DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Amour 16
by Michael Drayton

Vertues Idea in virginitie,
By inspiration, came conceau'd with thought:
The time is come deliuered she must be,
Where first my loue into the world was brought.
Vnhappy borne, of all vnhappy day!
So luckles was my Babes nativity,
Saturne chiefe Lord of the Ascendant lay,
The wandring Moone in earths triplicitie.
Now, or by chaunce or heauens hie prouidence,
His Mother died, and by her Legacie
(Fearing the stars presaging influence)
Bequeath'd his wardship to my soueraignes eye;
Where hunger-staruen, wanting lookes to liue,
Still empty gorg'd, with cares consumption pynde,
Salt luke-warm teares shee for his drink did giue,
And euer-more with sighes he supt and dynde:
And thus (poore Orphan) lying in distresse
Cryes in his pangs, God helpe the motherlesse.
The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - To The Poets.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

In superbia il valor.
Valour to pride hath turned; grave holiness
To vile hypocrisy; all gentle ways
To empty forms; sound sense to idle lays;
Pure love to heat; beauty to paint and dress:--
Thanks to you, Poets! you who sing the praise
Of fabled knights, foul fires, lies, nullities;
Not virtue, nor the wrapped sublimities
Of God, as bards were wont in those old days.
How far more wondrous than your phantasies
Are Nature's works, how far more sweet to sing!
Thus taught, the soul falsehood and truth descries.
That tale alone is worth the pondering,
Which hath not smothered history in lies,
And arms the soul against each sinful thing.
Happy Sam's Song.
by John Hartley

Varry monny years ago, when this world wor rather young,
A varry wicked sarpent, wi' a varry oily tongue,
Whispered summat varry nowty into Mistress Adam's ear;
An shoo pluckt a little apple 'at soa temptingly hung near.
Then shoo ait this dainty fruit shoo'd been tell'd shoo mudn't touch,
An shoo gave some to her husband, but it wornt varry much: - 
But sin that fatal day, he wor tell'd, soa it wor sed,
'At henceforth wi' a sweeaty broo, he'd have to earn his breead.
An all awr lords an princes, an ladies great an grand,
Have all sprung off that common stock a laborer i' the land;
Soa aw think ther airs an graces are little but a sham,
An aw wodn't change 'em places wi' hardworkin, Happy Sam.
Awm contented wi' mi share,
Rough an ready tho' mi fare,
An aw strive to do mi duty to mi naybor;
If yo wonder who aw am,
Well, - mi name is Happy Sam;
Awm a member ov the multitude who labor.
When aw've worked throo morn to neet for a varry little brass,
Yet a smilin welcome greets me from mi buxom, bonny lass;
An two tiny little toddles come to meet me at mi door,
An they think noa less ov daddy's kiss becoss that daddy's poor;
An as aw sit to smook mi pipe, mi treasures on mi knee;
Aw think ther's net a man alive 'at's hawf as rich as me;
Aw wodn't change mi station wi' a king upon his throne,
For ivvery joy araand me, honest labor's made mi own.
An we owe noa man a penny 'at we're net prepared to pay,
An we're tryin hard to save a bit agean a rainy day.
Soa aw cry a fig for care! Awm contented as aw am, - 
An bless the fate 'at made me plain, hardworkin, Happy Sam.
Awm contented wi' mi share,
Rough an ready tho' mi fare,
An aw strive to do mi duty to mi naybor;
If yo wonder who aw am,
Well, mi name is Happy Sam,
Awm a member ov the multitude who labor.
Veils
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Veils, everywhere float veils; veils long and black,
Framing white faces, oft-times young and fair,
But, like a rose touched by untimely frost,
Showing the blighting marks of sorrow's track.
Veils, veils, veils everywhere.    They tell the cost
Of man-made war.    They show the awful toll
Paid by the hearts of women for the crimes,
The age-old crimes by selfishness ill-named
'Justice' and 'Honour' and 'The call of Fate' - 
High words men use to hide their low estate.
About the joy and beauty of this world
A long black veil is furled.
Even the face of Heaven itself seems lost
Behind a veil.    It takes a fervent soul
In these tense times
To visualise a God so long defamed
By insolent lips, that send out prayers, and prate
Of God's collaboration in dark deeds,
So foul they put to shame the fiends of hell.
Yet One DOES dwell
In Secret Centres of the Universe - 
The Mighty Maker; and He hears and heeds
The still small voice of soulful, selfless faith;
And He is lifting now the veil of death,
So long down-dropped between those worlds and earth.
Yea!    He is giving faith a great new birth
By letting echoes from the hidden places
Where dwell our dead, fall on love's listening ear.
Hearken, and you shall hear
The messages which come from those star-spaces!
That is the reason why
God let so many die;
That the vast hordes of suffering hearts might wake
Mighty vibrations, and the silence break
Between the neighbouring worlds, and lift the veil
'Twixt life on earth, and life Beyond.    All hail
To great Jehovah, Who has given life
Eternal, everlasting, after strife!
Veils, long black veils, you shall be bridal white.
Eyes, blind with tears, you shall receive your sight,
And see your dead alive in Worlds of Light.
To Venus
by Eugene Field

Venus, dear Cnidian-Paphian queen!
Desert that Cyprus way off yonder,
And fare you hence, where with incense
My Glycera would have you fonder;
And to your joy bring hence your boy,
The Graces with unbelted laughter,
The Nymphs, and Youth,--then, then, in sooth,
Should Mercury come tagging after.
Memorials Of A Tour On The Continent, 1820 - XXIX. - Stanzas - Composed In The Simplon Pass
by William Wordsworth

Vallombrosa! I longed in thy shadiest wood
To slumber, reclined on the moss-covered floor,
To listen to Anio's precipitous flood,
When the stillness of evening hath deepened its roar;
To range through the Temples of Paestum, to muse
In Pompeii preserved by her burial in earth;
On pictures to gaze where they drank in their hues;
And murmur sweet songs on the ground of their birth.
The beauty of Florence, the grandeur of Rome,
Could I leave them unseen, and not yield to regret?
With a hope (and no more) for a season to come,
Which ne'er may discharge the magnificent debt?
Thou fortunate Region! whose Greatness inurned
Awoke to new life from its ashes and dust;
Twice-glorified fields! if in sadness I turned
From your infinite marvels, the sadness was just.
Now, risen ere the light-footed Chamois retires
From dew-sprinkled grass to heights guarded with snow,
Toward the mists that hang over the land of my Sires,
From the climate of myrtles contented I go.
My thoughts become bright like yon edging of Pines
On the steep's lofty verge: how it blackened the air!
But, touched from behind by the Sun, it now shines
With threads that seem part of his own silver hair.
Though the toil of the way with dear Friends we divide,
Though by the same zephyr our temples be fanned
As we rest in the cool orange-bower side by side,
A yearning survives which few hearts shall withstand:
Each step hath its value while homeward we move;
O joy when the girdle of England appears!
What moment in life is so conscious of love,
Of love in the heart made more happy by tears?
One Certainty. - Sonnet.
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Vanity of vanities, the Preacher saith,
All things are vanity. The eye and ear
Cannot be filled with what they see and hear.
Like early dew, or like the sudden breath
Of wind, or like the grass that withereth,
Is man, tossed to and fro by hope and fear:
So little joy hath he, so little cheer,
Till all things end in the long dust of death.
To-day is still the same as yesterday,
To-morrow also even as one of them;
And there is nothing new under the sun:
Until the ancient race of Time be run,
The old thorns shall grow out of the old stem,
And morning shall be cold, and twilight gray.
Vast The Realm Of Being Is,
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Vast the realm of Being is,
In the waste one nook is his;
Whatsoever hap befalls
In his vision's narrow walls
He is here to testify.
Mortality
by William F. Kirk

Vat for should dis spirit of mortal ban proud?
Man valk round a minute, and talk purty loud;
Den doctor ban coming, and say, "Ay can't save."
And man have to tak running yump into grave.
To-day dis har faller ban svelling around,
His head ban so light dat his feet ant touch ground.
To-morrow he light vith his face in the sand,
And hustle lak hal to get gude helping hand.
Ay see lots of fallers who tenk dey ban vise,
Yu see dem yureself ef yu open yure eyes;
Dey tal 'bout the gold dey skol making some day,
And yump ven the vash-voman com for her pay.
Ay tal yu, dear frend, purty sune we ban dead,
So ay tenk we ban suckers to getting svelled head.
It ant wery far from Prince Albert to shroud;
Vat for should dis spirit of mortal ban proud?
Various the roads of life; in one
by Walter Savage Landor

Various the roads of life; in one
All terminate, one lonely way
We go; and 'Is he gone?'
Is all our best friends say.
The Jubilee Singers
by John Greenleaf Whittier

Voice of a people suffering long,
The pathos of their mournful song,
The sorrow of their night of wrong!
Their cry like that which Israel gave,
A prayer for one to guide and save,
Like Moses by the Red Sea's wave!
The Stern accord her timbrel lent
To Miriam's note of triumph sent
O'er Egypt's sunken armament!
The tramp that startled camp and town,
And shook the walls of slavery down,
The spectral march of old John Brown!
The storm that swept through battle-days,
The triumph after long delays,
The bondmen giving God the praise!
Voice of a ransomed race, sing on
Till Freedom's every right is won,
And slavery's every wrong undone
Virgil Strange I Kept On The Field
by Walt Whitman

Vigil strange I kept on the field one night:
When you, my son and my comrade, dropt at my side that day,
One look I but gave, which your dear eyes return'd, with a look I shall never forget;
One touch of your hand to mine, O boy, reach'd up as you lay on the ground;
Then onward I sped in the battle, the even-contested battle;
Till late in the night reliev'd, to the place at last again I made my way;
Found you in death so cold, dear comrade, found your body, son of responding kisses, (never again on earth responding;)
Bared your face in the starlight, curious the scene, cool blew the moderate night-wind;
Long there and then in vigil I stood, dimly around me the battlefield spreading;
Vigil wondrous and vigil sweet, there in the fragrant silent night;
But not a tear fell, not even a long-drawn sigh, Long, long I gazed;
Then on the earth partially reclining, sat by your side, leaning my chin in my hands;
Passing sweet hours, immortal and mystic hours with you, dearest comrade, Not a tear, not a word;
Vigil of silence, love and death, vigil for you my son and my soldier,
As onward silently stars aloft, eastward new ones upward stole;
Vigil final for you, brave boy, (I could not save you, swift was your death,
I faithfully loved you and cared for you living, I think we shall surely meet again;)
Till at latest lingering of the night, indeed just as the dawn appear'd,
My comrade I wrapt in his blanket, envelop'd well his form,
Folded the blanket well, tucking it carefully over head, and carefully under feet;
And there and then, and bathed by the rising sun, my son in his grave, in his rude-dug grave I deposited;
Ending my vigil strange with that, vigil of night and battlefield dim;
Vigil for boy of responding kisses, (never again on earth responding;)
Vigil for comrade swiftly slain, vigil I never forget, how as day brighten'd,
I rose from the chill ground, and folded my soldier well in his blanket,
And buried him where he fell.
Beatrice.
by Margaret Steele Anderson

Vision of light, above triumphal car
Vision of guidance, star of ev'ry star
And throned saint within the great white Rose,
I follow thee: the book at last to close,
And see again, while sun and stars grow less,
A little girl, in little crimson dress!
Three Names.
by James Barron Hope

Virginia in her proud, Colonial days
Boasts three great names which full of glory shine;
Two glitter like the burnished heads of spears,
the third in tender light is half divine.
Turning that page my eager fancy hears
Trumpets and drums, and fleet on fleet appears.
Those names are graven deep and broad, to last
And outlast Ages: while recording Time
Hands down their story, worth an Epic Rhyme
To light her future by her splendid past:
One planned the Saxon's Empire o'er these lands, - 
The other planted it with valiant hands - 
The third, with Mercy's soft, celestial beams,
Lights fair romances, histories and dreams.
Flight
by Rupert Brooke

Voices out of the shade that cried,
And long noon in the hot calm places,
And children's play by the wayside,
And country eyes, and quiet faces,
All these were round my steady paces.
Those that I could have loved went by me;
Cool gardened homes slept in the sun;
I heard the whisper of water nigh me,
Saw hands that beckoned, shone, were gone
In the green and gold. And I went on.
For if my echoing footfall slept,
Soon a far whispering there'd be
Of a little lonely wind that crept
From tree to tree, and distantly
Followed me, followed me. . . .
But the blue vaporous end of day
Brought peace, and pursuit baffled quite,
Where between pine-woods dipped the way.
I turned, slipped in and out of sight.
I trod as quiet as the night.
The pine-boles kept perpetual hush;
And in the boughs wind never swirled.
I found a flowering lowly bush,
And bowed, slid in, and sighed and curled,
Hidden at rest from all the world.
Safe! I was safe, and glad, I knew!
Yet, with cold heart and cold wet brows
I lay. And the dark fell. . . . There grew
Meward a sound of shaken boughs;
And ceased, above my intricate house;
And silence, silence, silence found me. . . .
I felt the unfaltering movement creep
Among the leaves. They shed around me
Calm clouds of scent, that I did weep;
And stroked my face. I fell asleep.
To a Friend Studying German
by Charles G. Leland

Si liceret te amare
Ad Suevorum magnum mare
Sponsam te perducerem
- Tristicia Amorosa.
Frau Aventiure,
von J. V. Scheffel.
Vill'st dou learn die Deutsche Sprache?
Denn set it on your card,
Dat all the nouns have shenders,
Und de shenders all are hard.
Dere ish also dings called pronoms,
Vitch id's shoost ash vell to know;
Boot ach! de verbs or time-words
Dey'll work you bitter woe.
Will'st dou learn de Deutsche Sprche?
Den you allatag moost go
To sinfonies, sonatas,
Or an oratorio.
Vhen you dinks you knows 'pout musik,
More ash any other man,
Be sure de soul of Deutschland
Into your soul ish ran.
Will'st dou learn de Deutsche Sprache?
Dou moost eat apout a peck
A week of stinging sauerkraut,
Und sefen pfoundts of speck.
Mit Gott knows vot in vinegar,
Und deuce knows vot in rum:
Dis ish de only cerdain vay
To make de accents coom.
Will'st dou learn de Deutsche Sprache?
Brepare dein soul to shtand
Soosh sendences ash ne'er vas heardt
In any oder land.
Till dou canst make parentheses
Intwisted-ohne zahl
Dann wirst du erst Deutschfertig seyn,
For a languashe ide'l.
Will'st dou learn de Deutsche Sprache?
Du must mitout an fear
Trink afery tay an gallon dry,
Of foamin Sherman bier.
Und de more you trinks, pe certain,
More Deutsch you'll surely pe;
For Gambrinus ish de Emperor
Of de whole of Germany.
Will'st dou learn de Deutsche Sprache?
Be sholly, brav, und treu,
For dat veller ish kein Deutscher
Who ish not a sholly poy.
Find out vot means Gem?tlichkeit,
Und do it mitout fail,
In Sang und Klang dein Lebenlang,
A brick-ganz kreuzfid'l.
Willst dou learn de Deutsche Sprache?
If a shendleman dou art,
Denn shtrike right indo Deutschland,
Und get a schveetes heart.
From Schwabenland or Sachsen
Vhere now dis writer pees;
Und de bretty girls all wachsen
Shoost like aepples on de drees.
Boot if dou bee'st a laty,
Denn on de oder hand,
Take a blonde moustachioed lofer
In de vine green Sherman land.
Und if you shoost kit married
(Vood mit vood soon makes a vire),
You'll learn to sprechen Deutsch mein kind,
Ash fast ash you tesire.
The Soldier's Welcome Home.
by George Pope Morris

(Written upon the return of General Scott from his brilliant Mexican campaign.)
Victorious the hero returns from the wars,
His brow bound with laurels that never will fade,
While streams the free standard of stripes and of stars,
Whose field in the battle the foeman dismayed.
When the Mexican hosts in their fury came on,
Like a tower of strength in his might he arose,
Where danger most threatened his banner was borne,
Waving hope to his friends and despair to his foes!
The soldier of honor and liberty hail!
His deeds in the temple of Fame are enrolled;
His precepts, like flower-seeds sown by the gale,
Take root in the hearts of the valiant and bold.
The warrior's escutcheon his foes seek to blot,
But vain is the effort of partisan bands--
For freemen will render full justice to SCOTT,
And welcome him home with their hearts in their hands.
Death Chant
by Walter Scott (Sir)

Viewless essence, thin and bare,
Well nigh melted into air,
Still with fondness hovering near
The earthly form thou once didst wear,
Pause upon thy pinion's flight;
Be thy course to left or right,
Be thou doomed to soar or sink,
Pause upon the awful brink.
To avenge the deed expelling
Thee untimely from thy dwelling,
Mystic force thou shalt retain
O'er the blood and o'er the brain.
When the form thou shalt espy
That darken'd on thy closing eye,
When the footstep thou shalt hear
That thrill'd upon thy dying ear,
Then strange sympathies shall wake,
The flesh shall thrill, the nerves shall quake,
The wounds renew their clotter'd flood,
And every drop cry blood for blood!
Lucifer
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

'crasez l'inf'me.
- Voltaire
Les pr'tres ont raison de l'appeler Lucifer.
- Victor Hugo
Voltaire, our England's lover, man divine
Beyond all Gods that ever fear adored
By right and might, by sceptre and by sword,
By godlike love of sunlike truth, made thine
Through godlike hate of falsehood's marshlight shine
And all the fume of creeds and deeds abhorred
Whose light was darkness, till the dawn-star soared,
Truth, reason, mercy, justice, keep thy shrine
Sacred in memory's temple, seeing that none
Of all souls born to strive before the sun
Loved ever good or hated evil more.
The snake that felt thy heel upon her head,
Night's first-born, writhes as though she were not dead,
But strikes not, stings not, slays not as before.
The Luminous Bow.
by Susanna Moodie

THIS REMARKABLE PHENOMENON WAS WITNESSED BY THE AUTHOR ON THE NIGHT OF THE 29th OF SEPTEMBER, 1829.
Vision of beauty! there floats not a cloud
O'er the blue vault of heaven thy glory to shroud;
The star-gemmed horizon thou spannest sublime,
Like the path to a better and lovelier clime.
Thy light, unreflected by planet or star,
Still widens and brightens round night's spangled car;
In radiance resembling the moon's placid beam,
When she smiles through the soft mist that hangs on the stream.
Thou sittest enthroned, like the spirit of night,
And the stars through thy zone shed a tremulous light;
The moon is still sleeping beneath the wide sea,
Whilst wonder is keeping her vigils with me.
The bow of the covenant brightens the storm,
When its dark wings are shading the brow of the morn;
But thou art uncradled by vapour or cloud,
Thy glory's unshaded by night's sable shroud.
Oh whence is thy splendour, fair luminous bow?
From light's golden chalice thy radiance must flow;
Thou look'st from the throne of thy beauty above
On this desolate earth, like the spirit of love!
Horace, Book IV, Ode IX, Addressed To Archbishop King,[1] 1718
by Jonathan Swift

Virtue conceal'd within our breast
Is inactivity at best:
But never shall the Muse endure
To let your virtues lie obscure;
Or suffer Envy to conceal
Your labours for the public weal.
Within your breast all wisdom lies,
Either to govern or advise;
Your steady soul preserves her frame,
In good and evil times, the same.
Pale Avarice and lurking Fraud,
Stand in your sacred presence awed;
Your hand alone from gold abstains,
Which drags the slavish world in chains.
Him for a happy man I own,
Whose fortune is not overgrown;[2]
And happy he who wisely knows
To use the gifts that Heaven bestows;
Or, if it please the powers divine,
Can suffer want and not repine.
The man who infamy to shun
Into the arms of death would run;
That man is ready to defend,
With life, his country or his friend.
Victory Comes Late,
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Victory comes late,
And is held low to freezing lips
Too rapt with frost
To take it.
How sweet it would have tasted,
Just a drop!
Was God so economical?
His table 's spread too high for us
Unless we dine on tip-toe.
Crumbs fit such little mouths,
Cherries suit robins;
The eagle's golden breakfast
Strangles them.
God keeps his oath to sparrows,
Who of little love
Know how to starve!
Upon Vinegar.
by Robert Herrick

Vinegar is no other, I define,
Than the dead corps, or carcase of the wine.
The Annual Pill.
by Thomas Moore

Supposed to be sung by OLD PROSY, the Jew, in the character of Major CARTWRIGHT.
Vill nobodies try my nice Annual Pill,
Dat's to purify every ting nashty avay?
Pless ma heart, pless ma heart, let ma say vat I vill,
Not a Chrishtian or Shentleman minds vat I say.
'Tis so pretty a bolus!--just down let it go,
And, at vonce, such a radical shange you vill see,
Dat I'd not be surprished, like de horse in de show,
If your heads all vere found, vere your tailsh ought to be!
Vill nobodies try my nice Annual Pill, etc.
'Twill cure all Electors and purge away clear
Dat mighty bad itching dey've got in deir hands--
'Twill cure too all Statesmen of dulness, ma tear,
Tho' the case vas as desperate as poor Mister VAN'S.
Dere is noting at all vat dis Pill vill not reach--
Give the Sinecure Ghentleman van little grain,
Pless ma heart, it vill act, like de salt on de leech,
And he'll throw de pounds, shillings, and pence, up again!
Vill nobodies try my nice Annual Pill, etc.
'Twould be tedious, ma tear, all its peauties to paint--
"But, among oder tings fundamentally wrong,
It vill cure de Proad Pottom[1]--a common complaint
Among M.P.'s and weavers--from sitting too long.
Should symptoms of speeching preak out on a dunce
(Vat is often de case), it vill stop de disease,
And pring avay all de long speeches at vonce,
Dat else vould, like tape-worms, come by degrees!
Vill nobodies try my nice Annual Pill,
Dat's to purify every ting nashty avay?
Pless ma heart, pless ma heart, let me say vat I vill,
Not a Chrishtian or Shentleman minds vat I say!
An Afterthought.
by George Augustus Baker, Jr.

Vine leaves rustled, moonbeams shone,
Summer breezes softly sighed;
You and I were all alone
In a kingdom fair and wide
You, a Queen, in all your pride,
I, a vassal, by your side.
Fairy voices in the leaves
Ceaselessly were whispering:
"'Tis the time to garner sheaves 
Let your heart its longing sing;
Place upon her hand a ring;
Then our Queen shall know her King."
E'en the moonbeams seemed to learn
Speech when they had kissed your face,
Passing fair my lips did yearn
To be moonbeams for a space 
"Lo, 'tis fitting time and place!
Speak, and courage will find grace."
But the night wind murmured low,
Softly brushing back your hair,
"Look into her face, and know
That she is a jewel rare,
Worthy of a monarch's heir;
Who are you that you should dare!"
Hope died like a frost-touched flower;
But through all the coming years,
In that quiet evening hour,
When the flowers are all in tears,
When the heart hath hopes and fears,
When the day-world disappears.
If the vine leaves rustle low,
If the moon shine on the sea,
If the night wind softly blow, 
Dreaming of what may not be, 
Well I know that I shall see
Your sweet eyes look down on me.