DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
White Magic.
by Muriel Stuart

Is it not a wonderful thing to be able to force an astonished plant to bear rare flowers which are foreign to it ... and to obtain a marvellous result from sap which, left to itself, would have produced corollas without beauty? - VIRGIL.
I stood forlorn and pale,
Pressed by the cold sand, pinched by the thin grass,
Last of my race and frail
Who reigned in beauty once when beauty was,
Before the rich earth beckoned to the sea,
Took his salt lips to taste,
And spread this gradual waste -
This ruin of flower, this doom of grass and tree.
Each Spring could scarcely lift
My brows from the sand drift
To fill my lips with April as she went,
Or force my weariness
To its sad, summer dress:
On the harsh beach I heard the grey sea rise,
The ragged grass made ceaseless, dim lament,
And day and night scarce changed the mournful skies.
Foot on the sand, a shadow on the sea!
A face leaned over me.
Across each wasted limb
Passed healingly a warm, great, god-like hand.
I was drawn up to him,
From my frail feet fell the last grains of sand.
Then haste and darkness stooped and made me theirs;
Deep handed me to deep;...
I faded then as names fade from men's prayers, -
As a sigh from lips at last made friends with sleep.
But the same hand that bore me from the sea,
Waking me tenderly,
Bound me to a rough stranger of my race, -
Me weary and pale to him and him to me.
I turned my piteous face
Aside ashamed; I struggled to be free.
I slept, I dreamed, I woke to that embrace! ...
Sweet tides stole through my veins,
Strange fires and thrills and pains;
To my cold lips the bloom crept back once more
I glowed as a bride glows;
I watched the days with delicate hands restore
My kinship with the rose.
About my throat my hair went like a flame,
My brows were wreathed, in purple I was dressed,
I bore a new bride's name,
A great star burned my breast.
No longer bound, I leaned the same sweet way
As even a great Queen may
Towards her lover.    Now astonished I
Who was a beggar stand obediently
Beside Cophetua.
On Pitz Languard.
by John Milton Hay

I stood on the top of Pitz Languard,
And heard three voices whispering low,
Where the Alpine birds in their circling ward
Made swift dark shadows upon the snow.
First Voice.
I loved a girl with truth and pain,
She loved me not.    When she said good-bye
She gave me a kiss to sting and stain
My broken life to a rosy dye.
Second Voice.
I loved a woman with love well tried, -
And I swear I believe she loves me still.
But it was not I who stood by her side
When she answered the priest and said "I will."
Third Voice.
I loved two girls, one fond, one shy,
And I never divined which one loved me.
One married, and now, though I can't tell why,
Of the four in the story I count but three.
The three weird voices whispered low
Where the eagles swept in their circling ward;
But only one shadow scarred the snow
As I clambered down from Pitz Languard.
By The Sea.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

I started early, took my dog,
And visited the sea;
The mermaids in the basement
Came out to look at me,
And frigates in the upper floor
Extended hempen hands,
Presuming me to be a mouse
Aground, upon the sands.
But no man moved me till the tide
Went past my simple shoe,
And past my apron and my belt,
And past my bodice too,
And made as he would eat me up
As wholly as a dew
Upon a dandelion's sleeve --
And then I started too.
And he -- he followed close behind;
I felt his silver heel
Upon my ankle, -- then my shoes
Would overflow with pearl.
Until we met the solid town,
No man he seemed to know;
And bowing with a mighty look
At me, the sea withdrew.
The Land's End.
by Walter R. Cassels

I stood on the Land's End, alone and still.
Man might have been unmade, for no frail trace
Of mortal labour startled the wild place,
And only sea-mews with their wailing shrill,
Circled beneath me over the dark sea,
Flashing the waves with pinions snowy white,
That glimmer'd faintly in the gloomy light
Betwixt the foaming furrows constantly.
It was a mighty cape, that proudly rose
Above the world of waters, high and steep,
With many a scar and fissure fathoms deep,
Upon whose ledges lodged the endless snows;
A noble brow to a firm-founded world,
That at the limits of its empire stood,
Fronting the ocean in its roughest mood,
And all its fury calmly backward hurl'd.
The Midnight Sun rose like an angry god,
Girt round with clouds, through which a lurid glow
Fev'rously trembled to the waves below,
And smote the waters with a fiery rod;
Above, the glory circled up the sky,
Fainter and fainter to the sullen grey,
Till the black under-drift of clouds away
Went with the gathering wind, and let it die.
A moaning sound swept o'er the heaving ocean,
Toss'd hoarsely on from angry crest to crest,
Like groans from a great soul in its unrest,
Stirring the ranks of men to fierce commotion.
My longing vision measured the wide waste,
"This cannot be the end of things; that man
Should see his path lead on so short a span,
And then the unstable ocean mock his haste!
Better have stay'd where I could still look on,
And see a sturdy world to bear my feet,
Than thus outstrip the multitude to cheat
Earth of its knowledge, and here find it gone."
A Shadow rose betwixt me and the sky,
Out of the Ocean, as it seem'd, that set
A perfect shape before mine eyes, and yet
Hid not the sky that did behind it lie;
But, through its misty substance, all things grew
Faint, pale, and ghostly, and the risen sun
Gleam'd like a fiery globe half quench'd and dun,
Through the sere shadow which the spectre threw:
It answer'd me, "Man! this is not the end;
Progression ceaseth not until the goal
Of all perfection stop the running soul,
Whither through life its aspirations tend.
Spring from thy height, then, for till thou art free
From earth, thy course is narrow and restrain'd!"
I said, "No! Spirit, nought were thus attain'd;
Better pause here than perish in the sea;
Man can but do his utmost--there's a length
He cannot overleap." The spectre smiled,
"Then trust to me; for though the sea be wild,
It cannot shake the sinews of my strength,--
Within my breast the fearful fall asleep,
And wake out of their terrors, calm and still,
Having outstripp'd the speed of time and ill,
And pass'd unconsciously the stormy deep."
Quicker and quicker drew I in my breath,
"If there be land beyond, receive me now;
I'll trust in thee--but, Spirit, who art thou?"
The winds bore on a murmur, "I am Death!"
Preface to Maurine And Other Poems
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I step across the mystic border-land,
And look upon the wonder-world of Art.
How beautiful, how beautiful its hills!
And all its valleys, how surpassing fair!
The winding paths that lead up to the heights
Are polished by the footsteps of the great.
The mountain-peaks stand very near to God:
The chosen few whose feet have trod thereon
Have talked with Him, and with the angels walked.
Here are no sounds of discord - no profane
Or senseless gossip of unworthy things - 
Only the songs of chisels and of pens.
Of busy brushes, and ecstatic strains
Of souls surcharged with music most divine.
Here is no idle sorrow, no poor grief
For any day or object left behind - 
For time is counted precious, and herein
Is such complete abandonment of Self
That tears turn into rainbows, and enhance
The beauty of the land where all is fair.
Awed and afraid, I cross the border-land.
Oh, who am I, that I dare enter here
Where the great artists of the world have trod - 
The genius-crowned aristocrats of Earth?
Only the singer of a little song;
Yet loving Art with such a mighty love
I hold it greater to have won a place
Just on the fair land's edge, to make my grave,
Than in the outer world of greed and gain
To sit upon a royal throne and reign.
The Broken Circle
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

I stood On Sarum's treeless plain,
The waste that careless Nature owns;
Lone tenants of her bleak domain,
Loomed huge and gray the Druid stones.
Upheaved in many a billowy mound
The sea-like, naked turf arose,
Where wandering flocks went nibbling round
The mingled graves of friends and foes.
The Briton, Roman, Saxon, Dane,
This windy desert roamed in turn;
Unmoved these mighty blocks remain
Whose story none that lives may learn.
Erect, half buried, slant or prone,
These awful listeners, blind and dumb,
Hear the strange tongues of tribes unknown,
As wave on wave they go and come.
"Who are you, giants, whence and why?"
I stand and ask in blank amaze;
My soul accepts their mute reply
"A mystery, as are you that gaze.
"A silent Orpheus wrought the charm
From riven rocks their spoils to bring;
A nameless Titan lent his arm
To range us in our magic ring.
"But Time with still and stealthy stride,
That climbs and treads and levels all,
That bids the loosening keystone slide,
And topples down the crumbling wall, - 
"Time, that unbuilds the quarried past,
Leans on these wrecks that press the sod;
They slant, they stoop, they fall at last,
And strew the turf their priests have trod.
"No more our altar's wreath of smoke
Floats up with morning's fragrant dew;
The fires are dead, the ring is broke,
Where stood the many stand the few."
My thoughts had wandered far away,
Borne off on Memory's outspread wing,
To where in deepening twilight lay
The wrecks of friendship's broken ring.
Ah me! of all our goodly train
How few will find our banquet hall!
Yet why with coward lips complain
That this must lean, and that must fall?
Cold is the Druid's altar-stone,
Its vanished flame no more returns;
But ours no chilling damp has known, - 
Unchanged, unchanging, still it burns.
So let our broken circle stand
A wreck, a remnant, yet the same,
While one last, loving, faithful hand
Still lives to feed its altar-flame!
The Wind And The Sea
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

I stood by the shore at the death of day,
As the sun sank flaming red;
And the face of the waters that spread away
Was as gray as the face of the dead.
And I heard the cry of the wanton sea
And the moan of the wailing wind;
For love's sweet pain in his heart had he,
But the gray old sea had sinned.
The wind was young and the sea was old,
But their cries went up together;
The wind was warm and the sea was cold,
For age makes wintry weather.
So they cried aloud and they wept amain,
Till the sky grew dark to hear it;
And out of its folds crept the misty rain,
In its shroud, like a troubled spirit.
For the wind was wild with a hopeless love,
And the sea was sad at heart
At many a crime that he wot of,
Wherein he had played his part.
He thought of the gallant ships gone down
By the will of his wicked waves;
And he thought how the church-yard in the town
Held the sea-made widows' graves.
The wild wind thought of the love he had left
Afar in an Eastern land,
And he longed, as long the much bereft,
For the touch of her perfumed hand.
In his winding wail and his deep-heaved sigh
His aching grief found vent;
While the sea looked up at the bending sky
And murmured: "I repent."
But e'en as he spoke, a ship came by
That bravely ploughed the main,
And a light came into the sea's green eye,
And his heart grew hard again.
Then he spoke to the wind: "Friend, seest thou not
Yon vessel is eastward bound?
Pray speed with it to the happy spot
Where thy loved one may be found."
And the wind rose up in a dear delight,
And after the good ship sped;
But the crafty sea by his wicked might
Kept the vessel ever ahead.
Till the wind grew fierce in his despair,
And white on the brow and lip.
He tore his garments and tore his hair,
And fell on the flying ship.
And the ship went down, for a rock was there,
And the sailless sea loomed black;
While burdened again with dole and care,
The wind came moaning back.
And still he moans from his bosom hot
Where his raging grief lies pent,
And ever when the ships come not,
The sea says: "I repent."
The Bridge
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I stood on the bridge at midnight,
As the clocks were striking the hour,
And the moon rose o'er the city,
Behind the dark church-tower.
I saw her bright reflection
In the waters under me,
Like a golden goblet falling
And sinking into the sea.
And far in the hazy distance
Of that lovely night in June,
The blaze of the flaming furnace
Gleamed redder than the moon.
Among the long, black rafters
The wavering shadows lay,
And the current that came from the ocean
Seemed to lift and bear them away;
As, sweeping and eddying through them,
Rose the belated tide,
And, streaming into the moonlight,
The seaweed floated wide.
And like those waters rushing
Among the wooden piers,
A flood of thoughts came o'er me
That filled my eyes with tears.
How often, oh, how often,
In the days that had gone by,
I had stood on that bridge at midnight
And gazed on that wave and sky!
How often, oh, how often,
I had wished that the ebbing tide
Would bear me away on its bosom
O'er the ocean wild and wide!
For my heart was hot and restless,
And my life was full of care,
And the burden laid upon me
Seemed greater than I could bear.
But now it has fallen from me,
It is buried in the sea;
And only the sorrow of others
Throws its shadow over me.
Yet whenever I cross the river
On its bridge with wooden piers,
Like the odor of brine from the ocean
Comes the thought of other years.
And I think how many thousands
Of care-encumbered men,
Each bearing his burden of sorrow,
Have crossed the bridge since then.
I see the long procession
Still passing to and fro,
The young heart hot and restless,
And the old subdued and slow!
And forever and forever,
As long as the river flows,
As long as the heart has passions,
As long as life has woes;
The moon and its broken reflection
And its shadows shall appear,
As the symbol of love in heaven,
And its wavering image here.
I Stood With The Dead
by Siegfried Loraine Sassoon

I stood with the Dead, so forsaken and still:
When dawn was grey I stood with the Dead.
And my slow heart said, "You must kill; you must kill:
Soldier, soldier, morning is red."
On the shapes of the slain in their crumpled disgrace
I stared for a while through the thin cold rain....
"O lad that I loved, there is rain on your face,
And your eyes are blurred and sick like the plain."
I stood with the Dead.... They were dead; they were dead;
My heart and my head beat a march of dismay;
And gusts of the wind came dulled by the guns....
"Fall in!" I shouted; "Fall in for your pay!"
Sunrise On The Hills
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I stood upon the hills, when heaven's wide arch
Was glorious with the sun's returning march,
And woods were brightened, and soft gales
Went forth to kiss the sun-clad vales.
The clouds were far beneath me; bathed in light,
They gathered mid-way round the wooded height,
And, in their fading glory, shone
Like hosts in battle overthrown.
As many a pinnacle, with shifting glance.
Through the gray mist thrust up its shattered lance,
And rocking on the cliff was left
The dark pine blasted, bare, and cleft.
The veil of cloud was lifted, and below
Glowed the rich valley, and the river's flow
Was darkened by the forest's shade,
Or glistened in the white cascade;
Where upward, in the mellow blush of day,
The noisy bittern wheeled his spiral way.
I heard the distant waters dash,
I saw the current whirl and flash,
And richly, by the blue lake's silver beach,
The woods were bending with a silent reach.
Then o'er the vale, with gentle swell,
The music of the village bell
Came sweetly to the echo-giving hills;
And the wild horn, whose voice the woodland fills,
Was ringing to the merry shout,
That faint and far the glen sent out,
Where, answering to the sudden shot, thin smoke,
Through thick-leaved branches, from the dingle broke.
If thou art worn and hard beset
With sorrows, that thou wouldst forget,
If thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep
Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep,
Go to the woods and hills!    No tears
Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.
Aspiration
by Joseph Horatio Chant

I stand to-day on higher ground
Than ever reached before,
Yet from this summit I have found,
Outlined full many more,
Which seem to pierce the vaulted sky,
And prove my effort vain
But God will set my feet on high,
Thro' grace I shall attain.
Yet higher still my ideal stands,
Its peak but dimly seen,
But hope impels, and love commands,
And faith discerns its sheen;
And when I reach its shining height
Heaven's gate will open wide;
I'll see the beatific sight,
And rest at Jesus' side.
February Twilight
by Sara Teasdale

I stood beside a hill
Smooth with new-laid snow,
A single star looked out
From the cold evening glow.
There was no other creature
That saw what I could see
I stood and watched the evening star
As long as it watched me.
Satires Of Circumstances In Fifteen Glimpses - XII At The Draper's
by Thomas Hardy

"I stood at the back of the shop, my dear,
But you did not perceive me.
Well, when they deliver what you were shown
I shall know nothing of it, believe me!"
And he coughed and coughed as she paled and said,
"O, I didn't see you come in there -
Why couldn't you speak?" "Well, I didn't. I left
That you should not notice I'd been there.
"You were viewing some lovely things. 'Soon required
For a widow, of latest fashion';
And I knew 'twould upset you to meet the man
Who had to be cold and ashen
"And screwed in a box before they could dress you
'In the last new note in mourning,'
As they defined it. So, not to distress you,
I left you to your adorning."
At the Tomb of Napoleon Before the Elections in America - November, 1912
by Alan Seeger

I stood beside his sepulchre whose fame,
Hurled over Europe once on bolt and blast,
Now glows far off as storm-clouds overpast
Glow in the sunset flushed with glorious flame.
Has Nature marred his mould? Can Art acclaim
No hero now, no man with whom men side
As with their hearts' high needs personified?
There are will say, One such our lips could name;
Columbia gave him birth. Him Genius most
Gifted to rule. Against the world's great man
Lift their low calumny and sneering cries
The Pharisaic multitude, the host
Of piddling slanderers whose little eyes
Know not what greatness is and never can.
Experience.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

I stepped from plank to plank
So slow and cautiously;
The stars about my head I felt,
About my feet the sea.
I knew not but the next
Would be my final inch, --
This gave me that precarious gait
Some call experience.
Churchill's Grave,[59]
by George Gordon Byron

A Fact Literally Rendered.[60]
I stood beside the grave of him who blazed
The Comet of a season, and I saw
The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed
With not the less of sorrow and of awe
On that neglected turf and quiet stone,
With name no clearer than the names unknown,
Which lay unread around it; and I asked
The Gardener of that ground, why it might be
That for this plant strangers his memory tasked,
Through the thick deaths of half a century;
And thus he answered - "Well, I do not know
Why frequent travellers turn to pilgrims so;
He died before my day of Sextonship,
And I had not the digging of this grave."
And is this all? I thought, - and do we rip
The veil of Immortality, and crave
I know not what of honour and of light
Through unborn ages, to endure this blight?
So soon, and so successless? As I said,[61]
The Architect of all on which we tread,
For Earth is but a tombstone, did essay
To extricate remembrance from the clay,
Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's thought,
Were it not that all life must end in one,
Of which we are but dreamers; - as he caught
As 'twere the twilight of a former Sun,[62]
Thus spoke he, - "I believe the man of whom
You wot, who lies in this selected[63] tomb,
Was a most famous writer in his day,
And therefore travellers step from out their way
To pay him honour, - and myself whate'er
Your honour pleases:" - then most pleased I shook[l]
From out my pocket's avaricious nook
Some certain coins of silver, which as 'twere
Perforce I gave this man, though I could spare
So much but inconveniently: - Ye smile,
I see ye, ye profane ones! all the while,
Because my homely phrase the truth would tell.
You are the fools, not I - for I did dwell
With a deep thought, and with a softened eye,
On that old Sexton's natural homily,
In which there was Obscurity and Fame, -
The Glory and the Nothing of a Name.
Diodati, 1816.
[First published, Prisoner of Chillon, etc., 1816.]
The Bridal Eve
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I stand in the blaze of the candle rays,
While my merry maidens three
Arrange each tress, and loop my dress,
And render me fair to see.
But oh! for the eyes that never again
Will smile like the stars on me.
I sweep down the stair, a bride most fair,
And some one takes my hand.
I am numb and cold, but the lie is told,
I smile and my lord is bland.
But oh! for a sight of my rover wild,
Who wanders abroad in the land.
I am queen of the ball and the festal hall;
I have beauty and youth and gold,
Men bow at the shrine of this lord of mine -
Lord of his sums untold.
But oh! to be off in the wilds to-night
With my lover brave and bold.
I dream a dream while the candles gleam,
While the dancers merrily glide.
Neath the evening star I am speeding far,
Oh! a good steed do I ride;
And my heart beats high with hope and cheer,
For my love is at my side.
We ride and sing, and the echoes ring
With our voices blithe and free,
We have no wealth but our love and health,
And our cot on the wide green lea;
But I love my love with a mighty love,
And I know that he loves me.
We ride away in the dying day,
We ride till we reach the spot
Where all alone in the wilds unknown
We find our lonely cot.
And I have no wish in the whole wide world,
And I know that my love has not.
With a dreary moan the viols groan,
And the dancers pause for breath,
And my lord says, 'Dear, you are ill, I fear,
You are paler than your wreath.'
O God!    O God! to be out in the night,
Riding with love or death.
Oscar Hummel
by Edgar Lee Masters

I staggered on through darkness,
There was a hazy sky, a few stars
Which I followed as best I could.
It was nine o'clock, I was trying to get home.
But somehow I was lost,
Though really keeping the road.
Then I reeled through a gate and into a yard,
And called at the top of my voice:
"Oh, Fiddler! Oh, Mr. Jones!"
(I thought it was his house and he would show me the way home. )
But who should step out but A. D. Blood,
In his night shirt, waving a stick of wood,
And roaring about the cursed saloons,
And the criminals they made?
"You drunken Oscar Hummel", he said,
As I stood there weaving to and fro,
Taking the blows from the stick in his hand
Till I dropped down dead at his feet.
Preface To Poems Of Cheer
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I step across the mystic border-land,
And look upon the wonder-world of Art.
How beautiful, how beautiful its hills!
And all its valleys, how surpassing fair!
The winding paths that lead up to the heights
Are polished by the footsteps of the great.
The mountain-peaks stand very near to God:
The chosen few whose feet have trod thereon
Have talked with Him, and with the angels walked.
Here are no sounds of discord - no profane
Or senseless gossip of unworthy things - 
Only the songs of chisels and of pens,
Of busy brushes, and ecstatic strains
Of souls surcharged with music most divine.
Here is no idle sorrow, no poor grief
For any day or object left behind - 
For time is counted precious, and herein
Is such complete abandonment of Self
That tears turn into rainbows, and enhance
The beauty of the land where all is fair.
Awed and afraid, I cross the border-land.
Oh, who am I, that I dare enter here
Where the great artists of the world have trod - 
The genius-crowned aristocrats of Earth?
Only the singer of a little song;
Yet loving Art with such a mighty love
I hold it greater to have won a place
Just on the fair land's edge, to make my grave,
Than in the outer world of greed and gain
To sit upon a royal throne and reign.
Improvisations: Light And Snow: 02
by Conrad Potter Aiken

I stood for a long while before the shop window
Looking at the blue butterflies embroidered on tawny silk.
The building was a tower before me,
Time was loud behind me,
Sun went over the housetops and dusty trees;
And there they were, glistening, brilliant, motionless,
Stitched in a golden sky
By yellow patient fingers long since turned to dust.