DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Noon.
by Sophie M. (Almon) Hensley

No ripple stirs the water,
No song-bird wakes the grove,
Calm noon-tide sways his sceptre,
And hushes even love.
On earth the sun-god bending
Poureth his wondrous store;
The soft-tongued tide, advancing,
Laps the unconscious shore.
The long, low isle of marsh-land
Stretches in weary waste,
By sloping sand-banks guarded,
By winding weeds embraced.
Comes clearly from the open
The plash of distant oars, - 
Over the rocky headland
The snow-white sea-gull soars.
I see as if through dream-clouds,
I hear from far away.
The scorched air breathes its opiate,
The drowsy fancies stay;
I have no hopes or longings,
I scarce can feel your kiss, - 
For thought, and joy and worship,
Another hour than this!
The Soldier's Consolation.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

No! in truth there's here no lack:
White the bread, the maidens black!
To another town, next night:
Black the bread, the maidens white!
Love Constraining To Obedience.
by William Cowper

No strength of nature can suffice
To serve the Lord aright:
And what she has she misapplies,
For want of clearer light.
How long beneath the law I lay
In bondage and distress!
I toil'd the precept to obey,
But toil'd without success.
Then, to abstain from outward sin
Was more than I could do;
Now, if I feel its power within,
I feel I hate it too.
Then, all my servile works were done
A righteousness to raise;
Now, freely chosen in the Son,
I freely choose his ways.
'What shall I do,' was then the word,
'That I may worthier grow?'
'What shall I render to the Lord?'
Is my inquiry now.
To see the law by Christ fulfill'd,
And hear his pardoning voice,
Changes a slave into a child,[1]
And duty into choice.
Epitaph On The Tomb Of Sir Edward Giles And His Wife In The South Aisle Of Dean Prior Church, Devon.
by Robert Herrick

No trust to metals nor to marbles, when
These have their fate and wear away as men;
Times, titles, trophies may be lost and spent,
But virtue rears the eternal monument.
What more than these can tombs or tombstones pay?
But here's the sunset of a tedious day:
These two asleep are: I'll but be undress'd
And so to bed: pray wish us all good rest.
On Robert Emmet's Grave.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

6.
No trump tells thy virtues - the grave where they rest
With thy dust shall remain unpolluted by fame,
Till thy foes, by the world and by fortune caressed,
Shall pass like a mist from the light of thy name.
7.
When the storm-cloud that lowers o'er the day-beam is gone,
Unchanged, unextinguished its life-spring will shine;
When Erin has ceased with their memory to groan,
She will smile through the tears of revival on thine.
Prologue, Spoken At The Theatre, Dumfries, 1 Jan. 1790.
by Robert Burns

No song nor dance I bring from yon great city
That queens it o'er our taste, the more's the pity:
Tho', by-the-by, abroad why will you roam?
Good sense and taste are natives here at home:
But not for panegyric I appear,
I come to wish you all a good new year!
Old Father Time deputes me here before ye,
Not for to preach, but tell his simple story:
The sage grave ancient cough'd, and bade me say,
"You're one year older this important day."
If wiser too, he hinted some suggestion,
But 'twould be rude, you know, to ask the question;
And with a would-be roguish leer and wink,
He bade me on you press this one word, "think!"
Ye sprightly youths, quite flushed with hope and spirit,
Who think to storm the world by dint of merit,
To you the dotard has a deal to say,
In his sly, dry, sententious, proverb way;
He bids you mind, amid your thoughtless rattle,
That the first blow is ever half the battle:
That tho' some by the skirt may try to snatch him,
Yet by the forelock is the hold to catch him;
That whether doing, suffering, or forbearing,
You may do miracles by persevering.
Last, tho' not least in love, ye youthful fair,
Angelic forms, high Heaven's peculiar care!
To yon old Bald-pate smooths his wrinkled brow,
And humbly begs you'll mind the important NOW!
To crown your happiness he asks your leave,
And offers bliss to give and to receive.
For our sincere, tho' haply weak endeavours,
With grateful pride we own your many favours,
And howsoe'er our tongues may ill reveal it,
Believe our glowing bosoms truly feel it.
Study First.
by H. P. Nichols

No, Robbie! you can go away;
I am not ready yet to play;
For I must learn these words to spell,
That I may say my lesson well.
How sad our dear mamma would look,
To find that I had left my book!
And if I disobeyed her so,
My play would not be gay, I know.
I'll learn my lesson very soon,
And then I'll run with you till noon;
So, Robbie, you can go away,
And presently I'll come and play.
Epitaph Extempore
by Matthew Prior

Nobles and Heralds, by your leave,
Here lies what once was Matthew Prior,
The son of Adam and of Eve;
Can Stuart or Nassau claim higher.
The Market-Girl
by Thomas Hardy

Nobody took any notice of her as she stood on the causey kerb,
All eager to sell her honey and apples and bunches of garden herb;
And if she had offered to give her wares and herself with them too that day,
I doubt if a soul would have cared to take a bargain so choice away.
But chancing to trace her sunburnt grace that morning as I passed nigh,
I went and I said "Poor maidy dear! - and will none of the people buy?"
And so it began; and soon we knew what the end of it all must be,
And I found that though no others had bid, a prize had been won by me.
Remorse.
by John Hartley

None ever knew I had wronged her,
That secret she kept to the end.
None knew that our ties had been stronger,
Than such as should bind friend to friend.
Her beauty and innocence gave her
Such charms as are lavished on few;
And vain was my earnest endeavour
To resist, - though I strove to be true.
She had given her heart to my keeping, - 
'Twas a treasure more precious than gold;
And I guarded it, waking or sleeping,
Lest a strange breath should make it grow cold.
And I longed to be tender, yet honest, - 
Alas! loved, - where to love was a sin, - 
And passion was deaf to the warning,
Of a still small voice crying within.
I feasted my eyes on her beauty, - 
I ravished my ears with her voice, - 
And I felt as her bosom rose softly,
That my heart had at last found its choice.
'Twas a wild gust of passion swept o'er us, - 
Just a flash of tumultuous bliss; - 
Then life's sunlight all vanished before us,
And we stood by despair's dark abyss.
'Tis past, - and the green grass grows over,
The grave that hides her and our shame;
None ever knew who was her lover,
For her lips never uttered his name.
But at night when the city is sleeping,
I steal with a tremulous tread,
And spend the dark solemn hours weeping,
O'er the grave of the deeply wronged dead.
Sonnet LXVI.
by Anna Seward

Nobly to scorn thy gilded veil to wear,
Soft Simulation! - wisely to abstain
From fostering Envy's asps; - to dash the bane
Far from our hearts, which Hate, with frown severe,
Extends for those who wrong us; - to revere
With soul, or grateful, or resign'd, the train
Of mercies, and of trials, is to gain
A quiet Conscience, best of blessings here! - 
Calm Conscience is a land-encircled bay,
On whose smooth surface Tempests never blow;
Which shall the reflex of our life display
Unstain'd by crime, tho' gloom'd with transient woe;
While the bright hopes of Heaven's eternal day
Upon the fair and silent waters glow.
Where Is Thy Victory?
by Walter De La Mare

None, none can tell where I shall be
When the unclean earth covers me;
Only in surety if thou cry
Where my perplexed ashes lie,
Know, 'tis but death's necessity
That keeps my tongue from answering thee.
Even if no more my shadow may
Lean for a moment in thy day;
No more the whole earth lighten, as if,
Thou near, it had nought else to give:
Surely 'tis but Heaven's strategy
To prove death immortality.
Yet should I sleep - and no more dream,
Sad would the last awakening seem,
If my cold heart, with love once hot,
Had thee in sleep remembered not:
How could I wake to find that I
Had slept alone, yet easefully?
Or should in sleep glad visions come:
Sick, in an alien land, for home
Would be my eyes in their bright beam;
Awake, we know 'tis not a dream;
Asleep, some devil in the mind
Might truest thoughts with false enwind.
Life is a mockery if death
Have the least power men say it hath.
As to a hound that mewing waits,
Death opens, and shuts to, his gates;
Else even dry bones might rise and say, - 
"'Tis ye are dead and laid away."
Innocent children out of nought
Build up a universe of thought,
And out of silence fashion Heaven:
So, dear, is this poor dying even,
Seeing thou shall be touched, heard, seen,
Better than when dust stood between.
And Oh - That The Man I Am Might Cease To Be
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

No, now I wish the sunshine would stop, and the white shining houses, and the gay red flowers on the balconies and the bluish mountains beyond, would be crushed out between two valves of darkness; the darkness falling, the darkness rising, with muffled sound obliterating everything.
I wish that whatever props up the walls of light would fall, and darkness would come hurling heavily down, and it would be thick black dark for ever.
Not sleep, which is grey with dreams, nor death, which quivers with birth, but heavy, sealing darkness, silence, all immovable.
What is sleep?
It goes over me, like a shadow over a hill, but it does not alter me, nor help me.
And death would ache still, I am sure; it would be lambent, uneasy.
I wish it would be completely dark everywhere, inside me, and out, heavily dark utterly.
WOLFRATSHAUSEN
Ode On Melancholy
by John Keats

No, no! go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kist
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.
But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.
She dwells with Beauty, Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
Verses
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

To the tune of a Neapolitan song, which beginneth, "No, no, no, no."
No, no, no, no, I cannot hate my foe,
Although with cruel fire,
First thrown on my desire,
She sacks my rendered sprite;
For so fair a flame embraces
All the places,
Where that heat of all heats springeth,
That it bringeth
To my dying heart some pleasure,
Since his treasure
Burneth bright in fairest light.    No, no, no, no.
No, no, no, no, I cannot hate my foe,
Although with cruel fire,
First thrown on my desire,
She sacks my rendered sprite;
Since our lives be not immortal,
But to mortal
Fetters tied, do wait the hour
Of death's power,
They have no cause to be sorry
Who with glory
End the way, where all men stay.    No, no, no, no.
No, no, no, no, I cannot hate my foe,
Although with cruel fire,
First thrown on my desire,
She sacks my rendered sprite;
No man doubts, whom beauty killeth,
Fair death feeleth,
And in whom fair death proceedeth,
Glory breedeth:
So that I, in her beams dying,
Glory trying,
Though in pain, cannot complain.    No, no, no, no.
The Pet Coon
by James Whitcomb Riley

Noey Bixler ketched him, and fetched him in to me
When he's ist a little teenty-weenty baby-coon
'Bout as big as little pups, an' tied him to a tree;
An' Pa gived Noey fifty cents, when he come home at noon.
Nen he buyed a chain fer him, an' little collar, too,
An' sawed a hole in a' old tub an' turnt it upside-down;
An' little feller'd stay in there and won't come out fer you -
'Tendin' like he's kindo' skeered o' boys 'at lives in town.
Now he aint afeard a bit! he's ist so fat an' tame,
We on'y chain him up at night, to save the little chicks.
Holler "Greedy! Greedy!" to him, an' he knows his name,
An' here he'll come a-waddle-un, up fer any tricks!
He'll climb up my leg, he will, an' waller in my lap,
An' poke his little black paws 'way in my pockets where
They's beechnuts, er chinkypins, er any little scrap
Of anything, 'at's good to eat - an' he don't care!
An' he's as spunky as you please, an' don't like dogs at all. -
Billy Miller's black-an'-tan tackled him one day,
An' "Greedy" he ist kindo' doubled all up like a ball,
An' Billy's dog he gived a yelp er two an' runned away!
An' nen when Billy fighted me, an' hit me with a bone,
An' Ma she purt'nigh ketched him as he dodged an' skooted thro'
The fence, she says, "You better let my little boy alone,
Er 'Greedy,' next he whips yer dog, shall whip you, too!"
The Decameron
by Aldous Leonard Huxley

Noon with a depth of shadow beneath the trees
Shakes in the heat, quivers to the sound of lutes:
Half shaded, half sunlit, a great bowl of fruits
Glistens purple and golden: the flasks of wine
Cool in their panniers of snow: silks muffle and shine:
Dim velvet, where through the leaves a sunbeam shoots,
Rifts in a pane of scarlet: fingers tapping the roots
Keep languid time to the music's soft slow decline.
Suddenly from the gate rises up a cry,
Hideous broken laughter, scarce human in sound;
Gaunt clawed hands, thrust through the bars despairingly,
Clutch fast at the scented air, while on the ground
Lie the poor plague-stricken carrions, who have found
Strength to crawl forth and curse the sunshine and die.
Non Nobis Domine!
by Rudyard Kipling

Non nobis Domine!,
Not unto us, O Lord!
The Praise or Glory be
Of any deed or word;
For in Thy Judgment lies
To crown or bring to nought
All knowledge or device
That Man has reached or wrought.
And we confess our blame,
How all too high we hold
That noise which men call Fame,
That dross which men call Gold.
For these we undergo
Our hot and godless days,
But in our hearts we know
Not unto us the Praise.
O Power by Whom we live,
Creator, Judge, and Friend,
Upholdingly forgive
Nor fail us at the end:
But grant us well to see
In all our piteous ways,
Non nobis Domine!,
Not unto us the Praise!
Noon
by Richard Le Gallienne

Noon like a naked sword lies on the grass,
Heavy with gold, and Time itself doth drowse;
The little stream, too indolent to pass,
Loiters below the cloudy willow boughs,
That build amid the glare a shadowy house,
And with a Paradisal freshness brims
Amid cool-rooted reeds with glossy blade;
The antic water-fly above it skims,
And cows stand shadow-like in the green shade,
Or knee-deep in the grassy glimmer wade.
The earth in golden slumber dreaming lies,
Idly abloom, and nothing sings or moves,
Nor bird, nor bee; and even the butterflies,
Languid with noon, forget their painted loves,
Nor hath the woodland any talk of doves.
Only at times a little breeze will stir,
And send a ripple o'er the sleeping stream,
Or run its fingers through the willows' hair,
And sway the rushes momently agleam - 
Then all fall back again into a dream.
Epitaph - On Himself
by Matthew Prior

Nobles and Heralds, by your leave!
Here lie the bones of Matthew Prior;
A son of Adam and Eve:
Let Bourbon or Nassau go higher.
Professor Noctutus.
by George MacDonald

Nobody knows the world but me.
The rest go to bed; I sit up and see.
I'm a better observer than any of you all,
For I never look out till the twilight fall,
And never then without green glasses,
And that is how my wisdom passes.
I never think, for that is not fit:
I observe. I have seen the white moon sit
On her nest, the sea, like a fluffy owl,
Hatching the boats and the long-legged fowl!
When the oysters gape--you may make a note--
She drops a pearl into every throat.
I can see the wind: can you do that?
I see the dreams he has in his hat,
I see him shaking them out as he goes,
I see them rush in at man's snoring nose.
Ten thousand things you could not think,
I can write down plain with pen and ink!
You know that I know; therefore pull off your hat,
Whether round and tall, or square and flat:
You cannot do better than trust in me;
You may shut your eyes in fact--I see!
Lifelong I will lead you, and then, like the owl,
I will bury you nicely with my spade and showl.
Everyone's Friend
by Henry Lawson

'Nobody's enemy save his own',
(What shall it be in the end?),
Still by the nick-name he is known,
'Everyone's Friend.'
'Nobody's Enemy' stands alone
While he has money to lend,
'Nobody's Enemy' holds his own,
'Everyone's Friend'
'Nobody's Enemy' down and out,
Game to the end,
And he mostly dies with no one about,
'Everyone's Friend.'
In After Time
by Walter Savage Landor

No, my own love of other years!
No, it must never be.
Much rests with you that yet endears,
Alas! but what with me?
Could those bright years o'er me revolve
So gay, o'er you so fair,
The pearl of life we would dissolve
And each the cup might share.
You show that truth can ne'er decay,
Whatever fate befalls;
I, that the myrtle and the bay
Shoot fresh on ruin'd walls.
Song Of The Queer Green Frog
by Louisa May Alcott

"No, no, come and fly
Through the sunny sky,
Or honey sip
From the rose's lip,
Or dance in the air,
Like spirits fair.
Come away, come away;
'Tis our holiday."
First Love
by John Frederick Freeman

I
"No, no! Leave me not in this dark hour,"
She cried. And I,
"Thou foolish dear, but call not dark this hour;
What night doth lour?"
And nought did she reply,
But in her eye
The clamorous trouble spoke, and then was still.
O that I heard her once more speak,
Or even with troubled eye
Teach me her fear, that I might seek
Poppies for misery.
The hour was dark, although I knew it not,
But when the livid dawn broke then I knew,
How while I slept the dense night through
Treachery's worm her fainting fealty slew.
O that I heard her once more speak
As then--so weak--
"No, no! Leave me not in this dark hour."
That I might answer her,
"Love, be at rest, for nothing now shall stir
Thy heart, but my heart beating there."
II
Come back, come back--ah, never more to leave me!
Come back, even though your constant longing grieve me,
Longing for other looks and hands than mine.
By all that's most divine
In your frank human beauty, come and cover
With that deceiving smile the love your lover
Has taught you, and the light that in your eyes
Tells of the painful joys that make your ruinous Paradise.
Come back, that so, upon the shining meadow
When the sun draws the magic of your shadow,
Or when the red fire's gradual sinking light
Yields up the room to night;
Seeing you thus or thus I may recapture
The very sharpness of remembered rapture:--
So it may seem, by exquisite deceit,
You are yet mine, I yours, and life yet rare and sweet.
Come back--no, come not back now, come back never;
That day you went I knew it was for ever.
I know you, how the spectre of cold shame
Would chill you if you came.
Lo, here first love's first memory abideth;
Here in my heart the image of you yet hideth.
But though you should come back and hope thrilled me anew,
First love would yet be dead--oh, it would not be you!
III
O but what grace if I could but forget you!
You have made league with all familiar things--
The thrush that still, evening and morning, sings,
The aspen leaves that sigh
"My dear!" with your true voice when I pass by....
O, and that too-long-dying flush of tender sky
That minds me, and with sense too grave for tears,
Of those forever dead too-blissful years.
Yet 'twere a miracle could I forget you,
Since even dead things, once sensible of you,
Yield up your ghost; as all the garden through
Murmurs the rose, "'Twas she
Shook in her palm the dew that shone in me;"
And on the stairs your recent footstep echoingly
Sounds yet again, and each dark doorway speaks
Of you toward whom my sharpened longing seeks.
O that I could forget or not regret you!
Could I but see you as I have seen a fair
Child under apple-burdened boughs that bear
Morn's autumn beauty, and
Seeing her saw all heaven at my hand,
And all day long that happy child before me stand....
Not thus I see you, but as one drowning sees
Home, friends--and loves his very enemies!
To Doctor Alabaster.
by Robert Herrick

Nor art thou less esteem'd that I have plac'd,
Amongst mine honour'd, thee almost the last:
In great processions many lead the way
To him who is the triumph of the day,
As these have done to thee who art the one,
One only glory of a million:
In whom the spirit of the gods does dwell,
Firing thy soul, by which thou dost foretell
When this or that vast dynasty must fall
Down to a fillet more imperial;
When this or that horn shall be broke, and when
Others shall spring up in their place again;
When times and seasons and all years must lie
Drowned in the sea of wild eternity;
When the black doomsday books, as yet unseal'd,
Shall by the mighty angel be reveal'd;
And when the trumpet which thou late hast found
Shall call to judgment. Tell us when the sound
Of this or that great April day shall be,
And next the Gospel we will credit thee.
Meantime like earth-worms we will crawl below,
And wonder at those things that thou dost know.
Impromptu, On Leaving Some Friends.
by Thomas Moore

o dulces comitum valete coetus!
CATULLUS.
No, never shall my soul forget
The friends I found so cordial-hearted;
Dear shall be the day we met,
And dear shall be the night we parted.
If fond regrets, however sweet,
Must with the lapse of time decay,
Yet stall, when thus in mirth you meet,
Fill high to him that's far away!
Long be the light of memory found
Alive within your social glass;
Let that be still the magic round.
O'er which Oblivion, dare not pass.
Hope Heartens.
by Robert Herrick

None goes to warfare but with this intent -
The gains must dead the fears of detriment.
Home-Thoughts, From The Sea
by Robert Browning

Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the North-west died away;
Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay;
Bluish mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;
In the dimmest North-east distance dawned Gibraltar grand and gray;
'Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?' say,
Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray,
While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.
A Millionaire
by Morris Rosenfeld

No, not from tuning-forks of gold
Take I my key for singing;
From Upper Seats no order bold
Can set my music ringing;
But groans the slave through sense of wrong,
And naught my voice can smother;
As flame leaps up, so leaps my song
For my oppressed brother.
And thus the end comes swift and sure...
Thus life itself must leave me;
For what can these my brothers poor
In compensation give me,
Save tears for ev'ry tear and sigh?--
(For they are rich in anguish).
A millionaire of tears am I,
And mid my millions languish.
A True Maid
by Matthew Prior

No, no; for my virginity,
When I lose that, says Rose, I'll die:
Behind the elms last night, cried Dick,
Rose, were you not extremely sick?
The Sonnets CXXIII - No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change
by William Shakespeare

No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:
Thy pyramids built up with newer might
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;
They are but dressings of a former sight.
Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire
What thou dost foist upon us that is old;
And rather make them born to our desire
Than think that we before have heard them told.
Thy registers and thee I both defy,
Not wondering at the present nor the past,
For thy records and what we see doth lie,
Made more or less by thy continual haste.
This I do vow and this shall ever be;
I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.