DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Suicide's Argument
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Ere the birth of my life, if I wished it or no
No question was asked me, it could not be so!
If the life was the question, a thing sent to try
And to live on be YES; what can NO be? to die.
NATURE'S ANSWER
Is't returned, as 'twas sent? Is't no worse for the wear?
Think first, what you ARE! Call to mind what you WERE!
I gave you innocence, I gave you hope,
Gave health, and genius, and an ample scope,
Return you me guilt, lethargy, despair?
Make out the invent'ry; inspect, compare!
Then die, if die you dare!
Ringel Tanz
by Walter Crane

Es regnet auf der Br'cke, und ich werd' nass.
Ich hab' noch was vergessen, und weiss nicht was?
Sch'ne Jungfer h'bsch und fein
Komm mit mir zum Tanz herein,
Lass uns einmal tanzen und lustig sein.
The Passion.
by John Milton

I
Ere-while of Musick, and Ethereal mirth,
Wherwith the stage of Ayr and Earth did ring,
And joyous news of heav'nly Infants birth,
My muse with Angels did divide to sing;
But headlong joy is ever on the wing,
In Wintry solstice like the shortn'd light
Soon swallow'd up in dark and long out-living night.
II
For now to sorrow must I tune my song,
And set my Harpe to notes of saddest wo,
Which on our dearest Lord did sease er'e long,
Dangers, and snares, and wrongs, and worse then so,
Which he for us did freely undergo.
Most perfect Heroe, try'd in heaviest plight
Of labours huge and hard, too hard for human wight.
III
He sov'ran Priest stooping his regall head
That dropt with odorous oil down his fair eyes,
Poor fleshly Tabernacle entered,
His starry front low-rooft beneath the skies;
O what a Mask was there, what a disguise!
Yet more; the stroke of death he must abide,
Then lies him meekly down fast by his Brethrens side.
IV
These latter scenes confine my roving vers,
To this Horizon is my Phoebus bound,
His Godlike acts, and his temptations fierce,
And former sufferings other where are found;
Loud o're the rest Cremona's Trump doth sound;
Me softer airs befit, and softer strings
Of Lute, or Viol still, more apt for mournful things.
V
Befriend me night best Patroness of grief,
Over the Pole thy thickest mantle throw,
And work my flatterd fancy to belief,
That Heav'n and Earth are colour'd with my wo;
My sorrows are too dark for day to know:
The leaves should all be black wheron I write,
And letters where my tears have washt a wannish white.
VI
See see the Chariot, and those rushing wheels,
That whirl'd the Prophet up at Chebar flood,
My spirit som transporting Cherub feels,
To bear me where the Towers of Salem stood,
Once glorious Towers, now sunk in guiltles blood;
There doth my soul in holy vision sit
In pensive trance, and anguish, and ecstatick fit.
VII
Mine eye hath found that sad Sepulchral rock
That was the Casket of Heav'ns richest store,
And here though grief my feeble hands up-lock,
Yet on the softned Quarry would I score
My plaining vers as lively as before;
For sure so well instructed are my tears,
They would fitly fall in order'd Characters.
VIII
I thence hurried on viewles wing,
Take up a weeping on the Mountains wilde,
The gentle neighbourhood of grove and spring
Would soon unboosom all their Echoes milde,
And I (for grief is easily beguild)
Might think th'infection of my sorrows bound,
Had got a race of mourners on som pregnant cloud.
The Burial-Place. - A Fragment.
by William Cullen Bryant

Erewhile, on England's pleasant shores, our sires
Left not their churchyards unadorned with shades
Or blossoms; and indulgent to the strong
And natural dread of man's last home, the grave,
Its frost and silence, they disposed around,
To soothe the melancholy spirit that dwelt
Too sadly on life's close, the forms and hues
Of vegetable beauty. There the yew,
Green even amid the snows of winter, told
Of immortality, and gracefully
The willow, a perpetual mourner, drooped;
And there the gadding woodbine crept about,
And there the ancient ivy. From the spot
Where the sweet maiden, in her blossoming years
Cut off, was laid with streaming eyes, and hands
That trembled as they placed her there, the rose
Sprung modest, on bowed stalk, and better spoke
Her graces, than the proudest monument.
There children set about their playmate's grave
The pansy. On the infant's little bed,
Wet at its planting with maternal tears,
Emblem of early sweetness, early death,
Nestled the lowly primrose. Childless dames,
And maids that would not raise the reddened eye,
Orphans, from whose young lids the light of joy
Fled early, silent lovers, who had given
All that they lived for to the arms of earth,
Came often, o'er the recent graves to strew
Their offerings, rue, and rosemary, and flowers.
The pilgrim bands who passed the sea to keep
Their Sabbaths in the eye of God alone,
In his wide temple of the wilderness,
Brought not these simple customs of the heart
With them. It might be, while they laid their dead
By the vast solemn skirts of the old groves,
And the fresh virgin soil poured forth strange flowers
About their graves; and the familiar shades
Of their own native isle, and wonted blooms,
And herbs were wanting, which the pious hand
Might plant or scatter there, these gentle rites
Passed out of use. Now they are scarcely known,
And rarely in our borders may you meet
The tall larch, sighing in the burying-place,
Or willow, trailing low its boughs to hide
The gleaming marble. Naked rows of graves
And melancholy ranks of monuments
Are seen instead, where the coarse grass, between,
Shoots up its dull green spikes, and in the wind
Hisses, and the neglected bramble nigh,
Offers its berries to the schoolboy's hand,
In vain, they grow too near the dead. Yet here,
Nature, rebuking the neglect of man,
Plants often, by the ancient mossy stone,
The brier rose, and upon the broken turf
That clothes the fresher grave, the strawberry vine
Sprinkles its swell with blossoms, and lays forth
Her ruddy, pouting fruit. * * * * *
The Singing Wire
by George Parsons Lathrop

Ethereal, faint that music rang,
As, with the bosom of the breeze,
It rose and fell and murmuring sang
Aeolian harmonies!
I turned; again the mournful chords,
In random rhythm lightly flung
From off the wire, came shaped in words;
And thus meseemed, they sung:
"I, messenger of many fates,
Strung to the tones of woe or weal,
Fine nerve that thrills and palpitates
With all men know or feel, - 
"Is it so strange that I should wail?
Leave me my tearless, sad refrain,
When in the pine-top wakes the gale
That breathes of coming rain.
"There is a spirit in the post;
It, too, was once a murmuring tree;
Its withered, sad, imprisoned ghost
Echoes my melody.
"Come close, and lay your listening ear
Against the bare and branchless wood.
Can you not hear it crooning clear,
As though it understood?"
I listened to the branchless pole
That held aloft the singing wire;
I heard its muffled music roll,
And stirred with sweet desire:
"O wire more soft than seasoned lute,
Hast thou no sunlit word for me?
Though long to me so coyly mute,
Her heart may speak through thee!"
I listened, but it was in vain.
At first, the wind's old wayward will
Drew forth the tearless, sad refrain.
That ceased; and all was still.
But suddenly some kindling shock
Struck flashing through the wire: a bird,
Poised on it, screamed and flew; the flock
Rose with him; wheeled and whirred.
Then to my soul there came this sense:
"Her heart has answered unto thine;
She comes, to-night. Go, speed thee hence:
Meet her; no more repine!"
Perhaps the fancy was far-fetched;
And yet, perhaps, it hinted true.
Ere moonrise, Love, a hand was stretched
In mine, that gave me - you!
And so more dear to me has grown
Than rarest tones swept from the lyre,
The minor movement of that moan
In yonder singing wire.
Nor care I for the will of states,
Or aught beside, that smites that string,
Since then so close it knit our fates,
What time the bird took wing!
The River Duddon - A Series Of Sonnets, 1820. - VI - Flowers
by William Wordsworth

Ere yet our course was graced with social trees
It lacked not old remains of hawthorn bowers,
Where small birds warbled to their paramours;
And, earlier still, was heard the hum of bees;
I saw them ply their harmless robberies,
And caught the fragrance which the sundry flowers,
Fed by the stream with soft perpetual showers,
Plenteously yielded to the vagrant breeze.
There bloomed the strawberry of the wilderness;
The trembling eyebright showed her sapphire blue,
The thyme her purple, like the blush of Even;
And if the breath of some to no caress
Invited, forth they peeped so fair to view,
All kinds alike seemed favourites of Heaven.
Com[oe]dia Juris
by James Williams

Est omne jus forense quasi com[oe]dia;
Hic advocatus maximas partes agit
Laudatus undique a procuratoribus,
Labore vocis redditus ditissimus;
Cui brevia nil forensis et quaestus valent
Silenter ille spectat, at pro pr'mio
Fruitur quietus optime com[oe]dia.
The Totem
by Rudyard Kipling

Ere the mother's milk had dried
On my lips, the Brethren came,
Tore me from my nurse's side,
And bestowed on me a name
Infamously overtrue,
Such as "Bunny," "Stinker," "Podge";
But, whatever I should do,
Mine for ever in the Lodge.
Then they taught with palm and toe,
Then I learned with yelps and tears,
All the Armoured Man should know
Through his Seven Secret Years...
Last, oppressing as oppressed,
I was loosed to go my ways
With a Totem on my breast
Governing my nights and days,
Ancient and unbribeable,
By the virtue of its Name,
Which, however oft I fell,
Lashed me back into The Game.
And the World, that never knew,
Saw no more beneath my chin
Than a patch of rainbow-hue,
Mixed as Life and crude as Sin.
Essential Oils Are Wrung:
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Essential oils are wrung:
The attar from the rose
Is not expressed by suns alone,
It is the gift of screws.
The general rose decays;
But this, in lady's drawer,
Makes summer when the lady lies
In ceaseless rosemary.
David
by John Le Gay Brereton

Eternal cold of silence, where each sound
Dies in its birth, and Death's pale henchmen meet
With soft Lethean traps unwary feet
Or ride with hell's white steed and slavering hound;
Which of us, searching selfward, has not found
This desolate realm, and long black seams, that greet
Our souls with recollections of defeat,
And torrid fossils in the frozen ground?
Not he, who comes among us as a king;
Strange were the secret waste and granite walls
To him whose reverent feet have travelled far
Where duty beckons and adventure calls.
He steers his course, by one red tropic star,
Where ripples the green robe of the lilting spring.
To A Skylark
by William Wordsworth

Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!
Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?
Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye
Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?
Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will,
Those quivering wings composed, that music still!
Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;
A privacy of glorious light is thine;
Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood
Of harmony, with instinct more divine;
Type of the wise who soar, but never roam;
True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!
The Song Of The Little Hunter
by Rudyard Kipling

Ere Mor the Peacock flutters, ere the Monkey People cry,
Ere Chil the Kite swoops down a furlong sheer,
Through the Jungle very softly flits a shadow and a sigh,
He is Fear, O Little Hunter, he is Fear! 
Very softly down the glade runs a waiting, watching shade,
And the whisper spreads and widens far and near.
And the sweat is on thy brow, for he passes even now,
He is Fear, O Little Hunter, he is Fear!
Ere the moon has climbed the mountain, ere the rocks are ribbed with light,
When the downward-dipping trails are dank and drear,
Comes a breathing hard behind thee,snuffle-snuffle through the night,
It is Fear, O Little Hunter it is Fear, 
On thy knees and draw the bow; bid the shrilling arrow go;
In the empty, mocking thicket plunge the spear!
But thy hands are loosed and weak, and the blood has left thy cheek, 
It is Fear, O Little Hunter, it is Fear!
When the heat-cloud sucks the tempest, when the slivered pine-trees fall,
When the blinding, blaring rain-squalls lash and veer,
Through the war-gongs of the thunder rings a voice more loud than all,
It is Fear, O Little Hunter, it is Fear! 
Now the spates are banked and deep; now the footless boulders leap,
Now the lightning shows each littlest leaf,rib clear,
But thy throat is shut and dried, and thy heart against thy side 
Hammers: Fear, O Little Hunter,this is Fear!
The Doubter's Prayer
by Anne Bronte

Eternal Power, of earth and air!
Unseen, yet seen in all around,
Remote, but dwelling everywhere,
Though silent, heard in every sound.
If e'er thine ear in mercy bent,
When wretched mortals cried to Thee,
And if, indeed, Thy Son was sent,
To save lost sinners such as me:
Then hear me now, while, kneeling here,
I lift to thee my heart and eye,
And all my soul ascends in prayer,
Oh, give me, give me Faith! I cry.
Without some glimmering in my heart,
I could not raise this fervent prayer;
But, oh! a stronger light impart,
And in Thy mercy fix it there.
While Faith is with me, I am blest;
It turns my darkest night to day;
But while I clasp it to my breast,
I often feel it slide away.
Then, cold and dark, my spirit sinks,
To see my light of life depart;
And every fiend of Hell, methinks,
Enjoys the anguish of my heart.
What shall I do, if all my love,
My hopes, my toil, are cast away,
And if there be no God above,
To hear and bless me when I pray?
If this be vain delusion all,
If death be an eternal sleep,
And none can hear my secret call,
Or see the silent tears I weep!
Oh, help me, God! For thou alone
Canst my distracted soul relieve;
Forsake it not: it is thine own,
Though weak, yet longing to believe.
Oh, drive these cruel doubts away;
And make me know, that Thou art God!
A faith, that shines by night and day,
Will lighten every earthly load.
If I believe that Jesus died,
And, waking, rose to reign above;
Then surely Sorrow, Sin, and Pride,
Must yield to Peace, and Hope, and Love.
And all the blessed words He said
Will strength and holy joy impart:
A shield of safety o'er my head,
A spring of comfort in my heart.
Jadis
by Ernest Christopher Dowson

Erewhile, before the world was old,
When violets grew and celandine,
In Cupid's train we were enrolled:
Erewhile!
Your little hands were clasped in mine,
Your head all ruddy and sun-gold
Lay on my breast which was your shrine,
And all the tale of love was told:
Ah, God, that sweet things should decline,
And fires fade out which were not cold,
Erewhile.
The Spirits Of Light And Darkness.
by Madison Julius Cawein

[VOICES SINGING.]
FIRST CHORUS.
Ere the birth of Death and of Time,
Ere the birth of Hell and its torments,
Ere the orbs of heat and of rime
And the winds to the heavens were as garments,
Worm-like in the womb of Space,
Worm-like from her monster womb,
We sprung, a myriad race
Of thunder and tempest and gloom.
SECOND CHORUS.
As from the evil good
Springs like a fire,
As bland beatitude
Wells from the dire,
So was the Chaos brood
Of us the sire.
FIRST CHORUS.
We had lain for gaunt ages asleep
'Neath her breast in a bulk of torpor,
When down through the vasts of the deep
Clove a sound like the notes of a harper;
Clove a sound, and the horrors grew
Tumultuous with turbulent night,
With whirlwinds of blackness that blew,
And storm that was godly in might.
And the walls of our prison were shattered
Like the crust of a fire-wrecked world;
Like torrents of clouds that are scattered
On the face of the Night we are hurled.
SECOND CHORUS.
Us, in unholy thought
Patiently lying,
Eons of violence wrought,
Violence defying.
When on a mighty wind, - 
Born of a godly mind
Large with a motive kind, - 
Girdled with wonder,
Flame and a strength of song
Rushed in a voice along,
Burst and, lo! we were strong - 
Strong as the thunder.
FIRST CHORUS.
We lurk in the upper spaces,
Where the oceans of tempest are born,
Where the scowls of our shadowy faces
Are safe from the splendors of morn.
Our homes are wrecked worlds and each planet
Whose sun is a light that is sped;
Bleak moons whose cold bodies of granite
Are hollow and flameless and dead.
SECOND CHORUS.
We in the living sun
Live like a passion;
Ere all his stars begun
We and the sun were one,
As God did fashion.
Lo! from our burning hands,
Flung like inspired brands,
Hurled we the stars, like sands
Whirled in the ocean;
And all our breath was life,
Life to those worlds and rife
With ever-moving strife,
Passion for motion.
FIRST CHORUS.
Our beds are the tombs of the mortals;
We feed on their crimes and the thought
That falters and halts at the portals
Of actions, intentions unwrought.
We cover the face of to-morrow;
We frown in the hours that be;
We breathe in the presence of sorrow,
And death and destruction are we.
SECOND CHORUS.
We are the hope and ease,
Joy and the pleasure,
Authors of love and peace,
Love that shall never cease,
Free as the azure.
Birth of our eyes - the might,
Power and strength of light,
Victor o'er death and night,
Flesh and its yearnings:
And from our utt'rance streams
Beauty with burnings
After completer dreams,
Fuller discernings.
Morning and birth are ours,
Dew that is blown
From our light lips like flowers;
Clouds and the beating showers,
Stars that are sown;
Song and the bursting buds,
Life of the many floods,
Winds that are strown.
Ye in your darkness are
Dark and infernal;
Subject to death and mar!
But in the spaces far,
Like our effulgent star,
We are eternal!
Mary Of Marka.
by Bliss Carman (William)

Eric of Marka holds the knife:
"A nameless death for a nameless life."--
"Mary of Marka, bid him stay,
And the morrow shall be our wedding-day."--
"Will the blessing of priest give back my faith,
Or life to the child you left to death?"--
Eric of Marka holds the knife,
And turns to the mother that is no wife:
"Mary of Marka, have your will!
Shall I spare him, or shall I kill?"--
"He wrought me wrong when the days were sweet,
And he'll get no more but a winding-sheet."
Eros
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

I.
Eros, from rest in isles far-famed,
With rising Anthesterion rose,
And all Hellenic heights acclaimed
Eros.
The sea one pearl, the shore one rose,
All round him all the flower-month flamed
And lightened, laughing off repose.
Earth's heart, sublime and unashamed,
Knew, even perchance as man's heart knows,
The thirst of all men's nature named
Eros.
II.
Eros, a fire of heart untamed,
A light of spirit in sense that glows,
Flamed heavenward still ere earth defamed
Eros.
Nor fear nor shame durst curb or close
His golden godhead, marred and maimed,
Fast round with bonds that burnt and froze.
Ere evil faith struck blind and lamed
Love, pure as fire or flowers or snows,
Earth hailed as blameless and unblamed
Eros.
III.
Eros, with shafts by thousands aimed
At laughing lovers round in rows,
Fades from their sight whose tongues proclaimed
Eros.
But higher than transient shapes or shows
The light of love in life inflamed
Springs, toward no goal that these disclose.
Above those heavens which passion claimed
Shines, veiled by change that ebbs and flows,
The soul in all things born or framed,
Eros.
Sonnet CLXXXI.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Gi' desiai con s' giusta querela.
HE LIVES DESTITUTE OF ALL HOPE SAVE THAT OF RENDERING HER IMMORTAL.
Erewhile I labour'd with complaint so true,
And in such fervid rhymes to make me heard,
Seem'd as at last some spark of pity stirr'd
In the hard heart which frost in summer knew.
Th' unfriendly cloud, whose cold veil o'er it grew,
Broke at the first breath of mine ardent word
Or low'ring still she others' blame incurr'd
Her bright and killing eyes who thus withdrew
No ruth for self I crave, for her no hate;
I wish not this--that passes power of mine:
Such was mine evil star and cruel fate.
But I shall ever sing her charms divine,
That, when I have resign'd this mortal breath,
The world may know how sweet to me was death.
MACGREGOR.
Humboldt's Birthday
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Ere yet the warning chimes of midnight sound,
Set back the flaming index of the year,
Track the swift-shifting seasons in their round
Through fivescore circles of the swinging sphere!
Lo, in yon islet of the midland sea
That cleaves the storm-cloud with its snowy crest,
The embryo-heir of Empires yet to be,
A month-old babe upon his mother's breast.
Those little hands that soon shall grow so strong
In their rude grasp great thrones shall rock and fall,
Press her soft bosom, while a nursery song
Holds the world's master in its slender thrall.
Look! a new crescent bends its silver bow;
A new-lit star has fired the eastern sky;
Hark! by the river where the lindens blow
A waiting household hears an infant's cry.
This, too, a conqueror! His the vast domain,
Wider than widest sceptre-shadowed lands;
Earth and the weltering kingdom of the main
Laid their broad charters in his royal hands.
His was no taper lit in cloistered cage,
Its glimmer borrowed from the grove or porch;
He read the record of the planet's page
By Etna's glare and Cotopaxi's torch.
He heard the voices of the pathless woods;
On the salt steppes he saw the starlight shine;
He scaled the mountain's windy solitudes,
And trod the galleries of the breathless mine.
For him no fingering of the love-strung lyre,
No problem vague, by torturing schoolmen vexed;
He fed no broken altar's dying fire,
Nor skulked and scowled behind a Rabbi's text.
For God's new truth he claimed the kingly robe
That priestly shoulders counted all their own,
Unrolled the gospel of the storied globe
And led young Science to her empty throne.
While the round planet on its axle spins
One fruitful year shall boast its double birth,
And show the cradles of its mighty twins,
Master and Servant of the sons of earth.
Which wears the garland that shall never fade,
Sweet with fair memories that can never die?
Ask not the marbles where their bones are laid,
But bow thine ear to hear thy brothers' cry: - 
"Tear up the despot's laurels by the root,
Like mandrakes, shrieking as they quit the soil!
Feed us no more upon the blood-red fruit
That sucks its crimson from the heart of Toil!
"We claim the food that fixed our mortal fate, - 
Bend to our reach the long-forbidden tree!
The angel frowned at Eden's eastern gate, - 
Its western portal is forever free!
"Bring the white blossoms of the waning year,
Heap with full hands the peaceful conqueror's shrine
Whose bloodless triumphs cost no sufferer's tear!
Hero of knowledge, be our tribute thine!"