DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Dead Sea Fruit
by Madison Julius Cawein

All things have power to hold us back.
Our very hopes build up a wall
Of doubt, whose shadow stretches black
O'er all.
The dreams, that helped us once, become
Dread disappointments, that oppose
Dead eyes to ours, and lips made dumb
With woes.
The thoughts that opened doors before
Within the mind's house, hide away;
Discouragement hath locked each door
For aye.
Come, loss, more frequently than gain!
And failure than success! until
The spirit's struggle to attain
Is still!
Shadows.
by George MacDonald

All things are shadows of thee, Lord;
The sun himself is but thy shade;
My spirit is the shadow of thy word,
A thing that thou hast said.
Diamonds are shadows of the sun,
They gleam as after him they hark:
My soul some arrows of thy light hath won.
And feebly fights the dark!
All knowledges are broken shades,
In gulfs of dark a scattered horde:
Together rush the parted glory-grades--
Then, lo, thy garment, Lord!
My soul, the shadow, still is light
Because the shadow falls from thee;
I turn, dull candle, to the centre bright,
And home flit shadowy.
Shine, Lord; shine me thy shadow still;
The brighter I, the more thy shade!
My motion be thy lovely moveless will!
My darkness, light delayed!
The Reaper
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

All through the blood-red Autumn,
When the harvest came to the full;
When the days were sweet with sunshine,
And the nights were wonderful,--
The Reaper reaped without ceasing.
All through the roaring Winter,
When the skies were black with wrath,
When earth alone slept soundly,
And the seas were white with froth,--
The Reaper reaped without ceasing.
All through the quick of the Spring-time,
When the birds sang cheerily,
When the trees and the flowers were burgeoning,
And men went wearily,--
The Reaper reaped without ceasing.
All through the blazing Summer,
When the year was at its best,
When Earth, subserving God alone,
In her fairest robes was dressed,--
The Reaper reaped without ceasing.
So, through the Seasons' roundings,
While nature waxed and waned,
And only man by thrall of man
Was scarred and marred and stained,--
The Reaper reaped without ceasing.
How long, O Lord, shall the Reaper
Harry the growing field?
Stretch out Thy Hand and stay him,
Lest the future no fruit yield!--
And the Gleaner find nought for His gleaning.
Thy Might alone can end it,--
This fratricidal strife.
Our souls are sick with the tale of death,
Redeem us back to life!--
That the Gleaner be glad in His gleaning.
Summer Evening
by Alfred Lichtenstein

All things are seamless,
As though forgotten, light and dull.
From the sacred heights the green sky spills
Still water on the city.
Glazed cobblers' lamps shine.
Empty bakeries are waiting.
People in the street, astonished, stride
Towards a miracle.
A copper red goblin runs
Up towards the roof, up and down.
Little girls fall, sobbing
From the poles of street lights.
The Long Lane
by Josephine Preston Peabody

All through the summer night, down the long lane in flower,
The moon-white lane,
All through the summer night,--dim as a shower,
Glimmer and fade the Twain:
Over the cricket hosts, throbbing the hour by hour,
Young voices bloom and wane.
Down the long lane they go, and past one window, pale
With visions silver-blurred;
Stirring the heart that waits,--the eyes that fail
After a spring deferred.
Query, and hush, and Ah!--dim through a moon-lit veil,
The same one word.
Down the long lane, entwined with all the fragrance there;
The lane in flower somehow
With youth, and plighted hands, and star-strewn air,
And muted 'Thee' and 'Thou':--
All the wild bloom and reach of dreams that never were,
--Never to be, now.
So, in the throbbing dark, where ebbs the old refrain,
A starved heart hears.
And silver-bright, and silver-blurred again
With moonlight and with tears.
All the long night they go, down the long summer lane,
The long, long years.
Ah but, Belov'd, men may do
All things to music;--march, and die;
And wear the longest vigil through,
... And say good-by.
All things to music!--Ah, but where
Peace never falls upon the air;--
These city-ways of dark and din
Where greed has shut and barred them in!
And thundering, swart against the sky,
That whirlwind,--never to go by--
Of tracks and wheels, that overhead
Beat back the senses with their roar
And menace of undying war,--
War--war--for daily bread!
All things to silence! Ah, but where
Men dwell not, but must make a lair;--
And Sorrow may not sit alone,
Nor Love hear music of its own;
And Thought that strives to breast that sea
Must struggle even for memory.
Day-long, night-long,--besieging din
To thrust all pain the deeper in!--
And drown the flutter of first-breath;
And batter at the doors of Death.
To lull their dearest:--watch their dead;
While the long thunders overhead,
Gather and break for evermore,
Eternal tides--eternal War,
War--war--Bread--bread!
Presence.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

All things give token of thee!
As soon as the bright sun is shining,
Thou too wilt follow, I trust.
When in the garden thou walk'st,
Thou then art the rose of all roses,
Lily of lilies as well.
When thou dost move in the dance,
Then each constellation moves also;
With thee and round thee they move.
Night! oh, what bliss were the night!
For then thou o'ershadow'st the lustre,
Dazzling and fair, of the moon.
Dazzling and beauteous art thou,
And flowers, and moon, and the planets
Homage pay, Sun, but to thee.
Sun! to me also be thou
Creator of days bright and glorious;
Life and Eternity this!
Inspiration.
by Madison Julius Cawein

All who have toiled for Art, who've won or lost,
Sat equal priests at her high Pentecost;
Only the chrism and sacrament of flame,
Anointing all, inspired not all the same.
Depression
by Morris Rosenfeld

All the striving, all the failing,
To the silent Nothing sailing.
Swiftly, swiftly passing by!
For the land of shadows leaving,
Where a wistful hand is weaving
Thy still woof, Eternity!
Gloomy thoughts in me awaken,
And with fear my breast is shaken,
Thinking: O thou black abyss;
All the toil and thrift of life,
All the struggle and the strife,
Shall it come at last to this?
With the grave shall be requited
Good and evil, and united
Ne'er to separate again?
What the light hath parted purely,
Shall the darkness join more surely?--
Was the vict'ry won in vain?
O mute and infinite extension,
O time beyond our comprehension,
Shall thought and deed ungarnered fall?
Ev'rything dost take and slay,
Ev'rything dost bear away,
Silent Nothing, silent All!...
A Needle's Eye
by William Butler Yeats

All the stream that's roaring by
Came out of a needle's eye;
Things unborn, things that are gone,
From needle's eye still goad it on.
Aedh Tells Of The Rose In His Heart
by William Butler Yeats

All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old,
The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart,
The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould,
Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.
The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told;
I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart,
With the earth and the sky and the water, remade, like a casket of gold
For my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.
Over The May Hill.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

All through the night time, and all through the day time,
Dreading the morning and dreading the night,
Nearer and nearer we drift to the May time
Season of beauty and season of blight,
Leaves on the linden, and sun on the meadow,
Green in the garden, and bloom everywhere,
Gloom in my heart, and a terrible shadow,
Walks by me, sits by me, stands by my chair.
Oh, but the birds by the brooklet are cheery,
Oh, but the woods show such delicate greens,
Strange how you droop and how soon you are weary - 
Too well I know what that weariness means.
But how could I know in the crisp winter weather
(Though sometimes I noticed a catch in your breath),
Riding and singing and dancing together,
How could I know you were racing with death?
How could I know when we danced until morning,
And you were the gayest of all the gay crowd - 
With only that shortness of breath for a warning,
How could I know that you danced for a shroud?
Whirling and whirling through moonlight and starlight,
Rocking as lightly as boats on the wave,
Down in your eyes shone a deep light - a far light,
How could I know 'twas the light to your grave?
Day by day, day by day, nearing and nearing,
Hid under greenness, and beauty and bloom,
Cometh the shape and the shadow I'm fearing,
"Over the May hill" is waiting your tomb.
The season of mirth and of music is over - 
I have danced my last dance, I have sung my last song,
Under the violets, under the clover,
My heart and my love will be lying ere long.
Ten Thousand Men A Day
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

All the world was wearying,
All the world was sad;
Everything was shadow-filled;
Things were going bad.
Then a rumour stirred all hearts
As a wind stirs trees - 
Ten thousand men a day
Coming over seas!
Soon we saw them marching by - 
God! what a sight! - 
Shoulders back, and heads erect,
Faces full of light.
Smiling like a morn in May,
Moving like a breeze,
Ten thousand men a day
Coming over seas.
Weary soldiers worn with war
Lifted up their eyes,
Shadows seemed to fade a bit,
Dawn was in the skies.
Hope sprang to troubled hearts,
Strength to tired knees:
Ten thousand men a day
Were coming over seas.
France and England swarmed with them,
Khaki-clad and young,
Filled with all the joy of life - 
Into line they swung.
Waning valour rose anew
At the sight of these
Ten thousand men a day
Coming over seas.
Still they come - and still they come
In their strength and pride.
Victory with radiant mien
Marches on beside.
Victory is here to stay,
Every heart agrees,
With ten thousand men a day
Coming over seas.
The Flight
by Sara Teasdale

All through the deep blue night
The fountain sang alone;
It sang to the drowsy heart
Of the satyr carved in stone.
The fountain sang and sang,
But the satyr never stirred
Only the great white moon
In the empty heaven heard.
The fountain sang and sang
While on the marble rim
The milk-white peacocks slept,
And their dreams were strange and dim.
Bright dew was on the grass,
And on the ilex, dew,
The dreamy milk-white birds
Were all a-glisten, too.
The fountain sang and sang
The things one cannot tell;
The dreaming peacocks stirred
And the gleaming dew-drops fell.
Love
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
Are all but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.
Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o'er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay
Beside the ruined tower.
The moonshine stealing o'er the scene
Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve!
She leant against the armed man,
The statue of the armed knight;
She stood and listened to my lay,
Amid the lingering light.
Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!
She loves me best, whene'er I sing
The songs that make her grieve.
I played a soft and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story -
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.
She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.
I told her of the Knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he wooed
The Lady of the Land.
I told her how he pined: and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another's love
Interpreted my own.
She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
And she forgave me, that I gazed
Too fondly on her face!
But when I told the cruel scorn
That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,
And that he crossed the mountain-woods,
Nor rested day nor night;
That sometimes from the savage den,
And sometimes from the darksome shade,
And sometimes starting up at once
In green and sunny glade, -
There came and looked him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew it was a Fiend,
This miserable Knight!
And that, unknowing what he did,
He leaped amid a murderous band,
And saved from outrage worse than death
The Lady of the Land;
And how she wept, and clasped his knees;
And how she tended him in vain;
And ever strove to expiate
The scorn that crazed his brain; -
And that she nursed him in a cave;
And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest-leaves
A dying man he lay; -
His dying words - but when I reached
That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
My faltering voice and pausing harp
Disturbed her soul with pity!
All impulses of soul and sense
Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve;
The music and the doleful tale,
The rich and balmy eve;
And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued,
Subdued and cherished long!
She wept with pity and delight,
She blushed with love, and virgin shame;
And like the murmur of a dream,
I heard her breathe my name.
Her bosom heaved - she stepped aside,
As conscious of my look she stepped -
Then suddenly, with timorous eye,
She fled to me and wept.
She half enclosed me with her arms,
She pressed me with a meek embrace;
And bending back her head, looked up,
And gazed upon my face.
'Twas partly love, and partly fear,
And partly 'twas a bashful art,
That I might rather feel, than see,
The swelling of her heart.
I calmed her fears, and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin pride;
And so I won my Genevieve,
My bright and beauteous Bride
Passing And Glassing.
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

All things that pass
Are woman's looking-glass;
They show her how her bloom must fade,
And she herself be laid
With withered roses in the shade;
With withered roses and the fallen peach,
Unlovely, out of reach
Of summer joy that was.
All things that pass
Are woman's tiring-glass;
The faded lavender is sweet,
Sweet the dead violet
Culled and laid by and cared for yet;
The dried-up violets and dried lavender
Still sweet, may comfort her,
Nor need she cry Alas!
All things that pass
Are wisdom's looking-glass;
Being full of hope and fear, and still
Brimful of good or ill,
According to our work and will;
For there is nothing new beneath the sun;
Our doings have been done,
And that which shall be was.
Love And The Wind
by Madison Julius Cawein

All were in league to capture Love
The rock, the stream, the tree;
The very Month was leader of
The whole conspiracy.
It led Love where wild waters met,
And tree hugged close to tree;
And where the dew and sunbeam let
Their lips meet rapturously.
And then it shouted, "Here he is,
O wild Wind in the tree!.
Come, clasp him now, and kiss and kiss!
And call the flowers to see!"
And there, on every side, the wood
Rushed out in flower and tree.
And that is how, I've understood,
The Springtime came to be.
Clouds.
by Madison Julius Cawein

All through the tepid Summer night
The starless sky had poured a cool
Monotony of pleasant rain
In music beautiful.
And for an hour I'd sat to watch
Clouds moving on majestic feet,
Had heard down avenues of night
Their hearts of thunder beat;
Saw ponderous limbs far-veined with gold
Pulse fiery life o'er wood and plain,
While scattered, fell from monstrous palms
The largess of the rain;
Beholding at each lightning's flash
The generous silver on the sod,
In meek devotion bowed, I thanked
These almoners of God.
Butterfly And Snail.
by John Gay

All upstarts, insolent in place,
Remind us of their vulgar race.
A butterfly, but born one morning,
Sat on a rose, the rosebud scorning.
His wings of azure, jet, and gold,
Were truly glorious to behold;
He spread his wings, he sipped the dew,
When an old neighbour hove in view - 
The snail, who left a slimy trace
Upon the lawn, his native place.
"Adam," he to the gard'ner cried,
"Behold this fellow by my side;
What is the use with daily toil
To war with weeds, to clear the soil,
And with keen intermittent labour
To graft and prune for fruit with flavour
The peach and plum, if such as he,
Voracious vermin, may make free?
Give them the roller or the rake,
And crush as you would crush a snake."
The snail replied: "Your arrogance
Awakes my patience from its trance;
Recalls to mind your humble birth,
Born from the lowliest thing on earth.
Nine times has Phoebus, with the hours,
Awakened to new life, new flowers,
Since you were a vile crawling thing!
Though now endowed with painted wing,
You then were vilest of the vile - 
I was a snail, but housed the while;
Was born a snail, and snail shall die;
And thou, though now a butterfly,
Will leave behind a baneful breed
Of caterpillar sons - thy seed."
The Love Of God. - From The Proven'al Of Bernari Rascas. (Translations.)
by William Cullen Bryant

All things that are on earth shall wholly pass away,
Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye.
The forms of men shall be as they had never been;
The blasted groves shall lose their fresh and tender green;
The birds of the thicket shall end their pleasant song,
And the nigthingale* shall cease to chant the evening long.
The kine of the pasture shall feel the dart that kills,
And all the fair white flocks shall perish from the hills.
The goat and antlered stag, the wolf and the fox,
The wild boar of the wood, and the chamois of the rocks,
And the strong and fearless bear, in the trodden dust shall lie,
And the dolphin of the sea, and the mighty whale, shall die.
And realms shall be dissolved, and empires be no more,
And they shall bow to death, who ruled from shore to shore;
And the great globe itself, (so the holy writings tell,)
With the rolling firmament, where the starry armies dwell,
Shall melt with fervent heat, they shall all pass away,
Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye.
(* sic)
The Princess's Finger-Nail: A Tale Of Nonsense Land
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

All through the Castle of High-bred Ease,
Where the chief employment was do-as-you-please,
Spread consternation and wild despair.
The queen was wringing her hands and hair;
The maids of honour were sad and solemn;
The pages looked blank as they stood in column;
The court-jester blubbered, "Boo-hoo, boo-hoo"
The cook in the kitchen dropped tears in the stew
And all through the castle went sob and wail,
For the princess had broken her finger-nail:
The beautiful Princess Red-as-a-Rose,
Bride-elect of the Lord High-Nose,
Broken her finger-nail down to the quick - 
No wonder the queen and her court were sick.
Never sorrow so dread before
Had dared to enter that castle door.
Oh! what would my Lord His-High-Nose say
When she took off her glove on her wedding-day?
The fairest princess in Nonsense Land,
With a broken finger-nail on her hand!
'Twas a terrible, terrible accident,
And they called a meeting of parliament;
And never before that royal Court
Had come such question of grave import
As "How could you hurry a nail to grow?"
And the skill of the kingdom was called to show.
They sent for Monsieur File-'em-off;
He smoothed down the corners so ragged and rough.
They sent for Madame la Diamond-Dust,
Who lived on the fingers of upper-crust;
They sent for Professor de Chamois-Skin,
Who took her powder and rubbed it in;
They sent for the pudgy nurse Fat-on-the-Bone
To bathe her finger in eau-de-Cologne;
And they called the court surgeon, Monsieur Red-Tape,
To hear what he thought of the new nail's shape,
Over the kingdom the telegrams flew
Which told how the finger-nail thrived and grew;
And all through the realm of Nonsense Land
They offered up prayers for the princess's hand.
At length the glad tidings were heard with a shout
What the princess's finger-nail had grown out:
Pointed and polished and pink and clean,
Befitting the hand of a some-day queen.
Salutes were fired all over the land
By the home-guard battery pop-gun band;
And great was the joy of my Lord High-Nose,
Who straightway ordered his wedding clothes,
And paid his tailor, Don Wait-for-aye,
Who died of amazement the self-same day.
My lord by a jury was judged insane;
For they said - and the truth of the saying was plain - 
That a lord of such very high pedigree
Would never be paying his bills, you see,
Unless he was out of his head; and so
They locked him up without more ado.
And the beautiful Princess Red-as-a-Rose
Pined for her lover, my Lord High-Nose,
Till she entered a convent and took the veil - 
And this is the end of my nonsense tale.
All Things Decay And Die
by Robert Herrick

All things decay with time: The forest sees
The growth and down-fall of her aged trees;
That timber tall, which three-score lustres stood
The proud dictator of the state-like wood,
I mean the sovereign of all plants, the oak,
Droops, dies, and falls without the cleaver's stroke.
All Things Can Tempt Me
by William Butler Yeats

All things can tempt me from this craft of verse:
One time it was a woman's face, or worse,
The seeming needs of my fool-driven land;
Now nothing but comes readier to the hand
Than this accustomed toil. When I was young,
I had not given a penny for a song
Did not the poet sing it with such airs
That one believed he had a sword upstairs;
Yet would be now, could I but have my wish,
Colder and dumber and deafer than a fish.
Hymn For The Opening Of Plymouth Church, St. Paul, Minnesota
by John Greenleaf Whittier

All things are Thine: no gift have we,
Lord of all gifts, to offer Thee;
And hence with grateful hearts to-day,
Thy own before Thy feet we lay.
Thy will was in the builders' thought;
Thy hand unseen amidst us wrought;
Through mortal motive, scheme and plan,
Thy wise eternal purpose ran.
No lack Thy perfect fulness knew;
For human needs and longings grew
This house of prayer, this home of rest,
In the fair garden of the West.
In weakness and in want we call
On Thee for whom the heavens are small;
Thy glory is Thy children's good,
Thy joy Thy tender Fatherhood.
O Father! deign these walls to bless,
Fill with Thy love their emptiness,
And let their door a gateway be
To lead us from ourselves to Thee
Just You
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

All the selfish joys of earth,
I am getting through.
That which used to lure and lead
Now I pass and give no heed;
Only one thing seems of worth - 
Just you.
Not for me the lonely height,
And the larger view;
Lowlier ways seem fair and wide,
While we wander side by side.
One thing makes the whole world bright - 
Just you.
Not for distant goals I run,
No great aim pursue;
Most of earth's ambitions seem
Like the shadow of a dream.
All the world to me means one - 
Just you.
Alone In Crowds To Wander On.
by Thomas Moore

Alone in crowds to wander on,
And feel that all the charm is gone
Which voices dear and eyes beloved
Shed round us once, where'er we roved--
This, this the doom must be
Of all who've loved, and lived to see
The few bright things they thought would stay
For ever near them, die away.
Tho' fairer forms around us throng,
Their smiles to others all belong,
And want that charm which dwells alone
Round those the fond heart calls its own.
Where, where the sunny brow?
The long-known voice--where are they now?
Thus ask I still, nor ask in vain,
The silence answers all too plain.
Oh, what is Fancy's magic worth,
If all her art can not call forth
One bliss like those we felt of old
From lips now mute, and eyes now cold?
No, no,--her spell is vain,--
As soon could she bring back again
Those eyes themselves from out the grave,
As wake again one bliss they gave.
The Lost Mistress
by Robert Browning

I.
All's over, then: does truth sound bitter
As one at first believes?
Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter
About your cottage eaves!
II.
And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,
I noticed that, to-day;
One day more bursts them open fully
You know the red turns grey.
III.
To-morrow we meet the same then, dearest?
May I take your hand in mine?
Mere friends are we, well, friends the merest
Keep much that I resign:
IV.
For each glance of the eye so bright and black,
Though I keep with heart's endeavour,
Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back,
Though it stay in my soul for ever!
V.
Yet I will but say what mere friends say,
Or only a thought stronger;
I will hold your hand but as long as all may,
Or so very little longer!