DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Her Poem: "My Baby Girl, That Was Born And Died On The Same Day."
by Francis William Lauderdale Adams

"Ah, with torn heart I see them still,
Wee unused clothes and empty cot.
Though glad my love has missed the ill
That falls to woman's lot.
"No tangled paths for her to tread
Throughout the coming changeful years;
No desperate weird to dree and dread;
No bitter lonely tears!
"No woman's piercing crown of thorns
Will press my aching baby's brow;
No starless nights, no sunless morns,
Will ever greet her now.
"The clothes that I had wrought with care
Through weary hours for love's sweet sake
Are laid aside, and with them there
A heart that seemed to break."
How a Little Girl Sang
by Vachel Lindsay

Ah, she was music in herself,
A symphony of joyousness.
She sang, she sang from finger tips,
From every tremble of her dress.
I saw sweet haunting harmony,
An ecstasy, an ecstasy,
In that strange curling of her lips,
That happy curling of her lips.
And quivering with melody
Those eyes I saw, that tossing head.
And so I saw what music was,
Tho' still accursed with ears of lead.
Sonnets Upon The Punishment Of Death - In Series, 1839 - XI - Ah, Think How One Compelled For Life To Abide
by William Wordsworth

Ah, think how one compelled for life to abide
Locked in a dungeon needs must eat the heart
Out of his own humanity, and part
With every hope that mutual cares provide;
And, should a less unnatural doom confide
In life-long exile on a savage coast,
Soon the relapsing penitent may boast
Of yet more heinous guilt, with fiercer pride.
Hence thoughtful Mercy, Mercy sage and pure,
Sanctions the forfeiture that Law demands,
Leaving the final issue in 'His' hands
Whose goodness knows no change, whose love is sure,
Who sees, foresees; who cannot judge amiss,
And wafts at will the contrite soul to bliss.
Vayu the Wind
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

Ah, Wind, I have always loved thee
Since those far off nights
When I lay beneath the vines
A prey to strange delights,
For among my tresses
Thy soft caresses
Were sweet as a lover's to me.
Later thou grewest more wanton, or I more shy,
And after the bath I drew my garments close,
Fearing thy soft persuasion amongst my hair
When thou camest fresh with the scent of some ruffled rose.
Ah, Wind, thou hast lain with the Desert,
I know her savour well,
And the spices wherewith she scents her breasts - 
She who has known such countless lovers
Yet rarely borne a city among her sands - 
Thou comest as one from a night of love,
Thy breath is broken and hard, - 
Bringing echoes of lonely things,
Vast and cruel, that the soft and golden sands
Buried beneath thin ripples so long ago.
Ah, Wind, thou hast given me lovely things,
The scent of a thousand flowers,
And the heavy perfume of pollen-laden fields,
Strange snatches of wild song from the heart of the dark Bazaar
That thrilled to my very core,
Till I threw the sheet aside and rose to follow, - 
But whither, or what?
Also, Wind, thou broughtest the breath of the sea,
The sound of its myriad waves.
And in nights when I lay on the lonely sands
Stretching mine arms to thee,
Thou gavest me something - faint and vast and sweet,
Something ineffable, wistful, from far away,
Elsewhere - Beyond - 
And thou wast kind to me in my times of love,
Cooling my lips
That my lover wore away,
While, wafting the scent from his divided hair,
Thou show'dst the stars between
Far away, and eclipsed by his burning eyes
Even the stars.
And now I almost foresee the place and the hour
When I shall open my dying lips to thee
And receive a last cool kiss.
Afterwards, Wind, since I have always loved thee, - 
Whirl my dust to the scented heart of a moghra flower,
His flower, but, ah, thou knowest, - 
So often thy kisses have mingled with his and mine.
To June
by George MacDonald

Ah, truant, thou art here again, I see!
For in a season of such wretched weather
I thought that thou hadst left us altogether,
Although I could not choose but fancy thee
Skulking about the hill-tops, whence the glee
Of thy blue laughter peeped at times, or rather
Thy bashful awkwardness, as doubtful whether
Thou shouldst be seen in such a company
Of ugly runaways, unshapely heaps
Of ruffian vapour, broken from restraint
Of their slim prison in the ocean deeps.
But yet I may not chide: fall to thy books--
Fall to immediately without complaint--
There they are lying, hills and vales and brooks.
Nora: A Serenade
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Ah, Nora, my Nora, the light fades away,
While Night like a spirit steals up o'er the hills;
The thrush from his tree where he chanted all day,
No longer his music in ecstasy trills.
Then, Nora, be near me; thy presence doth cheer me,
Thine eye hath a gleam that is truer than gold.
I cannot but love thee; so do not reprove me,
If the strength of my passion should make me too bold.
Nora, pride of my heart--
Rosy cheeks, cherry lips, sparkling with glee,--
Wake from thy slumbers, wherever thou art;
Wake from thy slumbers to me.
Ah, Nora, my Nora, there 's love in the air,--
It stirs in the numbers that thrill in my brain;
Oh, sweet, sweet is love with its mingling of care,
Though joy travels only a step before pain.
Be roused from thy slumbers and list to my numbers;
My heart is poured out in this song unto thee.
Oh, be thou not cruel, thou treasure, thou jewel;
Turn thine ear to my pleading and hearken to me.
Lines To The Memory Of Mrs. B ----
by John Carr (Sir)

Ah, stranger! if thy pilgrim footsteps love,
By meditation led, to wander here,
A suff'ring husband may thy pity move,
Who weeps the loss of all his soul holds dear!
Cold as this mourning marble is that heart,
Which Virtue warm'd with pure and gen'rous heat,
Which to each checquer'd scene could joy impart,
Nor ceas'd to love until it ceas'd to beat.
Yet, gentle spirit! o'er thine early grave
Shall Consolation, like a seraph, prove,
When Sickness clos'd thy faultless life, she gave
Another angel to the realms above!
The Hot Weather Fiend.
by Edwin C. Ranck

Ah, somewhere in another world
There is a warmer spot,
Where the fire is burning always.
And always it is hot;
And always fiends are shouting,
And always flames are blue,
And always Satan's asking:
"IS IT HOT ENOUGH FOR YOU?"
The Prophet
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

AH, my darling, when over the purple horizon shall loom
The shrouded mother of a new idea, men hide their faces,
Cry out and fend her off, as she seeks her procreant groom,
Wounding themselves against her, denying her fecund embraces.
Spring Morning
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

Ah, through the open door
Is there an almond tree
Aflame with blossom!
- Let us fight no more.
Among the pink and blue
Of the sky and the almond flowers
A sparrow flutters.
- We have come through,
It is really spring! - See,
When he thinks himself alone
How he bullies the flowers.
- Ah, you and me
How happy we'll be! - See him
He clouts the tufts of flowers
In his impudence.
- But, did you dream
It would be so bitter? Never mind
It is finished, the spring is here.
And we're going to be summer-happy
And summer-kind.
We have died, we have slain and been slain,
We are not our old selves any more.
I feel new and eager
To start again.
It is gorgeous to live and forget.
And to feel quite new.
See the bird in the flowers? - he's making
A rare to-do!
He thinks the whole blue sky
Is much less than the bit of blue egg
He's got in his nest - we'll be happy
You and I, I and you.
With nothing to fight any more - 
In each other, at least.
See, how gorgeous the world is
Outside the door!
SAN GAUDENZIO
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part I. - XX - Other Influences
by William Wordsworth

Ah, when the Body, round which in love we clung,
Is chilled by death, does mutual service fail?
Is tender pity then of no avail?
Are intercessions of the fervent tongue
A waste of hope? From this sad source have sprung
Rites that console the Spirit, under grief
Which ill can brook more rational relief:
Hence, prayers are shaped amiss, and dirges sung
For Souls whose doom is fixed! The way is smooth
For Power that travels with the human heart:
Confession ministers the pang to soothe
In him who at the ghost of guilt doth start.
Ye holy Men, so earnest in your care,
Of your own mighty instruments beware!
To Anthea.
by Robert Herrick

Ah, my Anthea! Must my heart still break?
(Love makes me write, what shame forbids to speak.)
Give me a kiss, and to that kiss a score;
Then to that twenty add a hundred more:
A thousand to that hundred: so kiss on,
To make that thousand up a million.
Treble that million, and when that is done
Let's kiss afresh, as when we first begun.
But yet, though love likes well such scenes as these,
There is an act that will more fully please:
Kissing and glancing, soothing, all make way
But to the acting of this private play:
Name it I would; but, being blushing red,
The rest I'll speak when we meet both in bed.
An Early Love
by William Henry Davies

Ah, sweet young blood, that makes the heart
So full of joy, and light,
That dying children dance with it
From early morn till night.
My dreams were blossoms, hers the fruit,
She was my dearest care;
With gentle hand, and for it, I
Made playthings of her hair.
I made my fingers rings of gold,
And bangles for my wrist;
You should have felt the soft, warm thing
I made to glove my fist.
And she should have a crown, I swore,
With only gold enough
To keep together stones more rich
Than that fine metal stuff.
Her golden hair gave me more joy
Than Jason's heart could hold,
When all his men cried out, Ah, look!
He has the Fleece of Gold!
La Doleur De La Jeunessb.
by Margaret Steele Anderson

Ah, love, why love you tears?
What beauty in the rue?
Do you not know the years
Shall bring their griefs to you,
To dew your nightly pillow ere you sleep?
Perchance, hut let me weep!
No sorrow do you mourn,
No cloud in heaven for you.
No graves have you, forlorn.
With salt tears to bestrew.
Nor any field of tares that you must reap.
Ah no! Yet I would weep!
One day, shall not your ships
Come sailing o'er the blue.
With fruit and spice for lips.
And robes of many a hue.
And gems and gold for your white hands to keep?
Yet, on the shore, I weep!
Then I my harp will bring,
And sing your tears and ruth;
More sweet than songs of spring
Sweet bitterness of youth!
I will forget, one hour, that grief is deep,
And, singing, I will weep!
Vanity Of Vanities - Sonnet
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Ah, woe is me for pleasure that is vain,
Ah, woe is me for glory that is past:
Pleasure that bringeth sorrow at the last,
Glory that at the last bringeth no gain!
So saith the sinking heart; and so again
It shall say till the mighty angel-blast
Is blown, making the sun and moon aghast
And showering down the stars like sudden rain.
And evermore men shall go fearfully
Bending beneath their weight of heaviness;
And ancient men shall lie down wearily,
And strong men shall rise up in weariness;
Yea, even the young shall answer sighingly
Saying one to another: How vain it is!
The Boy Statesman. By A Tory.
by Thomas Moore

"That boy will be the death of me."
Matthews at Home.
Ah, Tories dear, our ruin is near,
With Stanley to help us, we can't but fall;
Already a warning voice I hear,
Like the late Charles Matthews' croak in my ear,
"That boy--that boy'll be the death of you all."
He will, God help us!--not even Scriblerius
In the "Art of Sinking" his match could be;
And our case is growing exceeding serious,
For, all being in the same boat as he,
If down my Lord goes, down go we,
Lord Baron Stanley and Company,
As deep in Oblivion's swamp below
As such "Masters Shallow," well could go;
And where we shall all both low and high,
Embalmed in mud, as forgotten lie
As already doth Graham of Netherby!
But that boy, that boy!--there's a tale I know,
Which in talking of him comes 'propos.
Sir Thomas More had an only son,
And a foolish lad was that only one,
And Sir Thomas said one day to his wife,
"My dear, I can't but wish you joy.
"For you prayed for a boy, and you now have a boy,
"Who'll continue a boy to the end of his life."
Even such is our own distressing lot,
With the ever-young statesman we have got;
Nay even still worse; for Master More
Wasn't more a youth than he'd been before,
While ours such power of boyhood shows,
That the older he gets the more juvenile he grows,
And at what extreme old age he'll close
His schoolboy course, heaven only knows;--
Some century hence, should he reach so far,
And ourselves to witness it heaven condemn,
We shall find him a sort of cub Old Parr,
A whipper-snapper Methusalem;
Nay, even should he make still longer stay of it,
The boy'll want judgment, even to the day of it!
Meanwhile, 'tis a serious, sad infliction;
And day and night with awe I recall
The late Mr. Matthews' solemn prediction,
"That boy'll be the death, the death of you all."
Serenade.
by Thomas Hood

Ah, sweet, thou little knowest how
I wake and passionate watches keep;
And yet while I address thee now,
Methinks thou smilest in thy sleep.
'Tis sweet enough to make me weep,
That tender thought of love and thee,
That while the world is hush'd so deep,
Thy soul's perhaps awake to me!
Sleep on, sleep on, sweet bride of sleep!
With golden visions of thy dower,
While I this midnight vigil keep,
And bless thee in thy silent bower;
To me 'tis sweeter than the power
Of sleep, and fairy dreams unfurl'd,
That I alone, at this still hour,
In patient love outwatch the world.
To Perilla
by Robert Herrick

Ah, my Perilla, dost thou grieve to see
Me day by day to steal away from thee?
Age calls me hence, and my grey hairs bid come,
And haste away to mine eternal home.
'Twill not be long, Perilla, after this,
That I must give thee the supremest kiss.
Dead when I am, first cast in salt, and bring
Part of the cream from that religious spring,
With which, Perilla, wash my hands and feet.
That done, then wind me in that very sheet
Which wrapped thy smooth limbs when thou didst implore
The gods' protection but the night before.
Follow me weeping to my turf, and there
Let fall a primrose, and with it a tear;
Then, lastly, let some weekly-strewings be
Devoted to the memory of me:
Then shall my ghost not walk about, but keep
Still in the cool and silent shades of sleep.
Caverns
by Madison Julius Cawein

Written Of Colossal Cave, Kentucky
Aisles and abysses; leagues no man explores,
Of rock that labyrinths and night that drips;
Where everlasting silence broods, with lips
Of adamant, o'er earthquake-builded floors.
Where forms, such as the Demon-World adores,
Laborious water carves; whence echo slips
Wild-tongued o'er pools where petrifaction strips
Her breasts of crystal from which crystal pours.
Here where primordial fear, the Gorgon, sits
Staring all life to stone in ghastly mirth,
I seem to tread, with awe no tongue can tell,
Beneath vast domes, by torrent-tortured pits,
'Mid wrecks terrific of the ruined Earth,
An ancient causeway of forgotten Hell.
Sonnet L.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Lasso, che mal accorto fui da prima.
HE PRAYS LOVE TO KINDLE ALSO IN HER THE FLAME BY WHICH HE IS UNCEASINGLY TORMENTED.
Alas! this heart by me was little known
In those first days when Love its depths explored,
Where by degrees he made himself the lord
Of my whole life, and claim'd it as his own:
I did not think that, through his power alone,
A heart time-steel'd, and so with valour stored,
Such proof of failing firmness could afford,
And fell by wrong self-confidence o'erthrown.
Henceforward all defence too late will come,
Save this, to prove, enough or little, here
If to these mortal prayers Love lend his ear.
Not now my prayer--nor can such e'er have room--
That with more mercy he consume my heart,
But in the fire that she may bear her part.
MACGREGOR.
Sonnet LXXX.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Lasso! ben so che dolorose prede.
THOUGH FOR FOURTEEN YEARS HE HAS STRUGGLED UNSUCCESSFULLY, HE STILL HOPES TO CONQUER HIS PASSION.
Alas! well know I what sad havoc makes
Death of our kind, how Fate no mortal spares!
How soon the world whom once it loved forsakes,
How short the faith it to the friendless bears!
Much languishment, I see, small mercy wakes;
For the last day though now my heart prepares,
Love not a whit my cruel prison breaks,
And still my cheek grief's wonted tribute wears.
I mark the days, the moments, and the hours
Bear the full years along, nor find deceit,
Bow'd 'neath a greater force than magic spell.
For fourteen years have fought with varying powers
Desire and Reason: and the best shall beat;
If mortal spirits here can good foretell.
MACGREGOR.
Alas! I know death makes us all his prey,
Nor aught of mercy shows to destined man;
How swift the world completes its circling span,
And faithless Time soon speeds him on his way.
My heart repeats the blast of earth's last day,
Yet for its grief no recompense can scan,
Love holds me still beneath its cruel ban,
And still my eyes their usual tribute pay.
My watchful senses mark how on their wing
The circling years transport their fleeter kin,
And still I bow enslaved as by a spell:
For fourteen years did reason proudly fling
Defiance at my tameless will, to win
A triumph blest, if Man can good foretell.
WOLLASTON.
To His Girls, Who Would Have Him Sportful.
by Robert Herrick

Alas! I can't, for tell me, how
Can I be gamesome, aged now?
Besides, ye see me daily grow
Here, winter-like, to frost and snow;
And I, ere long, my girls, shall see
Ye quake for cold to look on me.
Cases - Willis V. The Bishop Of Oxford
by James Williams

(2 Probate Division, 192)
Aid me, Muses! my endeavour is to sing a woful song,
How a very learned bishop in the Arches Court went wrong.
Aid me, for duplex querela is an uninviting theme,
And the practice of the Arches raises no poetic dream.
'Tis the Reverend Child Willis, child in name but not in age,
Comes he to the Court of Arches burning with a noble rage,
Filing his duplex querela, claiming for himself thereby
Vicarage of Drayton Parslow, or to know the reason why.
"Reason why?" the bishop answers; "that is not so far to seek.
Little Latin have you, Willis, innocent are you of Greek.
You were specially examined by my good Archdeacon Pott;
He reported to me promptly, 'Greek and Latin all forgot,
Non idoneus is Willis, minus et sufficiens,
He may have a sanum corpus, but he lacks a sana mens.'"
"Nay," says Willis, "such an answer is but trifling with the court,
I have preached a Latin sermon, and the classics are my forte,
You must name the books I failed in, you must give me every chance
Of a fresh examination at the hands of Lord Penzance."
Lord Penzance supported Willis: "Bishop, you must file," said he,
"Some more tangible objection, some less vague and general plea.
As it stands I cannot gather what it is you ploughed him in,
Whether Hellenistic aorists or the Latin word for sin."
But alas! the world has never known as yet what Willis did,
In the breast of the Archdeacon still it lies a secret hid.
Was his Latin prose defective? Did his style of writing show
More resemblance to Tertullian than to Tullius Cicero?
Were his dates a little shaky? Could it, could it be that he
Confidently made Augustine flourish at a date B.C.?
None will know save Pott, Archdeacon, for alas! the patroness
Showed no mercy to Child Willis in the day of his distress.
She revoked the presentation, leaving Willis in the lurch,
One of undisputed learning preached in Drayton Parslow church.
Doubly barren was his triumph, it was not a twelve-month ere
Death set up his Court of Arches, Willis did not triumph there.
The Caged Thrush
by Robert Fuller Murray

Alas for the bird who was born to sing!
They have made him a cage; they have clipped his wing;
They have shut him up in a dingy street,
And they praise his singing and call it sweet.
But his heart and his song are saddened and filled
With the woods, and the nest he never will build,
And the wild young dawn coming into the tree,
And the mate that never his mate will be.
And day by day, when his notes are heard
They freshen the street--but alas for the bird
Epistle Of Condolence. From A Slave-Lord, To A Cotton-Lord.
by Thomas Moore

Alas! my dear friend, what a state of affairs!
How unjustly we both are despoiled of our rights!
Not a pound of black flesh shall I leave to my heirs,
Nor must you any more work to death little whites.
Both forced to submit to that general controller
Of King, Lords and cotton mills, Public Opinion,
No more shall you beat with a big billy-roller.
Nor I with the cart-whip assert my dominion.
Whereas, were we suffered to do as we please
With our Blacks and our Whites, as of yore we were let,
We might range them alternate, like harpsichord keys,
And between us thump out a good piebald duet.
But this fun is all over;--farewell to the zest
Which Slavery now lends to each teacup we sip;
Which makes still the cruellest coffee the best,
And that sugar the sweetest which smacks of the whip.
Farewell too the Factory's white pickaninnies--
Small, living machines which if flogged to their tasks
Mix so well with their namesakes, the "Billies" and "Jennies,"
That which have got souls in 'em nobody asks;--
Little Maids of the Mill, who themselves but ill-fed,
Are obliged, 'mong their other benevolent cares,
To "keep feeding the scribblers,"[1]--and better, 'tis said,
Than old Blackwood or Fraser have ever fed theirs.
All this is now o'er and so dismal my loss is,
So hard 'tis to part from the smack of the throng,
That I mean (from pure love for the old whipping process),
To take to whipt syllabub all my life long.
In An Orchard
by John Collings Squire, Sir

Airy and quick and wise
In the shed light of the sun,
You clasp with friendly eyes
The thoughts from mine that run.
But something breaks the link;
I solitary stand
By a giant gully's brink
In some vast gloomy land.
Sole central watcher, I
With steadfast sadness now
In that waste place descry
'Neath the awful heavens how
Your life doth dizzy drop
A little foam of flame
From a peak without a top
To a pit without a name.
The Siesta. - From The Spanish. (Translations.)
by William Cullen Bryant

Vientecico murmurador, Que lo gozas y andas todo, &c.
Airs, that wander and murmur round,
Bearing delight where'er ye blow!
Make in the elms a lulling sound,
While my lady sleeps in the shade below.
Lighten and lengthen her noonday rest,
Till the heat of the noonday sun is o'er.
Sweet be her slumbers! though in my breast
The pain she has waked may slumber no more.
Breathing soft from the blue profound,
Bearing delight where'er ye blow,
Make in the elms a lulling sound,
While my lady sleeps in the shade below.
Airs! that over the bending boughs,
And under the shade of pendent leaves,
Murmur soft, like my timid vows
Or the secret sighs my bosom heaves, 
Gently sweeping the grassy ground,
Bearing delight where'er ye blow,
Make in the elms a lulling sound,
While my lady sleeps in the shade below.
Sonnet CXCIX.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Lasso! Amor mi trasporta ov' io non voglio.
HE EXCUSES HIMSELF FOR VISITING LAURA TOO OFTEN, AND LOVING HER TOO MUCH.
Alas! Love bears me where I would not go,
And well I see how duty is transgress'd,
And how to her who, queen-like, rules my breast,
More than my wont importunate I grow.
Never from rocks wise sailor guarded so
His ship of richest merchandise possess'd,
As evermore I shield my bark distress'd
From shocks of her hard pride that would o'erthrow
Torrents of tears, fierce winds of infinite sighs
--For, in my sea, nights horrible and dark
And pitiless winter reign--have driven my bark,
Sail-less and helm-less where it shatter'd lies,
Or, drifting at the mercy of the main,
Trouble to others bears, distress to me and pain.
MACGREGOR.