DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Pine Tree.
by Thomas Frederick Young

The wind last night was wild and strong,
It shriek'd, it whistl'd and it roar'd,
And went with whirl and swoop along,
'Mid falling trees and crashing board.
The timbers creak'd, the rafters sway'd,
And e'en some roofs, upheav'd and torn,
Came crashing to the earth, and laid
Before the view, upon the morn.
The air seem'd like some monstrous thing,
By its uncurbed passion held;
Like dreadful dragon on the wing,
So horribly it scream'd and yell'd.
Now venting a triumphant shout,
And ever and anon a groan,
Like fiend from prison lately out,
Or like unhappy chain'd one's moan.
There was a lofty pine I knew;
Each morn and eve I passed it by;
To such a lofty height it grew,
It caught at once each passing eye.
It stood alone, and proudly stood,
With straight, and clean, and lofty stem;
All other trees it seemed to view,
As though it scorn'd to live with them.
Full many a winter's snow had whirl'd
About its base, and settl'd there,
And many an autumn mist had curl'd
About its head, so high in air.
Full many a blast had spent, in vain,
Its force, for, ever like a rock,
It stood each persevering strain,
And long defied the tempest's shock.
But yesternight it crashing fell,
And now, this morn, I see it lie.
I knew the brave old tree so well,
A tear almost bedims my eye.
But brave old trees, like brave old men,
Must feel at last the fatal stroke,
That dashest them to earth again,
Tho' lofty pine, or mighty oak.
I'll miss, old tree, thy lofty stem
Outlin'd against the distant sky,
But 'tis no gain to fret for them - 
For men, or trees, that fall and die.
Lament For James, Earl Of Glencairn.
by Robert Burns

I.
The wind blew hollow frae the hills,
By fits the sun's departing beam
Look'd on the fading yellow woods
That wav'd o'er Lugar's winding stream:
Beneath a craggy steep, a bard,
Laden with years and meikle pain,
In loud lament bewail'd his lord,
Whom death had all untimely ta'en.
II.
He lean'd him to an ancient aik,
Whose trunk was mould'ring down with years;
His locks were bleached white with time,
His hoary cheek was wet wi' tears;
And as he touch'd his trembling harp,
And as he tun'd his doleful sang,
The winds, lamenting thro' their caves,
To echo bore the notes alang.
III.
"Ye scattered birds that faintly sing,
The reliques of the vernal quire!
Ye woods that shed on a' the winds
The honours of the aged year!
A few short months, and glad and gay,
Again ye'll charm the ear and e'e;
But nocht in all revolving time
Can gladness bring again to me.
IV.
"I am a bending aged tree,
That long has stood the wind and rain;
But now has come a cruel blast,
And my last hold of earth is gane:
Nae leaf o' mine shall greet the spring,
Nae simmer sun exalt my bloom;
But I maun lie before the storm,
And ithers plant them in my room.
V.
"I've seen sae mony changefu' years,
On earth I am a stranger grown;
I wander in the ways of men,
Alike unknowing and unknown:
Unheard, unpitied, unrelieved,
I bear alane my lade o' care,
For silent, low, on beds of dust,
Lie a' that would my sorrows share.
VI.
"And last (the sum of a' my griefs!)
My noble master lies in clay;
The flow'r amang our barons bold,
His country's pride! his country's stay,
In weary being now I pine,
For a' the life of life is dead,
And hope has left my aged ken,
On forward wing for ever fled.
VII.
"Awake thy last sad voice, my harp!
The voice of woe and wild despair;
Awake! resound thy latest lay,
Then sleep in silence evermair!
And thou, my last, best, only friend,
That fillest an untimely tomb,
Accept this tribute from the bard
Though brought from fortune's mirkest gloom.
VIII.
"In poverty's low barren vale
Thick mists, obscure, involve me round;
Though oft I turn'd the wistful eye,
Nae ray of fame was to be found:
Thou found'st me, like the morning sun,
That melts the fogs in limpid air,
The friendless bard and rustic song
Became alike thy fostering care.
IX.
"O! why has worth so short a date?
While villains ripen fray with time;
Must thou, the noble, gen'rous, great,
Fall in bold manhood's hardy prime!
Why did I live to see that day?
A day to me so full of woe!
O had I met the mortal shaft
Which laid my benefactor low.
X.
"The bridegroom may forget the bride
Was made his wedded wife yestreen;
The monarch may forget the crown
That on his head an hour has been;
The mother may forget the child
That smiles sae sweetly on her knee;
But I'll remember thee, Glencairn,
And a' that thou hast done for me!"
Silchester, The Ancient Caleva.[199]
by William Lisle Bowles

The wild pear whispers, and the ivy crawls,
Along the circuit of thine ancient walls,
Lone city of the dead! and near this mound,[200]
The buried coins of mighty men are found,
Silent remains of C'sars and of kings,
Soldiers of whose renown the world yet rings,
In its sad story! These have had their day
Of glory, and have passed, like sounds, away!
And such their fame! While we the spot behold,
And muse upon the tale that Time has told,
We ask where are they? - they whose clarion brayed,
Whose chariot glided, and whose war-horse neighed;
Whose cohorts hastened o'er the echoing way,
Whose eagles glittered to the orient ray!
Ask of this fragment, reared by Roman hands,
That, now, a lone and broken column stands!
Ask of that road - whose track alone remains - 
That swept, of old, o'er mountains, downs, and plains;
And still along the silent champagne leads;
Where are its noise of cars and tramp of steeds?
Ask of the dead, and silence will reply;
Go, seek them in the grave of mortal vanity!
Is this a Roman veteran? - look again, - 
It is a British soldier, who, in Spain,
At Albuera's glorious fight, has bled;
He, too, has spurred his charger o'er the dead!
Desolate, now - friendless and desolate - 
Let him the tale of war and home relate.
His wife (and Gainsborough such a form and mien
Would paint, in harmony with such a scene),
With pensive aspect, yet demeanour bland,
A tottering infant guided by her hand,
Spoke of her own green Erin, while her child,
Amid the scene of ancient glory, smiled,
As spring's first flower smiles from a monument
Of other years, by time and ruin rent!
Lone city of the dead! thy pride is past,
Thy temples sunk, as at the whirlwind's blast!
Silent - all silent, where the mingled cries
Of gathered myriads rent the purple skies!
Here - where the summer breezes waved the wood - 
The stern and silent gladiator stood,
And listened to the shouts that hailed his gushing blood.
And on this wooded mount, that oft, of yore,
Hath echoed to the Lybian lion's roar,
The ear scarce catches, from the shady glen,
The small pipe of the solitary wren.
Eidolons
by Madison Julius Cawein

The white moth-mullein brushed its slim
Cool, faery flowers against his knee;
In places where the way lay dim
The branches, arching suddenly,
Made tomblike mystery for him.
The wild-rose and the elder, drenched
With rain, made pale a misty place,
From which, as from a ghost, he blenched;
He walking with averted face,
And lips in desolation clenched.
For far within the forest, where
Weird shadows stood like phantom men,
And where the ground-hog dug its lair,
The she-fox whelped and had her den,
The thing kept calling, buried there.
One dead trunk, like a ruined tower,
Dark-green with toppling trailers, shoved
Its wild wreck o'er the bush; one bower
Looked like a dead man, capped and gloved,
The one who haunted him each hour.
Now at his side he heard it: thin
As echoes of a thought that speaks
To conscience. Listening with his chin
Upon his palm, against his cheeks
He felt the moon's white finger win.
And now the voice was still: and lo,
With eyes that stared on naught but night,
He saw? what none on earth shall know!
Was it the face that far from sight
Had lain here, buried long ago?
But men who found him, thither led
By the wild fox, within that place
Read in his stony eyes, 'tis said,
The thing he saw there, face to face,
The thing that left him staring dead.
Pictures In The Fire
by Kate Seymour Maclean

The wind croons under the icicled eaves--
Croons and mutters a wordless song,
And the old elm chafes its skeleton leaves
Against the windows all night long.
Under the spectral garden wall,
The drifts creep steadily high and higher
And the lamp in the cottage lattice small
Twinkles and winks like an eye of fire.
But I see a vision of summer skies
Growing out of the embers red,
Under the lids of my half-shut eyes,
With my arms crossed idly under my head.
I see a stile, and a roadside lime,
With buttercups growing about its feet,
And a footpath winding a sinuous line
In and out of the billowy wheat.
For long ago in the summer noons,
Under the shade of that trysting tree,
My love brought wheat ears and clover blooms,
And vows that were sweeter than both, to me.
Reading the "Times" in his easy chair,
With his slippered feet on the fender bright,
Little, I wot, he dreams how fair
Are the pictures I see in the fire to night.
Still the wind pipes under the serried spears
Of frozen boughs a desolate rhyme,
But I hear the rustle of golden ears,
And in my heart it is summer time.
May
by Sara Teasdale

The wind is tossing the lilacs,
The new leaves laugh in the sun,
And the petals fall on the orchard wall,
But for me the spring is done.
Beneath the apple blossoms
I go a wintry way,
For love that smiled in April
Is false to me in May.
Fragments Of Ancient Poetry, Fragment XII
by James Macpherson

RYNO, ALPIN.
RYNO
The wind and the rain are over:
calm is the noon of day. The
clouds are divided in heaven. Over
the green hills flies the inconstant sun.
Red through the stony vale comes
down the stream of the hill. Sweet are
thy murmurs, O stream! but more
sweet is the voice I hear. It is the voice
of Alpin the son of the song, mourning
for the dead. Bent is his head of age,
and red his tearful eye. Alpin, thou
son of the song, why alone on the silent
hill? why complainest thou, as a
blast in the wood; as a wave on the
lonely shore?
ALPIN.
My tears, O Ryno! are for the dead;
my voice, for the inhabitants of the
grave. Tall thou art on the hill; fair
among the sons of the plain. But thou
shalt fall like Morar; and the mourner
shalt sit on thy tomb. The hills shall
know thee no more; thy bow shall lie in
the hall, unstrung.
Thou wert swift, O Morar! as a
doe on the hill; terrible as a meteor of
fire. Thy wrath was as the storm of
December. Thy sword in battle, as
lightning in the field. Thy voice was
like a stream after rain; like thunder
on distant hills. Many fell by thy
arm; they were consumed in the flames
of thy wrath.
But when thou returnedst from war,
how peaceful was thy brow! Thy face
was like the sun after rain; like the
moon in the silence of night; calm as
the breast of the lake when the loud
wind is laid.
Narrow is thy dwelling now; dark
the place of thine abode. With three
steps I compass thy grave, O thou who
wast so great before! Four stones with
their heads of moss are the only memorial
of thee. A tree with scarce a leaf,
long grass which whistles in the wind,
mark to the hunter's eye the grave of
the mighty Morar. Morar! thou art
low indeed. Thou hast no mother to
mourn thee; no maid with her tears of
love. Dead is she that brought thee
forth. Fallen is the daughter of Morglan.
Who on his staff is this? who is this,
whose head is white with age, whose
eyes are red with tears, who quakes
at every step?--It is thy father, O
Morar! the father of none but thee.
He heard of thy fame in battle; he heard
of foes dispersed. He heard of Morar's
fame; why did he not hear of his
wound? Weep, thou father of Morar!
weep; but thy son heareth thee not.
Deep is the sleep of the dead; low their
pillow of dust. No more shall he hear
thy voice; no more shall he awake at
thy call.    When shall it be morn in the
grave, to bid the slumberer awake?
Farewell, thou bravest of men!
thou conqueror in the field! but the field
shall see thee no more; nor the dark
wood be lightened with the splendor of
thy steel. Thou hast left no son.
But the song shall preserve thy name.
Future times shall hear of thee; they
shall hear of the fallen Morar.
My Playmates
by Eugene Field

The wind comes whispering to me of the country green and cool--
Of redwing blackbirds chattering beside a reedy pool;
It brings me soothing fancies of the homestead on the hill,
And I hear the thrush's evening song and the robin's morning trill;
So I fall to thinking tenderly of those I used to know
Where the sassafras and snakeroot and checkerberries grow.
What has become of Ezra Marsh, who lived on Baker's hill?
And what's become of Noble Pratt, whose father kept the mill?
And what's become of Lizzie Crum and Anastasia Snell,
And of Roxie Root, who 'tended school in Boston for a spell?
They were the boys and they the girls who shared my youthful play--
They do not answer to my call! My playmates--where are they?
What has become of Levi and his little brother Joe,
Who lived next door to where we lived some forty years ago?
I'd like to see the Newton boys and Quincy Adams Brown,
And Hepsy Hall and Ella Cowles, who spelled the whole school down!
And Gracie Smith, the Cutler boys, Leander Snow, and all
Who I am sure would answer could they only hear my call!
I'd like to see Bill Warner and the Conkey boys again
And talk about the times we used to wish that we were men!
And one--I shall not name her--could I see her gentle face
And hear her girlish treble in this distant, lonely place!
The flowers and hopes of springtime--they perished long ago,
And the garden where they blossomed is white with winter snow.
O cottage 'neath the maples, have you seen those girls and boys
That but a little while ago made, oh! such pleasant noise?
O trees, and hills, and brooks, and lanes, and meadows, do you know
Where I shall find my little friends of forty years ago?
You see I'm old and weary, and I've traveled long and far;
I am looking for my playmates--I wonder where they are!
Isie.
by David Rorie M.D.

The wife she was ailin', the doctor was ca'ed,
She was makkin' eneuch din for twa,
While Peter was suppin' his brose at the fire,
No' heedin' the cratur' ava.
"Eh, doctor! My back's fair awa' wi' it noo,
It was rackit the day spreadin' dung;
Hae Peter! Come owre wi' the lamp, like a man,
Till the doctor can look at my tongue!"
But Peter had bade wi' her near forty year,
Fine acquaint wi' her weel-soopled jaw,
Sae he lowsed his tap button for ease till his wame,
Wi' a gant at the wag-at-the-wa'.
"Weel Isie," says he, "an' it's me that should ken,
That's the ae place ye niver hae cramp.
The lamp's bidin' here: if he's seekin' a sicht
O' yer tongue he can pull't to the lamp!"
Mad Song
by William Blake

The wild winds weep
And the night is a-cold;
Come hither, Sleep,
And my griefs infold:
But lo! the morning peeps
Over the eastern steeps,
And the rustling birds of dawn
The earth do scorn.
Lo! to the vault
Of paved heaven,
With sorrow fraught
My notes are driven:
They strike the ear of night,
Make weep the eyes of day;
They make mad the roaring winds,
And with tempests play.
Like a fiend in a cloud,
With howling woe,
After night I do crowd,
And with night will go;
I turn my back to the east,
From whence comforts have increas'd;
For light doth seize my brain
With frantic pain.
Strife
by John Frederick Freeman

The wind fought with the angry trees.
All morning in immense unease
They wrestled, and ruin strawed the ground,
And the north sky frowned.
The oak and aspen arms were held
Defiant, but the death was knelled
Of slender saplings, snappy boughs,
Twigs brittle as men's vows.
How moaned the trees the struggle through!
Anger almost to madness grew.
The aspen screamed, and came a roar
Of the great wind locked in anguish sore,
Desolate with defeat ... and then
Quiet fell again:
The trees slept quiet as great cows
That lie at noon under broad boughs.
How pure, how strange the calm; but hist!...
Was it the trees by the wind kissed?
Or from afar, where the wind's hid,
A throb, a sob?
The Sailor's Return
by John Clare

The whitethorn is budding and rushes are green,
The ivy leaves rustle around the ash tree,
On the sweet sunny bank blue violets are seen,
That tremble beneath the wild hum of the bee.
The sunbeams they play on the brook's plashy ripples,
Like millions of suns in each swirl looking on;
The rush nods and bows till its tasseled head tipples
Right into the wimpled flood, kissing the stones.
'T was down in the cow pasture, just at the gloaming,
I met a young woman sweet tempered and mild,
I said "Pretty maiden, say, where are you roving?"
"I'm walking at even," she answered, and smiled.
"Here my sweetheart and I gathered posies at even;
It's eight years ago since they sent him to sea.
Wild flowers hung with dew are like angels from heaven:
They look up in my face and keep whispering to me.
They whisper the tales that were told by my true love;
In the evening and morning they glisten with dew;
They say (bonny blossoms) 'I'll ne'er get a new love;
I love her; she's kindly.' I say, 'I love him too.'"
The passing-by stranger's a stranger no longer;
He kissed off the teardrop which fell from her e'e;
With blue-jacket and trousers he is bigger and stronger;
'T is her own constant Willy returned from the sea.
Memorial
by John Frederick Freeman

The wild October sky
Rises not so high,
The tree's roots that creep
Into the earth's body thrust not so deep
As our high and dark thought.
Yet thought need not roam
Far off to bring you home.
The sky is our wild mind,
Your roots are round our spirits twined,
To ours are your hearts caught.
O, never buried dead!
The living brain in the head
Is not so quick as you
Burning our conscious darkness through
With brightness past our thought.
Composed In Roslin Chapel During A Storm
by William Wordsworth

The wind is now thy organist; a clank
(We know not whence) ministers for a bell
To mark some change of service. As the swell
Of music reached its height, and even when sank
The notes, in prelude, Roslin! to a blank
Of silence, how it thrilled thy sumptuous roof,
Pillars, and arches, not in vain time-proof,
Though Christian rites be wanting! From what bank
Came those live herbs? by what hand were they sown
Where dew falls not, where rain-drops seem unknown?
Yet in the Temple they a friendly niche
Share with their sculptured fellows, that, green-grown,
Copy their beauty more and more, and preach,
Though mute, of all things blending into one.
Ten O'Clock No More [1]
by John Frederick Freeman

The wind has thrown
The boldest of trees down.
Now disgraced it lies,
Naked in spring beneath the drifting skies,
Naked and still.
It was the wind
So furious and blind
That scourged half England through,
Ruining the fairest where most fair it grew
By dell and hill.
And springing here,
The black clouds dragging near,
Against this lonely elm
Thrust all his strength to maim and overwhelm
In one wild shock.
As in the deep
Satisfaction of dark sleep
The tree her dream dreamed on,
And woke to feel the wind's arms round her thrown
And her head rock.
And the wind raught
Her ageing boughs and caught
Her body fast again.
Then in one agony of age, grief, pain,
She fell and died.
Her noble height,
Branches that loved the light,
Her music and cool shade,
Her memories and all of her is dead
On the hill side.
But the wind stooped.
With madness tired, and drooped
In the soft valley and slept.
While morning strangely round the hush'd tree crept
And called in vain.
The birds fed where
The roots uptorn and bare
Thrust shameful at the sky;
And pewits round the tree would dip and cry
With the old pain.
"Ten o'clock's gone!"
Said sadly every one.
And mothers looking thought
Of sons and husbands far away that fought:--
And looked again.
Behind The Lines
by John Collings Squire, Sir

The wind of evening cried along the darkening trees,
Along the darkening trees, heavy with ancient pain,
Heavy with ancient pain from faded centuries,
From faded centuries....    O foolish thought and vain!
O foolish thought and vain to think the wind could know,
To think the wind could know the griefs of men who died,
The griefs of men who died and mouldered long ago:
"And mouldered long ago," the wind of evening cried.
Eidolons
by Madison Julius Cawein

The white moth-mullein brushed its slim
Cool, faery flowers against his knee;
In places where the way lay dim
The branches, arching suddenly,
Made tomblike mystery for him.
The wild-rose and the elder, drenched
With rain, made pale a misty place, - 
From which, as from a ghost, he blenched;
He walking with averted face,
And lips in desolation clenched.
For far within the forest, - where
Weird shadows stood like phantom men,
And where the ground-hog dug its lair,
The she-fox whelped and had her den, - 
The thing kept calling, buried there.
One dead trunk, like a ruined tower,
Dark-green with toppling trailers, shoved
Its wild wreck o'er the bush; one bower
Looked like a dead man, capped and gloved,
The one who haunted him each hour.
Now at his side he heard it: thin
As echoes of a thought that speaks
To conscience. Listening with his chin
Upon his palm, against his cheeks
He felt the moon's white finger win.
And now the voice was still: and lo,
With eyes that stared on naught but night,
He saw? - what none on earth shall know! - 
Was it the face that far from sight
Had lain here, buried long ago?
But men who found him, - thither led
By the wild fox, - within that place
Read in his stony eyes, 'tis said,
The thing he saw there, face to face,
The thing that left him staring dead.
Alec Yeaton's Son
by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

GLOUCESTER, AUGUST, 1720
The wind it wailed, the wind it moaned,
And the white caps flecked the sea;
"An' I would to God," the skipper groaned,
"I had not my boy with me!"
Snug in the stern-sheets, little John
Laughed as the scud swept by;
But the skipper's sunburnt cheek grew wan
As he watched the wicked sky.
"Would he were at his mother's side!"
And the skipper's eyes were dim.
"Good Lord in heaven, if ill betide,
What would become of him!
"For me--my muscles are as steel,
For me let hap what may;
I might make shift upon the keel
Until the break o' day.
"But he, he is so weak and small,
So young, scarce learned to stand--
O pitying Father of us all,
I trust him in Thy hand!
"For Thou, who markest from on high
A sparrow's fall--each one!--
Surely, O Lord, thou'lt have an eye
On Alec Yeaton's son!"
Then, helm hard-port; right straight he sailed
Towards the headland light:
The wind it moaned, the wind it wailed,
And black, black fell the night.
Then burst a storm to make one quail
Though housed from winds and waves--
They who could tell about that gale
Must rise from watery graves!
Sudden it came, as sudden went;
Ere half the night was sped,
The winds were hushed, the waves were spent,
And the stars shone overhead.
Now, as the morning mist grew thin,
The folk on Gloucester shore
Saw a little figure floating in
Secure, on a broken oar!
Up rose the cry, "A wreck! a wreck!
Pull, mates, and waste no breath!"--
They knew it, though 'twas but a speck
Upon the edge of death!
Long did they marvel in the town
At God his strange decree,
That let the stalwart skipper drown
And the little child go free!