DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Ghazal Of Muhammad Din Tilai
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

The world is fainting,
And you will weep at last.
The world is fainting
And falling into a swoon.
The world is turning and changing;
The world is fainting,
And you will weep at last.
Look at the love of Farhad, who pierced a mountain
And pierced a brass hill for the love of Shirin.
The world is fainting,
And you will weep at last.
Qutab Khan of the Ranizais was in love
And death became the hostess of his lady.
The world is fainting,
And you will weep at last.
Adam loved Durkho, and they were separated.
You know the story;
There is no lasting love.
The world is fainting,
And you will weep at last.
Muhammad Din is ill for the matter of a little honey;
This is a moment to be generous.
The world is fainting,
And you will weep at last.
From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century).
In Memoriam. - Miss Anna Freeman,
by Lydia Howard Sigourney

Died at Mansfield, Connecticut, February, 1861.
The world seems drearier when the good depart,
The just, the truthful, such as never made
Self their chief aim, nor strove with glozing words
To counterfeit a love they never felt;
But steadfast and serene--to Friendship gave
Its sacred scope, and ne'er from Duty shrank,
Though sternest toil and care environ it.
These, loving others better than themselves,
Fulfill the gospel rule, and taste a bliss
While here below, unknown to selfish souls,
And when they die, must find the clime where dwells
A God of truth, as tend the kindred streams
To their absorbing ocean.
Such was she
Who left us yesterday. Her speaking smile
Her earnest footstep hastening to give aid
Or sympathy, her ready hand well-skill'd
In all that appertains to Woman's sphere,
Her large heart pouring life o'er every deed,
And her warm interchange of social joy
Stay with us as a picture.
There, we oft
Musing, shall contemplate each lineament
With mournful tenderness, through gushing tears,
That tell our loss, and her unmeasured gain.
The Balance
by Clark Ashton Smith

The world upheld their pillars for awhile -
Now, where imperial On and Memphis stood,
The hot wind sifts across the solitude
The sand that once was wall and peristyle,
Or furrows like the main each desert mile,
Where ocean-deep above its ancient food
Of cities fame-forgot, the waste is nude,
Traceless as billows of each sunken pile.
Lo! for that wrong shall vengeance come at last,
When the devouring earth, in ruin one
With royal walls and palaces undone,
And sunk within the desolated past,
Shall drift, and winds that wrangle through the vast
Immingle it with ashes of the sun.
In A Garden
by Sara Teasdale

The world is resting without sound or motion,
Behind the apple tree the sun goes down
Painting with fire the spires and the windows
In the elm-shaded town.
Beyond the calm Connecticut the hills lie
Silvered with haze as fruits still fresh with bloom,
The swallows weave in flight across the zenith
On an aerial loom.
Into the garden peace comes back with twilight,
Peace that since noon had left the purple phlox,
The heavy-headed asters, the late roses
And swaying hollyhocks.
For at high-noon I heard from this same garden
The far-off murmur as when many come;
Up from the village surged the blind and beating
Red music of a drum;
And the hysterical sharp fife that shattered
The brittle autumn air,
While they came, the young men marching
Past the village square....
Across the calm Connecticut the hills change
To violet, the veils of dusk are deep,
Earth takes her children's many sorrows calmly
And stills herself to sleep.
Tod's Amendment
by Rudyard Kipling

The World hath set its heavy yoke
Upon the old white-bearded folk
Who strive to please the King.
God's mercy is upon the young,
God's wisdom in the baby tongue
That fears not anything.
A Dream Of Spring.
by Marietta Holley

The world is asleep!    All hushed is Nature's warm, sweet breath.
The world is asleep, and dreaming the silent dream of snow,
But through the silence that seems like the silence of death,
Under their shroud of ermine, the souls of the roses glow.
And forever the heart of the water throbs and beats,
Though bound by a million gleaming fetters and crystal rings,
No sound on lonesome mornings the lonely watcher greets,
But the frosty pane is impressed with the shadow of coming wings.
Johnson's Boy
by James Whitcomb Riley

The world is turned ag'in' me,
And people says, "They guess
That nothin' else is in me
But pure maliciousness!"
I git the blame for doin'
What other chaps destroy,
And I'm a-goin' to ruin
Because I'm "Johnson's boy."
THAT ain't my name - I'd ruther
They'd call me IKE or PAT -
But they've forgot the other -
And so have I, for that!
I reckon it's as handy,
When Nibsy breaks his toy,
Or some one steals his candy,
To say 'twas "JOHNSON'S BOY!"
You can't git any water
At the pump, and find the spout
So durn chuck-full o' mortar
That you have to bore it out;
You tackle any scholar
In Wisdom's wise employ,
And I'll bet you half a dollar
He'll say it's "Johnson's boy!"
Folks don't know how I suffer
In my uncomplainin' way -
They think I'm gittin' tougher
And tougher every day.
Last Sunday night, when Flinder
Was a-shoutin' out for joy,
And some one shook the winder,
He prayed for "Johnson's boy."
I'm tired of bein' follered
By farmers every day,
And then o' bein' collared
For coaxin' hounds away;
Hounds always plays me double -
It's a trick they all enjoy -
To git me into trouble,
Because I'm "Johnson's boy."
But if I git to Heaven,
I hope the Lord'll see
SOME boy has been perfect,
And lay it on to me;
I'll swell the song sonorous,
And clap my wings for joy,
And sail off on the chorus -
"Hurrah for 'Johnson's boy!'"
Sonnet XXVI.
by Fernando Ant'nio Nogueira Pessoa

The world is woven all of dream and error
And but one sureness in our truth may lie--
That when we hold to aught our thinking's mirror
We know it not by knowing it thereby.
For but one side of things the mirror knows,
And knows it colded from its solidness.
A double lie its truth is; what it shows
By true show's false and nowhere by true place.
Thought clouds our life's day-sense with strangeness, yet
Never from strangeness more than that it's strange
Doth buy our perplexed thinking, for we get
But the words' sense from words--knowledge, truth, change.
We know the world is false, not what is true.
Yet we think on, knowing we ne'er shall know.
The Old Bohemian
by Victor James Daley

The world was in my debt,
I was the Friend of Man,
When, years ago, I met
The Old Bohemian.
His hat was shocking bad,
He wore a faded tie,
And yet, withal, he had
A moist and shining eye.
And though his purse was lean,
And though his coat was dyed,
He had a lordly mien
And air of ancient pride.
We sat in a hotel,
And drank the amber ale;
And as I touched the bell
I listened to his tale.
He told me that some day
In his place I would be;
But all the world was gay,
No use in warning me.
He spoke of high Desire
And aspirations true;
And flamed again the fire
In eyes of faded blue.
"By God!" the old man said,
"The days of old were grand;
I painted cities red,
I owned the blessed land.
"I loved, when I was young,
The girls in all the bars;
And, coming home, I hung
My hat upon the stars.
"And O, the times were glad!
Such times you never knew;
And O, the nights we had!
And O, the jolly crew!
"Where are the songs-the talk,
The friends that used to be?
I with my shadow walk
At last for company.
"We dreamt in those old days
That Poets we would be;
And though we missed the bays
We lived our Poetry!
"We talked and talked and talked,
And slowly, one by one,
My old companions walked
Into the setting sun."
The old Bohemian said,
"The world owes nought to me,
I lie upon the bed
Which I made carefully.
"There is one way to play
The mad Bohemian game,
I found and took the way,
And you will do the same."
Ah, that was years ago,
When skies were bright and blue,
And now, alas, I know
His prophecy was true.
Yet fill the glass once more,
Bohemians, and sing,
Upon another shore
There waits another Spring!
The World Is Wide
by Richard Le Gallienne

The world is wide - around yon court,
Where dirty little children play,
Another world of street on street
Grows wide and wider every day.
And round the town for endless miles
A great strange land of green is spread -
O wide the world, O weary-wide,
But it is wider overhead.
For could you mount yon glittering stairs
And on their topmost turret stand, -
Still endless shining courts and squares,
And lanes of lamps on every hand.
And, might you tread those starry streets
To where those long perspectives bend,
O you would cast you down and die -
Street upon street, world without end.
The Poets Of The Tomb
by Henry Lawson

Last salvo in "The Bush Controversy".
The later poem "A Voice From the Town" (Banjo Patterson) continues the theme.
The world has had enough of bards who wish that they were dead,
Tis time, the people passed a law to knock 'em on the head,
For 'twould be lovely if their friends could grant the rest they crave,
Those bards Of "tears" and "vanished hopes," those poets of the grave.
They say that life's an awful thing and full of care and gloom,
They talk of peace and restfulness connected with the tomb.
They say that man is made of dirt, and die, of course, he must;
But, all the same, a man is made of pretty solid dust,
There is a thing that they forget, so let it here be writ,
That some are made of common mud, and some are made of grit;
Some try to help the world along while others fret and fume
And wish that they were slumbering is the silence of the tomb.
'Twixt mother's arms and coffin-gear a man has work to do!
And if he does his very best he mostly worries through,
And while there is a wrong to right, and while the world goes round,
An honest man alive is worth a million under ground,
And yet, as long as sheoaks sigh and wattle-blossoms bloom,
The world shall hear the drivel of the poets of the tomb.
And though the graveyard poets long to vanish from the scene,
I notice that they mostly wish their resting-place kept green.
Now, were I rotting underground, I do not think I'd care
If wombats rooted on the ground or if the cows camped there;
And should I have some feelings left when I have gone before,
I think a ton of solid stone would hurt my feelings more.
Such wormy songs of mouldy joys can give me no delight;
I'll take my chances with the world, I'd rather live and fight.
Tho' "fortune" laughs along my track, or wears her blackest frown,
I'll try to do the world some good before I tumble down.
Let's fight for things that ought to be and try to make 'em boom;
We cannot help mankind when we are ashes in the tomb.
The World Is Full Of Kindness
by Henry Lawson

The World is full of kindness,
And not the poor alone;
We Christians in our blindness
Bow down to hearts of stone;
The clever, bitter cynic,
Whose poisoned 'soul' is dead,
And, like the rotten clinic,
Raves, helpless, on his bed.
The world is full of kindness,
But not the White alone;
The heathen in his blindness
Bows down to wood and stone;
But all men are his brothers,
In spite of all the 'Powers,'
And the things he does for others
Shew whiter souls than ours.
The world is full of kindness,
But not the Lean alone;
The Fat man in his blindness
Bows down, and not to stone;
But when a friend's in trouble,
And an honest friend at that,
Then I'd turn to the Fat man
In spite of all his fat.
The world is full of kindness
If it is let alone,
And men's hearts in their blindness
Are neither ice nor stone.
In spite of all pretenses,
We get it from Above;
In spite of all defenses,
Red blood, kind hearts, and love.
To .... ....
by Thomas Moore

The world has just begun to steal
Each hope that led me lightly on;
I felt not, as I used to feel,
And life grew dark and love was gone.
No eye to mingle sorrow's tear,
No lip to mingle pleasure's breath,
No circling arms to draw me near--
'Twas gloomy, and I wished for death.
But when I saw that gentle eye,
Oh! something seemed to tell me then,
That I was yet too young to die,
And hope and bliss might bloom again.
With every gentle smile that crost
Your kindling cheek, you lighted home
Some feeling which my heart had lost
And peace which far had learned to roam.
'Twas then indeed so sweet to live,
Hope looked so new and Love so kind.
That, though I mourn, I yet forgive
The ruin they have left behind.
I could have loved you--oh, so well!--
The dream, that wishing boyhood knows,
Is but a bright, beguiling spell,
That only lives while passion glows.
But, when this early flush declines,
When the heart's sunny morning fleets,
You know not then how close it twines
Round the first kindred soul it meets.
Yes, yes, I could have loved, as one
Who, while his youth's enchantments fall,
Finds something dear to rest upon,
Which pays him for the loss of all.
New Blue Book
by Owen Seaman

[It was hardly to be supposed that the young decadents who once rioted ... in the Yellow Book would be content to remain in obscurity after the metamorphosis of that periodical and the consequent exclusion of themselves. The Savoy, we learn, to be edited by Mr. Arthur Symons and Mr. Aubrey Beardsley, will appear early in December. Globe.]
'The world's great age begins anew,'
Cold virtue's weeds are cast;
Our heads are light, our tales are blue,
And things are moving fast;
And no one any longer quarrels
With anybody else's morals.
A racier journal stamps its pages
With Beardsleys braver far;
A bolder Editor engages
To shame the morning star,
On London Nights, not near so chilly,
Sampling a shadier Piccadilly.
Satyr and Faun their late repose
Now burst like anything;
New Maenads, turning sprightlier toes,
Enjoy a jauntier fling;
With lustier lips old Pan shall play
Drain-pipes along the sewer's way.
Priapus, wrongly left for dead,
Is dead no more than Pan;
Silenus rises from his bed
And hiccups like a man;
There's something rather chaste (between us)
About Priapus and Silenus.
O cease to brew your Bodley pap
Whence all the spice is spent!
The splendour of its primal tap
Was gone when Aubrey went;
Behold that subtle Sphinx prepare
Fresh liquors fit to lift your hair.
Another Magazine shall rise
And paint the palsied town,
Of humbler hue, of simpler size,
And sold at half a crown;
Please note the pregnant brand, Savoy,
And don't confuse with saveloy.[*]
FOOTNOTES:
[*] Saveloy, a kind of sausage; French cervelas, from its containing brains., SKEAT.
For The Man Who Fails
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

The world is a snob, and the man who wins
Is the chap for its money's worth:
And the lust for success causes half of the sins
That are cursing this brave old earth.
For it 's fine to go up, and the world's applause
Is sweet to the mortal ear;
But the man who fails in a noble cause
Is a hero that 's no less dear.
'T is true enough that the laurel crown
Twines but for the victor's brow;
For many a hero has lain him down
With naught but the cypress bough.
There are gallant men in the losing fight,
And as gallant deeds are done
As ever graced the captured height
Or the battle grandly won.
We sit at life's board with our nerves highstrung,
And we play for the stake of Fame,
And our odes are sung and our banners hung
For the man who wins the game.
But I have a song of another kind
Than breathes in these fame-wrought gales,--
An ode to the noble heart and mind
Of the gallant man who fails!
The man who is strong to fight his fight,
And whose will no front can daunt,
If the truth be truth and the right be right,
Is the man that the ages want.
Tho' he fail and die in grim defeat,
Yet he has not fled the strife,
And the house of Earth will seem more sweet
For the perfume of his life.
Tout Pour L'Amour.
by Sophie M. (Almon) Hensley

The world may rage without,
Quiet is here;
Statesmen may toil and shout,
Cynics may sneer;
The great world, - let it go, - 
June warmth be March's snow,
I care not, - be it so
Since I am here.
Time was when war's alarm
Called for a fear,
When sorrow's seeming harm
Hastened a tear.
Naught care I now what foe
Threatens, for scarce I know
How the year's seasons go
Since I am here.
This is my resting-place
Holy and dear,
Where pain's dejected face
May not appear;
This is the world to me,
Earth's woes I will not see,
But rest contentedly
Since I am here.
Is't your voice chiding, Love,
My mild career,
My meek abiding, Love,
Daily so near? - 
"Danger and loss," to me?
Ah, Sweet, I fear to see
No loss but loss of thee,
And I am here.
A Song of Rest.
by Sophie M. (Almon) Hensley

The world may rage without,
Quiet is here;
Statesmen may toil and shout,
Cynics may sneer;
The great world - let it go - 
June warmth be March's snow,
I care not - be it so
Since I am here.
Time was when war's alarm
Called for a fear,
When sorrow's seeming harm
Hastened a tear;
Naught care I now what foe
Threatens, for scarce I know
How the year's seasons go
Since I am here.
This is my resting-place
Holy and dear,
Where Pain's dejected face
May not appear.
This is the world to me,
Earth's woes I will not see
But rest contentedly
Since I am here.
Is't your voice chiding, Love,
My mild career?
My meek abiding, Love,
Daily so near?
"Danger and loss" to me?
Ah, Sweet, I fear to see
No loss but loss of Thee
And I am here.
The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - The World's A Stage.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Nel teatro del mondo.
The world's a theatre: age after age,
Souls masked and muffled in their fleshly gear
Before the supreme audience appear,
As Nature, God's own Art, appoints the stage.
Each plays the part that is his heritage;
From choir to choir they pass, from sphere to sphere,
And deck themselves with joy or sorry cheer,
As Fate the comic playwright fills the page.
None do or suffer, be they cursed or blest,
Aught otherwise than the great Wisdom wrote
To gladden each and all who gave Him mirth,
When we at last to sea or air or earth
Yielding these masks that weal or woe denote,
In God shall see who spoke and acted best.
Song: The Holiday.
by Edward Shanks

The world's great ways unclose
Through little wooded hills:
An air that stirs and stills,
Dies sighing where it rose
Or flies to sigh again
In elms, whose stately rows
Receive the summer rain,
And clouds, clouds, clouds go by,
A drifting cavalry,
In squadrons that disperse
And troops that reassemble
And now they pass and now
Their glittering wealth disburse
On tufted grass a-tremble
And lately leafing bough.
Thus through the shining day
We'll love or pass away
Light hours in golden sleep,
With clos'd half-sentient eyes
And lids the light comes through,
As sheep and flowers do
Who no new toils devise,
While shining insects creep
About us where we lie
Beneath a pleasant sky,
In fields no trouble fills,
Whence, as the traveller goes,
The world's great ways unclose
Through little wooded hills.
Coronation Poem And Prayer
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The world has crowned a thousand kings:
But destiny has kept
Her weightiest hour of kingly power
To offer England's son.
The rising bell of Progress rings;
And Truths which long have slept,
Like prophets strange, predicting change,
Before Time's chariot run.
The greatest Empire of the Earth.
Old England proudly stands.
Like arteries her Colonies
Reach out from sea to sea.
She clasps all races in her girth;
Her gaze the world commands;
And far and wide where strong ships ride,
The British Flag floats free.
Oh, never since the stars began
Their round of Cosmic law,
And souls evolved in ways unsolved,
And kingdoms reached their prime
Has Destiny held out to Man
A gift so full of awe,
As England's crown which she hands down
In this stupendous time.
This is a crucial hour, when Fate
Tries Monarchs as by fire.
All rulers must be more than just - 
Men starve on bread alone.
Old England's sense of RIGHT is great:
But now let her aspire
To feel more love, and build thereof
An everlasting Throne.
The dreaming East, awake at last,
Is asking 'when' and 'why';
Wait not too long nor answer wrong,
Nor in too stern a voice.
Let England profit by her past,
And with her wise reply
Rouse hearts, within her foster kin
To hope, and to rejoice.
True wealth dwells not in things we own,
But in our USE of things.
Who would command a conquered land
Must conquer first its heart.
Such might as Man has never known,
And power undreamed by kings,
And boundless strength would come at length
To one who used that art.
For now has dawned the People's day:
A day of great unrest.
Nor king nor creed can still man's need
Of time and space to grow.
All lands must shape a wider way,
For this eternal quest;
And Leisure yield a larger field
Where work-worn feet may go.
The Universe is all a-thrill
With changes imminent.
The World in faith, with bated breath,
Holds free the Leader's place.
And wise is he whose heart and will
At one with Time's intent,
Shall open wide doors long denied
To MOTHERS of the race.
On this round globe, oh, when and where
Were fitter time and scene
For Woman's soul to reach its goal
Than NOW in England's realm.
Was not the crown its King will wear
Made glorious by its Queen?
And who steered straight its ship of State?
VICTORIA AT THE HELM!
Kings have been kings by accident,
By favour and by force,
But right of birth and moral worth,
And Empires rich and broad
For England's King to-day are blent
Like rivers on one course.
But, ah! the light falls searching white
Down from the Throne of God.
Lord of the Earth and heavenly-spheres,
Creator of all things,
Thou who hast wrought great worlds from naught,
Give strength to England's son.
Give courage to dispel those fears
That come to even kings,
And for his creed give Love's full mead;
Amen.    Thy Will be done.
The Poet's Death
by John Clare

The world is taking little heed
And plods from day to day:
The vulgar flourish like a weed,
The learned pass away.
We miss him on the summer path
The lonely summer day,
Where mowers cut the pleasant swath
And maidens make the hay.
The vulgar take but little heed;
The garden wants his care;
There lies the book he used to read,
There stands the empty chair.
The boat laid up, the voyage oer,
And passed the stormy wave,
The world is going as before,
The poet in his grave.
The Shell And The World.
by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

The world was like a shell to me, - 
Its voice with distant song was low;
But now its mysteries I know:
I hear the turmoil of the sea.
The whirling, soft, and tender sound
That meant I knew not what of lore, - 
I dream its mystery now no more:
Its reckless meaning I have found.
O shell! I held thee to my ears
When I was young, and smiled with pride
To stand aglow at marvel's side!
O world, thy voice is wild with tears!
Lines ["The world is sweet, and fair, and bright,"]
by Abram Joseph Ryan

The world is sweet, and fair, and bright,
And joy aboundeth everywhere,
The glorious stars crown every night,
And thro' the dark of ev'ry care
Above us shineth heaven's light.
If from the cradle to the grave
We reckon all our days and hours
We sure will find they give and gave
Much less of thorns and more of flowers;
And tho' some tears must ever lave
The path we tread, upon them all
The light of smiles forever lies,
As o'er the rains, from clouds that fall,
The sun shines sweeter in the skies.
Life holdeth more of sweet than gall
For ev'ry one: no matter who --
Or what their lot -- or high or low;
All hearts have clouds -- but heaven's blue
Wraps robes of bright around each woe;
And this is truest of the true:
That joy is stronger here than grief,
Fills more of life, far more of years,
And makes the reign of sorrow brief;
Gives more of smiles for less of tears.
Joy is life's tree -- grief but its leaf.
The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - The Universe.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Il mondo ' un animal.
The world's a living creature, whole and great,
God's image, praising God whose type it is;
We are imperfect worms, vile families,
That in its belly have our low estate.
If we know not its love, its intellect,
Neither the worm within my belly seeks
To know me, but his petty mischief wreaks:--
Thus it behoves us to be circumspect.
Again, the earth is a great animal,
Within the greatest; we are like the lice
Upon its body, doing harm as they.
Proud men, lift up your eyes; on you I call:
Measure each being's worth; and thence be wise;
Learning what part in the great scheme you play!