DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Sugar Bird.
by Susanna Moodie

Thou splendid child of southern skies!
Thy brilliant plumes and graceful form
Are not so precious in mine eyes
As those gray heralds of the morn,
Which in my own beloved land
Welcome the azure car of spring,
When budding flowers and leaves expand
On hawthorn boughs, and sweetly sing.
But thou art suited to the clime,
The golden clime, that gave thee birth;
Where beauty reigns o'er scenes sublime,
And fadeless verdure decks the earth;
Where nature faints beneath the blaze
Of her own gorgeous crown of light,
And exiled eyes, with aching gaze,
Sigh for the softer shades of night,
That memory to their dreams may bring
Past scenes, to cheer their sleeping eye,
The dark green woods where linnets sing,
And echo wafts the faint reply.
Ah, from those voiceless birds that glow,
Like living gems 'mid blossoms rare,
The captive turns in sullen woe
To climes more dear and scenes less fair!
Impromptu,
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

Written among the ruins of the Sonnenberg.
Thou who within thyself dost not behold
Ruins as great as these, though not as old,
Can'st scarce through life have travelled many a year,
Or lack'st the spirit of a pilgrim here.
Youth hath its walls of strength, its towers of pride;
Love, its warm hearth-stones; Hope, its prospects wide;
Life's fortress in thee, held these one, and all,
And they have fallen to ruin, or shall fall.
A Prayer
by George MacDonald

Thou who mad'st the mighty clock
Of the great world go;
Mad'st its pendulum swing and rock,
Ceaseless to and fro;
Thou whose will doth push and draw
Every orb in heaven,
Help me move by higher law
In my spirit graven.
Like a planet let me swing--
With intention strong;
In my orbit rushing sing
Jubilant along;
Help me answer in my course
To my seasons due;
Lord of every stayless force,
Make my Willing true.
To A Poet
by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

Thou who singest through the earth,
All the earth's wild creatures fly thee,
Everywhere thou marrest mirth.
Dumbly they defy thee.
There is something they deny thee.
Pines thy fallen nature ever
For the unfallen Nature sweet.
But she shuns thy long endeavour,
Though her flowers and wheat
Throng and press thy pausing feet.
Though thou tame a bird to love thee,
Press thy face to grass and flowers,
All these things reserve above thee
Secrets in the bowers,
Secrets in the sun and showers.
Sing thy sorrow, sing thy gladness.
In thy songs must wind and tree
Bear the fictions of thy sadness,
Thy humanity.
For their truth is not for thee.
Wait, and many a secret nest,
Many a hoarded winter-store
Will be hidden on thy breast.
Things thou longest for
Will not fear or shun thee more.
Thou shalt intimately lie
In the roots of flowers that thrust
Upwards from thee to the sky,
With no more distrust,
When they blossom from thy dust.
Silent labours of the rain
Shall be near thee, reconciled;
Little lives of leaves and grain,
All things shy and wild
Tell thee secrets, quiet child.
Earth, set free from thy fair fancies
And the art thou shalt resign,
Will bring forth her rue and pansies
Unto more divine
Thoughts than any thoughts of thine.
Nought will fear thee, humbled creature.
There will lie thy mortal burden
Pressed unto the heart of Nature,
Songless in a garden,
With a long embrace of pardon.
Then the truth all creatures tell,
And His will whom thou entreatest,
Shall absorb thee; there shall dwell
Silence, the completest
Of thy poems, last, and sweetest.
To Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg For His "Jubilaeum" At Berlin, November 5, 1868
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Thou who hast taught the teachers of mankind
How from the least of things the mightiest grow,
What marvel jealous Nature made thee blind,
Lest man should learn what angels long to know?
Thou in the flinty rock, the river's flow,
In the thick-moted sunbeam's sifted light
Hast trained thy downward-pointed tube to show
Worlds within worlds unveiled to mortal sight,
Even as the patient watchers of the night, - 
The cyclope gleaners of the fruitful skies, - 
Show the wide misty way where heaven is white
All paved with suns that daze our wondering eyes.
Far o'er the stormy deep an empire lies,
Beyond the storied islands of the blest,
That waits to see the lingering day-star rise;
The forest-tinctured Eden of the West;
Whose queen, fair Freedom, twines her iron crest
With leaves from every wreath that mortals wear,
But loves the sober garland ever best
That science lends the sage's silvered hair; - 
Science, who makes life's heritage more fair,
Forging for every lock its mastering key,
Filling with life and hope the stagnant air,
Pouring the light of Heaven o'er land and sea!
From her unsceptred realm we come to thee,
Bearing our slender tribute in our hands;
Deem it not worthless, humble though it be,
Set by the larger gifts of older lands
The smallest fibres weave the strongest bands, - 
In narrowest tubes the sovereign nerves are spun, - 
A little cord along the deep sea-sands
Makes the live thought of severed nations one
Thy fame has journeyed westering with the sun,
Prairies and lone sierras know thy name
And the long day of service nobly done
That crowns thy darkened evening with its flame!
One with the grateful world, we own thy claim, - 
Nay, rather claim our right to join the throng
Who come with varied tongues, but hearts the same,
To hail thy festal morn with smiles and song;
Ah, happy they to whom the joys belong
Of peaceful triumphs that can never die
From History's record, - not of gilded wrong,
But golden truths that, while the world goes by
With all its empty pageant, blazoned high
Around the Master's name forever shine
So shines thy name illumined in the sky, - 
Such joys, such triumphs, such remembrance thine!
Desire
by Matthew Arnold

Thou, who dost dwell alone;
Thou, who dost know thine own;
Thou, to whom all are known,
From the cradle to the grave,
Save, O, save!
From the world's temptations;
From tribulations;
From that fierce anguish
Wherein we languish;
From that torpor deep
Wherein we lie asleep,
Heavy as death, cold as the grave,
Save, O, save!
When the soul, growing clearer,
Sees God no nearer;
When the soul, mounting higher,
To God comes no nigher;
But the arch-fiend Pride
Mounts at her side,
Foiling her high emprize,
Sealing her eagle eyes,
And, when she fain would soar,
Make idols to adore;
Changing the pure emotion
Of her high devotion,
To a skin-deep sense
Of her own eloquence;
Strong to deceive, strong to enslave,
Save, O, save!
From the ingrained fashion
Of this earthly nature
That mars thy creature;
From grief, that is but passion;
From mirth, that is but feigning;
From tears, that bring no healing;
From wild and weak complaining;
Thine old strength revealing,
Save, O, save!
From doubt, where all is doable,
Where wise men are not strong;
Where comfort turns to trouble;
Where just men suffer wrong;
Where sorrow treads on joy;
Where sweet things soonest cloy;
Where faiths are built on dust;
Where love is half mistrust,
Hungry, and barren, and sharp as the sea;
O, set us free!
O, let the false dream fly
Where our sick souls do lie,
Tossing continually.
O, where thy voice doth come,
Let all doubts be dumb;
Let all words be mild;
All strife be reconciled;
All pains beguiled.
Light brings no blindness;
Love no unkindness;
Knowledge no ruin;
Fear no undoing,
From the cradle to the grave,
Save, O, save!
Upon Pearch. Epig.
by Robert Herrick

Thou writes in prose how sweet all virgins be;
But there's not one, doth praise the smell of thee.
The Alchemist's Petition
by Vachel Lindsay

Thou wilt not sentence to eternal life
My soul that prays that it may sleep and sleep
Like a white statue dropped into the deep,
Covered with sand, covered with chests of gold,
And slave-bones, tossed from many a pirate hold.
But for this prayer thou wilt not bind in Hell
My soul, that shook with love for Fame and Truth - 
In such unquenched desires consumed his youth - 
Let me turn dust, like dead leaves in the Fall,
Or wood that lights an hour your knightly hall - 
Amen.
Written In Friars-Carse Hermitage, On Nithside. December, 1788.
by Robert Burns

Thou whom chance may hither lead,
Be thou clad in russet weed,
Be thou deck'd in silken stole,
Grave these counsels on thy soul.
Life is but a day at most,
Sprung from night, in darkness lost;
Hope not sunshine ev'ry hour.
Fear not clouds will always lour.
As Youth and Love with sprightly dance
Beneath thy morning star advance,
Pleasure with her siren air
May delude the thoughtless pair:
Let Prudence bless enjoyment's cup,
Then raptur'd sip, and sip it up.
As thy day grows warm and high,
Life's meridian flaming nigh,
Dost thou spurn the humble vale?
Life's proud summits would'st thou scale?
Check thy climbing step, elate,
Evils lurk in felon wait:
Dangers, eagle-pinion'd, bold,
Soar around each cliffy hold,
While cheerful peace, with linnet song,
Chants the lowly dells among.
As the shades of ev'ning close,
Beck'ning thee to long repose;
As life itself becomes disease,
Seek the chimney-nook of ease.
There ruminate, with sober thought,
On all thou'st seen, and heard, and wrought;
And teach the sportive younkers round,
Saws of experience, sage and sound.
Say, man's true genuine estimate,
The grand criterion of his fate,
Is not--Art thou high or low?
Did thy fortune ebb or flow?
Wast thou cottager or king?
Peer or peasant? no such thing!
Did many talents gild thy span?
Or frugal nature grudge thee one?
Tell them, and press it on their mind,
As thou thyself must shortly find,
The smile or frown of awful Heav'n,
To virtue or to vice is giv'n.
Say, to be just, and kind, and wise,
There solid self-enjoyment lies;
That foolish, selfish, faithless ways
Lead to the wretched, vile, and base.
Thus, resign'd and quiet, creep
To the bed of lasting sleep;
Sleep, whence thou shalt ne'er awake,
Night, where dawn shall never break,
Till future life, future no more,
To light and joy the good restore,
To light and joy unknown before.
Stranger, go! Hea'vn be thy guide!
Quod the beadsman of Nithside.
Upon Himself.
by Robert Herrick

Thou'rt hence removing (like a shepherd's tent),
And walk thou must the way that others went:
Fall thou must first, then rise to life with these,
Mark'd in thy book for faithful witnesses.
Music
by Madison Julius Cawein

Thou, oh, thou!
Thou of the chorded shell and golden plectrum! thou
Of the dark eyes and pale pacific brow!
Music, who by the plangent waves,
Or in the echoing night of labyrinthine caves,
Or on God's mountains, lonely as the stars,
Touchest reverberant bars
Of immemorial sorrow and amaze;--
Keeping regret and memory awake,
And all the immortal ache
Of love that leans upon the past's sweet days
In retrospection!--now, oh, now,
Interpreter and heart-physician, thou,
Who gazest on the heaven and the hell
Of life, and singest each as well,
Touch with thy all-mellifluous finger-tips,
Or thy melodious lips,
This sickness named my soul,
Making it whole,
As is an echo of a chord,
Or some symphonic word,
Or sweet vibrating sigh,
That deep, resurgent still doth rise and die
On thy voluminous roll;
Part of the beauty and the mystery
That axles Earth with song; and as a slave,
Swings it around and 'round on each sonorous pole,
'Mid spheric harmony,
And choral majesty,
And diapasoning of wind and wave;
And speeds it on its far elliptic way
'Mid vasty anthemings of night and day.--
O cosmic cry
Of two eternities, wherein we see
The phantasms, Death and Life,
At endless strife
Above the silence of a monster grave.
A Song. To The Moon.
by John Carr (Sir)

Thou, lamp! the gods benignly gave,
To light a lover on his way;
Thou, Moon! along the silv'ry wave,
Ah! safe this flutt'ring heart convey: - 
Sweet is thy light, and sweet thy shade,
The guide and guardian of our bliss,
A lover's panting lips to lead,
Or veil him in the ravish'd kiss.
Her white robe floats upon the air;
My Lyra hears the dashing oar:
Ye floods, oh! speed me to my fair!
My soul is with her long before.
Oh! lightly haste, thy lover view,
And ev'ry anxious fear resign;
Ye tow'rs, no longer fear'd, adieu!
The treasure which ye held is mine!
Winter Rainbow.
by John Clare

Thou Winter, thou art keen, intensely keen;
Thy cutting frowns experience bids me know,
For in thy weather days and days I've been,
As grinning north-winds horribly did blow,
And pepper'd round my head their hail and snow:
Throughout thy reign 'tis mine each year to prove thee;
And, spite of every storm I've beetled in,
With all thy insults, Winter, I do love thee,
Thou half enchantress, like to pictur'd Sin!
Though many frowns thy sparing smiles deform,
Yet when thy sunbeam shrinketh from its shroud,
And thy bright rainbow gilds the purple storm,
I look entranced on thy painted cloud:
And what wild eye with nature's beauties charm'd,
That hang enraptur'd o'er each 'witching spell,
Can see thee, Winter, then, and not be warm'd
To breathe thy praise, and say, "I love thee well!"
Long Barren
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Thou who didst hang upon a barren tree,
My God, for me;
Though I till now be barren, now at length
Lord, give me strength
To bring forth fruit to Thee.
Thou who didst bear for me the crown of thorn,
Spitting and scorn;
Though I till now have put forth thorns, yet now
Strengthen me Thou
That better fruit be borne.
Thou Rose of Sharon, Cedar of broad roots,
Vine of sweet fruits,
Thou Lily of the vale with fadeless leaf,
Of thousands Chief,
Feed Thou my feeble shoots.
At Dover, 1786
by William Lisle Bowles

Thou, whose stern spirit loves the storm,
That, borne on Terror's desolating wings,
Shakes the high forest, or remorseless flings
The shivered surge; when rising griefs deform
Thy peaceful breast, hie to yon steep, and think,
When thou dost mark the melancholy tide
Beneath thee, and the storm careering wide,
Tossed on the surge of life how many sink!
And if thy cheek with one kind tear be wet,
And if thy heart be smitten, when the cry
Of danger and of death is heard more nigh,
Oh, learn thy private sorrows to forget;
Intent, when hardest beats the storm, to save
One who, like thee, has suffered from the wave.
The Puppet-Show Of Life.
by Friedrich Schiller

Thou'rt welcome in my box to peep!
Life's puppet-show, the world in little,
Thou'lt see depicted to a tittle, 
But pray at some small distance keep!
'Tis by the torch of love alone,
By Cupid's taper, it is shown.
See, not a moment void the stage is!
The child in arms at first they bring, 
The boy then skips, the youth now storms and rages, 
The man contends, and ventures everything!
Each one attempts success to find,
Yet narrow is the race-course ever;
The chariot rolls, the axles quiver,
The hero presses on, the coward stays behind,
The proud man falls with mirth-inspiring fall,
The wise man overtakes them all!
Thou see'st fair woman it the barrier stand,
With beauteous hands, with smiling eyes,
To glad the victor with his prize.
Ode To The Country Gentlemen Of England
by Mark Akenside

Thou, heedless Albion, what, alas, the while
Dost thou presume? O inexpert in arms,
Yet vain of freedom, how dost thou beguile,
With dreams of hope, these near and loud alarms?
Thy splendid home, thy plan of laws renown'd,
The praise and envy of the nations round,
What care hast thou to guard from fortune's sway?
Amid the storms of war, how soon may all
The lofty pile from its foundations fall,
Of ages the proud toil, the ruin of a day!
No: thou art rich, thy streams and fertile vales
Add industry's wise gifts to nature's store:
And every port is crowded with thy sails,
And every wave throws treasure on thy shore.
What boots it? If luxurious plenty charm
Thy selfish heart from glory, if thy arm
Shrink at the frowns of danger and of pain,
Those gifts, that treasure is no longer thine.
Oh rather far be poor. Thy gold will shine
Tempting the eye of force, and deck thee to thy bane.
But what hath force or war to do with thee?
Girt by the azure tide and thron'd sublime
Amid thy floating bulwarks, thou canst see,
With scorn, the fury of each hostile clime
Dash'd ere it reach thee. Sacred from the foe
Art thy fair fields: athwart thy guardian prow
No bold invader's foot shall tempt the strand--
Yet say my country, will the waves and wind
Obey thee? Hast thou all thy hopes resign'd
To the sky's fickle faith? the pilot's wavering hand?
Nor yet be aw'd, nor yet your task disown,
Though war's proud votaries look on severe;
Though secrets, taught erewhile to them alone,
They deem profan'd by your intruding ear.
Let them in vain, your martial hope to quell,
Of new refinements, fiercer weapons tell,
And mock the old simplicity, in vain:
To the time's warfare, simple or refin'd,
The time itself adapts the warrior's mind;
And equal prowess still shall equal palms obtain.
Stagyrus - later titled 'Desire'
by Matthew Arnold

Thou, who dost dwell alone,
Thou, who dost know thine own,
Thou, to whom all are known
From the cradle to the grave,
Save, oh, save.
From the world's temptations,
From tribulations;
From that fierce anguish
Wherein we languish;
From that torpor deep
Wherein we lie asleep,
Heavy as death, cold as the grave;
Save, oh, save.
When the Soul, growing clearer,
Sees God no nearer:
When the Soul, mounting higher,
To God comes no nigher:
But the arch-fiend Pride
Mounts at her side,
Foiling her high emprize,
Sealing her eagle eyes,
And when she fain would soar.
Makes idols to adore;
Changing the pure emotion
Of her high devotion,
To a skin-deep sense
Of her own eloquence:
Strong to deceive, strong to enslave,
Save, oh, save.
From the ingrain'd fashion
Of this earthly nature
That mars thy creature.
From grief, that is but passion
From mirth, that is but feigning;
From tears, that bring no healing;
From wild and weak complaining;
Thine old strength revealing,
Save, oh, save.
From doubt, where all is double:
Where wise men are not strong:
Where comfort turns to trouble:
Where just men suffer wrong:
Where sorrow treads on joy:
Where sweet things soonest cloy:
Where faiths are built on dust:
Where Love is half mistrust.
Hungry, and barren, and sharp as the sea;
Oh, set us free.
O let the false dream fly
Where our sick souls do lie
Tossing continually.
O where thy voice doth come
Let all doubts be dumb:
Let all words be mild:
All strifes be reconcil'd:
All pains beguil'd.
Light bring no blindness;
Love no unkindness;
Knowledge no ruin;
Fear no undoing.
From the cradle to the grave,
Save, oh. save.
Indignation!
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Toi qu'aimais Juv'nal.")
[Nox (PRELUDE) ix., Jersey, November, 1852.]
Thou who loved Juvenal, and filed
His style so sharp to scar imperial brows,
And lent the lustre lightening
The gloom in Dante's murky verse that flows - 
Muse Indignation! haste, and help
My building up before this roseate realm,
And its so fruitless victories,
Whence transient shame Right's prophets overwhelm,
So many pillories, deserved!
That eyes to come will pry without avail,
Upon the wood impenetrant,
And spy no glimmer of its tarnished tale.
A Dream
by Manmohan Ghose

Thou who hast follow'd far with eyes of love
The shy and virgin sights of Spring to-day,
Sad soul, what dost thou in this happy grove?
Hast thou no pipe to touch, no strain to play,
Where Nature smiles so fair and seems to ask a lay?
Ah! she needs none! she is too beautiful.
How should I sing her? for my heart would tire,
Seeking a lovelier verse each time to cull,
In striving still to pitch my music higher:
Lovelier than any muse is she who gives the fire!
No impulse I beseech; my strains are vile:
To escape thee, Nature, restless here I rove.
Look not so sweet on me, avert thy smile!
O cease at length this fever'd breast to move!
I have loved thee in vain; I cannot speak my love.
Here sense with apathy seems gently wed:
The gloom is starr'd with flowers; the unseen trees
Spread thick and softly real above my head;
And the far birds add music to the peace,
In this dark place of sleep, where whispers never cease.
Hush, then, my pipe; vain is thy passion here;
Vain is the burning bosom of desire!
Forever hush'd, let me this silence hear,
As a sad Muse in the melodious choir
Hushes her voice, to catch the happier voices by her.
Deep-shaded will I lie, and deeper yet
In night, where not a leaf its neighbour knows;
Forget the shining of the stars, forget
The vernal visitation of the rose;
And, far from all delights, prepare my heart's repose.
Strive how I may, I cannot slumber so:
Still burns that sleepless beauty on the mind;
Still insupportable those visions glow;
And hark! my spirit's aspirations find
An answer in the leaves, a warning on the wind.
'O crave not silence thou! too soon, too sure,
Shall Autumn come, and through these branches weep:
Soon birds shall cease, and flowers no more endure;
And thou beneath the mould unwilling creep,
And silent soon shalt be in that eternal sleep.
'Green still it is, where that fair goddess strays;
Then follow, till around thee all be sere.
Lose not a vision of her passing face;
Nor miss the sound of her soft robes, that here
Sweep over the wet leaves of the fast-falling year.'
To F--s S. O--d
by Edgar Allan Poe

Thou wouldst be loved? then let thy heart
From its present pathway part not!
Being everything which now thou art,
Be nothing which thou art not.
So with the world thy gentle ways,
Thy grace, thy more than beauty,
Shall be an endless theme of praise,
And love, a simple duty.
On His Grotto At Twickenham
by Alexander Pope

Thou who shalt stop, where Thames' translucent wave
Shines a broad Mirror thro' the shadowy Cave;
Where ling'ring drops from min'ral Roofs distill,
And pointed Crystals break the sparkling Rill,
Unpolish'd Gems no ray on Pride bestow,
And latent Metals innocently glow.
Approach! Great Nature studiously behold;
And eye the Mine without a wish for Gold.
Approach; but awful! Lo! th' Egerian Grot,
Where, nobly-pensive, St. John sate and thought;
Where British sighs from dying Wyndham stole,
And the bright flame was shot thro' Marchmont's Soul.
Let such, such only tread this sacred Floor,
Who dare to love their Country, and be poor.
To The Man-Of-War-Bird
by Walt Whitman

Thou who hast slept all night upon the storm,
Waking renew'd on thy prodigious pinions,
(Burst the wild storm? above it thou ascended'st,
And rested on the sky, thy slave that cradled thee,)
Now a blue point, far, far in heaven floating,
As to the light emerging here on deck I watch thee,
(Myself a speck, a point on the world's floating vast.)
Far, far at sea,
After the night's fierce drifts have strewn the shores with wrecks,
With re-appearing day as now so happy and serene,
The rosy and elastic dawn, the flashing sun,
The limpid spread of air cerulean,
Thou also re-appearest.
Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings,)
To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane,
Thou ship of air that never furl'st thy sails,
Days, even weeks untired and onward, through spaces, realms gyrating,
At dusk that look'st on Senegal, at morn America,
That sport'st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud,
In them, in thy experience, had'st thou my soul,
What joys! what joys were thine!
Sonnet. About Jesus. VIII.
by George MacDonald

Thou wouldst have led us through the twilight land
Where spirit shows by form, form is refined
Away to spirit by transfiguring mind,
Till they are one, and in the morn we stand;
Treading thy footsteps, children, hand in hand,
With sense divinely growing, till, combined,
We heard the music of the planets wind
In harmony with billows on the strand;
Till, one with Earth and all God's utterance,
We hardly knew whether the sun outspake,
Or a glad sunshine from our spirits brake;
Whether we think, or windy leaflets dance:
Alas, O Poet Leader! for this good,
Thou wert God's tragedy, writ in tears and blood.