DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
I Hear The Oriole's Always-Grieving Voice
by Anna Akhmatova

I hear the oriole's always-grieving voice,
And the rich summer's welcome loss I hear
In the sickle's serpentine hiss
Cutting the corn's ear tightly pressed to ear.
And the short skirts of the slim reapers
Fly in the wind like holiday pennants,
The clash of joyful cymbals, and creeping
From under dusty lashes, the long glance.
I don't expect love's tender flatteries,
In premonition of some dark event,
But come, come and see this paradise
Where together we were blessed and innocent.
To One Away
by Sara Teasdale

I heard a cry in the night,
A thousand miles it came,
Sharp as a flash of light,
My name, my name!
It was your voice I heard,
You waked and loved me so,
I send you back this word,
I know, I know!
Dying.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

I heard a fly buzz when I died;
The stillness round my form
Was like the stillness in the air
Between the heaves of storm.
The eyes beside had wrung them dry,
And breaths were gathering sure
For that last onset, when the king
Be witnessed in his power.
I willed my keepsakes, signed away
What portion of me I
Could make assignable, -- and then
There interposed a fly,
With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,
Between the light and me;
And then the windows failed, and then
I could not see to see.
Bring Us The Light
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

I hear a clear voice calling, calling,
Calling out of the night,
O, you who live in the Light of Life,
Bring us the Light!
We are bound in the chains of darkness,
Our eyes received no sight,
O, you who have never been bond or blind,
Bring us the Light!
We live amid turmoil and horror,
Where might is the only right,
O, you to whom life is liberty,
Bring us the Light!
We stand in the ashes of ruins,
We are ready to fight the fight,
O, you whose feet are firm on the Rock,
Bring us the Light!
You cannot--you shall not forget us,
Out here in the darkest night,
We are drowning men, we are dying men,
Bring, O, bring us the Light!
Robin And Gandeleyn
by Frank Sidgwick

The Text is modernised from the only known version, in Sloane MS. 2593, in the British Museum (c. 1450); the minstrel's song-book which contains the famous carols: 'I sing of a maiden,' and 'Adam lay i-bounden.' This ballad was first printed by Ritson in his Ancient Songs (1790); but he misunderstood the phrase 'Robyn lyth' in the burden for the name 'Robin Lyth,' and ingeniously found a cave on Flamborough Head called Robin Lyth's Hole.
The Story is similar to those told of Robin Hood and Little John; but there is no ground for identifying this Robin with Robin Hood. Wright, in printing the Sloane MS., notes that 'Gandeleyn' resembles Gamelyn, whose 'tale' belongs to the pseudo-Chaucerian literature. But we can only take this ballad to be, like so many others, an unrelated 'relique.'
ROBIN AND GANDELEYN
1.
I heard a carping of a clerk
All at yon wood's end,
Of good Robin and Gandeleyn,
Was there none other thing.
Robin lieth in greenwood bounden.
2.
Strong thiev's wern tho children none,
But bowmen good and hend;
They wenten to wood to getten them flesh
If God would it them send.
3.
All day wenten tho children two,
And flesh founden they none,
Till it were again even,
The children would gone home.
4.
Half a hundred of fat fallow deer
They comen ayon,
And all they wern fair and fat enow,
But mark'd was there none.
'By dear God,' said good Robin,
'Hereof we shall have one.'
5.
Robin bent his jolly bow,
Therein he set a flo;
The fattest deer of all.
The heart he cleft a-two.
6.
He had not the deer i-flaw
Ne half out of the hide,
There came a shrewd arrow out of the west
That felled Robert's pride.
7.
Gandeleyn looked him east and west,
By every side:
'Who hath my master slain?
Who hath done this deed?
Shall I never out of greenwood go
Till I see his sid's bleed.'
8.
Gandeleyn looked him east and west,
And sought under the sun;
He saw a little boy.
They clepen Wrennok of Donne.
9.
A good bow in his hand,
A broad arrow therein,
And four and twenty good arrows
Truss'd in a thrum.
'Beware thee, ware thee, Gandeleyn,
Hereof thou shalt have some.
10.
'Beware thee, ware thee, Gandeleyn,
Hereof thou gettest plenty.'
'Ever one for another,' said Gandeleyn;
'Misaunter have they shall flee.
11.
'Whereat shall our mark be?'
Said' Gandeleyn.
'Everich at other's heart,'
Said Wrennok again.
12.
'Who shall give the first shot?'
Said' Gandeleyn.
'And I shall give thee one before,'
Said Wrennok again.
13.
Wrennok shot a full good shot,
And he shot not too high;
Through the sanchoth's of his breek,
It touch'd neither thigh.
14.
'Now hast thou given me one before';
All thus to Wrennok said he;
'And through the might of our Lady
A better I shall give thee.'
15.
Gandeleyn bent his good bow,
And set therein a flo;
He shot through his green kirtle,
His heart he cleft on two.
16.
'Now shalt thou never yelp, Wrennok,
At ale ne at wine,
That thou hast slaw good Robin
And his knave Gandeleyn.
17.
'Now shalt thou never yelp, Wrennok,
At wine ne at ale,
That thou hast slaw good Robin
And Gandeleyn his knave.'
Early Love Revisited.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("O douleur! j'ai voulu savoir.")
[XXXIV. i., October, 183-.]
I have wished in the grief of my heart to know
If the vase yet treasured that nectar so clear,
And to see what this beautiful valley could show
Of all that was once to my soul most dear.
In how short a span doth all Nature change,
How quickly she smoothes with her hand serene - 
And how rarely she snaps, in her ceaseless range,
The links that bound our hearts to the scene.
Our beautiful bowers are all laid waste;
The fir is felled that our names once bore;
Our rows of roses, by urchins' haste,
Are destroyed where they leap the barrier o'er.
The fount is walled in where, at noonday pride,
She so gayly drank, from the wood descending;
In her fairy hand was transformed the tide,
And it turned to pearls through her fingers wending
The wild, rugged path is paved with spars,
Where erst in the sand her footsteps were traced,
When so small were the prints that the surface mars,
That they seemed to smile ere by mine effaced.
The bank on the side of the road, day by day,
Where of old she awaited my loved approach,
Is now become the traveller's way
To avoid the track of the thundering coach.
Here the forest contracts, there the mead extends,
Of all that was ours, there is little left - 
Like the ashes that wildly are whisked by winds,
Of all souvenirs is the place bereft.
Do we live no more - is our hour then gone?
Will it give back naught to our hungry cry?
The breeze answers my call with a mocking tone,
The house that was mine makes no reply.
True! others shall pass, as we have passed,
As we have come, so others shall meet,
And the dream that our mind had sketched in haste,
Shall others continue, but never complete.
For none upon earth can achieve his scheme,
The best as the worst are futile here:
We awake at the selfsame point cf the dream - 
All is here begun, and finished elsewhere.
Yes! others shall come in the bloom of the heart,
To enjoy in this pure and happy retreat,
All that nature to timid love can impart
Of solemn repose and communion sweet.
In our fields, in our paths, shall strangers stray,
In thy wood, my dearest, new lovers go lost,
And other fair forms in the stream shall play
Which of old thy delicate feet have crossed.
Author of "Critical Essays."
Sonnet.
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

I hear a voice low in the sunset woods;
Listen, it says: "Decay, decay, decay!"
I hear it in the murmuring of the floods,
And the wind sighs it as it flies away.
Autumn is come; seest thou not in the skies,
The stormy light of his fierce lurid eyes?
Autumn is come; his brazen feet have trod,
Withering and scorching, o'er the mossy sod.
The fainting year sees her fresh flowery wreath
Shrivel in his hot grasp; his burning breath
Dries the sweet water-springs that in the shade
Wandering along, delicious music made.
A flood of glory hangs upon the world,
Summer's bright wings shining ere they are furled.
A Song.
by Lizzie Lawson

I hear a Song
I think 'tis a thrush's.
He sings to the Wild Rose
See how she blushes!
The Divine Lullaby
by Eugene Field

I hear Thy voice, dear Lord;
I hear it by the stormy sea
When winter nights are black and wild,
And when, affright, I call to Thee;
It calms my fears and whispers me,
"Sleep well, my child."
I hear Thy voice, dear Lord,
In singing winds, in falling snow,
The curfew chimes, the midnight bell.
"Sleep well, my child," it murmurs low;
"The guardian angels come and go,--
O child, sleep well!"
I hear Thy voice, dear Lord,
Ay, though the singing winds be stilled,
Though hushed the tumult of the deep,
My fainting heart with anguish chilled
By Thy assuring tone is thrilled,--
"Fear not, and sleep!"
Speak on--speak on, dear Lord!
And when the last dread night is near,
With doubts and fears and terrors wild,
Oh, let my soul expiring hear
Only these words of heavenly cheer,
"Sleep well, my child!"
Time, Hope, And Memory.
by Thomas Hood

I heard a gentle maiden, in the spring,
Set her sweet sighs to music, and thus sing:
"Fly through the world, and I will follow thee,
Only for looks that may turn back on me;
"Only for roses that your chance may throw - 
Though withered - Twill wear them on my brow,
To be a thoughtful fragrance to my brain, - 
Warm'd with such love, that they will bloom again."
"Thy love before thee, I must tread behind,
Kissing thy foot-prints, though to me unkind;
But trust not all her fondness, though it seem,
Lest thy true love should rest on a false dream."
"Her face is smiling, and her voice is sweet;
But smiles betray, and music sings deceit;
And words speak false; - yet, if they welcome prove,
I'll be their echo, and repeat their love."
"Only if waken'd to sad truth, at last,
The bitterness to come, and sweetness past;
When thou art vext, then turn again, and see
Thou hast loved Hope, but Memory loved thee."
The Horseman
by Walter De La Mare

I heard a horseman
Ride over the hill;
The moon shone clear,
The night was still;
His helm was silver,
And pale was he;
And the horse he rode
Was of ivory.
A Snow Storm.
by Thomas Frederick Young

I hear the wintry wind again,
I see the blinding snow,
Pil'd high, by eddying winds, in heaps,
No matter where I go.
The storm is raging hard, without;
But let us not complain,
For fiercely tho' it rages now,
A calm will come again.
And, though the wildly raging storm
Makes all things bleak and bare,
Beside the fire we brave it well,
And closer draw our chair.
In social fellowship, our hearts
With kindly thoughts grow warm;
Then is there not a pleasant side,
E'en to a raging storm?
And when the angry storm has calm'd,
As ev'ry storm must do,
Then, sure, the tempest's handiwork,
Has pleasant features, too.
An artist's eye would look around,
Upon these calmer days,
And view the pure white heaps of snow,
With pleas'd and puzzl'd gaze.
Like purest marble, deftly carv'd,
They stretch o'er vale and hill,
Fair monuments, not made by man,
But rear'd by nature's skill.
The sweeping curve, the graceful arch,
The line so firm and free;
A skilful sculptor well might say:
"Can this teach aught to me?"
The trees are rob'd in purest white,
And gleaming atoms shine
From out the snow, beneath the sun,
Like stones from Ophir's mine.
The merry shouts of busy men
Sound, as they dig the snow;
And, when the way is clear, the bells
With joyful jingle, go.
Then who shall say the tempest's work
Brings more of pain than joy;
Or that the evil things, to us
Are pain, without alloy?
The Snare
by James Stephens

(To A.E.)
I hear a sudden cry of pain!
There is a rabbit in a snare:
Now I hear the cry again,
But I cannot tell from where.
But I cannot tell from where
He is calling out for aid;
Crying on the frightened air,
Making everything afraid.
Making everything afraid,
Wrinkling up his little face,
As he cries again for aid;
And I cannot find the place!
And I cannot find the place
Where his paw is in the snare:
Little one! Oh, little one!
I am searching everywhere.
The Man To The Angel
by George William Russell

I have wept a million tears:
Pure and proud one, where are thine,
What the gain though all thy years
In unbroken beauty shine?
All your beauty cannot win
Truth we learn in pain and sighs:
You can never enter in
To the circle of the wise.
They are but the slaves of light
Who have never known the gloom,
And between the dark and bright
Willed in freedom their own doom.
Think not in your pureness there,
That our pain but follows sin:
There are fires for those who dare
Seek the throne of might to win.
Pure one, from your pride refrain:
Dark and lost amid the strife
I am myriad years of pain
Nearer to the fount of life.
When defiance fierce is thrown
At the God to whom you bow,
Rest the lips of the Unknown
Tenderest upon my brow.
Singing Water
by R. C. Lehmann

I heard - 'twas on a morning, but when it was and where,
Except that well I heard it, I neither know nor care - 
I heard, and, oh, the sunlight was shining in the blue,
A little water singing as little waters do.
At Lechlade and at Buscot, where Summer days are long,
The tiny rills and ripples they tremble into song;
And where the silver Windrush brings down her liquid gems,
There's music in the wavelets she tosses to the Thames.
The eddies have an air too, and brave it is and blithe;
I think I may have heard it that day at Bablockhythe;
And where the Eynsham weir-fall breaks out in rainbow spray
The Evenlode comes singing to join the pretty play.
But where I heard that music I cannot rightly tell;
I only know I heard it, and that I know full well:
I heard a little water, and, oh, the sky was blue,
A little water singing as little waters do.
Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-Four
by Henry Kendall

I hear no footfall beating through the dark,
A lonely gust is loitering at the pane;
There is no sound within these forests stark
Beyond a splash or two of sullen rain;
But you are with us! and our patient land
Is filled with long-expected change at last,
Though we have scarce the heart to lift a hand
Of welcome, after all the yearning past!
Ah! marvel not; the days and nights were long
And cold and dull and dashed with many tears;
And lately there hath been a doleful song,
Of 'Mene, Mene,' in our restless ears!
Indeed, we've said, 'The royal son of Time,
Whose feet will shortly cross our threshold floor,
May lead us to those outer heights sublime
Our Sires have sold their lives to see before!
We'll follow him! Beyond the waves and wrecks
Of years fulfilled, some fine results must lie;
We'll pass the last of all wild things that vex
The pale, sad face of our Humanity!'
But now our fainting feet are loth to stray
From trodden paths; our eyes with pain are blind!
We've lost fair treasures by the weary way;
We cry, like children, to be left behind.
Our human speech is dim. Yet, latest born
Of God's Eternity, there came to me,
In saddened streets last week, from lips forlorn
A sound more solemn than the sleepless sea!
O, Rachael! Rachael! We have heard the cries
In Rama, stranger, o'er our darling dead;
And seen our mothers with the heavy eyes,
Who would not hearken to be comforted!
Then lead us gently! It must come to pass
That some of us shall halt and faint and fall;
For we are looking through a darkened glass,
And Heaven seems far, and faith grows cold and pale.
I know, for one, I need a subtle strength
I have not yet to hold me from a fall;
What time I cry to God within the length
Of weary hours; my face against the wall!
My mourning brothers! in the long, still nights,
When sleep is wilful, and the lone moon shines,
Bethink you of the silent, silver lights,
And darks with Death amongst the moody pines!
Then, though you cannot shut a stricken face
Away from you, this hope will come about
That Christ hath sent again throughout the place
Some signs of Love to worst and weaken doubt.
So you may find in every afterthought
A peace beyond your best expression dear;
And haply hearken to the Voice which wrought
Such strength in Peter on the seas of fear!
An Old Year's Address
by James Whitcomb Riley

"I have twankled the strings of the twinkering rain;
I have burnished the meteor's mail;
I have bridled the wind
When he whinnied and whined
With a bunch of stars tied to his tail;
But my sky-rocket hopes, hanging over the past,
Must fuzzle and fazzle and fizzle at last!"
I had waded far out in a drizzling dream,
And my fancies had spattered my eyes
With a vision of dread,
With a number ten head,
And a form of diminutive size -
That wavered and wagged in a singular way
As he wound himself up and proceeded to say, -
"I have trimmed all my corns with the blade of the moon;
I have picked every tooth with a star:
And I thrill to recall
That I went through it all
Like a tune through a tickled guitar.
I have ripped up the rainbow and raveled the ends
When the sun and myself were particular friends."
And pausing again, and producing a sponge
And wiping the tears from his eyes,
He sank in a chair
With a technical air
That he struggled in vain to disguise, -
For a sigh that he breathed, as I over him leant,
Was haunted and hot with a peppermint scent.
"Alas!" he continued in quavering tones
As a pang rippled over his face,
"The life was too fast
For the pleasure to last
In my very unfortunate case;
And I'm going" - he said as he turned to adjust
A fuse in his bosom, - "I'm going to - BUST!"
I shrieked and awoke with the sullen che-boom
Of a five-pounder filling my ears;
And a roseate bloom
Of a light in the room
I saw through the mist of my tears, -
But my guest of the night never saw the display,
He had fuzzled and fazzled and fizzled away!
In The Night.
by Charles Hamilton Musgrove

The Child.
I hear you weeping, mother, dear,--
I hear you wake and weep;
What brings the tears into your eyes
When you should be asleep?
I hear my name upon your lips;
What is it that you say
Of one who broke a trusting heart,
But now is far away?
The Mother.
I weep for you, my pretty lass,
Frail flower of love unblessed,
Because I can not always hold
You close unto my breast;
I weep that you some day must go
Alone your way to find,
For, oh, you have your mother's eyes,
And men are seldom kind!
He Bids His Beloved Be At Peace
by William Butler Yeats

I hear the Shadowy Horses, their long manes a-shake,
Their hoofs heavy with tumult, their eyes glimmering
white;
The North unfolds above them clinging, creeping
night,
The East her hidden joy before the morning break,
The West weeps in pale dew and sighs passing away,
The South is pouring down roses of crimson fire:
O vanity of Sleep, Hope, Dream, endless Desire,
The Horses of Disaster plunge in the heavy clay:
Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat
Over my heart, and your hair fall over my breast,
Drowning love's lonely hour in deep twilight of rest,
And hiding their tossing manes and their tumultuous
feet.
I Hear An Army Charging Upon The Land
by James Joyce

I hear an army charging upon the land,
And the thunder of horses plunging, foam about their knees:
Arrogant, in black armour, behind them stand,
Disdaining the reins, with fluttering whips, the charioteers.
They cry unto the night their battle-name:
I moan in sleep when I hear afar their whirling laughter.
They cleave the gloom of dreams, a blinding flame,
Clanging, clanging upon the heart as upon an anvil.
They come shaking in triumph their long, green hair:
They come out of the sea and run shouting by the shore.
My heart, have you no wisdom thus to despair?
My love, my love, my love, why have you left me alone?
Plowmen
by Robert Lee Frost

I hear men say to plow the snow.
They cannot mean to plant it, though,
Unless in bitterness to mock
At having cultivated rock.
The Maid Of Keinton Mandeville
by Thomas Hardy

I hear that maiden still
Of Keinton Mandeville
Singing, in flights that played
As wind-wafts through us all,
Till they made our mood a thrall
To their aery rise and fall,
"Should he upbraid."
Rose-necked, in sky-gray gown,
From a stage in Stower Town
Did she sing, and singing smile
As she blent that dexterous voice
With the ditty of her choice,
And banished our annoys
Thereawhile.
One with such song had power
To wing the heaviest hour
Of him who housed with her.
Who did I never knew
When her spoused estate ondrew,
And her warble flung its woo
In his ear.
Ah, she's a beldame now,
Time-trenched on cheek and brow,
Whom I once heard as a maid
From Keinton Mandeville
Of matchless scope and skill
Sing, with smile and swell and trill,
"Should he upbraid!"
Airy Tongues
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
I hear a song the wet leaves lisp
When Morn comes down the woodland way;
And misty as a thistle-wisp
Her gown gleams windy gray;
A song, that seems to say,
"Awake! 'tis day!"
I hear a sigh, when Day sits down
Beside the sunlight-lulled lagoon;
While on her glistening hair and gown
The rose of rest is strewn;
A sigh, that seems to croon,
"Come sleep! 'tis noon!"
I hear a whisper, when the stars,
Upon some evening-purpled height,
Crown the dead Day with nenuphars
Of dreamy gold and white;
A voice, that seems t' invite,
"Come love! 'tis night!"
II.
Before the rathe song-sparrow sings
Among the hawtrees in the lane,
And to the wind the locust flings
Its early clusters fresh with rain;
Beyond the morning-star, that swings
Its rose of fire above the spire,
Between the morning's watchet wings,
A voice that rings o'er brooks and boughs
"Arouse! arouse!"
Before the first brown owlet cries
Among the grape-vines on the hill,
And in the dam with half-shut eyes
The lilies rock above the mill;
Beyond the oblong moon, that flies
Its pearly flower above the tower,
Between the twilight's primrose skies,
A voice that sighs from east to west
"To rest! to rest!"
Cowslips And Larks
by William Henry Davies

I hear it said yon land is poor,
In spite of those rich cowslips there -
And all the singing larks it shoots
To heaven from the cowslips' roots.
But I, with eyes that beauty find,
And music ever in my mind,
Feed my thoughts well upon that grass
Which starves the horse, the ox, and ass.
So here I stand, two miles to come
To Shapwick and my ten-days-home,
Taking my summer's joy, although
The distant clouds are dark and low,
And comes a storm that, fierce and strong,
Has brought the Mendip hills along:
Those hills that when the light is there
Are many a sunny mile from here.
Message
by Sara Teasdale

I heard a cry in the night,
A thousand miles it came,
Sharp as a flash of light,
My name, my name!
It was your voice I heard,
You waked and loved me so,
I send you back this word,
I know, I know!
The Strange House
by Thomas Hardy

"I hear the piano playing 
Just as a ghost might play."
" O, but what are you saying?
There's no piano to-day;
Their old one was sold and broken;
Years past it went amiss."
" I heard it, or shouldn't have spoken:
A strange house, this!
"I catch some undertone here,
From some one out of sight."
" Impossible; we are alone here,
And shall be through the night."
" The parlour-door what stirred it?"
" No one: no soul's in range."
" But, anyhow, I heard it,
And it seems strange!
"Seek my own room I cannot 
A figure is on the stair!"
" What figure? Nay, I scan not
Any one lingering there.
A bough outside is waving,
And that's its shade by the moon."
" Well, all is strange! I am craving
Strength to leave soon."
" Ah, maybe you've some vision
Of showings beyond our sphere;
Some sight, sense, intuition
Of what once happened here?
The house is old; they've hinted
It once held two love-thralls,
And they may have imprinted
Their dreams on its walls?
"They were I think 'twas told me 
Queer in their works and ways;
The teller would often hold me
With weird tales of those days.
Some folk can not abide here,
But we we do not care
Who loved, laughed, wept, or died here,
Knew joy, or despair."
Sonnets: Idea XXIV
by Michael Drayton

I hear some say, "This man is not in love!"
"Who! can he love? a likely thing!" they say.
"Read but his verse, and it will easily prove!"
O, judge not rashly, gentle Sir, I pray!
Because I loosely trifle in this sort,
As one that fain his sorrows would beguile,
You now suppose me all this time in sport,
And please yourself with this conceit the while.
Ye shallow cens'rers! sometimes, see ye not,
In greatest perils some men pleasant be,
Where fame by death is only to be got,
They resolute! So stands the case with me.
Where other men in depth of passion cry,
I laugh at fortune, as in jest to die.