DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The River Duddon - A Series Of Sonnets, 1820. - III - How Shall I Paint Thee?
by William Wordsworth

How shall I paint thee? Be this naked stone
My seat, while I give way to such intent;
Pleased could my verse, a speaking monument,
Make to the eyes of men thy features known.
But as of all those tripping lambs not one
Outruns his fellows, so hath Nature lent
To thy beginning nought that doth present
Peculiar ground for hope to build upon.
To dignify the spot that gives thee birth,
No sign of hoar Antiquity's esteem
Appears, and none of modern Fortune's care;
Yet thou thyself hast round thee shed a gleam
Of brilliant moss, instinct with freshness rare;
Prompt offering to thy Foster-mother, Earth!
How Shall I Woo Thee
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

How shall I woo thee to win thee, mine own?
Say in what tongue shall I tell of my love.
I who was fearless so timid have grown,
All that was eagle has turned into dove.
The path from the meadow that leads to the bars
Is more to me now than the path of the stars.
How shall I woo thee to win thee, mine own,
Thou who art fair and as far as the moon?
Had I the strength of the torrent's wild tone,
Had I the sweetness of warblers in June;
The strength and the sweetness might charm and persuade,
But neither have I my petition to aid.
How shall I woo thee to win thee, mine own?
How shall I traverse the distance between
My humble cot and your glorious throne?
How shall a clown gain the ear of a queen?
Oh teach me the tongue that shall please thee the best,
For till I have won thee my heart may not rest.
A Criticism Of Critics
by Robert Fuller Murray

How often have the critics, trained
To look upon the sky
Through telescopes securely chained,
Forgot the naked eye.
Within the compass of their glass
Each smallest star they knew,
And not a meteor could pass
But they were looking through.
When a new planet shed its rays
Beyond their field of vision,
And simple folk ran out to gaze,
They laughed in high derision.
They railed upon the senseless throng
Who cheered the brave new light.
And yet the learned men were wrong,
The simple folk were right.
Lament
by Thomas Hardy

How she would have loved
A party to-day! -
Bright-hatted and gloved,
With table and tray
And chairs on the lawn
Her smiles would have shone
With welcomings . . . But
She is shut, she is shut
From friendship's spell
In the jailing shell
Of her tiny cell.
Or she would have reigned
At a dinner to-night
With ardours unfeigned,
And a generous delight;
All in her abode
She'd have freely bestowed
On her guests . . . But alas,
She is shut under grass
Where no cups flow,
Powerless to know
That it might be so.
And she would have sought
With a child's eager glance
The shy snowdrops brought
By the new year's advance,
And peered in the rime
Of Candlemas-time
For crocuses . . . chanced
It that she were not tranced
From sights she loved best;
Wholly possessed
By an infinite rest!
And we are here staying
Amid these stale things
Who care not for gaying,
And those junketings
That used so to joy her,
And never to cloy her
As us they cloy! . . . But
She is shut, she is shut
From the cheer of them, dead
To all done and said
In a yew-arched bed.
Lines Written While Sailing In A Boat At Evening
by William Wordsworth

How richly glows the water's breast
Before us, tinged with evening hues,
While, facing thus the crimson west,
The boat her silent course pursues!
And see how dark the backward stream!
A little moment past so smiling!
And still, perhaps, with faithless gleam,
Some other loiterers beguiling.
Such views the youthful Bard allure;
But, heedless of the following gloom,
He deems their colours shall endure
Till peace go with him to the tomb.
And let him nurse his fond deceit,
And what if he must die in sorrow!
Who would not cherish dreams so sweet,
Though grief and pain may come to-morrow?
Libido
by Rupert Brooke

How should I know? The enormous wheels of will
Drove me cold-eyed on tired and sleepless feet.
Night was void arms and you a phantom still,
And day your far light swaying down the street.
As never fool for love, I starved for you;
My throat was dry and my eyes hot to see.
Your mouth so lying was most heaven in view,
And your remembered smell most agony.
Love wakens love! I felt your hot wrist shiver
And suddenly the mad victory I planned
Flashed real, in your burning bending head. . . .
My conqueror's blood was cool as a deep river
In shadow; and my heart beneath your hand
Quieter than a dead man on a bed.
The Song Of The Women
by Rudyard Kipling

How shall she know the worship we would do her?
The walls are high, and she is very far.
How shall the woman's message reach unto her
Above the tumult of the packed bazaar?
Free wind of March, against the lattice blowing,
Bear thou our thanks, lest she depart unknowing.
Go forth across the fields we may not roam in,
Go forth beyond the trees that rim the city,
To whatsoe'er fair place she hath her home in,
Who dowered us with walth of love and pity.
Out of our shadow pass, and seek her singing, 
"I have no gifts but Love alone for bringing."
Say that we be a feeble folk who greet her,
But old in grief, and very wise in tears;
Say that we, being desolate, entreat her
That she forget us not in after years;
For we have seen the light, and it were grievous
To dim that dawning if our lady leave us.
By life that ebbed with none to stanch the failing
By Love's sad harvest garnered in the spring,
When Love in ignorance wept unavailing
O'er young buds dead before their blossoming;
By all the grey owl watched, the pale moon viewed,
In past grim years, declare our gratitude!
By hands uplifted to the Gods that heard not,
By fits that found no favor in their sight,
By faces bent above the babe that stirred not,
By nameless horrors of the stifling night;
By ills foredone, by peace her toils discover,
Bid Earth be good beneath and Heaven above her!
If she have sent her servants in our pain
If she have fought with Death and dulled his sword;
If she have given back our sick again.
And to the breast the wakling lips restored,
Is it a little thing that she has wrought?
Then Life and Death and Motherhood be nought.
Go forth, O wind, our message on thy wings,
And they shall hear thee pass and bid thee speed,
In reed-roofed hut, or white-walled home of kings,
Who have been helpen by ther in their need.
All spring shall give thee fragrance, and the wheat
Shall be a tasselled floorcloth to thy feet.
Haste, for our hearts are with thee, take no rest!
Loud-voiced ambassador, from sea to sea
Proclaim the blessing, mainfold, confessed.
Of those in darkness by her hand set free.
Then very softly to her presence move,
And whisper: "Lady, lo, they know and love!"
The Plains
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

How one loves them
These wide horizons; whether Desert or Sea, - 
Vague and vast and infinite; faintly clear - 
Surely, hid in the far away, unknown "There,"
Lie the things so longed for and found not, found not, Here.
Only where some passionate, level land
Stretches itself in reaches of golden sand,
Only where the sea line is joined to the sky-line, clear,
Beyond the curve of ripple or white foamed crest, - 
Shall the weary eyes
Distressed by the broken skies, - 
Broken by Minaret, mountain, or towering tree, - 
Shall the weary eyes be assuaged, - be assuaged, - and rest.
The Banks Of The Devon.
by Robert Burns

Tune. - "Bhannerach dhon na chri."
I.
How pleasant the banks of the clear winding Devon,
With green spreading bushes, and flowers blooming fair!
But the bonniest flower on the banks of the Devon
Was once a sweet bud on the braes of the Ayr.
Mild be the sun on this sweet blushing flower,
In the gay rosy morn, as it bathes in the dew;
And gentle the fall of the soft vernal shower,
That steals on the evening each leaf to renew.
II.
O spare the dear blossom, ye orient breezes,
With chill hoary wing, as ye usher the dawn;
And far be thou distant, thou reptile that seizes
The verdure and pride of the garden and lawn!
Let Bourbon exult in his gay gilded Lilies,
And England, triumphant, display her proud Rose:
A fairer than either adorns the green valleys,
Where Devon, sweet Devon, meandering flows.
A Paean
by Edgar Allan Poe

I
How shall the burial rite be read?
The solemn song be sung?
The requiem for the loveliest dead,
That ever died so young?
II
Her friends are gazing on her,
And on her gaudy bier,
And weep! oh! to dishonor
Dead beauty with a tear!
III
They loved her for her wealth 
And they hated her for her pride 
But she grew in feeble health,
And they love her that she died.
IV
They tell me (while they speak
Of her "costly broider'd pall")
That my voice is growing weak 
That I should not sing at all 
V
Or that my tone should be
Tun'd to such solemn song
So mournfully so mournfully,
That the dead may feel no wrong.
VI
But she is gone above,
With young Hope at her side,
And I am drunk with love
Of the dead, who is my bride. 
VII
Of the dead dead who lies
All perfum'd there,
With the death upon her eyes.
And the life upon her hair.
VIII
Thus on the coffin loud and long
I strike the murmur sent
Through the gray chambers to my song,
Shall be the accompaniment.
IX
Thou diedst in thy life's June 
But thou didst not die too fair:
Thou didst not die too soon,
Nor with too calm an air.
X
From more than friends on earth,
Thy life and love are riven,
To join the untainted mirth
Of more than thrones in heaven. 
XI
Therefore, to thee this night
I will no requiem raise,
But waft thee on thy flight,
With a P'an of old days.
Phyllis's Age
by Matthew Prior

How old may Phyllis be, you ask,
Whose beauty thus all hearts engages?
To answer is no easy task;
For she has really two ages.
Stiff in brocard, and pinch'd in stays,
Her patches, paint, and jewels on;
All day let envy view her face;
And Phyllis is but twenty-one.
Paint, patches, jewels laid aside,
At night astronomers agree,
The evening has the day belied;
And Phyllis is some forty-three.
Gold Before Goodness.
by Robert Herrick

How rich a man is all desire to know;
But none inquires if good he be or no.
Absence
by William Lisle Bowles

How shall I cheat the heavy hours, of thee
Deprived, of thy kind looks and converse sweet,
Now that the waving grove the dark storms beat,
And wintry winds sad sounding o'er the lea,[1]
Scatter the sallow leaf! I would believe,
Thou, at this hour, with tearful tenderness
Dost muse on absent images, and press
In thought my hand, and say: Oh do not grieve,
Friend of my heart! at wayward fortune's power;
One day we shall be happy, and each hour
Of pain forget, cheered by the summer ray.
These thoughts beguile my sorrow for thy loss,
And, as the aged pines their dark heads toss,
Oft steal the sense of solitude away.
So am I sadly soothed, yet do I cast
A wishful glance upon the seasons past,
And think how different was the happy tide,
When thou, with looks of love, wert smiling by my side.
Summer Evening.
by John Clare

How pleasant, when the heat of day is bye,
And seething dew empurples round the hill
Of the horizon, sweeping with the eye
In easy circles, wander where we will!
While o'er the meadow's little fluttering rill
The twittering sunbeam weakens cool and dim,
And busy hum of flies is hush'd and still.
How sweet the walks by hedge-row bushes seem,
On this side wavy grass, on that the stream;
While dog-rose, woodbine, and the privet-spike,
On the young gales their rural sweetness teem,
With yellow flag-flowers rustling in the dyke;
Each mingling into each, a ceaseless charm
To every heart that nature's sweets can warm.
Prelude To "The Songs Of Twilight."
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("De quel non te nommer?")
[PRELUDE, a, Oct. 20, 1835.]
How shall I note thee, line of troubled years,
Which mark existence in our little span?
One constant twilight in the heaven appears - 
One constant twilight in the mind of man!
Creed, hope, anticipation and despair,
Are but a mingling, as of day and night;
The globe, surrounded by deceptive air,
Is all enveloped in the same half-light.
And voice is deadened by the evening breeze,
The shepherd's song, or maiden's in her bower,
Mix with the rustling of the neighboring trees,
Within whose foliage is lulled the power.
Yet all unites! The winding path that leads
Thro' fields where verdure meets the trav'ller's eye.
The river's margin, blurred with wavy reeds,
The muffled anthem, echoing to the sky!
The ivy smothering the arm'd tower;
The dying wind that mocks the pilot's ear;
The lordly equipage at midnight hour,
Draws into danger in a fog the peer;
The votaries of Satan or of Jove;
The wretched mendicant absorbed in woe;
The din of multitudes that onward move;
The voice of conscience in the heart below;
The waves, which Thou, O Lord, alone canst still;
Th' elastic air; the streamlet on its way;
And all that man projects, or sovereigns will;
Or things inanimate might seem to say;
The strain of gondolier slow streaming by;
The lively barks that o'er the waters bound;
The trees that shake their foliage to the sky;
The wailing voice that fills the cots around;
And man, who studies with an aching heart - 
For now, when smiles are rarely deemed sincere,
In vain the sceptic bids his doubts depart - 
Those doubts at length will arguments appear!
Hence, reader, know the subject of my song - 
A mystic age, resembling twilight gloom,
Wherein we smile at birth, or bear along,
With noiseless steps, a victim to the tomb!
G.W.M. REYNOLDS
To A Child.
by Henry Austin Dobson

(From The "Garland Of Rachel.")
How shall I sing you, Child, for whom
So many lyres are strung;
Or how the only tone assume
That fits a Maid so young?
What rocks there are on either hand!
Suppose--'tis on the cards--
You should grow up with quite a grand
Platonic hate for bards!
How shall I then be shamed, undone,
For ah! with what a scorn
Your eyes must greet that luckless One
Who rhymed you, newly born,--
Who o'er your "helpless cradle" bent
His idle verse to turn;
And twanged his tiresome instrument
Above your unconcern!
Nay,--let my words be so discreet,
That, keeping Chance in view,
Whatever after fate you meet
A part may still be true.
Let others wish you mere good looks,--
Your sex is always fair;
Or to be writ in Fortune's books,--
She's rich who has to spare:
I wish you but a heart that's kind,
A head that's sound and clear;
(Yet let the heart be not too blind,
The head not too severe!)
A joy of life, a frank delight;
A not-too-large desire;
And--if you fail to find a Knight--
At least ... a trusty Squire.
To Julia
by Robert Herrick

How rich and pleasing thou, my Julia, art,
In each thy dainty and peculiar part!
First, for thy Queen-ship on thy head is set
Of flowers a sweet commingled coronet;
About thy neck a carkanet is bound,
Made of the Ruby, Pearl, and Diamond;
A golden ring, that shines upon thy thumb;
About thy wrist the rich Dardanium;
Between thy breasts, than down of swans more white,
There plays the Sapphire with the Chrysolite.
No part besides must of thyself be known,
But by the Topaz, Opal, Calcedon.
The Patience Of The People.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Il s'est dit tant de fois.")
[III., May, 1830.]
How often have the people said: "What's power?"
Who reigns soon is dethroned? each fleeting hour
Has onward borne, as in a fevered dream,
Such quick reverses, like a judge supreme - 
Austere but just, they contemplate the end
To which the current of events must tend.
Self-confidence has taught them to forbear,
And in the vastness of their strength, they spare.
Armed with impunity, for one in vain
Resists a nation, they let others reign.
G.W.M. REYNOLDS.
How Rich That Forehead's Calm Expanse
by William Wordsworth

How rich that forehead's calm expanse!
How bright that heaven-directed glance!
Waft her to glory, winged Powers,
Ere sorrow be renewed,
And intercourse with mortal hours
Bring back a humbler mood!
So looked Cecilia when she drew
An Angel from his station;
So looked; not ceasing to pursue
Her tuneful adoration!
But hand and voice alike are still;
No sound 'here' sweeps away the will
That gave it birth: in service meek
One upright arm sustains the cheek,
And one across the bosom lies
That rose, and now forgets to rise,
Subdued by breathless harmonies
Of meditative feeling;
Mute strains from worlds beyond the skies,
Through the pure light of female eyes,
Their sanctity revealing!
The Dead
by William Kerr

How shall the living be comforted for the dead
When they are gone, and nothing's left behind
But a vague music of the words they said
And a fast-fading image in the mind?
Let no forgetting sully that dim grace;
Our heart's infirmity is too easily won
To set a new love in the old love's place
And seek fresh vanity under the sun.
Time brings to us at last, as night the stars,
The starry silence of eternity:
For there is no discharge in our long wars,
Nor balm for wounds, nor love's security.
Be patient to the end, and you shall sleep
Pillowed on heartsease and forget to weep.
Too Late.
by John Hartley

How should I know,
That day when first we met,
I Would be a day
I never can forget?
And yet 'tis so.
That clasp of hands that made my heartstrings thrill,
Would not die out, but keeps vibrating still?
How should I know?
How should I know,
That those bright eyes of thine
Would haunt me yet?
And through Grief's dark cloud shine,
With that same glow?
That thy sweet smile, so full of trust and love,
Should, beaming still, a priceless solace prove?
How should I know?
How should I know
That one so good and fair,
Would condescend
To spare a thought, or care,
For one so low?
I dared not hope such bliss could be in store; - 
How dare I who had known no love before?
How should I know?
But now I know - 
Too late, alas! the prize
Can ne'er be mine,
Yet do I hug the pain,
And bless the blow,
Knowing I love, and am loved in return,
Is bliss undying whilst Life's lamp shall burn.
Yes, now I know.
The Confiteor Of The Artist
by Charles Baudelaire

How penetrating is the end of an autumn day! Ah, yes, penetrating enough to be painful even; for there are certain delicious sensations whose vagueness does not prevent them from being intense; and none more keen than the perception of the Infinite. He has a great delight who drowns his gaze in the immensity of sky and sea. Solitude, silence, the incomparable chastity of the azure a little sail trembling upon the horizon, by its very littleness and isolation imitating my irremediable existence the melodious monotone of the surge all these things thinking through me and I through them (for in the grandeur of the reverie the Ego is swiftly lost); they think, I say, but musically and picturesquely, without quibbles, without syllogisms, without deductions.
These thoughts, as they arise in me or spring forth from external objects, soon become always too intense.
The energy working within pleasure creates an uneasiness, a positive suffering. My nerves are too tense to give other than clamouring and dolorous vibrations.
And now the profundity of the sky dismays me! its limpidity exasperates me. The insensibility of the sea, the immutability of the spectacle, revolt me. Ah, must one eternally suffer, for ever be a fugitive from Beauty?
Nature, pitiless enchantress, ever-victorious rival, leave me! Tempt my desires and my pride no more.
The contemplation of Beauty is a duel where the artist screams with terror before being vanquished.
How Pleasant To Know Mr. Lear!
by Edward Lear

"How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!"
Who has written such volumes of stuff!
Some think him ill-tempered and queer,
But a few think him pleasant enough.
His mind is concrete and fastidious,
His nose is remarkably big;
His visage is more or less hideous,
His beard it resembles a wig.
He has ears, and two eyes, and ten fingers,
Leastways if you reckon two thumbs;
Long ago he was one of the singers,
But now he is one of the dumbs.
He sits in a beautiful parlor,
With hundreds of books on the wall;
He drinks a great deal of Marsala,
But never gets tipsy at all.
He has many friends, lay men and clerical,
Old Foss is the name of his cat;
His body is perfectly spherical,
He weareth a runcible hat.
When he walks in waterproof white,
The children run after him so!
Calling out, "He's come out in his night-
Gown, that crazy old Englishman, oh!"
He weeps by the side of the ocean,
He weeps on the top of the hill;
He purchases pancakes and lotion,
And chocolate shrimps from the mill.
He reads, but he cannot speak, Spanish,
He cannot abide ginger beer:
Ere the days of his pilgrimage vanish,
How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!
Emma Goldman
by Lola Ridge

How should they appraise you,
who walk up close to you
as to a mountain,
each proclaiming his own eyeful
against the other's eyeful.
Only time
standing well off
shall measure your circumference and height.
A Sad Case.
by Thomas Moore

"If it be the undergraduate season at which this rabies religiosa is to be so fearful, what security has Mr. Goulburn against it at this moment, when his son is actually exposed to the full venom of an association with Dissenters?"
--The Times, March 25.
How sad a case!--just think of it--
If Goulburn junior should be bit
By some insane Dissenter, roaming
Thro' Granta's halls, at large and foaming,
And with that aspect ultra crabbed
Which marks Dissenters when they're rabid!
God only knows what mischiefs might
Result from this one single bite,
Or how the venom, once suckt in,
Might spread and rage thro' kith and kin.
Mad folks of all denominations
First turn upon their own relations:
So that one Goulburn, fairly bit,
Might end in maddening the whole kit,
Till ah! ye gods! we'd have to rue
Our Goulburn senior bitten too;
The Hychurchphobia in those veins,
Where Tory blood now redly reigns;--
And that dear man who now perceives
Salvation only in lawn sleeves,
Might, tainted by such coarse infection,
Run mad in the opposite direction.
And think, poor man, 'tis only given
To linsey-woolsey to reach Heaven!
Just fancy what a shock 'twould be
Our Goulburn in his fits to see,
Tearing into a thousand particles
His once-loved Nine and Thirty Articles;
(Those Articles his friend, the Duke,[1]
For Gospel, t'other night, mistook;)
Cursing cathedrals, deans and singers--
Wishing the ropes might hang the ringers--
Pelting the church with blasphemies,
Even worse than Parson Beverley's;--
And ripe for severing Church and State,
Like any creedless reprobate,
Or like that class of Methodists
Prince Waterloo styles "Atheists!"
But 'tis too much--the Muse turns pale,
And o'er the picture drops a veil,
Praying, God save the Goulburns all
From mad Dissenters great and small!
Apportionment.
by Madison Julius Cawein

How often in our search for joy below
Hoping for happiness we chance on woe.
Joys Of Youth.
by John Clare

How pleasing simplest recollections seem!
Now summer comes, it warms me to look back
On the sweet happiness of youth's wild track,
Varied and fleeting as a summer dream:
Here have I paus'd upon the sweeping rack
That specks like wool-flocks through the purple sky;
Here have I careless stooped down to catch
The meadow flower that entertain'd my eye;
And as the butterfly went whirring by,
How anxious for its settling did I watch;
And oft long purples on the water's brink
Have tempted me to wade, in spite of fate,
To pluck the flowers. -Oh, to look back and think,
What pleasing pains such simple joys create!
To The Same. (Lines Addressed To Miss Theodora Jane Cowper.)
by William Cowper

How quick the change from joy to woe,
How chequer'd is our lot below!
Seldom we view the prospect fair;
Dark clouds of sorrow, pain, and care
(Some pleasing intervals between),
Scowl over more than half the scene.
Last week with Delia, gentle maid!
Far hence in happier fields I stray'd.
Five suns successive rose and set,
And saw no monarch in his state,
Wrapt in the blaze of majesty,
So free from every care as I.
Next day the scene was overcast'
Such day till then I never pass'd,'
For on that day, relentless fate!
Delia and I must separate.
Yet ere we look'd our last farewell,
From her dear lips this comfort fell,'
'Fear not that time, where'er we rove,
Or absence, shall abate my love.'