DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Allison Gross
by Frank Sidgwick

The Text is that of the Jamieson-Brown MS.
The Story is one of the countless variations of the French 'Beauty and the Beast.' A modern Greek tale narrates that a nereid, enamoured of a youth, and by him scorned, turned him into a snake till he should find another love as fair as she.
The feature of this ballad is that the queen of the fairies should have power to undo the evil done by a witch.
ALLISON GROSS
1.
O Allison Gross, that lives in yon tow'r,
The ugliest witch i' the north country,
Has trysted me ae day up till her bow'r,
An' monny fair speech she made to me.
2.
She stroaked my head, an' she kembed my hair,
An' she set me down saftly on her knee;
Says, 'Gin ye will be my lemman so true,
Sae monny braw things as I woud you gi'.'
3.
She show'd me a mantle o' red scarlet,
Wi' gouden flow'rs an' fringes fine;
Says, 'Gin ye will be my lemman sae true,
This goodly gift it sal be thine.'
4.
'Awa', awa', ye ugly witch,
Haud far awa', an' lat me be;
I never will be your lemman sae true,
An' I wish I were out o' your company.'
5.
She neist brought a sark o' the saftest silk,
Well wrought wi' pearles about the ban';
Says, 'Gin ye will be my ain true love,
This goodly gift you sal comman'.'
6.
She show'd me a cup o' the good red gold,
Well set wi' jewls sae fair to see;
Says, 'Gin you will be my lemman sae true,
This goodly gift I will you gi'.'
7.
'Awa', awa', ye ugly witch,
Had far awa', and lat me be!
For I woudna ance kiss your ugly mouth
For a' the gifts that you coud gi'.'
8.
She's turn'd her right and roun' about,
An' thrice she blaw on a grass-green horn;
An' she sware by the meen and the stars abeen,
That she'd gar me rue the day I was born.
9.
Then out has she ta'en a silver wand,
An' she's turn'd her three times roun' and roun';
She's mutter'd sich words till my strength it fail'd,
An' I fell down senceless upon the groun'.
10.
She's turn'd me into an ugly worm,
And gard me toddle about the tree;
An' ay, on ilka Saturday's night,
My sister Maisry came to me;
11.
Wi' silver bason and silver kemb,
To kemb my heady upon her knee;
But or I had kiss'd her ugly mouth,
I'd rather 'a' toddled about the tree.
12.
But as it fell out on last Hallow-even,
When the seely court was ridin' by,
The queen lighted down on a gowany bank,
Nae far frae the tree where I wont to lye.
13.
She took me up in her milk-white han',
An' she's stroak'd me three times o'er her knee;
She chang'd me again to my ain proper shape,
And I nae mair maun toddle about the tree.
The Animating Principle.
by Friedrich Schiller

Nowhere in the organic or sensitive world ever kindles
Novelty, save in the flower, noblest creation of life.
Astrophel and Stella - Sonnet CVI
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

O absent presence! Stella is not here;
False-flatt'ring hope, that with so faire a face
Bare me in hand, that in this orphane place,
Stella, I say my Stella, should appeare:
What saist thou now? where is that dainty cheere
Thou toldst mine eyes should helpe their famisht case?
But thou art gone, now that selfe-felt disgrace
Doth make me most to wish thy comfort neer.
But heere I do store of faire ladies meet,
Who may with charme of conuersation sweete,
Make in my heauy mould new thoughts to grow.
Sure they preuaile as much with me, as he
That bad his friend, but then new maim'd to be
Mery with him, and so forget his woe.
The Revenant
by Walter De La Mare

O all ye fair ladies with your colours and your graces,
And your eyes clear in flame of candle and hearth,
Toward the dark of this old window lift not up your smiling faces,
Where a Shade stands forlorn from the cold of the earth.
God knows I could not rest for one I still was thinking of;
Like a rose sheathed in beauty her spirit was to me;
Now out of unforgottenness a bitter draught I'm drinking of,
'Tis sad of such beauty unremembered to be.
Men all all shades, O Woman. - Winds wist not of the way they blow.
Apart from your kindness, life's at best but a snare.
Though a tongue now past praise this bitter thing doth say, I know
What solitude means, and how, homeless, I fare.
Strange, strange, are ye all - except in beauty shared with her - 
Since I seek one I loved, yet was faithless to in death.
Not life enough I heaped, so thus my heart must fare with her,
Now wrapt in the gross clay, bereft of life's breath.
The Scarecrow
by Walter Crane

O all you little blackey tops,
Pray don't you eat my father's crops,
While I lie down to take a nap.
Shua O! Shua O!
If father he perchance should come,
With his cocked hat and his long gun,
Then you must fly and I must run.
Shua O! Shua O!
Songo River
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Nowhere such a devious stream,
Save in fancy or in dream,
Winding slow through bush and brake
Links together lake and lake.
Walled with woods or sandy shelf,
Ever doubling on itself
Flows the stream, so still and slow
That it hardly seems to flow.
Never errant knight of old,
Lost in woodland or on wold,
Such a winding path pursued
Through the sylvan solitude.
Never school-boy in his quest
After hazel-nut or nest,
Through the forest in and out
Wandered loitering thus about.
In the mirror of its tide
Tangled thickets on each side
Hang inverted, and between
Floating cloud or sky serene.
Swift or swallow on the wing
Seems the only living thing,
Or the loon, that laughs and flies
Down to those reflected skies.
Silent stream! thy Indian name
Unfamiliar is to fame;
For thou hidest here alone,
Well content to be unknown.
But thy tranquil waters teach
Wisdom deep as human speech,
Moving without haste or noise
In unbroken equipoise.
Though thou turnest no busy mill,
And art ever calm and still,
Even thy silence seems to say
To the traveller on his way:--
"Traveller, hurrying from the heat
Of the city, stay thy feet!
Rest awhile, nor longer waste
Life with inconsiderate haste!
"Be not like a stream that brawls
Loud with shallow waterfalls,
But in quiet self-control
Link together soul and soul"
Nuns Fret Not At Their Convent's Narrow Room
by William Wordsworth

Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room;
And hermits are contented with their cells;
And students with their pensive citadels;
Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom,
Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,
High as the highest Peak of Furness-fells,
Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells:
In truth the prison, unto which we doom
Ourselves, no prison is: and hence for me,
In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound
Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground;
Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be)
Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,
Should find brief solace there, as I have found.
The Child An' The Mowers
by William Barnes

O aye! they had woone child bezide,
An' a finer your eyes never met,
Twer a dear little fellow that died
In the summer that come wi' such het;
By the mowers, too thoughtless in fun,
He wer then a-zent off vrom our eyes,
Vrom the light ov the dew-dryen zun,
Aye! vrom days under the blue-hollow'd skies.
He went out to the mowers in meade,
When the zun wer a-rose to his height,
An' the men wer a-swingen the snead,
Wi' their earms in white sleeves, left an' right;
An' out there, as they rested at noon,
O! they drench'd en vrom eale-horns too deep,
Till his thoughts wer a-drown'd in a swoon;
Aye! his life wer a-smother'd in sleep.
Then they laid en there-right on the ground,
On a grass-heap, a-zweltren wi'het,
Wi' his heair all a-wetted around
His young feace, wi' the big drops o' zweat;
In his little left palm he'd a-zet,
Wi' his right hand, his vore-finger's tip;
As vor zome-hat he woulden vorget,
Aye! zome thought that he woulden let slip.
Then they took en in hwome to his bed,
An' he rose vrom his pillow noo mwore,
Vor the curls on his sleek little head
To be blown by the wind out o' door.
Vor he died while the hay russled grey
On the staddle so leately begun:
Lik' the mown grass a-dried by the day,
Aye! the zwath-flow'r's a-killed by the zun.
Song Of The Nubian Girl.
by Thomas Moore

O Abyssinian tree,
We pray, we pray to thee;
By the glow of thy golden fruit
And the violet hue of the flower,
And the greeting mute
Of thy boughs' salute
To the stranger who seeks thy bow.
O Abyssinian tree!
How the traveller blesses thee
When the light no moon allows,
And the sunset hour is near,
And thou bend'st thy boughs
To kiss his brows.
Saying, "Come, rest thee here."
O Abyssinian tree!
Thus bow thy head to me!
The Ruined Maid
by Thomas Hardy

"O 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!
Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?
And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?" -
"O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she.
- "You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,
Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;
And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!" -
"Yes: that's how we dress when we're ruined," said she.
- "At home in the barton you said 'thee' and 'thou,'
And 'thik oon,' and 'theas oon,' and 't'other'; but now
Your talking quite fits 'ee for high compa-ny!" -
"Some polish is gained with one's ruin," said she.
- "Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak,
But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek,
And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!" -
"We never do work when we're ruined," said she.
- "You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,
And you'd sigh, and you'd sock; but at present you seem
To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!" -
"True. There's an advantage in ruin," said she.
- "I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,
And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!" -
"My dear - a raw country girl, such as you be,
Isn't equal to that. You ain't ruined," said she.
WESTBOURNE PARK VILLAS, 1866,
The Song Of The Waste-Paper Basket
by Henry Lawson

O bard of fortune, you deem me nought
But a mark for your careless scorn.
For I am the echo-less grave of thought
That is strangled before it's born.
You think perchance that I am a doom
Which only a dunce should dread,
Nor dream I've been the dishonoured tomb
Of the noblest and brightest dead.
The brightest fancies that e'er can fly
From the labouring minds of men
Are often written in lines awry,
And marred by a blundering pen;
And thus it comes that I gain a part
Of what to the world is loss,
Of genius lost for the want of art,
Of pearls that are set in dross.
And though I am of a lowly birth
My fame has been cheaply bought,
A power am I, for I rob the earth
Of the brightest gems of thought;
The Press gains much of my lawful share,
I am wronged without redress,
But I have revenge, for I think it fair
That I should plunder the Press.
You'd pause in wonder to read behind
The lines of some songs I see;
The soul of the singer I often find
In songs that are thrown to me.
But the song of the singer I bury deep
With the scrawl of the dunce and clown,
And both from the eyes of the world I keep,
And the hopes of both I drown.
O Bitter Sprig! Confession Sprig!
by Walt Whitman

O bitter sprig! Confession sprig!
In the bouquet I give you place also - I bind you in,
Proceeding no further till, humbled publicly,
I give fair warning, once for all.
I own that I have been sly, thievish, mean, a prevaricator, greedy, derelict,
And I own that I remain so yet.
What foul thought but I think it - or have in me the stuff out of which it is thought?
What in darkness in bed at night, alone or with a companion?
Summer.
by Theodore Harding Rand

O come, unpack the heart of care!
Kingcups sun the meadows o'er,
The yellowbugle sudden blows
By the river's tidal flows,
And the heavens are bare.
Room, room, and open sky,
River or brook or lake hard by,
Buttercups, daisies, grasses, clover,
Bobolinks, meadowlarks - these love I!
Whiskodink!
Sail, swallows, sail this emerald sea
Waving to the west wind's breath!
Earth has few other fields like these,
Sweet of sun and tidal breeze,
And the droning bee.
Room, room, and open sky,
River or brook or lake hard by,
Buttercups, daisies, grasses, clover,
Bobolinks, meadowlarks - these love I!
Bobolink!
And now the white clouds sail along,
Azure-domed and idle free!
The air is lush with honeyed blooms,
Flashing go the summer's looms,
List her cheery song:
Room, room, and open sky,
River or brook or lake hard by,
Buttercups, daisies, grasses, clover,
Bobolinks, meadowlarks - these love I!
Whiskodink!
Aedh Tells Of The Perfect Beauty
by William Butler Yeats

O cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes
The poets labouring all their days
To build a perfect beauty in rhyme
Are overthrown by a woman's gaze
And by the unlabouring brood of the skies:
And therefore my heart will bow, when dew
Is dropping sleep, until God burn time,
Before the unlabouring stars and you.
The Creek.
by Madison Julius Cawein

O cheerly, cheerly by the road
And merrily down the billet;
And where the acre-field is sowed
With bristle-bearded millet.
Then o'er a pebbled path that goes,
Through vista and through dingle,
Unto a farmstead's windowed rose,
And roof of moss and shingle.
O darkly, darkly through the bush,
And dimly by the bowlder,
Where cane and water-cress grow lush,
And woodland wilds are older.
Then o'er the cedared way that leads,
Through burr and bramble-thickets,
Unto a burial-ground of weeds
Fenced in with broken pickets.
Then sadly, sadly down the vale,
And wearily through the rushes,
Where sunlight of the noon is pale,
And e'en the zephyr hushes.
For oft her young face smiled upon
My deeps here, willow-shaded;
And oft with bare feet in the sun
My shallows there she waded.
No more beneath the twinkling leaves
Shall stand the farmer's daughter! 
Sing softly past the cottage eaves,
O memory-haunted water!
No more shall bend her laughing face
Above me where the rose is! 
Sigh softly past the burial-place,
Where all her youth reposes!
The Waking Of The Lark.
by Eric Mackay

I.
O bonnie bird, that in the brake, exultant, dost prepare thee -
As poets do whose thoughts are true, for wings that will upbear thee -
Oh! tell me, tell me, bonnie bird,
Canst thou not pipe of hope deferred?
Or canst thou sing of naught but Spring among the golden meadows?
II.
Methinks a bard (and thou art one) should suit his song to sorrow,
And tell of pain, as well as gain, that waits us on the morrow;
But thou art not a prophet, thou,
If naught but joy can touch thee now;
If, in thy heart, thou hast no vow that speaks of Nature's anguish.
III.
Oh! I have held my sorrows dear, and felt, tho' poor and slighted,
The songs we love are those we hear when love is unrequited.
But thou art still the slave of dawn,
And canst not sing till night be gone,
Till o'er the pathway of the fawn the sunbeams shine and quiver.
IV.
Thou art the minion of the sun that rises in his splendour,
And canst not spare for Dian fair the songs that should attend her.
The moon, so sad and silver-pale,
Is mistress of the nightingale;
And thou wilt sing on hill and dale no ditties in the darkness.
V.
For Queen and King thou wilt not spare one note of thine outpouring;
Thou art as free as breezes be on Nature's velvet flooring.
The daisy, with its hood undone,
The grass, the sunlight, and the sun -
These are the joys, thou holy one, that pay thee for thy singing.
VI.
Oh, hush! Oh, hush! how wild a gush of rapture in the distance, -
A roll of rhymes, a toll of chimes, a cry for love's assistance;
A sound that wells from happy throats,
A flood of song where beauty floats,
And where our thoughts, like golden boats, do seem to cross a river.
VII.
This is the advent of the lark - the priest in gray apparel -
Who doth prepare to trill in air his sinless Summer carol;
This is the prelude to the lay
The birds did sing in C'sar's day,
And will again, for aye and aye, in praise of God's creation.
VIII.
O dainty thing, on wonder's wing, by life and love elated,
Oh! sing aloud from cloud to cloud, till day be consecrated;
Till from the gateways of the morn,
The sun, with all his light unshorn,
His robes of darkness round him torn, doth scale the lofty heavens!
O Beauty, Passing Beauty!
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

O beauty, passing beauty! Sweetest sweet!
How can thou let me waste my youth in sighs?
I only ask to sit beside thy feet.
Thou knowest I dare not look into thine eyes.
Might I but kiss thy hand! I dare not fold
My arms about thee--scarcely dare to speak.
And nothing seems to me so wild and bold,
As with one kiss to touch thy blessed cheek.
Methinks if I should kiss thee, no control
Within the thrilling brain could keep afloat
The subtle spirit. Even while I spoke,
The bare word "kiss" hath made my inner soul
To tremble like a lute string, ere the note
Hath melted in the silence that it broke
Sonnet.
by Walter R. Cassels

O Cloud so golden, stealing o'er the sky,
Like pensive thought across a virgin mind,
Scarce sadder than the sunshine left behind;
Would that o'er heaven with thee my soul could fly,
Scanning Earth's beauty with a lover's eye,
Tracing the waving waters and the woods,
Their sleepy shades and silent solitudes,
Where all the summer through I long to lie.
O Cloud so golden stealing o'er the sky,
Sail'd I within thy bosom o'er heaven's main,
Methinks that, gazing downward on the glory,
The liquid loveliness of sea and plain,
Of mountain, isle, and leafy promontory,
My soul would melt and fall again in rain.
He Tells Of The Perfect Beauty
by William Butler Yeats

O cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes,
The poets labouring all their days
To build a perfect beauty in rhyme
Are overthrown by a woman's gaze
And by the unlabouring brood of the skies:
And therefore my heart will bow, when dew
Is dropping sleep, until God burn time,
Before the unlabouring stars and you.
Sharing Eve's Apple
by John Keats

I
O Blush not so! O blush not so!
Or I shall think you knowing;
And if you smile the blushing while,
Then maidenheads are going.
II
There's a blush for want, and a blush for shan't,
And a blush for having done it;
There's a blush for thought, and a blush for nought,
And a blush for just begun it.
III
O sigh not so! O sigh not so!
For it sounds of Eve's sweet pippin;
By these loosen'd lips you have tasted the pips
And fought in an amorous nipping.
IV
Will you play once more at nice-cut-core,
For it only will last our youth out,
And we have the prime of the kissing time,
We have not one sweet tooth out.
V
There's a sigh for aye, and a sigh for nay,
And a sigh for "I can't bear it!"
O what can be done, shall we stay or run?
O cut the sweet apple and share it!
A Botticelli Madonna II The Mournful Mother
by Ethel Allen Murphy

O child of mine, my little Son, alas!
Beneath the sunlight of Thy gentle eyes,
Too soon, too soon, what fateful shadows rise,
Like night foretold in some sweet woodland glass?
On tender feet that scarcely bow the grass,
What stains are those of ripe pomegranate dyes?--
When on my breast Thy head in slumber lies,
What thorns are those that through my heart do pass?
And round about these crowds of haunting forms
That burn their splendor through my dimmest dreams!
O little Child, Thou Wonder too divine,
Thy precious body all my bosom warms
With mine own blood, but oftentimes it seems,
Too dearly loved,--that yet Thou art not mine.
O Bethlehem!
by Nancy Rebecca Campbell Glass

"For he is our peace."
O Bethlehem, where Christ was born
And angels watched him where he lay,
When cradled on that holy morn
That ushered in earth's promised day!
O Bethlehem, it was thy star
Which guided o'er the deserts wild
Those who had journeyed from afar
To gaze upon the sinless child!
O Bethlehem, 'twas thine to see
God's choir announce the Saviour's birth,
And hear those waves of melody
Chant peace and good will to the earth!
O Bethlehem, 'twas thine to weep
With Rachel o'er the crimson woe
When cruel hands did vainly seek
To quench heaven's radiance below!
O Bethlehem, we hear thy call
To joy and bliss, and would not cease
To praise him who has died for all
Who will accept his blood-bought peace!
Bessy Bell And Mary Gray
by Frank Sidgwick

The Text is from Sharpe's Ballad Book. A parody of this ballad, concerning an episode of the end of the seventeenth century, shows it to have been popular not long after its making. In England it has become a nursery rhyme (see Halliwell's Nursery Rhymes, p. 246).
The Story.--In 1781 a Major Barry, then owner of Lednock, recorded the following tradition. Mary Gray was the daughter of the Laird of Lednock, near Perth, and Bessy Bell was the daughter of the Laird of Kinvaid, a neighbouring place. Both were handsome, and the two were intimate friends. Bessy Bell being come on a visit to Mary Gray, they retired, in order to avoid an outbreak of the plague, to a bower built by themselves in a romantic spot called Burnbraes, on the side of Branchie-burn, three-quarters of a mile from Lednock House. The ballad does not say how the 'pest cam,' but tradition finds a cause for their deaths by inventing a young man, in love with both, who visited them and brought the infection. They died in the bower, and were buried in the Dranoch-haugh ('Stronach haugh,' 3.3), near the bank of the river Almond. The grave is still visited by pious pilgrims.
Major Barry mentions 1666 as the year, but the plague did not reach Scotland in that year. Probably the year in question was 1645, when the district was ravaged with the pestilence.
BESSY BELL AND MARY GRAY
1.
O Bessie Bell and Mary Gray,
They war twa bonnie lasses;
They bigget a bower on yon burn-brae,
And theekit it o'er wi' rashes.
2.
They theekit it o'er wi' rashes green,
They theekit it o'er wi' heather;
But the pest cam frae the burrows-town,
And slew them baith thegither.
3.
They thought to lie in Methven kirk-yard,
Amang their noble kin;
But they maun lye in Stronach haugh,
To biek forenent the sin.
4.
And Bessy Bell and Mary Gray,
They war twa bonnie lasses;
They bigget a bower on yon burn-brae,
And theekit it o'er wi' rashes.
The Men Who Loved The Cause That Never Dies
by John Frederick Freeman

O come you down from the far hills
Whereon you fought, triumphed and died,
Men at whose names the quick blood thrills
And the heart's troubled in our side.
Your shadows o'er our fields ere night
Draw from the shadow of old trees;
Ghost-hallowed run the streams, and light
Hangs halo-wise in the great peace.
Warriors of England whom we praise
(Ah, vain all praise!), your spirit is not
Lost in the meanness of these days,
Not wholly is your charge forgot.
And this perplexity of strife
Not all estrang'd leaves our heart;
England is ours yet, and her life
Has yet in ours the purest part.
But come you down and stand you yet
A little closer to our side,
Or in the darkness we forget
The cause for which Earth's noblest died.
To The Cuckoo
by William Wordsworth

O blithe New-comer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice.
O Cuckoo! Shall I call thee Bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?
While I am lying on the grass
Thy twofold shout I hear,
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off, and near.
Though babbling only to the Vale,
Of Sunshine and of flowers,
Thou bringest unto me a tale
Of visionary hours.
Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!
Even yet thou art to me
No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery;
The same whom in my school-boy days
I listened to; that Cry
Which made me look a thousand ways
In bush, and tree, and sky.
To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love;
Still longed for, never seen.
And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.
O blessed Bird! the earth we pace
Again appears to be
An unsubstantial, faery place;
That is fit home for Thee!
A Man Young And Old:- His Wildness
by William Butler Yeats

O bid me mount and sail up there
Amid the cloudy wrack,
For peg and Meg and Paris' love
That had so straight a back,
Are gone away, and some that stay
Have changed their silk for sack.
Were I but there and none to hear
I'd have a peacock cry,
For that is natural to a man
That lives in memory,
Being all alone I'd nurse a stone
And sing it lullaby.