrice twelve months have hastened by
Since thy canvas first grew bright
With that brow's bewitching beauty,
And that dark eye's melting light.
But the early morning shineth
On thy tireless labors yet,
And the portrait stands before thee
Till the evening sun has set.
Faultless is the robe that falleth
Round that form of matchless grace;
Faultless is the softened outline
Of the fair and oval face.
Thou hast caught the wondrous beauty
Of the round cheek's roseate hue,
And the full, red lips are smiling
As this morn they smiled on you.
To that Lady thou hast given
Immortality below;
Wherefore then, with moody glances,
Dost thou from thy labor go?
From the living face of beauty
Beams the soul's expressive ray,
And with all thy god-like genius
This thou never canst portray.
Of the countless throng around me
Each hath labors like to thine,
Each, methinks, some Mona Lisa
In his spirit's inmost shrine.
Visions haunt us from our childhood
Of a love so pure, so true,
Time and tears, and care and anguish,
Leave it steadfast, fair and new; - 
Visions that elude for ever,
As the silent years depart,
Some unhappy ones and weary, - 
Mona Lisas of the heart.
Gleams of that divine completeness
God's angelic ones attain,
Pass amid our toils before us,
And we emulate in vain.
Poet fancies crowd the spirit,
We would print upon the scroll - 
But that perfect utterance faileth - 
Mona Lisas of the soul.
Kindling
by Paul Cameron Brown

As a matter of fact,
ovens do carry a glazed stare,
fireplaces are wont to parry
thoughts to kindling
before their stoop and
on breathless summer nights
one is hard pressed
to recall cinder and
blackened barleys any more
vegetatively than upon
these harridan pots.
Nature
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

As a fond mother, when the day is o'er,
Leads by the hand her little child to bed,
Half willing, half reluctant to be led,
And leave his broken playthings on the floor,
Still gazing at them through the open door,
Nor wholly reassured and comforted
By promises of others in their stead,
Which, though more splendid, may not please him more;
So Nature deals with us, and takes away
Our playthings one by one, and by the hand
Leads us to rest so gently, that we go
Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay,
Being too full of sleep to understand
How far the unknown transcends the what we know.
To George Cruikshank, Esq.
by Matthew Arnold

Artist, whose hand, with horror wing'd, hath torn
From the rank life of towns this leaf: and flung
The prodigy of full-blown crime among
Valleys and men to middle fortune born,
Not innocent, indeed, yet not forlorn:
Say, what shall calm us, when such guests intrude,
Like comets on the heavenly solitude?
Shall breathless glades, cheer'd by shy Dian's horn.
Cold-bubbling springs, or caves? Not so! The Soul
Breasts her own griefs: and, urg'd too fiercely, says:
'Why tremble? True, the nobleness of man
May be by man effac'd: man can control
To pain, to death, the bent of his own days.
Know thou the worst. So much, not more, he can.
On Paddy's Character Of The "Intelligencer."[1] 1729 (Verses Written During Lord Carteret's Administration Of Ireland)
by Jonathan Swift

As a thorn bush, or oaken bough,
Stuck in an Irish cabin's brow,
Above the door, at country fair,
Betokens entertainment there;
So bays on poets' brows have been
Set, for a sign of wit within.
And as ill neighbours in the night
Pull down an alehouse bush for spite;
The laurel so, by poets worn,
Is by the teeth of Envy torn;
Envy, a canker-worm, which tears
Those sacred leaves that lightning spares.
And now, t'exemplify this moral:
Tom having earn'd a twig of laurel,
(Which, measured on his head, was found
Not long enough to reach half round,
But, like a girl's cockade, was tied,
A trophy, on his temple-side,)
Paddy repined to see him wear
This badge of honour in his hair;
And, thinking this cockade of wit
Would his own temples better fit,
Forming his Muse by Smedley's model,
Lets drive at Tom's devoted noddle,
Pelts him by turns with verse and prose
Hums like a hornet at his nose.
At length presumes to vent his satire on
The Dean, Tom's honour'd friend and patron.
The eagle in the tale, ye know,
Teazed by a buzzing wasp below,
Took wing to Jove, and hoped to rest
Securely in the thunderer's breast:
In vain; even there, to spoil his nod,
The spiteful insect stung the god.
To Laura In Death. Sonnet L.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Al cader d' una pianta che si svelse.
UNDER THE ALLEGORY OF A LAUREL HE AGAIN DEPLORES HER DEATH.
As a fair plant, uprooted by oft blows
Of trenchant spade, or which the blast upheaves,
Scatters on earth its green and lofty leaves,
And its bare roots to the broad sunlight shows;
Love such another for my object chose,
Of whom for me the Muse a subject weaves,
Who in my captured heart her home achieves,
As on some wall or tree the ivy grows
That living laurel--where their chosen nest
My high thoughts made, where sigh'd mine ardent grief,
Yet never stirr'd of its fair boughs a leaf--
To heaven translated, in my heart, her rest,
Left deep its roots, whence ever with sad cry
I call on her, who ne'er vouchsafes reply.
MACGREGOR.
Autumn.
by James Whitcomb Riley

As a harvester, at dusk,
Faring down some woody trail
Leading homeward through the musk
Of may-apple and pawpaw,
Hazel-bush, and spice and haw, - 
So comes Autumn, swart and hale,
Drooped of frame and slow of stride.
But withal an air of pride
Looming up in stature far
Higher than his shoulders are;
Weary both in arm and limb,
Yet the wholesome heart of him
Sheer at rest and satisfied.
Greet him as with glee of drums
And glad cymbals, as he comes!
Robe him fair, O Rain and Shine.
He the Emperor - the King - 
Royal lord of everything
Sagging Plenty's granary floors
And out-bulging all her doors;
He the god of corn and wine,
Honey, milk, and fruit and oil - 
Lord of feast, as lord of toil - 
Jocund host of yours and mine!
Ho! the revel of his laugh! - 
Half is sound of winds, and half
Roar of ruddy blazes drawn
Up the throats of chimneys wide,
Circling which, from side to side,
Faces - lit as by the Dawn,
With her highest tintings on
Tip of nose, and cheek, and chin - 
Smile at some old fairy-tale
Of enchanted lovers, in
Silken gown and coat of mail,
With a retinue of elves
Merry as their very selves,
Trooping ever, hand in hand,
Down the dales of Wonderland.
Then the glory of his song! - 
Lifting up his dreamy eyes - 
Singing haze across the skies;
Singing clouds that trail along
Towering tops of trees that seize
Tufts of them to stanch the breeze;
Singing slanted strands of rain
In between the sky and earth,
For the lyre to mate the mirth
And the might of his refrain:
Singing southward-flying birds
Down to us, and afterwards
Singing them to flight again;
Singing blushes to the cheeks
Of the leaves upon the trees - 
Singing on and changing these
Into pallor, slowly wrought,
Till the little, moaning creeks
Bear them to their last farewell,
As Elaine, the lovable,
Was borne down to Lancelot. - 
Singing drip of tears, and then
Drying them with smiles again.
Singing apple, peach and grape,
Into roundest, plumpest shape,
Rosy ripeness to the face
Of the pippin; and the grace
Of the dainty stamin-tip
To the huge bulk of the pear,
Pendant in the green caress
Of the leaves, and glowing through
With the tawny laziness
Of the gold that Ophir knew, - 
Haply, too, within its rind
Such a cleft as bees may find,
Bungling on it half aware.
And wherein to see them sip
Fancy lifts an oozy lip,
And the singer's falter there.
Sweet as swallows swimming through
Eddyings of dusk and dew,
Singing happy scenes of home
Back to sight of eager eyes
That have longed for them to come,
Till their coming is surprise
Uttered only by the rush
Of quick tears and prayerful hush;
Singing on, in clearer key,
Hearty palms of you and me
Into grasps that tingle still
Rapturous, and ever will!
Singing twank and twang of strings - 
Trill of flute and clarinet
In a melody that rings
Like the tunes we used to play,
And our dreams are playing yet!
Singing lovers, long astray,
Each to each, and, sweeter things - 
Singing in their marriage-day,
And a banquet holding all
These delights for festival.
Hymn Of Hippolytus To Artemis
by Robert Fuller Murray

Artemis! thou fairest
Of the maids that be
In divine Olympus,
Hail!    Hail to thee!
To thee I bring this woven weed
Culled for thee from a virgin mead,
Where neither shepherd claims his flocks to feed
Nor ever yet the mower's scythe hath come.
There in the Spring the wild bee hath his home,
Lightly passing to and fro
Where the virgin flowers grow;
And there the watchful Purity doth go
Moistening with dew-drops all the ground below,
Drawn from a river untaintedly flowing,
They who have gained by a kind fate's bestowing
Pure hearts, untaught by philosophy's care,
May gather the flowers in the mead that are blowing,
But the tainted in spirit may never be there.
Now, O Divinest, eternally fair,
Take thou this garland to gather thy hair,
Brought by a hand that is pure as the air.
For I alone of all the sons of men
Hear thy pure accents, answering thee again.
And may I reach the goal of life as I began the race,
Blest by the music of thy voice, though darkness ever veil thy face!
Sonnet.
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

Art thou already weary of the way?
Thou who hast yet but half the way gone o'er:
Get up, and lift thy burthen: lo, before
Thy feet the road goes stretching far away.
If thou already faint, who hast but come
Through half thy pilgrimage, with fellows gay,
Love, youth, and hope, under the rosy bloom
And temperate airs, of early breaking day;
Look yonder, how the heavens stoop and gloom,
There cease the trees to shade, the flowers to spring,
And the angels leave thee; what wilt thou become
Through yon drear stretch of dismal wandering,
Lonely and dark?    I shall take courage, friend,
For comes not every step more near the end?
As A Beam O'er The Face Of The Waters May Glow.
by Thomas Moore

As a beam o'er the face of the waters may glow
While the tide runs in darkness and coldness below,
So the cheek may be tinged with a warm sunny smile,
Though the cold heart to ruin runs darkly the while.
One fatal remembrance, one sorrow that throws
Its bleak shade alike o'er our joys and our woes.
To which life nothing darker or brighter can bring
For which joy has no balm and affliction no sting--
Oh! this thought in the midst of enjoyment will stay,
Like a dead, leafless branch in the summer's bright ray;
The beams of the warm sun play round it in vain,
It may smile in his light, but it blooms not again.
Scene In France - Loutherbourg. (Exhibition, 1807.)
by William Lisle Bowles

Artist, I own thy genius; but the touch
May be too restless, and the glare too much:
And sure none ever saw a landscape shine,
Basking in beams of such a sun as thine,
But felt a fervid dew upon his phiz,
And panting cried, O Lord, how hot it is!