DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Song Of A Second April
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

April this year, not otherwise
Than April of a year ago,
Is full of whispers, full of sighs,
Of dazzling mud and dingy snow;
Hepaticas that pleased you so
Are here again, and butterflies.
There rings a hammering all day,
And shingles lie about the doors;
In orchards near and far away
The grey wood-pecker taps and bores;
The men are merry at their chores,
And children earnest at their play.
The larger streams run still and deep,
Noisy and swift the small brooks run
Among the mullein stalks the sheep
Go up the hillside in the sun,
Pensively,--only you are gone,
You that alone I cared to keep.
Death And Life.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Apparently with no surprise
To any happy flower,
The frost beheads it at its play
In accidental power.
The blond assassin passes on,
The sun proceeds unmoved
To measure off another day
For an approving God.
Tis An Old Tale And Often Told.
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

Are they indeed the bitterest tears we shed,
Those we let fall over the silent dead?
Can our thoughts image forth no darker doom,
Than that which wraps us in the peaceful tomb?
Whom have ye laid beneath that mossy grave,
Round which the slender, sunny, grass-blades wave?
Who are ye calling back to tread again
This weary walk of life? towards whom, in vain,
Are your fond eyes and yearning hearts upraised;
The young, the loved, the honoured, and the praised?
Come hither; - look upon the faded cheek
Of that still woman, who with eyelids meek
Veils her most mournful eyes; - upon her brow
Sometimes the sensitive blood will faintly glow,
When reckless hands her heart-wounds roughly tear,
But patience oftener sits palely there.
Beauty has left her - hope and joy have long
Fled from her heart, yet she is young, is young;
Has many years, as human tongues would tell,
Upon the face of this blank earth to dwell.
Looks she not sad? 'tis but a tale of old,
Told o'er and o'er, and ever to be told,
The hourly story of our every day,
Which when men hear, they sigh and turn away;
A tale too trite almost to find an ear,
A woe too common to deserve a tear.
She is the daughter of a distant land; - 
Her kindred are far off; - her maiden hand,
Sought for by many, was obtained by one
Who owned a different birthland from her own.
But what reck'd she of that? as low she knelt
Breathing her marriage vows, her fond heart felt,
"For thee, I give up country, home, and friends;
Thy love for each, for all, shall make amends;"
And was she loved? - perishing by her side
The children of her bosom drooped and died;
The bitter life they drew from her cold breast
Flicker'd and failed; she laid them down to rest,
Two pale young blossoms in their early sleep,
And weeping said, "They have not lived to weep."
And weeps she yet? no, to her weary eyes
The bliss of tears, her frozen heart denies;
Complaint, or sigh, breathes not upon her lips,
Her life is one dark, fatal, deep eclipse.
Lead her to the green grave where ye have laid
The creature that ye mourn; - let it be said,
"Here love, and youth, and beauty, are at rest!"
She only sadly murmurs, "Blest! - most blest!"
And turns from gazing, lest her misery
Should make her sin, and pray to Heaven to die.
Canada, 1882.
by John Campbell

"Are hearts here strong enough to found
A glorious people's sway?"
Ask of our rivers as they bound
From hill to plain, or ocean-sound,
If they are strong to-day?
If weakness in their floods be found,
Then may ye answer "Nay!"
"Is union yours? may foeman's might
Your love ne'er break or chain?"
Go see if o'er our land the flight
Of Spring be stayed by blast or blight;
If Fall bring never grain;
If Summer suns deny their light,
Then may our hope be vain!
"Yet far too cramped the narrow space
Your country's rule can own?"
Ah! travel all its bounds and trace
Each Alp unto its fertile base,
Our realm of forests lone,
Our world of prairie, like the face
Of ocean, hardly known!
"Yet for the arts to find a shrine,
Too rough, I ween, and rude?"
Yea, if you find no flower divine
With prairie grass or hardy pine.
No lilies with the wood,
Or on the water-meadows' line
No purple Iris' flood!
"You deem a nation here shall stand,
United, great, and free?"
Yes, see how Liberty's own hand
With ours the continent hath spanned,
Strong-arched, from sea to sea:
Our Canada's her chosen land,
Her roof and crown to be!
The Seven Old Men
by Charles Baudelaire

Ant-like city, city full of dreams,
where the passer-by, at dawn, meets the spectre!
Mysteries everywhere are the sap that streams
through the narrow veins of this great ogre.
One morning, when, on the dreary street,
the buildings all seemed heightened, cold
a swollen river's banks carved out to greet,
(their stage-set mirroring an actor's soul),
the dirty yellow fog that flooded space,
arguing with my already weary soul,
steeling my nerves like a hero, I paced
suburbs shaken by the carts' drum-roll.
Suddenly, an old man in rags, their yellow
mirroring the colour of the rain-filled sky,
whose looks alone prompted alms to flow,
except for the evil glittering of his eye,
appeared. You'd have thought his eyeballs
steeped in gall: his gaze intensified the cold,
and his long beard, as rigid as a sword,
was jutting out like Judas's of old.
He was not bent but broken, his spine
made a sharp right angle with his legs,
so that the stick, perfecting his line,
gave him the awkward shape and step
of three-legged usurer, or sick quadruped.
Wading through snow and mud he went
as if, under his feet, he crushed the dead,
hostile to the world, not just indifferent.
Then his double: beard, eyes, rags, stick, back,
no trait distinguished his centenarian twin:
they marched in step, two ghosts of the Baroque,
sprung from one hell, towards some unknown end.
Was I the butt of some infamous game,
some evil chance, aimed at humiliation?
Since minute by minute, I counted seven,
of that sinister old man's multiplication!
Whoever smiles at my anxiety,
and balks at shivering, the un-fraternal,
consider then, despite their senility,
those seven vile monsters looked eternal!
Could I have lived to see an eighth: yet one
more ironic, fatal, inexorable replication,
loathsome Phoenix, his own father and son?
I turned my back on that hell-bent procession.
Exasperated, a drunk that sees things doubled,
I stumbled home, slammed the door, terrified,
sick, depressed, mind feverish and troubled,
wounded by mystery, the absurd, outside!
In vain my reason tried to take command,
its efforts useless in the tempest's roar,
my soul, a mastless barge, danced, and danced,
over some monstrous sea without a shore!
Elogio Al Aprendizaje
by Bertolt Brecht

[Original]
'Aprende las cosas elementarias!
'Para aquellos a quienes les ha llegado la hora nunca es demasadio tarde!
Aprende el abecedario. No bastar',
'pero apr'ndolo! 'No dejes que te desanimen!
'Comienza! Debes saber todo.
Tienes que ser dirigente.
'Aprende, hombre en el asilo!
'Aprende, hombre en la prisi'n!
'Aprende, mujer en la cocina!
'Aprende, t' que tienes 60 a'os!
Tienes que ser dirigente.
'Busca la esquela, t' que no tienes casa!
'No tengas miedo de preguntar, camarada!
No dejes que te induzcan a nada.
'Investiga por ti mismo!
Lo que no sepas t' mismo no lo conoces.
Examina los detalles a fondo;
eres t' 'l que paga las consequencias.
Pon tu dedo en cada detalle, pregunta: 'C'mo lleg' esto aqui?
Tienes que ser dirigente.
Nursery Rhyme. XXXVIII. Literal
by Unknown

Apple-pie, pudding, and pancake,
All begins with an A.
Nursery Rhyme. DCLI. Relics.
by Unknown

Around the green gravel the grass grows green,
And all the pretty maids are plain to be seen;
Wash them with milk, and clothe them with silk,
And write their names with a pen and ink.
Neglect.
by Robert Herrick

Art quickens nature; care will make a face;
Neglected beauty perisheth apace.
For Fasting Days.
by Muriel Stuart

Are you my songs, importunate of praise?
Be still, remember for your comforting
That sweeter birds have had less leave to sing
Before men piped them from their lonely ways.
Greener leaves than yours are lost in every spring
Rubies far redder thrust their eager rays
Into the blindfold dark for many days
Before men chose them for a finger-ring.
Sing as you dare, not as men choose, receive not
The passing fashion's prize, for dole or due -
Men's summer-sweet unrecognition - grieve not:
Oh, stoop not to them!    Better far that you
Should go unsung than sing as you believe not,
Should go uncrowned than to yourselves untrue.
Lightning-bugs.
by Hattie Howard

Around my vine-wreathed portico,
At evening, there's a perfect glow
Of little lights a-flashing - 
As if the stellar bodies had
From super-heat grown hyper-mad,
And spend their ire in clashing.
As frisky each as shooting star,
These tiny electricians are
The Lampyrine Linn'an - 
Or lightning-bugs, that sparkling gleam
Like scintillations in a dream
Of something empyrean.
They brush my face, light up my hair,
My garments touch, dart everywhere;
And if I try to catch them
They're quicker than the wicked flea - 
And then I wonder how 'twould be
To have a dress to match them.
To be a "princess in disguise,"
And wear a robe of fireflies
All strung and wove together,
And be the cynosure of all
At Madame Haut-ton's carnival,
In fashion's gayest feather.
So, sudden, falls upon the grass
The overpow'ring light of gas,
And through the lattice streaming;
As wearily I close my eyes
Brief are the moments that suffice
To reach the land of dreaming.
Now at the ball, superbly dressed
As I suppose, to eclipse the rest,
Within an alcove shady
A brilliant flame I hope to be,
While all admire and envy me,
The "bright electric lady."
But, ah, they never shine at all!
My eyes ignite - I leave the hall,
For wrathful tears have filled them;
I could have crushed them on the spot - 
The bugs, I mean! - and quite forgot
That stringing them had killed them.
The Municipal Gallery Revisited
by William Butler Yeats

Around me the images of thirty years:
An ambush; pilgrims at the water-side;
Casement upon trial, half hidden by the bars,
Guarded; Griffith staring in hysterical pride;
Kevin O'Higgins' countenance that wears
A gentle questioning look that cannot hide
A soul incapable of remorse or rest;
A revolutionary soldier kneeling to be blessed;
An Abbot or Archbishop with an upraised hand
Blessing the Tricolour. "This is not,' I say,
"The dead Ireland of my youth, but an Ireland
The poets have imagined, terrible and gay.'
Before a woman's portrait suddenly I stand,
Beautiful and gentle in her Venetian way.
I met her all but fifty years ago
For twenty minutes in some studio.
III
Heart-smitten with emotion I Sink down,
My heart recovering with covered eyes;
Wherever I had looked I had looked upon
My permanent or impermanent images:
Augusta Gregory's son; her sister's son,
Hugh Lane, "onlie begetter' of all these;
Hazel Lavery living and dying, that tale
As though some ballad-singer had sung it all;
Mancini's portrait of Augusta Gregory,
"Greatest since Rembrandt,' according to John Synge;
A great ebullient portrait certainly;
But where is the brush that could show anything
Of all that pride and that humility?
And I am in despair that time may bring
Approved patterns of women or of men
But not that selfsame excellence again.
My mediaeval knees lack health until they bend,
But in that woman, in that household where
Honour had lived so long, all lacking found.
Childless I thought, "My children may find here
Deep-rooted things,' but never foresaw its end,
And now that end has come I have not wept;
No fox can foul the lair the badger swept --
VI
(An image out of Spenser and the common tongue).
John Synge, I and Augusta Gregory, thought
All that we did, all that we said or sang
Must come from contact with the soil, from that
Contact everything Antaeus-like grew strong.
We three alone in modern times had brought
Everything down to that sole test again,
Dream of the noble and the beggar-man.
VII
And here's John Synge himself, that rooted man,
"Forgetting human words,' a grave deep face.
You that would judge me, do not judge alone
This book or that, come to this hallowed place
Where my friends' portraits hang and look thereon;
Ireland's history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man's glory most begins and ends,
And say my glory was I had such friends.
Memorials Of A Tour On The Continent, 1820 - XIII. - Memorial
by William Wordsworth

Near The Outlet Of The Lake Of Thun
"Dem
Andenken
Meines Freundes
Aloys Reding
MDCCCXVIII."
Around a wild and woody hill
A gravelled pathway treading,
We reached a votive Stone that bears
The name of Aloys Reding.
Well judged the Friend who placed it there
For silence and protection;
And haply with a finer care
Of dutiful affection.
The Sun regards it from the West;
And, while in summer glory
He sets, his sinking yields a type
Of that pathetic story:
And oft he tempts the patriot Swiss
Amid the grove to linger;
Till all is dim, save this bright Stone
Touched by his golden finger.
The Time And The Deed.
by Jean Blewett

Art going to do a kindly deed?
'Tis never too soon to begin;
Make haste, make haste, for the moments speed,
The world, my dear one, has pressing need
Of your tender thought and kindly deed.
'Tis never too soon to begin.
But if the deed be a selfish one,
'Tis ever too soon to begin;
If some heart will be sorer when all is done,
Put it off! put it off from sun to sun,
Remembering always, my own dear one,
'Tis ever too soon to begin.
Copan
by Clark Ashton Smith

Around its walls the forests of the west
Gloom, as about some mystery's final pale
Might lie its multifold exterior veil.
Sculptured with signs and meanings unconfessed,
Its lordly fanes and palaces attest
A past before whose wall of darkness fail
Reason and fancy, finding not the tale
Erased by time from history's palimpsest.
Within this place, that from the gloom of Eld
Still meets the light, a people came and went
Like whirls of dust between its columns blown -
An alien race, whose record, shadow-held,
Is sealed with those of others long forespent
That died in sunless planets lost and lone.
Happy Days.
by Kate Greenaway

"Are you going next week to see Phillis and Phoebe?
Phillis on Monday will be just fourteen.
She says we shall all have our tea in the garden,
And afterwards have some nice games on the green.
"I wanted a new frock, but mother said, 'No,'
So I must be content with my old one you see.
But then white is so pretty, and kind Aunt Matilda
Has sent down a beautiful necklace for me."
"Oh, yes, I am going, and Peggy is going,
And mother is making us new frocks to wear;
I shall have my red sash and my hat with pink ribbons 
I know all the girls will be smart who are there.
"And then, too, we're going to each take a nosegay 
The larger the better for Phillis to say
That all her friends love her, and wish her so happy,
And bring her sweet flowers upon her birthday.
"And won't it be lovely, in beautiful sunshine,
The table spread under the great apple tree,
To see little Phillis that dear little Phillis 
Look smiling all round as she pours out the tea!"
Are You The New Person, Drawn Toward Me?
by Walt Whitman

Are you the new person drawn toward me?
To begin with, take warning--I am surely far different from what you suppose;
Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal?
Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover?
Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy'd satisfaction?
Do you think I am trusty and faithful?
Do you see no further than this fa'ade--this smooth and tolerant manner of me?
Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man?
Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all maya, illusion?
Birds At Winter Nightfall - (Triolet)
by Thomas Hardy

Around the house the flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone
From holly and cotoneaster
Around the house. The flakes fly! - faster
Shutting indoors that crumb-outcaster
We used to see upon the lawn
Around the house. The flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone!
MAX GATE.
Inscription II. For A Column At Newbury.
by Robert Southey

Art thou a Patriot Traveller? on this field
Did FALKLAND fall the blameless and the brave
Beneath a Tyrant's banners: dost thou boast
Of loyal ardor? HAMBDEN perish'd here,
The rebel HAMBDEN, at whose glorious name
The heart of every honest Englishman
Beats high with conscious pride. Both uncorrupt,
Friends to their common country both, they fought,
They died in adverse armies. Traveller!
If with thy neighbour thou should'st not accord,
In charity remember these good men,
And quell each angry and injurious thought.
On The Frith Of Clyde - In A Steamboat
by William Wordsworth

Arran! a single-crested Teneriffe,
A St. Helena next in shape and hue,
Varying her crowded peaks and ridges blue;
Who but must covet a cloud-seat, or skiff
Built for the air, or winged Hippogriff?
That he might fly, where no one could pursue,
From this dull Monster and her sooty crew;
And, as a God, light on thy topmost cliff.
Impotent wish! which reason would despise
If the mind knew no union of extremes,
No natural bond between the boldest schemes,
Ambition frames, and heart-humilities.
Beneath stern mountains many a soft vale lies,
And lofty springs give birth to lowly streams.
To-Day's Burden.
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

"Arise, depart, for this is not your rest."
Oh, burden of all burdens, - still to arise
And still depart, nor rest in any wise!
Rolling, still rolling thus to east from west,
Earth journeys on her immemorial quest,
Whom a moon chases in no different guise.
Thus stars pursue their courses, and thus flies
The sun, and thus all creatures manifest
Unrest, the common heritage, the ban
Flung broadcast on all humankind, - on all
Who live; for living, all are bound to die.
That which is old, we know that it is man.
These have no rest who sit and dream and sigh,
Nor have those rest who wrestle and who fall.
Hymn Of The Puritans (From Maria Stuart)
by Bj'rnstjerne Martinius Bj'rnson

Arm me, Lord, my strength redouble,
Heaven open, heed my trouble!
God, if my cause Thine shall be,
Grant a day of victory!
Fell all Thy foes now!
Fell all Thy foes now!
Roll forth Thy thunders, Thy lightning affright them,
Into the pit, the bottomless, smite them,
Their seed uproot,
Tread under foot!
Send then Thy snowy white dove peace-bringing,
Unto Thy faithful Thy token winging,
Olive-branch fair of Thy summer's fruition
After the deluge of sin's punition!
Happiness
by Madison Julius Cawein

Around its mountain many footpaths wind,
But only one unto its top attains;
Not he who searches closest, takes most pains,
But he who seeks not, that one way may find.
To A Woman Passing By
by Charles Baudelaire

Around me roared the nearly deafening street.
Tall, slim, in mourning, in majestic grief,
A woman passed me, with a splendid hand
Lifting and swinging her festoon and hem;
Nimble and stately, statuesque ofleg.
I, shaking like an addict, from her eye,
Black sky, spawner of hurricanes, drank in
Sweetness that fascinates, pleasure that kills.
One lightning flash... then night! Sweet fugitive
Whose glance has made me suddenly reborn,
Will we not meet again this side of death?
Far from this place! too late! never perhaps!
Neither one knowing where the other goes,
O you I might have loved, as well you know!
1861
by Walt Whitman

Arm'd year! year of the struggle!
No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you, terrible year!
Not you as some pale poetling, seated at a desk, lisping cadenzas piano;
But as a strong man, erect, clothed in blue clothes, advancing,
carrying a rifle on your shoulder,
With well-gristled body and sunburnt face and hands--with a knife in the belt at your side,
As I heard you shouting loud--your sonorous voice ringing across the continent;
Your masculine voice, O year, as rising amid the great cities,
Amid the men of Manhattan I saw you, as one of the workmen, the dwellers in Manhattan;
Or with large steps crossing the prairies out of Illinois and Indiana,
Rapidly crossing the West with springy gait, and descending the Alleghanies;
Or down from the great lakes, or in Pennsylvania, or on deck along the Ohio river;
Or southward along the Tennessee or Cumberland rivers, or at Chattanooga on the mountain top,
Saw I your gait and saw I your sinewy limbs, clothed in blue, bearing weapons, robust year;
Heard your determin'd voice, launch'd forth again and again;
Year that suddenly sang by the mouths of the round-lipp'd cannon,
I repeat you, hurrying, crashing, sad, distracted year.
An Ode, Written October, 1819, Before The Spaniards Had Recovered Their Liberty.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Arise, arise, arise!
There is blood on the earth that denies ye bread;
Be your wounds like eyes
To weep for the dead, the dead, the dead.
What other grief were it just to pay?
Your sons, your wives, your brethren, were they;
Who said they were slain on the battle day?
Awaken, awaken, awaken!
The slave and the tyrant are twin-born foes;
Be the cold chains shaken
To the dust where your kindred repose, repose:
Their bones in the grave will start and move,
When they hear the voices of those they love,
Most loud in the holy combat above.
Wave, wave high the banner!
When Freedom is riding to conquest by:
Though the slaves that fan her
Be Famine and Toil, giving sigh for sigh.
And ye who attend her imperial car,
Lift not your hands in the banded war,
But in her defence whose children ye are.
Glory, glory, glory,
To those who have greatly suffered and done!
Never name in story
Was greater than that which ye shall have won.
Conquerors have conquered their foes alone,
Whose revenge, pride, and power they have overthrown
Ride ye, more victorious, over your own.
Bind, bind every brow
With crownals of violet, ivy, and pine:
Hide the blood-stains now
With hues which sweet Nature has made divine:
Green strength, azure hope, and eternity:
But let not the pansy among them be;
Ye were injured, and that means memory.
O Cupid, Cupid; Get Your Bow!
by Henry Lawson

Arming down along the stream,
Along the sparkling water,
And past the pool where lilies gleam,
There comes the squatter's daughter.
Her eyes are kind; her lips are warm;
And like a flower her face is;
The habit shows her bonny form
As graceful as a Grace's.
O I'll be mad of love, I know;
My head she'll surely addle;
O Cupid, Cupid; get your bow;
And shoot her from the saddle!
For, like a bird on breezes waft,
She quickly, quickly passes;
O Cupid, Cupid, draw your shaft;
And bring her to the grasses!
O she is worthy game for you;
And there is none to match her.
So, Cupid, send your arrow true;
And I'll be there to catch her!
London Types - IX. Mounted Police
by William Ernest Henley

Army Reserve; a worshipper of BOBS,
With whom he stripped the smock from CANDAHAR;
Neat as his mount, that neatest among cobs;
Whenever pageants pass, or meetings are,
He moves conspicuous, vigilant, severe,
With his Light Cavalry hand and seat and look,
A living type of Order, in whose sphere
Is room for neither Hooligan nor Hook.
For in his shadow, wheresoe'er he ride,
Paces, all eye and hardihood and grip,
The dreaded Crusher, might in his every stride
And right materialized girt at his hip;
And they, that shake to see these twain go by,
Feel that the Tec, that plain-clothes Terror, is nigh.