DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Shearers
by Henry Lawson

No church-bell rings them from the Track,
No pulpit lights their blindness,
'Tis hardship, drought and homelessness
That teach those Bushmen kindness:
The mateship born of barren lands,
Of toil and thirst and danger,
The camp-fare for the stranger set,
The first place to the stranger.
They do the best they can to-day,
Take no thought of the morrow;
Their way is not the old-world way,
They live to lend and borrow.
When shearing's done and cheques gone wrong,
They call it 'time to slither',
They saddle up and say 'So-long!'
And ride, the Lord knows whither.
And though he may be brown or black,
Or wrong man there or right man,
The mate that's honest to his mates
They call that man a 'white man'!
They tramp in mateship side by side,
The Protestant and 'Roman',
They call no biped lord or 'sir,'
And touch their hats to no man!
They carry in their swags, perhaps,
A portrait and a letter,
And, maybe, deep down in their hearts,
The hope of 'something better.'
Where lonely miles are long to ride,
And all days seem recurrent,
There's lots of time to think of men
They might have been, but weren't.
They turn their faces to the west
And leave the world behind them,
(Their drought-dried graves are seldom green
Where even mates can find them).
They know too little of the world
To rise to wealth or greatness:
But in this book of mine I pay
My tribute to their straightness.
To Man Without Money
by Robert Herrick

No man such rare parts hath, that he can swim,
If favour or occasion help not him.
Survivors
by Siegfried Loraine Sassoon

No doubt they'll soon get well; the shock and strain
Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk.
Of course they're "longing to go out again," - 
These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk,
They'll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed
Subjection to the ghosts of friends who died, - 
Their dreams that drip with murder; and they'll be proud
Of glorious war that shatter'd all their pride ...
Men who went out to battle, grim and glad;
Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad.
CRAIGLOCKART,
Oct. 1917.
Sonnet LXXXIV.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Non veggio ove scampar mi possa omai.
AFTER FIFTEEN YEARS HER EYES ARE MORE POWERFUL THAN AT FIRST.
No hope of respite, of escape no way,
Her bright eyes wage such constant havoc here;
Alas! excess of tyranny, I fear,
My doting heart, which ne'er has truce, will slay:
Fain would I flee, but ah! their amorous ray,
Which day and night on memory rises clear,
Shines with such power, in this the fifteenth year,
They dazzle more than in love's early day.
So wide and far their images are spread
That wheresoe'er I turn I alway see
Her, or some sister-light on hers that fed.
Springs such a wood from one fair laurel tree,
That my old foe, with admirable skill,
Amid its boughs misleads me at his will.
MACGREGOR.
Stanzas From The Banks Of The Shannon.
by Thomas Moore

[1]
"Take back the virgin page."
MOORE'S Irish Melodies.
No longer dear Vesey, feel hurt and uneasy
At hearing it said by the Treasury brother,
That thou art a sheet of blank paper, my Vesey,
And he, the dear, innocent placeman, another.[2]
For lo! what a service we Irish have done thee;--
Thou now art a sheet of blank paper no more;
By St. Patrick, we've scrawled such a lesson upon thee
As never was scrawled upon foolscap before.
Come--on with your spectacles, noble Lord Duke,
(Or O'Connell has green ones he haply would lend you,)
Read Vesey all o'er (as you can't read a book)
And improve by the lesson we bog-trotters send you;
A lesson, in large Roman characters traced,
Whose awful impressions from you and your kin
Of blank-sheeted statesmen will ne'er be effaced--
Unless, 'stead of paper, you're mere asses' skin.
Shall I help you to construe it? ay, by the Gods,
Could I risk a translation, you should have a rare one;
But pen against sabre is desperate odds,
And you, my Lord Duke (as you hinted once), wear one.
Again and again I say, read Vesey o'er;--
You will find him worth all the old scrolls of papyrus
That Egypt e'er filled with nonsensical lore,
Or the learned Champollion e'er wrote of, to tire us.
All blank as he was, we've returned him on hand,
Scribbled o'er with a warning to Princes and Dukes,
Whose plain, simple drift if they won't understand,
Tho' carest at St. James's, they're fit for St. Luke's.
Talk of leaves of the Sibyls!--more meaning conveyed is
In one single leaf such as now we have spelled on,
Than e'er hath been uttered by all the old ladies
That ever yet spoke, from the Sibyls to Eldon.
Sonnet. For The 14th Of February.
by Thomas Hood

No popular respect will I omit
To do thee honor on this happy day,
When every loyal lover tasks his wit
His simple truth in studious rhymes to pay,
And to his mistress dear his hopes convey.
Rather thou knowest I would still outrun
All calendars with Love's, - whose date alway
Thy bright eyes govern better than the Sun, - 
For with thy favor was my life begun;
And still I reckon on from smiles to smiles,
And not by summers, for I thrive on none
But those thy cheerful countenance complies:
Oh! if it be to choose and call thee mine,
Love, thou art every day my Valentine.
Future Poetry
by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

No new delights to our desire
The singers of the past can yield.
I lift mine eyes to hill and field,
And see in them your yet dumb lyre,
Poets unborn and unrevealed.
Singers to come, what thoughts will start
To song? what words of yours be sent
Through man's soul, and with earth be blent?
These worlds of nature and the heart
Await you like an instrument.
Who knows what musical flocks of words
Upon these pine-tree tops will light,
And crown these towers in circling flight
And cross these seas like summer birds,
And give a voice to the day and night?
Something of you already is ours;
Some mystic part of you belongs
To us whose dreams your future throngs,
Who look on hills, and trees, and flowers,
Which will mean so much in your songs.
I wonder, like the maid who found,
And knelt to lift, the lyre supreme
Of Orpheus from the Thracian stream.
She dreams on its sealed past profound;
On a deep future sealed I dream.
She bears it in her wanderings
Within her arms, and has not pressed
Her unskilled fingers, but her breast
Upon those silent sacred strings;
I, too, clasp mystic strings at rest.
For I, i' the world of lands and seas,
The sky of wind and rain and fire,
And in man's world of long desire--
In all that is yet dumb in these--
Have found a more mysterious lyre.
Requiem
by Madison Julius Cawein

I
No more for him, where hills look down,
Shall Morning crown
Her rainy brow with blossom bands! - 
The Morning Hours, whose rosy hands
Drop wildflowers of the breaking skies
Upon the sod 'neath which he lies. - 
No more for him! No more! No more!
II
No more for him, where waters sleep,
Shall Evening heap
The long gold of the perfect days!
The Eventide, whose warm hand lays
Great poppies of the afterglow
Upon the turf he rests below. - 
No more for him! No more! no more!
Ill
No more for him, where woodlands loom,
Shall Midnight bloom
The star-flowered acres of the blue!
The Midnight Hours, whose dim hands strew
Dead leaves of darkness, hushed and deep,
Upon the grave where he doth sleep. - 
No more for him! No more! No more!
IV
The hills, that Morning's footsteps wake:
The waves that take
A brightness from the Eve; the woods
And solitudes, o'er which Night broods,
Their Spirits have, whose parts are one
With him, whose mortal part is done.
Whose part is done.
To Silvia.
by Robert Herrick

No more, my Silvia, do I mean to pray
For those good days that ne'er will come away.
I want belief; O gentle Silvia, be
The patient saint, and send up vows for me.
The Fishes And The Cormorant.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
No pond nor pool within his haunt
But paid a certain cormorant
Its contribution from its fishes,
And stock'd his kitchen with good dishes.
Yet, when old age the bird had chill'd,
His kitchen was less amply fill'd.
All cormorants, however grey,
Must die, or for themselves purvey.
But ours had now become so blind,
His finny prey he could not find;
And, having neither hook nor net,
His appetite was poorly met.
What hope, with famine thus infested?
Necessity, whom history mentions,
A famous mother of inventions,
The following stratagem suggested:
He found upon the water's brink
A crab, to which said he, 'My friend,
A weighty errand let me send:
Go quicker than a wink - 
Down to the fishes sink,
And tell them they are doom'd to die;
For, ere eight days have hasten'd by,
Its lord will fish this water dry.'
The crab, as fast as she could scrabble,
Went down, and told the scaly rabble.
What bustling, gathering, agitation!
Straight up they send a deputation
To wait upon the ancient bird.
'Sir Cormorant, whence hast thou heard
This dreadful news? And what
Assurance of it hast thou got?
How such a danger can we shun?
Pray tell us, what is to be done?
'Why, change your dwelling-place,' said he,
'What, change our dwelling! How can we?'
'O, by your leave, I'll take that care,
And, one by one, in safety bear
You all to my retreat:
The path's unknown
To any feet,
Except my own.
A pool, scoop'd out by Nature's hands,
Amidst the desert rocks and sands,
Where human traitors never come,
Shall save your people from their doom.'
The fish republic swallow'd all,
And, coming at the fellow's call,
Were singly borne away to stock
A pond beneath a lonely rock;
And there good prophet cormorant,
Proprietor and bailiff sole,
From narrow water, clear and shoal,
With ease supplied his daily want,
And taught them, at their own expense,
That heads well stored with common sense
Give no devourers confidence. - 
Still did the change not hurt their case,
Since, had they staid, the human race,
Successful by pernicious art,
Would have consumed as large a part.
What matters who your flesh devours,
Of human or of bestial powers?
In this respect, or wild or tame,
All stomachs seem to me the same:
The odds is small, in point of sorrow,
Of death to-day, or death to-morrow.
Emancipation.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

No rack can torture me,
My soul's at liberty
Behind this mortal bone
There knits a bolder one
You cannot prick with saw,
Nor rend with scymitar.
Two bodies therefore be;
Bind one, and one will flee.
The eagle of his nest
No easier divest
And gain the sky,
Than mayest thou,
Except thyself may be
Thine enemy;
Captivity is consciousness,
So's liberty.
Despair
by Morris Rosenfeld

No rest--not one day in the seven for me?
Not one, from the maddening yoke to be free?
Not one to escape from the boss on the prowl,
His sinister glance and his furious growl,
The cry of the foreman, the smell of the shop,--
To feel for one moment the manacles drop?
--'Tis rest then you want, and you fain would forget?
To rest and oblivion they'll carry you yet.
The flow'rs and the trees will have withered ere long,
The last bird already is ending his song;
And soon will be leafless and shadeless the bow'rs...
I long, oh I long for the perfume of flow'rs!
To feel for a moment ere stripped are the trees,
In meadow lands open, the breath of the breeze.
--You long for the meadow lands breezy and fair?
O, soon enough others will carry you there.
The rivulet sparkles with heavenly light,
The wavelets they glisten, with diamonds bedight.
Oh, but for a moment to leap in the stream,
And play in the waters that ripple and gleam!
My body is weakened with terrible toil.--
The bath would refresh me, renew me the while.
--You dream of a bath in the shimmering stream?
'Twill come--when forever is ended your dream.
The sweatshop is smoky and gloomy and mean--
I strive--oh, how vainly I strive to be clean!
All day I am covered with grime and with dirt.
You'd laugh,--but I long for a spotless white shirt!
For life that is noble, 'tis needful, I ween,
To work as a man should; and still be as clean.
--So now 'tis your wish all in white to be dressed?
In white they will robe you, and lay you to rest.
The woods they are cool, and the woods they are free;--
To dream and to wander, how sweet it would be!
The birds their eternal glad holiday keep;
With song that enchants you and lulls you to sleep.
'Tis hot here,--and close! and the din will not cease.
I long for the forest, its coolth and its peace.
--Ay, cool you will soon be; and not only cool,
But cold as no forest can make you, O Fool!
I long for a friend who will comfort and cheer,
And fill me with courage when sorrow is near;
A comrade, of treasures the rarest and best,
Who gives to existence its crown and its crest;
And I am an orphan--and I am alone;
No friend or companion to call me his own.
--Companions a-plenty--they're numberless too;
They're swarming already and waiting for you.
Sonnet, On The Death Of Robert Riddel, Esq. Of Glenriddel, April, 1794.
by Robert Burns

No more, ye warblers of the wood, no more!
Nor pour your descant, grating, on my soul;
Thou young-eyed Spring, gay in thy verdant stole,
More welcome were to me grim Winter's wildest roar.
How can ye charm, ye flow'rs, with all your dyes?
Ye blow upon the sod that wraps my friend:
How can I to the tuneful strain attend?
That strain flows round th' untimely tomb where Riddel lies.
Yes, pour, ye warblers, pour the notes of woe!
And soothe the Virtues weeping on this bier:
The Man of Worth, who has not left his peer,
Is in his "narrow house" for ever darkly low.
Thee, Spring, again with joy shall others greet,
Me, mem'ry of my loss will only meet.
The Roasting Of Lydia
by Eugene Field

No more your needed rest at night
By ribald youth is troubled;
No more your windows, fastened tight,
Yield to their knocks redoubled.
No longer you may hear them cry,
"Why art thou, Lydia, lying
In heavy sleep till morn is nigh,
While I, your love, am dying?"
Grown old and faded, you bewail
The rake's insulting sally,
While round your home the Thracian gale
Storms through the lonely alley.
What furious thoughts will fill your breast,
What passions, fierce and tinglish
(Cannot be properly expressed
In calm, reposeful English).
Learn this, and hold your carping tongue:
Youth will be found rejoicing
In ivy green and myrtle young,
The praise of fresh life voicing;
And not content to dedicate,
With much protesting shiver,
The sapless leaves to winter's mate,
Hebrus, the cold dark river.
To Mr. Syme.
by Robert Burns

No more of your guests, be they titled or not,
And cook'ry the first in the nation;
Who is proof to thy personal converse and wit,
Is proof to all other temptation.
The Stage Coach.
by George W. Doneghy

No matter what the weather was, in good old stage coach days,
The driver with his ruddy face and spanking team of bays
Would spin along the turnpike road, o'er level stretch and hill,
That wound away from "Idleburg" to classic Nicholasville.
The depths beneath his seat were filled with leathern sacks of mail,
And all the coach's top at times was crowded to the rail
With trunks, valises, packages, and bundles by the score,
That must have weighed, it seemed to me, five thousand pounds or more.
And strapped within the bulging boot, that hung far out behind,
Was added weight enough to make a team of oxen blind;
And counting all the passengers that filled the coach within,
The load those horses had to drag--I thought it was a sin!
How proud of them the driver was! And often he would brag
That they could pull a heavier load and never balk or flag;
If all the road was ankle-deep in miry, sticky mud,
That was the time his team would show its metal and its blood.
The "ribbons" then he'd gather up, and give his whip a crack,
And any team in front of him had better clear the track;
He seemed to own the turnpike road, and kept the right of way
Unto himself as jealously as bloomers do to-day.
By wood and field he wound along, and by the river's bank,
And when he reached the covered bridge the hoof-beats on the plank
Were echoed from the cliffs around and from the vale below;
And going up the hill beyond he'd let 'em walk and blow.
Then urged into a trot again around the curves they spun
Till hove in sight the manor-house of Camp Dick Robinson;
And on beyond where Nelson lay, the bravest of the brave,
Till Nicholasville at last was reached, to them the reins he gave.
And when the sun was hanging low and slanting shadows fell,
Along the streets of "Idleburg" that old familiar yell
Would greet the ears of villagers from small boys as they ran
With open mouths and lusty lungs a-shouting "Here comes Sam!"
Ah me! The old stage coach, abandoned now, stands in the stable lot,
A victim to the tooth of rust, and slow decay and rot;
Its whole-souled driver years ago forever passed away,
And crumbled now to dust the hand that drove each gallant bay!
The Sonnets XXXV - No more be griev'd at that which thou hast done
by William Shakespeare

No more be griev'd at that which thou hast done:
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud:
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
All men make faults, and even I in this,
Authorizing thy trespass with compare,
Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,
Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;
For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,
Thy adverse party is thy advocate,
And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence:
Such civil war is in my love and hate,
That I an accessary needs must be,
To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.
In Memory Of John And Robert Ware
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

No mystic charm, no mortal art,
Can bid our loved companions stay;
The bands that clasp them to our heart
Snap in death's frost and fall apart;
Like shadows fading with the day,
They pass away.
The young are stricken in their pride,
The old, long tottering, faint and fall;
Master and scholar, side by side,
Through the dark portals silent glide,
That open in life's mouldering wall
And close on all.
Our friend's, our teacher's task was done,
When Mercy called him from on high;
A little cloud had dimmed the sun,
The saddening hours had just begun,
And darker days were drawing nigh:
'T was time to die.
A whiter soul, a fairer mind,
A life with purer course and aim,
A gentler eye, a voice more kind,
We may not look on earth to find.
The love that lingers o'er his name
Is more than fame.
These blood-red summers ripen fast;
The sons are older than the sires;
Ere yet the tree to earth is cast,
The sapling falls before the blast;
Life's ashes keep their covered fires, - 
Its flame expires.
Struck by the noiseless, viewless foe,
Whose deadlier breath than shot or shell
Has laid the best and bravest low,
His boy, all bright in morning's glow,
That high-souled youth he loved so well,
Untimely fell.
Yet still he wore his placid smile,
And, trustful in the cheering creed
That strives all sorrow to beguile,
Walked calmly on his way awhile
Ah, breast that leans on breaking reed
Must ever bleed!
So they both left us, sire and son,
With opening leaf, with laden bough
The youth whose race was just begun,
The wearied man whose course was run,
Its record written on his brow,
Are brothers now.
Brothers! - The music of the sound
Breathes softly through my closing strain;
The floor we tread is holy ground,
Those gentle spirits hovering round,
While our fair circle joins again
Its broken chain.
The Island Hunting-Song
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

No more the summer floweret charms,
The leaves will soon be sere,
And Autumn folds his jewelled arms
Around the dying year;
So, ere the waning seasons claim
Our leafless groves awhile,
With golden wine and glowing flame
We 'll crown our lonely isle.
Once more the merry voices sound
Within the antlered hall,
And long and loud the baying hounds
Return the hunter's call;
And through the woods, and o'er the hill,
And far along the bay,
The driver's horn is sounding shrill, - 
Up, sportsmen, and away!
No bars of steel or walls of stone
Our little empire bound,
But, circling with his azure zone,
The sea runs foaming round;
The whitening wave, the purpled skies,
The blue and lifted shore,
Braid with their dim and blending dyes
Our wide horizon o'er.
And who will leave the grave debate
That shakes the smoky town,
To rule amid our island-state,
And wear our oak-leaf crown?
And who will be awhile content
To hunt our woodland game,
And leave the vulgar pack that scent
The reeking track of fame?
Ah, who that shares in toils like these
Will sigh not to prolong
Our days beneath the broad-leaved trees,
Our nights of mirth and song?
Then leave the dust of noisy streets,
Ye outlaws of the wood,
And follow through his green retreats
Your noble Robin Hood.
Advice To A Girl
by Sara Teasdale

No one worth possessing
Can be quite possessed;
Lay that on your heart,
My young angry dear;
This truth, this hard and precious stone,
Lay it on your hot cheek,
Let it hide your tear.
Hold it like a crystal
When you are alone
And gaze in the depths of the icy stone.
Long, look long and you will be blessed:
No one worth possessing
Can be quite possessed.
Bereft.
by George W. Doneghy

I.
No more to feel the pressure warm
Of dimpled arms around your neck--
No more to clasp the little form
That Nature did with beauty deck.
II.
No more to hear the music sweet
Of merry laugh and prattling talk--
No more to see the busy feet
Come toddling down the shaded walk.
III.
No more the glint of flaxen hair
That nestled 'round the lilied brow--
No more the rose's bloom will wear
The cheek so cold and pallid now.
IV.
No more the light from loving eyes,
Whose hue was like the violet blown
Where Summer's softest, bluest skies,
Had lent it coloring from their own.
V.
No more to fondly bend above
The little one when slumber wrought,
With sweetest dreams, the smile of love
The placid features then had caught.
VI.
No more on earth--oh, nevermore!
The shattered idols of the heart
Can yearning love nor time restore--
But--you may meet to never part!
Doctor Meyers
by Edgar Lee Masters

No other man, unless it was Doc Hill,
Did more for people in this town than I.
And all the weak, the halt, the improvident
And those who could not pay flocked to me.
I was good-hearted, easy Doctor Meyers.
I was healthy, happy, in comfortable fortune,
Blest with a congenial mate, my children raised,
All wedded, doing well in the world.
And then one night, Minerva, the poetess,
Came to me in her trouble, crying.
I tried to help her out - she died - 
They indicted me, the newspapers disgraced me,
My wife perished of a broken heart.
And pneumonia finished me.
The Tune Of Seven Towers
by William Morris

No one goes there now:
For what is left to fetch away
From the desolate battlements all arow,
And the lead roof heavy and grey?
Therefore, said fair Yoland of the flowers,
This is the tune of Seven Towers.
No one walks there now;
Except in the white moonlight
The white ghosts walk in a row;
If one could see it, an awful sight,
Listen! said fair Yoland of the flowers,
This is the tune of Seven Towers.
But none can see them now,
Though they sit by the side of the moat,
Feet half in the water, there in a row,
Long hair in the wind afloat.
Therefore, said fair Yoland of the flowers,
This is the tune of Seven Towers.
If any will go to it now,
He must go to it all alone,
Its gates will not open to any row
Of glittering spears: will you go alone?
Listen! said fair Yoland of the flowers,
This is the tune of Seven Towers.
By my love go there now,
To fetch me my coif away,
My coif and my kirtle, with pearls arow,
Oliver, go to-day!
Therefore, said fair Yoland of the flowers,
This is the tune of Seven Towers.
I am unhappy now,
I cannot tell you why;
If you go, the priests and I in a row
Will pray that you may not die.
Listen! said fair Yoland of the flowers,
This is the tune of Seven Towers.
If you will go for me now,
I will kiss your mouth at last;
[She sayeth inwardly.]
(The graves stand grey in a row.)
Oliver, hold me fast!
Therefore, said fair Yoland of the flowers,
This is the tune of Seven Towers.
Street Scene
by Paul Cameron Brown

No open barge
crowded with nameless waifs
or junks in a teeming harbour
- just odours spilling from
a back alley,
stair wells littered with cheap saki
bottles, one propped
to rifle the door.