DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
To Stella On Her Birth-Day, 1721-2
by Jonathan Swift

While, Stella, to your lasting praise
The Muse her annual tribute pays,
While I assign myself a task
Which you expect, but scorn to ask;
If I perform this task with pain,
Let me of partial fate complain;
You every year the debt enlarge,
I grow less equal to the charge:
In you each virtue brighter shines,
But my poetic vein declines;
My harp will soon in vain be strung,
And all your virtues left unsung.
For none among the upstart race
Of poets dare assume my place;
Your worth will be to them unknown,
They must have Stellas of their own;
And thus, my stock of wit decay'd,
I dying leave the debt unpaid,
Unless Delany, as my heir,
Will answer for the whole arrear.
Nel Mezzo Del Cammin
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

Whisper it not that late in years
Sorrow shall fade and the world be brighter,
Life be freed of tremor and tears,
Heads be wiser and hearts be lighter.
Ah! but the dream that all endears,
The dream we sell for your pottage of truth---
Give us again the passion of youth,
Sorrow shall fade and the world be brighter.
The Singer.
by James Whitcomb Riley

While with Ambition's hectic flame
He wastes the midnight oil,
And dreams, high-throned on heights of fame,
To rest him from his toil, - 
Death's Angel, like a vast eclipse,
Above him spreads her wings,
And fans the embers of his lips
To ashes as he sings.
Impromptu To Madame C ----  Written At Paris, Upon Her Appearing Equally Modestly And Elegantly Dressed, Amidst The Semi-Nakedness Of The Rest Of The Female Fashionables.
by John Carr (Sir)

Whilst, in a dress that one might swear
The whole was made of woven air,
Pert Fashion spreads her senseless sway
Over the giddy and the gay
(Who think, by showing all their charms,
Lovers will fly into their arms),
In thee shall Wit and Virtue find
A friend more genial to their mind;
And Modesty shall gain in thee
A surer, chaster, victory.
Song - Subtlety
by James Whitcomb Riley

[R.B.]
Whilst little Paul, convalescing, was staying
Close indoors, and his boisterous classmates paying
Him visits, with fresh school-notes and surprises, - 
With nettling pride they sprung the word "Athletic,"
With much advice and urgings sympathetic
Anent "Athletic exercises." Wise as
Lad might look, quoth Paul: "I've pondered o'er that
'Athletic,' but I mean to take, before that,
Downstairic and outdooric exercises."
Epitaph
by Edward Young

On Lord Aubrey Beauclerk(45), in Westminster Abbey, 1740.
Whilst Britain boasts her empire o'er the deep,
This marble shall compel the brave to weep:
As men, as Britons, and as soldiers, mourn;
'Tis dauntless, loyal, virtuous Beauclerk's urn.
Sweet were his manners, as his soul was great,
And ripe his worth, though immature his fate;
Each tender grace that joy and love inspires,
Living, he mingled with his martial fires:
Dying, he bid Britannia's thunders roar;
And Spain still felt him, when he breath'd no more.
45 Lord Aubrey Beauclerk was the eighth son of the Duke of St. Albans, who was one of the sons of King Charles the Second. He was born in the year 1711; and, being regularly bred to the sea service, in 1731 he was appointed to the command of his majesty's ship the Ludlow Castle; and he commanded the Prince Frederick at the attack of the harbour of Carthagena, March 24, 1741. This young nobleman was one of the most promising commanders in the king's service. When on the desperate attack of the castle of Bocca Chica, at the entrance of the said harbour, he lost his life, both his legs being first shot off. The prose part of the inscription on his monument was the production of Mrs. Mary Jones of Oxford; who also wrote a poem on his death, printed in her Miscellanies, 8vo, 1752.--_R._
Sonnets: Idea XLIV
by Michael Drayton

Whilst thus my pen strives to eternise thee,
Age rules my lines with wrinkles in my face,
Where in the map of all my misery
Is modelled out the world of my disgrace;
Whilst in despite of tyrannising times,
Medea-like, I make thee young again,
Proudly thou scorn'st my world-outwearing rhymes,
And murther'st virtue with thy coy disdain;
And though in youth my youth untimely perish,
To keep thee from oblivion and the grave,
Ensuing ages yet my rhymes shall cherish,
Where I intombed my better part shall save;
And though this earthly body fade and die,
My name shall mount upon eternity.
Whispers Of Heavenly Death
by Walt Whitman

Whispers of heavenly death, murmur'd I hear;
Labial gossip of night, sibilant chorals;
Footsteps gently ascending, mystical breezes, wafted soft and low;
Ripples of unseen rivers, tides of a current, flowing, forever flowing;
(Or is it the plashing of tears? the measureless waters of human tears?)
I see, just see, skyward, great cloud-masses;
Mournfully, slowly they roll, silently swelling and mixing;
With, at times, a half-dimm'd, sadden'd, far-off star,
Appearing and disappearing.
(Some parturition, rather, some solemn, immortal birth:
On the frontiers, to eyes impenetrable,
Some Soul is passing over.)
Frost.
by Madison Julius Cawein

White artist he, who, breezeless nights,
From tingling stars jocosely whirls,
A harlequin in spangled tights,
His wand a pot of pounded pearls.
The field a hasty pallet; for,
In thin or thick, with daub and streak,
It stretches from the barn-gate's bar
To the bleached ribbon of the creek.
A great geometer is he;
For, on the creek's diaphanous silk,
Sphere, cone, and star exquisitely
He's drawn in crystal lines of milk.
Most delicate, his talent keen
On casement panes he lavishes,
In many a Lilliputian scene
Of vague white hives and milky bees,
That sparkling in still swarms delight,
Or bow the jeweled bells of flowers; - 
Of dim, deep landscapes of the night,
Hanging down limpid domes quaint showers
Of feathery stars and meteors
Above an upland's glimmering ways,
Where gambol 'neath the feverish stars
The erl-king and the fleecy fays.
Or last, one arabesque of ferns,
Chrysanthemums and mistletoe,
And death-pale roses bunched in urns
That with an innate glory glow.
In leafless woodlands saturnine,
Where reckless winds, like goblins mad,
Screech swinging in each barren vine,
His wagship shapes a lesson sad:
When slyly touched by his white hand
Of Midas-magic, forests old
Dariuses of pomp then stand
Barbaric-crowned with living gold....
Patrician state, plebeian blood
Soon foster sybarites, and they,
Squand'ring their riches, wood by wood,
Die palsied wrecks debauched and gray.
Miriam.
by Madison Julius Cawein

White clouds and buds and birds and bees,
Low wind-notes piped from southern seas,
Brought thee a rose-white offering,
A flower-like baby with the Spring.
She, as her April, gave to thee
A soul of winsome vagary;
Large, heavenly eyes, and tender, whence
Shone the sweet mind's soft influence;
Where all the winning woman, that
Welled up in tears, high sparkling sat.
She, with the dower of her May,
Gave thee a nature that could sway
Wild men with kindness, and a pride
Which all their littleness denied.
Limbs wrought of lilies and a face
Bright as a rose flower's, and a grace,
God-taught, that clings like happiness
In each chaste billow of thy dress.
She, as her heavy June, brought down
Night deeps of hair thy brow to crown;
A voice so mild and musical
It is as water-notes that fall
O'er bars of pearl, and in thy heart
Stamped like a jewel, that should start
From thy pure face in smiles, and break
Like radiance when it laughed or spake,
Affection that is born of truth
And goodness which make very youth.
The Bells Of Stepan Iline
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

(Cradle Song from "The Long Road.")
Whisht, Baby! Whisht!
Quick below the cover!
Down into your nest, my bird!
And--don't--you--dare--peep--over!
For the grey wolves they are prowling,
They are prowling, they are prowling.
And the snow-wind it is howling,
It is howling, it is howling.
Hark!--Hark!--
Out there in the dark--
Ow--ooh! Ow--ooh!
S-s-s-s-s-seee--oo--ooh!
The wolves they are lean,
So-o-o lean, so-o-o lean!
And the wind it is keen,
So-o-o keen, so-o-o keen!
And they seek little babies who aren't sleeping!
But lie you still, my Baby dear!
Lie still, lie still, and maybe you'll hear--
Hark!--Hark!--
Out there in the dark,--
The silver bells and the golden bells,
The swinging bells and the singing bells,--
The bells that are heard but never are seen,
The wind and the wolves, and the bells in between,--
The bells of Iline,
Good Stepan Iline,--
The bells of good Stepan Iline!
Joaquin Miller To The Money Getter
by Joaquin Miller

Yes! I am a dreamer.
While you seek gold in the earth, why, I
See gold in the steeps of the starry sky;
And which do you think has the fairer view
Of God in heaven the dreamer or you?
Songs Set To Music: 2. Set By Mr. Purcell
by Matthew Prior

Whither would my passion run?
Shall I fly her, or pursue her?
Losing her I am undone,
Yet would not gain her to undo her.
Ye tyrants of the human breast,
Love and Reason, cease your war,
And order Death to give me rest,
So each will equal triumph share.
Ethiopia Saluting The Colors
by Walt Whitman

Who are you, dusky woman, so ancient, hardly human,
With your woolly-white and turban'd head, and bare bony feet?
Why, rising by the roadside here, do you the colors greet?
('Tis while our army lines Carolina's sand and pines,
Forth from thy hovel door, thou, Ethiopia, com'st to me,
As, under doughty Sherman, I march toward the sea.)
Me, master, years a hundred, since from my parents sunder'd,
A little child, they caught me as the savage beast is caught;
Then hither me, across the sea, the cruel slaver brought.
No further does she say, but lingering all the day,
Her high-borne turban'd head she wags, and rolls her darkling eye,
And curtseys to the regiments, the guidons moving by.
What is it, fateful woman--so blear, hardly human?
Why wag your head, with turban bound--yellow, red and green?
Are the things so strange and marvelous, you see or have seen?
December.
by George W. Doneghy

I.
White-shrouded, latest-born of all the year,
In thy cold hands no bud or floweret bearing,
Thou comest now to wail above the bier
Of thy dead sisters--on thy bosom wearing
The icy jewel and the frosted gem--
But on thy marble brow the Star of Bethlehem!
II.
Beneath thy foot-prints lie the Autumn leaves,
Mould'ring and hast'ning to decay;
And where the drifting snow its mantle weaves
The Summer songsters sang the happy hours away.
What tho' the birds have flown the blighted stem?
There's in thy jeweled crown the Star of Bethlehem!
Under The Hunter's Moon
by Madison Julius Cawein

White from her chrysalis of cloud,
The moth-like moon swings upward through the night;
And all the bee-like stars that crowd
The hollow hive of heav'n wane in her light.
Along the distance, folds of mist
Hang frost-pale, ridging all the dark with gray;
Tinting the trees with amethyst,
Touching with pearl and purple every spray.
All night the stealthy frost and fog
Conspire to slay the rich-robed weeds and flowers;
To strip of wealth the woods, and clog
With piled-up gold of leaves the creek that cowers.
I seem to see their Spirits stand,
Molded of moonlight, faint of form and face,
Now reaching high a chilly hand
To pluck some walnut from its spicy place:
Now with fine fingers, phantom-cold,
Splitting the wahoo's pods of rose, and thin
The bittersweet's balls o' gold,
To show the coal-red berries packed within:
Now on dim threads of gossamer
Stringing pale pearls of moisture; necklacing
The flow'rs; and spreading cobweb fur,
Crystaled with stardew, over everything:
While 'neath the moon, with moon-white feet,
They go and, chill, a moon-soft music draw
From wan leaf-cricket flutes the sweet,
Sad dirge of Autumn dying in the shaw.
Penitence.
by Robert Herrick

Who after his transgression doth repent,
Is half, or altogether innocent.
A Woodland Grave
by Madison Julius Cawein

White moons may come, white moons may go - 
She sleeps where early blossoms blow;
Knows nothing of the leafy June,
That leans above her night and noon,
Crowned now with sunbeam, now with moon,
Watching her roses grow.
The downy moth at twilight comes
And flutters round their honeyed blooms:
Long, lazy clouds, like ivory,
That isle the blue lagoons of sky,
Redden to molten gold and dye
With flame the pine-deep glooms.
Dew, dripping from wet fern and leaf;
The wind, that shakes the violet's sheaf;
The slender sound of water lone,
That makes a harp-string of some stone,
And now a wood bird's glimmering moan,
Seem whisperings there of grief.
Her garden, where the lilacs grew,
Where, on old walls, old roses blew,
Head-heavy with their mellow musk,
Where, when the beetle's drone was husk,
She lingered in the dying dusk,
No more shall know that knew.
Her orchard, - where the Spring and she
Stood listening to each bird and bee, - 
That, from its fragrant firmament,
Snowed blossoms on her as she went,
(A blossom with their blossoms blent)
No more her face shall see.
White moons may come, white moons may go - 
She sleeps where early blossoms blow:
Around her headstone many a seed
Shall sow itself; and brier and weed
Shall grow to hide it from men's heed,
And none will care or know.
The Heart O' Spring
by Madison Julius Cawein

Whiten, oh whiten, O clouds of lawn!
Lily-like clouds that whiten above,
Now like a dove, and now like a swan,
But never, oh never pass on! pass on!
Never so white as the throat of my love.
Blue-black night on the mountain peaks
Is not so black as the locks o' my love!
Stars that shine through the evening streaks
Over the torrent that flashes and breaks,
Are not so bright as the eyes o' my love!
Moon in a cloud, a cloud of snow,
Mist in the vale where the rivulet sounds,
Dropping from ledge to ledge below,
Turning to gold in the sunset's glow,
Are not so soft as her footstep sounds.
Sound o' May winds in the blossoming trees,
Is not so sweet as her laugh that rings;
Song o' wild birds on the morning breeze,
Birds and brooks and murmur o' bees,
Are harsh to her voice when she laughs or sings.
The rose of my heart is she, my dawn!
My star o' the east, my moon above!
My soul takes ship for the Avalon
Of her heart of hearts, and shall sail on
Till it anchors safe in its haven of love.
Sonnet LXXII.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Pi' volte Amor m' avea gi' detto: scrivi.
HE WRITES WHAT LOVE BIDS HIM.
White--to my heart Love oftentimes had said--
Write what thou seest in letters large of gold,
That livid are my votaries to behold,
And in a moment made alive and dead.
Once in thy heart my sovran influence spread
A public precedent to lovers told;
Though other duties drew thee from my fold,
I soon reclaim'd thee as thy footsteps fled.
And if the bright eyes which I show'd thee first,
If the fair face where most I loved to stay,
Thy young heart's icy hardness when I burst,
Restore to me the bow which all obey,
Then may thy cheek, which now so smooth appears,
Be channell'd with my daily drink of tears.
MACGREGOR.
The Suicide
by Alfred Lichtenstein

White, I lie
On the remains of an amusement park
Between jagged buildings - 
Burning flower... shining sea...
Toes and hands
Reach out into emptiness.
Longing tears the weeping body to pieces.
The little moon glides above me.
Eyes grope
Gently into the deep world,
Sunken hats
Wandering stars.
Venice
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

White swan of cities, slumbering in thy nest
So wonderfully built among the reeds
Of the lagoon, that fences thee and feeds,
As sayeth thy old historian and thy guest!
White water-lily, cradled and caressed
By ocean streams, and from the silt and weeds
Lifting thy golden filaments and seeds,
Thy sun-illumined spires, thy crown and crest!
White phantom city, whose untrodden streets
Are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting
Shadows of palaces and strips of sky;
I wait to see thee vanish like the fleets
Seen in mirage, or towers of cloud uplifting
In air their unsubstantial masonry.
How Lilies Came White.
by Robert Herrick

White though ye be, yet, lilies, know,
From the first ye were not so;
But I'll tell ye
What befell ye:
Cupid and his mother lay
In a cloud, while both did play,
He with his pretty finger press'd
The ruby niplet of her breast;
Out of which the cream of light,
Like to a dew,
Fell down on you
And made ye white.
Before the Mirror
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

(VERSES WRITTEN UNDER A PICTURE.)
INSCRIBED TO J. A. WHISTLER.
I.
White rose in red rose-garden
Is not so white;
Snowdrops that plead for pardon
And pine for fright
Because the hard East blows
Over their maiden rows
Grow not as this face grows from pale to bright.
Behind the veil, forbidden,
Shut up from sight,
Love, is there sorrow hidden,
Is there delight?
Is joy thy dower or grief,
White rose of weary leaf,
Late rose whose life is brief, whose loves are light?
Soft snows that hard winds harden
Till each flake bite
Fill all the flowerless garden
Whose flowers took flight
Long since when summer ceased,
And men rose up from feast,
And warm west wind grew east, and warm day night.
II.
'Come snow, come wind or thunder
High up in air,
I watch my face, and wonder
At my bright hair;
Nought else exalts or grieves
The rose at heart, that heaves
With love of her own leaves and lips that pair.
'She knows not loves that kissed her
She knows not where.
Art thou the ghost, my sister,
White sister there,
Am I the ghost, who knows?
My hand, a fallen rose,
Lies snow-white on white snows, and takes no care.
'I cannot see what pleasures
Or what pains were;
What pale new loves and treasures
New years will bear;
What beam will fall, what shower,
What grief or joy for dower;
But one thing knows the flower; the flower is fair.'
III.
Glad, but not flushed with gladness,
Since joys go by;
Sad, but not bent with sadness,
Since sorrows die;
Deep in the gleaming glass
She sees all past things pass,
And all sweet life that was lie down and lie.
There glowing ghosts of flowers
Draw down, draw nigh;
And wings of swift spent hours
Take flight and fly;
She sees by formless gleams,
She hears across cold streams,
Dead mouths of many dreams that sing and sigh.
Face fallen and white throat lifted,
With sleepless eye
She sees old loves that drifted,
She knew not why,
Old loves and faded fears
Float down a stream that hears
The flowing of all men's tears beneath the sky.
To Bacchus: A Canticle
by Robert Herrick

Whither dost thou hurry me,
Bacchus, being full of thee?
This way, that way, that way, this,
Here and there a fresh Love is;
That doth like me, this doth please;
Thus a thousand mistresses
I have now:    yet I alone,
Having all, enjoy not one!
To A Waterfowl.
by William Cullen Bryant

Whither, midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?
Vainly the fowler's eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.
Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?
There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,
The desert and illimitable air,
Lone wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.
And soon that toil shall end;
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,
Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.
Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.
He who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.
The Frozen Zone; Or, Julia Disdainful.
by Robert Herrick

Whither? say, whither shall I fly,
To slack these flames wherein I fry?
To the treasures, shall I go,
Of the rain, frost, hail, and snow?
Shall I search the underground,
Where all damps and mists are found?
Shall I seek (for speedy ease)
All the floods and frozen seas?
Or descend into the deep,
Where eternal cold does keep?
These may cool; but there's a zone
Colder yet than anyone:
That's my Julia's breast, where dwells
Such destructive icicles,
As that the congelation will
Me sooner starve than those can kill.
Music And Moonlight
by Madison Julius Cawein

White roses, like a mist
Upon a terraced height,
And 'mid the roses, opal, moonbeam-kissed,
A fountain falling white.
And as the full moon flows,
Orbed fire, into a cloud,
There is a fragrant sound as if a rose
Had sighed its soul aloud.
There is a whisper pale,
As if a rose awoke,
And, having heard in sleep the nightingale,
Still dreaming of it spoke.
Now, as from some vast shell
A giant pearl rolls white,
From the dividing cloud, that winds compel,
The moon sweeps, big and bright.
Moon-mists and pale perfumes,
Wind-wafted through the dusk:
There is a sound as if unfolding blooms
Voiced their sweet thoughts in musk.
A spirit is abroad
Of music and of sleep:
The moon and mists have made for it a road
Adown the violet deep.
It breathes a tale to me,
A tale of ancient day;
And like a dream again I seem to see
Those towers old and gray.
That castle by the foam,
Where once our hearts made moan:
And through the night again you seem to come
Down statued stairs of stone.
Again I feel your hair,
Dark, fragrant, deep and cool:
You lift your face up, pale with its despair,
And wildly beautiful.
Again your form I strain;
Again, unto my heart:
Again your lips, again and yet again,
I press and then we part.
As centuries ago
We did in Camelot;
Where once we lived that life of bliss and woe,
That you remember not.
When you were Guinevere,
And I was Launcelot. .
I have remembered many and many a year,
And you you have forgot.
A Little Memory
by Aldous Leonard Huxley

White in the moonlight,
Wet with dew,
We have known the languor
Of being two.
We have been weary
As children are,
When over them, radiant,
A stooping star,
Bends their Good-Night,
Kissed and smiled:--
Each was mother,
Each was child.
Child, from your forehead
I kissed the hair,
Gently, ah, gently:
And you were
Mistress and mother
When on your breast
I lay so safely
And could rest.
To His Muse
by Robert Herrick

Whither, mad maiden, wilt thou roam?
Far safer 'twere to stay at home;
Where thou mayst sit, and piping, please
The poor and private cottages.
Since cotes and hamlets best agree
With this thy meaner minstrelsy.
There with the reed thou mayst express
The shepherd's fleecy happiness;
And with thy Eclogues intermix:
Some smooth and harmless Bucolics.
There, on a hillock, thou mayst sing
Unto a handsome shepherdling;
Or to a girl, that keeps the neat,
With breath more sweet than violet.
There, there, perhaps such lines as these
May take the simple villages;
But for the court, the country wit
Is despicable unto it.
Stay then at home, and do not go
Or fly abroad to seek for woe;
Contempts in courts and cities dwell
No critic haunts the poor man's cell,
Where thou mayst hear thine own lines read
By no one tongue there censured.
That man's unwise will search for ill,
And may prevent it, sitting still.