DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Hymn Of The Moravian Nuns Of Bethlehem At The Consecration Of Pulaski's Banner.
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

When the dying flame of day
Through the chancel shot its ray,
Far the glimmering tapers shed
Faint light on the cowled head;
And the censer burning swung,
Where, before the altar, hung
The crimson banner, that with prayer
Had been consecrated there.
And the nuns' sweet hymn was heard the while,
Sung low, in the dim, mysterious aisle.
"Take thy banner!    May it wave
Proudly o'er the good and brave;
When the battle's distant wail
Breaks the sabbath of our vale.
When the clarion's music thrills
To the hearts of these lone hills,
When the spear in conflict shakes,
And the strong lance shivering breaks.
"Take thy banner! and, beneath
The battle-cloud's encircling wreath,
Guard it, till our homes are free!
Guard it!    God will prosper thee!
In the dark and trying hour,
In the breaking forth of power,
In the rush of steeds and men,
His right hand will shield thee then.
"Take thy banner!    But when night
Closes round the ghastly fight,
If the vanquished warrior bow,
Spare him!    By our holy vow,
By our prayers and many tears,
By the mercy that endears,
Spare him! he our love hath shared!
Spare him! as thou wouldst be spared!
"Take thy banner! and if e'er
Thou shouldst press the soldier's bier,
And the muffled drum should beat
To the tread of mournful feet,
Then this crimson flag shall be
Martial cloak and shroud for thee."
The warrior took that banner proud,
And it was his martial cloak and shroud!
From The Grave.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

When the first sere leaves of the year were falling,
I heard, with a heart that was strangely thrilled,
Out of the grave of a dead Past calling,
A voice I fancied forever stilled.
All through winter and spring and summer,
Silence hung over that grave like a pall,
But, borne on the breath of the last sad comer,
I listen again to the old-time call.
It is only a love of a by-gone season,
A senseless folly that mocked at me
A reckless passion that lacked all reason,
So I killed it, and hid it where none could see.
I smothered it first to stop its crying,
Then stabbed it through with a good sharp blade,
And cold and pallid I saw it lying,
And deep - ah' deep was the grave I made.
But now I know that there is no killing
A thing like Love, for it laughs at Death.
There is no hushing, there is no stilling
That which is part of your life and breath.
You may bury it deep, and leave behind you
The land, the people, that knew your slain;
It will push the sods from its grave, and find you
On wastes of water or desert plain.
You may hear but tongues of a foreign people,
You may list to sounds that are strange and new;
But, clear as a silver bell in a steeple,
That voice from the grave shall call to you.
You may rouse your pride, you may use your reason.
And seem for a space to slay Love so;
But, all in its own good time and season,
It will rise and follow wherever you go.
You shall sit sometimes, when the leaves are falling,
Alone with your heart, as I sit to-day,
And hear that voice from your dead Past calling
Out of the graves that you hid away.
In Middle Spring.
by Madison Julius Cawein

When the fields are rolled into naked gold,
And a ripple of fire and pearl is blent
With the emerald surges of wood and wold
Like a flower-foam bursting violent;
When the dingles and deeps of the woodlands old
Are glad with a sibilant life new sent,
Too rare to be told are the manifold
Sweet fancies that quicken redolent
In the heart that no longer is cold.
How it knows of the wings of the hawk that swings
From the drippled dew scintillant seen;
Why the red-bird hides where it sings and sings
In melodious quiverings of green;
How the wind to the red-bud and dogwood brings
Big pearls of worth and corals of sheen,
Whiles he lisps to the strings of a lute that rings
Of love in the South who is queen,
Where the fountain of poesy springs.
Go seek in the ray for a sworded fay
The chestnut's buds into blooms that rips;
And look in the brook that runs laughing gay
For the nymph with the laughing lips;
In the brake for the dryad whose eyes are gray,
From whose bosom the perfume drips;
The faun hid away where the grasses sway
Thick ivy low down on his hips,
Pursed lips on a syrinx at play.
So ho, for the rose, the Romeo rose,
And the lyric he hides in his heart;
And ho, for the epic the oak tree knows,
Sonorous and mighty in art.
The lily with woes that her white face shows
Hath a satire she yearns to impart,
But none of those, her hates and her foes,
For a heart that sings but for sport,
And shifts where the song-wind blows.
Hercules & The Waggoner
by Walter Crane

When the God saw the Waggoner kneel,
Crying, "Hercules! Lift me my wheel
From the mud, where 'tis stuck!"
He laughed--"No such luck;
Set your shoulder yourself to the wheel."
The Gods Help Those Who Help Themselves
Wirkung in der Ferne
by Arthur Hugh Clough

When the dews are earliest falling,
When the evening glen is grey,
Ere thou lookest, ere thou speakest,
My beloved,
I depart, and I return to thee;
Return, return, return.
Dost thou watch me while I traverse
Haunts of men, beneath the sun,
Dost thou list while I bespeak them
With a voice whose cheer is thine?
O my brothers! men, my brothers,
You are mine, and I am yours;
I am yours to cheer and succour,
I am yours for hope and aid
Lo, my hand to raise and stay you,
Lo, my arm to guard and keep,
My voice to rouse and warn you,
And my heart to warm and calm:
My heart to lend the life it owes
To her that is not here,
In the power of her that dwelleth
Where you know not, no, nor guess not,
Whom you see not; unto whom,
Ere the evening star hath sunken,
Ere the glow-worm lights its lamp,
Ere the wearied workman slumbers,
I return, return, return.
The Warning.
by Susanna Moodie

When the eye whose kind beam was the beacon of gladness
From the glance of a lover turns coldly away,
O'er the bright sun of hope float the dark clouds of sadness,
And youth's lovely visions recede with the ray.
Oh turn not where pleasure's wild meteor is beaming,
And night's dreary shades wear the splendour of day,
To the rich festive board where the red wine is streaming;--
Can the dance and the song disappointment allay?
Oh heed not the Syren! for virtue is weeping
Where passion is struggling her victim to chain,
And Conscience, deep drugged, in her soft lap is sleeping,
Till startled by memory and quickened by pain.
Oh heed not the minstrel, when music is breathing
In the cold ear of fashion his heart-searching strain;
And pluck not the rose round Love's diadem wreathing;
The garland by beauty is woven in vain.
The pleasures of life, like its moments, are fleeting;
Oh let not its trifles your firm purpose move;
But think as those moments are slowly retreating,
How feebly against its enchantments you strove:
Then turn from the world, and, its follies forsaking,
Raise your eyes to the day-star of gladness above;
There's a balm for each wound, though the fond heart is breaking,
A Leth' divine in the fountain of Love!
The Flight
by Rudyard Kipling

When the grey geese heard the Fool's tread 
Too near to where they lay, 
They lifted neither voice nor head, 
But took themselves away. 
No water broke, no pinion whirred, 
There went no warning call. 
The steely, sheltering rushes stirred 
A little, that was all. 
Only the osiers understood, 
And the drowned meadows spied 
What else than wreckage of a flood 
Stole outward on that tide. 
But the far beaches saw their ranks 
Gather and greet and grow 
By myriads on the naked banks 
Watching their sign to go; 
Till, with a roar of wings that churned 
The shivering shoals to foam, 
Flight after flight took air and turned 
To find a safer home; 
And, far below their steadfast wedge, 
They heard (and hastened on) 
Men thresh and clamour through the sedge 
Aghast that they were gone! 
And, when men prayed them come anew 
And nest where they were bred, 
"Nay, fools foretell what knaves will do," 
Was all the grey geese said.
April
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

From the french of the Vidame de Chartres.
12--?
When the fields catch flower
And the underwood is green,
And from bower unto bower
The songs of the birds begin,
I sing with sighing between.
When I laugh and sing,
I am heavy at heart for my sin;
I am sad in the spring
For my love that I shall not win,
For a foolish thing.
This profit I have of my woe,
That I know, as I sing,
I know he will needs have it so
Who is master and king,
Who is lord of the spirit of spring.
I will serve her and will not spare
Till her pity awake
Who is good, who is pure, who is fair,
Even her for whose sake
Love hath ta'en me and slain unaware.
O my lord, O Love,
I have laid my life at thy feet;
Have thy will thereof,
Do as it please thee with it,
For what shall please thee is sweet.
I am come unto thee
To do thee service, O Love;
Yet cannot I see
Thou wilt take any pity thereof,
Any mercy on me.
But the grace I have long time sought
Comes never in sight,
If in her it abideth not,
Through thy mercy and might,
Whose heart is the world's delight.
Thou hast sworn without fail I shall die,
For my heart is set
On what hurts me, I wot not why,
But cannot forget
What I love, what I sing for and sigh.
She is worthy of praise,
For this grief of her giving is worth
All the joy of my days
That lie between death's day and birth,
All the lordship of things upon earth.
Nay, what have I said?
I would not be glad if I could;
My dream and my dread
Are of her, and for her sake I would
That my life were fled.
Lo, sweet, if I durst not pray to you,
Then were I dead;
If I sang not a little to say to you,
(Could it be said)
O my love, how my heart would be fed;
Ah sweet who hast hold of my heart,
For thy love's sake I live,
Do but tell me, ere either depart,
What a lover may give
For a woman so fair as thou art.
The lovers that disbelieve,
False rumours shall grieve
And evil-speaking shall part.
March Of The Monks Of Bangor
by Walter Scott (Sir)

When the heathen trumpet's clang
Round beleaguer'd Chester rang,
Veiled nun and friar grey
March'd from Bangor's fair Abbaye;
High their holy anthem sounds,
Cestria's vale the hymn rebounds,
Floating down the silvan Dee,
O miserere, Domine!
On the long procession goes,
Glory round their crosses glows,
And the Virgin-mother mild
In their peaceful banner smiled;
Who could think such saintly band
Doom'd to feel unhallow'd hand?
Such was the Divine decree,
O miserere, Domine!
Bands that masses only sung,
Hands that censers only swung,
Met the northern bow and bill,
Heard the war-cry wild and shrill:
Woe to Brockmael's feeble hand
Woe to Olfrid's bloody brand,
Woe to Saxon cruelty,
O miserere, Domine!
Weltering amid warriors slain,
Spurn'd by steeds with bloody mane,
Slaughter'd down by heathen blade,
Bangor's peaceful monks are laid:
Word of parting rest unspoke,
Mass unsung, and bread unbroke;
For their souls for charity,
O miserere, Domine!
Bangor! o'er the murder wail!
Long thy ruins told the tale,
Shatter'd towers and broken arch
Long recall'd the woeful march:
On thy shrine no tapers burn,
Never shall thy priests return;
The pilgrim sighs and sings for thee,
O miserere, Domine!
Epitaph For An English Soldier And An Indian Soldier Buried Together In France
by R. C. Lehmann

When the fierce bugle thrilled alarm,
From lands apart these fighters came.
An equal courage nerved each arm,
And stirred each generous heart to flame.
Now, greatly dead, they lie below;
Their creed or language no man heeds,
Since for their colour they can show
The blood-red blazon of their deeds!
When The Firmament Quivers With Daylight'S Young Beam.
by William Cullen Bryant

When the firmament quivers with daylight's young beam,
And the woodlands awaking burst into a hymn,
And the glow of the sky blazes back from the stream,
How the bright ones of heaven in the brightness grow dim.
Oh! 'tis sad, in that moment of glory and song,
To see, while the hill-tops are waiting the sun,
The glittering band that kept watch all night long
O'er Love and o'er Slumber, go out one by one:
Till the circle of ether, deep, ruddy, and vast,
Scarce glimmers with one of the train that were there;
And their leader the day-star, the brightest and last,
Twinkles faintly and fades in that desert of air.
Thus, Oblivion, from midst of whose shadow we came,
Steals o'er us again when life's twilight is gone;
And the crowd of bright names, in the heaven of fame,
Grow pale and are quenched as the years hasten on.
Let them fade, but we'll pray that the age, in whose flight,
Of ourselves and our friends the remembrance shall die
May rise o'er the world, with the gladness and light
Of the morning that withers the stars from the sky.
The Conundrum Of The Workshops
by Rudyard Kipling

When the flush of a new-born sun fell first on Eden's green and gold,
Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mould;
And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart,
Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, "It's pretty, but is it Art?"
Wherefore he called to his wife, and fled to fashion his work anew,
The first of his race who cared a fig for the first, most dread review;
And he left his lore to the use of his sons, and that was a glorious gain
When the Devil chuckled "Is it Art?" in the ear of the branded Cain.
They builded a tower to shiver the sky and wrench the stars apart,
Till the Devil grunted behind the bricks: "It's striking, but is it Art?"
The stone was dropped at the quarry-side and the idle derrick swung,
While each man talked of the aims of Art, and each in an alien tongue.
They fought and they talked in the North and the South, they talked and they fought in the West,
Till the waters rose on the pitiful land, and the poor Red Clay had rest,
Had rest till that dank blank-canvas dawn when the dove was preened to start,
And the Devil bubbled below the keel: "It's human, but is it Art?"
The tale is as old as the Eden Tree, and new as the new-cut tooth,
For each man knows ere his lip-thatch grows he is master of Art and Truth;
And each man hears as the twilight nears, to the beat of his dying heart,
The Devil drum on the darkened pane: "You did it, but was it Art?"
We have learned to whittle the Eden Tree to the shape of a surplice-peg,
We have learned to bottle our parents twain in the yelk of an addled egg,
We know that the tail must wag the dog, for the horse is drawn by the cart;
But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: "It's clever, but is it Art?"
When the flicker of London sun falls faint on the Club-room's green and gold,
The sons of Adam sit them down and scratch with their pens in the mould,
They scratch with their pens in the mould of their graves, and the ink and the anguish start,
For the Devil mutters behind the leaves: "It's pretty, but is it Art?"
Now, if we could win to the Eden Tree where the Four Great Rivers flow,
And the Wreath of Eve is red on the turf as she left it long ago,
And if we could come when the sentry slept and softly scurry through,
By the favour of God we might know as much, as our father Adam knew!
The Travail Of Passion
by William Butler Yeats

When the flaming lute-thronged angelic door is wide;
When an immortal passion breathes in mortal clay;
Our hearts endure the scourge, the plaited thorns, the way
Crowded with bitter faces, the wounds in palm and side,
The hyssop-heavy sponge, the flowers by Kidron stream:
We will bend down and loosen our hair over you,
That it may drop faint perfume, and be heavy with dew,
Lilies of death-pale hope, roses of passionate dream.
To Cleis
by Sara Teasdale

(The daughter of Sappho)
When the dusk was wet with dew,
Cle's, did the muses nine
Listen in a silent line
While your mother sang to you?
Did they weep or did they smile
When she crooned to still your cries,
She, a muse in human guise
Who forsook her lyre awhile
Did you hear her wild heart beat?
Did the warmth of all the sun
Through your little body run
When she kissed your hands and feet?
Did your fingers, babywise,
Touch her face and touch her hair
Did you think your mother fair,
Could you bear her burning eyes?
Are the songs that soothed your fears
Vanished like a vanished flame,
Save the line where shines your name
Starlike down the graying years?...
Cle's speaks no word to me,
For the land where she has gone
Lies as still at dusk and dawn,
As a windless, tideless sea.
A Ramshackle Room
by R. C. Lehmann

When the gusts are at play with the trees on the lawn,
And the lights are put out in the vault of the night;
When within all is snug, for the curtains are drawn,
And the fire is aglow and the lamps are alight,
Sometimes, as I muse, from the place where I am
My thoughts fly away to a room near the Cam.
'Tis a ramshackle room, where a man might complain
Of a slope in the ceiling, a rise in the floor;
With a view on a court and a glimpse on a lane,
And no end of cool wind through the chinks of the door;
With a deep-seated chair that I love to recall,
And some groups of young oarsmen in shorts on the wall.
There's a fat jolly jar of tobacco, some pipes - 
A meerschaum, a briar, a cherry, a clay - 
There's a three-handled cup fit for Audit or Swipes
When the breakfast is done and the plates cleared away.
There's a litter of papers, of books a scratch lot,
Such as Plato, and Dickens, and Liddell and Scott.
And a crone in a bonnet that's more like a rag
From a mist of remembrance steps suddenly out;
And her funny old tongue never ceases to wag
As she tidies the room where she bustles about;
For a man may be strong and a man may be young,
But he can't put a drag on a Bedmaker's tongue.
And, oh, there's a youngster who sits at his ease
In the hope, which is vain, that the tongue may run down,
With his feet on the grate and a book on his knees,
And his cheeks they are smooth and his hair it is brown.
Then I sigh myself back to the place where I am
From that ramshackle room near the banks of the Cam.
Theophania.
by Friedrich Schiller

When the happy appear, I forget the gods in the heavens;
But before me they stand, when I the suffering see.
The Silent Voices
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

When the dumb Hour, clothed in black,
Brings the Dreams about my bed,
Call me not so often back,
Silent Voices of the dead,
Toward the lowland ways behind me,
And the sunlight that is gone!
Call me rather, silent voices,
Forward to the starry track
Glimmering up the heights beyond me
On, and always on!
When The Eagle Finds
by Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney

The Lord's portion is his people, Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness. He led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings, so the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him. DEUT. 32: 9-12.
T. E.'s Sermon.
When the eagle finds her brood is fledged,
She stirreth up the nest;
Gently she fluttereth over it,
And breaketh up their rest.
She taketh them, she beareth them,
She spreadeth abroad her wings,
Then soars aloft to a purer air
Above terrestrial things.
Thus, when the heart with the cares of time
Is burdened and oppressed,
'Tis only the parent hand of love
That is stirring up the nest.
He found us in the wilderness
When no strange god was nigh,
He instructed us, He kept us
As "the apple of His eye."
Now His wing is fluttering over us
And stirring up the nest,
For the Lord alone is leading us
To His bright and glorious rest.
The shining host of ransomed ones
There worship and adore;
Fulness of joy their portion is,
Pleasure forever more.
Then be glad when the Father teaches us
That this is not our rest,
And bless the hand of sparing love
That stirreth up the nest.
For those who know no chastisement
Are not the sons of God;
He chooseth His adopted ones
Beneath the chastening rod.
Thus, when the fond heart reareth up
A little ark of rest,
How soon the fluttering wing is heard
That stirreth up the nest!
But ah! He spreadeth it abroad,
And teacheth us to soar
To the realms of cloudless blessedness,
Where change is known no more.
The Overworked Ghost
by Richard Le Gallienne

When the embalmer closed my eyes,
And all the family went in black,
And shipped me off to Paradise,
I had no thought of coming back;
I dreamed of undisturbed repose
Until the Judgment Day went crack,
Tucked safely in from top to toes.
"I've done my bit," I said. "I've earned
The right to take things at my ease!"
When folk declared the dead returned,
I called it all tomfooleries.
"They are too glad to get to bed,
To stretch their weary limbs in peace;
Done with it all - the lucky dead!"
But scarcely had I laid me down,
When comes a voice: "Is that you, Joe?
I'm calling you from Williamstown!
Knock once for 'yes,' and twice for 'no.'"
Then, hornet-mad, I knocked back two - 
The table shook, I banged it so - 
"Not Joe!" they said, "Then tell us who?
"We're waiting - is there no one here,
No friend, you have a message for?"
But I pretended not to hear.
"Perhaps he fell in the great war?"
"Perhaps he's German?" someone said;
"How goes it on the other shore?"
"That's no way to address the dead!"
And so they talked, till I got sore,
And made the blooming table rock,
And ribald oaths and curses swore,
And strange words guaranteed to shock.
"He's one of those queer spooks they call
A poltergeist - the ghosts that mock,
Throw things - " said one, who knew it all.
"I wish an old thigh-bone was round
To break your silly head!" I knocked.
"A humourist of the burial-ground!"
A bright young college graduate mocked.
Then a young girl fell in a trance,
And foamed: "Get out - we are deadlocked - 
And give some other ghost a chance!"
Such was my first night in the tomb,
Where soft sleep was to hold me fast;
I little knew my weary doom!
It even makes a ghost aghast
To think of all the years in store - 
The slave, as long as death shall last,
To ouija-boards forevermore.
For morning, noon, and night they call!
Alive, some fourteen hours a day
I worked, but now I work them all.
No sooner down my head I lay,
A lady writer knocks me up
About a novel or a play,
Nor gives me time for bite or sup.
I hear her damned typewriter click
With all the things she says I say,
You'd think the public would get sick;
And that's my only hope - some day!
Then s'ances, each night in dozens
I must attend, their parts to play
For dead grandpas and distant cousins.
O for my life to live again!
I'd know far better than to die;
You'd never hear me once complain,
Could I but see the good old sky,
For here they work me to the bone;
"Rest!" - don't believe it! Well, good-by!
That's Patience Worth there on the phone!
Trouble In The Louvre
by Thomas O'Hagan

When the German troops were marching with the Uhlans far ahead,
The objective point being Paris, as the Berlin wireless said,
There was trouble in the Louvre, 'mong the paintings on the walls,
There were shoutings 'cross the centuries, there were loud artistic calls;
"Mona Lisa" ceased her smiling and "The Banker and His Wife"
Turned to Millet's "Women Gleaning" - begged protection for their life;
While "The Gypsy Girl" of Franz Hals, fearful of impending fate,
Roused "The Shepherds in Arcadia" with "The Hun is at the Gate!"
Then the panic spread on all sides till the battle of the Marne
Solved all danger of the looting, removed all need to warn;
Straight "The Lace Maker" from Flemish Bruges in the joyous choral led
Smiled at "Charles First of England" who had lost his crown and head;
For fear had left the Louvre when the Teutons turned in flight,
So they scanned the sky no longer for dread Zeppelins in the night.
And the paintings born of centuries touched by genius into life
Still are hanging in the Louvre 'mid war's clash and clang and strife.
For Edgar Guest.
To ----
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

When the glad sun looks smiling from the sky,
Upon each shadowy glen and woody height,
And that you tread those well known paths where I
Have stray'd with you, - do not forget me quite.
When the warm hearth throws its bright glow around,
On many a smiling cheek, and glance of light,
And the gay laugh wakes with its joyous sound
The soul of mirth, - do not forget me quite.
You will not miss me; for with you remain
Hearts fond and warm, and spirits young and bright,
'Tis but one word - "farewell;" and all again
Will seem the same, - yet don't forget me quite.