DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Acle At The Grave Of Nero.
by George W. Sands

It is a circumstance connected with the history of Nero, that every spring and summer, for many years after his death, fresh and beautiful flowers were nightly scattered upon his grave by some unknown hand.
Tradition relates that it was done by a young maiden of Corinth, named Acle, whom Nero had brought to Rome from her native city, whither he had gone in the disguise of an artist, to contend in the Nemean, Isthinian, and Floral games, celebrated there; and whence he returned conqueror in the Palaestra, the chariot race, and the song; bearing with him, like Jason of old, a second Medea, divine in form and feature as the first, and who like her had left father, friends, and country, to follow a stranger.
Even the worse than savage barbarity of this sanguinary tyrant, had not cut him off from all human affection; and those flowers were doubtless the tribute of that young girl's holy and enduring love!
Whose name is on yon lettered stone? whose ashes rest beneath?
That thus you come with flowers to deck the mournful home of death;
And thou - why darkens so thy brow with grief's untimely gloom?
Thou art fitter for a bride than for a watcher by the tomb!
"It is the name of one whose deeds made men grow pale with fear,
And Nero's, stranger, is the dust that lies sepulchred here;
That name may be a word of harsh and boding sound to thee,
But oh! it has a more than mortal melody for me!
"And I, - my heart has grown to age in girlhood's fleeting years,
And has one only task - to bathe its buried love in tears;
The all of life that yet remains to me is but its breath;
Then tell me, is it meet that I should seek the bridal wreath?"
But maiden, he of whom you speak was of a savage mood,
That took its joy alone in scenes, of carnage, tears and blood;
His dark, wild spirit bore the stain of crime's most loathsome hue,
And love is for the high of soul - the gentle and the true.
"The voice that taught an abject world to tremble at its words,
To me was mild and musical, and mellow as a bird's - 
A bird's - that couched among the green, broad branches of the date,
Tells, in its silvery songs, its gushing gladness to its mate.
"I saw him first beside the sea; near to ray father's home,
When like an ocean deity he bounded from the foam;
Ev'n then a glory seemed to breathe around him as he trod,
And my haughty soul was bowed, as in the presence of a God.
I knew not, till my heart was his, the darkness of his own,
Nor dreamed that he who knelt to me was master of a throne!
And when the fearful knowledge came, its coming was in vain, - 
I had forsaken all for him, and would do so again."
Is love the offspring of the will? or is it, like a flower,
So frail that it may fade and be forgotten in an hour?
No, no! it springs unbidden where the heart's deep fountains play,
And cherished by their hallowed dew, it cannot pass away!
Possession
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Whose little lady is you, chile,
Whose little gal is you?
What's de use o' kiver'n up yo' face?
Chile, dat ain't de way to do.
Lemme see yo' little eyes,
Tek yo' little han's down nice,
Lawd, you wuff a million bills,
Huh uh, chile, dat ain't yo' price.
Honey, de money ain't been made
Dat dey could pay fu' you;
'T ain't no use a-biddin'; you too high
Fu' de riches' Jap er Jew.
Lemme see you smilin' now,
How dem teef o' yo'n do shine,
An' de t'ing dat meks me laff
Is dat all o' you is mine.
How 's I gwine to tell you how I feel,
How's I gwine to weigh yo' wuff?
Oh, you sholy is de sweetes' t'ing
Walkin' on dis blessed earf.
Possum is de sweetes' meat,
Cidah is the nices' drink,
But my little lady-bird
Is de bes' of all, I t'ink.
Talk erbout 'uligion he'pin' folks
All thoo de way o' life,
Gin de res' 'uligion, des' gin me
You, my little lady-wife.
Den de days kin come all ha'd,
Den de nights kin come all black,
Des' you tek me by de han',
An' I'll stumble on de track.
Stumble on de way to Gawd, my chile,
Stumble on, an' mebbe fall;
But I'll keep a-trottin', while you lead on,
Pickin' an' a-trottin', dat's all.
Hol' me mighty tight, dough, chile,
Fu' hit's rough an' rocky lan',
Heaben 's at de en', I know,
So I's leanin' on yo' han'.
Birds, Why Are Ye Silent?
by John Clare

Why are ye silent, Birds?
Where do ye fly?
Winter's not violent,
With such a Spring sky.
The wheatlands are green, snow and frost are away,
Birds, why are ye silent on such a sweet day?
By the slated pig-stye
The redbreast scarce whispers:
Where last Autumn's leaves lie
The hedge sparrow just lispers.
And why are the chaffinch and bullfinch so still,
While the sulphur primroses bedeck the wood hill?
The bright yellow-hammers
Are strutting about,
All still, and none stammers
A single note out.
From the hedge starts the blackbird, at brook side to drink:
I thought he'd have whistled, but he only said "prink."
The tree-creeper hustles
Up fir's rusty bark;
All silent he bustles;
We needn't say hark.
There's no song in the forest, in field, or in wood,
Yet the sun gilds the grass as though come in for good.
How bright the odd daisies
Peep under the stubbs!
How bright pilewort blazes
Where ruddled sheep rubs
The old willow trunk by the side of the brook,
Where soon for blue violets the children will look!
By the cot green and mossy
Feed sparrow and hen:
On the ridge brown and glossy
They cluck now and then.
The wren cocks his tail o'er his back by the stye,
Where his green bottle nest will be made by and bye.
Here's bunches of chickweed,
With small starry flowers,
Where red-caps oft pick seed
In hungry Spring hours.
And blue cap and black cap, in glossy Spring coat,
Are a-peeping in buds without singing a note.
Why silent should birds be
And sunshine so warm?
Larks hide where the herds be
By cottage and farm.
If wild flowers were blooming and fully set in the Spring
May-be all the birdies would cheerfully sing.
Who'll Wear The Beaten Colours?
by Henry Lawson

Who'll wear the beaten colours, and cheer the beaten men?
Who'll wear the beaten colours, till our time comes again?
Where sullen crowds are densest, and fickle as the sea,
Who'll wear the beaten colours, and wear them home with me?
We closed the bars and gambling dens and voted straight and clean,
Our women walked while motor cars were whirling round the scene,
The Potts Point Vote was one for Greed and Ease and Luxury
With all to hold, and coward gold, and beaten folk are we.
Who'll wear the beaten colours, with hands and pockets clean?
(I wore the beaten colours since I was seventeen)
I wore them up, and wore them down, Outback and across the sea,
Who'll wear the beaten colours, and wear them home with me?
We wore them back from Ladysmith to where the peace was signed,
And wore them through the London streets where Jingoes howled behind.
We wore them to the Queen's Hall, while England yelled 'Pro-Boers!'
And sat them over victory while London banged the doors.1
We wore them from Port Arthur round till all sunk in the sea,
(Who'll wear the white man's colours, and wear them home with me?)
I've worn them through with gentlemen, with work-slaves and alone,
Who'll wear the beaten colours, boys, and wear them on his own?
There's one would look with startled eyes and shrink while I caressed,
Came I not with the colours of the conquered on my breast.
And twenty thousand Bushmen would stand with hands behind
And scorn in all their faces for the coward of his kind.
Who'll wear the beaten colours and raise the voice they drowned,
It may be when we march again, they'll bear some other sound,
Who'll pin the beaten colours on and drive the beaten pen,
It may be other steel and ink when we march out again.
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
by Robert Lee Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it's queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Why Be At Pains? - Wooer's Song
by Thomas Hardy

Why be at pains that I should know
You sought not me?
Do breezes, then, make features glow
So rosily?
Come, the lit port is at our back,
And the tumbling sea;
Elsewhere the lampless uphill track
To uncertainty!
O should not we two waifs join hands?
I am alone,
You would enrich me more than lands
By being my own.
Yet, though this facile moment flies,
Close is your tone,
And ere to-morrow's dewfall dries
I plough the unknown.
To One On A Journey
by Richard Le Gallienne

Why did you go away without one word,
Wave of the hand, or token of good-bye,
Nor leave some message for me with flower or bird,
Some sign to find you by;
Some stray of blossom on the winter road,
To know your feet had gone that very way,
Told me the star that points to your abode,
And tossed me one faint ray
To climb from out the night where now I dwell - 
Or, seemed it best for you to go alone
To heaven, as alone I go to hell
Upon the four winds blown.
The Going
by Thomas Hardy

Why did you give no hint that night
That quickly after the morrow's dawn,
And calmly, as if indifferent quite,
You would close your term here, up and be gone
Where I could not follow
With wing of swallow
To gain one glimpse of you ever anon!
Never to bid good-bye,
Or give me the softest call,
Or utter a wish for a word, while I
Saw morning harden upon the wall,
Unmoved, unknowing
That your great going
Had place that moment, and altered all.
Why do you make me leave the house
And think for a breath it is you I see
At the end of the alley of bending boughs
Where so often at dusk you used to be;
Till in darkening dankness
The yawning blankness
Of the perspective sickens me!
You were she who abode
By those red-veined rocks far West,
You were the swan-necked one who rode
Along the beetling Beeny Crest,
And, reining nigh me,
Would muse and eye me,
While Life unrolled us its very best.
Why, then, latterly did we not speak,
Did we not think of those days long dead,
And ere your vanishing strive to seek
That time's renewal? We might have said,
"In this bright spring weather
We'll visit together
Those places that once we visited."
Well, well! All's past amend,
Unchangeable. It must go.
I seem but a dead man held on end
To sink down soon . . . O you could not know
That such swift fleeing
No soul foreseeing -
Not even I would undo me so!
December 1912.
White And Green And Black Tears
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

Why are your tears so white?
Dear, I have wept so long
That my old tears grow white like my old hair.
Why are your tears so green?
Dear, the waters are wept away
And the green gall is flowing.
Why are your tears so black?
Dear, the weeping is over
And the black flash you loved is breaking.
From the Arabic (School of Ebn-el-Farid) (thirteenth century).
Father Gerard Hopkins, S. J.
by Alfred Joyce Kilmer (Joyce)

Why didst thou carve thy speech laboriously,
And match and blend thy words with curious art?
For Song, one saith, is but a human heart
Speaking aloud, undisciplined and free.
Nay, God be praised, Who fixed thy task for thee!
Austere, ecstatic craftsman, set apart
From all who traffic in Apollo's mart,
On thy phrased paten shall the Splendour be!
Now, carelessly we throw a rhyme to God,
Singing His praise when other songs are done.
But thou, who knewest paths Teresa trod,
Losing thyself, what is it thou hast won?
O bleeding feet, with peace and glory shod!
O happy moth, that flew into the Sun!
Language.
by Friedrich Schiller

Why can the living spirit be never seen by the spirit?
Soon as the soul 'gins to speak, then can the soul speak no more!
Coney Island
by Sara Teasdale

Why did you bring me here?
The sand is white with snow,
Over the wooden domes
The winter sea-winds blow
There is no shelter near,
Come, let us go.
With foam of icy lace
The sea creeps up the sand,
The wind is like a hand
That strikes us in the face.
Doors that June set a-swing
Are bolted long ago;
We try them uselessly
Alas there cannot be
For us a second spring;
Come, let us go.
Speak!
by William Wordsworth

Why art thou silent! Is thy love a plant
Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air
Of absence withers what was once so fair?
Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant?
Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant 
Bound to thy service with unceasing care,
The mind's least generous wish a mendicant
For nought but what thy happiness could spare.
Speak though this soft warm heart, once free to hold
A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine,
Be left more desolate, more dreary cold
Than a forsaken bird's-nest filled with snow
'Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine 
Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may know!
The Cage
by Walter De La Mare

Why did you flutter in vain hope, poor bird,
Hard-pressed in your small cage of clay?
'Twas but a sweet, false echo that you heard,
Caught only a feint of day.
Still is the night all dark, a homeless dark.
Burn yet the unanswering stars. And silence brings
The same sea's desolate surge - sans bound or mark - 
Of all your wanderings.
Fret now no more; be still. Those steadfast eyes,
Those folded hands, they cannot set you free;
Only with beauty wake wild memories - 
Sorrow for where you are, for where you would be.
Jonas Keene
by Edgar Lee Masters

Why did Albert Schirding kill himself
Trying to be County Superintendent of Schools,
Blest as he was with the means of life
And wonderful children, bringing him honor
Ere he was sixty?
If even one of my boys could have run a news-stand,
Or one of my girls could have married a decent man,
I should not have walked in the rain
And jumped into bed with clothes all wet,
Refusing medical aid.
Burke Of The Brave Brigade.
by A. H. Laidlaw

Inscribed to Dennis F. Burke, last Commander of the Irish Brigade, at Gettysburg.
THE SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH.
"Why come ye to this mountain, lads,
In panoply of war?
Why leave ye the hills of your native heath,
To seek these heights afar?"
BURKE OF THE BRAVE BRIGADE.
"We have come to unchain the slave,
And not for a dress parade;
We have come to save man's flesh from the lash,"
Said Burke of the Brave Brigade.
"We have heard his low cry afar,
We have felt the self-same chain,
And we've come, my friends, through peace or war,
To make the land of the Union Star
The land without a stain."
THE SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH.
"Go home to your native soil,
Ye sons of the Celtic brave;
You will have to fight till the last man falls
To free the Southern slave."
BURKE OF THE BRAVE BRIGADE.
"We have come to this fight to-day
With no maiden, bloodless blade;
We have come to fight till the last man falls,"
Said Burke of the Brave Brigade.
"We have felt of an iron heel,
We have known a tyrant's hand,
We have come to fight till the Rebels reel
From the shotted shell of our cannon peal,
And the hero-handled brand."
THE SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH.
"Then come to the battle charge!
Welcome the Celtic yell!
'Twixt you and the South, at the cannon's mouth,
'Tis Gettysburg or Hell!"
BURKE OF THE BRAVE BRIGADE.
"Then 'tis Gettysburg Heights or Hell!
We are here till the game is played;
And a Hell he will feel who dares our steel,"
Said Burke of the Brave Brigade.
So they fought, and the story runs
(All thanks to the Heavenly Powers),
That the field was won by the Celtic sons;
For Hell flashed Leeward from out their guns,
And Gettysburg is ours!
Beppo.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Why art thou sad, my Beppo? But last eve,
Here at my feet, thy dear head on my breast,
I heard thee say thy heart would no more grieve
Or feel the olden ennui and unrest.
What troubles thee? Am I not all thine own? - 
I, so long sought, so sighed for and so dear?
And do I not live but for thee alone?
"Thou hast seen Lippo, whom I loved last year!"
Well, what of that? Last year is naught to me - 
'Tis swallowed in the ocean of the past.
Art thou not glad 'twas Lippo, and not thee,
Whose brief bright day in that great gulf was cast.
Thy day is all before thee. Let no cloud,
Here in the very morn of our delight,
Drift up from distant foreign skies, to shroud
Our sun of love whose radiance is so bright.
"Thou art not first?" Nay, and he who would be
Defeats his own heart's dearest purpose then.
No truer truth was ever told to thee - 
Who has loved most, he best can love again.
If Lippo (and not he alone) has taught
The arts that please thee, wherefore art thou sad?
Since all my vast love-lore to thee is brought,
Look up and smile, my Beppo, and be glad.
Why Art Thou Silent And Invisible
by William Blake

Why art thou silent and invisible
Father of jealousy
Why dost thou hide thyself in clouds
From every searching Eye
Why darkness & obscurity
In all thy words & laws
That none dare eat the fruit but from
The wily serpents jaws
Or is it because Secresy
gains females loud applause
From Unbelief To Belief.
by Madison Julius Cawein

Why come ye here to sigh that I,
Who with crossed wrists so peaceless lie
Before ye, am at rest, at rest!
For that the pistons of my blood
No more in this machinery thud?
And on these eyes, that once were blest
With magnetism of fire, are prest
Thin, damp, pale eyelids for a sheath,
Whereon the bony claw of Death
Hath set his coins of unseen lead,
Stamped with the image of his head?
Why come ye here to weep for one,
Who is forgotten when he's gone
From ye and burthened with this rest
Your God hath given him! unsought
Of any prayers, whiles yet he wrought, - 
And with what sacrifices bought!
Low, sweet communion mouth to mouth
Of thoughts that dewed eternal drought
Of Life's bald barrenness, - a jest,
An irony hath grown confessed
When he's at rest! when he's at rest!
Why come ye, fools! - ye lie! ye lie!
Rashly! the grave, for such as I,
Hath naught that lies as near this rest
As your high Heaven lies near your Hell!
I see why now that it is well
That men but know the husk-like shell,
Which like a fruit the being kept,
That swinked and sported, woke and slept;
From which that stern essential stept,
That ichor-veined inhabitant
Who makes me all myself, in all
My moods the "I" original,
That holds one orbit like a star,
Distinct, to which a similar
There never was, and be there can't.
And as it is, it is the best
That Death hath my poor body dressed
In such fair semblance of a rest,
Which soothes the hearts of those distressed;
But, God! unto the dead the jest
Of this his rest, of this his rest!
The Wolf And The Fox.
by Jean de La Fontaine

Why Aesop gave the palm of cunning,
O'er flying animals and running,
To Renard Fox, I cannot tell,
Though I have search'd the subject well.
Hath not Sir Wolf an equal skill
In tricks and artifices shown,
When he would do some life an ill,
Or from his foes defend his own?
I think he hath; and, void of disrespect,
I might, perhaps, my master contradict:
Yet here's a case, in which the burrow-lodger
Was palpably, I own, the brightest dodger.
One night he spied within a well,
Wherein the fullest moonlight fell,
What seem'd to him an ample cheese.
Two balanced buckets took their turns
When drawers thence would fill their urns.
Our fox went down in one of these,
By hunger greatly press'd to sup,
And drew the other empty up.
Convinced at once of his mistake,
And anxious for his safety's sake,
He saw his death was near and sure,
Unless some other wretch in need
The same moon's image should allure
To take a bucket and succeed
To his predicament, indeed.
Two days pass'd by, and none approach'd the well;
Unhalting Time, as is his wont,
Was scooping from the moon's full front,
And as he scoop'd Sir Renard's courage fell.
His crony wolf, of clamorous maw,
Poor fox at last above him saw,
And cried, 'My comrade, look you here!
See what abundance of good cheer!
A cheese of most delicious zest!
Which Faunus must himself have press'd,
Of milk by heifer Io given.
If Jupiter were sick in heaven,
The taste would bring his appetite.
I've taken, as you see, a bite;
But still for both there is a plenty.
Pray take the bucket that I've sent ye;
Come down, and get your share.'
Although, to make the story fair,
The fox had used his utmost care,
The wolf (a fool to give him credit)
Went down because his stomach bid it - 
And by his weight pull'd up
Sir Renard to the top.
We need not mock this simpleton,
For we ourselves such deeds have done.
Our faith is prone to lend its ear
To aught which we desire or fear.
Two Sonnets
by James Thomson -  (Bysshe Vanolis)

I
"Why are your songs all wild and bitter sad
As funeral dirges with the orphans' cries?
Each night since first the world was made hath had
A sequent day to laugh it down the skies.
Chant us a glee to make our hearts rejoice,
Or seal in silence this unmanly moan."
My friend, I have no power to rule my voice
A spirit lifts me where I lie alone,
And thrills me into song by its own laws;
That which I feel, but seldom know, indeed
Tempering the melody it could not cause.
The bleeding heart cannot forever bleed
Inwardly solely; on the wan lips, too,
Dark blood will bubble ghastly into view.
II
Striving to sing glad songs, I but attain
Wild discords sadder than Grief's saddest tune;
As if an owl with his harsh screech should strain
To over-gratulate a thrush of June.
The nightingale upon its thorny spray
Finds inspiration in the sullen dark;
The kindling dawn, the world-wide joyous day
Are inspiration to the soaring lark;
The seas are silent in the sunny calm,
Their anthem surges in the tempest boom;
The skies outroll no solemn thunder psalm
Till they have clothed themselves with clouds of gloom.
My mirth can laugh and talk, but cannot sing;
My grief finds harmonies in everything.
Odes Of Anacreon - Ode LVII.
by Thomas Moore

[1]
Whose was the artist hand that spread
Upon this disk the ocean's bed?
And, in a flight of fancy, high
As aught on earthly wing can fly,
Depicted thus, in semblance warm,
The Queen of Love's voluptuous form
Floating along the silvery sea
In beauty's naked majesty!
Oh! he hath given the enamoured sight
A witching banquet of delight,
Where, gleaming through the waters clear,
Glimpses of undreamt charms appear,
And all that mystery loves to screen,
Fancy, like Faith, adores unseen.[2]
Light as a leaf, that on the breeze
Of summer skims the glassy seas,
She floats along the ocean's breast,
Which undulates in sleepy rest;
While stealing on, she gently pillows
Her bosom on the heaving billows.
Her bosom, like the dew-washed rose,
Her neck, like April's sparkling snows,
Illume the liquid path she traces,
And burn within the stream's embraces.
Thus on she moves, in languid pride,
Encircled by the azure tide,
As some fair lily o'er a bed
Of violets bends its graceful head.
Beneath their queen's inspiring glance,
The dolphins o'er the green sea dance,
Bearing in triumph young Desire,
And infant Love with smiles of fire!
While, glittering through the silver waves,
The tenants of the briny caves
Around the pomp their gambols play,
And gleam along the watery way.
Sheoaks That Sigh When The Wind Is Still
by Henry Lawson

Why are the sheoaks forever sighing?
(Sheoaks that sigh when the wind is still),
Why are the dead hopes forever dying?
(Dead hopes that died and are with us still.)
As you make it and what you will.
Why are the ridges forever waiting?
Ridges that waited ere one man came,
Still by the towns with their life vibrating
Lonely ridges that wait the same.
Ridges and gullies without a name.
Why is the strong heart forever peering
Into the future that speaks no ill?
Why is the kind heart forever cheering,
Even at times when the fears are still?
As you make it, and what you will.
Why is the distance forever drawing?
(The wide horizon is round us still!)
Why is resentment forever gnawing
Against a world that may mean no ill?
Why are so many forever sawing
On strings that rasp and can never thrill, Soothe or thrill?
As you make it, and what you will.