DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Farewell To Italy
by Walter Savage Landor

I Leave thee, beauteous Italy! no more
From the high terraces, at even-tide,
To look supine into thy depths of sky,
Thy golden moon between the cliff and me,
Or thy dark spires of fretted cypresses                
Bordering the channel of the milky way.
Fiesole and Valdarno must be dreams
Hereafter, and my own lost Affrico
Murmur to me but in the poet's song.
I did believe (what have I not believ'd?),                
Weary with age, but unoppress'd by pain,
To close in thy soft clime my quiet day
And rest my bones in the mimosa's shade.
Hope! Hope! few ever cherish'd thee so little;
Few are the heads thou hast so rarely rais'd;                
But thou didst promise this, and all was well.
For we are fond of thinking where to lie
When every pulse hath ceas'd, when the lone heart
Can lift no aspiration, reasoning
As if the sight were unimpair'd by death,                
Were unobstructed by the coffin-lid,
And the sun cheer'd corruption! Over all
The smiles of Nature shed a potent charm,
And light us to our chamber at the grave.
The Darkling Thrush
by Thomas Hardy

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings from broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.
At once a voice outburst among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carollings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
December 1900.
Her Definition
by Thomas Hardy

I lingered through the night to break of day,
Nor once did sleep extend a wing to me,
Intently busied with a vast array
Of epithets that should outfigure thee.
Full-featured terms - all fitless - hastened by,
And this sole speech remained: "That maiden mine!" -
Debarred from due description then did I
Perceive the indefinite phrase could yet define.
As common chests encasing wares of price
Are borne with tenderness through halls of state,
For what they cover, so the poor device
Of homely wording I could tolerate,
Knowing its unadornment held as freight
The sweetest image outside Paradise.
W. P. V.,
Summer 1866.
Main Street
by Alfred Joyce Kilmer (Joyce)

(For S. M. L.)
I like to look at the blossomy track of the moon upon the sea,
But it isn't half so fine a sight as Main Street used to be
When it all was covered over with a couple of feet of snow,
And over the crisp and radiant road the ringing sleighs would go.
Now, Main Street bordered with autumn leaves, it was a pleasant thing,
And its gutters were gay with dandelions early in the Spring;
I like to think of it white with frost or dusty in the heat,
Because I think it is humaner than any other street.
A city street that is busy and wide is ground by a thousand wheels,
And a burden of traffic on its breast is all it ever feels:
It is dully conscious of weight and speed and of work that never ends,
But it cannot be human like Main Street, and recognise its friends.
There were only about a hundred teams on Main Street in a day,
And twenty or thirty people, I guess, and some children out to play.
And there wasn't a wagon or buggy, or a man or a girl or a boy
That Main Street didn't remember, and somehow seem to enjoy.
The truck and the motor and trolley car and the elevated train
They make the weary city street reverberate with pain:
But there is yet an echo left deep down within my heart
Of the music the Main Street cobblestones made beneath a butcher's cart.
God be thanked for the Milky Way that runs across the sky,
That's the path that my feet would tread whenever I have to die.
Some folks call it a Silver Sword, and some a Pearly Crown,
But the only thing I think it is, is Main Street, Heaventown.
To Knole
by Victoria Mary Sackville-West

October 1, 1913
I
I left thee in the crowds and in the light,
And if I laughed or sorrowed none could tell.
They could not know our true and deep farewell
Was spoken in the long preceding night.
Thy mighty shadow in the garden's dip!
To others dormant, but to me awake;
I saw a window in the moonlight shake,
And traced the angle of the gable's lip,
And knew thy soul, benign and grave and mild,
Towards me, morsel of morality,
And grieving at the parting soon to be,
A patriarch about to lose a child.
For many come and soon their tale is told,
And thou remainest, dimly feeling pain,
Aware the time draws near to don again
The sober mourning of the very old.
II
Pictures and galleries and empty rooms!
Small wonder that my games were played alone;
Half of the rambling house to call my own,
And wooded gardens with mysterious glooms.
My fingers ran among the tassels faded;
My playmates moved in arrases brocaded;
I slept beside the canopied and shaded
Beds of forgotten kings.
I wandered shoeless in the galleries;
I contemplated long the tapestries,
And loved the ladies for their histories
And hands with many rings.
Beneath an oriel window facing south
Through which the unniggard sun poured morning streams,
I daily stood and laughing drank the beams,
And, catching fistfuls, pressed them in my mouth.
This I remember, and the carven oak,
The long and polished floors, the many stairs,
Th' heraldic windows, and the velvet chairs,
And portraits that I knew so well, they almost spoke.
III
So I have loved thee, as a lonely child
Might love the kind and venerable sire
With whom he lived, and whom at youthful fire
Had ever sagely, tolerantly smiled;
In whose old weathered brain a boundless store
Lay hid of riches never to be spent;
Who often to the coaxing child unbent
In hours' enchantment of delightful lore.
So in the night we parted, friend of years,
I rose a stranger to thee on the morrow;
Thy stateliness knows neither joy nor sorrow,, 
I will not wound such dignity by tears.
Flower Gathering
by Robert Lee Frost

I left you in the morning,
And in the morning glow,
You walked a way beside me
To make me sad to go.
Do you know me in the gloaming,
Gaunt and dusty gray with roaming?
Are you dumb because you know me not,
Or dumb because you know?
All for me And not a question
For the faded flowers gay
That could take me from beside you
For the ages of a day?
They are yours, and be the measure
Of their worth for you to treasure,
The measure of the little while
That I've been long away.
Seven Times Three. Love.
by Jean Ingelow

I leaned out of window, I smelt the white clover,
Dark, dark was the garden, I saw not the gate;
"Now, if there be footsteps, he comes, my one lover - 
Hush, nightingale, hush! O, sweet nightingale, wait
Till I listen and hear
If a step draweth near,
For my love he is late!
"The skies in the darkness stoop nearer and nearer,
A cluster of stars hangs like fruit in the tree,
The fall of the water comes sweeter, comes clearer:
To what art thou listening, and what dost thou see?
Let the star-clusters glow,
Let the sweet waters flow,
And cross quickly to me.
"You night-moths that hover where honey brims over
From sycamore blossoms, or settle or sleep;
You glowworms, shine out, and the pathway discover
To him that comes darkling along the rough steep.
Ah, my sailor, make haste,
For the time runs to waste,
And my love lieth deep - 
"Too deep for swift telling: and yet my one lover
I've conned thee an answer, it waits thee to-night."
By the sycamore passed he, and through the white clover,
Then all the sweet speech I had fashioned took flight:
But I'll love him more, more
Than e'er wife loved before,
Be the days dark or bright.
Listening
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

I listen to the stillness of you,
My dear, among it all;
I feel your silence touch my words as I talk,
And take them in thrall.
My words fly off a forge
The length of a spark;
I see the night-sky easily sip them
Up in the dark.
The lark sings loud and glad,
Yet I am not loth
That silence should take the song and the bird
And lose them both.
A train goes roaring south,
The steam-flag flying;
I see the stealthy shadow of silence
Alongside going.
And off the forge of the world,
Whirling in the draught of life,
Go sparks of myriad people, filling
The night with strife.
Yet they never change the darkness
Or blench it with noise;
Alone on the perfect silence
The stars are buoys.
The Hope of My Heart
by John Alexander McCrae

"Delicta juventutis et ignorantius ejus,
quoesumus ne memineris, Domine."
I left, to earth, a little maiden fair,
With locks of gold, and eyes that shamed the light;
I prayed that God might have her in His care
And sight.
Earth's love was false; her voice, a siren's song;
(Sweet mother-earth was but a lying name)
The path she showed was but the path of wrong
And shame.
"Cast her not out!" I cry.    God's kind words come --
"Her future is with Me, as was her past;
It shall be My good will to bring her home
At last."
Ad Finem
by Theodosia Garrison

I like to think this friendship that we hold
As youth's high gift in our two hands to-day
Still shall we find as bright, untarnished gold
What time the fleeting years have left us grey.
I like to think we two shall watch the May
Dance down her happy hills and Autumn fold
The world in flame and beauty, we grown old
Staunch comrades on an undivided way.
I like to think of Winter nights made bright
By book and hearth-flame when we two shall smile
At memories of to-day--we two content
To count our vanished dawns by candle-light
Seeing we hold in our old hands the while
The gift of gold youth left us as she went.
I Like You And I Love You
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

I LIKE YOU Met I LOVE You, face to face;
The path was narrow, and they could not pass.
I LIKE YOU smiled; I LOVE YOU cried, Alas!
And so they halted for a little space.
"Turn thou and go before," I LOVE YOU said,
"Down the green pathway, bright with many a flower;
Deep in the valley, lo! my bridal bower
Awaits thee." But I LIKE YOU shook his head.
Then while they lingered on the span-wide shelf
That shaped a pathway round the rocky ledge,
I LIKE You bared his icy dagger's edge,
And first he slew I LOVE You, - then himself.
Night In June
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

I left my dreary page and sallied forth,
Received the fair inscriptions of the night;
The moon was making amber of the world,
Glittered with silver every cottage pane,
The trees were rich, yet ominous with gloom.
The meadows broad
From ferns and grapes and from the folded flowers
Sent a nocturnal fragrance; harlot flies
Flashed their small fires in air, or held their court
In fairy groves of herds-grass.
He lives not who can refuse me;
All my force saith, Come and use me:
A gleam of sun, a summer rain,
And all the zone is green again.
Seems, though the soft sheen all enchants,
Cheers the rough crag and mournful dell,
As if on such stern forms and haunts
A wintry storm more fitly fell.
Put in, drive home the sightless wedges
And split to flakes the crystal ledges.
Real.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

I like a look of agony,
Because I know it's true;
Men do not sham convulsion,
Nor simulate a throe.
The eyes glaze once, and that is death.
Impossible to feign
The beads upon the forehead
By homely anguish strung.
The Problem
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

I like a church; I like a cowl;
I love a prophet of the soul;
And on my heart monastic aisles
Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles
Yet not for all his faith can see
Would I that cowl'd churchman be.
Why should the vest on him allure,
Which I could not on me endure?
Not from a vain or shallow thought
His awful Jove young Phidias brought;
Never from lips of cunning fell
The thrilling Delphic oracle;
Out from the heart of nature rolled
The burdens of the Bible old;
The litanies of nations came,
Like the volcano's tongue of flame,
Up from the burning core below,--
The canticles of love and woe:
The hand that rounded Peter's dome
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome
Wrought in a sad sincerity;
Himself from God he could not free;
He builded better than he knew;--
The conscious stone to beauty grew.
Know'st thou what wove yon woodbird's nest
Of leaves, and feathers from her breast?
Or how the fish outbuilt her shell,
Painting with morn each annual cell?
Or how the sacred pine-tree adds
To her old leaves new myriads?
Such and so grew these holy piles,
Whilst love and terror laid the tiles.
Earth proudly wears the Parthenon,
As the best gem upon her zone,
And Morning opes with haste her lids
To gaze upon the Pyramids;
O'er England's abbeys bends the sky,
As on its friends, with kindred eye;
For out of Thought's interior sphere
These wonders rose to upper air;
And Nature gladly gave them place,
Adopted them into her race,
And granted them an equal date
With Andes and with Ararat.
These temples grew as grows the grass;
Art might obey, but not surpass.
The passive Master lent his hand
To the vast soul that o'er him planned;
And the same power that reared the shrine
Bestrode the tribes that knelt within.
Ever the fiery Pentecost
Girds with one flame the countless host,
Trances the heart through chanting choirs,
And through the priest the mind inspires.
The word unto the prophet spoken
Was writ on tables yet unbroken;
The word by seers or sibyls told,
In groves of oak, or fanes of gold,
Still floats upon the morning wind,
Still whispers to the willing mind.
One accent of the Holy Ghost
The heedless world hath never lost.
I know what say the fathers wise,--
The Book itself before me lies,
Old Chrysostom, best Augustine,
And he who blent both in his line,
The younger Golden Lips or mines,
Taylor, the Shakspeare of divines.
His words are music in my ear,
I see his cowl'd portrait dear;
And yet, for all his faith could see,
I would not the good bishop be.
Now
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I leave with God to-morrow's where and how,
And do concern myself but with the Now,
That little word, though half the future's length,
Well used, holds twice its meaning and its strength.
Like one blindfolded groping out his way,
I will not try to touch beyond to-day.
Since all the future is concealed from sight
I need but strive to make the next step right.
That done, the next, and so on, till I find
Perchance some day I am no longer blind,
And looking up, behold a radiant Friend
Who says, "Rest, now, for you have reached the end."
Sonnets From The Portuguese V
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,
As once Electra her sepulchral urn,
And, looking in thine eyes, I over-turn
The ashes at thy feet.    Behold and see
What a great heap of grief lay hid in me,
And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn
Through the ashen greyness.    If thy foot in scorn
Could tread them out to darkness utterly,
It might be well perhaps.    But if instead
Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow
The grey dust up, . . . those laurels on thine head,
O my Belov'd, will not shield thee so,
That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred
The hair beneath.    Stand further off then! go!
A Reply, By Sheridan, To Delany
by Jonathan Swift

I like your collyrium,
Take my eyes, sir, and clear ye 'um,
'Twill gain you a great reputation;
By this you may rise,
Like the doctor so wise,[1]
Who open'd the eyes of the nation.
And these, I must tell ye,
Are bigger than its belly; - 
You know, there's in Livy a story
Of the hands and the feet
Denying of meat, - 
Don't I write in the dark like a Tory?
Your water so far goes,
'Twould serve for an Argus,
Were all his whole hundred sore;
So many we read
He had in his head,
Or Ovid's a son of a whore.
For your recipe, sir,
May my lids never stir,
If ever I think once to fee you;
For I'd have you to know,
When abroad I can go,
That it's honour enough, if I see you.
Whisky Girl
by Paul Cameron Brown

I like'em ragged round the rim,
rough drawn at dawn
panting at the edge,
belly-button ring
tattooed naval
drinking silk panties shooters,
not much in between
if you know
What I mean
Napoleon
by Oliver Herford

I like to draw Napoleon best
Because one hand is in his vest,
The other hand behind his back.
(For drawing hands I have no knack.)
Harold Arnett
by Edgar Lee Masters

I leaned against the mantel, sick, sick,
Thinking of my failure, looking into the abysm,
Weak from the noon-day heat.
A church bell sounded mournfully far away,
I heard the cry of a baby,
And the coughing of John Yarnell,
Bed-ridden, feverish, feverish, dying,
Then the violent voice of my wife:
"Watch out, the potatoes are burning!"
I smelled them . . . then there was irresistible disgust.
I pulled the trigger . . . blackness . . . light . . .
Unspeakable regret . . . fumbling for the world again.
Too late! Thus I came here,
With lungs for breathing . . . one cannot breathe here with lungs,
Though one must breathe
Of what use is it To rid one's self of the world,
When no soul may ever escape the eternal destiny of life?
St Francis II
by Victor James Daley

I learnt the language of the birds,
A new St Francis I would be;
But, when I understood their words,
The birds were preaching unto me.
Hard Luck
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

I left the course, and by my side
There walked a ruined tout,
A hungry creature, evil-eyed,
Who poured this story out.
"You see," he said, "there came a swell
To Kensington today,
And, if I picked the winners well,
A crown at least he's pay.
"I picked three winners straight, I did;
I filled his purse with pelf,
And then he gave me half-a-quid
To back one for myself.
"A half-a-quid to me he cast,
I wanted it indeed;
So help me Bob, for two days past
I haven't had a feed.
"But still I thought my luck was in,
I couldn't go astray,
I put it all on Little Min,
And lost it straightaway.
"I haven't got a bite or bed,
I'm absolutely stuck;
So keep this lesson in your head:
Don't over-trust your luck!"
The folks went homeward, near and far,
The tout, oh! where is he?
Ask where the empty boilers are
Beside the Circular Quay.
Farewell
by Enid Derham

I leave the world to-morrow,
What news for Fairyland?
I'm tired of dust and sorrow
And folk on every hand.
A moon more calm and splendid
Moves there through deeper skies,
By maiden stars attended
She peaces goddes-wise.
And there no wrath oppresses,
And there no teardrops start,
There cool winds breathe caresses,
That soothe the weary heart.
The wealth the mad world follows
Turns ashes in the hand
Of him who sees the hollows
And glades of Fairyland.
And pine boughs sigh no sorrow
Where fairy rotas play,
I leave the world to-morrow
For ever and a day.
The Railway Train.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

I like to see it lap the miles,
And lick the valleys up,
And stop to feed itself at tanks;
And then, prodigious, step
Around a pile of mountains,
And, supercilious, peer
In shanties by the sides of roads;
And then a quarry pare
To fit its sides, and crawl between,
Complaining all the while
In horrid, hooting stanza;
Then chase itself down hill
And neigh like Boanerges;
Then, punctual as a star,
Stop -- docile and omnipotent --
At its own stable door.
To My Husband On Our Wedding-Day.
by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

I leave for thee, beloved one,
The home and friends of youth,
Trusting my hopes, my happiness,
Unto thy love and truth;
I leave for thee my girlhood's joys,
Its sunny, careless mirth,
To bear henceforth my share amid
The many cares of earth.
And yet, no wild regret I give
To all that now I leave,
The golden dreams, the flow'ry wreaths
That I no more may weave;
The future that before me lies
A dark and unknown sea - 
Whate'er may be its storms or shoals,
I brave them all with thee!
I will not tell thee now of love
Whose life, ere this, thou'st guessed,
And which, like sacred secret, long
Was treasured in my breast;
Enough that if thy lot be calm,
Or storms should o'er it sweep,
Thou'lt learn that it is woman's love,
Unchanging, pure and deep.
In this life's sunshine gild thy lot,
Bestowing wealth and pride,
Its light enjoying, I shall stand,
Rejoicing, at thy side;
But, oh! if thou should'st prove the griefs
That blight thy fellow-men,
'Twilt be my highest, dearest right,
To be, love, with thee then.
And thou, wilt thou not promise me
Thy heart will never change,
That tones and looks, so loving now,
Will ne'er grow stern and strange?
That thou'lt be kind, whatever faults
Or failings may be mine,
And bear with them in patient love,
As I will bear with thine?
To Another Woman's Baby
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I list your prattle, baby boy,
And hear your pattering feet
With feelings more of pain than joy
And thoughts of bitter-sweet.
While touching your soft hands in play
Such passionate longings rise
For my wee boy who strayed away
So soon to Paradise.
You win me with your infant art;
But when our play is o'er,
The empty cradle in my heart
Seems lonelier than before.
Sweet baby boy, you do not guess
How oft mine eyes are dim,
Or that my lingering caress
Is sometimes meant for HIM.
Alchemy
by Sara Teasdale

I lift my heart as spring lifts up
A yellow daisy to the rain;
My heart will be a lovely cup
Altho' it holds but pain.
For I shall learn from flower and leaf
That color every drop they hold,
To change the lifeless wine of grief
To living gold.
Nannie Braw
by George MacDonald

I like ye weel upo Sundays, Nannie,
I' yer goon and yer ribbons and a';
But I like ye better on Mondays, Nannie,
Whan ye're no sae buskit and braw.
For whan we're sittin sae douce, Nannie,
Wi' the lave o' the worshippin fowk,
That aneth the haly hoose, Nannie,
Ye micht hear a moudiwarp howk,
It will come into my heid, Nannie,
O' yer braws ye are thinkin a wee;
No alane o' the Bible-seed, Nannie,
Nor the minister nor me!
Syne hame athort the green, Nannie,
Ye gang wi' a toss o' yer chin;
And there walks a shadow atween 's, Nannie,
A dark ane though it be thin!
But noo, whan I see ye gang, Nannie,
Eident at what's to be dune,
Liltin a haiveless sang, Nannie,
I wud kiss yer verra shune!
Wi' yer silken net on yer hair, Nannie,
I' yer bonnie blue petticoat,
Wi' yer kin'ly arms a' bare, Nannie,
On yer ilka motion I doat.
For, oh, but ye're canty and free, Nannie,
Airy o' hert and o' fit!
A star-beam glents frae yer ee, Nannie--
O' yersel ye're no thinkin a bit!
Fillin the cogue frae the coo, Nannie,
Skimmin the yallow ream,
Pourin awa the het broo, Nannie,
Lichtin the lampie's leme,
Turnin or steppin alang, Nannie,
Liftin and layin doon,
Settin richt what's aye gaein wrang, Nannie,
Yer motion's baith dance and tune!
I' the hoose ye're a licht and a law, Nannie,
A servan like him 'at's abune:
Oh, a woman's bonniest o' a', Nannie,
Doin what maun be dune!
Cled i' yer Sunday claes, Nannie,
Fair kythe ye to mony an ee;
But cled i' yer ilka-day's, Nannie,
Ye draw the hert frae me!
In The Small Hours
by Thomas Hardy

I lay in my bed and fiddled
With a dreamland viol and bow,
And the tunes flew back to my fingers
I had melodied years ago.
It was two or three in the morning
When I fancy-fiddled so
Long reels and country-dances,
And hornpipes swift and slow.
And soon anon came crossing
The chamber in the gray
Figures of jigging fieldfolk -
Saviours of corn and hay -
To the air of "Haste to the Wedding,"
As after a wedding-day;
Yea, up and down the middle
In windless whirls went they!
There danced the bride and bridegroom,
And couples in a train,
Gay partners time and travail
Had longwhiles stilled amain! . . .
It seemed a thing for weeping
To find, at slumber's wane
And morning's sly increeping,
That Now, not Then, held reign.