DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Holger Drachmann
by Bj'rnstjerne Martinius Bj'rnson

(See Note 70)
Spring's herald, hail! You've rent the forest's quiet?
Your hair is wet, and you are leaf-strewn, dusty ...
With your powers lusty
Have you raised a riot?
What noise about you of the flood set free,
That follows at your heels, - turn back and see:
It spurts upon you! - Was it that you fought for?
You were in there where stumps and trunks are rotting
Where long the winter-graybeards have been plotting
To prison safe that which a lock they wrought for.
But power gave you Pan, the ancient god!
They cried aloud and cursed your future lot?
Your gallant feat they held a robber's fraud?
- Each spring it happens; but is soon forgot.
You cast you down beside the salt sea's wave.
It too is free; dances with joy to find you.
You know the music well; for Pan resigned you
His art one evening by a viking's grave.
But while on nature's loving lap you lie,
The tramp of battle on the land you hear,
You see the steamers as they northward steer
With freedom's flag; - of your name comes a cry.
And so is torn between the two your breast: - 
Freedom's bold fighters, who now proudly rally,
In nature's life and legend dreamy rest;
The former chide, the latter lures to dally.
Your songs sound, some as were a war-horn braying,
Some softly purl like streams on reedy strand.
Half nature-sprite and half as man you stand,
The two not yet one law of life obeying.
But as you seem and as yourself you are
(The faun's love that the viking's longing tinges),
We welcome you, no lock is left nor bar, - 
You bring along the door and both the hinges.
Just this it is that we are needing now:
The spring, the spring! These stifling fumes we bear
Of royal incense and of monkish snuff,
Of corpses in romantic cloak and ruff,
Are bad for morals and for lungs: Fresh air!
Rather a draught of Songs Venetian, cheerful,
With southern wantonness and color-wonders, - 
Rather "Two Shots" (although they make us fearful)
Against our shallow breeding and its blunders.
Spring's herald, hail! come from the forest's choir,
From ocean's roar, from arm'd hosts and grim!
Though sometimes carelessly you struck the lyre, - 
Where rich growth is, one can the rank shoots trim.
The small trolls jeer the gestures of a giant,
I love you so, - unique and self-reliant.
Blue Blood
by William Schwenck Gilbert

Spurn not the nobly born
With love affected,
Nor treat with virtuous scorn
The well connected.
High rank involves no shame -
We boast an equal claim
With him of humble name
To be respected!
Blue blood!    Blue blood!
When virtuous love is sought,
Thy power is naught,
Though dating from the Flood,
Blue blood!
Spare us the bitter pain
Of stern denials,
Nor with low-born disdain
Augment our trials.
Hearts just as pure and fair
May beat in Belgrave Square
As in the lowly air
Of Seven Dials!
Blue blood!    Blue blood!
Of what avail art thou
To serve me now?
Though dating from the Flood,
Blue blood!
Boston
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

St. Bototlph's Town!    Hither across the plains
And fens of Lincolnshire, in garb austere,
There came a Saxon monk, and founded here
A Priory, pillaged by marauding Danes,
So that thereof no vestige now remains;
Only a name, that, spoken loud and clear,
And echoed in another hemisphere,
Survives the sculptured walls and painted panes.
St. Botolph's Town!    Far over leagues of land
And leagues of sea looks forth its noble tower,
And far around the chiming bells are heard;
So may that sacred name forever stand
A landmark, and a symbol of the power,
That lies concentred in a single word.
Welcome To Spring
by Ringgold Wilmer Lardner

Spring, you are welcome, for you are the friend of
Fathers of all little girlies and chaps.
Spring, you are welcome, for you mean the end of
Bundling them up in their cold-weather wraps.
Breathes there a parent of masculine gender,
One whose young hopeful is seven or less,
Who never has cursed the designer and vender
Of juvenile-out-of-doors-winter-time dress?
Leggings and overcoat, rubbers that squeeze on,
Mittens and sweater a trifle too small;
Not in the lot is one thing you can ease on,
One that's affixed with no trouble at all.
Spring, you are welcome, thrice welcome to father;
Not for your flowers and birds, I'm afraid,
As much as your promised relief from the bother
Of bundling the kid for the daily parade.
Spring
by John Le Gay Brereton

Spring, and the wispy clouds that fade away
And draw the ecstatic soul in pain to aspire
In maddening flight through heaven's thin flood of fire
To melt in rapture at the heart of day,
The powers of the world that promise and betray
Have dragged me from you in their icy ire
And set me spinning at their loom, for hire,
The shroud in which my senses must decay.
For hire I give myself, and cannot tell
If the blind force that flings me in the chest
Have power or will to pay the bargained price,
Yet for a word of love I gladly quell
The quivering hope of not inactive rest
And very humbly make my sacrifice.
The Invasion
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

Spring, they say, with his greenery
Northward marches at last,
Mustering thorn and elm;
Breezes rumour him conquering,
Tell how Victory sits
High on his glancing helm.
Smit with sting of his archery,
Hardest ashes and oaks
Burn at the root below:
Primrose, violet, daffodil,
Start like blood where the shafts
Light from his golden bow.
Here where winter oppresses us
Still we listen and doubt,
Dreading a hope betrayed:
Sore we long to be greeting him,
Still we linger and doubt
"What if his march be stayed?"
Folk in thrall to the enemy,
Vanquished, tilling a soil
Hateful and hostile grown;
Always wearily, warily,
Feeding deep in the heart
Passion they dare not own---
So we wait the deliverer;
Surely soon shall he come,
Soon shall his hour be due:
Spring shall come with his greenery,
Life be lovely again,
Earth be the home we knew.
Upon Spunge. Epig.
by Robert Herrick

Spunge makes his boasts that he's the only man
Can hold of beer and ale an ocean;
Is this his glory? then his triumph's poor;
I know the tun of Heidleberg holds more.
The Old Garden
by Madison Julius Cawein

Spurge and sea-pink, hyssop blue,
Dragonhead of purple hue;
Catnip, frosted green and gray,
With blue butterflies a-sway,
These may point you out the way.
These and Summer's acolytes,
Crickets, singing days and nights,
Tell you the old road again;
And adown the tangled lane
Lead you to her window-pane.
Goldenrod and goldenglow
Crowd the gate in which you go;
To your arm they cling and catch,
Kiss the hand that lifts the latch,
Guide you to her garden-patch.
O'er the fence the hollyhock
Leans to greet you; and the stock
Looks as if it thought, "I knew
You were coming. Gave the cue
To the place to welcome you."
And the crumpled marigold
And the dahlia, big and bold,
With Sweet Williams, white and red,
Nod at you a drowsy head
From the sleepy flowerbed.
Where all day the brown bees croon,
Honey-drunk; and stars and moon
All night long lean down to hear,
In the silence far and near,
Whippoorwills a-calling clear.
While adown the dewy dark
Flits a flame, a firefly spark,
Leading to a place of myrrh,
Where, in lace and lavender,
Waits the Loveliness of her.
The Seasons
by Alan L. Strang

SPRING
Spring time is here with its sunshine and showers,
All nature is waking from its long winter sleep.
The gardens are blooming with beautiful flowers,
The song-birds are carolling melodies sweet.
SUMMER
The summer comes with glaring heat,
And we will have vacation;
We pack our grips for the seashore trips,
Or other recreation.
AUTUMN
The harvest moon is shining bright,
The leaves are falling everywhere;
How glorious is the autumn night,
How cool and bracing is the air.
WINTER
Jack frost is stalking through the land,
The ground is covered white, with snow.
We like to sit beside the fire
And tell the tales of long ago.
A Midsummer Holiday:- VIII. The Sunbows
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Spray of song that springs in April, light of love that laughs through May,
Live and die and live for ever: nought of all thing far less fair
Keeps a surer life than these that seem to pass like fire away.
In the souls they live which are but all the brighter that they were;
In the hearts that kindle, thinking what delight of old was there.
Wind that shapes and lifts and shifts them bids perpetual memory play
Over dreams and in and out of deeds and thoughts which seem to wear
Light that leaps and runs and revels through the springing flames of spray.
Dawn is wild upon the waters where we drink of dawn to-day:
Wide, from wave to wave rekindling in rebound through radiant air,
Flash the fires unwoven and woven again of wind that works in play,
Working wonders more than heart may note or sight may wellnigh dare,
Wefts of rarer light than colours rain from heaven, though this be rare.
Arch on arch unbuilt in building, reared and ruined ray by ray,
Breaks and brightens, laughs and lessens, even till eyes may hardly bear
Light that leaps and runs and revels through the springing flames of spray.
Year on year sheds light and music rolled and flashed from bay to bay
Round the summer capes of time and winter headlands keen and bare
Whence the soul keeps watch, and bids her vassal memory watch and pray,
If perchance the dawn may quicken, or perchance the midnight spare.
Silence quells not music, darkness takes not sunlight in her snare;
Shall not joys endure that perish? Yea, saith dawn, though night say nay:
Life on life goes out, but very life enkindles everywhere
Light that leaps and runs and revels through the springing flames of spray.
Friend, were life no more than this is, well would yet the living fare.
All aflower and all afire and all flung heavenward, who shall say
Such a flash of life were worthless? This is worth a world of care
Light that leaps and runs and revels through the springing flames of spray.
To Ibycus's Wife. - Translations From Horace.
by Charles Stuart Calverley

OD. ii. 15.
Spouse of penniless Ibycus,
Thus late, bring to a close all thy delinquencies,
All thy studious infamy:-
Nearing swiftly the grave - (that not an early one) -
Cease girls' sport to participate,
Blurring stars which were else cloudlessly brilliant.
What suits her who is beautiful
Suits not equally thee: rightly devastates
Thy fair daughter the homes of men,
Wild as Thyad, who wakes stirred by the kettle-drums.
Nothus' beauty constraining her,
Like some kid at his play, holds she her revelry:
Thy years stately Luceria's
Wools more fitly become - not din of harpsichords,
Not pink-petalled roseblossoms,
Not casks drained by an old lip to the sediment.
Upon Spur.
by Robert Herrick

Spur jingles now, and swears by no mean oaths,
He's double honour'd, since he's got gay clothes:
Most like his suit, and all commend the trim;
And thus they praise the sumpter, but not him:
As to the goddess, people did confer
Worship, and not to th' ass that carried her.
The First Violet.
by H. P. Nichols

Spring has come, dear mother!
I've a violet found,
Growing in its beauty
From the cold, dark ground.
You are sad, dear mother,
Tears are in your eye;
You're not glad to see it;
Mother, tell me why?
I remember.--Last year,
Where our Willie lies,
Grew the earliest violet,
Blue as were his eyes.
Then you told me, mother,
That the flowers would fade,
And their withered blossoms
On the earth be laid.
But you said, as springtime
Would their buds restore,
Willie would in heaven
Be forevermore.
Weep no more, dear mother!
Violets are in bloom;
And your darling Willie
Lives beyond the tomb.
Expectation.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Moune, 'cureuil.")
[xx.]
Squirrel, mount yon oak so high,
To its twig that next the sky
Bends and trembles as a flower!
Strain, O stork, thy pinion well, - 
From thy nest 'neath old church-bell,
Mount to yon tall citadel,
And its tallest donjon tower!
To your mountain, eagle old,
Mount, whose brow so white and cold,
Kisses the last ray of even!
And, O thou that lov'st to mark
Morn's first sunbeam pierce the dark,
Mount, O mount, thou joyous lark - 
Joyous lark, O mount to heaven!
And now say, from topmost bough,
Towering shaft, and peak of snow,
And heaven's arch - O, can you see
One white plume that like a star,
Streams along the plain afar,
And a steed that from the war
Bears my lover back to me?
JOHN L. O'SULLIVAN.
The Forest Of Old Enchantment
by Madison Julius Cawein

Squaw-Berry, bramble, Solomon's-seal,
And rattlesnake-weed make wild the place:
You seem to feel that a Faun will steal
Or leap before your face. . . .
Is that the reel of a Satyr's heel,
Or the brook in its headlong race?
Yellow puccoon and the blue-eyed grass,
And briars a riot of bloom:
And now from the mass of that sassafras
What is it shakes perfume?
A Nymph, who has for her looking-glass
That pool in the mossy gloom?
Mile on mile of the trees and vines,
And rock and fern and root:
What is it pines where the wild-grape twines?
A dove? or Pan's own flute?
And there! what shines into rosy lines?
A flower? or Dryad's foot?
White-plantain, bluet, and, golden-clear,
The crowfoot's earth-bound star:
Now what draws near to the spirit ear?
A god? or a sunbeam-bar?
And what do we hear with a sense of fear?
Diana? or winds afar?
If we but thought as the old Greeks thought,
And knew what the ancients knew,
Then Beauty sought of the soul were caught
And breathed into being too:
And' out of naught were the real wrought,
And the dream of the world made true.
Misunderstanding.
by Sophie M. (Almon) Hensley

Spring's face is wreathed in smiles. She had been driven
Hither and thither at the surly will
Of treacherous winds till her sweet heart was chill.
Into her grasp the sceptre has been given
And now she touches with a proud young hand
The earth, and turns to blossoms all the land.
We catch the smile, the joyousness, the pride,
And share them with her. Surely winter gloom
Is for the old, and frost is for the tomb.
Youth must have pleasure, and the tremulous tide
Of sun-kissed waves, and all the golden fire
Of Summer's noontide splendor of desire.
I have forgotten, - for the breath of buds
Is on my temples, if in former days
I have known sorrow; I remember praise,
And calm content, and joy's great ocean-floods,
And many dreams so sweet that, in their place,
We would not welcome even Truth's fair face.
O Man to whom my heart hast leaned, dost know
Aught of my life? Sometimes a strong despair
Enters my soul and finds a lodging there;
Thou dost not know me, and the years will go
As these last months have gone, and I shall be
Still far, still a strange woman unto thee.
I do not blame thee. If there is a fault
Let it be mine, for surely had I tried
The door of my heart's home to open wide
No need had been for even Love's assault.
And yet, methinks, somewhere there is a key
Thou mightest have found, and entered happily.
I am no saint niched in a hallowed wall
For men to worship, but I would compel
A level gaze. You teachers who would tell
A woman's place I do defy you all!
While justice lives, and love with joy is crowned
Woman and man must meet on equal ground.
The deepest wrong is falsehood. She who sells
Her soul and body for a little gain
In ease, or the world's notice, has a stain
Upon her soul no lighter for the bells
Of marriage rites, and purer far is she
Who gives her all for love's sad ecstasy.
Canst thou not understand a nature strong
And passionate, with impulses that sway,
With yearning tenderness that must have way,
Yet knows no ill desire, no touch of wrong?
If thou canst not then in God's name I pray
See me no more forever from this day.
Spring And Music.
by Freeman Edwin Miller

Spring, among her sylvan shades,
And the gladness of her glades,
Once in dreamy hours was straying,
Where sweet Music with her throngs
Of glad melodies and songs
In the happy vales was playing.
Pan beheld the fairy maids
As they gamboled in the shades,
And he swore they should not sever.
But that o'er the blooming land,
Heart to heart and hand in hand,
They should wander on forever.
Thus when come the gentle days
O'er the wildwood's tangled ways,
There is found no gloomy weather;
For among the leafy bowers
And the valleys bright with flowers
Spring and Music walk together!
St. Catharines.
by James McIntyre

Lines read at the Welland House, St. Catharines, at a banquet given to the members in attendance at the Oddfellows' Grand Lodge.
St. Catharines famed for mineral waters
And for the beauty of her daughters,
For some do worship at the shrines
Of the fair St. Catharines.
St. Catharines your greatness you inherit
From the genius of a Merritt,
You still would be a village dreary
But for this canal from lake Erie.
For on its bosom there doth float
Full many a ship and steamboat,
Brings world's commerce to your doors
And many gifts on you it pours.
Among its many great rewards
It gives you dry docks and ship yards,
To drive your mills great water power
It doth give you as a dower.
Since we above lines did compose,
Through new canal vast stream it flows,
The lock gates at the hill at Thorold
Can not be equaled in the world.
The Swashbuckler
by Madison Julius Cawein

Squat-nosed and broad, of big and pompous port;
A tavern visage, apoplexy haunts,
All pimple-puffed: the Falstaff-like resort
Of fat debauchery, whose veined cheek flaunts
A flabby purple: rusty-spurred he stands
In rakehell boots and belt, and hanger that
Claps when, with greasy gauntlets on his hands,
He swaggers past in cloak and slouch-plumed hat.
Aggression marches armies in his words;
And in his oaths great deeds ride cap-'-pie;
His looks, his gestures breathe the breath of swords;
And in his carriage camp all wars to be:
With him, of battles there shall be no lack
While buxom wenches are and stoops of sack.
Sonnet CVII.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Fontana di dolore, albergo d' ira.
HE ATTRIBUTES THE WICKEDNESS OF THE COURT OF ROME TO ITS GREAT WEALTH.
Spring of all woe, O den of curssed ire,
Scoole of errour, temple of heresye;
Thow Pope, I meane, head of hypocrasye,
Thow and thie churche, unsaciat of desyre,
Have all the world filled full of myserye;
Well of disceate, thow dungeon full of fyre,
That hydes all truthe to breed idolatrie.
Thow wicked wretche, Chryste cannot be a lyer,
Behold, therefore, thie judgment hastelye;
Thye first founder was gentill povertie,
But there against is all thow dost requyre.
Thow shameless beaste wheare hast thow thie trust,
In thie whoredome, or in thie riche attyre?
Loe! Constantyne, that is turned into dust,
Shall not retourne for to mayntaine thie lust;
But now his heires, that might not sett thee higher,
For thie greate pryde shall teare thye seate asonder,
And scourdge thee so that all the world shall wonder.
(?) WYATT.[U]
[Footnote U: Harrington's Nug' Antiqu'.]
Fountain of sorrows, centre of mad ire,
Rank error's school and fane of heresy,
Once Rome, now Babylon, the false and free,
Whom fondly we lament and long desire.
O furnace of deceits, O prison dire,
Where good roots die and the ill-weed grows a tree
Hell upon earth, great marvel will it be
If Christ reject thee not in endless fire.
Founded in humble poverty and chaste,
Against thy founders lift'st thou now thy horn,
Impudent harlot! Is thy hope then placed
In thine adult'ries and thy wealth ill-born?
Since comes no Constantine his own to claim,
The vext world must endure, or end its shame.
MACGREGOR.
Ballade (Double Refrain) Of Youth And Age - I. M. Thomas Edward Brown
by William Ernest Henley

(1829-1896)
Spring at her height on a morn at prime,
Sails that laugh from a flying squall,
Pomp of harmony, rapture of rhyme -
Youth is the sign of them, one and all.
Winter sunsets and leaves that fall,
An empty flagon, a folded page,
A tumble-down wheel, a tattered ball -
These are a type of the world of Age.
Bells that clash in a gaudy chime,
Swords that clatter in onsets tall,
The words that ring and the fames that climb -
Youth is the sign of them, one and all.
Hymnals old in a dusty stall,
A bald, blind bird in a crazy cage,
The scene of a faded festival -
These are a type of the world of Age.
Hours that strut as the heirs of time,
Deeds whose rumour's a clarion-call,
Songs where the singers their souls sublime -
Youth is the sign of them, one and all.
A staff that rests in a nook of wall,
A reeling battle, a rusted gage,
The chant of a nearing funeral -
These are a type of the world of Age.
Envoy
Struggle and turmoil, revel and brawl -
Youth is the sign of them, one and all.
A smouldering hearth and a silent stage -
These are a type of the world of Age.
Sprig Has Cub.
by Edwin C. Ranck

Sprig, Sprig--Oh lovely Sprig!
Oh, hast thou cub to stay?
Add wilt the little birdies sig
Throughout the livelog day?
What bessage dost thou brig to be,
Fair Lady of by dreabs--
Dost whisper of the babblig brook
Ad fishig poles ad streabs?
Those happy days have cub agaid,
The sweetest of the year,
Whed bad cad raise ad appetite
Ad wholesub thirst for beer.
I've often thought id wudder, Sprig,
Of how the lily grows,
But the thig that's botherig be dow
Is how to sprig dew clothes.
Sprig, Sprig--Oh lovely Sprig!
By thoughts are all of you
I saw a robid yesterday--
How strange it seebs--ad dew!
I've got a dreadful cold, Fair Sprig,
Or else I'd sig to thee
Ad air frob Beddelssohd, perhaps,
Or "The Shade of the Old Apple Tree."
Memorial Tablet
by Siegfried Loraine Sassoon

(GREAT WAR)
Squire nagged and bullied till I went to fight
(Under Lord Derby's scheme). I died in hell - 
(They called it Passchendaele); my wound was slight,
And I was hobbling back, and then a shell
Burst slick upon the duck-boards; so I fell
Into the bottomless mud, and lost the light.
In sermon-time, while Squire is in his pew,
He gives my gilded name a thoughtful stare;
For though low down upon the list, I'm there:
"In proud and glorious memory" - that's my due.
Two bleeding years I fought in France for Squire;
I suffered anguish that he's never guessed;
Once I came home on leave; and then went west.
What greater glory could a man desire?
The Bay Horse
by Arthur Conan Doyle

Squire wants the bay horse,
For it is the best.
Squire holds the mortgage;
Where's the interest?
Haven't got the interest,
Can't raise a sou;
Shan't sell the bay horse,
Whatever he may do.
Did you see the bay horse?
Such a one to go!
He took a bit of ridin',
When I showed him at the Show.
First prize the broad jump,
First prize the high;
Gold medal, Class A,
You'll see it by-and-by.
I bred the bay horse
On the Withy Farm.
I broke the bay horse,
He broke my arm.
Don't blame the bay horse,
Blame the brittle bone,
I bred him and I've fed him,
And he's all my very own.
Just watch the bay horse
Chock full of sense!
Ain't he just beautiful,
Risin' to a fence!
Just hear the bay horse
Whinin' in his stall,
Purrin' like a pussy cat
When he hears me call.
But if Squire's lawyer
Serves me with his writ,
I'll take the bay horse
To Marley gravel pit.
Over the quarry edge,
I'll sit him tight,
If he wants the brown hide,
He's welcome to the white!