DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Behind The Arras
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

As in some dim baronial hall restrained,
A prisoner sits, engirt by secret doors
And waving tapestries that argue forth
Strange passages into the outer air;
So in this dimmer room which we call life,
Thus sits the soul and marks with eye intent
That mystic curtain o'er the portal death;
Still deeming that behind the arras lies
The lambent way that leads to lasting light.
Poor fooled and foolish soul! Know now that death
Is but a blind, false door that nowhere leads,
And gives no hope of exit final, free.
Sonnet V: To A Friend Who Sent Me Some Roses
by John Keats

As late I rambled in the happy fields,
What time the skylark shakes the tremulous dew
From his lush clover covert; when anew
Adventurous knights take up their dinted shields;
I saw the sweetest flower wild nature yields,
A fresh-blown musk-rose; 'twas the first that threw
Its sweets upon the summer: graceful it grew
As is the wand that Queen Titania wields.
And, as I feasted on its fragrancy,
I thought the garden-rose it far excelled;
But when, O Wells! thy roses came to me,
My sense with their deliciousness was spelled:
Soft voices had they, that with tender plea
Whispered of peace, and truth, and friendliness unquelled.
Upon Cupid.
by Robert Herrick

As lately I a garland bound,
'Mongst roses I there Cupid found;
I took him, put him in my cup,
And drunk with wine, I drank him up.
Hence then it is that my poor breast
Could never since find any rest.
As It Was In The Beginning
by Henry Lawson

As it was in the beginning, so we'll find it in the end,
For a lover, or a brother, or a sweetheart, or a friend;
As it was in the beginning, so we'll find it by-and-bye,
When weak women hug their babies, and strong men go out to die.
As 'tis written now, or spoken, so we'll find it yet in deed, 
For their State, or for their Country, for their Honour or their Creed;
For the love of Right, or hatred for the Everlasting Lie,
When the women think of some things, and strong men go out to die.
As it used to be in past times, in the future so it must,
We shall find him stretching forward with his face down in the dust,
All his wounds in front, and hidden, blood to earth, and back to sky,
When pale women pray in private, and strong men go out to die.
Rebels all we are, and brothers, rebels to the laws we make, 
Rich or poor, or fat or lean man, fighting for another's sake;
It is all as God decreed it, we shall find it by-and-bye,
When our girls, disguised in boys' clothes, go to die where strong men die.
Bubbles
by Madison Julius Cawein

As I went through the wood, the wood,
Through fern and pimpernel,
A water fell, a water stood,
Twinkling within a dell,
And Naiad fancies, gleaming, hung
Like bubbles there the moss among.
And as I sat beside the fall
And watched a rainbow beam,
There rose a dream, a spirit tall,
Out of the woodland stream:
Bright, prismed bubbles in her hair,
She rose and smiled upon me there.
But as I gazed at her and gazed,
Dim bubbles grew her eyes;
And frail of dyes her body raised,
And'vanished in the skies:
And with the spirit went my dream
A rainbow bubble of the stream.
Sonnet 50
by Michael Drayton

As in some Countries far remote from hence,
The wretched creature destined to die,
Hauing the iudgement due to his offence,
By Surgeons begg'd, their Art on him to trie:
Which on the liuing worke without remorce,
First make incision on each maistring vaine,
Then stanch the bleeding, then transperce the coarse,
And with their balmes recure the wounds againe,
Then poison and with Phisicke him restore,
Not that they feare the hopelesse man to kill,
But their experience to encrease the more;
Euen so my Mistresse works vpon my ill,
By curing me, and killing me each howre,
Onely to shew her beauties soueraigne powre.
The Captiv'd Bee; Or, The Little Filcher
by Robert Herrick

As Julia once a-slumb'ring lay,
It chanced a bee did fly that way,
After a dew, or dew-like shower,
To tipple freely in a flower;
For some rich flower, he took the lip
Of Julia, and began to sip;
But when he felt he suck'd from thence
Honey, and in the quintessence,
He drank so much he scarce could stir;
So Julia took the pilferer.
And thus surprised, as filchers use,
He thus began himself t'excuse:
'Sweet lady-flower, I never brought
Hither the least one thieving thought;
But taking those rare lips of yours
For some fresh, fragrant, luscious flowers,
I thought I might there take a taste,
Where so much sirup ran at waste.
Besides, know this, I never sting
The flower that gives me nourishing;
But with a kiss, or thanks, do pay
For honey that I bear away.'
This siid, he laid his little scrip
Of honey 'fore her ladyship,
And told her, as some tears did fall,
That, that he took, and that was all.
At which she smiled, and bade him go
And take his bag; but thus much know,
When next he came a-pilfering so,
He should from her full lips derive
Honey enough to fill his hive.
Translations. - Milton's Italian Poems. Ii.
by George MacDonald

As in the twilight brown, on hillside bare,
Useth to go the little shepherd maid,
Watering some strange fair plant, poorly displayed,
Ill thriving in unwonted soil and air
Far from its native springtime's genial care;
So on my ready tongue hath Love assayed
In a strange speech to wake new flower and blade,
While I of thee, proud yet so debonair,
Sing songs whose sense is to my people lost--
Yield the fair Thames, and the fair Arno gain.
Love willed it so, and I, at others' cost,
Already knew Love never willed in vain:
Would my heart slow and bosom hard were found
To him who plants from heaven so fair a ground!
John Dory
by Frank Sidgwick

The Text is from Ravenscroft's Deuteromelia (1609), the only text that has come down to us of a 'three-man's song' which achieved extraordinary popularity during' the seventeenth century.
The Story.--'Good King John of France' is presumed to be John II., who was taken prisoner at the battle of Poictiers and died in 1364. But the earliest literary reference to this ballad occurs in the play of Gammar Gurton's Needle, acted in 1566, where the song 'I cannot eat but little meat' is to be sung 'to the tune of John Dory.' From Carew's Survey of Cornwall (1602) we learn a little more: 'Moreover, the prowess of one Nicholas, son to a widow near Foy [Fowey], is descanted upon in an old three-man's song, namely, how he fought bravely at sea with John Dory (a Genowey, as I conjecture), set forth by John, the French king, and, after much bloodshed on both sides, took, and slew him, in revenge of the great ravine and cruelty which he had fore committed upon the Englishmen's goods and bodies.'
JOHN DORY
1.
As it fell on a holy-day,
And upon a holy-tide-a,
John Dory bought him an ambling nag
To Paris for to ride-a.
2.
And when John Dory to Paris was come,
A little before the gate-a,
John Dory was fitted, the porter was witted
To let him in thereat-a.
3.
The first man that John Dory did meet
Was good king John of France-a;
John Dory could well of his courtesie,
But fell down in a trance-a.
4.
'A pardon, a pardon, my liege and my king,
For my merry men and for me-a,
And all the churles in merry England,
I'll bring them all bound to thee-a.'
5.
And Nicholl was then a Cornish man
A little beside Bohide-a,
And he manned forth a good black bark
With fifty good oars on a side-a.
6.
'Run up, my boy, unto the main-top,
And look what thou canst spy-a.'
'Who ho, who ho! a goodly ship I do see;
I trow it be John Dory-a.'
7.
They hoist their sails, both top and top,
The mizzen and all was tried-a,
And every man stood to his lot,
What ever should betide-a.
8.
The roaring cannons then were plied,
And dub-a-dub went the drum-a;
The braying trumpets loud they cried
To courage both all and some-a.
9.
The grappling-hooks were brought at length,
The brown bill and the sword-a;
John Dory at length, for all his strength,
Was clapped fast under board-a.
Odes Of Anacreon - Ode VI.
by Thomas Moore

[1]
As late I sought the spangled bowers,
To cull a wreath of matin flowers,
Where many an early rose was weeping,
I found the urchin Cupid sleeping,
I caught the boy, a goblet's tide
Was richly mantling by my side,
I caught him by his downy wing,
And whelmed him in the racy spring.
Then drank I down the poisoned bowl,
And love now nestles in my soul.
Oh, yes, my soul is Cupid's nest,
I feel him fluttering in my breast.
Transplanted.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

As if some little Arctic flower,
Upon the polar hem,
Went wandering down the latitudes,
Until it puzzled came
To continents of summer,
To firmaments of sun,
To strange, bright crowds of flowers,
And birds of foreign tongue!
I say, as if this little flower
To Eden wandered in --
What then? Why, nothing, only,
Your inference therefrom!
Nursery Rhyme. DVIII. Natural History.
by Unknown

As I went over the water,
The water went over me.
I saw two little blackbirds sitting on a tree:
The one called me a rascal,
The other called me a thief;
I took up my little black stick,
And knocked out all their teeth.
Blind Bartimeus
by George MacDonald

As Jesus went into Jericho town,
Twas darkness all, from toe to crown,
About blind Bartimeus.
He said, "My eyes are more than dim,
They are no use for seeing him:
No matter--he can see us!"
"Cry out, cry out, blind brother--cry;
Let not salvation dear go by.--
Have mercy, Son of David."
Though they were blind, they both could hear--
They heard, and cried, and he drew near;
And so the blind were saved.
O Jesus Christ, I am very blind;
Nothing comes through into my mind;
'Tis well I am not dumb:
Although I see thee not, nor hear,
I cry because thou may'st be near:
O son of Mary, come!
I hear it through the all things blind:
Is it thy voice, so gentle and kind--
"Poor eyes, no more be dim"?
A hand is laid upon mine eyes;
I hear, and hearken, see, and rise;--
'Tis He! I follow him!
Primavera Mia
by Sara Teasdale

As kings who see their little life-day pass,
Take off the heavy ermine and the crown,
So had the trees that autumn-time laid down
Their golden garments on the faded grass,
When I, who watched the seasons in the glass
Of mine own thoughts, saw all the autumn's brown
Leap into life and don a sunny gown
Of leafage such as happy April has.
Great spring came singing upward from the south;
For in my heart, far carried on the wind,
Your words like winged seeds took root and grew,
And all the world caught music from your mouth;
I saw the light as one who had been blind,
And knew my sun and song and spring were you.
The Boy Out Of Church.
by Robert von Ranke Graves

As Jesus and his followers
Upon a Sabbath morn
Were walking by a wheat field
They plucked the ears of corn.
They plucked it, they rubbed it,
They blew the husks away,
Which grieved the pious pharisees
Upon the Sabbath day.
And Jesus said, "A riddle
Answer if you can,
Was man made for the Sabbath
Or Sabbath made for man?"
I do not love the Sabbath,
The soapsuds and the starch,
The troops of solemn people
Who to Salvation march.
I take my book, I take my stick
On the Sabbath day,
In woody nooks and valleys
I hide myself away.
To ponder there in quiet
God's Universal Plan,
Resolved that church and Sabbath
Were never made for man.
As Imperceptibly As Grief
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

As imperceptibly as grief
The summer lapsed away, --
Too imperceptible, at last,
To seem like perfidy.
A quietness distilled,
As twilight long begun,
Or Nature, spending with herself
Sequestered afternoon.
The dusk drew earlier in,
The morning foreign shone, --
A courteous, yet harrowing grace,
As guest who would be gone.
And thus, without a wing,
Or service of a keel,
Our summer made her light escape
Into the beautiful.
Macdougal Street
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

As I went walking up and down to take the evening air,
(Sweet to meet upon the street, why must I be so shy?)
I saw him lay his hand upon her torn black hair;
("Little dirty Latin child, let the lady by!")
The women squatting on the stoops were slovenly and fat,
(Lay me out in organdie, lay me out in lawn!)
And everywhere I stepped there was a baby or a cat;
(Lord God in Heaven, will it never be dawn?)
The fruit-carts and clam-carts were ribald as a fair,
(Pink nets and wet shells trodden under heel)
She had haggled from the fruit-man of his rotting ware;
(I shall never get to sleep, the way I feel!)
He walked like a king through the filth and the clutter,
(Sweet to meet upon the street, why did you glance me by?)
But he caught the quaint Italian quip she flung him from the gutter;
(What can there be to cry about that I should lie and cry?)
He laid his darling hand upon her little black head,
(I wish I were a ragged child with ear-rings in my ears!)
And he said she was a baggage to have said what she had said;
(Truly I shall be ill unless I stop these tears!)
Nursery Rhyme. CCXXII. Riddles.
by Unknown

[A Hedgehog.]
As I went over Lincoln bridge
I met mister Rusticap;
Pins and needles on his back,
A going to Thorney fair.
Requital
by John Greenleaf Whittier

As Islam's Prophet, when his last day drew
Nigh to its close, besought all men to say
Whom he had wronged, to whom he then should pay
A debt forgotten, or for pardon sue,
And, through the silence of his weeping friends,
A strange voice cried: "Thou owest me a debt,"
"Allah be praised!" he answered. "Even yet
He gives me power to make to thee amends.
O friend! I thank thee for thy timely word."
So runs the tale. Its lesson all may heed,
For all have sinned in thought, or word, or deed,
Or, like the Prophet, through neglect have erred.
All need forgiveness, all have debts to pay
Ere the night cometh, while it still is day
As In The Woodland I Walk
by Richard Le Gallienne

As in the woodland I walk, many a strange thing I learn - 
How from the dross and the drift the beautiful things return,
And the fires quenched in October in April reburn;
How foulness grows fair with the stern lustration of sleets and snows,
And rottenness changes back to the breath and the cheek of the rose,
And how gentle the wind that seems wild to each blossom that blows;
How the lost is ever found, and the darkness the door of the light,
And how soft the caress of the hand that to shape must not fear to smite,
And how the dim pearl of the moon is drawn from the gulf of the night;
How, when the great tree falls, with its empire of rustling leaves,
The earth with a thousand hands its sunlit ruin receives,
And out of the wreck of its glory each secret artist weaves
Splendours anew and arabesques and tints on his swaying loom,
Soft as the eyes of April, and black as the brows of doom,
And the fires give back in blue-eyed flowers the woodland they consume;
How when the streams run dry, the thunder calls on the hills,
And the clouds spout silver showers in the laps of the little rills,
And each spring brims with the morning star, and each thirsty fountain fills;
And how, when the songs seemed ended, and all the music mute,
There is always somewhere a secret tune, some string of a hidden lute,
Lonely and undismayed that has faith in the flower and the fruit.
So I learn in the woods - that all things come again,
That sorrow turns to joy, and that laughter is born of pain,
That the burning gold of June is the gray of December's rain.
Meeting And Passing
by Robert Lee Frost

As I went down the hill along the wall
There was a gate I had leaned at for the view
And had just turned from when I first saw you
As you came up the hill. We met. But all
We did that day was mingle great and small
Footprints in summer dust as if we drew
The figure of our being less that two
But more than one as yet. Your parasol
Pointed the decimal off with one deep thrust.
And all the time we talked you seemed to see
Something down there to smile at in the dust.
(Oh, it was without prejudice to me!)
Afterward I went past what you had passed
Before we met and you what I had passed.
Nursery Rhyme. DCXLIX. Relics.
by Unknown

As I went over the water,
The water went over me,
I heard an old woman crying,
Will you buy some furmity?
A Doe At Evening
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

As I went through the marshes a doe sprang out of the corn and flashed up the hill-side leaving her fawn.
On the sky-line she moved round to watch, she pricked a fine black blotch on the sky.
I looked at her and felt her watching;
I became a strange being.
Still, I had my right to be there with her,
Her nimble shadow trotting along the sky-line, she put back her fine, level-balanced head.
And I knew her.
Ah yes, being male, is not my head hard-balanced, antlered?
Are not my haunches light?
Has she not fled on the same wind with me?
Does not my fear cover her fear?
IRSCHENHAUSEN
Epilogue, Intended To Have Been Spoken By The Lady Hen. Mar. Wentworth, When "Calisto"[1] Was Acted At Court.
by John Dryden

As Jupiter I made my court in vain;
I'll now assume my native shape again.
I'm weary to be so unkindly used,
And would not be a god to be refused.
State grows uneasy when it hinders love;
A glorious burden, which the wise remove.
Now, as a nymph I need not sue, nor try
The force of any lightning but the eye.
Beauty and youth more than a god command;
No Jove could e'er the force of these withstand.
'Tis here that sovereign power admits dispute;
Beauty sometimes is justly absolute.
Our sullen Catos, whatsoe'er they say,
Even while they frown, and dictate laws, obey.
You, mighty sir,[2] our bonds more easy make,
And gracefully, what all must suffer, take:
Above those forms the grave affect to wear;
For 'tis not to be wise to be severe.
True wisdom may some gallantry admit,
And soften business with the charms of wit.
These peaceful triumphs with your cares you bought,
And from the midst of fighting nations brought.
You only hear it thunder from afar,
And sit in peace the arbiter of war:
Peace, the loathed manna, which hot brains despise.
You knew its worth, and made it early prize:
And in its happy leisure sit and see
The promises of more felicity:
Two glorious nymphs,[3] of your own godlike line,
Whose morning rays like noontide strike and shine:
Whom you to suppliant monarchs shall dispose,
To bind your friends, and to disarm your foes.
Cairnsmill Den--Tune: 'A Roving'
by Robert Fuller Murray

As I, with hopeless love o'erthrown,
With love o'erthrown, with love o'erthrown,
And this is truth I tell,
As I, with hopeless love o'erthrown,
Was sadly walking all alone,
I met my love one morning
In Cairnsmill Den.
One morning, one morning,
One blue and blowy morning,
I met my love one morning
In Cairnsmill Den.
A dead bough broke within the wood
Within the wood, within the wood,
And this is truth I tell.
A dead bough broke within the wood,
And I looked up, and there she stood.
I asked what was it brought her there,
What brought her there, what brought her there,
And this is truth I tell.
I asked what was it brought her there.
Says she, 'To pull the primrose fair.'
Says I, 'Come, let me pull with you,
Along with you, along with you,'
And this is truth I tell.
Says I, 'Come let me pull with you,
For one is not so good as two.'
But when at noon we climbed the hill,
We climbed the hill, we climbed the hill,
And this is truth I tell.
But when at noon we climbed the hill,
Her hands and mine were empty still.
And when we reached the top so high,
The top so high, the top so high,
And this is truth I tell.
And when we reached the top so high
Says I, 'I'll kiss you, if I die!'
I kissed my love in Cairnsmill Den,
In Cairnsmill Den, in Cairnsmill Den,
And this is truth I tell.
I kissed my love in Cairnsmill Den,
And my love kissed me back again.
I met my love one morning
In Cairnsmill Den.
One morning, one morning,
One blue and blowy morning,
I met my love one morning
In Cairnsmill Den.
The Pool And The Soul.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Comme dans les 'tangs.")
[X., May, 1839.]
As in some stagnant pool by forest-side,
In human souls two things are oft descried;
The sky, - which tints the surface of the pool
With all its rays, and all its shadows cool;
The basin next, - where gloomy, dark and deep,
Through slime and mud black reptiles vaguely creep.
R.F. HODGSON
Nursery Rhyme. DXXXVII. Natural History.
by Unknown

As I went to Bonner,
I met a pig
Without a wig,
Upon my word and honour.
At Bologna, In Remembrance Of The Late Insurrections, 1837 - III - Concluded
by William Wordsworth

As leaves are to the tree whereon they grow
And wither, every human generation
Is, to the Being of a mighty nation,
Locked in our world's embrace through weal and woe;
Thought that should teach the zealot to forego
Rash schemes, to abjure all selfish agitation,
And seek through noiseless pains and moderation
The unblemished good they only can bestow.
Alas! with most, who weigh futurity
Against time present, passion holds the scales:
Hence equal ignorance of both prevails,
And nations sink; or, struggling to be free,
Are doomed to flounder on, like wounded whales
Tossed on the bosom of a stormy sea.
As kingfishers catch fire
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dr'w fl'me;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves - goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Wh't I do is me: for that I came.
' say m're: the just man justices;
K'eps grace: th't keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is - 
Chr'st - for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.
Sonnets: Idea LIX To Proverbs
by Michael Drayton

As Love and I late harboured in one inn,
With Proverbs thus each other entertain.
"In love there is no lack," thus I begin:
"Fair words make fools," replieth he again.
"Who spares to speak, doth spare to speed," quoth I.
"As well," saith he, "too forward as too slow."
"Fortune assists the boldest," I reply.
"A hasty man," quoth he, "ne'er wanted woe!"
"Labour is light, where love," quoth I, "doth pay."
Saith he, "Light burden's heavy, if far born."
Quoth I, "The main lost, cast the by away!"
"You have spun a fair thread," he replies in scorn.
And having thus awhile each other thwarted,
Fools as we met, so fools again we parted.
Sweet Memory Of Love.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Toutes les passions s''loignent avec l''ge.")
[XXXIV. ii., October, 183-.]
As life wanes on, the passions slow depart,
One with his grinning mask, one with his steel;
Like to a strolling troupe of Thespian art,
Whose pace decreases, winding past the hill.
But naught can Love's all charming power efface,
That light, our misty tracks suspended o'er,
In joy thou'rt ours, more dear thy tearful grace,
The young may curse thee, but the old adore.
But when the weight of years bow down the head,
And man feels all his energies decline,
His projects gone, himself tomb'd with the dead,
Where virtues lie, nor more illusions shine,
When all our lofty thoughts dispersed and o'er,
We count within our hearts so near congealed,
Each grief that's past, each dream, exhausted ore!
As counting dead upon the battle-field.
As one who walks by the lamp's flickering blaze,
Far from the hum of men, the joys of earth - 
Our mind arrives at last by tortuous ways,
At that drear gulf where but despair has birth.
E'en there, amid the darkness of that night,
When all seems closing round in empty air,
Is seen through thickening gloom one trembling light!
'Tis Love's sweet memory that lingers there!
Author of "Critical Essays."
Song Of Khan Zada
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

As one may sip a Stranger's Bowl
You gave yourself but not your soul.
I wonder, now that time has passed,
Where you will come to rest at last.
You gave your beauty for an hour,
I held it gently as a flower.
You wished to leave me, told me so, - 
I kissed your feet and let you go.