DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Occasioned By The Battle Of Waterloo
by William Wordsworth

Intrepid sons of Albion! not by you
Is life despised; ah no, the spacious earth
Ne'er saw a race who held, by right of birth,
So many objects to which love is due:
Ye slight not life, to God and Nature true;
But death, becoming death, is dearer far,
When duty bids you bleed in open war:
Hence hath your prowess quelled that impious crew.
Heroes! for instant sacrifice prepared;
Yet filled with ardour and on triumph bent
'Mid direst shocks of mortal accident
To you who fell, and you whom slaughter spared
To guard the fallen, and consummate the event,
Your Country rears this sacred Monument!
To a Little White Bird
by Fay Inchfawn

Into the world you came, and I was dumb,
Because "God did it," so the wise ones said;
I wonder sometimes "Did you really come?"
And "Are you truly . . . DEAD?"
Thus you went out -- alone and uncaressed;
O sweet, soft thing, in all your infant grace,
I never held you in my arms, nor pressed
Warm kisses on your face!
But, in the Garden of the Undefiled,
My soul will claim you . . . you, and not another;
I shall hold out my arms, and say "MY CHILD!"
And you will call me "MOTHER!"
Of Love.
by Robert Herrick

1. Instruct me now what love will do.
2. 'Twill make a tongueless man to woo.
1. Inform me next, what love will do.
2. 'Twill strangely make a one of two.
1. Teach me besides, what love will do.
2. 'Twill quickly mar, and make ye too.
1. Tell me now last, what love will do.
2. 'Twill hurt and heal a heart pierc'd through.
The Pleasures of Imagination - The Second Book - The Argument
by Mark Akenside

THE ARGUMENT. 
Introduction to this more difficult part of the subject. Of truth and its three classes, matter of fact, experimental or scientifical truth, (contradistinguished from opinion) and universal truth: which last is either metaphysical or geometrical, either purely intellectual or perfectly abstracted. On the power of discerning truth depends that of acting with the view of an end; a circumstance essential to virtue. Of virtue, considered in the divine mind as a perpetual and universal beneficence. Of human virtue, considered as a system of particular sentiments and actions, suitable to the design of providence and the condition of man; to whom it constitutes the chief good and the first beauty. Of vice and its origin. Of ridicule: its general nature and final cause. Of the passions; particularly of those which relate to evil natural or moral, and which are generally accounted painful, though not always unattended with pleasure.
Resurgam
by Kate Seymour Maclean

Into the darkness and the deeps
My thoughts have strayed, where silence dwells,
Where the old world encrypted sleeps,--
Myriads of forms, in myriad cells,
Of dead and inorganic things,
That neither live, nor move, nor grow,
Nor any change of atoms know;
That have neither legs, nor arms, nor wings,
That have neither heads, nor mouths, nor stings,
That have neither roots, nor leaves, nor stems,
To hold up flowers like diadems,
Growing out of the ground below:
But which hold instead
The cycles dead,
And out of their stony and gloomy folds
Shape out new moulds
For a new race begun;
Shutting within dark pages, furled
As in a vast herbarium,
The flowers and balms,
The pines and palms,
The ferns and cones,
All turned to stones
Of all the unknown elder world,
As in a wonderful museum,
Ranged in its myriad mummy shelves.
Insects and worms,--
All lower forms
Of fin and scale,
Of gnat and whale,
Fish, bird, and the monstrous mastodon,
The fabulous megatherium,
And men themselves.
Ah, what life is here compressed,
Frozen into endless rest!
Down through springing blades and spires,
Down through mines, and crypts, and caves,
Still graves on graves, and graves on graves,
Down to earth's most central fires.
The morning stars sang at their birth,
In the first beginnings of time.
What voice of dolour or of mirth
At their last funeral made moan,--
Ashes to ashes--earth to earth,
And stone to stone,--
Chanting the liturgy sublime.
What matter,--in that doom's-day book
Their place is fixed--their names are writ,
Each in its individual nook,--
God's eye beholds--remembers it.
When the slow-moving centuries
Have lapsed in the former eternities,--
When the day is come which we see not yet,--
When the sea gives up its dead--
And the thrones are set,
These books shall be opened and read!
The Winter Pear
by William Allingham

Is always Age severe?
Is never Youth austere?
Spring-fruits are sour to eat;
Autumn's the mellow time.
Nay, very late in the year,
Short day and frosty rime,
Thought, like a winter pear,
Stone-cold in summer's prime,
May turn from harsh to sweet.
Poems From "A Shropshire Lad" - XL
by Alfred Edward Housman

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.
Ode To The British Fleet
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

'Invisible and silent' - Mystery
Surrounded that great Guardian of the Sea.
That Father - Mother - of the mighty main.
While loud in valley and on field and hill - 
And over anguished plain
The battles thundered.    God himself is still
And hidden from men's view; and it were meet
That this subliminal force
Should move in utter silence on its course
Invisible - Inaudible - till that hour
When Time, Fate's Minister, should speak and say - 
'Come forth! and show thy power!'
When Time commands, even the gods obey.
'Invisible and silent'; yet the foe
Was driven from the Sea.    All impotent
The brazen braggart went.
While commerce sent her brave ships to and fro;
And from Columbia's shores there sailed away
Ten thousand men a day - 
Ten thousand men a day! who reached their goals
Bringing new courage to war-weary souls.
Oh, silent wonder of the noisy sea!
Though alien, with the blood of Bunker Hill
Down filtering through my veins, the heart of me
Seems with a mingled love and awe to fill
And overflow at thought of that sublime,
Unparalleled large hour of Time;
When bloodless Victory saw the foes' flag furled - 
That insolent menace to a righteous world.
Great Britain's Fleet unshaken in its might,
Proclaimed itself again in all men's sight
The Mistress of the Main.    Fair Freedom's friend,
May peace and glory on thy path attend.
Amatory Colloquy Between Bank And Government.
by Thomas Moore

BANK.
Is all then forgotten? those amorous pranks
You and I in our youth, my dear Government, played;
When you called me the fondest, the truest of Banks,
And enjoyed the endearing advances I made!
When left to ourselves, unmolested and free,
To do all that a dashing young couple should do,
A law against paying was laid upon me,
But none against owing, dear helpmate, on you.
And is it then vanisht?--that "hour (as Othello
So happily calls it) of Love and Direction?"
And must we, like other fond doves, my dear fellow,
Grow good in our old age and cut the connection?
GOVERNMENT.
Even so, my beloved Mrs. Bank, it must be;
This paying in cash plays the devil with wooing:
We've both had our swing, but I plainly foresee
There must soon be a stop to our billing and cooing.
Propagation in reason--a small child or two--
Even Reverend Malthus himself is a friend to;
The issue of some folks is moderate and few--
But ours, my dear corporate Bank, there's no end to!
So--hard tho' it be on a pair, who've already
Disposed of so many pounds, shillings and pence;
And in spite of that pink of prosperity, Freddy,[1]
So lavish of cash and so sparing of sense--
The day is at hand, my Papyria[2] Venus,
When--high as we once used to carry our capers--
Those soft billet-doux we're now passing between us,
Will serve but to keep Mrs. Coutts in curl-papers:
And when--if we still must continue our love,
(After all that has past)--our amour, it is clear,
Like that which Miss Dan'e managed with Jove,
Must all be transacted in bullion, my dear!
February, 1826.
An Epitaph
by Matthew Prior

Interr'd beneath this marble stone,
Lie saunt'ring Jack and idle Joan.
While rolling threescore years and one
Did round this globe their courses run;
If human things went ill or well;
If changing empires rose or fell;
The morning passed, the evening came,
And found this couple still the same.
They walk'd and eat, good folks: what then?
Why then they walk'd and eat again:
They soundly slept the night away:
They did just nothing all the day:
And having buried children four,
Would not take pains to try for more.
Nor sister either had, nor brother:
They seemed just tallied for each other.
Their moral and economy
Most perfectly they made agree:
Each virtue kept its proper bound,
Nor tresspass'd on the other's ground.
Nor fame, nor censure they regarded:
They neither punish'd nor rewarded.
He cared not what the footmen did:
Her maids she neither prais'd nor chid:
So ev'ry servant took his course;
And bad at first, they all grew worse.
Slothful disorder fill'd his stable;
And bunnytish plenty deck'd her table.
Their beer was strong; their wine was port;
Their meal was large; their grace was short.
They gave the poor the remnant-meat
Just when it grew not fit to eat.
They paid the church and parish rate;
And took, but read not the receipt;
For which they claim'd their Sunday's due,
Of slumb'ring in an upper pew.
No man's defects sought they to know;
So never made themselves a foe.
No man's good deeds did they commend;
So never rais'd themselves a friend.
Nor cherish'd they relations poor:
That might decrease their present store:
Nor barn nor house did they repair:
That might oblige their future heir.
They neither added, nor confounded:
They neither wanted, nor abounded.
Each Christmas they accompts did clear;
And wound their bottom through the year.
Nor tear, nor smile did they employ
At news of public grief, or joy.
When bells were rung, and bonfires made,
If asked they ne'er denied their aid:
Their jug was to the ringers carried,
Whoever either died, or married.
Their billet at the fire was found,
Whoever was depos'd or crown'd.
Nor good, nor bad, nor fools, nor wise;
They would not learn, nor could advise;
Without love, hatred, joy, or fear,
They led'a kind of'as it were:
Nor wish'd nor car'd, nor laugh'd nor cry'd:
And so they liv'd; and so they died.
Going to Tobog.
by Hattie Howard

Into my disappointment-cup
The snowflakes fell and blocked the road,
And so I thought I'd finish up
The latest style of Christmas ode;
When she, the charming little lass
With eyes as bright as isinglass,
Before a line my pen had wrought
In strange attire came bounding in,
As if she had with Bruno fought,
And robbed him of his shaggy skin.
She came to me robed cap-'-pie
In her bewitching "blanket-suit,"
In moccasin and toggery,
All ready for "that icy chute,"
And asked me if I thought she'd do;
I shake with love of mischief true:
"For what? - a polar bear? - why, yes!"
"No, no!" she said, with half a pout.
"Why, one would think so, by your dress - 
Say, does your mother know you're out?"
"No, I'm not out," she said, and sighed;
"Because the storm so wildly raged - 
But for the first delightful ride
For half a year I've been engaged."
"Engaged to what? - an Esquimau?
To ride a glacier, or a floe?"
"Why, don't you know" - her color glowed,
In expectation all agog - 
"The reason why I'm glad it snowed?
Because - I'm going to tobog."
At Last
by Abram Joseph Ryan

Into a temple vast and dim,
Solemn and vast and dim,
Just when the last sweet Vesper Hymn
Was floating far away,
With eyes that tabernacled tears --
Her heart the home of tears --
And cheeks wan with the woes of years,
A woman went one day.
And, one by one, adown the aisles,
Adown the long, lone aisles,
Their faces bright with holy smiles
That follow after prayer,
The worshipers in silence passed,
In silence slowly passed away;
The woman knelt until the last
Had left her lonely there.
A holy hush came o'er the place,
O'er the holy place,
The shadows kissed her woe-worn face,
Her forehead touched the floor;
The wreck that drifted thro' the years --
Sin-driven thro' the years --
Was floating o'er the tide of tears,
To Mercy's golden shore.
Her lips were sealed, they could not pray,
They sighed, but could not pray,
All words of prayer had died away
From them long years ago;
But ah! from out her eyes there rose --
Sad from her eyes there rose --
The prayer of tears, which swiftest goes
To Heaven -- winged with woe.
With weary tears, her weary eyes,
Her joyless, weary eyes,
Wailed forth a rosary; and her sighs
And sobs strung all the beads;
The while before her spirit's gaze --
Her contrite spirit's gaze --
Moved all the mysteries of her days,
And histories of her deeds.
Still as a shadow, while she wept,
So desolately wept,
Up thro' the long, lone aisle she crept
Unto an altar fair;
"Mother!" -- her pale lips said no more --
Could say no more --
The wreck, at last, reached Mercy's shore,
For Mary's shrine was there.
God Rules Alway
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Into the world's most high and holy places
Men carry selfishness, and graft and greed.
The air is rent with warring of the races;
Loud Dogmas drown a brother's cry of need.
The Fleet-of-Creeds, upon Time's ocean lurches;
And there is mutiny upon her decks;
And in the light of temples, and of churches,
Against life's shores drift wrecks and derelicts.
(God rules, God rules alway.)
Right in the shadow of the lofty steeple,
Which crowns some costly edifice of faith,
Behold the throngs of hungry, unhoused people;
The 'Bread Line,' flanked by charity and death.
See yonder Churchman, opulently doing
Unnumbered deeds, which gladden and resound;
The while his thrifty tenant is pursuing
The white slave trade on sacred, untaxed ground.
(God rules, God rules alway.)
For these are but the outward signs of fever;
Those flaunting signs, which through delirium burn;
And the clear-seeing eye of each Believer
Can note the coming crisis.    It will turn,
For it has reached its summit.    Convalescing,
The sick world shall arise to strength and peace,
And earth shall bloom, with each and every blessing
Life waits to give, when wars and conflicts cease.
(God rules, God rules alway.)
This is a mighty hour.    No sounds of drumming,
No flying flags, no heralds do appear;
No Wise Men of the East proclaim His coming;
Yet He is coming - nay, our Christ is here!
And man shall leave his fever dreams behind him;
Those dreams of avarice, and lust, and sin,
And seek his Lord; yea, he shall seek and find Him,
In his own soul, where He has always been.
(God rules, God rules alway.)
Man longs for God.    Before the Christ we wot of,
With His brief mighty message, came to earth,
Before His life, or creed, or cross were thought of,
The love of love within man's breast had birth.
But blindly, through his carnal senses reaching,
He plucked dead fruit, and nothing has sufficed;
Nor can his soul find rest in any teaching,
Until he knows that he, himself, is Christ.
(God rules, God rules alway.)
Oh, when he knows this truth in all its splendour,
What majesty, what glory crowns his life:
And, one with God, his every thought is tender;
He cannot enter into war, or strife.
His love goes out to every race and nation;
His whole religion lies in being kind.
THIS IS THE CREED THAT MEANS THE WORLD'S SALVATION;
THE BIRTH OF CHRIST IN EVERY MORTAL MIND.
(God rules, God rules alway.)
The Moondial
by Bliss Carman (William)

Iron and granite and rust,
In a crumbling garden old,
Where the roses are paler than dust
And the lilies are green with gold,
Under the racing moon,
Inconscious of war or crime,
In a strange and ghostly noon,
It marks the oblivion of time.
The shadow steals through its arc,
Still as a frosted breath,
Fitful, gleaming, and dark
As the cold frustration of death.
But where the shadow may fall,
Whether to hurry or stay,
It matters little at all
To those who come that way.
For this is the dial of them
That have forgotten the world,
No more through the mad day-dream
Of striving and reason hurled.
Their heart as a little child
Only remembers the worth
Of beauty and love and the wild
Dark peace of the elder earth.
It registers the morrows
Of lovers and winds and streams,
And the face of a thousand sorrows
At the postern gate of dreams.
When the first low laughter smote
Through Lilith, the mother of joy,
And died and revived from the throat
Of Helen, the harpstring of Troy,
And wandering on through the years,
From the sobbing rain and the sea,
Caught sound of the world's gray tears
Or sense of the sun's gold glee,
Whenever the wild control
Burned out to a mortal kiss,
And the shuddering storm-swept soul
Climbed to its acme of bliss,
The green-gold light of the dead
Stood still in purple space,
And a record blind and dread
Was graved on the dial's face.
And once in a thousand years
Some youth who loved so well
The gods had loosed him from fears
In a vision of blameless hell,
Has gone to the dial to read
Those signs in the outland tongue,
Written beyond the need
Of the simple and the young.
For immortal life, they say,
Were his who, loving so,
Could explain the writing away
As a legend written in snow.
But always his innocent eyes
Were frozen into the stone.
From that awful first surprise
His soul must return alone.
In the morning there he lay
Dead in the sun's warm gold.
And no man knows to this day
What the dim moondial told.
Nursery Rhyme. CCXCIII. Games.
by Unknown

Intery, mintery, cutery-corn,
Apple seed and apple thorn;
Wine, brier, limber-lock,
Five geese in a flock,
Sit and sing by a spring,
O-U-T, and in again.
Intent On Gathering Wool From Hedge And Brake
by William Wordsworth

Intent on gathering wool from hedge and brake
Yon busy Little-ones rejoice that soon
A poor old Dame will bless them for the boon:
Great is their glee while flake they add to flake
With rival earnestness; far other strife
Than will hereafter move them, if they make
Pastime their idol, give their day of life
To pleasure snatched for reckless pleasure's sake.
Can pomp and show allay one heart-born grief?
Pains which the World inflicts can she requite?
Not for an interval however brief;
The silent thoughts that search for steadfast light,
Love from her depths, and Duty in her might,
And Faith, these only yield secure relief.
Apollo's Edict Occasioned By "News From Parnassus"
by Jonathan Swift

Ireland is now our royal care,
We lately fix'd our viceroy there.
How near was she to be undone,
Till pious love inspired her son!
What cannot our vicegerent do,
As poet and as patriot too?
Let his success our subjects sway,
Our inspirations to obey,
And follow where he leads the way:
Then study to correct your taste;
Nor beaten paths be longer traced.
No simile shall be begun,
With rising or with setting sun;
And let the secret head of Nile
Be ever banish'd from your isle.
When wretched lovers live on air,
I beg you'll the chameleon spare;
And when you'd make a hero grander,
Forget he's like a salamander.[1]
No son of mine shall dare to say,
Aurora usher'd in the day,
Or ever name the milky-way.
You all agree, I make no doubt,
Elijah's mantle is worn out.
The bird of Jove shall toil no more
To teach the humble wren to soar.
Your tragic heroes shall not rant,
Nor shepherds use poetic cant.
Simplicity alone can grace
The manners of the rural race.
Theocritus and Philips be
Your guides to true simplicity.
When Damon's soul shall take its flight,
Though poets have the second-sight,
They shall not see a trail of light.
Nor shall the vapours upwards rise,
Nor a new star adorn the skies:
For who can hope to place one there,
As glorious as Belinda's hair?
Yet, if his name you'd eternize,
And must exalt him to the skies;
Without a star this may be done:
So Tickell mourn'd his Addison.
If Anna's happy reign you praise,
Pray, not a word of halcyon days:
Nor let my votaries show their skill
In aping lines from Cooper's Hill;[2]
For know I cannot bear to hear
The mimicry of "deep, yet clear."
Whene'er my viceroy is address'd,
Against the phoenix I protest.
When poets soar in youthful strains,
No Phaethon to hold the reins.
When you describe a lovely girl,
No lips of coral, teeth of pearl.
Cupid shall ne'er mistake another,
However beauteous, for his mother;
Nor shall his darts at random fly
From magazine in Celia's eye.
With woman compounds I am cloy'd,
Which only pleased in Biddy Floyd.[3]
For foreign aid what need they roam,
Whom fate has amply blest at home?
Unerring Heaven, with bounteous hand,
Has form'd a model for your land,
Whom Jove endued with every grace;
The glory of the Granard race;
Now destined by the powers divine
The blessing of another line.
Then, would you paint a matchless dame,
Whom you'd consign to endless fame?
Invoke not Cytherea's aid,
Nor borrow from the blue-eyed maid;
Nor need you on the Graces call;
Take qualities from Donegal.[4]
Sonnets II
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Into the golden vessel of great song
Let us pour all our passion; breast to breast
Let other lovers lie, in love and rest;
Not we,--articulate, so, but with the tongue
Of all the world: the churning blood, the long
Shuddering quiet, the desperate hot palms pressed
Sharply together upon the escaping guest,
The common soul, unguarded, and grown strong.
Longing alone is singer to the lute;
Let still on nettles in the open sigh
The minstrel, that in slumber is as mute
As any man, and love be far and high,
That else forsakes the topmost branch, a fruit
Found on the ground by every passer-by.
Up North
by Mary Hannay Foott

Into Thy hands let me fall, O Lord,
Not into the hands of men,
And she thinned the ranks of the savage horde
Till they shrank to the mangrove fen.
In a rudderless boat, with a scanty store
Of food for the fated three,
With her babe and her stricken servitor
She fled to the open sea.
Oh, days of dolor and nights of drouth,
While she watched for a sail in vain,
Or the tawny tinge of a river mouth,
Or the rush of the tropic rain.
The valiant woman! Her feeble oar
Sufficed, and her fervent prayer
Was heard, though she reached but a barren shore,
And died with her darling there.
For the demons of murder and foul disgrace
On her hearthstone dared not light;
But the Angel of Womanhood held the place,
And its site is a holy site.
The Carcanet.
by Robert Herrick

Instead of orient pearls of jet
I sent my love a carcanet;
About her spotless neck she knit
The lace, to honour me or it:
Then think how rapt was I to see
My jet t'enthral such ivory.
Uhland's White Stag.
by Eugene Field

Into the woods three huntsmen came,
Seeking the white stag for their game.
They laid them under a green fir-tree
And slept, and dreamed strange things to see.
(FIRST HUNTSMAN)
I dreamt I was beating the leafy brush,
When out popped the noble stag--hush, hush!
(SECOND HUNTSMAN)
As ahead of the clamorous pack he sprang,
I pelted him hard in the hide--piff, bang!
(THIRD HUNTSMAN)
And as that stag lay dead I blew
On my horn a lusty tir-ril-la-loo!
So speak the three as there they lay
When lo! the white stag sped that way,
Frisked his heels at those huntsmen three,
Then leagues o'er hill and dale was he--
Hush, hush! Piff, bang! Tir-ril-la-loo!
Sonet 2 To the Reader of his Poems
by Michael Drayton

Into these loues who but for passion lookes,
At this first sight, here let him lay them by,
And seeke elsewhere in turning other bookes,
Which better may his labour satisfie.
No far-fetch'd sigh shall euer wound my brest,
Loue from mine eye, a teare shall neuer wring,
Nor in ah-mees my whyning Sonets drest,
(A Libertine) fantasticklie I sing;
My verse is the true image of my mind,
Euer in motion, still desiring change,
To choyce of all varietie inclin'd,
And in all humors sportiuely I range;
My actiue Muse is of the worlds right straine,
That cannot long one fashion entertaine.