DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Clouds
by Rupert Brooke

Down the blue night the unending columns press
In noiseless tumult, break and wave and flow,
Now tread the far South, or lift rounds of snow
Up to the white moon's hidden loveliness.
Some pause in their grave wandering comradeless,
And turn with profound gesture vague and slow,
As who would pray good for the world, but know
Their benediction empty as they bless.
They say that the Dead die not, but remain
Near to the rich heirs of their grief and mirth.
I think they ride the calm mid-heaven, as these,
In wise majestic melancholy train,
And watch the moon, and the still-raging seas,
And men, coming and going on the earth.
The Lad's Love by the Gate
by Fay Inchfawn

Down in the dear West Country, there's a garden where I know
The Spring is rioting this hour, though I am far away --
Where all the glad flower-faces are old loves of long ago,
And each in its accustomed place is blossoming to-day.
The lilac drops her amethysts upon the mossy wall,
While in her boughs a cheerful thrush is calling to his mate.
Dear breath of mignonette and stocks! I love you, know you all.
And, oh, the fragrant spices from the lad's love by the gate!
Kind wind from the West Country, wet wind, but scented so,
That straight from my dear garden you seem but lately come,
Just tell me of the yellow broom, the guelder rose's snow,
And of the tangled clematis where myriad insects hum.
Oh, is there any heartsease left, or any rosemary?
And in their own green solitudes, say, do the lilies wait?
I knew it! Gentle wind, but once -- speak low and tenderly --
How fares it -- tell me truly -- with the lad's love by the gate?
A Farewell
by Kate Seymour Maclean

Down the steep west unrolled,
I watch the river of the sunset flow,
With all its crimson lights, and gleaming gold,
Into the dusk below.
And even as I gaze,
The soft lights fade,-the pageant gay is o'er,
And all is grey and dark, like those lost days,
The days that are no more.
No more through whispering pines,
I shall behold, in the else silent even,
The first faint star-watch set along the lines
Of the white tents of heaven.
Before the earliest buds
Have softly opened, heralding the May
With tender light illuming the gray woods,
I shall be gone away.
Ah! wood-walks winding sweet
Through all the valleys sloping to the west,
Where glad brooks wander with melodious feet,
In musical unrest,--
Ye will not miss me here
With all the bright things of the coming May,
And the rejoicing of the awakened year,--
I shall be far away.
Yet in your loneliest nooks,
I know where all the greenest mosses grow,
And where the violets lift their first sweet looks,
Out of the waning snow.
And I have heard, unsought,
Under the musing shadows of the beech,
Wood-voices answering my unspoken thought,
In half-articulate speech.
And oh! ye shadowy bands,
Rank above rank along yon rocky height,
That lift into the heavens your mailed hands,
And linked armour bright.
What other eyes will trace
From this dear window haunted with the past,
Strange likeness to some well beloved face,
Among your profiles vast?
What stranger hands will tend
The nameless treasures I must leave behind,--
My flowers, my birds, and each inanimate friend,
Linked closer than my kind.
These glorious landscapes old,
Framed in my cottage windows,--hill-sides dun,
With umber shadows lightened to pale gold
By touches of the sun,--
Valleys like emeralds set
Lonely and sweet in the dusk hills afar,
That half enclose them, like a carcanet
That holds a diamond star.
Will any gentler face,
Weary and sad sometimes, like mine grow bright
Touched with your simple beauty-in my place,
My garden of delight?--
I know not,--yet farewell
Sweet home of mine,--my parting song is o'er,
And stranger forms among your bowers shall dwell,
Where I return no more.
The Potatoes' Dance (A Poem Game.)
by Vachel Lindsay

I
"Down cellar," said the cricket,
"Down cellar," said the cricket,
"Down cellar," said the cricket,
"I saw a ball last night,
In honor of a lady,
In honor of a lady,
In honor of a lady,
Whose wings were pearly-white.
The breath of bitter weather,
The breath of bitter weather,
The breath of bitter weather,
Had smashed the cellar pane.
We entertained a drift of leaves,
We entertained a drift of leaves,
We entertained a drift of leaves,
And then of snow and rain.
But we were dressed for winter,
But we were dressed for winter,
But we were dressed for winter,
And loved to hear it blow
In honor of the lady,
In honor of the lady,
In honor of the lady,
Who makes potatoes grow,
Our guest the Irish lady,
The tiny Irish lady,
The airy Irish lady,
Who makes potatoes grow.
II
"Potatoes were the waiters,
Potatoes were the waiters,
Potatoes were the waiters,
Potatoes were the band,
Potatoes were the dancers
Kicking up the sand,
Kicking up the sand,
Kicking up the sand,
Potatoes were the dancers
Kicking up the sand.
Their legs were old burnt matches,
Their legs were old burnt matches,
Their legs were old burnt matches,
Their arms were just the same.
They jigged and whirled and scrambled,
Jigged and whirled and scrambled,
Jigged and whirled and scrambled,
In honor of the dame,
The noble Irish lady
Who makes potatoes dance,
The witty Irish lady,
The saucy Irish lady,
The laughing Irish lady
Who makes potatoes prance.
III
"There was just one sweet potato.
He was golden brown and slim.
The lady loved his dancing,
The lady loved his dancing,
The lady loved his dancing,
She danced all night with him,
She danced all night with him.
Alas, he wasn't Irish.
So when she flew away,
They threw him in the coal-bin,
And there he is today,
Where they cannot hear his sighs
And his weeping for the lady,
The glorious Irish lady,
The beauteous Irish lady,
Who
Gives
Potatoes
Eyes."
After The Opera
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

Down the stone stairs
Girls with their large eyes wide with tragedy
Lift looks of shocked and momentous emotion up at me.
And I smile.
Ladies
Stepping like birds with their bright and pointed feet
Peer anxiously forth, as if for a boat to carry them out of the wreckage,
And among the wreck of the theatre crowd
I stand and smile.
They take tragedy so becomingly.
Which pleases me.
But when I meet the weary eyes
The reddened aching eyes of the bar-man with thin arms,
I am glad to go back to where I came from.
The Potato's Dance
by Vachel Lindsay

"Down cellar," said the cricket,
"I saw a ball last night
In honor of a lady
Whose wings were pearly-white.
The breath of bitter weather
Had smashed the cellar pane:
We entertained a drift of leaves
And then of snow and rain.
But we were dressed for winter,
And loved to hear it blow
In honor of the lady
Who makes potatoes grow - 
Our guest, the Irish lady,
The tiny Irish lady,
The fairy Irish lady
That makes potatoes grow.
"Potatoes were the waiters,
Potatoes were the band,
Potatoes were the dancers
Kicking up the sand:
Their legs were old burnt matches,
Their arms were just the same,
They jigged and whirled and scrambled
In honor of the dame:
The noble Irish lady
Who makes potatoes dance,
The witty Irish lady,
The saucy Irish lady,
The laughing Irish lady
Who makes potatoes prance.
"There was just one sweet potato.
He was golden-brown and slim:
The lady loved his figure.
She danced all night with him.
Alas, he wasn't Irish.
So when she flew away,
They threw him in the coal-bin
And there he is to-day,
Where they cannot hear his sighs - 
His weeping for the lady,
The beauteous Irish lady,
The radiant Irish lady
Who gives potatoes eyes."
Hesperus
by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Down in the street the last late hansoms go
Still westward, but with backward eyes of red
The harlot shuffles to her lonely bed;
The tall policeman pauses but to throw
A flash into the empty portico;
Then he too passes, and his lonely tread
Links all the long-drawn gas-lights on a thread
And ties them to one planet swinging low.
O Hesperus! O happy star! to bend
O'er Helen's bosom in the tranc'd west--
To watch the hours heave by upon her breast
And at her parted lip for dreams attend:
If dawn defraud thee, how shall I be deem'd.
Who house within that bosom, and am dreamed?
The Fortune-Teller.
by Thomas Moore

Down in the valley come meet me to-night,
And I'll tell you your fortune truly
As ever 'twas told, by the new-moon's light,
To a young maiden, shining as newly.
But, for the world, let no one be nigh,
Lest haply the stars should deceive me;
Such secrets between you and me and the sky
Should never go farther, believe me.
If at that hour the heavens be not dim,
My science shall call up before you
A male apparition,--the image of him
Whose destiny 'tis to adore you.
And if to that phantom you'll be kind,
So fondly around you he'll hover,
You'll hardly, my dear, any difference find
'Twixt him and a true living lover.
Down at your feet, in the pale moonlight,
He'll kneel, with a warmth of devotion--
An ardor, of which such an innocent sprite
You'd scarcely believe had a notion.
What other thoughts and events may arise,
As in destiny's book I've not seen them,
Must only be left to the stars and your eyes
To settle, ere morning, between them.
Unrealized
by Thomas Hardy

Down comes the winter rain -
Spoils my hat and bow -
Runs into the poll of me;
But mother won't know.
We've been out and caught a cold,
Knee-deep in snow;
Such a lucky thing it is
That mother won't know!
Rosy lost herself last night -
Couldn't tell where to go.
Yes - it rather frightened her,
But mother didn't know.
Somebody made Willy drunk
At the Christmas show:
O 'twas fun! It's well for him
That mother won't know!
Howsoever wild we are,
Late at school or slow,
Mother won't be cross with us,
Mother won't know.
How we cried the day she died!
Neighbours whispering low . . .
But we now do what we will -
Mother won't know.
Never-To-Be
by Walter De La Mare

Down by the waters of the sea,
Reigns the King of Never-to-be.
His palace walls are black with night;
His torches star and moon's light,
And for his timepiece deep and grave
Beats on the green unhastening wave.
Windswept are his high corridors;
His pleasance the sea-mantled shores;
For sentinel a shadow stands
With hair in heaven, and cloudy hands;
And round his bed, king's guards to be,
Watch pines in iron solemnity.
His hound is mute; his steed at will
Roams pastures deep with asphodel;
His queen is to her slumber gone;
His courtiers mute lie, hewn in stone;
He hath forgot where he did hide
His sceptre in the mountain-side.
Grey-capped and muttering, mad is he - 
The childless King of Never-to-be;
For all his people in the deep
Keep everlasting fast asleep;
And all his realm is foam and rain,
Whispering of what comes not again.
The Send-off
by Wilfred Edward Salter Owen

Down the close, darkening lanes they sang their way
To the siding-shed,
And lined the train with faces grimly gay.
Their breasts were stuck all white with wreath and spray
As men's are, dead.
Dull porters watched them, and a casual tramp
Stood staring hard,
Sorry to miss them from the upland camp.
Then, unmoved, signals nodded, and a lamp
Winked to the guard.
So secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went.
They were not ours:
We never heard to which front these were sent.
Nor there if they yet mock what women meant
Who gave them flowers.
Shall they return to beatings of great bells
In wild trainloads?
A few, a few, too few for drums and yells,
May creep back, silent, to still village wells
Up half-known roads.
Mater Amabilis.
by Emma Lazarus

Down the goldenest of streams,
Tide of dreams,
The fair cradled man-child drifts;
Sways with cadenced motion slow,
To and fro,
As the mother-foot poised lightly, falls and lifts.
He, the firstling, - he, the light
Of her sight, - 
He, the breathing pledge of love,
'Neath the holy passion lies,
Of her eyes, - 
Smiles to feel the warm, life-giving ray above.
She believes that in his vision,
Skies elysian
O'er an angel-people shine.
Back to gardens of delight,
Taking flight,
His auroral spirit basks in dreams divine.
But she smiles through anxious tears;
Unborn years
Pressing forward, she perceives.
Shadowy muffled shapes, they come
Deaf and dumb,
Bringing what? dry chaff and tares, or full-eared sheaves?
What for him shall she invoke?
Shall the oak
Bind the man's triumphant brow?
Shall his daring foot alight
On the height?
Shall he dwell amidst the humble and the low?
Through what tears and sweat and pain,
Must he gain
Fruitage from the tree of life?
Shall it yield him bitter flavor?
Shall its savor
Be as manna midst the turmoil and the strife?
In his cradle slept and smiled
Thus the child
Who as Prince of Peace was hailed.
Thus anigh the mother breast,
Lulled to rest,
Child-Napoleon down the lilied river sailed.
Crowned or crucified - the same
Glows the flame
Of her deathless love divine.
Still the blessed mother stands,
In all lands,
As she watched beside thy cradle and by mine.
Whatso gifts the years bestow,
Still men know,
While she breathes, lives one who sees
(Stand they pure or sin-defiled)
But the child
Whom she crooned to sleep and rocked upon her knee.
Up And Down
by Walter De La Mare

Down the Hill of Ludgate,
Up the Hill of Fleet,
To and fro and East and West
With people flows the street;
Even the King of England
On Temple Bar must beat
For leave to ride to Ludgate
Down the Hill of Fleet.
The Poet Shepherd.
by Charles Hamilton Musgrove

Down in the vale the lazy sheep
Are roaming at their will,
But I would be away to weep
Upon the windy hill,
For Summer's song is in my heart,
Her kiss is on my brow,
As here I kneel alone, apart,
To consecrate our vow.
Ah, doubly poor the gift shall be
That links my soul with hers,
For she has given her all to me
While I can give but tears!
Venus Of The Louvre.
by Emma Lazarus

Down the long hall she glistens like a star,
The foam-born mother of Love, transfixed to stone,
Yet none the less immortal, breathing on.
Time's brutal hand hath maimed but could not mar.
When first the enthralled enchantress from afar
Dazzled mine eyes, I saw not her alone,
Serenely poised on her world-worshipped throne,
As when she guided once her dove-drawn car, - 
But at her feet a pale, death-stricken Jew,
Her life adorer, sobbed farewell to love.
Here Heine wept!    Here still we weeps anew,
Nor ever shall his shadow lift or move,
While mourns one ardent heart, one poet-brain,
For vanished Hellas and Hebraic pain.
Beauty And Song.
by Thomas Moore

Down in yon summer vale,
Where the rill flows.
Thus said a Nightingale
To his loved Rose:--
"Tho' rich the pleasures
"Of song's sweet measures,
"Vain were its melody,
"Rose, without thee."
Then from the green recess
Of her night-bower,
Beaming with bashfulness,
Spoke the bright flower:--
"Tho' morn should lend her
"Its sunniest splendor,
"What would the Rose be,
"Unsung by thee?"
Thus still let Song attend
Woman's bright way;
Thus still let woman lend
Light to the lay.
Like stars thro' heaven's sea
Floating in harmony
Beauty should glide along
Circled by Song.
The Ports Of The Open Sea
by Henry Lawson

Down here where the ships loom large in
The gloom when the sea-storms veer,
Down here on the south-west margin
Of the western hemisphere,
Where the might of a world-wide ocean
Round the youngest land rolls free,
Storm-bound from the world's commotion,
Lie the Ports of the Open Sea.
By the bluff where the grey sand reaches
To the kerb of the spray-swept street,
By the sweep of the black sand beaches
From the main-road travellers' feet,
By the heights like a work Titanic,
By a bluff lined coast volcanic
Lie the Ports of the wild South-east.
By the steeps of the snow-capped range,
By the scarped and terraced hills,
Far away from the swift life-changes,
From the wear of the strife that kills,
Where the land in the Spring seems younger
Than a land of the Earth might be,
Oh! the hearts of the rovers hunger
For the Ports of the Open Sea.
But the captains watch and hearken
For a sign of the South Sea wrath,
Let the face of the South-east darken,
And they turn to the ocean path.
Ay, the sea-boats dare not linger,
Whatever the cargo be;
When the South-east lifts a finger
By the Ports of the Open Sea.
South by the bleak Bluff faring,
North where the Three Kings wait,
South-east the tempest daring,
Flight through the storm-tossed strait;
Yonder a white-winged roamer
Struck where the rollers roar,
Where the great green froth-flaked comber
Breaks down on a black-ribbed shore.
For the South-east lands are dread lands
To the sailor in the shrouds,
Where the low clouds loom like headlands,
And the black bluffs blur like clouds.
When the breakers rage to windward
And the lights are masked a-lee,
And the sunken rocks run inward
To a Port of the Open Sea.
But oh! for the South-east weather,
The sweep of the three-days' gale,
When, far through the flax and heather,
The spindrift drives like hail.
Glory to man's creations
That drive where the gale grows gruff,
When the homes of the sea-coast stations
Flash white from the dark'ning bluff!
When the swell of the South-east rouses
The wrath of the Maori sprite,
And the brown folk flee their houses
And crouch in the flax by night,
And wait as they long have waited,
In fear as the brown folk be,
The wave of destruction fated
For the Ports of the Open Sea.
Grey cloud to the mountain bases,
Wild boughs that rush and sweep;
On the rounded hills the tussocks
Like flocks of flying sheep;
A lonely storm-bird soaring
O'er tussock, fern and tree;
And the boulder beaches roaring
The Hymn of the Open Sea.
Immortality.
by Friedrich Schiller

Dreadest thou the aspect of death! Thou wishest to live on forever?
Live in the whole, and when long thou shalt have gone, 'twill remain!
BillJim
by Edward Dyson

Down to it is Plugger Bill,
Lyin' crumpled, white 'n' still.
Me 'n' him
Chips in when the scrap begins,
Carin' nothin' for our skins,
Chi-iked as the 'Eavenly Twins,
Bill 'n' Jim.
They 'ave outed Bill at last,
Slugged me cobber hard 'n' fast.
It's a kill.
See the purple of his lip
'N' the red 'n' oozy drip!
Ends our great ole partnership,
Jim 'n' Bill
Mates we was when we was kids;
Camp, 'n' ship, 'n' Pyramids,
Him 'n' me
Hung together, 'n' we tore
Up the heights from Helles shore,
Bill a long 'arf head afore,
Fine to see!
Then it was we took a touch,
Simple puncture, nothin' much;
But we lay
'N' we stays the count, it seems,
In a sorter realm of dreams
Where the sun infernal gleams
Night 'n' day;
Boilin', fryin' achin', dumb,
Waitin' till the stretchers come,
Patiently.
I hangs on to 'arf a cup.
Which I wants ole Bill to sup.
Damn if he ain't savin' up
His for me!
When they come to lift my head
I am softly kiddin' dead,
For a game,
So's they'll first take on his gills.
Over, though, me scheme he spills,
Bli'me, this ole take-down Bill's
Done the same!
But he isn't kiddin' now,
And it knocks me anyhow
Seein' him.
We was both agreed before,
Though it got 'em by the score,
Two was goin' to beat this war,
But 'n' Jim.
Mate o' mine, yiv stayed it through.
Hard luck, Bill-for me 'n' you
Hard 'n' grim.
They have got me Cobber true,
But I'm stickin' tight ez glue'.
Bill, there's one who'll plug for two,
It is Jim!
The Hymn To Physical Pain
by Rudyard Kipling

Dread Mother of Forgetfulness
Who, when Thy reign begins,
Wipest away the Soul's distress,
And memory of her sins.
The trusty Worm that dieth not,
The steadfast Fire also,
By Thy contrivance are forgot
In a completer woe.
Thine are the lidless eyes of night
That stare upon our tears,
Through certain hours which in our sight
Exceed a thousand years:
Thine is the thickness of the Dark
That presses in our pain,
As Thine the Dawn that bids us mark
Life's grinning face again.
Thine is the weariness outworn
No promise shall relieve,
That says at eve, "Would God 'twere morn"
At morn, "Would God 'twere eve!"
And when Thy tender mercies cease
And life unvexed is due,
Instant upon the false release
The Worm and Fire renew.
Wherefore we praise Thee in the deep,
And on our beds we pray
For Thy return that Thou may'st keep
The Pains of Hell at bay!
London Voluntaries - To Charles Whibley - III - Scherzando
by William Ernest Henley

Down through the ancient Strand
The spirit of October, mild and boon
And sauntering, takes his way
This golden end of afternoon,
As though the corn stood yellow in all the land,
And the ripe apples dropped to the harvest-moon.
Lo! the round sun, half-down the western slope -
Seen as along an unglazed telescope -
Lingers and lolls, loth to be done with day:
Gifting the long, lean, lanky street
And its abounding confluences of being
With aspects generous and bland;
Making a thousand harnesses to shine
As with new ore from some enchanted mine,
And every horse's coat so full of sheen
He looks new-tailored, and every 'bus feels clean,
And never a hansom but is worth the feeing;
And every jeweller within the pale
Offers a real Arabian Night for sale;
And even the roar
Of the strong streams of toil, that pause and pour
Eastward and westward, sounds suffused -
Seems as it were bemused
And blurred, and like the speech
Of lazy seas on a lotus-haunted beach -
With this enchanted lustrousness,
This mellow magic, that (as a man's caress
Brings back to some faded face, beloved before,
A heavenly shadow of the grace it wore
Ere the poor eyes were minded to beseech)
Old things transfigures, and you hail and bless
Their looks of long-lapsed loveliness once more:
Till Clement's, angular and cold and staid,
Gleams forth in glamour's very stuffs arrayed;
And Bride's, her aery, unsubstantial charm
Through flight on flight of springing, soaring stone
Grown flushed and warm,
Laughs into life full-mooded and fresh-blown;
And the high majesty of Paul's
Uplifts a voice of living light, and calls -
Calls to his millions to behold and see
How goodly this his London Town can be!
For earth and sky and air
Are golden everywhere,
And golden with a gold so suave and fine
The looking on it lifts the heart like wine.
Trafalgar Square
(The fountains volleying golden glaze)
Shines like an angel-market.    High aloft
Over his couchant Lions, in a haze
Shimmering and bland and soft,
A dust of chrysoprase,
Our Sailor takes the golden gaze
Of the saluting sun, and flames superb,
As once he flamed it on his ocean round.
The dingy dreariness of the picture-place,
Turned very nearly bright,
Takes on a luminous transiency of grace,
And shows no more a scandal to the ground.
The very blind man pottering on the kerb,
Among the posies and the ostrich feathers
And the rude voices touched with all the weathers
Of the long, varying year,
Shares in the universal alms of light.
The windows, with their fleeting, flickering fires,
The height and spread of frontage shining sheer,
The quiring signs, the rejoicing roofs and spires -
'Tis El Dorado - El Dorado plain,
The Golden City!    And when a girl goes by,
Look! as she turns her glancing head,
A call of gold is floated from her ear!
Golden, all golden!    In a golden glory,
Long-lapsing down a golden coasted sky,
The day, not dies but, seems
Dispersed in wafts and drifts of gold, and shed
Upon a past of golden song and story
And memories of gold and golden dreams.