DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Peace Of Europe
by John Greenleaf Whittier

"Great peace in Europe! Order reigns
From Tiber's hills to Danube's plains!"
So say her kings and priests; so say
The lying prophets of our day.
Go lay to earth a listening ear;
The tramp of measured marches hear;
The rolling of the cannon's wheel,
The shotted musket's murderous peal,
The night alarm, the sentry's call,
The quick-eared spy in hut and hall!
From Polar sea and tropic fen
The dying-groans of exiled men!
The bolted cell, the galley's chains,
The scaffold smoking with its stains!
Order, the hush of brooding slaves!
Peace, in the dungeon-vaults and graves!
O Fisher! of the world-wide net,
With meshes in all waters set,
Whose fabled keys of heaven and hell
Bolt hard the patriot's prison-cell,
And open wide the banquet-hall,
Where kings and priests hold carnival!
Weak vassal tricked in royal guise,
Boy Kaiser with thy lip of lies;
Base gambler for Napoleon's crown,
Barnacle on his dead renown!
Thou, Bourbon Neapolitan,
Crowned scandal, loathed of God and man;
And thou, fell Spider of the North!
Stretching thy giant feelers forth,
Within whose web the freedom dies
Of nations eaten up like flies!
Speak, Prince and Kaiser, Priest and Czar!
If this be Peace, pray what is War?
White Angel of the Lord! unmeet
That soft accursed for thy pure feet.
Never in Slavery's desert flows
The fountain of thy charmed repose;
No tyrant's hand thy chaplet weaves
Of lilies and of olive-leaves;
Not with the wicked shalt thou dwell,
Thus saith the Eternal Oracle;
Thy home is with the pure and free!
Stern herald of thy better day,
Before thee, to prepare thy way,
The Baptist Shade of Liberty,
Gray, scarred and hairy-robed, must press
With bleeding feet the wilderness!
Oh that its voice might pierce the ear
Of princes, trembling while they hear
A cry as of the Hebrew seer:
Repent! God's kingdom draweth near
Green fields of England! wheresoe'er
by Arthur Hugh Clough

Green fields of England! wheresoe'er
Across this watery waste we fare,
Your image at our hearts we bear
Green fields of England, everywhere.
Sweet eyes in England, I must flee
Past where the waves' last confines be,
Ere your loved smile I cease to see,
Sweet eyes in England, dear to me.
Dear home in England, safe and fast
If but in thee my lot lie cast,
The past shall seem a nothing past
To thee, dear home, if won at last;
Dear home in England, won at last.
Loss From The Least
by Robert Herrick

Great men by small means oft are overthrown;
He's lord of thy life, who contemns his own.
The Humming Birds
by Alfred Noyes

Green wing and ruby throat,
What shining spell, what exquisite sorcery,
Lured you to float
And fight with bees round this one flowering tree?
Petulant imps of light,
What whisper or gleam or elfin-wild perfumes
Thrilled through the night
And drew you to this hive of rosy bloom?
One tree, and one alone,
Of all that load this magic air with spice,
Claims for its own
Your brave migration out of Paradise;
Claims you, and guides you, too,
Three thousand miles across the summer's waste
Of blooms ye knew
Less finely fit for your ethereal taste.
To poets' youthful hearts,
Even so the quivering April thoughts will fly,--
Those irised darts,
Those winged and tiny denizens of the sky.
Through beaks as needle-fine,
They suck a redder honey than bees know.
Unearthly wine
Sleeps in this bloom; and, when it falls, they go.
Winter
by Walter De La Mare

Green Mistletoe!
Oh, I remember now
A dell of snow,
Frost on the bough;
None there but I:
Snow, snow, and a wintry sky.
None there but I,
And footprints one by one,
Zigzaggedly,
Where I had run;
Where shrill and powdery
A robin sat in the tree.
And he whistled sweet;
And I in the crusted snow
With snow-clubbed feet
Jigged to and fro,
Till, from the day,
The rose-light ebbed away.
And the robin flew
Into the air, the air,
The white mist through;
And small and rare
The night-frost fell
In the calm and misty dell.
And the dusk gathered low,
And the silver moon and stars
On the frozen snow
Drew taper bars,
Kindled winking fires
In the hooded briers.
And the sprawling Bear
Growled deep in the sky;
And Orion's hair
Streamed sparkling by:
But the North sighed low,
"Snow, snow, more snow!"
Canzone III.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Verdi panni, sanguigni, oscuri o persi.
WHETHER OR NOT HE SHOULD CEASE TO LOVE LAURA.
Green robes and red, purple, or brown, or gray
No lady ever wore,
Nor hair of gold in sunny tresses twined,
So beautiful as she, who spoils my mind
Of judgment, and from freedom's lofty path
So draws me with her that I may not bear
Any less heavy yoke.
And if indeed at times--for wisdom fails
Where martyrdom breeds doubt--
The soul should ever arm it to complain
Suddenly from each reinless rude desire
Her smile recalls, and razes from my heart
Every rash enterprise, while all disdain
Is soften'd in her sight.
For all that I have ever borne for love,
And still am doom'd to bear,
Till she who wounded it shall heal my heart,
Rejecting homage e'en while she invites,
Be vengeance done! but let not pride nor ire
'Gainst my humility the lovely pass
By which I enter'd bar.
The hour and day wherein I oped my eyes
On the bright black and white,
Which drive me thence where eager love impell'd
Where of that life which now my sorrow makes
New roots, and she in whom our age is proud,
Whom to behold without a tender awe
Needs heart of lead or wood.
The tear then from these eyes that frequent falls--
HE thus my pale cheek bathes
Who planted first within my fenceless flank
Love's shaft--diverts me not from my desire;
And in just part the proper sentence falls;
For her my spirit sighs, and worthy she
To staunch its secret wounds.
Spring from within me these conflicting thoughts,
To weary, wound myself,
Each a sure sword against its master turn'd:
Nor do I pray her to be therefore freed,
For less direct to heaven all other paths,
And to that glorious kingdom none can soar
Certes in sounder bark.
Benignant stars their bright companionship
Gave to the fortunate side
When came that fair birth on our nether world,
Its sole star since, who, as the laurel leaf,
The worth of honour fresh and fragrant keeps,
Where lightnings play not, nor ungrateful winds
Ever o'ersway its head.
Well know I that the hope to paint in verse
Her praises would but tire
The worthiest hand that e'er put forth its pen:
Who, in all Memory's richest cells, e'er saw
Such angel virtue so rare beauty shrined,
As in those eyes, twin symbols of all worth,
Sweet keys of my gone heart?
Lady, wherever shines the sun, than you
Love has no dearer pledge.
MACGREGOR.
Nursery Rhyme. XXXIV. Literal
by Unknown

Great A, little a,
Bouncing B!
The cat's in the cupboard,
And she can't see.
They Were Welcome To Their Belief
by Robert Lee Frost

Grief may have thought it was grief.
Care may have thought it was care.
They were welcome to their belief,
The over important pair.
No, it took all the snows that clung
To the low roof over his bed,
Beginning when he was young,
To induce the one snow on his head.
But whenever the roof came white
The head in the dark below
Was a shade less the color of night,
A shade more the color of snow.
Grief may have thought it was grief.
Care may have thought it was care.
But neither one was the thief
Of his raven color of hair.
The Kiss.
by Thomas Moore

Grow to my lip, thou sacred kiss,
On which my soul's beloved swore
That there should come a time of bliss,
When she would mock my hopes no more.
And fancy shall thy glow renew,
In sighs at morn, and dreams at night,
And none shall steal thy holy dew
Till thou'rt absolved by rapture's rite.
Sweet hours that are to make me blest,
Fly, swift as breezes, to the goal,
And let my love, my more than soul,
Come blushing to this ardent breast.
Then, while in every glance I drink
The rich overflowing of her mind,
Oh! let her all enamored sink
In sweet abandonment resigned,
Blushing for all our struggles past,
And murmuring, "I am thine at last!"
The Rivals; Or The Showman's Ruse
by James Whitcomb Riley

A TRAGI-COMEDY, IN ONE ACT.
PERSONS REPRESENTED.
BILLY MILLER            )         The Rivals
JOHNNY WILLIAMS     )
TOMMY WELLS             Conspirator
TIME - Noon: SCENE - Country Town - Rear-view of the Miller Mansion, showing Barn, with practical loft-window opening on alley-way, with colored-crayon poster beneath, announcing: - "BILLY MILLER'S Big Show and Monstur Circus and Equareum!    A shour-bath fer Each and All fer 20 pins. This Afternoon!    Don't fer git the date!"    Enter TOMMY WELLS and JOHNNY WILLIAMS, who gaze awhile at poster, TOMMY secretly smiling and winking at BILLY MILLER, concealed at loft-window above.
TOMMY (to JOHNNY).
Guess 'at Billy haint got back, - 
Can't see nothin' through the crack - -
Can't hear nothin' neither - No!
. . . Thinks he's got the dandy show,
Don't he?
JOHNNY (scornfully) - 
'Course' but what I care? - 
He haint got no show in there! - 
What's he got in there but that
Old hen, cooped up with a cat
An' a turkle, an' that thing
'At he calls his "circus-ring?"
"What a circus-ring!"    I'd quit!
Bet mine's twic't as big as it!
TOMMY - 
Yes, but you got no machine
Wat you bathe with, painted green,
With a string to work it, guess!
JOHNNY (contemptuously) - 
Folks don't bathe in circuses! - 
Ladies comes to mine, you bet!
I' got seats where girls can set;
An' a dressin'-room, an' all,
Fixed up in my pony's stall - 
Yes, an' I' got carpet, too,
Fer the tumblers, and a blue
Center-pole!
TOMMY - 
Well, Billy, he's
Got a tight-rope an' trapeze,
An' a hoop 'at he jumps through
Head-first!
JOHNNY - 
Well, what's that to do - 
Lightin' on a pile o' hay?
Haint no actin' thataway!
TOMMY - 
Don't care what you say, he draws
Bigger crowds than you do, 'cause
Sense he started up, I know
All the fellers says his show
Is the best-un!
JOHNNY - 
Yes, an' he
Better not tell things on me!
His old circus haint no good! - 
'Cause he's got the neighborhood
Down on me he thinks 'at I'm
Goin' to stand it all the time;
Thinks ist 'cause my Pa don't 'low
Me to fight, he's got me now.
An' can say I lie, an' call
Me ist anything at all!
Billy Miller thinks I am
'Feared to say 'at he says "dam" - 
Yes, and worser ones! and I'm
Goin' to tell his folks sometime! - 
An' ef he don't shet his head
I'll tell worse 'an that he said
When he fighted Willie King - 
An' got licked like ever'thing! - 
Billy Miller better shin
Down his Daddy's lane agin,
Like a cowardy-calf, an' climb
In fer home another time!
Better - 
[Here BILLY leaps down from the loft upon his unsuspecting victim; and two minutes, later, JOHNNY, with the half of a straw hat, a bleeding nose, and a straight rent across one trouser-knee, makes his inglorious - exit.]
Egyptian Folk-Song.
by Eugene Field

Grim is the face that looks into the night
Over the stretch of sands;
A sullen rock in the sea of white--
A ghostly shadow in ghostly light,
Peering and moaning it stands.
"Oh, is it the king that rides this way--
Oh, is it the king that rides so free?
I have looked for the king this many a day,
But the years that mock me will not say
Why tarrieth he!"
'Tis not your king that shall ride to-night,
But a child that is fast asleep;
And the horse he shall ride is the Dream-Horse
white--
Aha, he shall speed through the ghostly light
Where the ghostly shadows creep!
"My eyes are dull and my face is sere,
Yet unto the word he gave I cling,
For he was a Pharoah that set me here--
And lo! I have waited this many a year
For him--my king!"
Oh, past thy face my darling shall ride
Swift as the burning winds that bear
The sand clouds over the desert wide--
Swift to the verdure and palms beside
The wells off there!
"And is it the mighty king I shall see
Come riding into the night?
Oh, is it the king come back to me--
Proudly and fiercely rideth he,
With centuries dight!"
I know no king but my dark-eyed dear
That shall ride the Dream-Horse white;
But see! he wakes at my bosom here,
While the Dream-Horse frettingly lingers near
To speed with my babe to-night!
And out of the desert darkness peers
A ghostly, ghastly, shadowy thing
Like a spirit come out of the moldering years,
And ever that waiting specter hears
The coming king!
Greitna, Father
by George MacDonald

Greitna, father, that I'm gauin,
For fu' well ye ken the gaet;
I' the winter, corn ye're sawin,
I' the hairst again ye hae't.
I'm gauin hame to see my mither;
She'll be weel acquant or this!
Sair we'll muse at ane anither
'Tween the auld word an' new kiss!
Love I'm doobtin may be scanty
Roun ye efter I'm awa:
Yon kirkyard has happin plenty
Close aside me, green an' braw!
An' abune there's room for mony;
'Twasna made for ane or twa,
But was aye for a' an' ony
Countin love the best ava.
There nane less ye'll be my father;
Auld names we'll nor tyne nor spare!
A' my sonship I maun gather
For the Son is king up there.
Greitna, father, that I'm gauin,
For ye ken fu' well the gaet!
Here, in winter, cast yer sawin,
There, in hairst, again ye hae't!
The Rear-Guard
by Siegfried Loraine Sassoon

(Hindenburg Line, April 1917.)
Groping along the tunnel, step by step,
He winked his prying torch with patching glare
From side to side, and sniffed the unwholesome air.
Tins, boxes, bottles, shapes too vague to know,
A mirror smashed, the mattress from a bed;
And he, exploring fifty feet below
The rosy gloom of battle overhead.
Tripping, he grabbed the wall; saw some one lie
Humped at his feet, half-hidden by a rug,
And stooped to give the sleeper's arm a tug.
"I'm looking for headquarters." No reply.
"God blast your neck!" (For days he'd had no sleep.)
"Get up and guide me through this stinking place."
Savage, he kicked a soft, unanswering heap,
And flashed his beam across the livid face
Terribly glaring up, whose eyes yet wore
Agony dying hard ten days before;
And fists of fingers clutched a blackening wound.
Alone he staggered on until he found
Dawn's ghost that filtered down a shafted stair
To the dazed, muttering creatures underground
Who hear the boom of shells in muffled sound.
At last, with sweat of horror in his hair,
He climbed through darkness to the twilight air,
Unloading hell behind him step by step.
Astrophel and Stella - Sonnet XCIV
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

Griefe, find the words; for thou hast made my braine
So darke with misty vapuors, which arise
From out thy heauy mould, that inbent eyes
Can scarce discerne the shape of mine owne paine.
Do thou, then (for thou canst) do thou complaine
For my poore soule, which now that sicknesse tries,
Which euen to sence, sence of it selfe denies,
Though harbengers of death lodge there his traine.
Or if thy loue of plaint yet mine forbeares,
As of a Caitife worthy so to die;
Yet waile thy selfe, and waile with causefull teares,
That though in wretchednesse thy life doth lie,
Yet growest more wretched then by nature beares
By being plac'd in such a wretch as I.
Upon Groynes. Epig.
by Robert Herrick

Groynes, for his fleshly burglary of late,
Stood in the holy forum candidate;
The word is Roman; but in English known:
Penance, and standing so, are both but one.
Upon Gryll.
by Robert Herrick

Gryll eats, but ne'er says grace; to speak the truth,
Gryll either keeps his breath to cool his broth,
Or else, because Gryll's roast does burn his spit,
Gryll will not therefore say a grace for it.
To J. Lapraik. (Third Epistle.)
by Robert Burns

Sept. 13th, 1785.
Guid speed an' furder to you, Johnny,
Guid health, hale han's, an' weather bonny;
Now when ye're nickan down fu' canny
The staff o' bread,
May ye ne'er want a stoup o' bran'y
To clear your head.
May Boreas never thresh your rigs,
Nor kick your rickles aff their legs,
Sendin' the stuff o'er muirs an' haggs
Like drivin' wrack;
But may the tapmast grain that wags
Come to the sack.
I'm bizzie too, an' skelpin' at it,
But bitter, daudin' showers hae wat it,
Sae my auld stumpie pen I gat it
Wi' muckle wark,
An' took my jocteleg an' whatt it,
Like ony clark.
It's now twa month that I'm your debtor
For your braw, nameless, dateless letter,
Abusin' me for harsh ill nature
On holy men,
While deil a hair yoursel' ye're better,
But mair profane.
But let the kirk-folk ring their bells,
Let's sing about our noble sel's;
We'll cry nae jads frae heathen hills
To help, or roose us,
But browster wives an' whiskey stills,
They are the muses.
Your friendship, Sir, I winna quat it
An' if ye mak' objections at it,
Then han' in nieve some day we'll knot it,
An' witness take,
An' when wi' Usquabae we've wat it
It winna break.
But if the beast and branks be spar'd
Till kye be gaun without the herd,
An' a' the vittel in the yard,
An' theekit right,
I mean your ingle-side to guard
Ae winter night.
Then muse-inspirin' aqua-vit'
Shall make us baith sae blythe an' witty,
Till ye forget ye're auld an' gatty,
An' be as canty,
As ye were nine year less than thretty,
Sweet ane an' twenty!
But stooks are cowpet wi' the blast,
An' now the sin keeks in the west,
Then I maun rin amang the rest
An' quat my chanter;
Sae I subscribe myself in haste,
Yours, Rab the Ranter.
Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650): The Many
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

I.
Greene, garlanded with February's few flowers,
Ere March came in with Marlowe's rapturous rage:
Peele, from whose hand the sweet white locks of age
Took the mild chaplet woven of honoured hours:
Nash, laughing hard: Lodge, flushed from lyric bowers:
And Lilly, a goldfinch in a twisted cage
Fed by some gay great lady's pettish page
Till short sweet songs gush clear like short spring showers
Kid, whose grim sport still gambolled over graves:
And Chettle, in whose fresh funereal verse
Weeps Marian yet on Robin's wildwood hearse:
Cooke, whose light boat of song one soft breath saves,
Sighed from a maiden's amorous mouth averse:
Live likewise ye: Time takes not you for slaves.
II.
Haughton, whose mirth gave woman all her will:
Field, bright and loud with laughing flower and bird
And keen alternate notes of laud and gird:
Barnes, darkening once with Borgia's deeds the quill
Which tuned the passion of Parthenophil:
Blithe burly Porter, broad and bold of word:
Wilkins, a voice with strenuous pity stirred:
Turk Mason: Brewer, whose tongue drops honey still
Rough Rowley, handling song with Esau's hand:
Light Nabbes: lean Sharpham, rank and raw by turns,
But fragrant with a forethought once of Burns:
Soft Davenport, sad-robed, but blithe and bland:
Brome, gipsy-led across the woodland ferns:
Praise be with all, and place among our band.
To The River Greta, Near Keswick
by William Wordsworth

Greta, what fearful listening! when huge stones
Rumble along thy bed, block after block:
Or, whirling with reiterated shock,
Combat, while darkness aggravates the groans:
But if thou (like Cocytus from the moans
Heard on his rueful margin) thence wert named
The Mourner, thy true nature was defamed,
And the habitual murmur that atones
For thy worst rage, forgotten. Oft as Spring
Decks, on thy sinuous banks, her thousand thrones
Seats of glad instinct and love's caroling,
The concert, for the happy, then may vie
With liveliest peals of birth-day harmony:
To a grieved heart, the notes are benisons.
Gudeen To You, Kimmer.
by Robert Burns

I.
Gudeen to you, Kimmer,
And how do ye do?
Hiccup, quo' Kimmer,
The better that I'm fou.
We're a' noddin, nid nid noddin,
We're a' noddin, at our house at hame.
II.
Kate sits i' the neuk,
Suppin hen broo;
Deil tak Kate
An' she be na noddin too!
We're a' noddin, &c.
III.
How's a' wi' you, Kimmer,
And how do ye fare?
A pint o' the best o't,
And twa pints mair.
We're a' noddin, &c.
IV.
How's a' wi' you, Kimmer,
And how do ye thrive;
How many bairns hae ye?
Quo' Kimmer, I hae five.
We're a' noddin, &c.
V.
Are they a' Johnie's?
Eh! atweel no:
Twa o' them were gotten
When Johnie was awa.
We're a noddin, &c.
VI.
Cats like milk,
And dogs like broo;
Lads like lasses weel,
And lasses lads too.
We're a' noddin, &c.
Robbie's Statue
by Henry Lawson

Grown tired of mourning for my sins, 
And brooding over merits, 
The other night with bothered brow
I went amongst the spirits;
And I met one that I knew well:
'Oh, Scotty's Ghost, is that you?
'And did you see the fearsome crowd
'At Robbie Burns's statue?
'They hurried up in hansom cabs,
'Tall-hatted and frock-coated;
'They trained it in from all the towns,
'The weird and hairy-throated;
'They spoke in some outlandish tongue,
'They cut some comic capers,
'And ilka man was wild to get
'His name in all the papers.
'They showed no gleam of intellect,
'Those frauds who rushed before us;
'They knew one verse of 'Auld Lang Syne, '
'The first one and the chorus:
'They clacked the clack o' Scotlan's Bard,
'They glibly talked of 'Rabby;'
'But what if he had come to them
'Without a groat and shabby?
'They drank and wept for Robbie's sake,
'They stood and brayed like asses
'(The living bard's a drunken rake,
'The dead one loved the lasses);
'If Robbie Burns were here, they'd sit
'As still as any mouse is;
'If Robbie Burns should come their way,
'They'd turn him out their houses.
'Oh, weep for bonny Scotland's bard!
'And praise the Scottish nation,
'Who made him spy and let him die
'Heart-broken in privation:
'Exciseman, so that he might live
'Through northern winters' rigours, 
'Just as in southern lands they give
'The hard-up rhymer figures.
'We need some songs of stinging fun
'To wake the States and light 'em;
'I wish a man like Robert Burns
'Were here to-day to write 'em!
'But still the mockery shall survive
'Till the Day o' Judgment crashes, 
'The men we scorn when we're alive
'With praise insult our ashes.'
And Scotty's ghost said: 'Never mind
'The fleas that you inherit;
'The living bard can flick them off, 
'They cannot hurt his spirit.
'The crawlers round the bardie's name
'Shall crawl through all the ages;
'His work's the living thing, and they
'Are fly-dirt on the pages.'
The Dog.
by Archibald Lampman

"Grotesque!" we said, the moment we espied him,
For there he stood, supreme in his conceit,
With short ears close together and queer feet
Planted irregularly: first we tried him
With jokes, but they were lost; we then defied him
With bantering questions and loose criticism:
He did not like, I'm sure, our catechism,
But whisked and snuffed a little as we eyed him.
Then flung we balls, and out and clear away,
Up the white slope, across the crusted snow,
To where a broken fence stands in the way,
Against the sky-line, a mere row of pegs,
Quicker than thought we saw him flash and go,
A straight mad scuttling of four crooked legs.
Sympathy
by George MacDonald

Grief held me silent in my seat;
I neither moved nor smiled:
Joy held her silent at my feet,
My shining lily-child.
She raised her face and looked in mine;
She deemed herself denied;
The door was shut, there was no shine;
Poor she was left outside!
Once, twice, three times, with infant grace
Her lips my name did mould;
Her face was pulling at my face--
She was but ten months old.
I saw; the sight rebuked my sighs;
It made me think--Does God
Need help from his poor children's eyes
To ease him of his load?
Ah, if he did, how seldom then
The Father would be glad!
If comfort lay in the eyes of men,
He little comfort had!
We cry to him in evil case,
When comfort sore we lack;
And when we troubled seek his face,
Consoled he sends us back;
Nor waits for prayer to rise and climb--
He wakes the sleeping prayer;
He is our father all the time,
And servant everywhere.
I looked not up; foreboding hid
Kept down my heart the while;
'Twas he looked up; my Father did
Smile in my infant's smile.
Sunrise On The Coast
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

Grey dawn on the sand-hills, the night wind has drifted
All night from the rollers a scent of the sea;
With the dawn the grey fog his battalions has lifted,
At the call of the morning they scatter and flee.
Like mariners calling the roll of their number
The sea-fowl put out to the infinite deep.
And far overhead, sinking softly to slumber,
Worn out by their watching the stars fall asleep.
To eastward, where rests the broad dome of the skies on
The sea-line, stirs softly the curtain of night;
And far from behind the enshrouded horizon
Comes the voice of a God saying "Let there be light."
And lo, there is light! Evanescent and tender,
It glows ruby-red where 'twas now ashen-grey;
And purple and scarlet and gold in its splendour,
Behold, 'tis that marvel, the birth of a day!