DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
To James Russell Lowell
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

This is your month, the month of "perfect days,"
Birds in full song and blossoms all ablaze.
Nature herself your earliest welcome breathes,
Spreads every leaflet, every bower inwreathes;
Carpets her paths for your returning feet,
Puts forth her best your coming steps to greet;
And Heaven must surely find the earth in tune
When Home, sweet Home, exhales the breath of June.
These blessed days are waning all too fast,
And June's bright visions mingling with the past;
Lilacs have bloomed and faded, and the rose
Has dropped its petals, but the clover blows,
And fills its slender tubes with honeyed sweets;
The fields are pearled with milk-white margarites;
The dandelion, which you sang of old,
Has lost its pride of place, its crown of gold,
But still displays its feathery-mantled globe,
Which children's breath, or wandering winds unrobe.
These were your humble friends; your opened eyes
Nature had trained her common gifts to prize;
Not Cam nor Isis taught you to despise
Charles, with his muddy margin and the harsh,
Plebeian grasses of the reeking marsh.
New England's home-bred scholar, well you knew
Her soil, her speech, her people, through and through,
And loved them ever with the love that holds
All sweet, fond memories in its fragrant folds.
Though far and wide your winged words have flown,
Your daily presence kept you all our own,
Till, with a sorrowing sigh, a thrill of pride,
We heard your summons, and you left our side
For larger duties and for tasks untried.
How pleased the Spaniards for a while to claim
This frank Hidalgo with the liquid name,
Who stored their classics on his crowded shelves
And loved their Calderon as they did themselves!
Before his eyes what changing pageants pass!
The bridal feast how near the funeral mass!
The death-stroke falls, - the Misereres wail;
The joy-bells ring, - the tear-stained cheeks unveil,
While, as the playwright shifts his pictured scene,
The royal mourner crowns his second queen.
From Spain to Britain is a goodly stride, - 
Madrid and London long-stretched leagues divide.
What if I send him, "Uncle S., says he,"
To my good cousin whom he calls "J. B."?
A nation's servants go where they are sent, - 
He heard his Uncle's orders, and he went.
By what enchantments, what alluring arts,
Our truthful James led captive British hearts, - 
Whether his shrewdness made their statesmen halt,
Or if his learning found their Dons at fault,
Or if his virtue was a strange surprise,
Or if his wit flung star-dust in their eyes, - 
Like honest Yankees we can simply guess;
But that he did it all must needs confess.
England herself without a blush may claim
Her only conqueror since the Norman came.
Eight years an exile! What a weary while
Since first our herald sought the mother isle!
His snow-white flag no churlish wrong has soiled, - -
He left unchallenged, he returns unspoiled.
Here let us keep him, here he saw the light, - 
His genius, wisdom, wit, are ours by right;
And if we lose him our lament will be
We have "five hundred" - not "as good as he."
Christmas In War-Time
by Richard Le Gallienne

1
This is the year that has no Christmas Day,
Even the little children must be told
That something sad is happening far away - 
Or, if you needs must play,
As children must,
Play softly children, underneath your breath!
For over our hearts hangs low the shadow of death,
Those hearts to you mysteriously old,
Grim grown-up hearts that ponder night and day
On the straight lists of broken-hearted dead,
Black narrow lists no tears can wash away,
Reading in which one cries out here and here
And falls into a dream upon a name.
Be happy softly, children, for a woe
Is on us, a great woe for little fame, - 
Ah! in the old woods leave the mistletoe,
And leave the holly for another year,
Its berries are too red.
2
And lovers, like to children, will not you
Cease for a little from your kissing mirth,
Thinking of other lovers that must go
Kissed back with fire into the bosom of earth, - 
Ah! in the old woods leave the mistletoe,
Be happy, softly, lovers, for you too
Shall be as sad as they another year,
And then for you the holly be berries of blood,
And mistletoe strange berries of bitter tears.
Ah! lovers, leave you your beatitude,
Give your sad eyes and ears
To the far griefs of neighbour and of friend,
To the great loves that find a little end,
Long loves that in a sudden puff of fire
With a wild thought expire.
3
And you, ye merchants, you that eat and cheat,
Gold-seeking hucksters in a noble land,
Think, when you lift the wine up in your hand,
Of a fierce vintage tragically red,
Red wine of the hearts of English soldiers dead,
Who ran to a wild death with laughing feet - 
That we may sleep and drink and eat and cheat.
Ah! you brave few that fight for all the rest,
And die with smiling faces strangely blest,
Because you die for England - O to do
Something again for you,
In this great deed to have some little part;
To send so great a message from the heart
Of England that one man shall be as ten,
Hearing how England loves her Englishmen!
Ah! think you that a single gun is fired
We do not hear in England. Ah! we hear,
And mothers go with proud unhappy eyes
That say: It is for England that he dies,
England that does the cruel work of God,
And gives her well beloved to save the world.
For this is death like to a woman desired,
For this the wine-press trod.
4
And you in churches, praying this Christmas morn,
Pray as you never prayed that this may be
The little war that brought the great world peace;
Undazzled with its glorious infamy,
O pray with all your hearts that war may cease,
And who knows but that God may hear the prayer.
So it may come about next Christmas Day
That we shall hear the happy children play
Gladly aloud, unmindful of the dead,
And watch the lovers go
To the old woods to find the mistletoe.
But this year, children, if you needs must play,
Play very softly, underneath your breath;
Be happy softly, lovers, for great Death
Makes England holy with sorrow this Christmas Day;
Yes! in the old woods leave the mistletoe,
And leave the holly for another year - 
Its berries are too red.
[Christmas, 1899 - Written during the Boer War.]
A Clear Midnight
by Walt Whitman

This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou
lovest best.
Night, sleep, and the stars.
An Alliance
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

This is the weird of a world-old folk,
That not till the last link breaks,
Not till the night is blackest,
The blood of Hengist wakes.
When the sun is black in heaven,
The moon as blood above,
And the earth is full of hatred,
This people tells its love.
In change, eclipse, and peril,
Under the whole world's scorn,
By blood and death and darkness
The Saxon peace is sworn;
That all our fruit be gathered,
And all our race take hands,
And the sea be a Saxon river
That runs through Saxon lands.
Lo! not in vain we bore him;
Behold it! not in vain,
Four centuries' dooms of torture
Choked in the throat of Spain,
Ere priest or tyrant triumph--
We know how well--we know--
Bone of that bone can whiten,
Blood of that blood can flow.
Deep grows the hate of kindred,
Its roots take hold on hell;
No peace or praise can heal it,
But a stranger heals it well.
Seas shall be red as sunsets,
And kings' bones float as foam,
And heaven be dark with vultures,
The night our son comes home.
Composed In The Glen Of Loch Etive
by William Wordsworth

"This Land of Rainbows spanning glens whose walls,
Rock-built, are hung with rainbow-coloured mists
Of far-stretched Meres whose salt flood never rests
Of tuneful Caves and playful Waterfalls
Of Mountains varying momently their crests
Proud be this Land! whose poorest huts are halls
Where Fancy entertains becoming guests;
While native song the heroic Past recalls."
Thus, in the net of her own wishes caught,
The Muse exclaimed; but Story now must hide
Her trophies, Fancy crouch; the course of pride
Has been diverted, other lessons taught,
That make the Patriot-spirit bow her head
Where the all-conquering Roman feared to tread.
On Lucy, Countess Of Bedford
by Ben Jonson

This morning, timely rapt with holy fire,
I thought to form unto my zealous Muse    
What kind of creature I could most desire,
To honour, serve, and love; as poets use.
I meant to make her fair, and free, and wise,
Of greatest blood, and yet more good than great;
I meant the day-star should not brighter rise,
Nor lend like influence from his lucent seat.
I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet,
Hating that solemn vice of greatness, pride;
I meant each softest virtue there should meet,
Fit in that softer bosom to reside.
Only a learn'd and a manly soul
I purposed her; that should, with even powers,
The rock, the spindle, and the shears control
Of Destiny, and spin her own free hours.
Such when I meant to feign, and wished to see,
My Muse bade Bedford write, and that was she.
Inscription V. For A Monument At Silbury-Hill.
by Robert Southey

This mound in some remote and dateless day
Rear'd o'er a Chieftain of the Age [1] of Hills,
May here detain thee Traveller! from thy road
Not idly lingering. In his narrow house
Some Warrior sleeps below: his gallant deeds
Haply at many a solemn festival
The Bard has harp'd, but perish'd is the song
Of praise, as o'er these bleak and barren downs
The wind that passes and is heard no more.
Go Traveller on thy way, and contemplate
Glory's brief pageant, and remember then
That one good deed was never wrought in vain.
This Life Is All Checkered With Pleasures And Woes
by Thomas Moore

This life is all checkered with pleasures and woes,
That chase one another like waves of the deep,--
Each brightly or darkly, as onward it flows,
Reflecting our eyes, as they sparkle or weep.
So closely our whims on our miseries tread,
That the laugh is awaked ere the tear can be dried;
And, as fast as the rain-drop of Pity is shed.
The goose-plumage of Folly can turn it aside.
But pledge me the cup--if existence would cloy,
With hearts ever happy, and heads ever wise,
Be ours the light Sorrow, half-sister to Joy,
And the light, brilliant Folly that flashes and dies.
When Hylas was sent with his urn to the fount,
Thro' fields full of light, and with heart full of play,
Light rambled the boy, over meadow and mount,
And neglected his task for the flowers on the way.
Thus many, like me, who in youth should have tasted
The fountain that runs by Philosophy's shrine,
Their time with the flowers on the margin have wasted,
And left their light urns all as empty as mine.
But pledge me the goblet;--while Idleness weaves
These flowerets together, should Wisdom but see
One bright drop or two that has fallen on the leaves
From her fountain divine, 'tis sufficient for me.
The Regret of the Ranee in the Hall of Peacocks
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

This man has taken my Husband's life
And laid my Brethren low,
No sister indeed, were I, no wife,
To pardon and let him go.
Yet why does he look so young and slim
As he weak and wounded lies?
How hard for me to be harsh to him
With his soft, appealing eyes.
His hair is ruffled upon the stone
And the slender wrists are bound,
So young! and yet he has overthrown
His scores on the battle ground.
Would I were only a slave to-day,
To whom it were right and meet
To wash the stains of the War away,
The dust from the weary feet.
Were I but one of my serving girls
To solace his pain to rest!
Shake out the sand from the soft loose curls,
And hold him against my breast!
Have we such beauty around our Throne?
Such lithe and delicate strength?
Would God that I were the senseless stone
To support his slender length!
I hate those wounds that trouble my sight,
Unknown! how I wish you lay,
Alone in my silken tent to-night
While I charmed the pain away.
I would lay you down on the Royal bed,
I would bathe your wounds with wine,
And setting your feet against my head
Dream you were lover of mine.
My Crown is heavy upon my hair,
The Jewels weigh on my breast,
All I would leave, with delight, to share
Your pale and passionate rest!
But hands grow restless about their swords,
Lips murmur below their breath,
"The Queen is silent too long!"    "My Lords,
- Take him away to death!"
This Lawn, A Carpet All Alive
by William Wordsworth

This Lawn, a carpet all alive
With shadows flung from leaves, to strive
In dance, amid a press
Of sunshine, an apt emblem yields
Of Worldlings reveling in the fields
Of strenuous idleness;
Less quick the stir when tide and breeze
Encounter, and to narrow seas
Forbid a moment's rest;
The medley less when boreal Lights
Glance to and fro, like aery Sprites
To feats of arms addrest!
Yet, spite of all this eager strife,
This ceaseless play, the genuine life
That serves the stedfast hours,
Is in the grass beneath, that grows
Unheeded, and the mute repose
Of sweetly-breathing flowers.
Apostasy.
by Charlotte Bronte

This last denial of my faith,
Thou, solemn Priest, hast heard;
And, though upon my bed of death,
I call not back a word.
Point not to thy Madonna, Priest,
Thy sightless saint of stone;
She cannot, from this burning breast,
Wring one repentant moan.
Thou say'st, that when a sinless child,
I duly bent the knee,
And prayed to what in marble smiled
Cold, lifeless, mute, on me.
I did. But listen! Children spring
Full soon to riper youth;
And, for Love's vow and Wedlock's ring,
I sold my early truth.
'Twas not a grey, bare head, like thine,
Bent o'er me, when I said,
"That land and God and Faith are mine,
For which thy fathers bled."
I see thee not, my eyes are dim;
But well I hear thee say,
"O daughter cease to think of him
Who led thy soul astray.
"Between you lies both space and time;
Let leagues and years prevail
To turn thee from the path of crime,
Back to the Church's pale."
And, did I need that, thou shouldst tell
What mighty barriers rise
To part me from that dungeon-cell,
Where my loved Walter lies?
And, did I need that thou shouldst taunt
My dying hour at last,
By bidding this worn spirit pant
No more for what is past?
Priest, MUST I cease to think of him?
How hollow rings that word!
Can time, can tears, can distance dim
The memory of my lord?
I said before, I saw not thee,
Because, an hour agone,
Over my eyeballs, heavily,
The lids fell down like stone.
But still my spirit's inward sight
Beholds his image beam
As fixed, as clear, as burning bright,
As some red planet's gleam.
Talk not of thy Last Sacrament,
Tell not thy beads for me;
Both rite and prayer are vainly spent,
As dews upon the sea.
Speak not one word of Heaven above,
Rave not of Hell's alarms;
Give me but back my Walter's love,
Restore me to his arms!
Then will the bliss of Heaven be won;
Then will Hell shrink away,
As I have seen night's terrors shun
The conquering steps of day.
'Tis my religion thus to love,
My creed thus fixed to be;
Not Death shall shake, nor Priestcraft break
My rock-like constancy!
Now go; for at the door there waits
Another stranger guest;
He calls, I come, my pulse scarce beats,
My heart fails in my breast.
Again that voice, how far away,
How dreary sounds that tone!
And I, methinks, am gone astray
In trackless wastes and lone.
I fain would rest a little while:
Where can I find a stay,
Till dawn upon the hills shall smile,
And show some trodden way?
"I come! I come!" in haste she said,
"'Twas Walter's voice I heard!"
Then up she sprang, but fell back, dead,
His name her latest word.
The Water Lily
by Joseph Horatio Chant

This lovely lily, so pure and white,
Seems covered o'er with celestial light;
As if it grew on the "Tree of Life,"
And not down here, in this world of strife;
Too pure for earth it now seems to be;
My queenly wife, it was meant for thee.
Its wax-like petals with graceful bend,
Drink in the sunbeams as they descend;
And lade with fragrance the heated air
As it floats around us everywhere;
And the world grows better by its advent,
This lovely lily, so kindly sent.
It rested once on its crystal bed;
Neither wind, nor wave, occasioned dread;
Admired by all as they passed it by,
Though the contrast oft produced a sigh;
In purer soil than affords this earth
This lovely lily must have had its birth.
Dive down in search, where the root is found;
In vain you look for the purer ground;
The root is fixed in the foulest mud;
And from it grows this pure lily bud;
While speckled frogs, and the slimy eels,
Around its roots find their daily meals.
As lilies fair from the foul mud grow,
So oft it is with good men below;
In daily life they absorb the pure,
And the adverse elements endure;
And rise, through grace, to a higher sphere,
Their hearts in heaven, and their root down here.
Though foul the world where they have their growth,
Unfit the soil, and the climate both,
The blood of Christ does their stains remove;
His power to keep they all daily prove;
As lilies pure are these plants of grace,
Though growing now in so foul a place.
The Yak.
by Oliver Herford

THIS is the Yak, so neg-li-g'e:
His coif-fure's like a stack of hay;
He lives so far from Any-where,
I fear the Yak neg-lects his hair,
And thinks, since there is none to see,
What mat-ter how un-kempt he be.
How would he feel if he but knew
That in this Pic-ture-book I drew
His Phys-i-og-no-my un-shorn,
For chil-dren to de-ride and scorn?
This Life Which Seems So Fair
by William Henry Drummond

This Life, which seems so fair,
Is like a bubble blown up in the air
By sporting children's breath,
Who chase it everywhere
And strive who can most motion it bequeath.
And though it sometimes seem of its own might
Like to an eye of gold to be fixed there,
And firm to hover in that empty height,
That only is because it is so light.
But in that pomp it doth not long appear;
For when 'tis most admired, in a thought,
Because it erst was nought, it turns to nought.
The Divine Vision
by George William Russell

This mood hath known all beauty for it sees
O'erwhelmed majesties
In these pale forms, and kingly crowns of gold
On brows no longer bold,
And through the shadowy terrors of their hell
The love for which they fell,
And how desire which cast them in the deep
Called God too from his sleep.
O, pity, only seer, who looking through
A heart melted like dew,
Seest the long perished in the present thus,
For ever dwell in us.
Whatever time thy golden eyelids ope
They travel to a hope;
Not only backward from these low degrees
To starry dynasties,
But, looking far where now the silence owns
And rules from empty thrones,
Thou seest the enchanted halls of heaven burn
For joy at our return.
Thy tender kiss hath memory we are kings
For all our wanderings.
Thy shining eyes already see the after
In hidden light and laughter.
The Mystery.
by Margaret Steele Anderson

This is your cup, the cup assigned to you
From the beginning. Yea, my child, I know
How much of that dark drink is your own, brew
Of fault and passion. Ages long ago,
In the deep years of yesterday, I knew.
This is your road, a painful road and drear.
I made the stones, that never give you rest;
I set your friend in pleasant ways and clear.
And he shall come, like you, unto my breast;
But you, my weary child!, must travel here.
This is your work. It has no fame, no grace,
But is not meant for any other hand.
And in my universe hath measured place.
Take it; I do not bid you understand;
I bid you close your eyes, to see my face!
Written In The Cottage Where Burns Was Born
by John Keats

This mortal body of a thousand days
Now fills, O Burns, a space in thine own room,
Where thou didst dream alone on budded bays,
Happy and thoughtless of thy day of doom!
My pulse is warm with thine old barley-bree,
My head is light with pledging a great soul,
My eyes are wandering, and I cannot see,
Fancy is dead and drunken at its goal;
Yet can I stamp my foot upon thy floor,
Yet can I ope thy window-sash to find
The meadow thou hast tramped o'er and o'er,
Yet can I think of thee till thought is blind,
Yet can I gulp a bumper to thy name,
O smile among the shades, for this is fame!
Short And Long Both Likes.
by Robert Herrick

This lady's short, that mistress she is tall;
But long or short, I'm well content with all.
Another
by Thomas Carew

This little vault, this narrow room,
Of Love and Beauty is the tomb;
The dawning beam, that 'gan to clear
Our clouded sky, lies darken'd here,
For ever set to us: by Death
Sent to enflame the World Beneath.
'Twas but a bud, yet did contain
More sweetness than shall spring again;
A budding Star, that might have grown
Into a Sun when it had blown.
This hopeful Beauty did create
New life in Love's declining state;
But now his empire ends, and we
From fire and wounding darts are free;
His brand, his bow, let no man fear:
The flames, the arrows, all lie here.
Thistledown
by Harold Edward Monro

This might have been a place for sleep,
But, as from that small hollow there
Hosts of bright thistledown begin
Their dazzling journey through the air,
An idle man can only stare.
They grip their withered edge of stalk
In brief excitement for the wind;
They hold a breathless final talk,
And when their filmy cables part
One almost hears a little cry.
Some cling together while they wait,
And droop and gaze and hesitate,
But others leap along the sky,
Or circle round and calmly choose
The gust they know they ought to use;
While some in loving pairs will glide,
Or watch the others as they pass,
Or rest on flowers in the grass,
Or circle through the shining day
Like silvery butterflies at play.
Some catch themselves to every mound,
Then lingeringly and slowly move
As if they knew the precious ground
Were opening for their fertile love:
They almost try to dig, they need
So much to plant their thistle-seed.
The Infinite.
by Giacomo Leopardi

This lonely hill to me was ever dear,
This hedge, which shuts from view so large a part
Of the remote horizon. As I sit
And gaze, absorbed, I in my thought conceive
The boundless spaces that beyond it range,
The silence supernatural, and rest
Profound; and for a moment I am calm.
And as I listen to the wind, that through
These trees is murmuring, its plaintive voice
I with that infinite compare;
And things eternal I recall, and all
The seasons dead, and this, that round me lives,
And utters its complaint. Thus wandering
My thought in this immensity is drowned;
And sweet to me is shipwreck on this sea.
The Hour
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

This is the world's stupendous hour - 
The supreme moment for the race
To see the emptiness of power,
The worthlessness of wealth and place,
To see the purpose and the plan
Conceived by God for growing man.
And they who see and comprehend
That ultimate and lofty aim
Will wait in patience for the end,
Knowing injustice cannot claim
One lasting victory, or control
Laws that bar progress for the whole.
This is an epoch-making time;
God thunders through the universe
A message glorious and sublime,
At once a blessing and a curse.
Blessings for those who seek His light,
Curses for those whose law is might.
Ephemeral as the sunset glow
Is human grandeur.    Mortal life
Was given that souls might seek and know
Immortal truths; and through the strife
That shakes the earth from land to land
The wise shall hear and understand.
Out of the awful holocaust,
Out of the whirlwind and the flood,
Out of old creeds to Bedlam tossed,
Shall rise a new earth washed in blood - 
A new race filled with spirit power,
This is the world's stupendous hour.
Weathers
by Thomas Hardy

I
This is the weather the cuckoo likes,
And so do I;
When showers betumble the chestnut spikes,
And nestlings fly:
And the little brown nightingale bills his best,
And they sit outside at "The Travellers' Rest,"
And maids come forth sprig-muslin drest,
And citizens dream of the south and west,
And so do I.
II
This is the weather the shepherd shuns,
And so do I;
When beeches drip in browns and duns,
And thresh, and ply;
And hill-hid tides throb, throe on throe,
And meadow rivulets overflow,
And drops on gate-bars hang in a row,
And rooks in families homeward go,
And so do I.