DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
A Familiar Epistle
by Henry Austin Dobson

To * * Esq. of * * with a Life of the late Ingenious Mr. W M. Hogarth.
Dear Cosmopolitan,--I know
I should address you a Rondeau,
Or else announce what I've to say
At least en Ballade fratris'e;
But No: for once I leave Gymnasticks,
And take to simple Hudibrasticks;
Why should I choose another Way,
When this was good enough for GAY?
You love, my FRIEND, with me, I think,
That Age of Lustre and of Link;
Of Chelsea China and long "s"es,
Of Bag-wigs and of flowered Dresses;
That Age of Folly and of Cards,
Of Hackney Chairs and Hackney Bards;
--No H--LTS, no K--G--N P--LS were then
Dispensing Competence to Men;
The gentle Trade was left to Churls,
Your frowsy TONSONS and your CURLLS;
Mere Wolves in Ambush to attack
The AUTHOR in a Sheep-skin Back;
Then SAVAGE and his Brother-Sinners
In Porridge-Island div'd for Dinners;
Or doz'd on Covent Garden Bulks,
And liken'd Letters to the Hulks;--
You know that by-gone Time, I say,
That aimless easy-moral'd Day,
When rosy Morn found MADAM still
Wrangling at Ombre or Quadrille,
When good Sir JOHN reel'd Home to Bed,
From Pontack's or the Shakespear's Head;
When TRIP convey'd his Master's Cloaths,
And took his Titles and his Oaths;
While BETTY, in a cast Brocade,
Ogled MY LORD at Masquerade;
When GARRICK play'd the guilty Richard,
Or mouth'd Macbeth with Mrs. PRITCHARD;
When FOOTE grimac'd his snarling Wit;
When CHURCHILL bullied in the Pit;
When the CUZZONI sang--
But there!
The further Catalogue I spare,
Having no Purpose to eclipse
That tedious Tale of HOMER'S Ships;--
This is the MAN that drew it all
From Pannier Alley to the Mall,
Then turn'd and drew it once again
From Bird-Cage Walk to Lewknor's Lane;--
Its Rakes and Fools, its Rogues and Sots;
Its brawling Quacks, its starveling Scots;
Its Ups and Downs, its Rags and Garters,
Its HENLEYS, LOVATS, MALCOLMS, CHARTRES;
Its Splendour, Squalor, Shame, Disease;
Its quicquid agunt Homines;--
Nor yet omitted to pourtray
Furens quid possit Foemina;--
In short, held up to ev'ry Class
NATURE'S unflatt'ring looking-Glass;
And, from his Canvass, spoke to All
The Message of a JUVENAL.
Take Him. His Merits most aver:
His weak Point is--his Chronicler!
Nov^r. 1, 1879.
Dedicatory Poem.
by Charles Sangster

Dear Carrie, were we truly wise,
And could discern with finer eyes,
And half-inspired sense,
The ways of Providence:
Could we but know the hidden things
That brood beneath the Future's wings,
Hermetically sealed,
But soon to be revealed:
Would we, more blest than we are now,
In due submission learn to bow, - 
Receiving on our knees
The Omnipotent decrees?
That which is just, we have.    And we
Who lead this round of mystery,
This dance of strange unrest,
What are we at the best? - 
Unless we learn to mount and climb;
Writing upon the page of time,
In words of joy or pain,
That we've not lived in vain.
We all are Ministers of Good;
And where our mission's understood,
How many hearts we must
Raise, trembling, from the dust.
Oh, strong young soul, and thinking brain!
Walk wisely through the fair domain
Where burn the sacred fires
Of Music's sweet desires!
Cherish thy Gift; and let it be
A Jacob's ladder unto thee,
Down which the Angels come,
To bring thee dreams of Home.
What were we if the pulse of Song
Had never beat, nor found a tongue
To make the Poet known
In lands beyond his own?
Take what is said for what is meant.
We sometimes touch the firmament
Of starry Thought - no more;
Beyond, we may not soar.
I speak not of myself, but stand
In silence till the Master Hand
Each fluttering thought sets free.
God holds the golden key.
Kingston, C. W., May 1st, 1860.
Country Letter
by John Clare

Dear brother robin this comes from us all
With our kind love and could Gip write and all
Though but a dog he'd have his love to spare
For still he knows and by your corner chair
The moment he comes in he lyes him down
and seems to fancy you are in the town.
This leaves us well in health thank God for that
For old acquaintance Sue has kept your hat
Which mother brushes ere she lays it bye
and every sunday goes upstairs to cry
Jane still is yours till you come back agen
and neer so much as dances with the men
and ned the woodman every week comes in
and asks about you kindly as our kin
and he with this and goody Thompson sends
Remembrances with those of all our friends
Father with us sends love untill he hears
and mother she has nothing but her tears
Yet wishes you like us in health the same
and longs to see a letter with your name
So loving brother don't forget to write
Old Gip lies on the hearth stone every night
Mother can't bear to turn him out of doors
and never noises now of dirty floors
Father will laugh but lets her have her way
and Gip for kindness get a double pay
So Robin write and let us quickly see
You don't forget old friends no more than we
Nor let my mother have so much to blame
To go three journeys ere your letter came.
Canada
by Joseph Horatio Chant

Dear Canada, our native land,
Our love for thee grows day by day;
Our fathers left the olden strand,
O'er sea and rapids made their way,
And by their energy and skill
They laid thy firm foundation deep,
And sowed the seed o'er vale and hill
Which we, their sons, are called to reap.
The wilderness blooms as the rose;
The old-time hardships are unknown;
And wealth in streams of commerce flows
From sea to sea--a nation grown--
Still youthful, but with thews of steel
To throttle foes that may arise;
Yet loving touch sore hearts to heal,
And lift us nearer to the skies.
We cannot boast as blue a sky
As smiles o'er many an Alpine plain,
Nor are our mountain peaks as high
As theirs, yet we have other gain;
Our hills are rich in yellow gold,
Our plains are broad and fertile too;
Our lakes and streams hold wealth untold,
And grander forests never grew.
Our sky is bright to healthy eyes;
Pure ozone lades the air we breathe;
Our climate we have learned to prize;
Nor do we o'er our winters grieve;
For nature throws her ermine robe
O'er purple hills and vales as well;
No portion of this earthly globe
As gay as this, with sleigh and bell.
But soon the winter wears away,
And plants long sheltered now are seen,
And April showers and smiling May
Soon clothe the earth in living green.
Monotony is thus unknown--
Each season is a glad surprise,
In which God's truth and love are shown,
And hope within us never dies.
Our sons, inured to noble toil,
Grow strong in arm and broad in mind;
Some stay at home to till the soil,
Others in various callings find
Their missions--but where'er their place
In the great drama of our day,
They, as a class, win in the race,
And the behests of Heaven obey.
The gold of monarchy have we,
Without the useless silt and dross;
And like our cousins, all are free,
Yet we have no election boss.
No union here of Church and State,
Yet Church and State full well agree
That nations never can be great
If they refuse to bow the knee.
We make the nation's weal or woe,
As one may shape his future life.
"God's mill," 'tis said, "grinds fine, tho' slow,"
A fact lost sight of in the strife
For place and power in Church and State,
And think God cares not what we do;
But to our doubt he whispers "wait,"
And time proves Him both just and true.
From England and from sunny France
Our fathers came, long years ago;
On Abraham's plain with sword and lance
They fought as foes--gave blow for blow.
The victors and the conquered now
Recall that day with mutual pride;
To their grand destiny all bow,
And as true peers, stand side by side.
So give me Canada before
The fairest land beneath the sky.
We stretch our arms from shore to shore
And all are free, both low and high;
An infant nation yet, 'tis true,
But strong in muscle and in nerve,
We hold our own, give all their due,
And God's great purpose humbly serve.
On The Archbishop Of Cashel,[1] And Bettesworth
by Jonathan Swift

Dear Dick, pr'ythee tell by what passion you move?
The world is in doubt whether hatred or love;
And, while at good Cashel you rail with such spite,
They shrewdly suspect it is all but a bite.
You certainly know, though so loudly you vapour,
His spite cannot wound who attempted the Drapier.
Then, pr'ythee, reflect, take a word of advice;
And, as your old wont is, change sides in a trice:
On his virtues hold forth; 'tis the very best way;
And say of the man what all honest men say.
But if, still obdurate, your anger remains,
If still your foul bosom more rancour contains,
Say then more than they, nay, lavishly flatter;
Tis your gross panegyrics alone can bespatter;
For thine, my dear Dick, give me leave to speak plain,
Like very foul mops, dirty more than they clean.
To The Same (Lady Noel Byron )
by George MacDonald

Dead, why defend thee, who in life
For thy worst foe hadst died;
Who, thy own name a word of strife,
Didst silent stand aside?
Grand in forgiveness, what to thee
The big world's puny prate!
Or thy great heart hath ceased to be
Or loveth still its mate!
Free Will
by Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell

Dear are some hidden things
My soul has sealed in silence; past delights,
Hope unconfessed; desires with hampered wings,
Remembered in the nights.
But my best treasures are
Ignoble, undelightful, abject, cold;
Yet O! profounder hoards oracular
No reliquaries hold.
There lie my trespasses,
Abjured but not disowned.    I'll not accuse
Determinism, nor, as the Master {26} says,
Charge even "the poor Deuce."
Under my hand they lie,
My very own, my proved iniquities,
And though the glory of my life go by
I hold and garner these.
How else, how otherwhere.
How otherwise, shall I discern and grope
For lowliness?    How hate, how love, how dare,
How weep, how hope?
Memorials Of A Tour On The Continent, 1820 - Dedication
by William Wordsworth

Dear Fellow-travellers! think not that the Muse,
To You presenting these memorial Lays,
Can hope the general eye thereon would gaze,
As on a mirror that gives back the hues
Of living Nature; no, though free to choose
The greenest bowers, the most inviting ways,
The fairest landscapes and the brightest days,
Her skill she tried with less ambitious views.
For You she wrought: Ye only can supply
The life, the truth, the beauty: she confides
In that enjoyment which with You abides,
Trusts to your love and vivid memory;
Thus far contented, that for You her verse
Shall lack not power the "meeting soul to pierce!"
W. WORDSWORTH.
RYDAL MOUNT, Nov. 1821.
A Better Answer
by Matthew Prior

Dear Cloe, how blubber'd is that pretty Face?
Thy Cheek all on Fire, and Thy Hair all uncurl'd:
Pr'ythee quit this Caprice; and (as old Falstaf says)
Let Us e'en talk a little like Folks of This World.
How can'st Thou presume, Thou hast leave to destroy
The Beauties, which Venus but lent to Thy keeping?
Those Looks were design'd to inspire Love and Joy:
More ord'nary Eyes may serve People for weeping.
To be vext at a Trifle or two that I writ,
Your Judgment at once, and my Passion You wrong:
You take that for Fact, which will scarce be found Wit:
Odd's Life! must One swear to the Truth of a Song?
What I speak, my fair Cloe, and what I write, shews
The Diff'rence there is betwixt Nature and Art:
I court others in Verse; but I love Thee in Prose:
And They have my Whimsies; but Thou hast my Heart.
The God of us Verse-men (You know Child) the Sun,
How after his Journeys He sets up his Rest:
If at Morning o'er Earth 'tis his Fancy to run;
At Night he reclines on his Thetis's Breast.
So when I am weary'd with wand'ring all Day;
To Thee my Delight in the Evening I come:
No Matter what Beauties I saw in my Way:
They were but my Visits; but Thou art my Home.
Then finish, Dear Cloe, this Pastoral War;
And let us like Horace and Lydia agree:
For Thou art a Girl as much brighter than Her,
As He was a Poet sublimer than Me.
At the Abbey Theatre
by William Butler Yeats

Dear Craoibhin Aoibhin, look into our case.
When we are high and airy hundreds say
That if we hold that flight they'll leave the place,
While those same hundreds mock another day
Because we have made our art of common things,
So bitterly, you'd dream they longed to look
All their lives through into some drift of wings.
You've dandled them and fed them from the book
And know them to the bone; impart to us,
We'll keep the secret, a new trick to please.
Is there a bridle for this Proteus
That turns and changes like his draughty seas?
Or is there none, most popular of men,
But when they mock us that we mock again?
Love Song
by Aldous Leonard Huxley

Dear absurd child - too dear to my cost I've found - 
God made your soul for pleasure, not for use:
It cleaves no way, but angled broad obtuse,
Impinges with a slabby-bellied sound
Full upon life, and on the rind of things
Rubs its sleek self and utters purr and snore
And all the gamut of satisfied murmurings,
Content with that, nor wishes anything more.
A happy infant, daubed to the eyes in juice
Of peaches that flush bloody at the core,
Naked you bask upon a south-sea shore,
While o'er your tumbling bosom the hair floats loose.
The wild flowers bloom and die; the heavens go round
With the song of wheeling planetary rings:
You wriggle in the sun; each moment brings
Its freight for you; in all things pleasures abound.
You taste and smile, then this for the next pass over;
And there's no future for you and no past,
And when, absurdly, death arrives at last,
'Twill please you awhile to kiss your latest lover.
Quince To Lilac: To G. H.
by Bliss Carman (William)

Dear Lilac, how enchanting
To hear of you this way!
The Man who comes a-mouching
To visit me each day
Says you too have a lover
Far lovelier than I.
And from his rapt description,
She loves you gloriously.
The Man prowls out each morning
To see if spring's begun.
What infinite amusement
These creatures offer one!
He asks me such conundrums
As no one ever heard:
The name of April's father,
The trail of every bird,
What keeps me warm in winter,
Who wakes me up in time,
And why procrastination
Is such a fearful crime.
And yet, who knows? He may be
Our equal ages hence--
With such pathetic glimmers
Of weird intelligence!
But this your blessed alien,
Why strays she roving here?
Was Orpheus not her brother,
Persephone her peer?
Was she not once a dryad
Whom Syrinx lulled to sleep
Beside the Dorian water,
And still her eyelids keep
The glad unperished secret
From centuries of joy,
And memories of the morning
When Helen sailed for Troy?
Is her name Gertrude, Kitty,
Hypatia, or what?
I seem to half remember,
And yet have quite forgot.
That soft Hellenic laughter!
I marvel you don't make
An effort to be early
In budding for her sake.
Just fancy hearing daily
That velvet voice of hers!
How do you quell the riot
Of sap her coming stirs?
Perhaps she puts her face up,
(Dear Charity she is!)
For messages of summer
And better worlds than this.
You cannot blush, poor Lilac;
It is not in your race.
I simply should go crimson,
If I were in your place.
Do tell her all your secrets!
The Man declares she knows
Better than any mortal
The wonder-trick of prose.
Our prose, I mean,--how beauty
Appears to you and me;
The truth that seems so simple,
Which they call poetry.
They put it down in writing
And label it with tags,
The funny conscious people
Who mask in colored rags!
They have a thing called science,
With phrases strange and pat.
My dear, can you imagine
Intelligence like that?
And when they first discover
That yellows are not greens,
They pucker up their foreheads
And ponder what it means.
And then those cave-like places,
Churches and Capitols,
Where they all come together
Like troops of talking dolls,
To govern, as they term it,
(It's really very odd!)
And have what they call worship
Of something they call God.
But Kitty, or whatever
May be her tender name,
Is more like us. She guesses
What sets the year aflame.
She knows beyond her senses;
Do tell her all you can!
The funny people need it,--
At least, so says The Man.
Good-by, dear. I must idle.
Sweet suns and happy rains!
How nice to have these humans
With their inventive brains,--
Their little scraps of paper!
They certainly evince
Remarkable discernment.
Your ever loving Quince.
Outward Bound
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

Dear Earth, near Earth, the clay that made us men,
The land we sowed,
The hearth that glowed---
O Mother, must we bid farewell to thee?
Fast dawns the last dawn, and what shall comfort then
The lonely hearts that roam the outer sea?
Gray wakes the daybreak, the shivering sails are set,
To misty deeps
The channel sweeps---
O Mother, think on us who think on thee!
Earth-home, birth-home, with love remember yet
The sons in exile on the eternal sea.
The Guardian-Angel
by Robert Browning

A PICTURE AT FANO.
I.
Dear and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave
That child, when thou hast done with him, for me!
Let me sit all the day here, that when eve
Shall find performed thy special ministry,
And time come for departure, thou, suspending
Thy flight, mayst see another child for tending,
Another still, to quiet and retrieve.
II.
Then I shall feel thee step one step, no more,
From where thou standest now, to where I gaze,
And suddenly my head is covered o'er
With those wings, white above the child who prays
Now on that tomb, and I shall feel thee guarding
Me, out of all the world; for me, discarding
Yon heaven thy home, that waits and opes its door.
III.
I would not look up thither past thy head
Because the door opes, like that child, I know,
For I should have thy gracious face instead,
Thou bird of God! And wilt thou bend me low
Like him, and lay, like his, my hands together,
And lift them up to pray, and gently tether
Me, as thy lamb there, with thy garment's spread?
IV.
If this was ever granted, I would rest
My bead beneath thine, while thy healing hands
Close-covered both my eyes beside thy breast,
Pressing the brain, which too much thought expands,
Back to its proper size again, and smoothing
Distortion down till every nerve had soothing,
And all lay quiet, happy and suppressed.
V.
How soon all worldly wrong would be repaired!
I think how I should view the earth and skies
And sea, when once again my brow was bared
After thy healing, with such different eyes.
O world, as God has made it! All is beauty:
And knowing this, is love, and love is duty.
What further may be sought for or declared?
VI.
Guercino drew this angel I saw teach
(Alfred, dear friend!), that little child to pray,
Holding the little hands up, each to each
Pressed gently, with his own head turned away
Over the earth where so much lay before him
Of work to do, though heaven was opening o'er him,
And he was left at Fano by the beach.
VII.
We were at Fano, and three times we went
To sit and see him in his chapel there,
And drink his beauty to our soul's content
My angel with me too: and since I care
For dear Guercino's fame (to which in power
And glory comes this picture for a dower,
Fraught with a pathos so magnificent).
VIII.
And since he did not work thus earnestly
At all times, and has else endured some wrong,
I took one thought his picture struck from me,
And spread it out, translating it to song.
My love is here. Where are you, dear old friend?
How rolls the Wairoa at your world's far end?
This is Ancona, yonder is the sea.
To A Young Beauty
by William Butler Yeats

Dear fellow-artist, why so free
With every sort of company,
With every Jack and Jill?
Choose your companions from the best;
Who draws a bucket with the rest
Soon topples down the hill.
You may, that mirror for a school,
Be passionate, not bountiful
As common beauties may,
Who were not born to keep in trim
With old Ezekiel's cherubim
But those of Beaujolet.
I know what wages beauty gives,
How hard a life her servant lives,
Yet praise the winters gone;
There is not a fool can call me friend,
And I may dine at journey's end
With Landor and with Donne.
Last Words.
by Horatio Alger, Jr.

"Dear Charlie," breathed a soldier,
"O comrade true and tried,
Who in the heat of battle
Pressed closely to my side;
I feel that I am stricken,
My life is ebbing fast;
I fain would have you with me,
Dear Charlie, till the last.
"It seems so sudden, Charlie,
To think to-morrow's sun
Will look upon me lifeless,
And I not twenty-one!
I little dreamed this morning,
Twould bring my last campaign;
God's ways are not as our ways,
And I will not complain.
"There's one at home, dear Charlie,
Will mourn for me when dead,
Whose heart--it is a mother's--
Can scarce be comforted.
You'll write and tell her, Charlie,
With my dear love, that I
Fought bravely as a soldier should,
And died as he should die.
"And you will tell her, Charlie,
She must not grieve too much,
Our country claims our young lives,
For she has need of such.
And where is he would falter,
Or turn ignobly back,
When Duty's voice cries 'Forward,'
And Honor lights the track ?
"And there's another, Charlie
(His voice became more low),
When thoughts of HER come o'er me,
It makes it hard to go.
This locket in my bosom,
She gave me just before
I left my native village
For the fearful scenes of war.
"Give her this message, Charlie,
Sent with my dying breath,
To her and to my banner
I'm 'faithful unto death.'
And if, in that far country
Which I am going to,
Our earthly ties may enter,
I'll there my love renew.
"Come nearer, closer, Charlie,
My head I fain would rest,
It must be for the last time,
Upon your faithful breast.
Dear friend, I cannot tell you
How in my heart I feel
The depth of your devotion,
Your friendship strong as steel.
"We've watched and camped together
In sunshine and in rain;
We've shared the toils and perils
Of more than one campaign;
And when my tired feet faltered,
Beneath the noontide heat,
Your words sustained my courage,
Gave new strength to my feet.
"And once,-- 'twas at Antietam,--
Pressed hard by thronging foes,
I almost sank exhausted
Beneath their cruel blows,--
When you, dear friend, undaunted,
With headlong courage threw
Your heart into the contest,
And safely brought me through.
"My words are weak, dear Charlie,
My breath is growing scant;
Your hand upon my heart there,
Can you not hear me pant?
Your thoughts I know will wander
Sometimes to where I lie--
How dark it grows! True comrade
And faithful friend, good-by!"
A moment, and he lay there
A statue, pale and calm.
His youthful head reclining
Upon his comrade's arm.
His limbs upon the greensward
Were stretched in careless grace,
And by the fitful moon was seen
A smile upon his face.