DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Evening
by Walter De La Mare

When twilight darkens, and one by one,
The sweet birds to their nests have gone;
When to green banks the glow-worms bring
Pale lamps to brighten evening;
Then stirs in his thick sleep the owl
Through the dewy air to prowl.
Hawking the meadows swiftly he flits,
While the small mouse atrembling sits
With tiny eye of fear upcast
Until his brooding shape be past,
Hiding her where the moonbeams beat,
Casting black shadows in the wheat.
Now all is still: the field-man is
Lapped deep in slumbering silentness.
Not a leaf stirs, but clouds on high
Pass in dim flocks across the sky,
Puffed by a breeze too light to move
Aught but these wakeful sheep above.
O what an arch of light now spans
These fields by night no longer Man's!
Their ancient Master is abroad,
Walking beneath the moonlight cold:
His presence is the stillness, He
Fills earth with wonder and mystery.
Brunette
by Victor James Daley

When trees in Spring
Are blossoming
My lady wakes
From dreams whose light
Made dark days bright,
For their sweet sakes.
Yet in her eyes
A shadow lies
Of bygone mirth;
And still she seems
To walk in dreams,
And not on earth.
Some men may hold
That hair of gold
Is lovelier
Than darker sheen:
They have not seen
My lady's hair.
Her eyes are bright,
Her bosom white
As the sea foam
On sharp rocks sprayed;
Her mouth is made
Of honeycomb.
And whoso seeks
In her dusk cheeks
May see Love's sign,
A blush that glows
Like a red rose
Beneath brown wine.
The Robin
by Thomas Hardy

When up aloft
I fly and fly,
I see in pools
The shining sky,
And a happy bird
Am I, am I!
When I descend
Towards their brink
I stand, and look,
And stoop, and drink,
And bathe my wings,
And chink and prink.
When winter frost
Makes earth as steel
I search and search
But find no meal,
And most unhappy
Then I feel.
But when it lasts,
And snows still fall,
I get to feel
No grief at all,
For I turn to a cold stiff
Feathery ball!
Presence And Absence.
by Robert Herrick

When what is lov'd is present, love doth spring;
But being absent, love lies languishing.
Lights
by Sara Teasdale

When we come home at night and close the door,
Standing together in the shadowy room,
Safe in our own love and the gentle gloom,
Glad of familiar wall and chair and floor,
Glad to leave far below the clanging city;
Looking far downward to the glaring street
Gaudy with light, yet tired with many feet,
In both of us wells up a wordless pity;
Men have tried hard to put away the dark;
A million lighted windows brilliantly
Inlay with squares of gold the winter night,
But to us standing here there comes the stark
Sense of the lives behind each yellow light,
And not one wholly joyous, proud, or free.
Winfreda
by Eugene Field

(A BALLAD IN THE ANGLO-SAXON TONGUE)
When to the dreary greenwood gloam
Winfreda's husband strode that day,
The fair Winfreda bode at home
To toil the weary time away;
"While thou art gone to hunt," said she,
"I'll brew a goodly sop for thee."
Lo, from a further, gloomy wood,
A hungry wolf all bristling hied
And on the cottage threshold stood
And saw the dame at work inside;
And, as he saw the pleasing sight,
He licked his fangs so sharp and white.
Now when Winfreda saw the beast,
Straight at the grinning wolf she ran,
And, not affrighted in the least,
She hit him with her cooking pan,
And as she thwacked him on the head--
"Scat! scat!" the fair Winfreda said.
The hills gave answer to their din--
The brook in fear beheld the sight.
And all that bloody field within
Wore token of Winfreda's might.
The wolf was very loath to stay--
But, oh! he could not get away.
Winfreda swept him o'er the wold
And choked him till his gums were blue,
And till, beneath her iron hold,
His tongue hung out a yard or two,
And with his hair the riven ground
Was strewn for many leagues around.
They fought a weary time that day,
And seas of purple blood were shed,
Till by Winfreda's cunning lay
That awful wolf all limp and dead;
Winfreda saw him reel and drop--
Then back she went to brewing sop.
So when the husband came at night
From bootless chase, cold, gaunt, and grim,
Great was that Saxon lord's delight
To find the sop dished up for him;
And as he ate, Winfreda told
How she had laid the wolf out cold.
The good Winfreda of those days
Is only "pretty Birdie" now--
Sickly her soul and weak her ways--
And she, to whom we Saxons bow,
Leaps on a bench and screams with fright
If but a mouse creeps into sight.
The Chewing The Cud.
by Robert Herrick

When well we speak and nothing do that's good,
We not divide the hoof, but chew the cud;
But when good words by good works have their proof,
We then both chew the cud and cleave the hoof.
The Hunting Of The Dragon
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

When we went hunting the Dragon
In the days when we were young,
We tossed the bright world over our shoulder
As bugle and baldrick slung;
Never was world so wild and fair
As what went by on the wind,
Never such fields of paradise
As the fields we left behind:
For this is the best of a rest for men
That men should rise and ride
Making a flying fairyland
Of market and country-side,
Wings on the cottage, wings on the wood,
Wings upon pot and pan,
For the hunting of the Dragon
That is the life of a man.
For men grow weary of fairyland
When the Dragon is a dream,
And tire of the talking bird in the tree,
The singing fish in the stream;
And the wandering stars grow stale, grow stale,
And the wonder is stiff with scorn;
For this is the honour of fairyland
And the following of the horn;
Beauty on beauty called us back
When we could rise and ride,
And a woman looked out of every window
As wonderful as a bride:
And the tavern-sign as a tabard blazed,
And the children cheered and ran,
For the love of the hate of the Dragon
That is the pride of a man.
The sages called him a shadow
And the light went out of the sun:
And the wise men told us that all was well
And all was weary and one:
And then, and then, in the quiet garden,
With never a weed to kill,
We knew that his shining tail had shone
In the white road over the hill:
We knew that the clouds were flakes of flame,
We knew that the sunset fire
Was red with the blood of the Dragon
Whose death is the world's desire.
For the horn was blown in the heart of the night
That men should rise and ride,
Keeping the tryst of a terrible jest
Never for long untried;
Drinking a dreadful blood for wine,
Never in cup or can,
The death of a deathless Dragon,
That is the life of a man.
The Stranger
by John Clare

When trouble haunts me, need I sigh?
No, rather smile away despair;
For those have been more sad than I,
With burthens more than I could bear;
Aye, gone rejoicing under care
Where I had sunk in black despair.
When pain disturbs my peace and rest,
Am I a hopeless grief to keep,
When some have slept on torture's breast
And smiled as in the sweetest sleep,
Aye, peace on thorns, in faith forgiven,
And pillowed on the hope of heaven?
Though low and poor and broken down,
Am I to think myself distrest?
No, rather laugh where others frown
And think my being truly blest;
For others I can daily see
More worthy riches worse than me.
Aye, once a stranger blest the earth
Who never caused a heart to mourn,
Whose very voice gave sorrow mirth--
And how did earth his worth return?
It spurned him from its lowliest lot,
The meanest station owned him not;
An outcast thrown in sorrow's way,
A fugitive that knew no sin,
Yet in lone places forced to stray--
Men would not take the stranger in.
Yet peace, though much himself he mourned,
Was all to others he returned.
*    *    *    *    *
His presence was a peace to all,
He bade the sorrowful rejoice.
Pain turned to pleasure at his call,
Health lived and issued from his voice.
He healed the sick and sent abroad
The dumb rejoicing in the Lord.
The blind met daylight in his eye,
The joys of everlasting day;
The sick found health in his reply;
The cripple threw his crutch away.
Yet he with troubles did remain
And suffered poverty and pain.
Yet none could say of wrong he did,
And scorn was ever standing bye;
Accusers by their conscience chid,
When proof was sought, made no reply.
Yet without sin he suffered more
Than ever sinners did before.
When Twilight Dews.
by Thomas Moore

When twilight dews are falling soft
Upon the rosy sea, love,
I watch the star, whose beam so oft
Has lighted me to thee, love.
And thou too, on that orb so dear,
Dost often gaze at even,
And think, tho' lost for ever here,
Thou'lt yet be mine in heaven.
There's not a garden walk I tread,
There's not a flower I see, love,
But brings to mind some hope that's fled,
Some joy that's gone with thee, Love.
And still I wish that hour was near,
When, friends and foes forgiven,
The pains, the ills we've wept thro' here
May turn to smiles in heaven.
Elegy On The Death Of Chatterton
by Thomas Oldham

When to the region of the tuneful Nine,
Rapt in poetic vision, I retire,
Listening intent to catch the strain divine
What a dead silence hangs upon the lyre!
Lo! with disorder'd locks, and streaming eyes,
Stray the fair daughters of immortal song;
Aonia's realm resounds their plaintive cries,
And all her murmuring rills the grief prolong.
O say! celestial maids, what cause of wo?
Why cease the rapture-breathing strains to soar?
A solemn pause ensues: then falters low
The voice of sorrow: 'Chatterton's no more!'
'Child of our fondest hopes! whose natal hour
Saw each poetic star indulgent shine;
E'en Phoebus' self o'erruled with kindliest power,
And cried: "ye Nine rejoice! the Birth is mine."
'Soon did he drink of this inspiring spring;
In yonder bower his lisping notes he tried;
We tuned his tongue in choir with us to sing,
And watch'd his progress with delight and pride.
'With doting care we form'd his ripening mind,
Blest with high gifts to mortals rarely known;
Taught him to range, by matter unconfined,
And claim the world of fancy for his own.
'The voice of Glory call'd him to the race;
Upsprung the wondrous Boy with ardent soul,
Started at once with more than human pace,
And urged his flight, impatient for the goal:
'Hope sung her siren lay; the listening Youth
Felt all his breast with rapturous frenzy fired,
He hail'd, and boasted, as prophetic truth,
The bright, triumphant vision Hope inspired:
'But short, alas, his transport! vain his boast!
The illusive dream soon vanishes in shade;
Soon dire Adversity's relentless host,
Neglect, Want, Sorrow, Shame, his peace invade:
'Glad Envy hisses, Ridicule and Scorn
Lash with envenom'd scourge his wounded pride;
Ah! see him, with distracted mien forlorn,
Rush into solitude his pangs to hide.
'There to the Youth, disguised like Hope, Despair
Presents the death-fraught chalice and retires:
In vain, alas! Religion cries, forbear!
Desperate he seizes, drains it, and expires.'
Words.
by John Milton Hay

When violets were springing
And sunshine filled the day,
And happy birds were singing
The praises of the May,
A word came to me, blighting
The beauty of the scene,
And in my heart was winter,
Though all the trees were green.
Now down the blast go sailing
The dead leaves, brown and sere;
The forests are bewailing
The dying of the year;
A word comes to me, lighting
With rapture all the air,
And in my heart is summer,
Though all the trees are bare.
The Attack
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

When we came out of the wood
Was a great light!
The night uprisen stood
In white.
I wondered, I looked around
It was so fair. The bright
Stubble upon the ground
Shone white
Like any field of snow;
Yet warm the chase
Of faint night-breaths did go
Across my face!
White-bodied and warm the night was,
Sweet-scented to hold in my throat.
White and alight the night was.
A pale stroke smote
The pulse through the whole bland being
Which was This and me;
A pulse that still went fleeing,
Yet did not flee.
After the terrible rage, the death,
This wonder stood glistening?
All shapes of wonder, with suspended breath,
Arrested listening
In ecstatic reverie.
The whole, white Night! - 
With wonder, every black tree
Blossomed outright.
I saw the transfiguration
And the present Host.
Transubstantiation
Of the Luminous Ghost.
La Mort D'Amour.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

When was it that love died? We were so fond,
So very fond, a little while ago.
With leaping pulses, and blood all aglow,
We dreamed about a sweeter life beyond,
When we should dwell together as one heart,
And scarce could wait that happy time to come.
Now side by side we sit with lips quite dumb,
And feel ourselves a thousand miles apart.
How was it that love died! I do not know.
I only know that all its grace untold
Has faded into gray! I miss the gold
From our dull skies; but did not see it go.
Why should love die? We prized it, I am sure;
We thought of nothing else when it was ours;
We cherished it in smiling, sunlit bowers;
It was our all; why could it not endure?
Alas, we know not how, or when or why
This dear thing died. We only know it went,
And left us dull, cold, and indifferent;
We who found heaven once in each other's sigh.
How pitiful it is, and yet how true
That half the lovers in the world, one day,
Look questioning in each other's eyes this way
And know love's gone forever, as we do.
Sometimes I cannot help but think, dear heart,
As I look out o'er all the wide, sad earth
And see love's flame gone out on many a hearth,
That those who would keep love must dwell apart.
Hik-Tee-Dik! - The War-Cry Of Billy And Buddy
by James Whitcomb Riley

When two little boys - renowned but for noise - 
Hik-tee-dik! Billy and Buddy! - 
May hurt a whole school, and the head it employs,
Hik-tee-dik! Billy and Buddy!
Such loud and hilarious pupils indeed
Need learning - and yet something further they need,
Though fond hearts that love them may sorrow and bleed.
Hik-tee-dik! Billy and Buddy!
O the schoolmarm was cool, and in no wise a fool;
Hik-tee-dik! Billy and Buddy!
And in ruling her ranks it was her rule to rule;
Hik-tee-dik! Billy and Buddy!
So when these two pupils conspired, every day,
Some mad piece of mischief, with whoop and hoo-ray,
That hurt yet defied her, - how happy were they! - 
Hik-tee-dik! Billy and Buddy!
At the ring of the bell they 'd rush in with a yell - 
Hik-tee-dik! Billy and Buddy!
And they'd bang the school-door till the plastering fell,
Hik-tee-dik! Billy and Buddy!
They'd clinch as they came, and pretend not to see
As they knocked her desk over - then, My! and O-me!
How awfully sorry they'd both seem to be!
Hik-tee-dik! Billy and Buddy!
This trick seemed so neat and so safe a conceit, - 
Hik-tee-dik! Billy and Buddy! - 
They played it three times - though the third they were beat;
Hik-tee-dik! Billy and Buddy!
For the teacher, she righted her desk - raised the lid
And folded and packed away each little kid - 
Closed the incident so - yes, and locked it, she did - 
Hik-tee-dik! Billy and Buddy!
The House Of Sleep
by Robert Fuller Murray

When we have laid aside our last endeavour,
And said farewell to one or two that weep,
And issued from the house of life for ever,
To find a lodging in the house of sleep--
With eyes fast shut, in sunless chambers lying,
With folded arms unmoved upon the breast,
Beyond the noise of sorrow and of crying,
Beyond the dread of dreaming, shall we rest?
Or shall there come at last desire of waking,
To walk again on hillsides that we know,
When sunrise through the cold white mist is breaking,
Or in the stillness of the after-glow?
Shall there be yearning for the sound of voices,
The sight of faces, and the touch of hands,
The will that works, the spirit that rejoices,
The heart that feels, the mind that understands?
Shall dreams and memories crowding from the distance,
Shall ghosts of old ambition or of mirth,
Create for us a shadow of existence,
A dim reflection of the life of earth?
And being dead, and powerless to recover
The substance of the show whereon we gaze,
Shall we be likened to the hapless lover,
Who broods upon the unreturning days?
Not so: for we have known how swift to perish
Is man's delight when youth and health take wing,
Until the winter leaves him nought to cherish
But recollections of a vanished spring.
Dream as we may, desire of life shall never
Disturb our slumbers in the house of sleep.
Yet oh, to think we may not greet for ever
The one or two that, when we leave them, weep!
To Imagination.
by Emily Bronte

When weary with the long day's care,
And earthly change from pain to pain,
And lost, and ready to despair,
Thy kind voice calls me back again:
Oh, my true friend!    I am not lone,
While then canst speak with such a tone!
So hopeless is the world without;
The world within I doubly prize;
Thy world, where guile, and hate, and doubt,
And cold suspicion never rise;
Where thou, and I, and Liberty,
Have undisputed sovereignty.
What matters it, that all around
Danger, and guilt, and darkness lie,
If but within our bosom's bound
We hold a bright, untroubled sky,
Warm with ten thousand mingled rays
Of suns that know no winter days?
Reason, indeed, may oft complain
For Nature's sad reality,
And tell the suffering heart how vain
Its cherished dreams must always be;
And Truth may rudely trample down
The flowers of Fancy, newly-blown:
But thou art ever there, to bring
The hovering vision back, and breathe
New glories o'er the blighted spring,
And call a lovelier Life from Death.
And whisper, with a voice divine,
Of real worlds, as bright as thine.
I trust not to thy phantom bliss,
Yet, still, in evening's quiet hour,
With never-failing thankfulness,
I welcome thee, Benignant Power;
Sure solacer of human cares,
And sweeter hope, when hope despairs!
When We Went Out With Grandmamma.
by Kate Greenaway

When we went out with Grandmamma--
Mamma said for a treat--
Oh, dear, how stiff we had to walk
As we went down the street.
One on each side we had to go,
And never laugh or loll;
I carried Prim, her Spaniard dog,
And Tom--her parasol.
If I looked right--if Tom looked left--
"Tom--Susan--I'm ashamed;
And little Prim, I'm sure, is shocked,
To hear such naughties named."
She said we had no manners,
If we ever talked or sung;
"You should have seen," said Grandmamma,
"Me walk, when I was young."
She told us--oh, so often--
How little girls and boys,
In the good days when she was young,
Never made any noise.
She said they never wished then
To play--oh, indeed!
They learnt to sew and needlework,
Or else to write and read.
She said her mother never let
Her speak a word at meals;
"But now," said Grandmamma, "you'd think
That children's tongues had wheels
"So fast they go--clack, clack, clack, clack;
Now listen well, I pray,
And let me see you both improve
From what I've said to-day."
Hot And Cold
by Walter Crane

When to warm his cold fingers man blew,
And again, but to cool the hot stew;
Simple Satyr, unused
To man's ways, felt confused,
When the same mouth blew hot & cold too!
'sop Aimed At Double Dealing
When We Three Meet
by James Whitcomb Riley

When we three meet? Ah! friend of mine
Whose verses well and flow as wine, -
My thirsting fancy thou dost fill
With draughts delicious, sweeter still
Since tasted by those lips of thine.
I pledge thee, through the chill sunshine
Of autumn, with a warmth divine,
Thrilled through as only I shall thrill
When we three meet.
I pledge thee, if we fast or dine,
We yet shall loosen, line by line,
Old ballads, and the blither trill
Of our-time singers - for there will
Be with us all the Muses nine
When we three meet.
The Good, Old-Fashioned People
by James Whitcomb Riley

When we hear Uncle Sidney tell
About the long-ago
An' old, old friends he loved so well
When he was young - My-oh! - 
Us childern all wish we'd 'a' bin
A-livin' then with Uncle, - so
We could a-kindo' happened in
On them old friends he used to know! - 
The good, old-fashioned people - 
The hale, hard-working people - 
The kindly country people
'At Uncle used to know!
They was God's people, Uncle says,
An' gloried in His name,
An' worked, without no selfishness,
An' loved their neighbers same
As they was kin: An' when they biled
Their tree-molasses, in the Spring,
Er butchered in the Fall, they smiled
An' sheered with all jist ever'thing! - 
The good, old-fashioned people - 
The hale, hard-working people - 
The kindly country people
'At Uncle used to know!
He tells about 'em, lots o' times,
Till we'd all ruther hear
About 'em than the Nurs'ry Rhymes
Er Fairies - mighty near! - 
Only sometimes he stops so long
An' then talks on so low an' slow,
It's purt'-nigh sad as any song
To listen to him talkin' so
Of the good, old-fashioned people - 
The hale, hard-working people - 
The kindly country people
'At Uncle used to know!
At An Inn
by Thomas Hardy

When we as strangers sought
Their catering care,
Veiled smiles bespoke their thought
Of what we were.
They warmed as they opined
Us more than friends -
That we had all resigned
For love's dear ends.
And that swift sympathy
With living love
Which quicks the world maybe
The spheres above,
Made them our ministers,
Moved them to say,
"Ah, God, that bliss like theirs
Would flush our day!"
And we were left alone
As Love's own pair;
Yet never the love-light shone
Between us there!
But that which chilled the breath
Of afternoon,
And palsied unto death
The pane-fly's tune.
The kiss their zeal foretold,
And now deemed come,
Came not: within his hold
Love lingered-numb.
Why cast he on our port
A bloom not ours?
Why shaped us for his sport
In after-hours?
As we seemed we were not
That day afar,
And now we seem not what
We aching are.
O severing sea and land,
O laws of men,
Ere death, once let us stand
As we stood then!
The Spiritual Dawn
by Charles Baudelaire

When white and ruby dawn among the rakes
Breaks in, she's with the harrying Ideal,
And by some strange retributive appeal
Within the sleepy brute, an angel wakes.
The perfect blue of Spiritual Skies
For the lost man who dreams and suffers, this
Pierces him, fascinates like the abyss.
And so, dear Goddess, lucid, pure and wise,
Over debris the orgies leave behind
Your memory, more rosy, more divine
Constantly flickers in my vision's sight.
The sun has blackened candles of the night;
Your phantom does the same, o conquering one,
Resplendent soul, of the immortal sun!
Retrospection
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

When you and I were young, the days
Were filled with scent of pink and rose,
And full of joy from dawn till close,
From morning's mist till evening's haze.
And when the robin sung his song
The verdant woodland ways along,
We whistled louder than he sung.
And school was joy, and work was sport
For which the hours were all too short,
When you and I were young, my boy,
When you and I were young.
When you and I were young, the woods
Brimmed bravely o'er with every joy
To charm the happy-hearted boy.
The quail turned out her timid broods;
The prickly copse, a hostess fine,
Held high black cups of harmless wine;
And low the laden grape-vine swung
With beads of night-kissed amethyst
Where buzzing lovers held their tryst,
When you and I were young, my boy,
When you and I were young.
When you and I were young, the cool
And fresh wind fanned our fevered brows
When tumbling o'er the scented mows,
Or stripping by the dimpling pool,
Sedge-fringed about its shimmering face,
Save where we 'd worn an ent'ring place.
How with our shouts the calm banks rung!
How flashed the spray as we plunged in,--
Pure gems that never caused a sin!
When you and I were young, my boy,
When you and I were young.
When you and I were young, we heard
All sounds of Nature with delight,--
The whirr of wing in sudden flight,
The chirping of the baby-bird.
The columbine's red bells were rung;
The locust's vested chorus sung;
While every wind his zithern strung
To high and holy-sounding keys,
And played sonatas in the trees--
When you and I were young, my boy,
When you and I were young.
When you and I were young, we knew
To shout and laugh, to work and play,
And night was partner to the day
In all our joys. So swift time flew
On silent wings that, ere we wist,
The fleeting years had fled unmissed;
And from our hearts this cry was wrung--
To fill with fond regret and tears
The days of our remaining years--
"When you and I were young, my boy,
When you and I were young."