DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Rosny
by Robert Browning

Woe, he went galloping into the war,
Clara, Clara!
Let us two dream: shall he 'scape with a scar?
Scarcely disfigurement, rather a grace
Making for manhood which nowise we mar:
See, while I kiss it, the flush on his face,
Rosny, Rosny!
Light does he laugh: 'With your love in my soul',
(Clara, Clara!)
'How could I other than, sound, safe, and whole,
Cleave who opposed me asunder, yet stand
Scatheless beside you, as, touching love's goal,
Who won the race kneels, craves reward at your hand,
Rosny, Rosny?'
Ay, but if certain who envied should see
Clara, Clara.
Certain who simper: 'The hero for me
Hardly of life were so chary as miss
Death, death and fame, that's love's guerdon when She
Boasts, proud bereaved one, her choice fell on this
Rosny, Rosny!'
So, go on dreaming, he lies mid a heap
(Clara, Clara,)
Of the slain by his hand: what is death but a sleep?
Dead, with my portrait displayed on his breast:
Love wrought in his undoing: 'No prudence could keep
The love-maddened wretch from his fate.'
That is best,
Rosny, Rosny.
The Beggar Family
by Morris Rosenfeld

Within the court, before the judge,
There stand six wretched creatures,
They're lame and weary, one and all,
With pinched and pallid features.
The father is a broken man,
The mother weak and ailing,
The little children, skin and bone,
With fear and hunger wailing.
Their sins are very great, and call
Aloud for retribution,
For their's (maybe you guess!) the crime
Of hopeless destitution.
They look upon the judge's face,
They know what judges ponder,
They know the punishment that waits
On those that beg and wander.
For months from justice they have fled
Along the streets and highways,
From farm to farm, from town to town,
Along the lanes and byways.
They've slept full oftentimes in jail,
They're known in many places;
Yet still they live, for all the woe
That's stamped upon their faces.
The woman's chill with fear. The man
Implores the judge: "Oh tell us,
What will you? With our children small
Relentlessly expel us?
Oh let us be! We'll sleep at night
In corners dark; the city
Has room for all! And some kind soul
Will give a crust in pity.
"For wife and children I will toil:
It cannot be much longer
(For God almighty is and good!)
Ere I for work am stronger.
Oh let us here with men remain,
Nor drive us any further!
Oh why our curses will you have,
And not our blessings rather!"
And now the sick man quails before
The judge's piercing glances:
"No, only two of you shall go
This time and take your chances.
Your wife and you! The children four
You'll leave, my man, behind you,
For them, within the Orphan's Home,
Free places I will find you."
The father's dumb--the mother shrieks:
"My babes and me you'd sever?
If God there be, such cruel act
Shall find forgiveness never!
But first, oh judge, must you condemn
To death their wretched mother--
I cannot leave my children dear
With you or any other!
"I bore and nursed them, struggling still
To shelter and to shield them,
Oh judge, I'll beg from door to door,
My very life-blood yield them!
I know you do not mean it, judge,
With us poor folk you're jesting.
Give back my babes, and further yet
We'll wander unprotesting."
The judge, alas! has turned away,
The paper dread unrolled,
And useless all the mother's grief,
The wild and uncontrolled.
More cruel can a sentence be
Than that which now is given?
Oh cursed the system 'neath whose sway
The human heart is riven!
In the Garden of God
by George William Russell

Within the iron cities
One walked unknown for years,
In his heart the pity of pities
That grew for human tears
When love and grief were ended
The flower of pity grew;
By unseen hands 'twas tended
And fed with holy dew.
Though in his heart were barred in
The blooms of beauty blown;
Yet he who grew the garden
Could call no flower his own.
For by the hands that watered,
The blooms that opened fair
Through frost and pain were scattered
To sweeten the dull air.
--February 15, 1895
As The Indian.
by Alfred Castner King

Lo, the poor Indian, whose untutored mind
Sees God in the clouds and hears Him in the wind.
--Pope.
Within the wind, my untaught ear
The voice of Deity can hear,
And in the fleeting cloud discern
His movements, vast and taciturn;
For in the universe I trace
The wondrous grandeur of His face.
I see him in each blade of grass,
Each towering peak and mountain pass;
Each forest, river, lake and fen
Reveals the God of worlds and men;
His works of wisdom prove to me,
A wise, creative Deity.
To The King And Queen Upon Their Unhappy Distances.
by Robert Herrick

Woe, woe to them, who, by a ball of strife,
Do, and have parted here a man and wife:
CHARLES the best husband, while MARIA strives
To be, and is, the very best of wives,
Like streams, you are divorc'd; but 'twill come when
These eyes of mine shall see you mix again.
Thus speaks the oak here; C. and M. shall meet,
Treading on amber, with their silver-feet,
Nor will't be long ere this accomplish'd be:
The words found true, C. M., remember me.
The Spinning-House of the Future
by James Williams

"Cada puta hile."--Don Quixote, i. 46.
Without my dinner here I lie,
And all because that proctor
With her stout bull-dogs passed, and I
Mocked her.
For Clara is at Girton too,
That dragon is her tutor,
I threatened once what I would do,
Shoot her.
Her life by Clara's tears was saved,
Wherefore she doth detest me,
And hither hungry and unshaved
Pressed me.
I would that I could have commenced
An action 'gainst that devil,
Like that once brought by Kemp against
Neville.[H]
To her I owe the statute framed
That one against it sinning
Should dwell within the house that's named
Spinning.
Ah me! it runs in sections three:
Who speaks to Girton student
Is fined to teach him how to be
Prudent.
Who loves a Girton girl must do
Twelve months on bread and water,
From a digestive point of view
Slaughter.
Who kisses her commits a crime
By hanging expiated,
And she in tears must spend her time
Gated.
Would that at Oxford I had been,
At Balliol or at Merton,
And then I never should have seen
Girton.
Go down I must, no more shall I
And Clara cross the same bridge;
Still, Granta, art thou her and my
Cambridge.
Some day on this her eyes may light,
This doggerel stiff and jointless,
And she may own it is not quite
Pointless.
"Restland."
by George W. Doneghy

Written In The Danville (KY.) Cemetery.
I.
Within thy hallowed precincts on this sweet autumnal day,
We're wandering 'neath the cedar and the pine,
Where rests the sacred dust of loved ones passed away,
And bleeding hearts a melancholy pleasure find.
II.
In memory's faithful mirror here once more we trace
Familiar forms of those in life we knew,
And see again the shadowy outlines of some face
That, living, beamed with kindness--ever true.
III.
Old age, and manhood's prime, and helpless infancy
Have dotted o'er with many an emerald mound,
And marked each stone with mournful tracery
Which stands within this consecrated ground.
IV.
And there the marble shaft its stately head
In polished whiteness pointing to the sky,
And here the modest tribute to the lowly dead--
The silent monitors that tell us all must die.
V.
Here lavish Nature her bright smile imparts
And decks with lovely flowers in early Spring,
And here the sympathetic tear unbidden starts,
And loving hands their sweetest tributes bring.
VI.
Loved spot! A solace to the living 'tis to know
That when at last--life's fitful fever o'er--
The cortege sad, with solemn step and slow,
Shall bear us here, to rest forever more,--
VII.
'Till that bright day when ransomed spirits rise,
And loved and lost shall reunited be,
To dwell in realms beyond the star-lit skies
Throughout one circling, vast eternity!
The Voice
by Thomas Hardy

Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,
Saying that now you are not as you were
When you had changed from the one who was all to me,
But as at first, when our day was fair.
Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then,
Standing as when I drew near to the town
Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,
Even to the original air-blue gown!
Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness
Travelling across the wet mead to me here,
You being ever consigned to existlessness,
Heard no more again far or near?
Thus I; faltering forward,
Leaves around me falling,
Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward
And the woman calling.
December 1912.
Niagara
by Vachel Lindsay

I
Within the town of Buffalo
Are prosy men with leaden eyes.
Like ants they worry to and fro,
(Important men, in Buffalo.)
But only twenty miles away
A deathless glory is at play:
Niagara, Niagara.
The women buy their lace and cry: - 
"O such a delicate design,"
And over ostrich feathers sigh,
By counters there, in Buffalo.
The children haunt the trinket shops,
They buy false-faces, bells, and tops,
Forgetting great Niagara.
Within the town of Buffalo
Are stores with garnets, sapphires, pearls,
Rubies, emeralds aglow, - 
Opal chains in Buffalo,
Cherished symbols of success.
They value not your rainbow dress: - 
Niagara, Niagara.
The shaggy meaning of her name
This Buffalo, this recreant town,
Sharps and lawyers prune and tame:
Few pioneers in Buffalo;
Except young lovers flushed and fleet
And winds hallooing down the street:
"Niagara, Niagara."
The journalists are sick of ink:
Boy prodigals are lost in wine,
By night where white and red lights blink,
The eyes of Death, in Buffalo.
And only twenty miles away
Are starlit rocks and healing spray: - 
Niagara, Niagara.
Above the town a tiny bird,
A shining speck at sleepy dawn,
Forgets the ant-hill so absurd,
This self-important Buffalo.
Descending twenty miles away
He bathes his wings at break of day - 
Niagara, Niagara.
II
What marching men of Buffalo
Flood the streets in rash crusade?
Fools-to-free-the-world, they go,
Primeval hearts from Buffalo.
Red cataracts of France today
Awake, three thousand miles away
An echo of Niagara,
The cataract Niagara.
To One Who Pledged Her Friendship.
by Freeman Edwin Miller

Within this false world we may count ourselves blest,
If we have but one friend who is faithful and true;
And so in your friendship contented I'll rest,
And believe I have found that one blessing in you.
The Wedding Night.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

WITHIN the chamber, far away
From the glad feast, sits Love in dread
Lest guests disturb, in wanton play,
The silence of the bridal bed.
His torch's pale flame serves to gild
The scene with mystic sacred glow;
The room with incense-clouds is fil'd,
That ye may perfect rapture know.
How beats thy heart, when thou dost hear
The chime that warns thy guests to fly!
How glow'st thou for those lips so dear,
That soon are mute, and nought deny!
With her into the holy place
Thou hast'nest then, to perfect all;
The fire the warder's hands embrace,
Grows, like a night-light, dim and small.
How heaves her bosom, and how burns
Her face at every fervent kiss!
Her coldness now to trembling turns,
Thy daring now a duty is.
Love helps thee to undress her fast,
But thou art twice as fast as he;
And then he shuts both eye at last,
With sly and roguish modesty.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part I. - XXIX - Danish Conquests
by William Wordsworth

Woe to the Crown that doth the Cowl obey!
Dissension, checking arms that would restrain
The incessant Rovers of the northern main,
Helps to restore and spread a Pagan sway:
But Gospel-truth is potent to allay
Fierceness and rage; and soon the cruel Dane
Feels, through the influence of her gentle reign,
His native superstitions melt away.
Thus, often, when thick gloom the east o'ershrouds,
The full-orbed Moon, slow-climbing, doth appear
Silently to consume the heavy clouds;
'How' no one can resolve; but every eye
Around her sees, while air is hushed, a clear
And widening circuit of ethereal sky.
Genius.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

(DEDICATED TO CHATEAUBRIAND.)
[Bk. IV. vi., July, 1822.]
Woe unto him! the child of this sad earth,
Who, in a troubled world, unjust and blind,
Bears Genius - treasure of celestial birth,
Within his solitary soul enshrined.
Woe unto him! for Envy's pangs impure,
Like the undying vultures', will be driven
Into his noble heart, that must endure
Pangs for each triumph; and, still unforgiven,
Suffer Prometheus' doom, who ravished fire from Heaven.
Still though his destiny on earth may be
Grief and injustice; who would not endure
With joyful calm, each proffered agony;
Could he the prize of Genius thus ensure?
What mortal feeling kindled in his soul
That clear celestial flame, so pure and high,
O'er which nor time nor death can have control,
Would in inglorious pleasures basely fly
From sufferings whose reward is Immortality?
No! though the clamors of the envious crowd
Pursue the son of Genius, he will rise
From the dull clod, borne by an effort proud
Beyond the reach of vulgar enmities.
'Tis thus the eagle, with his pinions spread,
Reposing o'er the tempest, from that height
Sees the clouds reel and roll above our head,
While he, rejoicing in his tranquil flight,
More upward soars sublime in heaven's eternal light.
MRS. TORRE HULME
Odes Of Anacreon - Ode XLV.
by Thomas Moore

Within this goblet, rich and deep,
I cradle all my woes to sleep.
Why should we breathe the sigh of fear,
Or pour the unavailing tear?
For death will never heed the sigh,
Nor soften at the tearful eye;
And eyes that sparkle, eyes that weep,
Must all alike be sealed in sleep.
Then let us never vainly stray,
In search of thorns, from pleasure's way;
But wisely quaff the rosy wave,
Which Bacchus loves, which Bacchus gave;
And in the goblet, rich and deep,
Cradle our crying woes to sleep.
The Collar-Bone Of A Hare
by William Butler Yeats

Would I could cast a sail on the water
Where many a king has gone
And many a king's daughter,
And alight at the comely trees and the lawn,
The playing upon pipes and the dancing,
And learn that the best thing is
To change my loves while dancing
And pay but a kiss for a kiss.
I would find by the edge of that water
The collar-bone of a hare
Worn thin by the lapping of water,
And pierce it through with a gimlet and stare
At the old bitter world where they marry in churches,
And laugh over the untroubled water
At all who marry in churches,
Through the white thin bone of a hare.
Over The Lofty Mountains (From Arne)
by Bj'rnstjerne Martinius Bj'rnson

(See Note)
Wonder I must, what I once may see
Over the lofty mountains!
Eyes shall meet only snow, may be;
Standing here, each evergreen tree
Over the heights is yearning; - 
Will it be long in learning?
Pinions strong bear the eagle away
Over the lofty mountains
Forth to the young and vigorous day;
There he exults in the swift, wild play,
Rests where his spirit orders, - 
Sees all the wide world's borders.
Full-leaved the apple-tree wishes naught
Over the lofty mountains!
Spreading, when summer hither is brought,
Waiting till next time in its thought;
Many a bird it is swinging,
Knowing not what they are singing.
He who has longed for twenty years
Over the lofty mountains,
He who knows that he never nears,
Smaller feels with the lapsing years,
Heeds what the bird is singing
Cheerily to its swinging.
Garrulous bird, what will you here
Over the lofty mountains?
Surely your nest was there less drear,
Taller the trees, the outlook clear; - 
Will you then only bring me
Longings, but naught to wing me?
Shall I then never, never go
Over the lofty mountains?
Shall to my thoughts this wall say, - No!
Stand with terror of ice and snow,
Barring the way unwended,
Coffin me when life is ended?
Out will I! Out! - Oh, so far, far, far,
Over the lofty mountains!
Here is this cramping, confining bar,
Baffling my thoughts, that so buoyant are; - 
Lord! Let me try the scaling,
Suffer no final failing!
Sometime I know I shall rise and soar
Over the lofty mountains.
Hast Thou already ajar Thy door? - 
Good is Thy home! Yet, Lord, I implore,
Hold not the gates asunder, - 
Leave me my longing wonder!
The Forum Of Woman.
by Friedrich Schiller

Woman, never judge man by his individual actions;
But upon man as a whole, pass thy decisive decree.
Reconciliation
by Walt Whitman

Word over all, beautiful as the sky!
Beautiful that war, and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly lost;
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night, incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil'd world:
For my enemy is dead a man divine as myself is dead;
I look where he lies, white-faced and still, in the coffin I draw near;
I bend down, and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.
To Woman.
by George Gordon Byron

Woman! experience might have told me
That all must love thee, who behold thee:
Surely experience might have taught
Thy firmest promises are nought; 
But, plac'd in all thy charms before me,
All I forget, but to adore thee.
Oh memory! thou choicest blessing,
When join'd with hope, when still possessing;
But how much curst by every lover
When hope is fled, and passion's over.
Woman, that fair and fond deceiver,
How prompt are striplings to believe her!
How throbs the pulse, when first we view
The eye that rolls in glossy blue,
Or sparkles black, or mildly throws
A beam from under hazel brows!
How quick we credit every oath,
And hear her plight the willing troth!
Fondly we hope 'twill last for ay,
When, lo! she changes in a day.
This record will for ever stand,'
"Woman, thy vows are trac'd in sand." [1]
To the Memory Of George H. Ellwanger True Friend And Lover And Interpreter Of Nature, As A Slight Token Of Esteem And Admiration
by Madison Julius Cawein

Would I could talk as the flowers talk
To my soul! and the stars, in their ceaseless walk
Through Heaven! and tell to the high and low
The things that they say, so all might know
The dreams they dream, and have told to me!
As Nature sees would I could see!
Then might I speak with authority!
I stand below and look above,
And see her busy with life and love,
And can tell the world so little thereof.
Oh, for a soul that could feel much less!
Or, feeling more, could so express
The things it feels and their tenderness:
The very essence, the soul of art,
And all the heavens and hells of heart!
Then might I rise to the very peak,
The summit of song, which poets seek,
And speak with a voice as the masters speak.
What the Wolf Really Said to Little Red Riding-Hood
by Bret Harte (Francis)

Wondering maiden, so puzzled and fair,
Why dost thou murmur and ponder and stare?
'Why are my eyelids so open and wild?'
Only the better to see with, my child!
Only the better and clearer to view
Cheeks that are rosy and eyes that are blue.
Dost thou still wonder, and ask why these arms
Fill thy soft bosom with tender alarms,
Swaying so wickedly? Are they misplaced
Clasping or shielding some delicate waist?
Hands whose coarse sinews may fill you with fear
Only the better protect you, my dear!
Little Red Riding-Hood, when in the street,
Why do I press your small hand when we meet?
Why, when you timidly offered your cheek,
Why did I sigh, and why didn't I speak?
Why, well: you see if the truth must appear
I'm not your grandmother, Riding-Hood, dear!
To His Friend To Avoid Contention Of Words.
by Robert Herrick

Words beget anger; anger brings forth blows;
Blows make of dearest friends immortal foes.
For which prevention, sociate, let there be
Betwixt us two no more logomachy.
Far better 'twere for either to be mute,
Than for to murder friendship by dispute.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part III. - XXVII - Thanksgiving After Childbirth
by William Wordsworth

Woman! the Power who left his throne on high,
And deigned to wear the robe of flesh we wear,
The Power that thro' the straits of Infancy
Did pass dependent on maternal care,
His own humanity with Thee will share,
Pleased with the thanks that in his People's eye
Thou offerest up for safe Delivery
From Childbirth's perilous throes. And should the Heir
Of thy fond hopes hereafter walk inclined
To courses fit to make a mother rue
That ever he was born, a glance of mind
Cast upon this observance may renew
A better will; and, in the imagined view
Of thee thus kneeling, safety he may find.
Woodman, Spare that Tree!
by George Pope Morris

Woodman, spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough!
In youth it sheltered me,
And I'll protect it now.
'Twas my forefather's hand
That placed it near his cot;
There, woodman, let it stand,
Thy axe shall harm it not.
That old familiar tree,
Whose glory and renown
Are spread o'er land and sea--
And wouldst thou hew it down?
Woodman, forebear thy stroke!
Cut not its earth-bound ties;
Oh, spare that aged oak,
Now towering to the skies!
When but an idle boy,
I sought its grateful shade;
In all their gushing joy
Here, too, my sisters played.
My mother kissed me here;
My father pressed my hand--
Forgive this foolish tear,
But let that old oak stand.
My heart-strings round thee cling,
Close as thy bark, old friend!
Here shall the wild-bird sing,
And still thy branches bend.
Old tree! the storm still brave!
And, woodman, leave the spot;
While I've a hand to save,
thy axe shall harm it not.
Lincoln
by Vachel Lindsay

Would I might rouse the Lincoln in you all,
That which is gendered in the wilderness
From lonely prairies and God's tenderness.
Imperial soul, star of a weedy stream,
Born where the ghosts of buffaloes still dream,
Whose spirit hoof-beats storm above his grave,
Above that breast of earth and prairie-fire - 
Fire that freed the slave.
In Imitation Of Chaucer
by Alexander Pope

Women ben full of Ragerie,
Yet swinken not sans secresie.
Thilke Moral shall ye understand,
From Schoole-boy's Tale of fayre Ireland:
Which to the Fennes hath him betake,
To filch the gray Ducke fro the Lake.
Right then, there passen by the Way
His Aunt, and eke her Daughters tway.
Ducke in his Trowses hath he hent,
Not to be spied of Ladies gent.
"But ho! our Nephew," (crieth one)
"Ho!" quoth another, "Cozen John;"
And stoppen, and lough, and callen out,
This sely Clerk full low doth lout:
They asken that, and talken this,
"Lo here is Coz, and here is Miss."
But, as he glozeth with Speeches soote,
The Ducke sore tickleth his Erse-roote:
Fore-piece and buttons all-to-brest,
Forth thrust a white neck, and red crest.
"Te-he," cry'd Ladies; Clerke nought spake:
Miss star'd; and gray Ducke crieth Quake.
"O Moder, Moder," (quoth the daughter)
"Be thilke same thing Maids longer a'ter?
"Bette is to pyne on coals and chalke,
"Then trust on Mon, whose yerde can talke."
Horton Tide.
by John Hartley

Wor yo ivver at Horton Tide?
It wor thear 'at aw won mi bride;
An the joy o' mi life,
Is mi dear little wife,
An we've three little childer beside.
Aw wor donn'd in a new suit o'clooas,
A cigar wor stuck under mi nooas,
Aw set aght for a spree,
An some frolics to see,
Full o' fun throo mi heead to mi tooas.
Aw met Lijah an Amos, an Bill,
An ov coorse wi' each one aw'd a gill;
Till aw felt rayther mazy,
But net at all crazy,
For aw didn't goa in for mi fill.
As a lad aw'd been bashful an shy,
An aw blushed if a woman went by,
But this day bi gooid luck,
Aw felt chock full o' pluck,
Soa to leet on aw sattled to try.
As aw wandered abaat along th' street,
Who, ov all i' this world should aw meet!
But Mary o' Jooas,
Lukkin red as a rooas,
A'a! but shoo wor bonny an sweet.
Aw nodded an walked bi her side,
To mak misen pleasant aw tried,
But shoo smiled as shoo sed,
'Aw wor wrang i' mi heead,'
An aw'm sewer aw dooan't think 'at shoo lied.
Then aw bowt her some parkin an spice,
An owt else 'at shoo fancied lukt nice,
Then we tuk a short walk,
An we had a long tawk;
Then aw axt if shoo thowt we should splice.
What happen'd at after yo'll guess, - 
It wor heaven to me, an nowt less; - 
For aw left Horton Tide,
Wi' a promised fair bride,
Soa mi frolic wor craand wi' success.
For shoo's one i' ten thaasand yo see;
An shoo shows 'at shoo's suited wi' me,
An yo chaps 'at want wives
'At will gladden yer lives,
Up at Horton yo'll find 'em to be.