DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Cock And The Fox.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
Upon a tree there mounted guard
A veteran cock, adroit and cunning;
When to the roots a fox up running,
Spoke thus, in tones of kind regard: - 
'Our quarrel, brother, 's at an end;
Henceforth I hope to live your friend;
For peace now reigns
Throughout the animal domains.
I bear the news: - come down, I pray,
And give me the embrace fraternal;
And please, my brother, don't delay.
So much the tidings do concern all,
That I must spread them far to-day.
Now you and yours can take your walks
Without a fear or thought of hawks.
And should you clash with them or others,
In us you'll find the best of brothers; - 
For which you may, this joyful night,
Your merry bonfires light.
But, first, let's seal the bliss
With one fraternal kiss.'
'Good friend,' the cock replied, 'upon my word,
A better thing I never heard;
And doubly I rejoice
To hear it from your voice;
And, really there must be something in it,
For yonder come two greyhounds, which I flatter
Myself are couriers on this very matter.
They come so fast, they'll be here in a minute.
I'll down, and all of us will seal the blessing
With general kissing and caressing.'
'Adieu,' said fox; 'my errand's pressing;
I'll hurry on my way,
And we'll rejoice some other day.'
So off the fellow scamper'd, quick and light,
To gain the fox-holes of a neighbouring height,
Less happy in his stratagem than flight.
The cock laugh'd sweetly in his sleeve; - 
'Tis doubly sweet deceiver to deceive.
Plaidie, The
by Charles Sibley

Upon ane stormy Sunday,
Coming adoon the lane,
Were a score of bonnie lassies,
And the sweetest I maintain
Was Caddie,
That I took unneath my plaidie,
To shield her from the rain.
She said that the daisies blushed
For the kiss that I had ta'en;
I wadna hae thought the lassie
Wad sae of a kiss complain:
"Now, laddie!
I winna stay under your plaidie,
If I gang hame in the rain!"
But, on an after Sunday,
When cloud there was not ane,
This selfsame winsome lassie
(We chanced to meet in the lane),
Said, "Laddie,
Why dinna ye wear your plaidie?
Wha kens but it may rain?"
From Novalis
by George MacDonald

Uplifted is the stone
And all mankind arisen!
We are thy very own,
We are no more in prison!
What bitterest grief can stay
Beside thy golden cup,
When earth and life give way
And with our Lord we sup!
To the marriage Death doth call,
The lamps are burning clear,
The virgins, ready all,
Have for their oil no fear.
Would that even now were ringing
The distance with thy throng!
And that the stars were singing
To us a human song!
Courage! for life is hasting
To endless life away;
The inward fire, unwasting,
Transfigures our dull clay!
See the stars melting, sinking
In life-wine golden-bright!
We, of the splendour drinking,
Shall grow to stars of light.
Lost, lost are all our losses!
Love is for ever free!
The full life heaves and tosses
Like an unbounded sea!
One live, eternal story!
One poem high and broad!
And sun of all our glory
The countenance of God!
Up, Sailor Boy, 'Tis Day.
by Thomas Moore

Up, sailor boy, 'tis day!
The west wind blowing,
The spring tide flowing,
Summon thee hence away.
Didst thou not hear yon soaring swallow sing?
Chirp, chirp,--in every note he seemed to say
'Tis Spring, 'tis Spring.
Up boy, away,--
Who'd stay on land to-day?
The very flowers
Would from their bowers
Delight to wing away!
Leave languid youths to pine
On silken pillows;
But be the billows
Of the great deep thine.
Hark, to the sail the breeze sings, "Let us fly;"
While soft the sail, replying to the breeze,
Says, with a yielding sigh,
"Yes, where you; please."
Up, boy, the wind, the ray,
The blue sky o'er thee,
The deep before thee,
All cry aloud, "Away!"
Lines Upon Seeing A Beautiful Infant Sleeping On The Bosom Of Its Mother.
by John Carr (Sir)

Upon its native pillow dear,
The little slumb'rer finds repose;
His fragrant breath eludes the ear - 
A zephyr passing o'er a rose.
Yet soon from that pure spot of rest
(Love's little throne!) shalt thou be torn;
Time hovers o'er thy downy nest,
To crown thy baby-brow with thorn.
Ah! thoughtless! couldst thou now but see
On what a world thou soon must move,
Or taste the cup prepar'd for thee
Of grief, lost hopes, or widow'd love,
Ne'er from that breast thou'd'st raise thine head,
But thou would'st breathe to Heav'n a pray'r
To let thee, ere thy blossom fade,
In one fond sigh exhale thee there.
The Wanderer
by Eugene Field

Upon a mountain height, far from the sea,
I found a shell,
And to my listening ear the lonely thing
Ever a song of ocean seemed to sing,
Ever a tale of ocean seemed to tell.
How came the shell upon that mountain height?
Ah, who can say
Whether there dropped by some too careless hand,
Or whether there cast when Ocean swept the Land,
Ere the Eternal had ordained the Day?
Strange, was it not? Far from its native deep,
One song it sang,--
Sang of the awful mysteries of the tide,
Sang of the misty sea, profound and wide,--
Ever with echoes of the ocean rang.
And as the shell upon the mountain height
Sings of the sea,
So do I ever, leagues and leagues away,--
So do I ever, wandering where I may,--
Sing, O my home! sing, O my home! of thee.
New England Magazine
by Ellis Parker Butler

Upon Bottle Miche the autre day
While yet the nuit was early,
Je met a homme whose barbe was grey,
Whose cheveaux long and curly.
'Je am a poete, sir,' dit he,
'Je live where tres grande want teems,
I'm faim, sir. Sil vous plait give me
Un franc or cinquatite centimes.'
I donne him vingt big copper sous
But dit, 'You moderne rhymers
The sacre poet name abuse,
Les poets were old timers.'
'Je know! I know!' he wept, contrite;
'The bards no more suis mighty:
Ils rise no more in eleve flight,
Though some are beaucoup flighty.
'Vous wonder why Je weep this way,
Pour quoi these tears and blubbers?
It is mon fault les bards today
Helas! suis mere earth-grubbers.
'There was a time when tout might see
My grande flights dans the saddle;
Crowned rois, indeed, applauded me
Le Pegasus astraddle.
'Le winged horse avec acclaim
Was voted mon possession;
Je rode him tous les jours to fame;
Je led the whole procession.
'Then arrivee the Prussian war,
The siege, the sacre famine,
Then some had but a crust encore,
We mange the last least ham-an'
'Helas! Mon noble winged steed
Went oft avec no dinner;
On epics il refusee feed
And maigre grew, and thinner!
'Tout food was gone, and dans the street
Each homme sought crusts to sate him,
Joyeux were those with horse's meat,
And Pegasus! Je ate him!'
My anger then Je could not hide,
To parler scarcely able
'Oh! curses dans you, sir!' Je cried;
'Vous human livery stable!'
He fled! But vous who read this know
Why mon pauvre verse is beaten
By that of cinquante years ago
'Vant Pegasus fut eaten!
Error And Loss.
by William Morris

Upon an eve I sat me down and wept,
Because the world to me seemed nowise good;
Still autumn was it, & the meadows slept,
The misty hills dreamed, and the silent wood
Seemed listening to the sorrow of my mood:
I knew not if the earth with me did grieve,
Or if it mocked my grief that bitter eve.
Then 'twixt my tears a maiden did I see,
Who drew anigh me on the leaf-strewn grass,
Then stood and gazed upon me pitifully
With grief-worn eyes, until my woe did pass
From me to her, and tearless now I was,
And she mid tears was asking me of one
She long had sought unaided and alone.
I knew not of him, and she turned away
Into the dark wood, and my own great pain
Still held me there, till dark had slain the day,
And perished at the grey dawn's hand again;
Then from the wood a voice cried: "Ah, in vain,
In vain I seek thee, O thou bitter-sweet!
In what lone land are set thy longed-for feet?"
Then I looked up, and lo, a man there came
From midst the trees, and stood regarding me
Until my tears were dried for very shame;
Then he cried out: "O mourner, where is she
Whom I have sought o'er every land and sea?
I love her and she loveth me, and still
We meet no more than green hill meeteth hill."
With that he passed on sadly, and I knew
That these had met and missed in the dark night,
Blinded by blindness of the world untrue,
That hideth love and maketh wrong of right.
Then midst my pity for their lost delight,
Yet more with barren longing I grew weak,
Yet more I mourned that I had none to seek.
A Memorial Of Africa.
by George MacDonald

I.
Upon a rock, high on a mountain side,
Thousands of feet above the lake-sea's lip,
A rock in which old waters' rise and dip,
Plunge and recoil, and backward eddying tide
Had, age-long, worn, while races lived and died,
Involved channels, where the sea-weed's drip
Followed the ebb; and now earth-grasses sip
Fresh dews from heaven, whereby on earth they bide--
I sat and gazed southwards. A dry flow
Of withering wind blew on my drooping strength
From o'er the awful desert's burning length.
Behind me piled, away and upward go
Great sweeps of savage mountains--up, away,
Where panthers roam, and snow gleams all the day.
II.
Ah, God! the world needs many hours to make;
Nor hast thou ceased the making of it yet,
But wilt be working on when Death hath set
A new mound in some churchyard for my sake.
On flow the centuries without a break.
Uprise the mountains, ages without let.
The mosses suck the rock's breast, rarely wet.
Years more than past, the young earth yet will take.
But in the dumbness of the rolling time,
No veil of silence will encompass me--
Thou wilt not once forget, and let me be:
I easier think that thou, as I my rhyme,
Wouldst rise, and with a tenderness sublime
Unfold a world, that I, thy child, might see.
Ballad Of A Wilful Woman
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

FIRST PART
Upon her plodding palfrey
With a heavy child at her breast
And Joseph holding the bridle
They mount to the last hill-crest.
Dissatisfied and weary
She sees the blade of the sea
Dividing earth and heaven
In a glitter of ecstasy.
Sudden a dark-faced stranger
With his back to the sun, holds out
His arms; so she lights from her palfrey
And turns her round about.
She has given the child to Joseph,
Gone down to the flashing shore;
And Joseph, shading his eyes with his hand,
Stands watching evermore.
SECOND PART
THE sea in the stones is singing,
A woman binds her hair
With yellow, frail sea-poppies,
That shine as her fingers stir.
While a naked man comes swiftly
Like a spurt of white foam rent
From the crest of a falling breaker,
Over the poppies sent.
He puts his surf-wet fingers
Over her startled eyes,
And asks if she sees the land, the land,
The land of her glad surmise.
THIRD PART
AGAIN in her blue, blue mantle
Riding at Joseph's side,
She says, "I went to Cythera,
And woe betide!"
Her heart is a swinging cradle
That holds the perfect child,
But the shade on her forehead ill becomes
A mother mild.
So on with the slow, mean journey
In the pride of humility;
Till they halt at a cliff on the edge of the land
Over a sullen sea.
While Joseph pitches the sleep-tent
She goes far down to the shore
To where a man in a heaving boat
Waits with a lifted oar.
FOURTH PART
THEY dwelt in a huge, hoarse sea-cave
And looked far down the dark
Where an archway torn and glittering
Shone like a huge sea-spark.
He said: "Do you see the spirits
Crowding the bright doorway?"
He said: "Do you hear them whispering?"
He said: "Do you catch what they say?"
FIFTH PART
THEN Joseph, grey with waiting,
His dark eyes full of pain,
Heard: "I have been to Patmos;
Give me the child again."
Now on with the hopeless journey
Looking bleak ahead she rode,
And the man and the child of no more account
Than the earth the palfrey trode.
Till a beggar spoke to Joseph,
But looked into her eyes;
So she turned, and said to her husband:
"I give, whoever denies."
SIXTH PART
SHE gave on the open heather
Beneath bare judgment stars,
And she dreamed of her children and Joseph,
And the isles, and her men, and her scars.
And she woke to distil the berries
The beggar had gathered at night,
Whence he drew the curious liquors
He held in delight.
He gave her no crown of flowers,
No child and no palfrey slow,
Only led her through harsh, hard places
Where strange winds blow.
She follows his restless wanderings
Till night when, by the fire's red stain,
Her face is bent in the bitter steam
That comes from the flowers of pain.
Then merciless and ruthless
He takes the flame-wild drops
To the town, and tries to sell them
With the market-crops.
So she follows the cruel journey
That ends not anywhere,
And dreams, as she stirs the mixing-pot,
She is brewing hope from despair.
TRIER
Caught in a Net
by Vachel Lindsay

Upon her breast her hands and hair
Were tangled all together.
The moon of June forbade me not - 
The golden night time weather
In balmy sighs commanded me
To kiss them like a feather.
Her looming hair, her burning hands,
Were tangled black and white.
My face I buried there.    I pray - 
So far from her to-night - 
For grace, to dream I kiss her soul
Amid the black and white.
Agamemnon's Tomb.
by Emma Lazarus

Uplift the ponderous, golden mask of death,
And let the sun shine on him as it did
How many thousand years agone!    Beneath
This worm-defying, uncorrupted lid,
Behold the young, heroic face, round-eyed,
Of one who in his full-flowered manhood died;
Of nobler frame than creatures of to-day,
Swathed in fine linen cerecloths fold on fold,
With carven weapons wrought of bronze and gold,
Accoutred like a warrior for the fray.
We gaze in awe at these huge-modeled limbs,
Shrunk in death's narrow house, but hinting yet
Their ancient majesty; these sightless rims
Whose living eyes the eyes of Helen met;
The speechless lips that ah! what tales might tell
Of earth's morning-tide when gods did dwell
Amidst a generous-fashioned, god-like race,
Who dwarf our puny semblance, and who won
The secret soul of Beauty for their own,
While all our art but crudely apes their grace.
We gather all the precious relics up,
The golden buttons chased with wondrous craft,
The sculptured trinkets and the crystal cup,
The sheathed, bronze sword, the knife with brazen haft.
Fain would we wrest with curious eyes from these
Unnumbered long-forgotten histories,
The deeds heroic of this mighty man,
On whom once more the living daylight beams,
To shame our littleness, to mock our dreams,
And the abyss of centuries to span.
Yet could we rouse him from his blind repose,
How might we meet his searching questionings,
Concerning all the follies, wrongs, and woes,
Since his great day whom men call King of Kings,
Victorious Agamemnon?    How might we
Those large, clear eyes confront, which scornfully
Would view us as a poor, degenerate race,
Base-souled and mean-proportioned?    What reply
Give to the beauty-loving Greek's heart-cry,
Seeking his ancient gods in vacant space?
What should he find within a world grown cold,
Save doubt and trouble?    To his sunny creed
A thousand gloomy, warring sects succeed.
How of the Prince of Peace might he be told,
When over half the world the war-cloud lowers?
How would he mock these faltering hopes of ours,
Who knows the secret now of death and fate!
Humbly we gaze on the colossal frame,
And mutely we accept the mortal shame,
Of men degraded from a high estate.
On the City Wall
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

Upon the City Ramparts, lit up by sunset gleam,
The Blue eyes that conquer, meet the Darker eyes that dream.
The Dark eyes, so Eastern, and the Blue eyes from the West,
The last alight with action, the first so full of rest.
Brown, that seem to hold the Past; its magic mystery,
Blue, that catch the early light, of ages yet to be.
Meet and fall and meet again, then linger, look, and smile,
Time and distance all forgotten, for a little while.
Happy on the city wall, in the warm spring weather,
All the force of Nature's laws, drawing them together.
East and West so gaily blending, for a little space,
All the sunshine seems to centre, round th' Enchanted place!
One rides down the dusty road, one watches from the wall,
Azure eyes would fain return, and Amber eyes recall;
Would fain be on the ramparts, and resting heart to heart,
But time o' love is overpast, East and West must part.
Blue eyes so clear and brilliant!    Brown eyes so dark and deep!
Those are dim, and ride away, these cry themselves to sleep.
"Oh, since Love is all so short, the sob so near the smile,
Blue eyes that always conquer us, is it worth your while?"
The Message
by Arthur Conan Doyle

(From Heine)
Up, dear laddie, saddle quick,
And spring upon the leather!
Away post haste o'er fell and waste
With whip and spur together!
And when you win to Duncan's kin
Draw one of them aside
And shortly say, "Which daughter may
We welcome as the bride?"
And if he says, "It is the dark,"
Then quickly bring the mare,
But if he says, "It is the blonde,"
Then you have time to spare;
But buy from off the saddler man
The stoutest cord you see,
Ride at your ease and say no word,
But bring it back to me.
The Quintell.
by Robert Herrick

Up with the quintell, that the rout,
May fart for joy, as well as shout:
Either's welcome, stink or civit,
If we take it, as they give it.
Wendover.
by Jean Ingelow

Uplifted and lone, set apart with our love
On the crest of a soft swelling down
Cloud shadows that meet on the grass at our feet
Sail on above Wendover town.
Wendover town takes the smile of the sun
As if yearning and strife were no more,
From her red roofs float high neither plaint neither sigh,
All the weight of the world is our own.
Would that life were more kind and that souls might have peace
As the wide mead from storm and from bale,
We bring up our own care, but how sweet over there
And how strange is their calm in the vale.
As if trouble at noon had achieved a deep sleep,
Lapped and lulled from the weariful fret,
Or shot down out of day, had a hint dropt away
As if grief might attain to forget.
Not if we two indeed had gone over the bourne
And were safe on the hills of the blest,
Not more strange they might show to us drawn from below,
Come up from long dolour to rest.
But the peace of that vale would be thine love and mine,
And sweeter the air than of yore,
And this life we have led as a dream that is fled
Might appear to our thought evermore.
'Was it life, was it life?' we might say ''twas scarce life,'
'Was it love? 'twas scarce love,' looking down,
'Yet we mind a sweet ray of the red sun one day
Low lying on Wendover town.
Morning - Turner. (Exhibition, 1807.)
by William Lisle Bowles

Up! for the morning shines with welcome ray,
And to the sunny seabeach let us stray.
What orient hues proclaim the master's hand!
How light the wave upon the half-wet sand!
How beautiful the sun, as still we gaze,
Streams all diffusive through the opening haze!
Artist, when to the thunder's pealing sound,
Fire mixed with hailstones ran upon the ground,
When partial darkness the dread prospect hid,
And sole aspired the aged pyramid
Sublimity thy genius seemed to guide
O'er Egypt's champaign, desolate and wide;
But here delightful beauty reigns alone,
And decks the morning scene with graces all her own.
Maying; Or, A Love Of Flowers
by John Clare

Upon a day, a merry day,
When summer in her best,
Like Sunday belles, prepares for play,
And joins each merry guest,
A maid, as wild as is a bird
That never knew a cage,
Went out her parents' kine to herd,
And Jocky, as her page,
Must needs go join her merry toils;
A silly shepherd he,
And little thought the aching broils
That in his heart would be;
For he as yet knew nought of love,
And nought of love knew she;
Yet without learning love can move
The wildest to agree.
The wind, enamoured of the maid,
Around her drapery swims,
And moulds in luscious masquerade
Her lovely shape and limbs.
Smith's "Venus stealing Cupid's bow"
In marble hides as fine;
But hers were life and soul, whose glow
Makes meaner things divine.
In sooth she was a lovely toy--
A worship-moving thing
As ever brought the season joy,
Or beautified the Spring;
So sweet a thing no heart might hurt,
Gay as a butterfly;
Tho' Cupid chased 'twas half in sport--
He meant not to destroy.
When speaking, words with breathing grace
Her sweet lips seeming wooed,
Pausing to leave so sweet a place
Ere they could part for good--
Those lips that pouted from her face,
As the wild rose bursts the bud
Which June, so eager to embrace,
Tempts from beneath its hood.
Her eyes, like suns, did seem to light
The beauties of her face,
Suffusing all her forehead white
And cheeks of rosy grace,
Her bosom swelled to pillows large,
Till her so taper waist
Scarce able seemed to bear the charge
Of each lawn-bursting breast.
A very flower! how she did shine.
Her beauty all displaying!
In truth this modern Proserpine
Might set the angels maying,
As, like a fairy mid the flowers,
She flew to this, now that;
And some she braided in her hair--
Some wreathed within her hat.
Then oft she skipt, in bowers to hide,
By Cupid led, I ween,
Putting her bosom's lawn aside,
To place some thyme at ween.
The shepherd saw her skin so white--
Two twin suns newly risen:
Tho' love had chained him there till night,
Who would have shunned the prison?
Then off again she skipt, and flew
With foot so light and little
That Cinderella's fancy shoe
Had fit her to a tittle.
The shepherd's heart, like playing coal,
Beat as 't would leave the socket:
He sighed, but thought it, silly fool,
The watch within his pocket.
But bold in love grow silly sheep,
And so right bold grew he;
He ran; she fled; and at bo-peep
She met him round a tree.
A thorn, enamoured like the swain.
Caught at her lily arm.
And then good faith, to ease her pain,
Love had a double charm.
She sighed; he wished it well, I wis;
The place was sadly swollen;
And then he took a willing kiss,
And made believe 't was stolen;
Then made another make-believe,
Till thefts grew past concealing,
For when love once begins to thieve
There grows no end to stealing.
They played and toyed till down the skies
The sun had taken flight,
And still a sun was in her eyes
To keep away the night;
And there he talked of love so well,
Or else he talked so ill,
That soon the priest was sought to tell
The story better still.
In Memoriam. - Samuel G. Ogden, Esq.,
by Lydia Howard Sigourney

Died at Astoria, New York, April 5th, 1860.
Upon his suffering couch he lay,
Whose noble form and mind
The stress of fourscore years had tried,
Yet left a charm behind.
The charm of heaven-born happiness
Whose beauty may not fade,
The charm of unimpair'd regard
For all whom God had made.
Upon his suffering couch he lay,
While sadly gathering there,
Were loved and loving ones, who made
That honored life their care;
And 'mid the group, a daughter's voice
Of wondrous sweetness read
Brief portions from the Book Divine,
As his dictation led.
"Bow down thine ear, Most Merciful,
Oh, hearken while I speak,
Now in my time of utmost need,
To Thee alone I seek.
Shew me some token, Lord, for good,
Before I pass away,
For Thou hast ever been my strength,
My comforter and stay."[1]
So when that precious breath went forth,
Her gentle hand was laid
To close those pale and trembling lids
In slumber's dreamless shade,
And then, the pure and sacred flowers
She for his burial twined,
And bade her struggling grief be still
Till the last rite declined.
Through every trial change of life
Had reign'd within her breast
A holy zeal of filial love,
That could not be represt;
Its memories, like a music strain,
Still in that casket swell,
And wake perchance, some fond response
Where watching angels dwell.
St Paul's Steeple
by Walter Crane

Upon Paul's steeple stands a tree
As full of apples as may be,
The little boys of London town
They run with hooks to pull them down;
And then they run from hedge to hedge
Until they come to London Bridge.
Her Initials
by Thomas Hardy

Upon a poet's page I wrote
Of old two letters of her name;
Part seemed she of the effulgent thought
Whence that high singer's rapture came.
- When now I turn the leaf the same
Immortal light illumes the lay,
But from the letters of her name
The radiance has died away!
1869.