DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Parody On The Recorder Of Blessington's Address To Queen Anne
by Jonathan Swift

Mr. William Crowe, Recorder of Blessington's Address to her Majesty, as copied from the London Gazette.
To the Queen's most Excellent Majesty,
The humble Address of the Sovereign, Recorder, Burgesses, and Freemen, of the Borough of Blessington.
May it please your Majesty, Though we stand almost last on the roll of boroughs of this your majesty's kingdom of Ireland, and therefore, in good manners to our elder brothers, press but late among the joyful crowd about your royal throne: yet we beg leave to assure your majesty, that we come behind none in our good affection to your sacred person and government; insomuch, that the late surprising accounts from Germany have filled us with a joy not inferior to any of our fellow-subjects.
We heard with transport that the English warmed the field to that degree, that thirty squadrons, part of the vanquished enemy, were forced to fly to water, not able to stand their fire, and drank their last draught in the Danube, for the waste they had before committed on its injured banks, thereby putting an end to their master's long-boasted victories: a glorious push indeed, and worthy a general of the Queen of England. And we are not a little pleased, to find several gentlemen in considerable posts of your majesty's army, who drew their first breath in this country, sharing in the good fortune of those who so effectually put in execution the command of your gallant, enterprizing general, whose twin-battles have, with his own title of Marlborough, given immortality to the otherwise perishing names of Schellenberg and Hogstete: actions that speak him born under stars as propitious to England as that he now wears, on both which he has so often reflected lustre, as to have now abundantly repaid the glory they once lent him. Nor can we but congratulate with a joy proportioned to the success of your majesty's fleet, our last campaign at sea, since by it we observe the French obliged to steer their wonted course for security, to their ports; and Gibraltar, the Spaniards' ancient defence, bravely stormed, possessed, and maintained by your majesty's subjects.
May the supplies for reducing the exorbitant power of France be such, as may soon turn your wreaths of laurel into branches of olive: that, after the toils of a just and honourable war, carried on by a confederacy of which your majesty is most truly, as of the faith, styled Defender, we may live to enjoy, under your majesty's auspicious government, the blessings of a profound and lasting peace; a peace beyond the power of him to violate, who, but for his own unreasonable conveniency, destructive always of his neighbours, never yet kept any. And, to complete our happiness, may your majesty again prove to your own family, what you have been so eminently to the true church, a nursing mother. So wish, and so pray, may it please your majesty, your majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, and devoted humble servants.
This Address was presented January 17, 1704-5.
To His Valentine
by Michael Drayton

Muse, bid the Morne awake,
Sad Winter now declines,
Each Bird doth chuse a Make,
This day 's Saint VALENTINE'S;
For that good Bishop's sake
Get vp, and let vs see,
What Beautie it shall bee,
That Fortune vs assignes.
But lo, in happy How'r,
The place wherein she lyes,
In yonder climbing Tow'r,
Gilt by the glitt'ring Rise;
O IOVE! that in a Show'r,
As once that Thund'rer did,
When he in drops lay hid,
That I could her surprize.
Her Canopie Ile draw,
With spangled Plumes bedight,
No Mortall euer saw
So rauishing a sight;
That it the Gods might awe,
And pow'rfully trans-pierce
The Globie Vniuerse,
Out-shooting eu'ry Light.
My Lips Ile softly lay
Vpon her heau'nly Cheeke,
Dy'd like the dawning Day,
As polish'd Iuorie sleeke:
And in her Eare Ile say;
O, thou bright Morning-Starre,
'Tis I that come so farre,
My Valentine to seeke.
Each little Bird, this Tyde,
Doth chuse her loued Pheere,
Which constantly abide
In Wedlock all the yeere,
As Nature is their Guide:
So may we two be true,
This yeere, nor change for new,
As Turtles coupled were.
The Sparrow, Swan, the Doue,
Though VENVS Birds they be,
Yet are they not for Loue
So absolute as we:
For Reason vs doth moue;
They but by billing woo:
Then try what we can doo,
To whom each sense is free.
Which we haue more then they,
By liuelyer Organs sway'd,
Our Appetite each way
More by our Sense obay'd:
Our Passions to display,
This Season vs doth fit;
Then let vs follow it,
As Nature vs doth lead.
One Kisse in two let's breake,
Confounded with the touch,
But halfe words let vs speake,
Our Lip's imploy'd so much,
Vntill we both grow weake,
With sweetnesse of thy breath;
O smother me to death:
Long let our Ioyes be such.
Let's laugh at them that chuse
Their Valentines by lot,
To weare their Names that vse,
Whom idly they haue got:
Such poore choise we refuse,
Saint VALENTINE befriend;
We thus this Morne may spend,
Else Muse, awake her not.
The Death of Richard Wagner
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

I.
Mourning on earth, as when dark hours descend,
Wide-winged with plagues, from heaven; when hope and mirth
Wane, and no lips rebuke or reprehend
Mourning on earth.
The soul wherein her songs of death and birth,
Darkness and light, were wont to sound and blend,
Now silent, leaves the whole world less in worth.
Winds that make moan and triumph, skies that bend,
Thunders, and sound of tides in gulf and firth,
Spake through his spirit of speech, whose death should send
Mourning on earth.
II.
The world's great heart, whence all things strange and rare
Take form and sound, that each inseparate part
May bear its burden in all tuned thoughts that share
The world's great heart
The fountain forces, whence like steeds that start
Leap forth the powers of earth and fire and air,
Seas that revolve and rivers that depart -
Spake, and were turned to song:    yea, all they were,
With all their works, found in his mastering art
Speech as of powers whose uttered word laid bare
The world's great heart.
III.
From the depths of the sea, from the wellsprings of earth, from the wastes of the midmost night,
From the fountains of darkness and tempest and thunder, from heights where the soul would be,
The spell of the mage of music evoked their sense, as an unknown light
From the depths of the sea.
As a vision of heaven from the hollows of ocean, that none but a god might see,
Rose out of the silence of things unknown of a presence, a form, a might,
And we heard as a prophet that hears God's message against him, and may not flee.
Eye might not endure it, but ear and heart with a rapture of dark delight,
With a terror and wonder whose core was joy, and a passion of thought set free,
Felt inly the rising of doom divine as a sundawn risen to sight
From the depths of the sea.
Astrophel and Stella - Sonnet LV
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

Muses, I oft inuoked your holy ayde,
With choisest flowers my speech t' engarland so,
That it, despisde, in true but naked shew
Might winne some grace in your sweet grace arraid;
And oft whole troupes of saddest words I staid,
Striuing abroad a-foraging to go,
Vntill by your inspiring I might know
How their blacke banner might be best displaid.
But now I meane no more your helpe to try,
Nor other sugring of my speech to proue,
But on her name incessantly to cry;
For let me but name her whom I doe loue,
So sweet sounds straight mine eare and heart do hit,
That I well finde no eloquence like it.
Upon Much-More. Epig.
by Robert Herrick

Much-more provides and hoards up like an ant,
Yet Much-more still complains he is in want.
Let Much-more justly pay his tithes; then try
How both his meal and oil will multiply.
The Venal Muse
by Charles Baudelaire

Muse of my heart, lover of palaces,
When January comes with wind and sleet,
During the snowy eve's long weariness,
Will there be fire to warm thy violet feet?
Wilt thou reanimate thy marble shoulders
In the moon-beams that through the window fly?
Or when thy purse dries up, thy palace moulders,
Reap the far star-gold of the vaulted sky?
For thou, to keep thy body to thy soul,
Must swing a censor, wear a holy stole,
And chaunt Te Deums with unbelief between.
Or, like a starving mountebank, expose
Thy beauty and thy tear-drowned smile to those
Who wait thy jests to drive away thy spleen.
Asparagus
by Marriott Edgar

Mr. Ramsbottom went to the races,
A thing as he'd ne'er done before,
And as luck always follers beginners,
Won five pounds, no-less and no-more.
He felt himself suddenly tempted
To indulge in some reckless orgee,
So he went to a caffy-a-teerer
And had a dressed crab with his tea.
He were crunching the claws at the finish
And wondering what next he would do,
Then his thoughts turned to home and to Mother,
And what she would say when she knew.
For Mother were dead against racing
And said as she thought 'twere a sin
For people to gamble their money
Unless they were certain to win.
These homely domestic reflections
Seemed to cast quite a gloom on Pa's day
He thought he'd best take home a present
And square up the matter that way.
' Twere a bit ofa job to decide on
What best to select for this 'ere,
So he started to look in shop winders
In hopes as he'd get some idea.
He saw some strange stuff in a fruit shop
Like leeks with their nobby ends gone,
It were done up in bundles like firewood,
Said Pa to the Shopman, "What's yon?"
"That's Ass-paragus-what the Toffs eat"
Were the answer; said Pa "That 'll suit,
I'd best take a couple of bundles,
For Mother's a bobby for fruit."
He started off home with his purchase
And pictured Ma all the next week
Eating sparagus fried with her bacon
Or mashed up in bubble-and-squeak.
He knew when she heard he'd been racing
She'd very nigh talk him to death,
So he thought as he'd call in the ' Local'
To strengthen his nerve and his breath.
He had hardly got up to the counter
When a friend of his walked in the bar,
He said "What ye got in the bundle?"
"A present for Mother," said Pa.
It's 'sparagus stuff what the Toffs eat "
His friend said "It's a rum-looking plant,
Can I have the green ends for my rabbits?"
said Pa "Aye, cut off what you want.
He cut all the tips off one bundle,
Then some more friends arrived one by one,
And all of them seemed to keep rabbits
Pa had no green ends left when they'd done.
When he got home the 'ouse were in dark ness,
So he slipped in as sly as a fox,
Laid the 'sparagus on kitchen table
And crept up to bed in his socks.
He got in without waking Mother,
A truly remarkable feat,
And pictured her telling the neighbours
As 'twere 'sparagus-what the toffs eat.
But when he woke up in the morning
It were nigh on a quarter to ten,
There were no signs of Mother, or breakfast
Said Pa, "What's she done with her-sen?"
He shouted "What's up theer in t' kitchen?"
She replied, "You do well to enquire,
Them bundles of chips as you brought home
Is so damp... I can't light the fire."
The Two-Sided Man
by Rudyard Kipling

Much I owe to the Lands that grew,
More to the Lives that fed,
But most to Allah Who gave me two
Separate sides to my head.
Much I reflect on the Good and the True
In the Faiths beneath the sun,
But most to Allah Who gave me two
Sides to my head, not one.
Wesley's following, Calvin's flock,
White or yellow or bronze,
Shaman, Ju-ju or Angekok,
Minister, Mukamuk, Bonze,
Here is a health, my brothers, to you,
However your prayers are said,
And praised be Allah Who gave me two
Separate sides to my head!
I would go without shirt or shoe,
Friend, tobacco or bread,
Sooner than lose for a minute the two
Separate sides of my head!
Mrs. Mulligatawny
by Arthur Macy

Mrs. Mulligatawny said, "I'm sure it's going to rain."
Mr. Mulligatawny said, "To me it's very plain."
William Mulligatawny said, "It must rain, anyhow."
Mary Mulligatawny said, "I feel it raining now."
And yet there were no clouds in sight, and 'twas a pleasant day,
But Mrs. Mulligatawny always liked to have her way.
With Mrs. Mulligatawny the family all agreed,
For all the Mulligatawnys feared her very much indeed,
And did, whenever they were bid,
As Mrs. Mulligatawny did,
And tried to think, as they were taught,
As Mrs. Mulligatawny thought.
Mrs. Mulligatawny said, "Now two and two are three."
Mr. Mulligatawny said, "I'm sure they ought to be."
William Mulligatawny said, "Arithmetic is wrong."
Mary Mulligatawny said, "It's been so all along."
Now two and two do not make three, and three they never were;
But Mrs. Mulligatawny said 'twas near enough for her.
With Mrs. Mulligatawny the family all agreed,
For all the Mulligatawnys feared her very much indeed,
And did, whenever they were bid,
As Mrs. Mulligatawny did,
And tried to think, as they were taught,
As Mrs. Mulligatawny thought.
Mrs. Mulligatawny fell out of the world one day.
Mr. Mulligatawny said, "I don't know what to say."
William Mulligatawny said, "I don't know what to do."
Mary Mulligatawny said, "I feel the same as you."
Mrs. Mulligatawny left the family sitting there.
They couldn't think, they couldn't move, because they didn't dare;
For Mrs. Mulligatawny had always thought for them,
And all the Mulligatawnys thought the same as Mrs. M.,
And did, whenever they were bid,
As Mrs. Mulligatawny did,
And tried to think, as they were taught,
As Mrs. Mulligatawny thought.
Occasioned By Some Verses Of His Grace The Duke Of Buckingham
by Alexander Pope

Muse, 'tis enough: at length thy labour ends,
And thou shalt live, for Buckingham commends.
Let Crowds and Critics now my verse assail,
Let Dennis write, and nameless numbers rail:
This more than pays whole years of thankless pain;
Time, health, and fortune are not lost in vain.
Sheffield approves, consenting Phoebus bends,
And I and Malice from this hour are friends.
Futility
by Wilfred Edward Salter Owen

Move him into the sun--
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.
Think how it wakes the seeds--
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs so dear-achieved, are sides
Full-nerved,--still warm,--too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
--O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?
A Passing Bell
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

Mournfully to and fro, to and fro the trees are waving;
What did you say, my dear?
The rain-bruised leaves are suddenly shaken, as a child
Asleep still shakes in the clutch of a sob - 
Yes, my love, I hear.
One lonely bell, one only, the storm-tossed afternoon is braving,
Why not let it ring?
The roses lean down when they hear it, the tender, mild
Flowers of the bleeding-heart fall to the throb - 
It is such a little thing!
A wet bird walks on the lawn, call to the boy to come and look,
Yes, it is over now.
Call to him out of the silence, call him to see
The starling shaking its head as it walks in the grass - 
Ah, who knows how?
He cannot see it, I can never show it him, how it shook - 
Don't disturb him, darling.
- Its head as it walked: I can never call him to me,
Never, he is not, whatever shall come to pass.
No, look at the wet starling.
Sonnets: Idea XLV
by Michael Drayton

Muses which sadly sit about my chair,
Drowned in the tears extorted by my lines;
With heavy sighs whilst thus I break the air,
Painting my passions in these sad designs,
Since she disdains to bless my happy verse,
The strong built trophies to her living fame,
Ever henceforth my bosom be your hearse,
Wherein the world shall now entomb her name.
Enclose my music, you poor senseless walls,
Sith she is deaf and will not hear my moans;
Soften yourselves with every tear that falls,
Whilst I like Orpheus sing to trees and stones,
Which with my plaint seem yet with pity moved,
Kinder than she whom I so long have loved.
Gone
by Nora Pembroke (Margaret Moran Dixon McDougall)

Mournfully, mournfully
All around me are crying,
For my dark-eyed baby boy
Is dying, dying
Tenderly, tenderly
To him I am clinging,
But he slips from my fond arms,
Death bells are ringing
Joyfully, joyfully
Angels are receiving
My babe--by the empty cot
I must sit grieving.
The Trinity
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Much may be done with the world we are in,
Much with the race to better it;
We can unfetter it,
Free it from chains of the old traditions;
Broaden its viewpoint of virtue and sin;
Change its conditions
Of labour and wealth;
And open new roadways to knowledge and health.
Yet some things ever must stay as they are
While the sea has its tide and the sky has its star.
A man and a woman with love between,
Loyal and tender and true and clean,
Nothing better has been or can be
Than just those three.
Woman may alter the first great plan.
Daughters and sisters and mothers
May stalk with their brothers
Forth from their homes into noisy places
Fit (and fit only) for masculine man.
Marring their graces
With conflict and strife
To widen the outlook of all human life.
Yet some things ever must stay as they are
While the sea has its tide and the sky has its star.
A man and a woman with love that strengthens
And gathers new force as its earth way lengthens;
Nothing better by God is given
This side of heaven.
Science may show us a wonderful vast
Secret of life and of breeding it;
Man by the heeding it
Out of earth's chaos may bring a new order.
Off with old systems, old laws may be cast.
What now seems the border
Of licence in creeds,
May then be the centre of thoughts and of deeds.
Yet some things ever must stay as they are
While the sea has its tide and the sky has its star.
A man and a woman and love undefiled
And the look of the two in the face of a child, - 
Oh, the joys of this world have their changing ways,
But this joy stays.
Nothing better on earth can be
Than just those three.
The State Secret. An Impromptu.
by Thomas Gent

"Murder will out:"--and so will truth sometimes;
For once I'll prove it in a dozen lines.--
At one of those parties where Julia's sweet face
Added interest to beauty, and archness to grace,
Where many fine folks met; and one very great,
Proud and stupid, an embryo minister sate;
Like a damper he came to put good humour out,
And it chanced that, as Julia's pet-bird flew about.
It presumptuously 'lit on this mighty man's head;
When her lore-laughing sister, sweet Eleanor, said,
"Naughty bird! I must cage you for being so rude,
On Lord------head, oh! how dare you intrude?"
"Let it rest," replied Julia, with an exquisite grace,
"Don't frighten it off--for it likes a soft place!"
"Much Madness Is Divinest Sense"
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
'T is the majority
In this, as all, prevails.
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur, -- you're straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain.
The Raven And The Fox.
by Jean de La Fontaine

Mr. Raven was perched upon a limb,
And Reynard the Fox looked up at him;
For the Raven held in his great big beak
A morsel the Fox would go far to seek.
Said the Fox, in admiring tones: "My word!
Sir Raven, you are a handsome bird.
Such feathers! If you would only sing,
The birds of these woods would call you King."
The Raven, who did not see the joke,
Forgot that his voice was just a croak.
He opened his beak, in his foolish pride - 
And down fell the morsel the Fox had spied.
"Ha-ha!" said the Fox. "And now you see
You should not listen to flattery.
Vanity, Sir is a horrid vice - 
I'm sure the lesson is worth the price."
Lines Upon Reading The Journal Of A Friend'S Tour Into Scotland, In Which The Picturesque Scenery And The Character Of The People Are Fairly And Liberally Stated.
by John Carr (Sir)

Much injur'd, Scotia! was thy genuine worth,
When late the[A] surly Rambler wandered forth
In brown[B] surtout, with ragged staff,
Enough to make a savage laugh!
And sent the faithless legend from his hand,
That Want and Famine scour'd thy bladeless land,
That with thee Nature wore a wrinkled face,
That not a leaf e'er shed its sylvan grace,
But, harden'd by their northern wind,
Rude, deceitful, and unkind,
Thy half-cloth'd sons their oaten cake denied,
Victims at once of penury and pride.
Happy for thee! a lib'ral Briton here,
Gentle yet shrewd, tho' learned not severe.
Fairly thy merit dares impart,
Asserts thy hospitable heart,
Proves that luxuriance smiles upon thy plains,
And wit and valour grace thy hardy swains.
Epigram By Mr. Bowyer
by Jonathan Swift

"IN SYLLABAM LONGAM IN VOCE VERTIGINOSUS A. D. SWIFT CORREPTAM"
Musarum antistes, Phoebi numerosus alumnus,
Vix omnes numeros Vertiginosus habet.
Intentat charo capiti vertigo ruinam:
Oh! servet cerebro nata Minerva caput.
Vertigo nimium longa est, divina poeta;
Dent tibi Pierides, donet Apollo, brevem.
Move Eastward, Happy Earth, And Leave
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Move eastward, happy earth, and leave
Yon orange sunset waning slow:
From fringes of the faded eve,
O, happy planet, eastward go;
Till over thy dark shoulder glow
Thy silver sister-world, and rise
To glass herself in dewy eyes
That watch me from the glen below.
Ah, bear me with thee, smoothly borne,
Dip forward under starry light,
And move me to my marriage-morn,
And round again to happy night.
The Virgin With The Bells.
by Henry Austin Dobson

Much strange is true. And yet so much
Dan Time thereto of doubtful lays
He blurs them both beneath his touch:--
In this our tale his part he plays.
At Florence, so the legend tells,
There stood a church that men would praise
(Even where Art the most excels)
For works of price; but chief for one
They called the "Virgin with the Bells."
Gracious she was, and featly done,
With crown of gold about the hair,
And robe of blue with stars thereon,
And sceptre in her hand did bear;
And o'er her, in an almond tree,
Three little golden bells there were,
Writ with Faith, Hope, and Charity.
None knew from whence she came of old,
Nor whose the sculptor's name should be
Of great or small. But this they told:--
That once from out the blaze of square,
And bickering folk that bought and sold,
More moved no doubt of heat than prayer,
Came to the church an Umbrian,
Lord of much gold and champaign fair,
But, for all this, a hard, haught man.
To whom the priests, in humbleness,
At once to beg for alms began,
Praying him grant of his excess
Such as for poor men's bread might pay,
Or give their saint a gala-dress.
Thereat with scorn he answered--"Nay,
Most Reverend! Far too well ye know,
By guile and wile, the fox's way
"To swell the Church's overflow.
But ere from me the least carline
Ye win, this summer's sky shall snow;
"Or, likelier still, your doll's-eyed queen
Shall ring her bells ... but not of craft.
By Bacchus! ye are none too lean
"For fasting folk!" With that he laughed,
And so, across the porphyry floor,
His hand upon his dagger-haft,
Strode, and of these was seen no more.
Nor, of a truth, much marvelled they
At those his words, since gear and store
Oft dower shrunk souls. But, on a day,
While yet again throughout the square,
The buyers in their noisy way,
Chaffered around the basket ware,
It chanced (I but the tale reveal,
Nor true nor false therein declare)--
It chanced that when the priest would kneel
Before the taper's flickering flame,
Sudden a little tremulous peal
From out the Virgin's altar came.
And they that heard must fain recall
The Umbrian, and the words of shame
Spoke in his pride, and therewithal
Came news how, at that very date
And hour of time was fixed his fall,
Who, of the Duke, was banned the State,
And all his goods, and lands as well,
To Holy Church were confiscate.
Such is the tale the Frati tell.
Anne Boleyn. Translation From The Metrical
by Thomas Moore

"Histoire d'Anne Boleyn."
"S'elle estoit belle et de taille 'l'gante,
Estoit des yeulx encor plus attirante,
Lesquelz s'avoit bien conduyre ' propos
En les lenant quelquefoys en repos;
Aucune foys envoyant en message
Porter du cueur le secret tesmoignage."
Much as her form seduced the sight,
Her eyes could even more surely woo;
And when and how to shoot their light
Into men's hearts full well she knew.
For sometimes in repose she hid
Their rays beneath a downcast lid;
And then again, with wakening air,
Would send their sunny glances out,
Like heralds of delight, to bear
Her heart's sweet messages about.
Upon Mudge.
by Robert Herrick

Mudge every morning to the postern comes,
His teeth all out, to rinse and wash his gums.