DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Heath from the Highlands
by Henry Kendall

Here, where the great hills fall away
To bays of silver sea,
I hold within my hand to-day
A wild thing, strange to me.
Behind me is the deep green dell
Where lives familiar light;
The leaves and flowers I know so well
Are gleaming in my sight.
And yonder is the mountain glen,
Where sings in trees unstirred
By breath of breeze or axe of men
The shining satin-bird.
The old weird cry of plover comes
Across the marshy ways,
And here the hermit hornet hums,
And here the wild bee strays.
No novel life or light I see,
On hill, in dale beneath:
All things around are known to me
Except this bit of heath.
This touching growth hath made me dream
It sends my soul afar
To where the Scottish mountains gleam
Against the Northern star.
It droops this plant like one who grieves;
But, while my fancy glows,
There is that glory on its leaves
Which never robed the rose.
For near its wind-blown native spot
Were born, by crags uphurled,
The ringing songs of Walter Scott
That shook the whole wide world.
There haply by the sounding streams,
And where the fountains break,
He saw the darling of his dreams,
The Lady of the Lake.
And on the peaks where never leaf
Of lowland beauty grew,
Perhaps he met Clan Alpine's chief,
The rugged Roderick Dhu.
Not far, perchance, this heather throve
(Above fair banks of ferns),
From that green place of stream and grove
That knew the voice of Burns.
Against the radiant river ways
Still waves the noble wood,
Where in the old majestic days
The Scottish poet stood.
Perhaps my heather used to beam
In robes of morning frost,
By dells which saw that lovely dream
The Mary that he lost.
I hope, indeed, the singer knew
The little spot of land
On which the mountain beauty grew
That withers in my hand.
A Highland sky my vision fills;
I feel the great, strong North
The hard grey weather of the hills
That brings men-children forth.
The peaks of Scotland, where the din
And flame of thunders go,
Seem near me, with the masculine,
Hale sons of wind and snow.
So potent is this heather here,
That under skies of blue,
I seem to breathe the atmosphere
That William Wallace knew.
And under windy mountain wall,
Where breaks the torrent loose,
I fancy I can hear the call
Of grand old Robert Bruce.
"The Highlands," Annisquam
by Madison Julius Cawein

Here, from the heights, among the rocks and pines,
The sea and shore seem some tremendous page
Of some vast book, great with our heritage,
Breathing the splendor of majestic lines.
Yonder the dunes speak silver; yonder shines
The ocean's sapphire word; there, gray with age,
The granite writes its lesson, strong and sage;
And there the surf its rhythmic passage signs.
The winds, that sweep the page, that interlude
Its majesty with music; and the tides,
That roll their thunder in, that period
Its mighty rhetoric, deep and dream-imbued,
Are what it seems to say, of what abides,
Of what's eternal and of what is God.
The Settler
by Rudyard Kipling

Here, where my fresh-turned furrows run,
And the deep soil glistens red,
I will repair the wrong that was done
To the living and the dead.
Here, where the senseless bullet fell,
And the barren shrapnel burst,
I will plant a tree, I will dig a well,
Against the heat and the thirst.
Here, in a large and a sunlit land,
Where no wrong bites to the bone,
I will lay my hand in my neighbour's hand,
And together we will atone
For the set folly and the red breach
And the black waste of it all;
Giving and taking counsel each
Over the cattle-kraal.
Here will we join against our foes,
The hailstroke and the storm,
And the red and rustling cloud that blows
The locust's mile-deep swarm.
Frost and murrain and floods let loose
Shall launch us side by side
In the holy wars that have no truce
'Twixt seed and harvest-tide.
Earth, where we rode to slay or be slain,
Our love shall redeem unto life.    
We will gather and lead to her lips again
The waters of ancient strife,
From the far and fiercely guarded streams
And the pools where we lay in wait,
Till the corn cover our evil dreams
And the young corn our hate.
And when we bring old fights to mind,
We will not remember the sin,
If there be blood on his head of my kind,
Or blood on my head of his kin,
For the ungrazed upland, the untilled lea
Cry, and the fields forlorn:
"The dead must bury their dead, but ye,
Ye serve an host unborn."
Bless then, Our God, the new-yoked plough
And the good beasts that draw,
And the bread we eat in the sweat of our brow
According to Thy Law.
After us cometh a multitude,
Prosper the work of our hands,
That we may feed with our land's food
The folk of all our lands!
Here, in the waves and the troughs of the plains,
Where the healing stillness lies,
And the vast, benignant sky restrains
And the long days make wise,
Bless to our use the rain and the sun
And the blind seed in its bed,
That we may repair the wrong that was done
To the living and the dead!
Sonnet LXXXIII. On Catania And Syracuse Swallowed Up By Earthquake.
by Anna Seward

FROM THE ITALIAN OF FILACAJA.
Here, from laborious Art, proud TOWNS, ye rose!
Here, in an instant, sunk! - nor ought remains
Of all ye were! - on the wide, lonely plains
Not e'en a stone, that might these words disclose,
"Here stood CATANIA;" - or whose surface shows
That this was SYRACUSE: - but louring reigns
A trackless DESOLATION. - Dim Domains!
Pale, mournful Strand! how oft, with anxious throes,
Seek I sad relics, which no spot supplies! - 
A SILENCE - a fix'd HORROR sears my soul,
Arrests my foot! - Dread DOOM of human crimes,
What art thou? - Ye o'erwhelmed Cities, rise!
That your terrific skeletons may scowl
Portentous warning to succeeding Times!
Here In Our Fairy Bowers We Dwell. A Glee.
by Thomas Gent

Here, in our fairy bowers, we dwell,
Women our idol, life's best treasure!
Echo enchanted joys to tell,
Our feast of laugh, of love, and pleasure.
Say, is not this then bliss divine,
Beauty's smiles and rosy wine?
Eternal mirth and sunshine reign,
For grief we cannot find the leisure;
Night's social gods have banish'd pain,
Morn lights us to increasing pleasure.
Say, is not this then bliss divine,
Beauty's smiles and rosy wine?
Here in our fairy bowers, &c.
The Epitaph
by Jonathan Swift

Here, five feet deep, lies on his back
A cobbler, starmonger, and quack;
Who to the stars, in pure good will,
Does to his best look upward still.
Weep, all you customers that use
His pills, his almanacks, or shoes;
And you that did your fortunes seek,
Step to his grave but once a-week;
This earth, which bears his body's print,
You'll find has so much virtue in't,
That I durst pawn my ears, 'twill tell
Whate'er concerns you full as well,
In physic, stolen goods, or love,
As he himself could, when above.
What Happened To Lazy Charlotte
by Heinrich Hoffmann

"Here, Charlotte," said Mamma one day.
"These stockings knit while I'm away,
And should you fail, be sure you'll find
Mamma is strict, although she's kind."
But Charlotte took a lazy fit,
And did not feel inclined to knit;
And soon upon the ground let fall
Needles, and worsted, hose, and all.
"I shall not knit," said she, "not I;
At least not now, but by and by;"
Then stretched, and yawned, and rubbed her eyes,
Like sluggards, when 'tis time to rise.
But when Mamma came home, and found
The work all strewed upon the ground,
Quoth she, "You will not knit, and so
To school barefooted you shall go."
This put poor Charlotte in a fright.
And though she knew it served her right,
She wept, and begged, and prayed; but still
She could not change her mother's will.
To school, where all were spruce and neat,
Poor Charlotte went with naked feet.
Some showed their pity, some their pride,
While Charlotte hid her face and cried.
To a True Friend.
by John Hartley

Here'sa song to mi brave old friend,
A friend who has allus been true;
His day's drawin near to its end,
When he'll leeav me, as all friends mun do.
His teeth have quite wasted away,
He's grown feeble an blind o' one ee,
His hair is all sprinkled wi' gray,
But he's just as mich thowt on bi me.
When takkin a stroll into th' taan,
He's potterin cloise at mi heels;
Noa matter whearivver aw'm baan,
His constancy nivver once keels.
His feyts an his frolics are o'er,
But his love nivver offers to fail;
An altho' some may fancy us poor,
They could'nt buy th' wag ov his tail.
If th' grub is sometimes rayther rough,
An if prospects for better be dark;
He nivver turns surly an gruff,
Or shows discontent in his bark.
Ther's nubdy can tice him away, - 
He owns but one maister, - that's me,
He seems to know all 'at aw say,
An maks th' best ov his lot, what it be.
Aw've towt him a trick, nah an then,
Just when it has suited mi whim;
But aw'm foorced to admit to misen,
At aw've leearned far mooar lessons throo him.
He may have noa soul to be saved,
An when life ends i' this world he's done;
But aw wish aw could say aw'd behaved
Hawf as weel, when my life's journey's run.
Yo may call it a fooilish consait, - 
But to me he's soa faithful an dear,
'At whativver mi futer estate,
Aw'st feel looansum if Dick isn't thear.
But if foorced to part, once for all,
An his carcase to worms aw mun give,
His mem'ry aw oft shall recall,
For he nivver can dee wol aw live.
Fiesole Idyl
by Walter Savage Landor

Here, where precipitate Spring, with one light bound
Into hot Summer's lusty arms, expires,
And where go forth at morn, at eve, at night,
Soft airs that want the lute to play with 'em,
And softer sighs that know not what they want,
Aside a wall, beneath an orange-tree,
Whose tallest flowers could tell the lowlier ones
Of sights in Fiesole right up above,
While I was gazing a few paces off
At what they seem'd to show me with their nods,
Their frequent whispers and their pointing shoots,
A gentle maid came down the garden-steps
And gathered the pure treasure in her lap.
I heard the branches rustle, and stept forth
To drive the ox away, or mule, or goat,
Such I believed it must be. How could I
Let beast o'erpower them? When hath wind or rain
Borne hard upon weak plant that wanted me,
And I (however they might bluster round)
Walkt off? 'Twere most ungrateful: for sweet scents
Are the swift vehicles of still sweeter thoughts,
And nurse and pillow the dull memory
That would let drop without them her best stores.
They bring me tales of youth and tones of love,
And 'tis and ever was my wish and way
To let all flowers live freely, and all die
(Whene'er their Genius bids their souls depart)
Among their kindred in their native place.
I never pluck the rose; the violet's head
Hath shaken with my breath upon its bank
And not reproacht me; the ever-sacred cup
Of the pure lily hath between my hands
Felt safe, unsoil'd, nor lost one grain of gold.
I saw the light that made the glossy leaves
More glossy; the fair arm, the fairer cheek
Warmed by the eye intent on its pursuit;
I saw the foot that, although half-erect
From its grey slipper, could not lift her up
To what she wanted: I held down a branch
And gather'd her some blossoms; since their hour
Was come, and bees had wounded them, and flies
Of harder wing were working their way thro'
And scattering them in fragments under-foot.
So crisp were some, they rattled unevolved,
Others, ere broken off, fell into shells,
For such appear the petals when detacht,
Unbending, brittle, lucid, white like snow,
And like snow not seen thro', by eye or sun:
Yet every one her gown received from me
Was fairer than the first. I thought not so,
But so she praised them to reward my care.
I said, 'You find the largest.'
'This indeed,'
Cried she, 'is large and sweet.' She held one forth,
Whether for me to look at or to stake
She knew not, nor did I; but taking it
Would best have solved (and this she felt) her doubt.
I dared not touch it; for it seemed a part
Of her own self; fresh, full, the most mature
Of blossoms, yet a blossom; with a touch
To fall, and yet unfallen. She drew back
The boon she tender'd, and then, finding not
The ribbon at her waist to fix it in,
Dropt it, as loath to drop it, on the rest.
Absence
by Walter Savage Landor

HERE, ever since you went abroad,
If there be change no change I see:
I only walk our wonted road,
The road is only walk'd by me.
Yes; I forgot; a change there is,
Was it of that you bade me tell?
I catch at times, at times I miss
The sight, the tone, I know so well.
Only two months since you stood here?
Two shortest months? Then tell me why
Voices are harsher than they were,
And tears are longer ere they dry.
Here, Take My Heart.
by Thomas Moore

Here, take my heart--'twill be safe in thy keeping,
While I go wandering o'er land and o'er sea;
Smiling or sorrowing, waking or sleeping,
What need I care, so my heart is with thee?
If in the race we are destined to run, love,
They who have light hearts the happiest be,
Then happier still must be they who have none, love.
And that will be my case when mine is with thee.
It matters not where I may now be a rover,
I care not how many bright eyes I may see;
Should Venus herself come and ask me to love her,
I'd tell her I couldn't--my heart is with thee.
And there let it lie, growing fonder and, fonder--
For, even should Fortune turn truant to me,
Why, let her go--I've a treasure beyond her,
As long as my heart's out at interest With thee!
Haven
by John Kendall (Dum-Dum)

Here, in mine old-time harbourage installed,
Lulled by the murmurous hum of London's traffic
To that full calm which may be justly called
Seraphic,
I praise the gods; and vow, for my escape
From the hard grip of premature Jehannun,
One golden-tissued bottle of the grape
Per annum.
For on this day, from Orient toils enlarged,
Kneeling, I kissed the parent soil at Dover,
Where a huge porter in his orbit charged
Me over;
Flashed in the train by Shorncliffe's draughty camp;
Gazed on the hurrying landscape's pastoral graces,
Old farms, and happy fields (a trifle damp
In places);
Passed the grim suburbs, indigent and bare
Of natural foliage, but bravely flying
Frank garlandry of last week's underwear
Out drying;
And so to Town; and with that blessed sight
I, a poor fevered wreck, forgot to shiver - 
Forgot to mourn the Burden of my White
Man's Liver;
And felt my bosom heave, my breast expand,
With thoughts too sweet, too deep for empty cackle,
Such thoughts as nothing but a first-class Band
Could tackle:
Till, from its deeps, my celebrated smile
(Which friends called Marvel) clove my jaws asunder,
Lucid, intense, and all men stood awhile
In wonder!
Let none approach me now, for I have dined;
The fire is bright; Havana's choice aroma
Infects my being with a pleasant kind
Of coma;
Calmly I contemplate my future lot:
I reconstruct the past - it fails to strike me
With aught of horror (pity there are not
More like me!) - 
My bosom's lord sits lightly on my breast;
The East grows dim; and every hour I stuck to it
Imparts a richer brightness to the West,
Good luck to it!
Dungog
by Henry Kendall

Here, pent about by office walls
And barren eyes all day,
'Tis sweet to think of waterfalls
Two hundred miles away!
I would not ask you, friends, to brook
An old, old truth from me,
If I could shut a Poet's book
Which haunts me like the Sea!
He saith to me, this Poet saith,
So many things of light,
That I have found a fourfold faith,
And gained a twofold sight.
He telleth me, this Poet tells,
How much of God is seen
Amongst the deep-mossed English dells,
And miles of gleaming green.
From many a black Gethsemane,
He leads my bleeding feet
To where I hear the Morning Sea
Round shining spaces beat!
To where I feel the wind, which brings
A sound of running creeks,
And blows those dark, unpleasant things,
The sorrows, from my cheeks.
I'll shut mine eyes, my Poet choice,
And spend the day with thee;
I'll dream thou art a fountain voice
Which God hath sent to me!
And far beyond these office walls
My thoughts shall even stray,
And watch the wilful waterfalls,
Two hundred miles away.
For, if I know not of thy deeds,
And darling Kentish downs,
I've seen the deep, wild Dungog fells,
And hate the heart of towns!
Then, ho! for beaming bank and brake,
Far-folded hills among,
Where Williams, like a silver snake,
Draws winding lengths along!
And ho! for stormy mountain cones,
Where headlong Winter leaps,
What time the gloomy swamp-oak groans,
And weeps and wails and weeps.
There, friends, are spots of sleepy green,
Where one may hear afar,
O'er fifteen leagues of waste, I ween,
A moaning harbour bar!
(The sea that breaks, and beats and shakes
The caverns, howling loud,
Beyond the midnight Myall Lakes,
And half-awakened Stroud!)
There, through the fretful autumn days,
Beneath a cloudy sun,
Comes rolling down rain-rutted ways,
The wind, Euroclydon!
While rattles over riven rocks
The thunder, harsh and dry;
And blustering gum and brooding box
Are threshing at the sky!
And then the gloom doth vex the sight
With crude, unshapely forms
Which hold throughout the yelling night
A fellowship with storms!
But here are shady tufts and turns,
Where sumptuous Summer lies
(By reaches brave with flags and ferns)
With large, luxuriant eyes.
And here, another getteth ease
Our Spring, so rarely seen,
Who shows us in the cedar trees
A glimpse of golden green.
What time the flapping bats have trooped
Away like ghosts to graves,
And darker growths than Night are cooped
In silent, hillside caves.
Ah, Dungog, dream of darling days,
'Tis better thou should'st be
A far-off thing to love and praise
A boon from Heaven to me!
For, let me say that when I look
With wearied eyes on men,
I think of one unchanging nook,
And find my faith again.
Across The Table. To A. L. L.
by Bliss Carman (William)

Here's to you, Arthur! You and I
Have seen a lot of stormy weather,
Since first we clinked cups on the sly
At school together.
The winds of fate have had their will
And blown our crafts so far apart
We hardly knew if either still
Were on the chart.
But now I know the love of man
Is more than time or space or fate,
And laugh to scorn the powers that ban,
With you for mate.
It's good to have you sitting by,
Old man, to prove the world no botch,
To shame the devil with your eye
And pass the Scotch.
Fsulan Idyl
by Walter Savage Landor

Here, where precipitate Spring with one light bound
Into hot Summer's lusty arms expires;
And where go forth at morn, at eve, at night,
Soft airs, that want the lute to play with them,
And softer sighs, that know not what they want;
Under a wall, beneath an orange-tree
Whose tallest flowers could tell the lowlier ones
Of sights in Fiesole right up above,
While I was gazing a few paces off
At what they seemed to show me with their nods,
Their frequent whispers and their pointing shoots,
A gentle maid came down the garden-steps
And gathered the pure treasure in her lap.
I heard the branches rustle, and stept forth
To drive the ox away, or mule, or goat,
(Such I believed it must be); for sweet scents
Are the swift vehicles of still sweeter thoughts,
And nurse and pillow the dull memory
That would let drop without them her best stores.
They bring me tales of youth and tones of love,
And 'tis and ever was my wish and way
To let all flowers live freely, and all die,
Whene'er their Genius bids their souls depart,
Among their kindred in their native place.
I never pluck the rose; the violet's head
Hath shaken with my breath upon its bank
And not reproacht me; the ever-sacred cup
Of the pure lily hath between my hands
Felt safe, unsoil'd, nor lost one grain of gold.
I saw the light that made the glossy leaves
More glossy; the fair arm, the fairer cheek
Warmed by the eye intent on its pursuit;
I saw the foot, that, altho half-erect
From its grey slipper, could not lift her up
To what she wanted: I held down a branch
And gather'd her some blossoms, since their hour
Was come, and bees had wounded them, and flies
Of harder wing were working their way thro
And scattering them in fragments under foot.
So crisp were some, they rattled unevolved,
Others, ere broken off, fell into shells,
For such appear the petals when detacht,
Unbending, brittle, lucid, white like snow,
And like snow not seen thro, by eye or sun:
Yet every one her gown received from me
Was fairer than the first . . I thought not so,
But so she praised them to reward my care.
I said: you find the largest.
This indeed,
Cried she, is large and sweet.
She held one forth,
Whether for me to look at or to take
She knew not, nor did I; but taking it
Would best have solved (and this she felt) her doubts.
I dared not touch it; for it seemed a part
Of her own self; fresh, full, the most mature
Of blossoms, yet a blossom; with a touch
To fall, and yet unfallen.
She drew back
The boon she tendered, and then, finding not
The ribbon at her waist to fix it in,
Dropt it, as loth to drop it, on the rest.
The Rock.
by Madison Julius Cawein

Here, at its base, in dingled deeps
Of spice-bush, where the ivy creeps,
The cold spring scoops its hollow;
And there three mossy stepping-stones
Make ripple murmurs; undertones
Of foam that blend and follow
With voices of the wood that drones.
The quail pipes here when noons are hot;
And here, in coolness sunlight-shot
Beneath a roof of briers,
The red-fox skulks at close of day;
And here at night, the shadows gray
Stand like FRANCISCAN friars,
With moonbeam beads whereon they pray.
Here yawns the ground-hog's dark-dug hole;
And there the tunnel of the mole
Heaves under weed and flower;
A sandy pit-fall here and there
The ant-lion digs and lies a-lair;
And here, for sun and shower,
The spider weaves a silvery snare.
The poison-oak's rank tendrils twine
The rock's south side; the trumpet-vine,
With crimson bugles sprinkled,
Makes green its eastern side; the west
Is rough with lichens; and, gray-pressed
Into an angle wrinkled,
The hornets hang an oblong nest.
The north is hid from sun and star,
And here, - like an Inquisitor
Of Fa'ry Inquisition,
That roots out Elf-land heresy, - 
Deep in the rock, with mystery
Cowled for his grave commission,
The Owl sits magisterially.