DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Sin.
by Margaret Steele Anderson

That haunting air had some far strain of it,
That morning rose hath flung it back to met
The wind of spring, the ancient, awful sea.
Bid me remember it.
And looking back against the look of Love,
I feel the old shame start again and sting;
Such eyes are Love's they will not ask the thing,
But I remember it!
So this one dream of heaven I dare not dream :
We two in your familiar ways and high.
While you and God forget, and even I
Cannot remember it!
The House Of Silence
by Thomas Hardy

"That is a quiet place -
That house in the trees with the shady lawn."
" - If, child, you knew what there goes on
You would not call it a quiet place.
Why, a phantom abides there, the last of its race,
And a brain spins there till dawn."
"But I see nobody there, -
Nobody moves about the green,
Or wanders the heavy trees between."
" - Ah, that's because you do not bear
The visioning powers of souls who dare
To pierce the material screen.
"Morning, noon, and night,
Mid those funereal shades that seem
The uncanny scenery of a dream,
Figures dance to a mind with sight,
And music and laughter like floods of light
Make all the precincts gleam.
"It is a poet's bower,
Through which there pass, in fleet arrays,
Long teams of all the years and days,
Of joys and sorrows, of earth and heaven,
That meet mankind in its ages seven,
An aion in an hour."
The Song
by Lola Ridge

That day, in the slipping of torsos and straining flanks on the bloodied ooze of fields plowed by the iron,
And the smoke bluish near earth and bronze in the sunshine floating like cotton-down,
And the harsh and terrible screaming,
And that strange vibration at the roots of us...
Desire, fierce, like a song...
And we heard
(Do you remember?)
All the Red Cross bands on Fifth avenue
And bugles in little home towns
And children's harmonicas bleating
America!
And after...
(Do you remember?)
The drollery of the wind on our faces,
And horizons reeling,
And the terror of the plain
Heaving like a gaunt pelvis to the sun...
Under us - threshing and twanging
Torn-up roots of the Song...
Happiness.
by Robert Herrick

That happiness does still the longest thrive,
Where joys and griefs have turns alternative.
The Impercipient
by Thomas Hardy

(At A Cathedral Service)
That from this bright believing band
An outcast I should be,
That faiths by which my comrades stand
Seem fantasies to me,
And mirage-mists their Shining Land,
Is a drear destiny.
Why thus my soul should be consigned
To infelicity,
Why always I must feel as blind
To sights my brethren see,
Why joys they've found I cannot find,
Abides a mystery.
Since heart of mine knows not that ease
Which they know; since it be
That He who breathes All's Well to these
Breathes no All's-Well to me,
My lack might move their sympathies
And Christian charity!
I am like a gazer who should mark
An inland company
Standing upfingered, with, "Hark! hark!
The glorious distant sea!"
And feel, "Alas, 'tis but yon dark
And wind-swept pine to me!"
Yet I would bear my shortcomings
With meet tranquillity,
But for the charge that blessed things
I'd liefer have unbe.
O, doth a bird deprived of wings
Go earth-bound wilfully!
* * *
Enough. As yet disquiet clings
About us. Rest shall we.
To Laura In Death. Sonnet III.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

L' ardente nodo ov' io fui, d' ora in ora.
ON THE DEATH OF ANOTHER LADY.
That burning toil, in which I once was caught,
While twice ten years and one I counted o'er,
Death has unloosed: like burden I ne'er bore;
That grief ne'er fatal proves I now am taught.
But Love, who to entangle me still sought,
Spread in the treacherous grass his net once more,
So fed the fire with fuel as before,
That my escape I hardly could have wrought.
And, but that my first woes experience gave,
Snar'd long since and kindled I had been,
And all the more, as I'm become less green:
My freedom death again has come to save,
And break my bond; that flame now fades, and fails,
'Gainst which nor force nor intellect prevails.
NOTT.
Men Mind No State In Sickness
by Robert Herrick

That flow of gallants which approach
To kiss thy hand from out the coach;
That fleet of lackeys which do run
Before thy swift postilion;
Those strong-hoof'd mules, which we behold
Rein'd in with purple, pearl, and gold,
And shed with silver, prove to be
The drawers of the axle-tree;
Thy wife, thy children, and the state
Of Persian looms and antique plate:
All these, and more, shall then afford
No joy to thee, their sickly lord.
The Four Favours.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

That Arabs through the realms of space
May wander on, light-hearted,
Great Allah hath, to all their race,
Four favours meet imparted.
The turban first that ornament
All regal crowns excelling;
A light and ever-shifting tent,
Wherein to make our dwelling;
A sword, which, more than rocks and walls
Doth shield us, brightly glistening;
A song that profits and enthrall,
For which the maids are list'ning!
Proof.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

That I did always love,
I bring thee proof:
That till I loved
I did not love enough.
That I shall love alway,
I offer thee
That love is life,
And life hath immortality.
This, dost thou doubt, sweet?
Then have I
Nothing to show
But Calvary.
Musa Clonshoghiana
by Jonathan Swift

That Downpatrick's Dean, or Patrick's down went,
Like two arrand Deans, two Deans errant I meant;
So that Christmas appears at Bellcampe like a Lent,
Gives the gamesters of both houses great discontent.
Our parsons agree here, as those did at Trent,
Dan's forehead has got a most damnable dent,
Besides a large hole in his Michaelmas rent.
But your fancy on rhyming so cursedly bent,
With your bloody ouns in one stanza pent;
Does Jack's utter ruin at picket prevent,
For an answer in specie to yours must be sent;
So this moment at crambo (not shuffling) is spent,
And I lose by this crotchet quaterze, point, and quint,
Which you know to a gamester is great bitterment;
But whisk shall revenge me on you, Batt, and Brent.
Bellcampe, January 1, 1717.
To Laura In Death. Sonnet LIX.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Quel vago, dolce, caro, onesto sguardo.
HE SHOULD HAVE FORESEEN HIS LOSS IN THE UNUSUAL LUSTRE OF HER EYES.
That glance of hers, pure, tender, clear, and sweet,
Methought it said, "Take what thou canst while nigh;
For here no more thou'lt see me, till on high
From earth have mounted thy slow-moving feet."
O intellect than forest pard more fleet!
Yet slow and dull thy sorrow to descry,
How didst thou fail to see in her bright eye
What since befell, whence I my ruin meet.
Silently shining with a fire sublime,
They said, "O friendly lights, which long have been
Mirrors to us where gladly we were seen,
Heaven waits for you, as ye shall know in time;
Who bound us to the earth dissolves our bond,
But wills in your despite that you shall live beyond."
MACGREGOR.
Sacred To The Memory
by Thomas Hardy

MARY H.
That "Sacred to the Memory"
Is clearly carven there I own,
And all may think that on the stone
The words have been inscribed by me
In bare conventionality.
They know not and will never know
That my full script is not confined
To that stone space, but stands deep lined
Upon the landscape high and low
Wherein she made such worthy show.
Fence Line
by Paul Cameron Brown

That Captain Kidd scribbling of rock in the fields
yellowed bristle of pages
back of a farm where
piratical breaking of land knocks
clean holes in the soil,
gypsy dancers vernal growth before
a spy-glass hour moon.
And black print smudged
on a thumb, a child's glossary of tales
thick with terror
before the faceless wretch
crawls for grog,
his peg-leg
in step with
one part of my brain
Old Phew hardly
any Smee from Peter Pan
but the holocaust    - 
the raven in the tree
eyeing the baby Treasure Island,
that fledgling reason
butchering both nostrils
at the skunk cabbage whose nectar
is the prize of cemeteries
& wild reunion of the bees.
Sargent's Portrait Of Edwin Booth At "The Players"
by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

That face which no man ever saw
And from his memory banished quite,
With eyes in which are Hamlet's awe
And Cardinal Richelieu's subtle light,
Looks from this frame. A master's hand
Has set the master-player here,
In the fair temple that he planned
Not for himself. To us most dear
This image of him! "It was thus
He looked; such pallor touched his cheek;
With that same grace he greeted us--
Nay, 'tis the man, could it but speak!"
Sad words that shall be said some day--
Far fall the day! O cruel Time,
Whose breath sweeps mortal things away,
Spare long this image of his prime,
That others standing in the place
Where, save as ghosts, we come no more,
May know what sweet majestic face
The gentle Prince of Players wore!
The Old Gentry
by Matthew Prior

That all from Adam first began,
None but ungodly Whiston doubts,
And that his son and his son's son
Were all but ploughmen, clowns, and louts.
Each when his rustic pains began
To merit pleaded equal right;
'Twas only who left off at noon,
Or who went on to work till night.
But coronets we owe to crowns,
And favour to a court's affection;
By nature we are Adam's sons,
And sons of Anstis by election.
Kingsale! eight hundred years have roll'd
Since thy forefathers had the plough;
When this in story shall be told,
Add, that my kindred do so now.
The man who by his labour gets
His bread in independent state,
Who never begs, and seldom eats,
Himself can fix or change his fate.
The Wolf And The Lamb.[1]
by Jean de La Fontaine

That innocence is not a shield,
A story teaches, not the longest.
The strongest reasons always yield
To reasons of the strongest.
A lamb her thirst was slaking,
Once, at a mountain rill.
A hungry wolf was taking
His hunt for sheep to kill,
When, spying on the streamlet's brink
This sheep of tender age,
He howl'd in tones of rage,
'How dare you roil my drink?
Your impudence I shall chastise!'
'Let not your majesty,' the lamb replies,
'Decide in haste or passion!
For sure 'tis difficult to think
In what respect or fashion
My drinking here could roil your drink,
Since on the stream your majesty now faces
I'm lower down, full twenty paces.'
'You roil it,' said the wolf; 'and, more, I know
You cursed and slander'd me a year ago.'
'O no! how could I such a thing have done!
A lamb that has not seen a year,
A suckling of its mother dear?'
'Your brother then.' 'But brother I have none.'
'Well, well, what's all the same,
'Twas some one of your name.
Sheep, men, and dogs of every nation,
Are wont to stab my reputation,
As I have truly heard.'
Without another word,
He made his vengeance good - 
Bore off the lambkin to the wood,
And there, without a jury,
Judged, slew, and ate her in his fury.
The Wild Iris
by Madison Julius Cawein

That day we wandered 'mid the hills, - so lone
Clouds are not lonelier, the forest lay
In emerald darkness round us. Many a stone
And gnarly root, gray-mossed, made wild our way:
And many a bird the glimmering light along
Showered the golden bubbles of its song.
Then in the valley, where the brook went by,
Silvering the ledges that it rippled from, - 
An isolated slip of fallen sky,
Epitomizing heaven in its sum, - 
An iris bloomed - blue, as if, flower-disguised,
The gaze of Spring had there materialized.
I have forgotten many things since then - 
Much beauty and much happiness and grief;
And toiled and dreamed among my fellow-men,
Rejoicing in the knowledge life is brief.
"'Tis winter now," so says each barren bough;
And face and hair proclaim 'tis winter now.
I would forget the gladness of that spring!
I would forget that day when she and I,
Between the bird-song and the blossoming,
Went hand in hand beneath the soft May sky! - 
Much is forgotten, yea - and yet, and yet,
The things we would we never can forget.
Nor I how May then minted treasuries
Of crowfoot gold; and molded out of light
The sorrel's cups, whose elfin chalices
Of limpid spar were streaked with rosy white:
Nor all the stars of twinkling spiderwort,
And mandrake moons with which her brows were girt.
But most of all, yea, it were well for me,
Me and my heart, that I forget that flower,
The blue wild iris, azure fleur-de-lis,
That she and I together found that hour.
Its recollection can but emphasize
The pain of loss, remindful of her eyes.
The Table Of Emerald.
by Nathaniel Parker Willis

Deep, it is said, under yonder pyramid, has for ages lain concealed the Table of Emerald, on which the thrice-great Hermes engraved, before the flood, the secret of Alchemy that gives gold at will. Epicurean.
That 'Emerald Green of the Pyramid' - 
Were I where it is laid,
I'd ask no king for his heavy crown,
As its hidden words were said.
The pomp and the glitter of worldly pride
Should fetter my moments not,
And the natural thought of an open mind,
Should govern alone my lot.
Would I feast all day? revel all night?
Laugh with a weary heart?
Would I sleep away the breezy morn?
And wake till the stars depart?
Would I gain no knowledge, and search no deep
For the wisdom that sages knew?
Would I run to waste with a human mind - 
To its noble trust untrue?
Oh! knew I the depth of that 'Emerald Green,'
And knew I the spell of gold,
I would never poison a fresh young heart
With the taint of customs old.
I would bind no wreath to my forehead free
In whose shadow a thought would die,
Nor drink from the cup of revelry,
The ruin my gold would buy.
But I'd break the fetters of care worn things,
And be spirit and fancy free,
My mind should go up where it longs to go,
And the limitless wind outflee.
I'd climb to the eyries of eagle men
Till the stars became a scroll;
And pour right on, like the even sea,
In the strength of a governed soul.
Ambition! Ambition! I've laughed to scorn
Thy robe and thy gleaming sword;
I would follow sooner a woman's eye,
Or the spell of a gentle word;
But come with the glory of human mind,
And the light of the scholar's brow,
And my heart shall be taught forgetfulness,
And alone at thy altar bow.
There was one dark eye - it hath passed away!
There was one deep tone - 'tis not!
Could I see it now - could I hear it now,
Ye were all too well forgot.
My heart brought up, from its chambers deep,
The sum of its earthly love;
But it might not - could not - buy like Heaven,
And she stole to her rest above.
That first deep love I have taken back,
In my rayless heart to hide;
With the tear it brought for a burning seal,
'Twill there forever bide.
I may stretch on now to a nobler ken,
I may live in my thoughts of flame - 
The tie is broken that kept me back,
And my spirit is on, for fame!
But alas! I am dreaming as if I knew
The spell of the tablet green;
I forgot how like to a broken reed,
Is the lot on which I lean.
There is nothing true of my idle dream,
But the wreck of my early love;
And my mind is coined for my daily bread,
And how can it soar above?
The Three Tommies
by Robert William Service

That Barret, the painter of pictures, what feeling for color he had!
And Fanning, the maker of music, such melodies mirthful and mad!
And Harley, the writer of stories, so whimsical, tender and glad!
To hark to their talk in the trenches, high heart unfolding to heart,
Of the day when the war would be over, and each would be true to his part,
Upbuilding a Palace of Beauty to the wonder and glory of Art . . .
Yon's Barret, the painter of pictures, yon carcass that rots on the wire;
His hand with its sensitive cunning is crisped to a cinder with fire;
His eyes with their magical vision are bubbles of glutinous mire.
Poor Fanning! He sought to discover the symphonic note of a shell;
There are bits of him broken and bloody, to show you the place where he fell;
I've reason to fear on his exquisite ear the rats have been banqueting well.
And speaking of Harley, the writer, I fancy I looked on him last,
Sprawling and staring and writhing in the roar of the battle blast;
Then a mad gun-team crashed over, and scattered his brains as it passed.
Oh, Harley and Fanning and Barret, they were bloody good mates o' mine;
Their bodies are empty bottles; Death has guzzled the wine;
What's left of them's filth and corruption. . . . Where is the Fire Divine?
I'll tell you. . . . At night in the trenches, as I watch and I do my part,
Three radiant spirits I'm seeing, high heart revealing to heart,
And they're building a peerless palace to the splendor and triumph of Art.
Yet, alas! for the fame of Barret, the glory he might have trailed!
And alas! for the name of Fanning, a star that beaconed and paled,
Poor Harley, obscure and forgotten. . . . Well, who shall say that they failed!
No, each did a Something Grander than ever he dreamed to do;
And as for the work unfinished, all will be paid their due;
The broken ends will be fitted, the balance struck will be true.
So painters, and players, and penmen, I tell you: Do as you please;
Let your fame outleap on the trumpets, you'll never rise up to these - 
To three grim and gory Tommies, down, down on your bended knees!
Quel Giorno Pi' ...
by Maurice Henry Hewlett

That day--it was the last of many days,
Nor could we know when such days might be given
Again--we read how Dante trod the ways
Of utmost Hell, and how his heart was riven
By sad Francesca, whose sin was forgiven
So far that, on her Paolo fixing gaze,
She supt on his again, and thought it Heaven,
She knew her gentler fate and felt it praise.
We read that lovers' tale; each lookt at each;
But one was fearless, innocent of guile;
So did the other learn what she could teach:
We read no more, we kiss'd not, but a smile
Of proud possession flasht, hover'd a while
'Twixt soul and soul. There was no need for speech.
Ballata III.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Quel foco, ch' io pensai che fosse spento.
HE THOUGHT HIMSELF FREE, BUT FINDS THAT HE IS MORE THAN EVER ENTHRALLED BY LOVE.
That fire for ever which I thought at rest,
Quench'd in the chill blood of my ripen'd years,
Awakes new flames and torment in my breast.
Its sparks were never all, from what I see,
Extinct, but merely slumbering, smoulder'd o'er;
Haply this second error worse may be,
For, by the tears, which I, in torrents, pour,
Grief, through these eyes, distill'd from my heart's core,
Which holds within itself the spark and bait,
Remains not as it was, but grows more great.
What fire, save mine, had not been quench'd and kill'd
Beneath the flood these sad eyes ceaseless shed?
Struggling 'mid opposites--so Love has will'd--
Now here, now there, my vain life must be led,
For in so many ways his snares are spread,
When most I hope him from my heart expell'd
Then most of her fair face its slave I'm held.
MACGREGOR.
The Gleaner - Suggested By A Picture
by William Wordsworth

That happy gleam of vernal eyes,
Those locks from summer's golden skies,
That o'er thy brow are shed;
That cheek, a kindling of the morn,
That lip, a rose-bud from the thorn,
I saw; and Fancy sped
To scenes Arcadian, whispering, through soft air,
Of bliss that grows without a care,
And happiness that never flies
(How can it where love never dies?)
Whispering of promise, where no blight
Can reach the innocent delight;
Where pity, to the mind conveyed
In pleasure, is the darkest shade
That Time, unwrinkled grandsire, flings
From his smoothly gliding wings.
What mortal form, what earthly face
Inspired the pencil, lines to trace,
And mingle colours, that should breed
Such rapture, nor want power to feed;
For had thy charge been idle flowers,
Fair Damsel! o'er my captive mind,
To truth and sober reason blind,
'Mid that soft air, those long-lost bowers,
The sweet illusion might have hung, for hours.
Thanks to this tell-tale sheaf of corn,
That touchingly bespeaks thee born
Life's daily tasks with them to share
Who, whether from their lowly bed
They rise, or rest the weary head,
Ponder the blessing they entreat
From Heaven, and 'feel' what they repeat,
While they give utterance to the prayer
That asks for daily bread.
The Portrait Of A Child.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Oui, ce front, ce sourire.")
[Bk. V. xxii., November, 1825.]
That brow, that smile, that cheek so fair,
Beseem my child, who weeps and plays:
A heavenly spirit guards her ways,
From whom she stole that mixture rare.
Through all her features shining mild,
The poet sees an angel there,
The father sees a child.
And by their flame so pure and bright,
We see how lately those sweet eyes
Have wandered down from Paradise,
And still are lingering in its light.
All earthly things are but a shade
Through which she looks at things above,
And sees the holy Mother-maid,
Athwart her mother's glance of love.
She seems celestial songs to hear,
And virgin souls are whispering near.
Till by her radiant smile deceived,
I say, "Young angel, lately given,
When was thy martyrdom achieved?
And what name lost thou bear in heaven?"
Dublin University Magazine.
The Hour-Glass
by Robert Herrick

That hour-glass which there you see
With water fill'd, sirs, credit me,
The humour was, as I have read,
But lovers' tears incrystalled.
Which, as they drop by drop do pass
From th' upper to the under-glass,
Do in a trickling manner tell,
By many a watery syllable,
That lovers' tears in lifetime shed
Do restless run when they are dead.
A Creed
by Victoria Mary Sackville-West

That I should live and look with open eyes
I count as half my claim to Paradise.
I have not crept beneath cathedral arches,
But bathed in streams beneath the silver larches;
And have not grovelled to the Sunday priest,
But found an unconfined and daily feast;
Was called ungodly, and to those who blamed
Laughed back defiance and was not ashamed.
Some hold their duty to be mournful; why?
I cannot love your weeping poets; I
Am sad in winter, but in summer gay,
And vary with each variable day.
And though the pious cavilled at my mirth,
At least I rendered thanks for God's fair earth,
Grateful that I, among the murmuring rest,
Was not an unappreciative guest.
Aspetto Reale
by Maurice Henry Hewlett

That hour when thou and Grief were first acquainted
Thou wrotest, "Come, for I have lookt on death."
Piteous I held my indeterminate breath
And sought thee out, and saw how he had painted
Thine eyes with rings of black; yet never fainted
Thy radiant immortality underneath
Such stress of dark; but then, as one that saith,
"I know Love liveth," sat on by death untainted.
O to whom Grief too poignant was and dry
To sow in thee a fountain crop of tears!
O youth, O pride, set too remote and high
For touch of solace that gives grace to men!
Thy life must be our death, thy hopes our fears:
We weep, thou lookest strangely--we know thee then!
A Wild Iris.
by Madison Julius Cawein

That day we wandered 'mid the hills,'so lone
Clouds are not lonelier,'the forest lay
In emerald darkness 'round us. Many a stone
And gnarly root, gray-mossed, made wild our way:
And many a bird the glimmering light along
Showered the golden bubbles of its song.
Then in the valley, where the brook went by,
Silvering the ledges that it rippled from,'
An isolated slip of fallen sky,
Epitomizing heaven in its sum,'
An iris bloomed'blue, as if, flower-disguised,
The gaze of Spring had there materialized.
I have forgotten many things since then'
Much beauty and much happiness and grief;
And toiled and dreamed among my fellow-men,
Rejoicing in the knowledge life is brief.
"'T is winter now," so says each barren bough;
And face and hair proclaim 't is winter now.
I would forget the gladness of that spring!
I would forget that day when she and I,
Between the bird-song and the blossoming,
Went hand in hand beneath the soft spring sky!'
Much is forgotten, yea' and yet, and yet,
The things we would we never can forget.'
Nor I how May then minted treasuries
Of crowfoot gold; and molded out of light
The sorrel's cups, whose elfin chalices
Of limpid spar were streaked with rosy white.
Nor all the stars of twinkling spiderwort,
And mandrake moons with which her brows were girt.
But most of all, yea, it were well for me,
Me and my heart, that I forget that flower,
The wild blue iris, azure fleur-de-lis,
That she and I together found that hour.
Its recollection can but emphasize
The pain of loss, remindful of her eyes.