DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Sappho II
by Sara Teasdale

Oh Litis, little slave, why will you sleep?
These long Egyptian noons bend down your head
Bowed like the yarrow with a yellow bee.
There, lift your eyes no man has ever kindled,
Dark eyes that wait like faggots for the fire.
See how the temple's solid square of shade
Points north to Lesbos, and the splendid sea
That you have never seen, oh evening-eyed.
Yet have you never wondered what the Nile
Is seeking always, restless and wild with spring
And no less in the winter, seeking still?
How shall I tell you? Can you think of fields
Greater than Gods could till, more blue than night
Sown over with the stars; and delicate
With filmy nets of foam that come and go?
It is more cruel and more compassionate
Than harried earth. It takes with unconcern
And quick forgetting, rapture of the rain
And agony of thunder, the moon's white
Soft-garmented virginity, and then
The insatiable ardor of the sun.
And me it took. But there is one more strong,
Love, that came laughing from the eider seas,
The Cyprian, the mother of the world;
She gave me love who only asked for death
I who had seen much sorrow in men's eyes
And in my own too sorrowful a fire.
I was a sister of the stars, and yet
Shaken with pain; sister of birds and yet
The wings that bore my soul were very tired.
I watched the careless spring too many times
Light her green torches in a hungry wind;
Too many times I watched them flare, and then
Fall to forsaken embers in the autumn.
And I was sick of all things even song.
In the dull autumn dawn I turned to death,
Buried my living body in the sea,
The strong cold sea that takes and does not give
But there is one more strong, the Cyprian.
Litis, to wake from sleep and find your eyes
Met in their first fresh upward gaze by love,
Filled with love's happy shame from other eyes,
Dazzled with tenderness and drowned in light
As tho' you looked unthinking at the sun,
Oh Litis, that is joy! But if you came
Not from the sunny shallow pool of sleep,
But from the sea of death, the strangling sea
Of night and nothingness, and waked to find
Love looking down upon you, glad and still,
Strange and yet known forever, that is peace.
So did he lean above me. Not a word
He spoke; I only heard the morning sea
Singing against his happy ship, the keen
And straining joy of wind-awakened sails
And songs of mariners, and in myself
The precious pain of arms that held me fast.
They warmed the cold sea out of all my blood;
I slept, feeling his eyes above my sleep.
There on the ship with wines and olives laden,
Led by the stars to far invisible ports,
Egypt and islands of the inner seas,
Love came to me, and Cercolas was love.
Roger Heston
by Edgar Lee Masters

Oh many times did Ernest Hyde and I
Argue about the freedom of the will.
My favorite metaphor was Prickett's cow
Roped out to grass, and free you know as far
As the length of the rope.
One day while arguing so, watching the cow
Pull at the rope to get beyond the circle
Which she had eaten bare,
Out came the stake, and tossing up her head,
She ran for us.
"What's that, free-will or what?" said Ernest, running.
I fell just as she gored me to my death.
Oh stay at home, my lad, and plough
by Alfred Edward Housman

Oh stay at home, my lad, and plough
The land and not the sea,
And leave the soldiers at their drill,
And all about the idle hill
Shepherd your sheep with me.
Oh stay with company and mirth
And daylight and the air;
Too full already is the grave
Of fellows that were good and brave
And died because they were.
Tower Grove.
by Fannie Isabelle Sherrick

Oh tell me not of the lands so old
Where the Orient treasures its hills of gold,
And the rivers lie in the sun's bright rays
Forever singing the old world's praise.
Nor proudly boast of the gardens grand
That spring to earth at a king's command;
There are treasures here in the far great West
That rival the hills on the Orient's crest.
Far from the sight of the dusty town
Like a perfect gem in a golden crown,
Lies a beautiful garden vast and fair,
Where the wild birds sing in the evening air,
And the dews fall down in a silent shower
On the fragrant head of each beaming flower;
While far and near o'er the land sun-kissed,
Hangs the roseate veil of the sunset mist.
Under the shade of the western wall
There's a glimmer of roses fair and tall,
And the crimson heart of each royal flower
Gleams purely forth from its leafy bower.
There are things in this world too sweet to last,
But we catch their grace ere the bloom is past,
And the roses that die in the early morn
In the garden of memory anew are born.
The dear little pansies, quaint and fair,
Uplift their heads in the silent air;
And the gleam of the purple tinged with gold
Is as fair as the roses' velvety fold.
There are tropical plants from the Southern seas
Where the flowers sleep in the perfumed breeze;
And the scent of the orange groves fill the air
With a mystical incense rich and rare.
Like waxen buds in a leafy screen
Magnolia blooms float in a sea of green;
And their fragrance falls on the dewy air
Like the breath of the tropics richly rare.
And up from the South in the voiceless night
Steals the scent of the blossoms pure and white,
And one by one as the winds sweep by
They shrink away, from that touch, to die.
There are trees and flowers from every clime
Defying the scope of the poet's rhyme;
There are beautiful lawns where the feet could rest,
Unwilling to wander, forever blest;
There are peaceful nooks where the soul might dwell
Forever lost in a fadeless spell;
But the tomb of the man who is great and wise
Is the loveliest spot in this paradise.
And just to the south is a park so fair
That the children of God love to wander there;
And the emerald green of its winding ways
Is flecked with the gold of the sun's last rays.
There are statues, too, of the good and great,
Who point on forever to Truth's wide gate,
And the bronze and the green and the sun's red gold
Are mingled at eve in a glory untold.
Immortal the name of the man shall be
Who hath given these treasures so fair to see,
And the grace of the flowers he loves so well
The truth of his goodness forever shall tell.
But fairer than all are the deeds of love
That shine in God's temple of grace above;
And Fame on her beautiful shadowless height
Has woven his name in a glory of light.
Supplication
by Edgar Lee Masters

For He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are dust. - PSALM CIII. 14.
Oh Lord, when all our bones are thrust
Beyond the gaze of all but Thine;
And these blaspheming tongues are dust
Which babbled of Thy name divine,
How helpless then to carp or rail
Against the canons of Thy word;
Wilt Thou, when thus our spirits fail,
Have mercy, Lord?
Here from this ebon speck that floats
As but a mote within Thine eye,
Vain sneers and curses from our throats
Rise to the vault of Thy fair sky:
Yet when this world of ours is still
Of this all-wondering, tortured horde,
And none is left for Thee to kill - 
Have mercy, Lord!
Thou knowest that our flesh is grass;
Ah! let our withered souls remain
Like stricken reeds of some morass,
Bleached, in Thy will, by ceaseless rain.
Have we not had enough of fire,
Enough of torment and the sword? - 
If these accrue from Thy desire - 
Have mercy, Lord!
Dost Thou not see about our feet
The tangles of our erring thought?
Thou knowest that we run to greet
High hopes that vanish into naught.
We bleed, we fall, we rise again;
How can we be of Thee abhorred?
We are Thy breed, we little men - 
Have mercy, Lord!
Wilt Thou then slay for that we slay,
Wilt Thou deny when we deny?
A thousand years are but a day,
A little day within Thine eye:
We thirst for love, we yearn for life;
We lust, wilt Thou the lust record?
We, beaten, fall upon the knife - 
Have mercy, Lord!
Thou givest us youth that turns to age;
And strength that leaves us while we seek.
Thou pourest the fire of sacred rage
In costly vessels all too weak.
Great works we planned in hopes that Thou
Fit wisdom therefor wouldst accord;
Thou wrotest failure on our brow - 
Have mercy, Lord!
Could we but know, as Thou dost know - 
Hold the whole scheme at once in mind!
Yet, dost Thou watch our anxious woe
Who piece with palsied hands and blind
The fragments of our little plan,
To thrive and earn Thy blest reward,
And make and keep the world of man - 
Have mercy, Lord!
Thou settest the sun within his place
To light the world, the world is Thine,
Put in our hands and through Thy grace
To be subdued and made divine.
Whether we serve Thee ill or well,
Thou knowest our frame, nor canst afford
To leave Thy own for long in hell - 
Have mercy, Lord!
A New Forest Ballad
by Charles Kingsley

Oh she tripped over Ocknell plain,
And down by Bradley Water;
And the fairest maid on the forest side
Was Jane, the keeper's daughter.
She went and went through the broad gray lawns
As down the red sun sank,
And chill as the scent of a new-made grave
The mist smelt cold and dank.
'A token, a token!' that fair maid cried,
'A token that bodes me sorrow;
For they that smell the grave by night
Will see the corpse to-morrow.
'My own true love in Burley Walk
Does hunt to-night, I fear;
And if he meet my father stern,
His game may cost him dear.
'Ah, here's a curse on hare and grouse,
A curse on hart and hind;
And a health to the squire in all England,
Leaves never a head behind.'
Her true love shot a mighty hart
Among the standing rye,
When on him leapt that keeper old
From the fern where he did lie.
The forest laws were sharp and stern,
The forest blood was keen;
They lashed together for life and death
Beneath the hollies green.
The metal good and the walnut wood
Did soon in flinders flee;
They tost the orts to south and north,
And grappled knee to knee.
They wrestled up, they wrestled down,
They wrestled still and sore;
Beneath their feet the myrtle sweet
Was stamped to mud and gore.
Ah, cold pale moon, thou cruel pale moon,
That starest with never a frown
On all the grim and the ghastly things
That are wrought in thorpe and town:
And yet, cold pale moon, thou cruel pale moon,
That night hadst never the grace
To lighten two dying Christian men
To see one another's face.
They wrestled up, they wrestled down,
They wrestled sore and still,
The fiend who blinds the eyes of men
That night he had his will.
Like stags full spent, among the bent
They dropped a while to rest;
When the young man drove his saying knife
Deep in the old man's breast.
The old man drove his gunstock down
Upon the young man's head;
And side by side, by the water brown,
Those yeomen twain lay dead.
They dug three graves in Lyndhurst yard;
They dug them side by side;
Two yeomen lie there, and a maiden fair
A widow and never a bride.
In the New Forest, 1847.
One Foot On Sea, And One On Shore.
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

"Oh tell me once and tell me twice
And tell me thrice to make it plain,
When we who part this weary day,
When we who part shall meet again."
"When windflowers blossom on the sea
And fishes skim along the plain,
Then we who part this weary day,
Then you and I shall meet again."
"Yet tell me once before we part,
Why need we part who part in pain?
If flowers must blossom on the sea,
Why, we shall never meet again.
"My cheeks are paler than a rose,
My tears are salter than the main,
My heart is like a lump of ice
If we must never meet again."
"Oh weep or laugh, but let me be,
And live or die, for all's in vain;
For life's in vain since we must part,
And parting must not meet again
"Till windflowers blossom on the sea,
And fishes skim along the plain;
Pale rose of roses let me be,
Your breaking heart breaks mine again."
The Moon, Offended
by Charles Baudelaire

Oh moon our fathers worshipped, their love discreet,
from the blue country's heights where the bright seraglio,
the stars in their sweet dress, go treading after you,
my ancient Cynthia, lamp of my retreat,
do you see the lovers, in their bed's happiness
showing in sleep their mouths' cool enamels,
the poet bruising his forehead on his troubles,
or the vipers coupling under the dry grasses?
Under your yellow cloak, with clandestine pacing,
do you pass as before, from twilight to morning,
to kiss Endymion's faded grace?
'I see your mother, Child of this impoverished century,
who, over her mirror, bends a time-worn face,
and powders the breast that fed you, skilfully.'
Life.
by William Cullen Bryant

Oh Life! I breathe thee in the breeze,
I feel thee bounding in my veins,
I see thee in these stretching trees,
These flowers, this still rock's mossy stains.
This stream of odours flowing by
From clover-field and clumps of pine,
This music, thrilling all the sky,
From all the morning birds, are thine.
Thou fill'st with joy this little one,
That leaps and shouts beside me here,
Where Isar's clay-white rivulets run
Through the dark woods like frighted deer.
Ah! must thy mighty breath, that wakes
Insect and bird, and flower and tree,
From the low trodden dust, and makes
Their daily gladness, pass from me,
Pass, pulse by pulse, till o'er the ground
These limbs, now strong, shall creep with pain,
And this fair world of sight and sound
Seem fading into night again?
The things, oh LIFE! thou quickenest, all
Strive upwards toward the broad bright sky,
Upward and outward, and they fall
Back to earth's bosom when they die.
All that have borne the touch of death,
All that shall live, lie mingled there,
Beneath that veil of bloom and breath,
That living zone 'twixt earth and air.
There lies my chamber dark and still,
The atoms trampled by my feet,
There wait, to take the place I fill
In the sweet air and sunshine sweet.
Well, I have had my turn, have been
Raised from the darkness of the clod,
And for a glorious moment seen
The brightness of the skirts of God;
And knew the light within my breast,
Though wavering oftentimes and dim,
The power, the will, that never rest,
And cannot die, were all from him.
Dear child! I know that thou wilt grieve
To see me taken from thy love,
Wilt seek my grave at Sabbath eve,
And weep, and scatter flowers above.
Thy little heart will soon be healed,
And being shall be bliss, till thou
To younger forms of life must yield
The place thou fill'st with beauty now.
When we descend to dust again,
Where will the final dwelling be
Of Thought and all its memories then,
My love for thee, and thine for me?
Triolet
by George MacDonald

Oh that men would praise the Lord
For his goodness unto men!
Forth he sends his saving word,
--Oh that men would praise the Lord!--
And from shades of death abhorred
Lifts them up to light again:
Oh that men would praise the Lord
For his goodness unto men!
Oh Thou Who Dry'st The Mourner's Tear. (Air.--Haydn.)
by Thomas Moore

"He healeth the broken in heart and bindeth up their wounds,"
--Psalm. cxlvii. 3.
Oh Thou who dry'st the mourner's tear,
How dark this world would be,
If, when deceived and wounded here,
We could not fly to Thee.
The friends who in our sunshine live,
When winter comes, are flown;
And he who has but tears to give,
Must weep those tears alone.
But Thou wilt heal that broken heart,
Which, like the plants that throw
Their fragrance from the wounded part,
Breathes sweetness out of woe.
When joy no longer soothes or cheers,
And even the hope that threw
A moment's sparkle o'er our tears
Is dimmed and vanished too,
Oh, who would bear life's stormy doom,
Did not thy Wing of Love
Come, brightly wafting thro' the gloom
Our Peace-branch from above?
Then sorrow, touched by Thee, grows bright
With more than rapture's ray;
As darkness shows us worlds of light
We never saw by day!
Translation{D} Of A Latin Poem - By The Rev. Newton Ogle, Dean Of Manchester.
by William Lisle Bowles

Oh thou, that prattling on thy pebbled way
Through my paternal vale dost stray,
Working thy shallow passage to the sea!
Oh, stream, thou speedest on
The same as many seasons gone;
But not, alas, to me
Remain the feelings that beguiled
My early road, when, careless and content,
(Losing the hours in pastimes innocent)
Upon thy banks I strayed a playful child;
Whether the pebbles that thy margin strew,
Collecting, heedlessly I threw;
Or loved in thy translucent wave
My tender shrinking feet to lave;
Or else ensnared your little fry,
And thought how wondrous skilled was I!
So passed my boyish days, unknown to pain,
Days that will ne'er return again.
It seems but yesterday
I was a child, to-morrow to be gray!
So years succeeding years steal silently away.
Not fleeter thy own current, hurrying thee,
Rolls down to the great sea.
Thither oh carry these sad thoughts; the deep
Bury them! thou, meantime, thy tenor keep,
And winding through the green-wood, cheer,
As erst, my native, peaceful pastures here.
Oh What A Wreck! How Changed In Mien And Speech!
by William Wordsworth

Oh what a Wreck! how changed in mien and speech!
Yet, though dread Powers, that work in mystery, spin
Entanglings of the brain; though shadows stretch
O'er the chilled heart reflect; far, far within
Hers is a holy Being, freed from Sin.
She is not what she seems, a forlorn wretch;
But delegated Spirits comfort fetch
To Her from heights that Reason may not win.
Like Children, She is privileged to hold
Divine communion; both do live and move,
Whate'er to shallow Faith their ways unfold,
Inly illumined by Heaven's pitying love;
Love pitying innocence not long to last,
In them, in Her our sins and sorrows past.
From Market.
by Kate Greenaway

Oh who'll give us Posies,
And Garlands of Roses,
To twine round our heads so gay?
For here we come bringing
You many good wishes to-day.
From market--from market--from market--
We all come up from market.
De Profundis.
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Oh why is heaven built so far,
Oh why is earth set so remote?
I cannot reach the nearest star
That hangs afloat.
I would not care to reach the moon,
One round monotonous of change;
Yet even she repeats her tune
Beyond my range.
I never watch the scattered fire
Of stars, or sun's far-trailing train,
But all my heart is one desire,
And all in vain:
For I am bound with fleshly bands,
Joy, beauty, lie beyond my scope;
I strain my heart, I stretch my hands,
And catch at hope.
The Modern Mother
by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

Oh what a kiss
With filial passion overcharged is this!
To this misgiving breast
The child runs, as a child ne'er ran to rest
Upon the light heart and the unoppressed.
Unhoped, unsought!
A little tenderness, this mother thought
The utmost of her meed
She looked for gratitude; content indeed
With thus much that her nine years' love had bought.
Nay, even with less.
This mother, giver of life, death, peace, distress,
Desired ah! not so much
Thanks as forgiveness; and the passing touch
Expected, and the slight, the brief caress.
Oh filial light
Strong in these childish eyes, these new, these bright
Intelligible stars! Their rays
Are near the constant earth, guides in the maze,
Natural, true, keen in this dusk of days.
Oh You Are Coming
by Sara Teasdale

Oh you are coming, coming, coming,
How will hungry Time put by the hours till then?,
But why does it anger my heart to long so
For one man out of the world of men?
Oh I would live in myself only
And build my life lightly and still as a dream,
Are not my thoughts clearer than your thoughts
And colored like stones in a running stream?
Now the slow moon brightens in heaven,
The stars are ready, the night is here,
Oh why must I lose myself to love you,
My dear?
The Idealist
by Robert William Service

Oh you who have daring deeds to tell!
And you who have felt Ambition's spell!
Have you heard of the louse who longed to dwell
In the golden hair of a queen?
He sighed all day and he sighed all night,
And no one could understand it quite,
For the head of a slut is a louse's delight,
But he pined for the head of a queen.
So he left his kinsfolk in merry play,
And off by his lonesome he stole away,
From the home of his youth so bright and gay,
And gloriously unclean.
And at last he came to the palace gate,
And he made his way in a manner straight
(For a louse may go where a man must wait)
To the tiring-room of the queen.
The queen she spake to her tiring-maid:
"There's something the matter, I'm afraid.
To-night ere for sleep my hair ye braid,
Just see what may be seen."
And lo, when they combed that shining hair
They found him alone in his glory there,
And he cried: "I die, but I do not care,
For I've lived in the head of a queen!"
At The Bridal
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Oh! but the bride was lovely,
Oh! but the scene was bright,
And why was the bridegroom's face as pale
As his lady's robe of white?
Did you not see beside him
A guest unasked, unbid?
Who came up the aisle with silent feet
And gazed at him? he did!
He saw her eyes upon him,
He felt her icy breath;
And under the bride's warm clinging hand
There crept the touch of death.
And above the low responses
There fell upon his ear
A voice forbidding the nuptial banns;
But no one else could hear.
And when the ring was given,
And when the prayer was said,
He knew, as he led his bride away,
That he was not truly wed.
And while they sat at the banquet,
And mirth flowed like the wine,
A dead girl's voice hissed in his ear,
'You are not hers, but mine.'
Oh! never beside his hearthstone,
And never in any place,
Shall he be free from the haunting thought
Of that accusing face.
Autumn Winds.
by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

"Oh! Autumn winds, what means this plaintive wailing
Around the quiet homestead where we dwell?
Whence come ye, say, and what the story mournful
That your weird voices ever seek to tell - 
Whispering or clamoring, beneath the casements,
Rising in shriek or dying off in moan,
But ever breathing, menace, fear, or anguish
In every thrilling and unearthly tone?"
"We come from far off and from storm-tossed oceans,
Where vessels bravely battle with fierce gale, - 
Mere playthings of our stormy, restless power,
We rend them quickly, shuddering mast and sail;
And with their, stalwart, gallant crews we hurl them
Amid the hungry waves that for them wait,
Nor leave one floating spar nor fragile taffrail
To tell unto the world their dreary fate."
"But He who holds you, wrathful winds of Autumn,
Within the hollow of His mighty hand,
Can stay your onward course of reckless fury,
Your demon wrath, or eerie sport command,
Changing your rudest blast to zephyr gentle
As rocks the rose in summer evenings still,
Calming the ocean and yourselves enchaining
By simple fiat of Almighty Will."
"We've been, too in the close and crowded city
Where want is often forced to herd with sin;
And our cold breath has pierced through without pity,
Bare, ruined hovel and worn garments thin;
Through narrow chink and broken window pouring
Draughts rife with fever and with deadly chill,
Choosing our victims 'mid old age and childhood,
Or tender, fragile infancy at will."
"Oh, Autumn blasts, He, whose kind care doth temper
The searching wind unto the small shorn lamb,
To those poor shiv'ring victims, too, can render
Thy keenest, sharpest blasts, both mild and calm
Rave on - rave on, around our happy homestead
Upon this dark and wild November night,
Ye do but work out your God-given mission,
Mere humble creatures of our Father's might."
"But, listen, we come, too, from graveyards lonely,
From mocking revels held 'mid tombstones tall,
Tearing the withered leaves from off the branches,
The clinging ivy from the time-stained wall, - 
Uprooting, blighting every tiny leaflet
That hid the grave's bleak nakedness from sight,
Driving the leaves in hideous, death like dances,
Around the lowly mounds, the grave-stones white."
"And, what of that, ye cruel winds of Autumn?
Spring will return again with hope and mirth,
Clothing with tender green the budding branches,
Decking with snowdrops, violets, the earth;
And, oh! sweet hope, sublime and most consoling,
The sacred dust within those graves shall rise
In God's good time, to reign on thrones of glory
With Him, beyond the cloudless, golden skies."
Carthage.
by Friedrich Schiller

Oh thou degenerate child of the great and glorious mother,
Who with the Romans' strong might couplest the Tyrians' deceit!
But those ever governed with vigor the earth they had conquered, 
These instructed the world that they with cunning had won.
Say! what renown does history grant thee? Thou, Roman-like, gained'st
That with the steel, which with gold, Tyrian-like, then thou didst rule!