DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Comfort Ye, Comfort Ye My People
by Nora Pembroke (Margaret Moran Dixon McDougall)

(Noel.)
By the sad fellowship of human suffering,
By the bereavements that are thine and mine,
I venture--oh, forgive me!--with this offering,
I would it were to thee God's oil and wine
I too have suffered--is it then surprising
If to thy sacred grief I enter in?
My spirit draws near thine all sympathising,
Sorrow, like love, "makes aliens near of kin."
Thou'rt weeping for thy gathered blossoms, mother,
The Lord had need of him, and called him soon,
In morning freshness ere the dews of heaven
Were chased before the burning rays of noon.
Thy darling child, like to God's summer blossom,
Was very fair and pleasant to the sight,
The sunny head that rested on thy bosom,
The loving eyes that were thy heart's delight,
Made passers by look on him with a blessing,
Saying, "His mother is not all alone;
Her widowed sorrow, in that sweet caressing,
Will find some comfort for the lost and gone."
I miss him from the doorway, blythely playing,
Where he has turned on me his winsome face;
O lovely child! I said, "by lone hearth staying,
Thou'lt make the widow's home a pleasant place."
The little one, thy comfort in affliction,
With the sweet face earnest and innocent;
That was to thee like Heaven's benediction,
Such children for a little while are lent.
Pilgrims and strangers are we in our praying,
But birds of passage to a brighter shore;
Yet build our nests as if for ever staying,
We and our treasures, here for evermore
But when our nestlings by the Master taken
Up in God's Paradise to safely sing;
And by the empty nest we wail forsaken,
In the great loneliness of suffering.
We lift our tearful eyes in sorrow's blindness,
And cry to him for very helplessness,
Then He reveals to us His loving kindness,
Even in bereavements 'tis His will to bless
He says "Look up," that we may cease our crying,
Seeing our treasures in glad safety there,
And there our hearts will be--for upward flying
In longing love, they cast off earthly care
Thy home is silent all the rippling laughter,
The sound of racing feet at play, is fled,
But he, thy darling led up by the Master,
Is with the living--not among the dead
Thy little ones within the jasper portals,
There by the crystal sea he learns to sing
The new song only known to the immortals,
Promoted to the presence of the King
The child is safe within the Father's mansion
Safe on the hills of God in light to range,
And heart ties stretched unto their utmost tension,
Will, by God's touch, to golden harp strings change
On which the Master will soft music render,
Soothing with heaven's airs thy pathway dim,
On which love's messages all sweet and tender
Shall run between thee and thy angel kin
And they will draw thee upward growing stronger,
When flesh and heart will one day faint and fail,
And thou wilt care for earthly things no longer,
For all thy treasures are within the veil
Mentana: Second Anniversary
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Est-ce qu'il n'est pas temps que la foudre se prouve,
Cieux profonds, en broyant ce chien, fils de la louve?
La L'gende des Si'cles: - Ratbert.
1
By the dead body of Hope, the spotless lamb
Thou threwest into the high priest's slaughtering-room,
And by the child Despair born red therefrom
As, thank the secret sire picked out to cram
With spurious spawn thy misconceiving dam,
Thou, like a worm from a town's common tomb,
Didst creep from forth the kennel of her womb,
Born to break down with catapult and ram
Man's builded towers of promise, and with breath
And tongue to track and hunt his hopes to death:
O, by that sweet dead body abused and slain,
And by that child mismothered,--dog, by all
Thy curses thou hast cursed mankind withal,
With what curse shall man curse thee back again?
2
By the brute soul that made man's soul its food;
By time grown poisonous with it; by the hate
And horror of all souls not miscreate;
By the hour of power that evil hath on good;
And by the incognizable fatherhood
Which made a whorish womb the shameful gate
That opening let out loose to fawn on fate
A hound half-blooded ravening for man's blood;
(What prayer but this for thee should any say,
Thou dog of hell, but this that Shakespeare said?)
By night deflowered and desecrated day,
That fall as one curse on one cursed head,
"Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I pray,
That I may live to say, The dog is dead!"
Let Me Die The Death Of The Righteous.
by Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow

By the river Euphrates the prophet abode,
To whom Balak his messengers sent,
Entreating his presence and curses on those
Who on Moab's destruction were bent.
By hundreds of thousands they're marching along,
And by Moses, God's servant, they're led;
The rock for their thirst, cooling water supplies,
And with bread from the skies are they fed.
They are felling the nations like trees on their way,
And their power there is none can resist;
"Come, curse me this people, oh! Balaam, I pray,
For he whom thou cursest is curst."
With rich bribes in their hands have these messengers come,
Both from Moab and Midian are they;
Desiring the Prophet with them would return,
And this without any delay.
But the men are requested to stop over night,
That the will of the Lord he may learn;
And then if by Him he's permitted to go,
He'll accompany them on their return.
Now when earth her dark mantle of night had put on,
And men's eyes in deep slumber were sealed;
In that solemn hour was the voice of God heard,
And his will to the Prophet revealed.
"Thou shalt not go with them!" distinctly was said,
"Nor to curse the Lord's people presume;"
So the Princes of Moab returned as they came,
And left Balaam reluctant at home.
Again unto Balaam were messages sent,
More in number, in rank higher still,
With the promise if Balak's request he would grant,
He may ask and receive what he will.
But Balaam declared that if Balak would give
Him his house full of silver and gold,
The word of the Lord he could not go beyond,
To do more or do less than he's told.
Still the bait was quite tempting, and Balaam was weak,
And wicked he certainly proved;
E'en the Ass that he rode, that man's conduct condemned,
Who the gains of unrighteousness loved.
In the country of Moab at length he arrives,
And King Balak hath met face to face,
Who requests that with him a high hill he'd ascend,
And the Israelites curse from that place.
Three times seven altars were raised to the Lord,
And three times was the sacrifice made;
But the curse was withheld, for whom God pronounced blest,
Even Balaam to curse was afraid.
Poor Balaam, thy case is a hard one indeed;
Like a house that's divided thou art;
Both thy Maker and Mammon thou gladly would'st serve,
But the former requires thy whole heart.
"Let me die the death of the righteous," say'st thou,
"And my last end like his let it be;"
But if like the righteous unwilling to live,
Never hope like the righteous to die.
March 24, 1853.
*        *        *        *        *
Though life is young, and spirits gay,
And hope thy fond heart cheers;
Though friends are kind, and health is firm,
And death far off appears,
Yet think not happiness like this,
Is destined long to last;
For ere to-morrow morn, perhaps,
Thy sky may be o'ercast.
Ah! let not pleasure blind thy eyes,
Or flattery lure thy heart;
But in the morning of thy life,
Secure the better part.
March 29, 1853.
Embankment At Night, Before The War
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

Charity.
By the river
In the black wet night as the furtive rain slinks down,
Dropping and starting from sleep
Alone on a seat
A woman crouches.
I must go back to her.
I want to give her
Some money. Her hand slips out of the breast of her gown
Asleep. My fingers creep
Carefully over the sweet
Thumb-mound, into the palm's deep pouches.
So, the gift!
God, how she starts!
And looks at me, and looks in the palm of her hand!
And again at me!
I turn and run
Down the Embankment, run for my life.
But why? - why?
Because of my heart's
Beating like sobs, I come to myself, and stand
In the street spilled over splendidly
With wet, flat lights. What I've done
I know not, my soul is in strife.
The touch was on the quick. I want to forget.
River Roses
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

By the Isar, in the twilight
We were wandering and singing,
By the Isar, in the evening
We climbed the huntsman's ladder and sat swinging
In the fir-tree overlooking the marshes,
While river met with river, and the ringing
Of their pale-green glacier water filled the evening.
By the Isar, in the twilight
We found the dark wild roses
Hanging red at the river; and simmering
Frogs were singing, and over the river closes
Was savour of ice and of roses; and glimmering
Fear was abroad. We whispered: "No one knows us.
Let it be as the snake disposes
Here in this simmering marsh."
KLOSTER SCHAEFTLARN
The Song Of Grief
by John Carr (Sir)

By the walk of the willows I pour'd out my theme,
The breath of the evening scarce dimpled the stream;
By the waters I stood, like an image of Woe,
And my tears, like the tide, seem'd to tremble and flow.
Ye green scatter'd reeds, that half lean to the wave,
In your plaintive, your musical, sighs, could ye save
But one note of my charmer, to soften my doom,
I would stay till these willows should arch me a tomb!
For ye know, when I pour'd out my soul on the lute,
How she hung down her head, so expressively mute!
From my hand she would take it, still breathing my pain;
She would touch it - return it - and smile at the strain.
Ye wild blooming flow'rs, that enamel this brink,
Like me could ye feel, and like me could ye think,
How sadly would droop ev'ry beautiful leaf!
How soon would your sweetness be wasted with grief!
She is gone, in a cloud, like the star of the night!
She has left me, heart-broken, to mourn at her flight, - 
To think of the hours she endear'd by her love.
To sigh till again I shall join her above!
Judas.
by Jonathan Swift

By the just vengeance of incensed skies,
Poor Bishop Judas late repenting dies.
The Jews engaged him with a paltry bribe,
Amounting hardly to a crown a-tribe;
Which though his conscience forced him to restore,
(And parsons tell us, no man can do more,)
Yet, through despair, of God and man accurst,
He lost his bishopric, and hang'd or burst.
Those former ages differ'd much from this;
Judas betray'd his master with a kiss:
But some have kiss'd the gospel fifty times,
Whose perjury's the least of all their crimes;
Some who can perjure through a two inch-board,
Yet keep their bishoprics, and 'scape the cord:
Like hemp, which, by a skilful spinster drawn
To slender threads, may sometimes pass for lawn.
As ancient Judas by transgression fell,
And burst asunder ere he went to hell;
So could we see a set of new Iscariots
Come headlong tumbling from their mitred chariots;
Each modern Judas perish like the first,
Drop from the tree with all his bowels burst;
Who could forbear, that view'd each guilty face,
To cry, "Lo! Judas gone to his own place,
His habitation let all men forsake,
And let his bishopric another take!"
Elderly Gentleman, The
by George Canning

By the side of a murmuring stream an elderly gentleman sat.
On the top of his head was a wig, and a-top of his wig was his hat.
The wind it blew high and blew strong, as the elderly gentleman sat;
And bore from his head in a trice, and plunged in the river his hat.
The gentleman then took his cane which lay by his side as he sat;
And he dropped in the river his wig, in attempting to get out his hat.
His breast it grew cold with despair, and full in his eye madness sat;
So he flung in the river his cane to swim with his wig, and his hat.
Cool reflection at last came across while this elderly gentleman sat;
So he thought he would follow the stream and look for his cane, wig, and hat.
His head being thicker than common, o'er-balanced the rest of his fat;
And in plumped this son of a woman to follow his wig, cane, and hat.
The Ruined Chapel
by William Allingham

By the shore, a plot of ground
Clips a ruined chapel round,
Buttressed with a grassy mound;
Where Day and Night and Day go by
And bring no touch of human sound.
Washing of the lonely seas,
Shaking of the guardian trees,
Piping of the salted breeze;
Day and Night and Day go by
To the endless tune of these.
Or when, as winds and waters keep
A hush more dead than any sleep,
Still morns to stiller evenings creep,
And Day and Night and Day go by;
Here the silence is most deep.
The empty ruins, lapsed again
Into Nature's wide domain,
Sow themselves with seed and grain
As Day and Night and Day go by;
And hoard June's sun and April's rain.
Here fresh funeral tears were shed;
Now the graves are also dead;
And suckers from the ash-tree spread,
While Day and Night and Day go by;
And stars move calmly overhead.
War
by Archibald Lampman

By the Nile, the sacred river,
I can see the captive hordes
Strain beneath the lash and quiver
At the long papyrus cords,
While in granite rapt and solemn,
Rising over roof and column,
Amen-hotep dreams, or Ramses,
Lord of Lords.
I can hear the trumpets waken
For a victory old and far - 
Carchemish or Kadesh taken - 
I can see the conqueror's car
Bearing down some Hittite valley,
Where the bowmen break and sally,
Sargina or Esarhaddon,
Grim with war!
From the mountain streams that sweeten
Indus, to the Spanish foam,
I can feel the broad earth beaten
By the serried tramp of Rome;
Through whatever foes environ
Onward with the might of iron - 
Veni, vidi; veni, vici - 
Crashing home!
I can see the kings grow pallid
With astonished fear and hate,
As the hosts of Amr or Khaled
On their cities fall like fate;
Like the heat-wind from its prison
In the desert burst and risen - 
La il'ha illah 'll'hu - 
God is great!
I can hear the iron rattle,
I can see the arrows sting
In some far-off northern battle,
Where the long swords sweep and swing;
I can hear the scalds declaiming,
I can see their eyeballs flaming,
Gathered in a frenzied circle
Round the king.
I can hear the horn of Uri
Roaring in the hills enorm;
Kindled at its brazen fury,
I can see the clansmen form;
In the dawn in misty masses,
Pouring from the silent passes
Over Granson or Morgarten
Like the storm.
On the lurid anvil ringing
To some slow fantastic plan,
I can hear the sword-smith singing
In the heart of old Japan - 
Till the cunning blade grows tragic
With his malice and his magic - 
Tenka tairan! Tenka tairan!
War to man!
Where a northern river charges
By a wild and moonlit glade,
From the murky forest marges,
Round a broken palisade,
I can see the red men leaping,
See the sword of Daulac sweeping,
And the ghostly forms of heroes
Fall and fade.
I can feel the modern thunder
Of the cannon beat and blaze,
When the lines of men go under
On your proudest battle-days;
Through the roar I hear the lifting
Of the bloody chorus drifting
Round the burning mill at Valmy - 
Marseillaise!
I can see the ocean rippled
With the driving shot like rain,
While the hulls are crushed and crippled,
And the guns are piled with slain;
O'er the blackened broad sea-meadow
Drifts a tall and titan shadow,
And the cannon of Trafalgar
Startle Spain.
Still the tides of fight are booming,
And the barren blood is spilt;
Still the banners are up-looming,
And the hands are on the hilt;
But the old world waxes wiser,
From behind the bolted visor
It descries at last the horror
And the guilt.
Yet the eyes are dim, nor wholly
Open to the golden gleam,
And the brute surrenders slowly
To the godhead and the dream.
From his cage of bar and girder,
Still at moments mad with murder,
Leaps the tiger, and his demon
Rules supreme.
One more war with fire and famine
Gathers - I can hear its cries - 
And the years of might and Mammon
Perish in a world's demise;
When the strength of man is shattered,
And the powers of earth are scattered,
From beneath the ghastly ruin
Peace shall rise!
The Union Oath.
by A. H. Laidlaw

By the Revolution's dead,
By their Blood in battle shed,
By the Earth that drank their gore,
By the Heaven in which they soar,
By the Union Stripe and Star,
By the God of Righteous War,
Swear to conquer, or to die!
Swear to conquer,
Swear to conquer,
Swear to conquer now, or die!
By the Revolution's dead,
By their Blood in battle shed,
By the Earth that drank their gore,
By the Heaven in which they soar,
By the Union Stripe and Star,
By the God of Righteous War,
We will conquer now, or die!
We will conquer!
We will conquer!
We will conquer now, or die!
The Hymn Of The Socialists
by Henry Lawson

By the bodies and minds and souls that rot in a common stye
In the city's offal-holes, where the dregs of its horrors lie,
By the prayers that bubble out, but never ascend to God,
We swear the tyrants of earth to rout, with tongue and with pen and sword!
By the child that sees the light, where the pestilent air stagnates,
By the woman, worn and white, who under the street-lamp waits,
By the horror of vice that thrives in the dens of the wretched poor,
We swear to strike when the time arrives, for all that is good and pure!
By the rights that were always ours, the rights that we ne'er enjoyed,
And the gloomy cloud that lowers on the brow of the unemployed;
By the struggling mothers and wives, by girls in the streets of sin,
We swear to strike when the time arrives, for our kind and our kith and kin!
By our burning hate for men who rob us of ours by might,
And drive to the slum and den, the poor from the sun and light,
By the hell-born greed that drives our sons o'er the world to roam,
We swear to strike when the time arrives, and strike for our friends and home.
By the little of manhood left in a world of want and sin,
By the rift in the dark cloud's brow where the light still struggles in,
By the love that scarce survives in a stream that is sluggish and thin,
We swear to work till the time arrives for ourselves and our kind and kin.
The little of love may dry in its stream that scarcely flows,
The little of manhood die and the rift in the dark clouds close,
And hope may vanish from earth and all that is pure and bright,
But we swear to strike eer that time has birth with the whole of our gathered might!
Serenade.
by Madison Julius Cawein

By the burnished laurel line
Glimmering flows the singing stream;
Oily eddies crease and shine
O'er white pebbles, white as cream.
Richest roses bud or die
All about the splendid park;
Fountains glass a wily eye
Where the fawns browse in the dark.
Amber-belted through the night
Floats the alabaster moon,
Stooping o'er th' acacia white
Where my mandolin I tune.
By the twinkling mere I sing
Where lake lilies stretch pale eyes,
And a bulbul there doth fling
Music at the moon who flies.
With a broken syrinx there,
From enameled beds of buds,
Rises Pan in hoof and hair - 
Moonlight his dim sculpture floods.
The pale jessamines have felt
The large passion of her gaze;
See! they part - their glories melt
Round her in a starry haze.
What The People Said
by Rudyard Kipling

By the well, where the bullocks go
Silent and blind and slow,
By the field where the young corn dies
In the face of the sultry skies,
They have heard, as the dull Earth hears
The voice of the wind of an hour,
The sound of the Great Queen's voice:
"My God hath given me years,
Hath granted dominion and power:
And I bid you, O Land, rejoice."
And the ploughman settles the share
More deep in the grudging clod;
For he saith: "The wheat is my care,
And the rest is the will of God.
He sent the Mahratta spear
As He sendeth the rain,
And the Mlech, in the fated year,
Broke the spear in twain.
And was broken in turn. Who knows
How our Lords make strife?
It is good that the young wheat grows,
For the bread is Life."
Then, far and near, as the twilight drew,
Hissed up to the scornful dark
Great serpents, blazing, of red and blue,
That rose and faded, and rose anew.
That the Land might wonder and mark
"To-day is a day of days," they said,
"Make merry, O People, all!"
And the Ploughman listened and bowed his head:
"To-day and to-morrow God's will," he said,
As he trimmed the lamps on the wall.
"He sendeth us years that are good,
As He sendeth the dearth,
He giveth to each man his food,
Or Her food to the Earth.
Our Kings and our Queens are afar,
On their peoples be peace,
God bringeth the rain to the Bar,
That our cattle increase."
And the Ploughman settled the share
More deep in the sun-dried clod:
"Mogul Mahratta, and Mlech from the North,
And White Queen over the Seas,
God raiseth them up and driveth them forth
As the dust of the ploughshare flies in the breeze;
But the wheat and the cattle are all my care,
And the rest is the will of God."
Fragments Of Ancient Poetry, Fragment VIII
by James Macpherson

By the side of a rock on the hill, beneath
the aged trees, old Oscian
sat on the moss; the last of the race of
Fingal. Sightless are his aged eyes;
his beard is waving in the wind. Dull
through the leafless trees he heard the
voice of the north. Sorrow revived in
his soul: he began and lamented the
dead.
How hast thou fallen like an oak,
with all thy branches round thee! Where
is Fingal the King? where is Oscur my
son? where are all my race? Alas! in
the earth they lie. I feel their tombs
with my hands. I hear the river below
murmuring hoarsely over the stones.
What dost thou, O river, to me? Thou
bringest back the memory of the past.
The race of Fingal stood on thy
banks, like a wood in a fertile soil.
Keen were their spears of steel. Hardy
was he who dared to encounter their
rage. Fillan the great was there. Thou
Oscur wert there, my son! Fingal himself
was there, strong in the grey locks
of years. Full rose his sinewy limbs;
and wide his shoulders spread. The
unhappy met with his arm, when the
pride of his wrath arose.
The son of Morny came; Gaul, the
tallest of men. He stood on the hill like
an oak; his voice was like the streams of
the hill. Why reigneth alone, he cries,
the son of the mighty Corval? Fingal is
not strong to save: he is no support for
the people. I am strong as a storm in
the ocean; as a whirlwind on the hill.
Yield, son of Corval; Fingal, yield to
me.
Oscur stood forth to meet him;
my son would meet the foe. But Fingal
came in his strength, and smiled at
the vaunter's boast. They threw their
arms round each other; they struggled
on the plain. The earth is ploughed with
their heels. Their bones crack as the boat
on the ocean, when it leaps from wave to
wave. Long did they toil; with night,
they fell on the sounding plain; as two
oaks, with their branches mingled, fall
crashing from the hill. The tall son
of Morny is bound; the aged overcame.
Fair with her locks of gold, her
smooth neck, and her breasts of snow;
fair, as the spirits of the hill when at
silent noon they glide along the heath;
fair, as the rainbow of heaven; came
Minvane the maid. Fingal! She softly
saith, loose me my brother Gaul.
Loose me the hope of my race, the terror
of all but Fingal. Can I, replies the
King, can I deny the lovely daughter
of the hill? take thy brother, O Minvane,
thou fairer than the snow of the
north!
Such, Fingal! were thy words; but
thy words I hear no more. Sightless
I sit by thy tomb. I hear the wind in
the wood; but no more I hear my
friends. The cry of the hunter is over.
The voice of war is ceased.