DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Distant Voices
by Dora Sigerson Shorter

I left my home for travelling;
Because I heard the strange birds sing
In foreign skies, and felt their wing
Brush past my soul impatiently;
I saw the bloom on flower and tree
That only grows beyond the sea.
Methought the distant voices spake
More wisdom than near tongues can make;
I followed-lest my heart should break.
And what is past is past and done.
I dreamt, and here the dream begun:
I saw a salmon in the sun
Leap from the river to the shore-
Ah! strange mishap, so wounded sore,
To his sweet stream to turn no more.
A bird from 'neath his mother's breast,
Spread his weak wings in vain request;
Never again to reach his nest.
I saw a blossom bloom too soon
Upon a summer's afternoon;
'Twill breathe no more beneath the moon.
I woke, warmed 'neath a foreign sky
Where locust blossoms bud and die,
Strange birds called to me flashing by.
And dusky faces passed and woke
The echoes with the words they spoke-
-The same old tales as other folk.
A truce to roaming!    Never more
I'll leave the home I loved of yore.
But strangers meet me at the door.
* * * * *
I left my home still travelling,
For yet I hear the strange birds sing,
And foreign flowers rare perfumes bring.
I hear a distant voice, more wise
Than others are 'neath foreign skies.
I'll find-perhaps in paradise.
Campus Sonnets: 3. May Morning
by Stephen Vincent Benet

I lie stretched out upon the window-seat
And doze, and read a page or two, and doze,
And feel the air like water on me close,
Great waves of sunny air that lip and beat
With a small noise, monotonous and sweet,
Against the window -- and the scent of cool,
Frail flowers by some brown and dew-drenched pool
Possesses me from drowsy head to feet.
This is the time of all-sufficing laughter
At idiotic things some one has done,
And there is neither past nor vague hereafter.
And all your body stretches in the sun
And drinks the light in like a liquid thing;
Filled with the divine languor of late spring.
Aberdeen
by Thomas Hardy

(April: 1905)
"And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times." - Isaiah xxxiii. 6.
I looked and thought, "All is too gray and cold
To wake my place-enthusiasms of old!"
Till a voice passed: "Behind that granite mien
Lurks the imposing beauty of a Queen."
I looked anew; and saw the radiant form
Of Her who soothes in stress, who steers in storm,
On the grave influence of whose eyes sublime
Men count for the stability of the time.
Dreams.
by John Milton Hay

I love a woman tenderly,
But cannot know if she loves me.
I press her hand, her lips I kiss,
But still love's full assurance miss.
Our waking life for ever seems
Cleft by a veil of doubt and dreams.
But love and night and sleep combine
In dreams to make her wholly mine.
A sure love lights her eyes' deep blue,
Her hands and lips are warm and true.
Always the fact unreal seems,
And truth I find alone in dreams.
Carissima Mea.
by Madison Julius Cawein

I look upon my lady's face,
And, in the world about me, see
No face like hers in any place:
Therefore it is I sing her praise.
It is not made, as others sing
Of their dear loves, like ivory,
But like a wild rose in the spring:
Therefore it is I sing her praise.
Her brow is low and very fair,
And o'er it, smooth and shadowy,
Lies deep the darkness of her hair:
Therefore it is I sing her praise.
Beneath her brows her eyes are gray,
And gaze out glad and fearlessly,
Their wonder haunts me night and day:
Therefore it is I sing her praise.
Her eyebrows, arched and delicate,
Twin curves of pencilled ebony,
Within their spans contain my fate:
Therefore it is I sing her praise.
Her mouth, that was for kisses curved,
So small and sweet, it well may be
That it for me is yet reserved:
Therefore it is I sing her praise.
Between her hair and rounded chin,
Calm with her soul's calm purity,
There lies no shadow of a sin:
Therefore it is I sing her praise.
Of perfect form, she is not tall,
Just higher than the heart of me,
Where'er I place her, all in all:
Therefore it is I sing her praise.
She is not shaped, as some have sung
Of their dear loves, like some slim tree,
But like the moon when it is young:
Therefore it is I sing her praise.
Her hands, that smell of violet,
So white and fashioned gracefully,
Have woven round my heart a net:
Therefore it is I sing her praise.
Yea, I have loved her many a day;
And though for me she may not be,
Still at her feet my love I lay:
Therefore it is I sing her praise.
Albeit she be not for me,
GOD send her grace and grant that she
Know nought of sorrow all her days:
Therefore it is I sing her praise.
I Looked Up From My Writing
by Thomas Hardy

I looked up from my writing,
And gave a start to see,
As if rapt in my inditing,
The moon's full gaze on me.
Her meditative misty head
Was spectral in its air,
And I involuntarily said,
"What are you doing there?"
"Oh, I've been scanning pond and hole
And waterway hereabout
For the body of one with a sunken soul
Who has put his life-light out.
"Did you hear his frenzied tattle?
It was sorrow for his son
Who is slain in brutish battle,
Though he has injured none.
"And now I am curious to look
Into the blinkered mind
Of one who wants to write a book
In a world of such a kind."
Her temper overwrought me,
And I edged to shun her view,
For I felt assured she thought me
One who should drown him too.
Poetics
by A. R. Ammons

I look for the way
things will turn
out spiralling from a center,
the shape
things will take to come forth in
so that the birch tree white
touched black at branches
will stand out
wind-glittering
totally its apparent self:
I look for the forms
things want to come as
from what black wells of possibility,
how a thing will
unfold:
not the shape on paper, though
that, too, but the
uninterfering means on paper:
not so much looking for the shape
as being available
to any shape that may be
summoning itself
through me
from the self not mine but ours.
Dost Thou Not Care?
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

I love and love not: Lord, it breaks my heart
To love and not to love.
Thou veiled within Thy glory, gone apart
Into Thy shrine, which is above,
Dost Thou not love me, Lord, or care
For this mine ill? - 
I love thee here or there,
I will accept thy broken heart, lie still.
Lord, it was well with me in time gone by
That cometh not again,
When I was fresh and cheerful, who but I?
I fresh, I cheerful: worn with pain
Now, out of sight and out of heart;
O Lord, how long? - 
I watch thee as thou art,
I will accept thy fainting heart, be strong.
'Lie still,' 'be strong,' to-day; but, Lord, to-morrow,
What of to-morrow, Lord?
Shall there be rest from toil, be truce from sorrow,
Be living green upon the sward
Now but a barren grave to me,
Be joy for sorrow? - 
Did I not die for thee?
Did I not live for thee? Leave Me to-morrow.
The Epic Of The Hog.
by Edwin C. Ranck

(Man's Inhumanity to Hogs Makes Countless Thousands Squeal.)
I lived upon a little farm,
A happy hog was I,
I never dreamed of any harm
Nor ever thought to die.
All day I wallowed in the mud,
And ate the choicest slops.
I watched the brindles chew their cud--
The farmer tend his crops.
Upon the hottest days I'd go
And flounder in the river--
I thought that hogs might come and go,
But I would live forever.
Then finally I waxed so fat
That I could hardly walk,
And then the farmers gather 'round
And all began to talk.
I couldn't understand a word,
All I did was grunt;
You see that's all a hog can do--
It is his only stunt.
But finally they took me out
And put me on a train.
I really couldn't move about
And squealed with might and main.
I grunted, grunted as I flew
And moved in vain endeavor,
But even then I thought it true
That I would live forever.
And so we came to Packingtown
Where there were hogs galore,
I never saw so many hogs
In all my life before.
Then we had to shoot the chutes
And climb a flight of stairs,
We never had a chance to stop
Or time to say our prayers.
Loud-squealing hogs above, below
They formed a seething river,
For men may come and men may go
But hogs go on forever.
And then I saw an iron wheel
Which stood alone in state,
And then I heard an awful squeal--
A hog had met his fate.
A devilish chain upon the wheel
Had seized him by the leg;
It was no use to kick and squeal,
It was no use to beg.
I longed in deepest grief and woe
To leave that brimming river;
If once into that room you go
Your fate is sealed forever.
Farewell, Farewell, a long farewell,
Around the room I spin,
And then a fellow with a knife
Smites me below the chin.
L'Envoi.
Dear reader I was just a hog,
But O it's awful hard
To die disgraced, and then to be--
Turned into "Pure Leaf Lard."
The Lily And The Bee
by Henry Lawson

I Looked upon the lilies
When the morning sun was low,
And the sun shone through a lily
With a softened honey glow.
A spot was in the lily
That moved incessantly,
And when I looked into the cup
I saw a morning bee.
'Consider the lilies!'
But, it occurs to me,
Does any one consider
The lily and the bee?
The lily stands for beauty,
Use, purity, and trust,
It does a four-fold duty,
As all good mortals must.
Its whiteness is to teach us,
Its faith to set us free,
Its beauty is to cheer us,
And its wealth is for the bee.
'Consider the lilies!'
But, it occurs to me,
Does any one consider
The lily and the bee?
The Statesman's Holiday
by William Butler Yeats

I Lived among great houses,
Riches drove out rank,
Base drove out the better blood,
And mind and body shrank.
No Oscar ruled the table,
But I'd a troop of friends
That knowing better talk had gone
Talked of odds and ends.
Some knew what ailed the world
But never said a thing,
So I have picked a better trade
And night and morning sing:
i{Tall dames go walking in grass-green Avalon.}
Am I a great Lord Chancellor
That slept upon the Sack?
Commanding officer that tore
The khaki from his back?
Or am I de Valera,
Or the King of Greece,
Or the man that made the motors?
Ach, call me what you please!
Here's a Montenegrin lute,
And its old sole string
Makes me sweet music
And I delight to sing:
i{Tall dames go walking in grass-green Avalon.}
With boys and girls about him.
With any sort of clothes,
With a hat out of fashion,
With Old patched shoes,
With a ragged bandit cloak,
With an eye like a hawk,
With a stiff straight back,
With a strutting turkey walk.
With a bag full of pennies,
With a monkey on a chain,
With a great cock's feather,
With an old foul tune.
i{Tall dames go walking in grass-green Avalon.}
The Ivy-Wife
by Thomas Hardy

I longed to love a full-boughed beech
And be as high as he:
I stretched an arm within his reach,
And signalled unity.
But with his drip he forced a breach,
And tried to poison me.
I gave the grasp of partnership
To one of other race 
A plane: he barked him strip by strip
From upper bough to base;
And me therewith; for gone my grip,
My arms could not enlace.
In new affection next I strove
To coll an ash I saw,
And he in trust received my love;
Till with my soft green claw
I cramped and bound him as I wove . . .
Such was my love: ha-ha!
By this I gained his strength and height
Without his rivalry.
But in my triumph I lost sight
Of afterhaps. Soon he,
Being bark-bound, flagged, snapped, fell outright,
And in his fall felled me!
A Worm Will Turn
by William Schwenck Gilbert

I love a man who'll smile and joke
When with misfortune crowned;
Who'll pun beneath a pauper's yoke,
And as he breaks his daily toke,
Conundrums gay propound.
Just such a man was BERNARD JUPP,
He scoffed at Fortune's frown;
He gaily drained his bitter cup 
Though Fortune often threw him up,
It never cast him down.
Though years their share of sorrow bring,
We know that far above
All other griefs, are griefs that spring
From some misfortune happening
To those we really love.
E'en sorrow for another's woe
Our BERNARD failed to quell;
Though by this special form of blow
No person ever suffered so,
Or bore his grief so well.
His father, wealthy and well clad,
And owning house and park,
Lost every halfpenny he had,
And then became (extremely sad!)
A poor attorney's clerk.
All sons it surely would appal,
Except the passing meek,
To see a father lose his all,
And from an independence fall
To one pound ten a week!
But JUPP shook off this sorrow's weight,
And, like a Christian son,
Proved Poverty a happy fate 
Proved Wealth to be a devil's bait,
To lure poor sinners on.
With other sorrows BERNARD coped,
For sorrows came in packs;
His cousins with their housemaids sloped 
His uncles forged his aunts eloped 
His sisters married blacks.
But BERNARD, far from murmuring
(Exemplar, friends, to us),
Determined to his faith to cling, 
He made the best of everything,
And argued softly thus:
"'Twere harsh my uncles' forging knack
Too rudely to condemn 
My aunts, repentant, may come back,
And blacks are nothing like as black
As people colour them!"
Still Fate, with many a sorrow rife,
Maintained relentless fight:
His grandmamma next lost her life,
Then died the mother of his wife,
But still he seemed all right.
His brother fond (the only link
To life that bound him now)
One morning, overcome by drink,
He broke his leg (the right, I think)
In some disgraceful row.
But did my BERNARD swear and curse?
Oh no to murmur loth,
He only said, "Go, get a nurse:
Be thankful that it isn't worse;
You might have broken both!"
But worms who watch without concern
The cockchafer on thorns,
Or beetles smashed, themselves will turn
If, walking through the slippery fern,
You tread upon their corns.
One night as BERNARD made his track
Through Brompton home to bed,
A footpad, with a vizor black,
Took watch and purse, and dealt a crack
On BERNARD'S saint-like head.
It was too much his spirit rose,
He looked extremely cross.
Men thought him steeled to mortal foes,
But no he bowed to countless blows,
But kicked against this loss.
He finally made up his mind
Upon his friends to call;
Subscription lists were largely signed,
For men were really glad to find
Him mortal, after all!
Too Late.
by Madison Julius Cawein

I looked upon a dead girl's face and heard
What seemed the voice of Love call unto me
Out of her heart; whereon the charactery
Of her lost dreams I read there word for word: 
How on her soul no soul had touched, or stirred
Her Life's sad depths to rippling melody,
Or made the imaged longing, there, to be
The realization of a hope deferred.
So in her life had Love behaved to her.
Between the lonely chapters of her years
And her young eyes making no golden blur
With god-bright face and hair; who led me to
Her side at last, and bade me, through my tears,
With Death's dumb face, too late, to see and know.
Waiting and Wishing
by Henry Kendall

I loiter by this surging sea,
Here, by this surging, sooming sea,
Here, by this wailing, wild-faced sea,
Dreaming through the dreamy night;
Yearning for a strange delight!
Will it ever, ever, ever fly to me,
By this surging sea,
By this surging, sooming sea,
By this wailing, wild-faced sea?
I know some gentle spirit lives,
Some loving, lonely spirit lives,
Some melancholy spirit lives,
Walking o'er the earth for me,
Searching round the world for me!
Will she ever, ever, ever hither come?
Where the waters roam,
Where the sobbing waters roam!
Where the raving waters roam!
All worn and wasted by the storms,
All gapped and fractured by the storms,
All split and splintered by the storms,
Overhead the caverns groan,
Gloomy, ghastly caverns groan!
Will she ever, ever, ever fill this heart?
Peace, O longing heart!
Peace, O longing, beating heart!
Peace, O beating, weary heart!
Penniwit, the Artist
by Edgar Lee Masters

I lost my patronage in Spoon River
From trying to put my mind in the camera
To catch the soul of the person.
The very best picture I ever took
Was of Judge Somers, attorney at law.
He sat upright and had me pause
Till he got his cross-eye straight.
Then when he was ready he said "all right."
And I yelled "overruled" and his eye turned up.
And I caught him just as he used to look
When saying "I except."
Archibald Higbie
by Edgar Lee Masters

I loathed you, Spoon River.
I tried to rise above you,
I was ashamed of you.
I despised you
As the place of my nativity.
And there in Rome, among the artists,
Speaking Italian, speaking French,
I seemed to myself at times to be free
Of every trace of my origin.
I seemed to be reaching the heights of art
And to breathe the air that the masters breathed
And to see the world with their eyes.
But still they'd pass my work and say:
"What are you driving at, my friend?
Sometimes the face looks like Apollo's
At others it has a trace of Lincoln's."
There was no culture, you know, in Spoon River
And I burned with shame and held my peace.
And what could I do, all covered over
And weighted down with western soil
Except aspire, and pray for another
Birth in the world, with all of Spoon River
Rooted out of my soul?
Wild Swans
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I looked in my heart while the wild swans went over.
And what did I see I had not seen before?
Only a question less or a question more;
Nothing to match the flight of wild birds flying.
Tiresome heart, forever living and dying,
House without air, I leave you and lock your door.
Wild swans, come over the town, come over
The town again, trailing your legs and crying!
I Look To Science
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I look to Science for the cure of Crime;
To patient righting of a thousand wrongs;
To final healing of a thousand ills.
Blind runner now, and cruel egotist
It yet leads on to more than mortal sight,
And the large knowledge that means humbleness,
And tender love for all created things.
I look to Science for the Coming Race
Growing from seed selected; and from soil
Love fertilised; and pruned by wisdom's hand,
Till out of mortal man spring demi-gods,
Strong primal creatures with awakened souls
And normal passions, governed by the will,
Leaving a trail of glory where they tread.
I look to Science for the growth of faith.
That bold denier of accepted creeds - 
That mighty doubter of accepted truths - 
Shall yet reveal God's secrets to the world,
And prove the facts it seeks to overthrow.
And a new name shall Science henceforth bear - 
The Great Religion of the Universe.
I Look Into My Glass
by Thomas Hardy

I look into my glass,
And view my wasting skin,
And say, "Would God it came to pass
My heart had shrunk as thin!"
For then, I, undistrest
By hearts grown cold to me,
Could lonely wait my endless rest
With equanimity.
But Time, to make me grieve;
Part steals, lets part abide;
And shakes this fragile frame at eve
With throbbings of noontide.
I Would Not Live Alway.
by Mary Gardiner Horsford

I looked upon the fair young flowers
That in our gardens bloom,
Gazed on their winning loveliness,
And then upon the tomb;
I looked upon the smiling earth,
The blue and cloudless sky,
And murmured in my spirit's depths,
"O I can never die!"
I heard my sister's joyous laugh,
As she danced lightly by,
Her heart was glad with love and hope,
Its pulse with youth beat high;
I sought my mother's quiet smile,
She fondly drew me nigh,
And still I said within my heart,
"O I can never die!"
Stern winter came, - the fairy flowers
Were swept by storms away,
And swiftly passed the verdant bloom
Of summer's lovely day;
My mother's smile grew more serene,
And brighter was her eye,
And now I know her only as
An angel in the sky.
And sorrow's wing had cast a shade
Upon my sister's smile,
Had checked the voice of gladsome mirth,
And bounding step the while;
And when the bright spring came again,
And clouds forsook the sky,
Then I knelt down and thanked my God
There was a time to die.
Retrospection
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I look down the lengthening distance
Far back to youth's valley of hope.
How strange seemed the ways of existence,
How infinite life and its scope!
What dreams, what ambitions came thronging
To people a world of my own!
How the heart in my bosom was longing,
For pleasures and places unknown.
But the hill-tops of pleasure and beauty
Were covered with mist at the dawn;
And only the rugged road Duty
Shone clear, as my feet wandered on.
I loved not the path and its leading,
I hated the rocks and the dust;
But a Voice from the Silence was pleading,
It spoke but one syllable - "Trust."
I saw, as the morning grew older,
The fair flowered hills of delight;
And the feet of my comrades grew bolder,
They hurried away from my sight.
And when on the pathway I faltered,
And when I rebelled at my fate,
The Voice with assurance unaltered,
Again spoke one syllable - "Wait."
Along the hard highway I travelled
And saw, with dim vision, how soon
The morning's gold locks were unravelled,
By fingers of amorous noon.
A turn in the pathway of duty - 
I stood in the perfect day's prime,
Close, close to the hillside of beauty
The Voice from the Silence said "Climb"
The road to the beautiful Regions
Lies ever through Duty's hard way.
Oh ye who go searching in legions,
Know this and be patient to-day.
Sonnet CXCV.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

I' mi vivea di mia sorte contento.
HE FEARS THAT AN ILLNESS WHICH HAS ATTACKED THE EYES OF LAURA MAY DEPRIVE HIM OF THEIR SIGHT.
I lived so tranquil, with my lot content,
No sorrow visited, nor envy pined,
To other loves if fortune were more kind
One pang of mine their thousand joys outwent;
But those bright eyes, whence never I repent
The pains I feel, nor wish them less to find,
So dark a cloud and heavy now does blind,
Seems as my sun of life in them were spent.
O Nature! mother pitiful yet stern,
Whence is the power which prompts thy wayward deeds,
Such lovely things to make and mar in turn?
True, from one living fount all power proceeds:
But how couldst Thou consent, great God of Heaven,
That aught should rob the world of what thy love had given?
MACGREGOR.
Lines To Miss  ---- , Accompanied By A Rose And A Lily.
by John Carr (Sir)

I look'd the fragrant garden round
For what I thought would picture best
Thy beauty and thy modesty;
A lily and a rose I found, - 
With kisses on their leaves imprest,
I send the beauteous pair to thee.
The New God
by Madison Julius Cawein

I look about me, and behold
How all is changed: The sound and sane,
The kind, the true, the hale and old,
That once made strong the features plain
Of life, are cast in other mold,
That bears the stamp of greed and gold
A god unclean, who drags a chain
Of jewelled lust, which men call Gain,
Binding their hearts to all that's vain,
That God at last for punishment
Shall curse with woe and discontent.
A Pause Of Thought
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

I looked for that which is not, nor can be,
And hope deferred made my heart sick in truth:
But years must pass before a hope of youth
Is resigned utterly.
I watched and waited with a steadfast will:
And though the object seemed to flee away
That I so longed for, ever day by day
I watched and waited still.
Sometimes I said: This thing shall be no more;
My expectation wearies and shall cease;
I will resign it now and be at peace:
Yet never gave it o'er.
Sometimes I said: It is an empty name
I long for; to a name why should I give
The peace of all the days I have to live?--
Yet gave it all the same.
Alas, thou foolish one! alike unfit
For healthy joy and salutary pain:
Thou knowest the chase useless, and again
Turnest to follow it.