DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Youth's Agitations
by Matthew Arnold

'When I shall be divorced, some ten years hence,
From this poor present self which I am now;
When youth has done its tedious vain expense
Of passions that for ever ebb and flow;
Shall I not joy youth's heats are left behind,
And breathe more happy in an even clime?
Ah no! for then I shall begin to find
A thousand virtues in this hated time.
Then I shall wish its agitations back,
And all its thwarting currents of desire;
Then I shall praise the heat which then I lack,
And call this hurrying fever, generous fire,
And sigh that one thing only has been lent
To youth and age in common discontent
At Home
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

When I was dead, my spirit turned
To seek the much-frequented house:
I passed the door, and saw my friends
Feasting beneath green orange boughs;
From hand to hand they pushed the wine,
They sucked the pulp of plum and peach;
They sang, they jested, and they laughed,
For each was loved of each.
I listened to their honest chat:
Said one: 'To-morrow we shall be
Plod plod along the featureless sands,
And coasting miles and miles of sea.'
Said one: 'Before the turn of tide
We will achieve the eyrie-seat.'
Said one: 'To-morrow shall be like
To-day, but much more sweet.'
'To-morrow,' said they, strong with hope,
And dwelt upon the pleasant way:
'To-morrow,' cried they, one and all,
While no one spoke of yesterday.
Their life stood full at blessed noon;
I, only I, had passed away:
'To-morrow and to-day,' they cried;
I was of yesterday.
I shivered comfortless, but cast
No chill across the tablecloth;
I, all-forgotten, shivered, sad
To stay, and yet to part how loth:
I passed from the familiar room,
I who from love had passed away,
Like the remembrance of a guest
That tarrieth but a day.
Sitting By A Bush In Broad Sunlight
by Robert Lee Frost

When I spread out my hand here today,
I catch no more than a ray
To feel of between thumb and fingers;
No lasting effect of it lingers.
There was one time and only the one
When dust really took in the sun;
And from that one intake of fire
All creatures still warmly aspire.
And if men have watched a long time
And never seen sun-smitten slime
Again come to life and crawl off,
We not be too ready to scoff.
God once declared he was true
And then took the veil and withdrew,
And remember how final a hush
Then descended of old on the bush.
God once spoke to people by name.
The sun once imparted its flame.
One impulse persists as our breath;
The other persists as our faith.
Sonnets VII
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

When I too long have looked upon your face,
Wherein for me a brightness unobscured
Save by the mists of brightness has its place,
And terrible beauty not to be endured,
I turn away reluctant from your light,
And stand irresolute, a mind undone,
A silly, dazzled thing deprived of sight
From having looked too long upon the sun.
Then is my daily life a narrow room
In which a little while, uncertainly,
Surrounded by impenetrable gloom,
Among familiar things grown strange to me
Making my way, I pause, and feel, and hark,
Till I become accustomed to the dark.
The Days Without Alloy.
by Jean Ingelow

When I sit on market-days amid the comers and the goers,
Oh! full oft I have a vision of the days without alloy,
And a ship comes up the river with a jolly gang of towers,
And a "pull'e haul'e, pull'e haul'e, yoy! heave, hoy!"
There is busy talk around me, all about mine ears it hummeth,
But the wooden wharves I look on, and a dancing, heaving buoy,
For 'tis tidetime in the river, and she cometh - oh, she cometh!
With a "pull'e haul'e, pull'e haul'e, yoy! heave, hoy!"
Then I hear the water washing, never golden waves were brighter,
And I hear the capstan creaking - 'tis a sound that cannot cloy.
Bring her to, to ship her lading, brig or schooner, sloop or lighter,
With a "pull'e haul'e, pull'e haul'e, yoy! heave, hoy!"
"Will ye step aboard, my dearest? for the high seas lie before us."
So I sailed adown the river in those days without alloy.
We are launched! But when, I wonder, shall a sweeter sound float o'er us
Than yon "pull'e haul'e, pull'e haul'e, yoy! heave, hoy!"
Make-Believes
by Robert Fuller Murray

When I was young and well and glad,
I used to play at being sad;
Now youth and health are fled away,
At being glad I sometimes play.
A Dream Of Life.
by Samuel Griswold Goodrich

When I was young long, long ago 
I dreamed myself among the flowers;
And fancy drew the picture so,
They seemed like Fairies in their bowers.
The rose was still a rose, you know 
But yet a maid. What could I do?
You surely would not have me go,
When rosy maidens seem to woo?
My heart was gay, and 'mid the throng
I sported for an hour or two;
We danced the flowery paths along,
And did as youthful lovers do.
But sports must cease, and so I dreamed
To part with these, my fairy flowers 
But oh, how very hard it seemed
To say good-by 'mid such sweet bowers!
And one fair Maid of modest air
Gazed on me with her eye of blue;
I saw the tear-drop gathering there 
How could I say to her, Adieu!
I fondly gave my hand and heart,
And we were wed. Bright hour of youth!
How little did I think to part
With my sweet bride, whose name was Truth!
But time passed on, and Truth grew gray,
And chided, though with gentlest art:
I loved her, though I went astray,
And almost broke her faithful heart.
And then I left her, and in tears 
These could not move my hardened breast!
I wandered, and for weary years
I sought for bliss, but found no rest.
I sought yet ever sought in vain 
To find the peace, the joy of youth:
At last, I turned me back again,
And found them with my faithful Truth.
What Fifty Said
by Robert Lee Frost

When I was young my teachers were the old.
I gave up fire for form till I was cold.
I suffered like a metal being cast.
I went to school to age to learn the past.
Now when I am old my teachers are the young.
What can't be molded must be cracked and sprung.
I strain at lessons fit to start a suture.
I got to school to youth to learn the future.
Dust
by Sara Teasdale

When I went to look at what had long been hidden,
A jewel laid long ago in a secret place,
I trembled, for I thought to see its dark deep fire,
But only a pinch of dust blew up in my face.
I almost gave my life long ago for a thing
That has gone to dust now, stinging my eyes,
It is strange how often a heart must be broken,
Before the years can make it wise.
The Legacy.
by Thomas Moore

When in death I shall calmly recline,
O bear my heart to my mistress dear;
Tell her it lived upon smiles and wine
Of the brightest hue, while it lingered here.
Bid her not shed one tear of sorrow
To sully a heart so brilliant and light;
But balmy drops of the red grape borrow,
To bathe the relic from morn till night.
When the light of my song is o'er,
Then take my harp to your ancient hall;
Hang it up at that friendly door,
Where weary travellers love to call.[1]
Then if some bard, who roams forsaken,
Revive its soft note in passing along,
Oh! let one thought of its master waken
Your warmest smile for the child of song.
Keep this cup, which is now o'er-flowing,
To grace your revel, when I'm at rest;
Never, oh! never its balm bestowing
On lips that beauty has seldom blest.
But when some warm devoted lover
To her he adores shall bathe its brim,
Then, then my spirit around shall hover,
And hallow each drop that foams for him.
The Consecrated Spot.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

When in the dance of the Nymphs, in the moonlight so holy assembled,
Mingle the Graces, down from Olympus in secret descending,
Here doth the minstrel hide, and list to their numbers enthralling,
Here doth he watch their silent dances' mysterious measure.
All that is glorious in Heaven, and all that the earth in her beauty
Ever hath brought into life, the dreamer awake sees before him;
All he repeats to the Muses, and lest the gods should be anger'd,
How to tell of secrets discreetly, the Muses instruct him.
When I'm Among A Blaze Of Lights ...
by Siegfried Loraine Sassoon

When I'm among a blaze of lights,
With tawdry music and cigars
And women dawdling through delights,
And officers at cocktail bars, - 
Sometimes I think of garden nights
And elm trees nodding at the stars.
I dream of a small firelit room
With yellow candles burning straight,
And glowing pictures in the gloom,
And kindly books that hold me late.
Of things like these I love to think
When I can never be alone:
Then some one says, "Another drink?" - 
And turns my living heart to stone.
Thou Flower of Summer
by John Clare

When in summer thou walkest
In the meads by the river,
And to thyself talkest,
Dost thou think of one ever--
A lost and a lorn one
That adores thee and loves thee?
And when happy morn's gone,
And nature's calm moves thee,
Leaving thee to thy sleep like an angel at rest,
Does the one who adores thee still live in thy breast?
Does nature eer give thee
Love's past happy vision,
And wrap thee and leave thee
In fancies elysian?
Thy beauty I clung to,
As leaves to the tree;
When thou fair and young too
Looked lightly on me,
Till love came upon thee like the sun to the west
And shed its perfuming and bloom on thy breast.
Adam
by John Kendall (Dum-Dum)

After W. W.
An adventure of the Author's, and one designed to show that grievances may be met with in the cottages of the humblest, and may take the most unexpected forms.
When in my white-washed walls confined
Till eve her freedom brings,
I often turn a musing mind
To think awhile of things,
And thus about the noontide glow
To-day my thoughts recalled
Old Adam, whom I once did know,
A dear old thing, though bald.
A village Gravedigger was he
With Newgate fringe of grey,
The only man that one could see
At work on Saturday!
For on those evenings (which provide
A due release to toil)
He shovelled wearily, and plied
His task upon the soil.
Therein a sorrow Adam had,
And when he knew me well
He told this tale, and made me sad,
Which now to you I tell.
For once my feet did chance to stray
Across the old churchyard,
And Adam sighed, and paused to say
'It's werry, werry hard.'
I marvelled much to hear him sigh,
And when he paused again,
'Come, come, you quaint old thing,' said I,
'Why thus this tone of pain?'
In silence Adam rose, and gained
A seat amid the stones,
And thus the veteran complained,
The dear old bag of bones.
'Down by the wall the Village goes,
How horrid sounds their glee,
On Saturdays they early close,
They have their Sundays free;
'And here, on this depressing spot,
I cannot choose but moan
That I, a labouring man, have not
An hour to call my own.
'The Blacksmith in his Sunday things,
The Clerk that leaves his till,
Can give their thoughts of labour wings,
And frolic as they will.
'To me they - drat 'em! - never give
A thought; they wander by,
An irritation while they live,
A nuisance when they die.
'If there be one that needs lament
The way these folks behave,
'Tis he whose holidays are spent
In digging someone's grave,
'For when a person takes and dies,
On Monday though it be,
They never hold his obsequies
Till Sunday after three.
'And thus it fares through their delay,
That I may not begin
To dig the grave till Saturday, - 
On Sunday fill it in.
'My Sabbath ease is broken through,
My Saturdays destroyed;
Many employ me; very few
Have left me unemployed!'
Again did Adam murmur 'Drat!'
And smote the old-churchyard,
And said, as on his hands he spat,
'It's werry, werry hard!'
And as I rose, the path to take
That led me home again,
My head was in my wideawake,
His words were in my brain.
Ironic Poem About Prostitution
by George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)

When I was young and had no sense
In far-off Mandalay
I lost my heart to a Burmese girl
As lovely as the day.
Her skin was gold, her hair was jet,
Her teeth were ivory;
I said, 'for twenty silver pieces,
Maiden, sleep with me'.
She looked at me, so pure, so sad,
The loveliest thing alive,
And in her lisping, virgin voice,
Stood out for twenty-five.
Songs On The Voices Of Birds. The Nightingale Heard By The Unsatisfied Heart.
by Jean Ingelow

When in a May-day hush
Chanteth the Missel-thrush
The harp o' the heart makes answer with murmurous stirs;
When Robin-redbreast sings,
We think on budding springs,
And Culvers when they coo are love's remembrancers.
But thou in the trance of light
Stayest the feeding night,
And Echo makes sweet her lips with the utterance wise,
And casts at our glad feet,
In a wisp of fancies fleet,
Life's fair, life's unfulfilled, impassioned prophecies.
Her central thought full well
Thou hast the wit to tell,
To take the sense o' the dark and to yield it so;
The moral of moonlight
To set in a cadence bright,
And sing our loftiest dream that we thought none did know.
I have no nest as thou,
Bird on the blossoming bough,
Yet over thy tongue outfloweth the song o' my soul,
Chanting, "forego thy strife,
The spirit out-acts the life,
But MUCH is seldom theirs who can perceive THE WHOLE.
"Thou drawest a perfect lot
All thine, but holden not,
Lie low, at the feet of beauty that ever shall bide;
There might be sorer smart
Than thine, far-seeing heart,
Whose fate is still to yearn, and not be satisfied."
The Love Of Illusion
by Charles Baudelaire

When I watch you go by, in all your indolence,
To sound of instruments within the echoing hall
Suspending your appeal of lingering harmony,
And showing in your glance the ennui of your soul;
And when I contemplate, in colouring flames of gas,
Your pallid brow enhanced with a morbidity,
Where torches of the evening light a promised dawn,
Abd your alluring eyes, a master's artistry,
I think, how lovely! and how oddly innocent!
Massive remembrance, that great tower raised above,
Crowns her, and oh, her heart, bruised like a softened peach,
Is mellow, like her body, ripe for skilful love.
Are you the fruit of fall, when flavour is supreme?
Funeral vase, that waits for tears in darkened rooms,
Perfume that brings the far oases to our dreams,
Caressing pillow, or a basket of fresh blooms?
I know that there are eyes, the finest and most sad,
That hide no precious secrets, neither truths nor lies;
Handsome, like empty lockets, caskets without jewels,
More empty, more profound, than you yourselves, o skies!
But is it not enough that your appearance can
Restore to joy a heart that flees from what is true?
What if you are inane, what if indifferent!
Mask, decoration, hail! Beauty, I worship you!
Sonnet CLXXXVII.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Quando 'l sol bagna in mur l' aurato carro.
HIS NIGHTS ARE, LIKE HIS DAYS, PASSED IN TORMENT.
When in the sea sinks the sun's golden light,
And on my mind and nature darkness lies,
With the pale moon, faint stars and clouded skies
I pass a weary and a painful night:
To her who hears me not I then rehearse
My sad life's fruitless toils, early and late;
And with the world and with my gloomy fate,
With Love, with Laura and myself, converse.
Sleep is forbid me: I have no repose,
But sighs and groans instead, till morn returns,
And tears, with which mine eyes a sad heart feeds;
Then comes the dawn, the thick air clearer grows,
But not my soul; the sun which in it burns
Alone can cure the grief his fierce warmth breeds.
NOTT.
When Phoebus lashes to the western main
His fiery steeds, and shades the lurid air;
Grief shades my soul, my night is spent in care;
Yon moon, yon stars, yon heaven begin my pain.
Wretch that I am! full oft I urge in vain
To heedless beings all those pangs I bear;
Of the false world, of an unpitying fair,
Of Love, and fickle fortune I complain!
From eve's last glance, till morning's earliest ray,
Sleep shuns my couch; rest quits my tearful eye;
And my rack'd breast heaves many a plaintive sigh.
Then bright Aurora cheers the rising day,
But cheers not me--for to my sorrowing heart
One sun alone can cheering light impart!
ANON. 1777.
The Undertone
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

When I was very young I used to feel the dark despairs of youth;
Out of my little griefs I would invent great tragedies and woes;
Not only for myself, but for all those I held most dear
I would invent vast sorrows in my melancholy moods of thought.
Yet down deep, deep in my heart there was an undertone of rapture.
It was like a voice from some other world calling softly to me,
Saying things joyful.
As I grew older, and Life offered bitter gall for me to drink,
Forcing it through clenched teeth when I refused to take it willingly;
When Pain prepared some special anguish for my heart to bear,
And all the things I longed for seemed to be wholly beyond my reach - 
Yet down deep, deep in my heart there was an undertone of rapture.
It was like a Voice, a Voice from some other world calling to me,
Bringing glad tidings.
Now when I look about me, and see the great injustices of men,
See Idleness and Greed waited upon by luxury and mirth,
See prosperous Vice ride by in state, while footsore Virtue walks;
Now when I hear the cry of need rise up from lands of shameful wealth - 
Yet down deep, deep in my heart there is an undertone of rapture.
It is like a Voice - it is a Voice - calling to me and saying:
'Love rules triumphant.'
Now when each mile-post on the path of life seems marked by headstones,
And one by one dear faces that I loved are hid away from sight;
Now when in each familiar home I see a vacant chair,
And in the throngs once formed of friends I meet unrecognising eyes - 
Yet down deep, deep in my heart there is an undertone of rapture.
It is the Voice, it is the Voice for ever saying unto me:
'Life is Eternal.'
Poems From "A Shropshire Lad" - XII
by Alfred Edward Housman

When I watch the living meet,
And the moving pageant file
Warm and breathing through the street
Where I lodge a little while,
If the heats of hate and lust
In the house of flesh are strong,
Let me mind the house of dust
Where my sojourn shall be long.
In the nation that is not
Nothing stands that stood before;
There revenges are forgot,
And the hater hates no more;
Lovers lying two and two
Ask not whom they sleep beside,
And the bridegroom all night through
Never turns him to the bride.
The World Of Faery
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
When in the pansy-purpled stain
Of sunset one far star is seen,
Like some bright drop of rain,
Out of the forest, deep and green,
O'er me at Spirit seems to lean,
The fairest of her train.
II.
The Spirit, dowered with fadeless youth,
Of Lay and Legend, young as when,
Close to her side, in sooth,
She led me from the marts of men,
A child, into her world, which then
To me was true as truth.
III.
Her hair is like the silken husk
That holds the corn, and glints and glows;
Her brow is white as tusk;
Her body like a wilding rose,
And through her gossamer raiment shows
Like starlight closed in musk.
IV.
She smiles at me; she nods at me;
And by her looks I am beguiled
Into the mystery
Of ways I knew when, as a child,
She led me 'mid her blossoms wild
Of faery fantasy.
V.
The blossoms that, when night is here,
Become sweet mouths that sigh soft tales;
Or, each, a jewelled ear
Leaned to the elfin dance that trails
Down moonrayed cirques of haunted vales
To cricket song and cheer.
VI.
The blossoms that, shut fast all day,
Primrose and poppy, darkness opes,
Slowly, to free a fay,
Who, silken-soft, leaps forth and ropes
With rain each web that, starlit, slopes
Between each grassy spray.
VII.
The blossoms from which elves are born,
Sweet wombs of mingled scent and snow,
Whose deeps are cool as morn;
Wherein I oft have heard them blow
Their pixy trumpets, silvery low
As some bee's drowsy horn.
VIII.
So was it when my childhood roamed
The woodland's dim enchanted ground,
Where every mushroom domed
Its disc for them to revel 'round;
Each glow-worm forged its flame, green drowned
In hollow snow that foamed
IX.
Of lilies, for their lantern light,
To lamp their dance beneath the moon;
Each insect of the night,
That rasped its thin, vibrating tune,
And owl that raised its sleepy croon,
Made music for their flight.
X.
So is it still when twilight fills
My soul with childhood's memories
That haunt the far-off hills,
And people with dim things the trees,
With faery forms that no man sees,
And dreams that no man kills.
XI.
Then all around me sway and swing
The Puck-lights of their firefly train,
Their elfin revelling;
And in the bursting pods, that rain
Their seeds around my steps, again
I hear their footsteps ring;
XII.
Their faery feet that fall once more
Within my way; and then I see,
As oft I saw before,
Her Spirit rise, who shimmeringly
Fills all my world with poetry,
The Loveliness of Yore.
A Photograph
by John Charles McNeill

When in this room I turn in pondering pace
And find thine eyes upon me where I stand,
Led on, as by Enemo's silken strand,
I come and gaze and gaze upon thy face.
Framed round by silence, poised on pearl-white grace
Of curving throat, too sweet for beaded band,
It seems as if some wizard's magic wand
Had wrought thee for the love of all the race.
Dear face, that will not turn about to see
The tulips, glorying in the casement sun,
Or, other days, the drizzled raindrops run
Down the damp walls, but follow only me,
Would that Pygmalion's goddess might be won
To change this lifeless image into thee!
Nursery Rhyme. CCXXXIV. Riddles.
by Unknown

When I went up sandy hill,
I met a sandy boy;
I cut his throat, I sucked his blood,
And left his skin a hanging-o.
Punishment For Pride
by Charles Baudelaire

When in brave days of old, Theology
Flourished with utmost sap and energy,
A celebrated doctor, it is said,
When he had force-fed some indifferent heads;
Had stirred them in their blackest lethargy
Vaulted himself towards holy ecstasy
By mystic processes he scarcely knew,
A state pure souls alone were welcomed to.
This man who'd tried to grasp beyond his reach,
Flushed with Satanic pride, made bold in speech:
'O little Jesus! I have raised you high!
But if I chose to take the other side,
Thou helpless one, I'd bring thy glory low,
The Christ child an outlandish embryo!'
At once his Reason's sentence had begun.
Shrouded in crepe was this once-blazing sun;
All chaos rolled in this intelligence
Before, a temple, ordered, opulent,
Where he'd held forth in pomp beneath its dome.
Now in him silence, darkness made their home,
As in a cellar vault without a key.
And when he crossed the fields unseeingly,
As unaware of winter as of spring,
Useless and ugly as a womout thing,
He was no better than a common beast,
And was the jeering children's special treat.
Vengeance Is Sweet
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

When I was young I longed for Love,
And held his glory far above
All other earthly things. I cried:
"Come, Love, dear Love, with me abide;"
And with my subtlest art I wooed,
And eagerly the wight pursued.
But Love was gay and Love was shy,
He laughed at me and passed me by.
Well, I grew old and I grew gray,
When Wealth came wending down my way.
I took his golden hand with glee,
And comrades from that day were we.
Then Love came back with doleful face,
And prayed that I would give him place.
But, though his eyes with tears were dim,
I turned my back and laughed at him.