DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
On Himself.
by Robert Herrick

Young I was, but now am old,
But I am not yet grown cold;
I can play, and I can twine
'Bout a virgin like a vine:
In her lap too I can lie
Melting, and in fancy die;
And return to life if she
Claps my cheek, or kisseth me:
Thus, and thus it now appears
That our love outlasts our years.
L'Ann'e Terrible.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

TO LITTLE JEANNE.
("Vous e'tes donc hier un an.")
[September, 1870.]
You've lived a year, then, yesterday, sweet child,
Prattling thus happily! So fledglings wild,
New-hatched in warmer nest 'neath sheltering bough,
Chirp merrily to feel their feathers grow.
Your mouth's a rose, Jeanne! In these volumes grand
Whose pictures please you - while I trembling stand
To see their big leaves tattered by your hand - 
Are noble lines; but nothing half your worth,
When all your tiny frame rustles with mirth
To welcome me. No work of author wise
Can match the thought half springing to your eyes,
And your dim reveries, unfettered, strange,
Regarding man with all the boundless range
Of angel innocence. Methinks, 'tis clear
That God's not far, Jeanne, when I see you here.
Ah! twelve months old: 'tis quite an age, and brings
Grave moments, though your soul to rapture clings,
You're at that hour of life most like to heaven,
When present joy no cares, no sorrows leaven
When man no shadow feels: if fond caress
Round parent twines, children the world possess.
Your waking hopes, your dreams of mirth and love
From Charles to Alice, father to mother, rove;
No wider range of view your heart can take
Than what her nursing and his bright smiles make;
They two alone on this your opening hour
Can gleams of tenderness and gladness pour:
They two - none else, Jeanne! Yet 'tis just, and I,
Poor grandsire, dare but to stand humbly by.
You come - I go: though gloom alone my right,
Blest be the destiny which gives you light.
Your fair-haired brother George and you beside
Me play - in watching you is all my pride;
And all I ask - by countless sorrows tried - 
The grave; o'er which in shadowy form may show
Your cradles gilded by the morning's glow.
Pure new-born wonderer! your infant life
Strange welcome found, Jeanne, in this time of strife.
Like wild-bee humming through the woods your play,
And baby smiles have dared a world at bay:
Your tiny accents lisp their gentle charms
To mighty Paris clashing mighty arms.
Ah! when I see you, child, and when I hear
You sing, or try, with low voice whispering near,
And touch of fingers soft, my grief to cheer,
I dream this darkness, where the tempests groan,
Trembles, and passes with half-uttered moan.
For though these hundred towers of Paris bend,
Though close as foundering ship her glory's end,
Though rocks the universe, which we defend;
Still to great cannon on our ramparts piled,
God sends His blessing by a little child.
MARWOOD TUCKER.
To A Bully
by Eugene Field

You, blatant coward that you are,
Upon the helpless vent your spite.
Suppose you ply your trade on me;
Come, monkey with this bard, and see
How I'll repay your bark with bite!
Ay, snarl just once at me, you brute!
And I shall hound you far and wide,
As fiercely as through drifted snow
The shepherd dog pursues what foe
Skulks on the Spartan mountain-side.
The chip is on my shoulder--see?
But touch it and I'll raise your fur;
I'm full of business, so beware!
For, though I'm loaded up for bear,
I'm quite as like to kill a cur!
What it Comes to.
by John Hartley

Young Alick gate wed, as all gradely chaps do,
An tuk Sally for better or war;
A daycenter felly ne'er foller'd a ploo, - 
Th' best lad ov his mother's bi far.
An shoo wor as nice a young lass as yo'll see
In a day's march, aw'll wager mi hat;
But yo know unless fowk's dispositions agree,
Tho' they're bonny, - noa matter for that.
They'd better bi hawf have a hump o' ther rig,
Or be favvor'd as ill as old Flew;
If ther temper is sweet, chaps 'll net care a fig,
Tho' his wife may have one ee or two.
Young Sally had nivver been used to a farm,
An shoo seem'd to know nowt abaat wark;
Shoo set wi' her tooas up o'th' fender to warm,
Readin novels throo mornin to dark.
Alick saw 'at sich like gooins on wod'nt do,
Soa one neet when they'd getten to bed,
He tell'd her he thowt shoo'd best buckle too,
Or else we'st be ruined, he sed.
Says Sally, "its cappin to hear thi awm sewer,
For tha tell'd me befooar we wor wed,
Tha'd be happy wi me, an tha wanted nowt mooar
If aw nivver stirred aght o' mi bed."
"Tha sed aw wor bonny, an th' leets o' mi een
Wor enuff for thi sunshine throo life;
An tha tell'd me tha wanted to mak me a queen, - 
But it seems 'at tha wanted a wife."
"Aw'm willin to own love's all reight in its way,
An aw'm glad aw've discovered soa sooin
'At love withaat labor sooin dwindles away, - 
For fowk can't live o' billin an cooin."
"That's my nooation too, - but aw thowt tha should try,
What a wife as a laikon could be;
Noa daat tha's fan livin o' love rayther dry,
For aw'll own aw'd grown sickened o' thee."
Nursery Rhyme. CCCC. Lullabies.
by Unknown

[From Yorkshire and Essex. A nursery-cry. - It is also sometimes sung in the streets by boys who have small figures of wool, wood, or gypsum, & c. of lambs to sell.]
Young Lambs to sell!
Young Lambs to sell!
If I'd as much money as I can tell,
I never would cry - Young Lambs to sell!
Horace's "Sailor And Shade."
by Eugene Field

Sailor.
You, who have compassed land and sea
Now all unburied lie;
All vain your store of human lore,
For you were doomed to die.
The sire of Pelops likewise fell,
Jove's honored mortal guest--
So king and sage of every age
At last lie down to rest.
Plutonian shades enfold the ghost
Of that majestic one
Who taught as truth that he, forsooth,
Had once been Pentheus' son;
Believe who may, he's passed away
And what he did is done.
A last night comes alike to all--
One path we all must tread,
Through sore disease or stormy seas
Or fields with corpses red--
Whate'er our deeds that pathway leads
To regions of the dead.
Shade.
The fickle twin Illyrian gales
O'erwhelmed me on the wave--
But that you live, I pray you give
My bleaching bones a grave!
Oh, then when cruel tempests rage
You all unharmed shall be--
Jove's mighty hand shall guard by land
And Neptune's on the sea.
Perchance you fear to do what shall
Bring evil to your race.
Or, rather fear that like me here
You'll lack a burial place.
So, though you be in proper haste,
Bide long enough I pray,
To give me, friend, what boon will send
My soul upon its way!
Young Jockey.
by John Hartley

Young Jockey he bowt him a pair o' new shooin,
Ooin, ooin, ry diddle dooin!
Young Jockey he bowt him a pair o' new shooin,
For he'd made up his mind he'd be wed varry sooin;
An he went to ax Jenny his wife for to be,
But shoo sed, "Nay, aw'll ne'er wed a hawbuck like thee,
Thi legs luk too lanky,
Thi heead is too cranky,
Its better bi th' hawf an old maid aw should dee!"
Young Jockey then went an he bowt him a gun,
Un, un, ry diddle dun!
Young Jockey then went an he bowt him a gun,
For his ivvery hooap i' this wide world wor done;
An he went an tell'd Jenny, to end all his pains,
He'd made up his mind 'at he'd blow aght his brains,
But shoo cared net a pin,
An shoo sed wi' a grin, - 
"Befoor they're blown aght tha man get some put in."
Young Jessica.
by Thomas Moore

Young Jessica sat all the day,
With heart o'er idle love-thoughts pining;
Her needle bright beside her lay,
So active once!--now idly shining.
Ah, Jessy, 'tis in idle hearts
That love and mischief are most nimble;
The safest shield against the darts
Of Cupid is Minerva's thimble.
The child who with a magnet plays
Well knowing all its arts, so wily,
The tempter near a needle lays.
And laughing says, "We'll steal it slily."
The needle, having naught to do,
Is pleased to let the magnet wheedle;
Till closer, closer come the two,
And--off, at length, elopes the needle.
Now, had this needle turned its eye
To some gay reticule's construction,
It ne'er had strayed from duty's tie,
Nor felt the magnet's sly seduction.
Thus, girls, would you keep quiet hearts,
Your snowy fingers must be nimble;
The safest shield against the darts
Of Cupid is Minerva's thimble.
Th' Lesser Evil.
by John Hartley

Young Harry wor a single chap,
An wod have lots o' tin,
An monny a lass had set her cap,
This temptin prize to win.
But Harry didn't want a wife,
He'd rayther far be free;
An soa escape all care an strife
'At wedded couples see.
But when at last his uncle deed,
An left him all his brass,
'Twor on condition he should wed,
Some honest Yorksher lass.
Soa all his dreamin day an neet
Abaat what sprees he'd have;
He had to bury aght o'th' seet,
Deep in his uncle's grave.
To tak a wife at once, he thowt
Wor th' wisest thing to do,
Soa he lukt raand until he browt
His choice daan between two.
One wor a big, fine, strappin lass,
Her name wor Sarah Ann,
Her height an weight, few could surpass,
Shoo'r fit for onny man.
An t'other wor a little sprite,
Wi' lots o' bonny ways,
An little funny antics, like
A kitten when it plays.
An which to tak he could'nt tell,
He rayther liked 'em booath;
But if he could ha pleased hissen,
To wed one he'd be looath.
A wife he thowt an evil thing,
An sewer to prove a pest;
Soa after sometime studyin
He thowt th' least wod be th' best.
They sooin wor wed, an then he faand
He'd quite enuff to do,
For A'a! shoo wor a twazzy haand,
An tongue enuff for two.
An if he went aght neet or day,
His wife shoo went as weel;
He gat noa chonce to goa astray; - 
Shoo kept him true as steel.
His face grew white, his heead grew bald,
His clooas hung on his rig,
He grew like one 'at's getten stall'd,
Ov this world's whirligig.
One day, he muttered to hissen,
"If aw've pickt th' lesser evil,
Th' poor chap 'at tackles Sarah Ann,
Will wish he'd wed the D - -l."
My Old Friend
by James Whitcomb Riley

You've a manner all so mellow,
My old friend,
That it cheers and warms a fellow,
My old friend,
Just to meet and greet you, and
Feel the pressure of a hand
That one may understand,
My old friend.
Though dimmed in youthful splendor,
My old friend,
Your smiles are still as tender,
My old friend,
And your eyes as true a blue
As your childhood ever knew,
And your laugh as merry, too,
My old friend.
For though your hair is faded,
My old friend,
And your step a trifle jaded,
My old friend,
Old Time, with all his lures
In the trophies he secures,
Leaves young that heart of yours,
My old friend.
And so it is you cheer me,
My old friend,
For to know you still are near me,
My old friend,
Makes my hopes of clearer light,
And my faith of surer sight,
And my soul a purer white,
My old friend.
Love And Truth.
by Charles Sangster

Young Love sat in a rosy bower,
Towards the close of a summer day;
At the evening's dusky hour,
Truth bent her blessed steps that way;
Over her face
Beaming a grace
Never bestowed on child of clay.
Truth looked on with an ardent joy,
Wondering Love could grow so tired;
Hovering o'er him she kissed the boy,
When, with a sudden impulse fired,
Exquisite pains
Burning his veins,
Wildly he woke, as one inspired.
Eagerly Truth embraced the god,
Filling his soul with a sense divine;
Rightly he knew the paths she trod,
Springing from heaven's royal line;
Far had he strayed
From his guardian maid,
Perilling all for his rash design.
Still as they went, the tricksy youth
Wandered afar from the maiden fair;
Many a plot he laid, in sooth,
Wherein the maid could have no share
Sowing his seeds,
Bringing forth weeds,
Seldom a rose, and many a tare.
Save when the maiden was by his side,
Love was erratic, and rarely true;
When she smiled on the graceful bride,
Over the old world rose the new,
Into life's skies
Blending her dyes,
Fairer than those of the rainbow's hue.
Sunny-eyed maidens, whom Love decoys,
Mark well the arts of the wayward youth!
Sorrows he bringeth, disguised as joys,
Rose-hued delights with cores of ruth;
Learn to believe
Love will deceive,
Save when he comes with his guardian, Truth.
Davie Gellatley's Song
by Walter Scott (Sir)

Young men will love thee more fair and more fast;
Heard ye so merry the little bird sing?
Old men's love the longest will last,
And the throstle-cock's head is under his wing.
The young man's wrath is like light straw on fire;
Heard ye so merry the little bird sing?
But like red-hot steel is the old man's ire,
And the throstle-cock's head is under his wing.
The young man will brawl at the evening board;
Heard ye so merry the little bird sing?
But the old man will draw at the dawning the sword,
And the throstle-cock's head is under his wing.
A Sunrise Song.
by Sidney Lanier

Young palmer sun, that to these shining sands
Pourest thy pilgrim's tale, discoursing still
Thy silver passages of sacred lands,
With news of Sepulchre and Dolorous Hill,
Canst thou be he that, yester-sunset warm,
Purple with Paynim rage and wrack desire,
Dashed ravening out of a dusty lair of Storm,
Harried the west, and set the world on fire?
Hast thou perchance repented, Saracen Sun?
Wilt warm the world with peace and dove-desire?
Or wilt thou, ere this very day be done,
Blaze Saladin still, with unforgiving fire?
Baltimore, 1881.
To She Who Is Too Light-Hearted
by Charles Baudelaire

Your head, your gesture, your air,
are lovely, like a lovely landscape:
laughter's alive, in your face,
a fresh breeze in a clear atmosphere.
The dour passer-by you brush past there,
is dazzled by health in flight,
flashing like a brilliant light
from your arms and shoulders.
The resounding colours
with which you sprinkle your dress,
inspire the spirits of poets
with thoughts of dancing flowers.
Those wild clothes are the emblem
of your brightly-hued mind:
madcap by whom I'm terrified,
I hate you, and love you, the same!
Sometimes in a lovely garden
where I trailed my listlessness,
I've felt the sunlight sear my breast
like some ironic weapon:
and Spring's green presence
brought such humiliation
I've levied retribution on
a flower, for Nature's insolence.
So through some night, when the hour
of sensual pleasure sounds,
I'd like to slink, mute coward, bound
for your body's treasure,
to bruise your sorry breast,
to punish your joyful flesh,
form in your startled side, a fresh
wound's yawning depth,
and breath-taking rapture!
through those lips, new and full
more vivid and more beautiful
infuse my venom, my sister!
A Valentine
by Eugene Field

Your gran'ma, in her youth, was quite
As blithe a little maid as you.
And, though her hair is snowy white,
Her eyes still have their maiden blue,
And on her cheeks, as fair as thine,
Methinks a girlish blush would glow
If she recalled the valentine
She got, ah! many years ago.
A valorous youth loved gran'ma then,
And wooed her in that auld lang syne;
And first he told his secret when
He sent the maid that valentine.
No perfumed page nor sheet of gold
Was that first hint of love he sent,
But with the secret gran'pa told--
"I love you"--gran'ma was content.
Go, ask your gran'ma, if you will,
If--though her head be bowed and gray--
If--though her feeble pulse be chill--
True love abideth not for aye;
By that quaint portrait on the wall,
That smiles upon her from above,
Methinks your gran'ma can recall
The sweet divinity of love.
Dear Elsie, here's no page of gold--
No sheet embossed with cunning art--
But here's a solemn pledge of old:
"I love you, love, with all my heart."
And if in what I send you here
You read not all of love expressed,
Go--go to gran'ma, Elsie dear,
And she will tell you all the rest!
Our Home - Our Country
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

For The Semi-Centennial Celebration Of The Settlement Of Cambridge, Mass., December 28, 1880
Your home was mine, - kind Nature's gift;
My love no years can chill;
In vain their flakes the storm-winds sift,
The snow-drop hides beneath the drift,
A living blossom still.
Mute are a hundred long-famed lyres,
Hushed all their golden strings;
One lay the coldest bosom fires,
One song, one only, never tires
While sweet-voiced memory sings.
No spot so lone but echo knows
That dear familiar strain;
In tropic isles, on arctic snows,
Through burning lips its music flows
And rings its fond refrain.
From Pisa's tower my straining sight
Roamed wandering leagues away,
When lo! a frigate's banner bright,
The starry blue, the red, the white,
In far Livorno's bay.
Hot leaps the life-blood from my heart,
Forth springs the sudden tear;
The ship that rocks by yonder mart
Is of my land, my life, a part, - 
Home, home, sweet home, is here!
Fades from my view the sunlit scene, - 
My vision spans the waves;
I see the elm-encircled green,
The tower, - the steeple, - and, between,
The field of ancient graves.
There runs the path my feet would tread
When first they learned to stray;
There stands the gambrel roof that spread
Its quaint old angles o'er my head
When first I saw the day.
The sounds that met my boyish ear
My inward sense salute, - 
The woodnotes wild I loved to hear, - 
The robin's challenge, sharp and clear, - 
The breath of evening's flute.
The faces loved from cradle days, - 
Unseen, alas, how long!
As fond remembrance round them plays,
Touched with its softening moonlight rays,
Through fancy's portal throng.
And see! as if the opening skies
Some angel form had spared
Us wingless mortals to surprise,
The little maid with light-blue eyes,
White necked and golden haired!
. . . . . . . . . .
So rose the picture full in view
I paint in feebler song;
Such power the seamless banner knew
Of red and white and starry blue
For exiles banished long.
Oh, boys, dear boys, who wait as men
To guard its heaven-bright folds,
Blest are the eyes that see again
That banner, seamless now, as then, - 
The fairest earth beholds!
Sweet was the Tuscan air and soft
In that unfading hour,
And fancy leads my footsteps oft
Up the round galleries, high aloft
On Pisa's threatening tower.
And still in Memory's holiest shrine
I read with pride and joy,
"For me those stars of empire shine;
That empire's dearest home is mine;
I am a Cambridge boy!"
Young Love
by Richard Le Gallienne

Young love, all rainbows in the lane,
Brushed by the honeysuckle vines,
Scattered the wild rose in a dream:
A sweeter thing his arm entwines.
Ah, redder lips than any rose!
Ah, sweeter breath than any bee
Sucks from the heart of any flower;
Ah, bosom like the Summer sea!
A fairy creature made of dew
And moonrise and the songs of birds,
And laughter like the running brook,
And little soft, heart-broken words.
Haunted as marble in the moon,
Her whiteness lies on young love's breast.
And living frankincense and myrrh
Her lips that on his lips are pressed.
Her eyes are lost within his eyes,
His eyes in hers are fathoms deep;
Death is not stiller than these twain
That smile as in a magic sleep.
I heard him say as they went by,
Two human flowers in the dew:
"Darling, ah, God, if you should die,
You know, that moment I die, too."
I heard her say: "I could not live
An hour without you"; heard her say:
"My life is in your hands to keep,
To keep, or just to throw away."
I heard him say: "For just us two
The world was made, the stars above
Move in their orbits, to this end:
That you and I should meet and love."
I heard her say: "And God himself
Has us in keeping, heart to heart;
In his great book our names are writ - 
The Book of Those that Never Part."
"How strange it is!" I heard him say;
"How strange!" and yet again, "How strange!
To meet at last, and know this love
Of ours can never fade or change."
"How strange to think that you are mine,
Each little hair of your dear head,
And no one else's in the world - 
How strange it is!" the woman said.
I stand aside to let them pass,
My Autumn face they never see;
Their eyes are on the rising sun,
But 'tis the setting sun for me.
For me no wild rose in the lane,
But only sad autumnal flowers,
And falling shadows and old sighs,
And melancholy drift of hours!
Distich
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

Your face upon a drop of purple wine
Shows like my soul poised on a bead of blood.
From the Turkic of Hussein Baikrani.
The Cushion
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

Your arm should only be
A spring night's dream;
If I accepted it to rest my head upon
There would be rumours
And no delight.
From the Japanese of the daughter of Taira-no Tsu-gu-naka.
Lines To An Infidel, After Having Read His Book Against Christianity
by Thomas Oldham

Your book I've read: I would that I had not!
For what instruction, pleasure, have I got?
Amid that artful labyrinth of doubt
Long, long I wander'd, striving to get out;
Your thread of sophistry, my only clue,
I fondly hoped would guide me rightly through:
That spider's web entangled me the more:
With desperate courage onward still I went,
Until my head was turn'd, my patience spent:
Now, now, at last, thank God! the task is o'er.
I've been a child, who whirls himself about,
Fancying he sees both earth and heaven turn round;
Till giddy, panting, sick, and wearied out,
He falls, and rues his folly on the ground.
The Forest Rill.
by Susanna Moodie

Young Naiad of the sparry grot,
Whose azure eyes before me burn,
In what sequestered lonely spot
Lies hid thy flower-enwreathed urn?
Beneath what mossy bank enshrined,
Within what ivy-mantled nook,
Sheltered alike from sun and wind,
Lies hid thy source, sweet murmuring brook?
Deep buried lies thy airy shell
Beneath thy waters clear;
Far echoing up the woodland dell
Thy wind-swept harp I hear.
I catch its soft and mellow tones
Amid the long grass gliding,
Now broken 'gainst the rugged stones,
In hoarse, deep accents chiding.
The wandering breeze that stirs the grove,
In plaintive moans replying,
To every leafy bough above
His tender tale is sighing;
Ruffled beneath his viewless wing
Thy wavelets fret and wimple,
Now forth rejoicingly they spring
In many a laughing dimple.
To nature's timid lovely queen
Thy sylvan haunts are known;
She seeks thy rushy margin green
To weave her flowery zone;
Light waving o'er thy fairy flood
In all their vernal pride,
She sees her crown of opening buds
Reflected in the tide.
On--on!--for ever brightly on!
Thy lucid waves are flowing,
Thy waters sparkle as they run,
Their long, long journey going;
Bright flashing in the noon-tide beam
O'er stone and pebble breaking,
And onward to some mightier stream
Their slender tribute taking.
Oh such is life! a slender rill,
A stream impelled by Time;
To death's dark caverns flowing still,
To seek a brighter clime.
Though blackened by the stains of earth,
And broken be its course,
From life's pure fount we trace its birth,
Eternity its source!
While floating down the tide of years,
The Christian will not mourn her lot;
There is a hand will dry her tears,
A land where sorrows are forgot.
Though in the crowded page of time
The record of her name may die,
'Tis traced in annals more sublime,
The volume of Eternity!