DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Creation of Man
by Morris Rosenfeld

When the world was first created
By th' all-wise Eternal One,
Asked he none for help or counsel,--
Simply spake, and it was done!
Made it for his own good pleasure,
Shaped it on his own design,
Spent a long day's work upon it,
Formed it fair and very fine.
Soon he thought on man's creation,--
Then perplexities arose,
So the Lord His winged Senate
Called, the question to propose:
Hear, my great ones, why I called ye,
Hear and help me ye who can,
Hear and tell me how I further
Shall proceed in making man.
Ponder well before ye answer,
And consider, children dear;--
In our image I would make him,
Free from stain, from blemish clear.
Of my holy fire I'd give him,
Crowned monarch shall he be,
Ruling with a sway unquestioned
Over earth and air and sea.
Birds across the blue sky winging
Swift shall fly before his face,--
Silver fishes in the ocean,
Savage lion in the chase.
--How? This toy of froth and vapor,
Thought the Senate, filled with fear,
If so wide his kingdom stretches,
Shortly he will break in here!
So the Lord they answered, saying:--
Mind and strength Thy creature give,
Form him in our very image,
Lord, but wingless let him live!
Lest he shame the soaring eagle
Let no wings to man be giv'n,
Bid him o'er the earth be ruler,
Lord, but keep him out of heav'n!
Wisely said, the Lord made answer,
Lo, your counsel fair I take!
Yet, my Senate, one exception--
One alone, I will to make.
One exception! for the poet,
For the singer, shall have wings;
He the gates of Heav'n shall enter,
Highest of created things.
One I single from among ye,
One to watch the ages long,
Promptly to admit the poet
When he hears his holy song.
Leprosy In Houses.
by Robert Herrick

When to a house I come, and see
The Genius wasteful, more than free:
The servants thumbless, yet to eat
With lawless tooth the flour of wheat:
The sons to suck the milk of kine,
More than the teats of discipline:
The daughters wild and loose in dress,
Their cheeks unstained with shamefac'dness:
The husband drunk, the wife to be
A bawd to incivility;
I must confess, I there descry,
A house spread through with leprosy.
When Thou Art Near.
by Freeman Edwin Miller

When thou art near, with gladdest grace
My heart is held in fond embrace,
For laughing lips with raptures bless
The toils and tears of my distress,
And woes within me have no place.
The halting hours with hurried pace
Whirl wildly on through happy space,
And life is light with happiness,
When thou art near.
Like mortals whom an angel race
Renews with gladness face to face,
I thrill with Love's unseen caress
That holy hands upon me press,
And Heaven's pleasures all I trace,
When thou art near.
When Thou Must Home To Shades Of Underground
by Thomas Campion

When thou must home to shades of underground,
And there arrived, a new admir'd guest,
The beauteous spirits do engirt thee round,
White Iope, blithe Helen, and the rest,
To hear the stories of thy finished love
From that smooth tongue whose music hell can move,
Then wilt thou speak of banqueting delights,
Of masques and revels which sweet youth did make,
Of tourneys and great challenges of knights,
And all these triumphs for thy beauty's sake;
When thou hast told these honors done to thee,
Then tell, Oh tell, how thou didst murther me.
Speak In Season.
by Robert Herrick

When times are troubled, then forbear; but speak
When a clear day out of a cloud does break.
Amantium Irae
by Ernest Christopher Dowson

When this, our rose, is faded,
And these, our days, are done,
In lands profoundly shaded
From tempest and from sun:
Ah, once more come together,
Shall we forgive the past,
And safe from worldly weather
Possess our souls at last?
Or in our place of shadows
Shall still we stretch an hand
To green, remembered meadows,
Of that old pleasant land?
And vainly there foregathered,
Shall we regret the sun?
The rose of love, ungathered?
The bay, we have not won?
Ah, child! the world's dark marges
May lead to Nevermore,
The stately funeral barges
Sail for an unknown shore,
And love we vow to-morrow,
And pride we serve to-day:
What if they both should borrow
Sad hues of yesterday?
Our pride! Ah, should we miss it,
Or will it serve at last?
Our anger, if we kiss it,
Is like a sorrow past.
While roses deck the garden,
While yet the sun is high,
Doff sorry pride for pardon,
Or ever love go by.
Mrs. Moody.
by James McIntyre

In giving a glance at various Canadian authors perhaps it would be well to commence with that early writer Mrs. Moody. She was a sister of the celebrated Agnes Strickland, author of "The Queens of England."
When this country it was woody,
Its great champion Mrs. Moody,
Showed she had both pluck and push
In her work roughing in the bush.
For there alone she did dwell
At time McKenzie did rebel,
Outbreak her husband strove to quell,
Her own grand struggles she doth tell.
Round bush life she threw a glory,
Pioneer renowned in story,
But her tale it is more cheering
When she wrote about the clearing.
Her other sister Mrs. Traill[C]
Though eighty-seven she doth not fail,
She now is writing of wild flowers
Grown in Canada's woody bowers.
Corinna
by Thomas Campion

When to her lute Corinna sings,
Her voice revives the leaden strings,
And doth in highest notes appear
As any challenged echo clear.
But when she doth of mourning speak,
Even with her sighs the strings do break.
And as her lute doth live or die;
Led by her passion, so must I.
For when of pleasure she doth sing,
My thoughts enjoy a sudden spring;
But if she doth of sorrow speak,
Even from my heart the strings do break.
The Valse
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

When to sweet music my lady is dancing
My heart to mild frenzy her beauty inspires.
Into my face are her brown eyes a-glancing,
And swift my whole frame thrills with tremulous fires.
Dance, lady, dance, for the moments are fleeting,
Pause not to place yon refractory curl;
Life is for love and the night is for sweeting;
Dreamily, joyously, circle and whirl.
Oh, how those viols are throbbing and pleading;
A prayer is scarce needed in sound of their strain.
Surely and lightly as round you are speeding,
You turn to confusion my heart and my brain.
Dance, lady, dance to the viol's soft calling,
Skip it and trip it as light as the air;
Dance, for the moments like rose leaves are falling,
Strikes, now, the clock from its place on the stair.
Now sinks the melody lower and lower,
The weary musicians scarce seeming to play.
Ah, love, your steps now are slower and slower,
The smile on your face is more sad and less gay.
Dance, lady, dance to the brink of our parting,
My heart and your step must not fail to be light.
Dance! Just a turn--tho' the tear-drop be starting.
Ah--now it is done--so--my lady, good-night!
When Under The Icy Eaves
by Edgar Lee Masters

When under the icy eaves
The swallow heralds the sun,
And the dove for its lost mate grieves
And the young lambs play and run;
When the sea is a plane of glass,
And the blustering winds are still,
And the strength of the thin snows pass
In mists o'er the tawny hill - 
The spirit of life awakes
In the fresh flags by the lakes.
When the sick man seeks the air,
And the graves of the dead grow green,
Where the children play unaware
Of the faces no longer seen;
When all we have felt or can feel,
And all we are or have been,
And all the heart can hide or reveal,
Knocks gently, and enters in: - 
The spirit of life awakes,
In the fresh flags by the lakes.
When Underneath the Brown Dead Grass
by Henry Kendall

When underneath the brown dead grass
My weary bones are laid,
I hope I shall not see the glass
At ninety in the shade.
I trust indeed that, when I lie
Beneath the churchyard pine,
I shall not hear that startling cry
''Thermom' is ninety-nine!'
If one should whisper through my sleep
'Come up and be alive,'
I'd answer No, unless you'll keep
The glass at sixty-five.
I might be willing if allowed
To wear old Adam's rig,
And mix amongst the city crowd
Like Polynesian 'nig'.
Far better in the sod to lie,
With pasturing pig above,
Than broil beneath a copper sky
In sight of all I love!
Far better to be turned to grass
To feed the poley cow,
Than be the half boiled bream, alas,
That I am really now!
For cow and pig I would not hear,
And hoof I would not see;
But if these items did appear
They wouldn't trouble me.
For ah! the pelt of mortal man
Weighs less than half a ton,
And any sight is better than
A sultry southern sun.
The Salt Sea-Wind
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

When Venus, mother and maker of blisses,
Rose out of the billows, large-limbed, and fair,
She stood on the sands and blew sweet kisses
To the salt sea-wind as she dried her hair.
And the salt sea-wind was the first to caress her
To praise her beauty and call her sweet,
The first of the whole wide world to possess her,
She, that creature of light and heat.
Though the sea is old with its sorrows and angers,
And the world has forgotten why love was born,
Yet the salt sea-wind is full of the languors
That Venus taught on her natal morn.
And now whoever dwells there by the ocean,
And feels the wind on his hair and face,
Is stirred by a subtle and keen emotion,
The lingering spell of that first embrace.
Nurse's Song
by William Blake

When voices of children are heard on the green,
And whisperings are in the dale,
The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind,
My face turns green and pale.
Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down,
And the dews of night arise;
Your spring and your day are wasted in play,
And your winter and night in disguise.
To ----
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

When we first met, dark wintry skies were glooming,
And the wild winds sang requiem to the year;
But thou, in all thy beauty's pride wert blooming,
And my young heart knew hope without a fear.
When we last parted, summer suns were smiling,
And the bright earth her flowery vesture wore;
But thou hadst lost the power of beguiling,
For my wrecked, wearied heart, could hope no more.
The Angel With The Book
by Madison Julius Cawein

When to that house I came which, long ago,
My heart had builded of its joy and woe,
Upon its threshold, lo! I paused again,
Dreading to enter; fearing to behold
The place wherein my Love had lived of old,
And where my other self lay dead and slain.
I feared to see some shape, some Hope once dear,
Behind the arras dead; some face of Fear,
With eyes accusing, that would sear my soul,
Taking away my manhood and my strength
With heartbreak memories.... And yet, at length,
Again I stood within that house of dole.
Sombre and beautiful with stately things
The long hall lay; and by the stairs the wings
Of Life and Love rose marble and unmarred:
And all the walls, hung grave with tapestry,
Gesticulated sorrow; gazed at me,
Strange speculation in their dark regard.
Through one tall oriel the close of day
Glared with its crimson face and laid a ray,
A burning finger, on the stairway where
A trail of tears, as of a wounded heart,
Led to a passage with a room apart,
A room where Love had perished of despair.
Now all was empty; silent even of sighs;
And yet I felt within that room were eyes,
Unearthly eyes I dared not look upon,
That had seen God; within them hell and heaven
Of all the past. I dared not look, yet, even
As I drew back, my feet were slowly drawn.
Into that room lit with those eyes.... I saw
An Angel standing with the Book of Law;
His raiment lightening from head to feet,
And swords of flame and darkness in his eyes,
He stood, the great Book, open as the skies,
Like some great heart throbbing with rosy heat.
One moment blazed the vision: then I heard,
Not with my ears, but with my soul, this word:
"I am the Law through which Love is. Each one
Through me must win unto his heaven or hell.
I build the house in which all memories dwell.
Thy house is finished, and my task is done."
And where the vision burned was nothing. Fear
Bowed me to earth; for, flaming, very near,
I felt that Angel's presence, like a spell,
That turned my eyesight inward where I saw
That this was Love, whose other name is Law,
By whom was built my House of Heaven and Hell.
Nursery Rhyme. CXV. Scholastic.
by Unknown

When V and I together meet,
They make the number Six compleat.
When I with V doth meet once more,
Then 'tis they Two can make but Four
And when that V from I is gone,
Alas! poor I can make but One.
She Cannot End.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

When unto thee I sent the page all white,
Instead of first thereon inscribing aught,
The space thou doubtless filledst up in sport.
And sent it me, to make my joy grow bright.
As soon as the blue cover met my sight,
As well becomes a woman, quick as thought
I tore it open, leaving hidden nought,
And read the well-known words of pure delight:
MY ONLY BEING! DEAREST HEART! SWEET CHILD!
How kindly thou my yearning then didst still
With gentle words, enthralling me to thee.
In truth methought I read thy whispers mild
Wherewith thou lovingly my soul didst fill,
E'en to myself for aye ennobling me.
The Ghosts Of Night.
by Jean Blewett

When we were children, long ago,
And crept to bed at close of day,
With backward glance and footstep slow,
Though all aweary with our play,
Do you remember how the room - 
The little room with window deep - 
Would fill with shadows and with gloom,
And fright us so we could not sleep?
For O! the things we see at night - 
The dragons grim, the goblins tall,
And, worst of all, the ghosts in white
That range themselves along the wall!
We could but cover up our head,
And listen to our heart's wild beat - 
Such dreadful things about our bed,
And no protection save a sheet!
Then slept, and woke quite unafraid.
The sun was shining, and we found
Our shadows and our ghosts all laid,
Our world a glorious playing-ground.
For O! the things we see at night - 
The dragons grim, the goblins tall,
And, worst of all, the ghosts in white
That range themselves along the wall!
We are but children still, the years
Have never taught us to be bold,
For mark our trembling and our fears
When sometimes, as in days of old,
We in the darkness lie awake,
And see come stealing to our side
A ghostly throng - the grave Mistake,
The Failure big, the broken Pride.
For O! the things we see at night - 
The dragons grim, the goblins tall,
And, worst of all, the ghosts in white
That range themselves along the wall!
How close they creep! How big they loom!
The Task which waits, the Cares which creep;
A child, affrighted in the gloom,
We fain would hide our head and weep.
When, lo! the coward fear is gone - 
The golden sunshine fills the air,
And God has sent us with the dawn
The strength and will to do and dare.
For O! the things we see at night - 
The dragons grim, the goblins tall,
And, worst of all, the ghosts in white
That range themselves along the wall!
Rest In Heaven
by Pamela S. Vining, (J. C. Yule)

When tossed on time's tempestuous tide,
By angry storms resistless driven,
One hope can bid our fears subside - 
It is the hope of rest in Heaven.
With trusting heart we lift our eyes
Above the dark clouds, tempest-driven,
And view, beyond those troubled skies,
The peaceful, stormless rest of Heaven.
No more to shed the exile's tears, - 
No more the heart by anguish riven, - 
No longer bent 'neath toilful years, - 
How sweet will be the rest of Heaven
The Sonnets XXX - When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
by William Shakespeare

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.
Satan.
by Robert Herrick

When we 'gainst Satan stoutly fight, the more
He tears and tugs us than he did before;
Neglecting once to cast a frown on those
Whom ease makes his without the help of blows.
When We Shall Meet.
by Freeman Edwin Miller

When we shall meet, I strangely know
The mad emotions that shall flow
Across my heart all quivering,
Beneath the raptures he shall bring
From angel years that gladdened so.
And I all shy and silent grow
Beneath his glance of gladness, though
Wild yearnings through my bosom spring,
When we shall meet.
Till joyful tears of passion show,
And to his kind embrace I throw
My heart unworthy, and I cling
With deathless fondness to the king
I worshipped in the Long Ago,
When we shall meet!
Music In The Flat
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

When Tom and I were married, we took a little flat;
I had a taste for singing and playing and all that.
And Tom, who loved to hear me, said he hoped I would not stop
All practice, like so many wives who let their music drop.
So I resolved to set apart an hour or two each day
To keeping vocal chords and hands in trim to sing and play.
The second morning I had been for half an hour or more
At work on Haydn's masses, when a tap came at my door.
A nurse who wore a dainty cap and apron, and a smile,
Ran down to ask if I would cease my music for awhile.
The lady in the flat above was very ill, she said,
And the sound of my piano was distracting to her head.
A fortnight's exercises lost, ere I began them, when,
The following morning at my door, there came that tap again;
A woman with an anguished face implored me to forego
My music for some days to come -a man was dead below.
I shut down my piano till the corpse had left the house,
And spoke to Tom in whispers and was quiet as a mouse.
A week of labor limbered up my stiffened hand and voice,
I stole an extra hour from sleep, to practice and rejoice;
When, ting-a-ling, the door-bell rang a discord in my trill -
The baby in the flat across was very, very ill.
For ten long days that infant's life was hanging by a thread,
And all that time my instrument was silent as the dead.
So pain and death and sickness came in one perpetual row,
When babies were not born above, then tenants died below.
The funeral over underneath, some one fell ill on top,
And begged me, for the love of God, to let my music drop.
When trouble went not up or down, it stalked across the hall,
And so in spite of my resolve, I do not play at all.
The Statue
by Hilaire Belloc

When we are dead, some Hunting-boy will pass
And find a stone half-hidden in tall grass
And grey with age: but having seen that stone
(Which was your image), ride more slowly on.
To The Honoured Master Endymion Porter.
by Robert Herrick

When to thy porch I come and ravish'd see
The state of poets there attending thee,
Those bards and I, all in a chorus sing:
We are thy prophets, Porter, thou our king.
Annunciation.
by Muriel Stuart

"The Lord appeared in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush and behold, the bush burned with fire and the bush was not consumed." - EXODUS III. 2.
When to your virgin heart, unstirred, ungiven,
Upon the quiet mountain side untrod,
The sudden naked fire came down from heaven,
Burning you with the very breath of God,
Was the sun lost?    Were all the sweet stars dim
While God raised round your head those walls of light?
Were you locked dumbly, terribly with Him,
Within that burning temple day and night?
What was it to have God there like a bird -
God like a great, gold flower upon your breast -
While He spake things that only one man heard,
Face down before that glory manifest?
When that strange flame went up the mountain side,
Were your forsaken lips so burned with gold
That the creatures of the wild stood off and cried,
And in your breast no blossom dared unfold?
Did you call back the startled birds to build,
And put forth all your simple buds again,
Forgetting how your branches once were filled,
In sweet embrace of passing sun and rain?
Or were all other birds forbidden sing
After those great, gold plumes had made their nest?
Was, in its strange and awful blossoming,
That great, gold flower the last upon your breast?
At A Dinner To General Grant
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

When treason first began the strife
That crimsoned sea and shore,
The Nation poured her hoarded life
On Freedom's threshing-floor;
From field and prairie, east and west,
From coast and hill and plain,
The sheaves of ripening manhood pressed
Thick as the bearded grain.
Rich was the harvest; souls as true
As ever battle tried;
But fiercer still the conflict grew,
The floor of death more wide;
Ah, who forgets that dreadful day
Whose blot of grief and shame
Four bitter years scarce wash away
In seas of blood and flame?
Vain, vain the Nation's lofty boasts, - 
Vain all her sacrifice!
"Give me a man to lead my hosts,
O God in heaven!" she cries.
While Battle whirls his crushing flail,
And plies his winnowing fan, - 
Thick flies the chaff on every gale, - 
She cannot find her man!
Bravely they fought who failed to win, - 
Our leaders battle-scarred, - 
Fighting the hosts of hell and sin,
But devils die always hard!
Blame not the broken tools of God
That helped our sorest needs;
Through paths that martyr feet have trod
The conqueror's steps He leads.
But now the heavens grow black with doubt,
The ravens fill the sky,
"Friends" plot within, foes storm without,
Hark, - that despairing cry,
"Where is the heart, the hand, the brain
To dare, to do, to plan?"
The bleeding Nation shrieks in vain, - 
She has not found her man!
A little echo stirs the air, - 
Some tale, whate'er it be,
Of rebels routed in their lair
Along the Tennessee.
The little echo spreads and grows,
And soon the trump of Fame
Has taught the Nation's friends and foes
The "man on horseback"'s name.
So well his warlike wooing sped,
No fortress might resist
His billets-doux of lisping lead,
The bayonets in his fist, - 
With kisses from his cannons' mouth
He made his passion known
Till Vicksburg, vestal of the South,
Unbound her virgin zone.
And still where'er his banners led
He conquered as he came,
The trembling hosts of treason fled
Before his breath of flame,
And Fame's still gathering echoes grew
Till high o'er Richmond's towers
The starry fold of Freedom flew,
And all the land was ours.
Welcome from fields where valor fought
To feasts where pleasure waits;
A Nation gives you smiles unbought
At all her opening gates!
Forgive us when we press your hand, - 
Your war-worn features scan, - 
God sent you to a bleeding land;
Our Nation found its man!
Elegiac Stanzas.
by Thomas Moore

Sic juvat perire.
When wearied wretches sink to sleep,
How heavenly soft their slumbers lie!
How sweet is death to those who weep,
To those who weep and long to die!
Saw you the soft and grassy bed,
Where flowrets deck the green earth's breast?
'Tis there I wish to lay my head,
'Tis there I wish to sleep at rest.
Oh, let not tears embalm my tomb,--
None but the dews at twilight given!
Oh, let not sighs disturb the gloom,--
None but the whispering winds of heaven!
Sonnets From The Portuguese XXXVI
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

When we met first and loved, I did not build
Upon the event with marble. Could it mean
To last, a love set pendulous between
Sorrow and sorrow? Nay, I rather thrilled,
Distrusting every light that seemed to gild
The onward path, and feared to overlean
A finger even. And, though I have grown serene
And strong since then, I think that God has willed
A still renewable fear . . . O love, O troth . . .
Lest these enclasp'd hands should never hold,
This mutual kiss drop down between us both
As an unowned thing, once the lips being cold.
And Love, be false! if he, to keep one oath,
Must lose one joy, by his life's star foretold.