DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Presentiment
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

As unseen spheres cast shadows on the Earth
Some unknown cause depresses me to-night.
The house is full of laughter and sweet mirth,
The day has held but pleasure and delight.
Down in the parlour some one blithely sings;
A chime of laughter echoes in the hall;
But all unseen by other eyes, strange things
Rat-like do seem to glide along the wall.
I rise, and laugh, and say I will not care;
I call them idle fancies, one and all.
And yet, suspended by a single hair,
The sword of Fate seems trembling soon to fall.
I leave the house, and walk the lighted street;
And mingle with the pleasure-seeking throng.
And close behind me follow spectre feet
That pause with me, or with me move along.
I seek my room, and close and bolt the door;
I draw the curtain, and turn up the light;
But close beside me, closer than before,
This nameless something stands, but out of sight.
Ye mystic messenger of woe to come,
Ye nameless nothing called 'Presentiment,'
Take form and face me; be no longer dumb,
But tell who thou art, and wherefore sent.
The Wolf, The Goat, And The Kid.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
As went the goat her pendent dugs to fill,
And browse the herbage of a distant hill,
She latch'd her door, and bid,
With matron care, her kid; - 
'My daughter, as you live,
This portal don't undo
To any creature who
This watchword does not give:
"Deuce take the wolf and all his race!"'
The wolf was passing near the place
By chance, and heard the words with pleasure,
And laid them up as useful treasure;
And hardly need we mention,
Escaped the goat's attention.
No sooner did he see
The matron off, than he,
With hypocritic tone and face,
Cried out before the place,
'Deuce take the wolf and all his race!'
Not doubting thus to gain admission.
The kid, not void of all suspicion,
Peer'd through a crack, and cried,
'Show me white paw before
You ask me to undo the door.'
The wolf could not, if he had died,
For wolves have no connexion
With paws of that complexion.
So, much surprised, our gormandiser
Retired to fast till he was wiser.
How would the kid have been undone
Had she but trusted to the word
The wolf by chance had overheard!
Two sureties better are than one;
And caution's worth its cost,
Though sometimes seeming lost.
Sonnets XI
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

As to some lovely temple, tenantless
Long since, that once was sweet with shivering brass,
Knowing well its altars ruined and the grass
Grown up between the stones, yet from excess
Of grief hard driven, or great loneliness,
The worshiper returns, and those who pass
Marvel him crying on a name that was,--
So is it now with me in my distress.
Your body was a temple to Delight;
Cold are its ashes whence the breath is fled,
Yet here one time your spirit was wont to move;
Here might I hope to find you day or night,
And here I come to look for you, my love,
Even now, foolishly, knowing you are dead.
At The Close Of A Course Of Lectures
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

As the voice of the watch to the mariner's dream,
As the footstep of Spring on the ice-girdled stream,
There comes a soft footstep, a whisper, to me, - 
The vision is over, - the rivulet free.
We have trod from the threshold of turbulent March,
Till the green scarf of April is hung on the larch,
And down the bright hillside that welcomes the day,
We hear the warm panting of beautiful May.
We will part before Summer has opened her wing,
And the bosom of June swells the bodice of Spring,
While the hope of the season lies fresh in the bud,
And the young life of Nature runs warm in our blood.
It is but a word, and the chain is unbound,
The bracelet of steel drops unclasped to the ground;
No hand shall replace it, - it rests where it fell, - -
It is but one word that we all know too well.
Yet the hawk with the wildness untamed in his eye,
If you free him, stares round ere he springs to the sky;
The slave whom no longer his fetters restrain
Will turn for a moment and look at his chain.
Our parting is not as the friendship of years,
That chokes with the blessing it speaks through its tears;
We have walked in a garden, and, looking around,
Have plucked a few leaves from the myrtles we found.
But now at the gate of the garden we stand,
And the moment has come for unclasping the hand;
Will you drop it like lead, and in silence retreat
Like the twenty crushed forms from an omnibus seat?
Nay! hold it one moment, - the last we may share, - 
I stretch it in kindness, and not for my fare;
You may pass through the doorway in rank or in file,
If your ticket from Nature is stamped with a smile.
For the sweetest of smiles is the smile as we part,
When the light round the lips is a ray from the heart;
And lest a stray tear from its fountain might swell,
We will seal the bright spring with a quiet farewell.
Do your Best and Leave the Rest.
by John Hartley

As through life you journey onward
Many a hill you'll have to climb;
Many a rough and dang'rous pathway,
You'll encounter time and time.
Now and then a gleam of sunshine,
Will bring hope to cheer your breast;
Then press onward, - ever trusting, - 
Do your best and leave the rest.
Though your progress may be hindered,
By false friends or bitter foes;
And the goal for which you're striving,
Seems so far away, - who knows?
You may yet have strength to reach it,
E'er the sun sinks in the west;
Ever striving, - still undaunted; - 
Do your best and leave the rest.
If you fail, as thousands must do,
You will still have cause for pride;
You will have advanced much further,
Than if you had never tried.
Never falter, but remember,
Life is not a foolish jest;
You all are in the fight to win it; - 
Do your best and leave the rest.
If at last your strength shall fail you,
And your struggles have proved vain;
There is One who will sustain you; - 
Soothe your sorrow, - ease your pain,
He has seen your earnest striving,
And your efforts shall be blest;
For He knows, that you, though failing,
Did your best, - He'll do the rest.
The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - The Dungeon.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Come va al centro.
As to the centre all things that have weight
Sink from the surface: as the silly mouse
Runs at a venture, rash though timorous,
Into the monster's jaws to meet her fate:
Thus all who love high Science, from the strait
Dead sea of Sophistry sailing like us
Into Truth's ocean, bold and amorous,
Must in our haven anchor soon or late.
One calls this haunt a Cave of Polypheme,
And one Atlante's Palace, one of Crete
The Labyrinth, and one Hell's lowest pit.
Knowledge, grace, mercy, are an idle dream
In this dread place. Nought but fear dwells in it,
Of stealthy Tyranny the sacred seat.
Sonnet VI
by Robert Southey

to a brook near the village of Corston.
As thus I bend me o'er thy babbling stream
And watch thy current, Memory's hand pourtrays
The faint form'd scenes of the departed days,
Like the far forest by the moon's pale beam
Dimly descried yet lovely. I have worn
Upon thy banks the live-long hour away,
When sportive Childhood wantoned thro' the day,
Joy'd at the opening splendour of the morn,
Or as the twilight darken'd, heaved the sigh
Thinking of distant home; as down my cheek
At the fond thought slow stealing on, would speak
The silent eloquence of the full eye.
Dim are the long past days, yet still they please
As thy soft sounds half heard, borne on the inconstant breeze.
Fragment: To Italy.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

As the sunrise to the night,
As the north wind to the clouds,
As the earthquake's fiery flight,
Ruining mountain solitudes,
Everlasting Italy,
Be those hopes and fears on thee.
A Medley: As Thro' The Land (The Princess)
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

As thro' the land at eve we went,
And pluck'd the ripen'd ears,
We fell out, my wife and I,
O we fell out I know not why,
And kiss'd again with tears.
And blessings on the falling out
That all the more endears,
When we fall out with those we love
And kiss again with tears!
For when we came where lies the child
We lost in other years,
There above the little grave,
O there above the little grave,
We kiss'd again with tears.
Rhodes Memorial, Table Mountain
by Rudyard Kipling

As tho' again, yea, even once again,
We should rewelcome to our stewardship
The rider with the loose-flung bridle-rein
And chance-plucked twig for whip,
The down-turned hat-brim, and the eyes beneath
Alert, devouring, and the imperious hand
Ordaining matters swiftly to bequeath
Perfect the work he planned.
In The Night
by George MacDonald

As to her child a mother calls,
"Come to me, child; come near!"
Calling, in silent intervals,
The Master's voice I hear.
But does he call me verily?
To have me does he care?
Why should he seek my poverty,
My selfishness so bare?
The dear voice makes his gladness brim,
But not a child can know
Why that large woman cares for him,
Why she should love him so!
Lord, to thy call of me I bow,
Obey like Abraham:
Thou lov'st me because thou art thou,
And I am what I am!
Doubt whispers, Thou art such a blot
He cannot love poor thee:
If what I am he loveth not,
He loves what I shall be.
Nay, that which can be drawn and wooed,
And turned away from ill,
Is what his father made for good:
He loves me, I say still!
Separation
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

As water runs in the river, so runs time;
And ever my eyes are wasted of her presence.
The red flowers of the second moon were yesterday;
To-day the earth has spots of blood, and there are no flowers.
The wild geese were harnessed to the autumn moon;
They have come, I heard their crying, and they are gone.
They have passed and given me no message;
I only hear the falling, falling noise of white rain.
Song of Korea.
The Last Ode
by Rudyard Kipling

As watchers couched beneath a Bantine oak,
Hearing the dawn-wind stir,
Know that the present strength of night is broke
Though no dawn threaten her
Till dawn's appointed hour, so Virgil died,
Aware of change at hand, and prophesied
Change upon all the Eternal Gods had made
And on the Gods alike,
Fated as dawn but, as the dawn, delayed
Till the just hour should strike.
A Star new-risen above the living and dead;
And the lost shades that were our loves restored
As lovers, and for ever. So he said;
Having received the word...
Maecenas waits me on the Esquiline:
Thither to-night go I....
And shall this dawn restore us, Virgil mine
To dawn? Beneath what sky?
Poems From "A Shropshire Lad" - XXXVII
by Alfred Edward Housman

As through the wild green hills of Wyre
The train ran, changing sky and shire,
And far behind, a fading crest,
Low in the forsaken west
Sank the high-reared head of Clee,
My hand lay empty on my knee.
Aching on my knee it lay:
That morning half a shire away
So many an honest fellow's fist
Had well-nigh wrung it from the wrist.
Hand, said I, since now we part
From fields and men we know by heart,
From strangers' faces, strangers' lands,-
Hand, you have held true fellows' hands.
Be clean then; rot before you do
A thing they'd not believe of you.
You and I must keep from shame
In London streets the Shropshire name;
On banks of Thames they must not say
Severn breeds worse men than they;
And friends abroad must bear in mind
Friends at home they leave behind.
Oh, I shall be stiff and cold
When I forget you, hearts of gold;
The land where I shall mind you not
Is the land where all's forgot.
And if my foot returns no more
To Teme nor Corve nor Severn shore,
Luck, my lads, be with you still
By falling stream and standing hill,
By chiming tower and whispering tree,
Men that made a man of me.
About your work in town and farm
Still you'll keep my head from harm,
Still you'll help me, hands that gave
A grasp to friend me to the grave.
In the Train
by James Thomson -  (Bysshe Vanolis)

As we rush, as we rush in the Train,
The trees and the houses go wheeling back,
But the starry heavens above the plain
Come flying on our track.
All the beautiful stars of the sky,
The silver doves of the forest of Night,
Over the dull earth swarm and fly,
Companions of our flight.
We will rush ever on without fear;
Let the goal be far, the flight be fleet!
For we carry the Heavens with us, dear,
While the Earth slips from our feet!
Mazeppa.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Ainsi, lorsqu'un mortel!")
[XXXIV., May, 1828.]
As when a mortal - Genius' prize, alack!
Is, living, bound upon thy fatal back,
Thou reinless racing steed!
In vain he writhes, mere cloud upon a star,
Thou bearest him as went Mazeppa, far
Out of the flow'ry mead, - 
So - though thou speed'st implacable, (like him,
Spent, pallid, torn, bruised, weary, sore and dim,
As if each stride the nearer bring
Him to the grave) - when comes the time,
After the fall, he rises - KING!
H.L. WILLIAMS
Regrets
by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

As, when the seaward ebbing tide doth pour
Out by the low sand spaces,
The parting waves slip back to clasp the shore
With lingering embraces,--
So in the tide of life that carries me
From where thy true heart dwells,
Waves of my thoughts and memories turn to thee
With lessening farewells;
Waving of hands; dreams, when the day forgets;
A care half lost in cares;
The saddest of my verses; dim regrets;
Thy name among my prayers.
I would the day might come, so waited for,
So patiently besought,
When I, returning, should fill up once more
Thy desolated thought;
And fill thy loneliness that lies apart
In still, persistent pain.
Shall I content thee, O thou broken heart,
As the tide comes again,
And brims the little sea-shore lakes, and sets
Seaweeds afloat, and fills
The silent pools, rivers and rivulets
Among the inland hills?
A Simile; On Our Want Of Silver, And The Only Way To Remedy It.
by Jonathan Swift

As when of old some sorceress threw
O'er the moon's face a sable hue,
To drive unseen her magic chair,
At midnight, through the darken'd air;
Wise people, who believed with reason
That this eclipse was out of season,
Affirm'd the moon was sick, and fell
To cure her by a counter spell.
Ten thousand cymbals now begin,
To rend the skies with brazen din;
The cymbals' rattling sounds dispel
The cloud, and drive the hag to hell.
The moon, deliver'd from her pain,
Displays her silver face again.
Note here, that in the chemic style,
The moon is silver all this while.
So (if my simile you minded,
Which I confess is too long-winded)
When late a feminine magician,[1]
Join'd with a brazen politician,[2]
Exposed, to blind the nation's eyes,
A parchment[3] of prodigious size;
Conceal'd behind that ample screen,
There was no silver to be seen.
But to this parchment let the Drapier
Oppose his counter-charm of paper,
And ring Wood's copper in our ears
So loud till all the nation hears;
That sound will make the parchment shrivel
And drive the conjurors to the Devil;
And when the sky is grown serene,
Our silver will appear again.
Fire.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Ashes denote that fire was;
Respect the grayest pile
For the departed creature's sake
That hovered there awhile.
Fire exists the first in light,
And then consolidates, --
Only the chemist can disclose
Into what carbonates.
The Primrose
by Thomas Carew

Ask me why I send you here
The firstling of the infant year;
Ask me why I send to you
This primrose all bepearled with dew:
I straight will whisper in your ears,
The sweets of love are washed with tears.
Ask me why this flower doth show
So yellow, green, and sickly too;
Ask me why the stalk is weak
And bending, yet it doth not break:
I must tell you, these discover
What doubts and fears are in a lover.
Breitmann's Last Ballads - Fritzerl Schnall
by Charles G. Leland

Ash on de Alapama biz,
Deep sinnin long I sat,
I dinks von ding for dinkin
Py afery Diplomat;
Und dat ist: dat voll many a ding
Vot ist de facto done,
May pe de jure unbossible,
Und offici'l unknown,
Von dimes in San Franciscus,
Im Californian land,
Among de Californaments
Dere woned a Deutscher band;
Und shief among dese heroes
Dere shone Herr Fritzerl Schnall,
Who nefer vouldt pelief in nichts
Dat vas not logic'l.
Vell den: von tay as Fritzerl
Vas valk Dolores Shtreet,
Mein Gott! how he vas over-rush
Ein gut oldt friendt to meet;
Hans Liederschnitz aus Augsburg,
Vot professed in Bayrisch bier
'Gottskreuz! du alter Schlingel!'
Cried Fritz: 'Was mochst du hier?'
Now in des dimes I scribe of,
Dree ways der vere bakannt,
Und only dree, to get to
Das Californigen Landt.
De virst de Plains coom ofer;
De next, de Istmoos troo;
De dird aroundt Cape Horn',
All ofer de ocean plue.
But de first lot of surveyors
For de railroad overland,
Vas seek a new vay northwarts,
All for de Eisenbahn,
Und mit dem, der professor
Of Lager vent along;
So he kommed to San Franciscus,
Und den into dis song.
But ash unto Herr Fritzerl
Dis news vas unerheard,
He couldt not know de tidings
Wherevon he had no vord;
Und derefore dis here quesdion
He makes to Hans: 'Old hoss,
I kess de vay you kit hier,
You kommed de Blains agross?'
'Nein, nein,' sayt Liederschnitzerl;
'I komm not ash you say.'
'Vell, den,' antworded Fritzerl,
'It pe's anoder vay.
If you komm de Blains not 'ber,
I see vot you hafe do:
You make an longer um-way
Und gross de Istmoos troo.'
'Nein, nein,' acain saidt Schnitzerl,
'Dat road I nefer know,
Und vas not ride de Istmoose!'
Cried Fritz, erstaunisched, 'SO
You komm de Blains not 'ber,
Nor gross de Istmoose troo?
Vell, den to make de Horn aroundt
Vas all dat you could do!'
'I shvears py Gott!' says Schnitzerl,
'So sure as you vas porn,
Exshept oopon some ochsen
I nefer saw a horn.
Dat ish mitwiles, too while-en
I hafe von in mine hand,
Und trink to dy Gesundheit,
Im lieben Vaterland.'
Erstaunished stoot der Fritzerl:
No wort herout brought he:
Und sinned, und sinned den sighftserd.
'Potz blitz! how vash dis pe?'
Ontill a light from Himmel
Vlash down into him shtraight,
Ash Heafen in Yacob B'hme
Vlash from a bewter blate.
Den laut he cry, eye-shbarklin,
Ash droonk mit Truth tifine,
Like der Wahrheitseher Novalis:
'Herr Gott! es leuch't mir ein!
If you komm de Blains not over,
Nor py Horn, nor py can'l,
Den I shwears you dis, Hans Schnitzerl,
Du bist not here at all!'
MORAL
Go in for Wahrheit,
Und for Pure Reason seek;
If it land you in a pog-hole,
Den die dere like a brick!
Gott brosber all logikers,
Und pless deir nople breed;
Und so ist komm zu ende
Dis Breitmanns letzte Lied.
Proposals For A Gynaecocracy. Addressed To A Late Radical Meeting.
by Thomas Moore

--"quas ipsa decus sibi dia Camilla
delegit pacisque bonas bellique ministras."
VERGIL.
As Whig Reform has had its range,
And none of us are yet content,
Suppose, my friends, by way of change,
We try a Female Parliament;
And since of late with he M.P.'s
We've fared so badly, take to she's--
Petticoat patriots, flounced John Russells,
Burdetts in blonde and Broughams in bustles.
The plan is startling, I confess--
But 'tis but an affair of dress;
Nor see I much there is to choose
'Twixt Ladies (so they're thorough-bred ones)
In ribands of all sorts of hues,
Or Lords in only blue or red ones.
At least the fiddlers will be winners,
Whatever other trade advances
As then, instead of Cabinet dinners
We'll have, at Almack's, Cabinet dances;
Nor let this world's important questions
Depend on Ministers' digestions.
If Ude's receipts have done things ill,
To Weippert's band they may go better;
There's Lady **, in one quadrille,
Would settle Europe, if you'd let her:
And who the deuce or asks or cares
When Whigs or Tories have undone 'em,
Whether they've danced thro' State affairs,
Or simply, dully, dined upon 'em?
Hurrah then for the Petticoats!
To them we pledge our free-born votes;
We'll have all she, and only she--
Pert blues shall act as "best debaters,"
Old dowagers our Bishops be,
And termagants our agitators.
If Vestris to oblige the nation
Her own Olympus will abandon
And help to prop the Administration,
It can't have better legs to stand on.
The famed Macaulay (Miss) shall show
Each evening, forth in learned oration;
Shall move (midst general cries of "Oh!")
For full returns of population:
And finally to crown the whole,
The Princess Olive, Royal soul,[1]
Shall from her bower in Banco Regis,
Descend to bless her faithful lieges,
And mid our Union's loyal chorus
Reign jollily for ever o'er us.
Odes Of Anacreon - Ode XXVIII.
by Thomas Moore

As, by his Lemnian forge's flame,
The husband of the Paphian dame
Moulded the glowing steel, to form
Arrows for Cupid, thrilling warm;
And Venus, as he plied his art,
Shed honey round each new-made dart,
While Love, at hand, to finish all,
Tipped every arrow's point with gall;
It chanced the Lord of Battles came
To visit that deep cave of flame.
'Twas from the ranks of war he rushed,
His spear with many a life-drop blushed;
He saw the fiery darts, and smiled
Contemptuous at the archer-child.
"What!" said the urchin, "dost thou smile?
Here, hold this little dart awhile,
And thou wilt find, though swift of flight,
My bolts are not so feathery light."
Mars took the shaft--and, oh, thy look,
Sweet Venus, when the shaft he took!--
Sighing, he felt the urchin's art,
And cried, in agony of heart,
"It is not light--I sink with pain!
Take--take thy arrow back again."
"No," said the child, "it must not be;
That little dart was made for thee!"
Hunger.
by Robert Herrick

Ask me what hunger is, and I'll reply,
'Tis but a fierce desire of hot and dry.
Lurline
by Henry Kendall

(Inscribed to Madame Lucy Escott.)
As you glided and glided before us that time,
A mystical, magical maiden,
We fancied we looked on a face from the clime
Where the poets have builded their Aidenn!
And oh, the sweet shadows! And oh, the warm gleams
Which lay on the land of our beautiful dreams,
While we walked by the margins of musical streams
And heard your wild warbling around us!
We forgot what we were when we stood with the trees
Near the banks of those silvery waters;
As ever in fragments they came on the breeze,
The songs of old Rhine and his daughters!
And then you would pass with those radiant eyes
Which flashed like a light in the tropical skies 
And ah! the bright thoughts that would sparkle and rise
While we heard your wild warbling around us.
Will you ever fly back to this city of ours
With your harp and your voice and your beauty?
God knows we rejoice when we meet with such flowers
On the hard road of Life and of Duty!
Oh! come as you did, with that face and that tone,
For we wistfully look to the hours which have flown,
And long for a glimpse of the gladness that shone
When we heard your wild warbling around us.
A Song To A Fair Young Lady, Going Out Of Town In The Spring.
by John Dryden

Ask not the cause, why sullen Spring
So long delays her flowers to bear;
Why warbling birds forget to sing,
And winter storms invert the year:
Chloris is gone, and fate provides
To make it Spring, where she resides.
Chloris is gone, the cruel fair;
She cast not back a pitying eye;
But left her lover in despair,
To sigh, to languish, and to die:
Ah, how can those fair eyes endure
To give the wounds they will not cure?
Great God of love, why hast thou made
A face that can all hearts command,
That all religions can evade,
And change the laws of every land?
Where thou hadst placed such power before,
Thou shouldst have made her mercy more.
When Chloris to the temple comes,
Adoring crowds before her fall;
She can restore the dead from tombs,
And every life but mine recall.
I only am by Love design'd
To be the victim for mankind.
Sic Itur
by Arthur Hugh Clough

As, at a railway junction, men
Who came together, taking then
One the train up, one down, again
Meet never! Ah, much more as they
Who take one street's two sides, and say
Hard parting words, but walk one way:
Though moving other mates between,
While carts and coaches intervene,
Each to the other goes unseen;
Yet seldom, surely, shall there lack
Knowledge they walk not back to back,
But with an unity of track,
Where common dangers each attend,
And common hopes their guidance lend
To light them to the self-same end.
Whether he then shall cross to thee,
Or thou go thither, or it be
Some midway point, ye yet shall see
Each other, yet again shall meet.
Ah, joy! when with the closing street;
Forgivingly at last ye greet!