DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
To The Heroic Soul
by Duncan Campbell Scott

I
Nurture thyself, O Soul, from the clear spring
That wells beneath the secret inner shrine;
Commune with its deep murmur, - 'tis divine;
Be faithful to the ebb and flow that bring
The outer tide of Spirit to trouble and swing
The inlet of thy being. Learn to know
These powers, and life with all its venom and show
Shall have no force to dazzle thee or sting:
And when Grief comes thou shalt have suffered more
Than all the deepest woes of all the world;
Joy, dancing in, shall find thee nourished with mirth;
Wisdom shall find her Master at thy door;
And Love shall find thee crowned with love empearled;
And death shall touch thee not but a new birth.
II
Be strong, O warring soul! For very sooth
Kings are but wraiths, republics fade like rain,
Peoples are reaped and garnered as the grain,
And that alone prevails which is the truth:
Be strong when all the days of life bear ruth
And fury, and are hot with toil and strain:
Hold thy large faith and quell thy mighty pain:
Dream the great dream that buoys thine age with youth.
Thou art an eagle mewed in a sea-stopped cave:
He, poised in darkness with victorious wings,
Keeps night between the granite and the sea,
Until the tide has drawn the warder-wave:
Then from the portal where the ripple rings,
He bursts into the boundless morning, - free!
To Laura In Death. Sonnet XII.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Mai non fu' in parte ove s' chiar' vedessi.
VAUCLUSE.
Nowhere before could I so well have seen
Her whom my soul most craves since lost to view;
Nowhere in so great freedom could have been
Breathing my amorous lays 'neath skies so blue;
Never with depths of shade so calm and green
A valley found for lover's sigh more true;
Methinks a spot so lovely and serene
Love not in Cyprus nor in Gnidos knew.
All breathes one spell, all prompts and prays that I
Like them should love--the clear sky, the calm hour,
Winds, waters, birds, the green bough, the gay flower--
But thou, beloved, who call'st me from on high,
By the sad memory of thine early fate,
Pray that I hold the world and these sweet snares in hate.
MACGREGOR.
Never till now so clearly have I seen
Her whom my eyes desire, my soul still views;
Never enjoy'd a freedom thus serene;
Ne'er thus to heaven breathed my enamour'd muse,
As in this vale sequester'd, darkly green;
Where my soothed heart its pensive thought pursues,
And nought intrusively may intervene,
And all my sweetly-tender sighs renews.
To Love and meditation, faithful shade,
Receive the breathings of my grateful breast!
Love not in Cyprus found so sweet a nest
As this, by pine and arching laurel made!
The birds, breeze, water, branches, whisper love;
Herb, flower, and verdant path the lay symphonious move.
CAPEL LOFFT.
Starlight
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

O beautiful Stars, when you see me go
Hither and thither, in search of love,
Do you think me faithless, who gleam and glow
Serene and fixed in the blue above?
O Stars, so golden, it is not so.
But there is a garden I dare not see,
There is a place where I fear to go,
Since the charm and glory of life to me
The brown earth covered there, long ago.
O Stars, you saw it, you know, you know.
Hither and thither I wandering go,
With aimless haste and wearying fret;
In a search for pleasure and love?    Not so,
Seeking desperately to forget.
You see so many, O Stars, you know.
Odes From Horace. - [1]To The Fountain Of Blandusia. Book The Third, Ode The Thirteenth.
by Anna Seward

Nymph of the stream, whose source perpetual pours
The living waters thro' the sparkling sand,
Cups of bright wine, enwreath'd with summer flowers,
For rich libation, round thy brink shall stand,
When on the morrow, at thy Bard's decree,
A young and spotless Kid is sacrificed to thee.
He, while his brows the primal antlers swell,
Conscious of strength, and gay of heart prepares
To meet the female, and the foe repel. - 
In vain he wishes, and in vain he dares!
His ardent blood thy pebbly bed shall stain,
Till each translucent wave flows crimson to the plain.
In vain shall Sirius shake his fiery hairs
O'er thy pure flood, with waving poplars veil'd,
For thou, when most his sultry influence glares,
Refreshing shade, and cooling draughts shalt yield
To all the flocks, that thro' the valley stray,
And to the wearied steers, unyok'd at closing day.
Now dear to Fame, sweet Fountain, shalt thou flow,
Since to my lyre those breathing shades I sing
That crown the hollow rock's incumbent brow,
From which thy soft, loquacious waters spring.
To vie with streams Aonian be thy pride,
As thro' Blandusia's Vale thy silver currents glide!
Overheard On A Saltmarsh
by Harold Edward Monro

Nymph, nymph, what are your beads?
Green glass, goblin. Why do you stare at them?
Give them me.
No.
Give them me. Give them me.
No.
Then I will howl all night in the reeds,
Lie in the mud and howl for them.
Goblin, why do you love them so?
They are better than stars or water,
Better than voices of winds that sing,
Better than any man's fair daughter,
Your green glass beads on a silver ring.
Hush, I stole them out of the moon.
Give me your beads, I want them.
No.
I will howl in a deep lagoon
For your green glass beads, I love them so.
Give them me. Give them.
No.
The Sweet Little Man
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Dedicated To The Stay-At-Home Rangers
Now, while our soldiers are fighting our battles,
Each at his post to do all that he can,
Down among rebels and contraband chattels,
What are you doing, my sweet little man?
All the brave boys under canvas are sleeping,
All of them pressing to march with the van,
Far from the home where their sweethearts are weeping;
What are you waiting for, sweet little man?
You with the terrible warlike mustaches,
Fit for a colonel or chief of a clan,
You with the waist made for sword-belts and sashes,
Where are your shoulder-straps, sweet little man?
Bring him the buttonless garment of woman!
Cover his face lest it freckle and tan;
Muster the Apron-String Guards on the Common,
That is the corps for the sweet little man!
Give him for escort a file of young misses,
Each of them armed with a deadly rattan;
They shall defend him from laughter and hisses,
Aimed by low boys at the sweet little man.
All the fair maidens about him shall cluster,
Pluck the white feathers from bonnet and fan,
Make him a plume like a turkey-wing duster, - 
That is the crest for the sweet little man!
Oh, but the Apron-String Guards are the fellows
Drilling each day since our troubles began, - 
"Handle your walking-sticks!"    "Shoulder umbrellas!"
That is the style for the sweet little man!
Have we a nation to save? In the first place
Saving ourselves is the sensible plan, - 
Surely the spot where there's shooting's the worst place
Where I can stand, says the sweet little man.
Catch me confiding my person with strangers!
Think how the cowardly Bull-Runners ran!
In the brigade of the Stay-at-Home Rangers
Marches my corps, says the sweet little man.
Such was the stuff of the Malakoff-takers,
Such were the soldiers that scaled the Redan;
Truculent housemaids and bloodthirsty Quakers,
Brave not the wrath of the sweet little man!
Yield him the sidewalk, ye nursery maidens!
Sauve qui peut! Bridget, and right about! Ann; - 
Fierce as a shark in a school of menhadens,
See him advancing, the sweet little man!
When the red flails of the battle-field's threshers
Beat out the continent's wheat from its bran,
While the wind scatters the chaffy seceshers,
What will become of our sweet little man?
When the brown soldiers come back from the borders,
How will he look while his features they scan?
How will he feel when he gets marching orders,
Signed by his lady love? sweet little man!
Fear not for him, though the rebels expect him, - 
Life is too precious to shorten its span;
Woman her broomstick shall raise to protect him,
Will she not fight for the sweet little man?
Now then, nine cheers for the Stay-at-Home Ranger!
Blow the great fish-horn and beat the big pan!
First in the field that is farthest from danger,
Take your white-feather plume, sweet little man!
Zu der edlen Yagd - [A Treatise On Trees'Vine-tree v. Saddle-Tree]
by Adam Lindsay Gordon

'Now, welcome, welcome, masters mine,
Thrice welcome to the noble chase,
Nor earthly sport, nor sport divine,
Can take such honourable place.'
- Ballad of the Wild Huntsman. (Free Translation.)
I remember some words my father said,
When I was an urchin vain;
God rest his soul, in his narrow bed
These ten long years he hath lain.
When I think one drop of the blood he bore
This faint heart surely must hold,
It may be my fancy and nothing more,
But the faint heart seemeth bold.
He said that as from the blood of grape,
Or from juice distilled from the grain,
False vigour, soon to evaporate,
Is lent to nerve and brain,
So the coward will dare on the gallant horse
What he never would dare alone,
Because he exults in a borrowed force,
And a hardihood not his own.
And it may be so, yet this difference lies
'Twixt the vine and the saddle-tree,
The spurious courage that drink supplies
Sets our baser passions free;
But the stimulant which the horseman feels
When he gallops fast and straight,
To his better nature most appeals,
And charity conquers hate.
As the kindly sunshine thaws the snow,
E'en malice and spite will yield,
We could almost welcome our mortal foe
In the saddle by flood and field;
And chivalry dawns in the merry tale
That 'Market Harborough' writes,
And the yarns of 'Nimrod' and 'Martingale'
Seem legends of loyal knights.
Now tell me for once, old horse of mine,
Grazing round me loose and free,
Does your ancient equine heart repine
For a burst in such companie,
Where 'the powers that be' in the front rank ride,
To hold your own with the throng,
Or to plunge at 'Faugh-a-Ballagh's' side
In the rapids of Dandenong.
Don't tread on my toes, you're no foolish weight,
So I found to my cost, as under
Your carcase I lay, when you rose too late,
Yet I blame you not for the blunder.
What! sulky old man, your under-lip falls!
You think I, too, ready to rail am
At your kinship remote to that duffer at walls,
The talkative roadster of Balaam.
Litanies Of Satan
by Charles Baudelaire

O Angel, the most brilliant and most wise,
A God betrayed by fate, deprived of praise,
Satan, take pity on my misery!
O Prince of exile, you who have been wronged,
Who, even conquered, rises yet more strong,
Satan, take pity on my misery!
Great king who knows the lore the earth imparts,
Intimate healer of our anguished hearts,
Satan, take pity on my misery!
Who, even to the leprous, the despised,
Can teach by love the taste for Paradise,
Satan, take pity on my misery!
Who with your old and hardy mistress, Death,
Breeds Hope, a charming lunatic at best,
Satan, take pity on my misery!
Who gives the prisoner his calm disdain,
Who damns the crowds around the guillotine,
Satan, take pity on my misery!
Who knows which comers of the envious lands
The jealous God has picked to hide his gems,
Satan, take pity on my misery!
Whose clear eye sees the deepest-lying stores
Where, buried, sleep the metals and the ores,
Satan, take pity on my misery!
Whose large hand overrides the sudden edge
For the somnambulist who walks the ledge,
Satan, take pity on my misery!
Whose magic gives a strength to ancient bones
Of drunkards trampled on the cobblestones,
Satan, take pity on my misery!
Who, to console us in our fearful lot,
Taught us the mysteries of shell and shot,
Satan, take pity on my misery!
Whose mark, astute accomplice, will be found
On Croesus' mean and unforgiving brow,
Satan, take pity on my misery!
Who sees that women's hearts and eyes sustain
The love of rags, the cult of wounds and pain,
Satan, take pity on my misery!
Staff of the exiles, the inventor's lamp,
Confessor of the hanged, plotters and tramps,
Satan, take pity on my misery!
Adoptive father of those ostracized
By God, and banished from his paradise,
Satan, take pity on my misery!
Prayer
Glory and praise to Satan, where you reigned
In Heaven, and in depths of Hell the same,
Where now you dream in silent reverie!
And may my soul take rest beneath the Tree
Of Knowledge with you, when above your head
Like a new Temple, those great branches spread!
For Australia
by Henry Lawson

Now, with the wars of the world begun, they'll listen to you and me,
Now while the frightened nations run to the arms of democracy,
Now, when our blathering fools are scared, and the years have proved us right,
All unprovided and unprepared, the Outpost of the White!
"Get the people, no matter how," that is the way they rave,
Could a million paupers aid us now, or a tinpot squadron save?
The "loyal" drivel, the blatant boast are as shames that used to be,
Our fight shall be a fight for the coast, with the future for the sea!
We must turn our face to the only track that will take us through the worst,
Cable to charter that we lack, guns and cartridges first,
New machines that will make machines till our factories are complete,
Block the shoddy and Brummagem, pay them with wool and wheat.
Build to-morrow the foundry shed ['tis a task we dare not shirk],
Lay the runs and the engine-bed, and get the gear to work.
Have no fear when we raise the steam in the hurried factory,
We are not lacking in the brains that teem with originality.
Have no fear for the way is clear, we'll shackle the hands of greed,
Every lad is an engineer in his country's hour of need;
Many are brilliant, swift to learn, quick at invention too,
Born inventors whose young hearts burn to show what the South can do!
To show what the South can do, done well, and more than the North can do.
They'll make us the cartridge and make the shell, and the gun to carry true,
Give us the gear and the South is strong - and the docks shall yield us more;
The national arm like the national song comes with the first great war.
Books of science from every land, volumes on gunnery,
Practical teachers we have at hand, masters of chemistry.
Clear young heads that will sift and think in spite of authorities,
And brains that shall leap from invention's brink at the clash of factories.
Still be noble in peace or war, raise the national spirit high;
And this be our watchword for evermore: "For Australia, till we die!"
Inscription For The Apollo Belvidere
by Thomas Oldham

O all ye Sons of Taste! with raptured sight
Behold this image of the God of light;
Admire its whole, admire its every part;
'Tis sculpture's master-work, the boast of Art.
Not with more glory in his heavenly sphere
The God appears, than in his Image here.
Sonnet CCXV.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

O dolci sguardi, o parolette accorte.
HE SIGHS FOR THOSE GLANCES FROM WHICH, TO HIS GRIEF, FORTUNE EVER DELIGHTS TO WITHDRAW HIM.
O angel looks! O accents of the skies!
Shall I or see or hear you once again?
O golden tresses, which my heart enchain,
And lead it forth, Love's willing sacrifice!
O face of beauty given in anger's guise,
Which still I not enjoy, and still complain!
O dear delusion! O bewitching pain!
Transports, at once my punishment and prize!
If haply those soft eyes some kindly beam
(Eyes, where my soul and all my thoughts reside)
Vouchsafe, in tender pity to bestow;
Sudden, of all my joys the murtheress tried,
Fortune with steed or ship dispels the gleam;
Fortune, with stern behest still prompt to work my woe.
WRANGHAM.
O gentle looks! O words of heavenly sound!
Shall I behold you, hear you once again?
O waving locks, that Love has made the chain,
In which this wretched ruin'd heart is bound!
O face divine! whose magic spells surround
My soul, distemper'd with unceasing pain:
O dear deceit! O loving errors vain!
To hug the dart and doat upon the wound!
Did those soft eyes, in whose angelic light
My life, my thoughts, a constant mansion find,
Ever impart a pure unmixed delight?
Or if they have one moment, then unkind
Fortune steps in, and sends me from their sight,
And gives my opening pleasures to the wind.
MOREHEAD.
The Heid Horseman
by Violet Jacob

O Alec, up at Soutar's fairm,
You, that's sae licht o' he'rt,
I ken ye passin' by the tune
Ye whustle i' the cairt;
I hear the rowin' o' the wheels,
The clink o' haims an' chain,
And set abune yer stampin' team
I see ye sit yer lane.
Ilk morn, agin' the kindlin' sky
Yer liftit heid is black,
Ilk nicht I watch ye hameward ride
Wi' the sunset at yer back.
For wark's yer meat and wark's yer play,
Heid horseman tho' ye be,
Ye've ne'er a glance for wife nor maid,
Ye tak nae tent o' me.
An' man, ye'll no suspec' the truth,
Tho' weel I ken it's true,
There's mony ane that trails in silk
Wha fain wad gang wi' you.
But I am just a serving lass,
Wha toils to get her breid,
An' O! ye're sweir to see the gowd
I braid about my heid.
My cheek is like the brier rose,
That scents the simmer wind,
An fine I'd keep the wee bit hoose,
'Gin I'd a man to mind!
It's sair to see, when ilka lad
Is dreamin' o' his joe,
The bonnie mear that leads yer team
Is a' ye're thinkin' o'.
Like fire upon her satin coat
Ye gar the harness shine,
But, lad, there is a safter licht
In thae twa een o' mine!
Aye - wark yer best - but youth is short,
An' shorter ilka year - 
There's ane wad gar ye sune forget
Yon limmer o' a mear!
To Autumn
by William Blake

O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stain'd
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof; there thou may'st rest,
And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe,
And all the daughters of the year shall dance!
Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.
`The narrow bud opens her beauties to
The sun, and love runs in her thrilling veins;
Blossoms hang round the brows of Morning, and
Flourish down the bright cheek of modest Eve,
Till clust'ring Summer breaks forth into singing,
And feather'd clouds strew flowers round her head.
`The spirits of the air live on the smells
Of fruit; and Joy, with pinions light, roves round
The gardens, or sits singing in the trees.'
Thus sang the jolly Autumn as he sat;
Then rose, girded himself, and o'er the bleak
Hills fled from our sight; but left his golden load.
America The Beautiful
by Katharine Lee Bates

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for pilgrim feet,
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine,
Till all success be nobleness,
And every gain divine!
O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
Nursery Rhyme. CCCVIII. Games.
by Unknown

Number number nine, this hoop's mine;
Number number ten, take it back again.
What Gain?
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Now, while thy rounded cheek is fresh and fair,
While beauty lingers, laughing, in thine eyes,
Ere thy young heart shall meet the stranger, "Care,"
Or thy blithe soul become the home of sighs,
Were it not kindness should I give thee rest
By plunging this sharp dagger in thy breast?
Dying so young, with all thy wealth of youth,
What part of life wouldst thou not claim, in sooth?
Only the woe,
Sweetheart, that sad souls know.
Now, in this sacred hour of supreme trust,
Of pure delight and palpitating joy,
Ere change can come, as come it surely must,
With jarring doubts and discords, to destroy
Our far too perfect peace, I pray thee, Sweet,
Were it not best for both of us, and meet,
If I should bring swift death to seal our bliss?
Dying so full of joy, what could we miss?
Nothing but tears,
Sweetheart, and weary years.
How slight the action! Just one well-aimed blow
Here where I feel thy warm heart's pulsing beat,
And then another through my own, and so
Our perfect union would be made complete:
So past all parting, I should claim thee mine.
Dead with our youth, and faith, and love divine,
Should we not keep the best of life that way?
What shall we gain by living day on day?
What shall we gain,
Sweetheart, but bitter pain?
The Sonnet I
by William Wordsworth

Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room,
And hermits are contented with their cells,
And students with their pensive citadels;
Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom,
Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,
High as the highest peak of Furness fells,
Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells:
In truth the prison unto which we doom
Ourselves no prison is: and hence for me,
In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound
Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground;
Pleased if some souls (for such there needs must be)
Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,
Should find brief solace there, as I have found.
Sonnet VI: To G. A. W.
by John Keats

Nymph of the downward smile and sidelong glance!
In what diviner moments of the day
Art thou most lovely? when gone far astray
Into the labyrinths of sweet utterance,
Or when serenely wandering in a trance
Of sober thought? Or when starting away,
With careless robe to meet the morning ray,
Thou sparest the flowers in thy mazy dance?
Haply 'tis when thy ruby lips part sweetly,
And so remain, because thou listenest:
But thou to please wert nurtured so completely
That I can never tell what mood is best;
I shall as soon pronounce which Grace more neatly
Trips it before Apollo than the rest.
Their Faces
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

O Beautiful white Angels! who control
The inner workings of each poet soul,
Thou who hast touched my mind with tender graces
Come near to me that I may see thy faces.
Me, didst thou bless before I came to earth;
Me, hast thou kissed, and dowered at my birth,
With such a wealth of sweet imaginings,
That, even in sleep, my dreaming fancy sings.
Sometimes when seeing snow-white clouds at noon,
Or watching silver shadows from the moon,
Within my soul has stirred a joy like fear,
As if some kindred spirit lingered near.
Come closer, Angels! thou whose haloed wings
Do gild for me the meanest ways and things,
With beauty borrowed from the Infinite -
Stand forth, let me behold thee in the light.
O thought supreme!    O death!    O life! unknown
I shall not solve thy mystery alone.
The angels who have kissed me at my birth
Shall take again my soul when done with earth,
And as we soar through vast, star-lighted spaces,
At last, at last I shall behold their faces.