DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Crowing Of The Red Cock.
by Emma Lazarus

Across the Eastern sky has glowed
The flicker of a blood-red dawn,
Once more the clarion cock has crowed,
Once more the sword of Christ is drawn.
A million burning rooftrees light
The world-wide path of Israel's flight.
Where is the Hebrew's fatherland?
The folk of Christ is sore bestead;
The Son of Man is bruised and banned,
Nor finds whereon to lay his head.
His cup is gall, his meat is tears,
His passion lasts a thousand years.
Each crime that wakes in man the beast,
Is visited upon his kind.
The lust of mobs, the greed of priest,
The tyranny of kings, combined
To root his seed from earth again,
His record is one cry of pain.
When the long roll of Christian guilt
Against his sires and kin is known,
The flood of tears, the life-blood spilt
The agony of ages shown,
What oceans can the stain remove,
From Christian law and Christian love?
Nay, close the book; not now, not here,
The hideous tale of sin narrate,
Reechoing in the martyr's ear,
Even he might nurse revengeful hate,
Even he might turn in wrath sublime,
With blood for blood and crime for crime.
Coward? Not he, who faces death,
Who singly against worlds has fought,
For what? A name he may not breathe,
For liberty of prayer and thought.
The angry sword he will not whet,
His nobler task is - to forget.
From A Window In Princes Street - To M. M. M'B.
by William Ernest Henley

Above the Crags that fade and gloom
Starts the bare knee of Arthur's Seat;
Ridged high against the evening bloom,
The Old Town rises, street on street;
With lamps bejewelled, straight ahead,
Like rampired walls the houses lean,
All spired and domed and turreted,
Sheer to the valley's darkling green;
Ranged in mysterious disarray,
The Castle, menacing and austere,
Looms through the lingering last of day;
And in the silver dusk you hear,
Reverberated from crag and scar,
Bold bugles blowing points of war.
Sonnet XV
by Alan Seeger

Above the ruin of God's holy place,
Where man-forsaken lay the bleeding rood,
Whose hands, when men had craved substantial food,
Gave not, nor folded when they cried, Embrace,
I saw exalted in the latter days
Her whom west winds with natal foam bedewed,
Wafted toward Cyprus, lily-breasted, nude,
Standing with arms out-stretched and flower-like face.
And, sick with all those centuries of tears
Shed in the penance for factitious woe,
Once more I saw the nations at her feet,
For Love shone in their eyes, and in their ears
Come unto me, Love beckoned them, for lo!
The breast your lips abjured is still as sweet.
The Conquest Of Finland
by John Greenleaf Whittier

Across the frozen marshes
The winds of autumn blow,
And the fen-lands of the Wetter
Are white with early snow.
But where the low, gray headlands
Look o'er the Baltic brine,
A bark is sailing in the track
Of England's battle-line.
No wares hath she to barter
For Bothnia's fish and grain;
She saileth not for pleasure,
She saileth not for gain.
But still by isle or mainland
She drops her, anchor down,
Where'er the British cannon
Rained fire on tower and town.
Outspake the ancient Amtman,
At the gate of Helsingfors:
"Why comes this ship a-spying
In the track of England's wars?"
"God bless her," said the coast-guard,
"God bless the ship, I say.
The holy angels trim the sails
That speed her on her way!
"Where'er she drops her anchor,
The peasant's heart is glad;
Where'er she spreads her parting sail,
The peasant's heart is sad.
"Each wasted town and hamlet
She visits to restore;
To roof the shattered cabin,
And feed the starving poor.
" The sunken boats of fishers,
The foraged beeves and grain,
The spoil of flake and storehouse,
The good ship brings again.
"And so to Finland's sorrow
The sweet amend is made,
As if the healing hand of Christ
Upon her wounds were laid!"
Then said the gray old Amtman,
"The will of God be done!
The battle lost by England's hate,
By England's love is won!
"We braved the iron tempest
That thundered on our shore;
But when did kindness fail to find
The key to Finland's door?
"No more from Aland's ramparts
Shall warning signal come,
Nor startled Sweaborg hear again
The roll of midnight drum.
"Beside our fierce Black Eagle
The Dove of Peace shall rest;
And in the mouths of cannon
The sea-bird make her nest.
"For Finland, looking seaward,
No coming foe shall scan;
And the holy bells of Abo
Shall ring, 'Good-will to man!'
"Then row thy boat, O fisher!
In peace on lake and bay;
And thou, young maiden, dance again
Around the poles of May!
"Sit down, old men, together,
Old wives, in quiet spin;
Henceforth the Anglo-Saxon
Is the brother of the Finn!
Patience: Or, Comforts In Crosses.
by Robert Herrick

Abundant plagues I late have had,
Yet none of these have made me sad:
For why? My Saviour with the sense
Of suff'ring gives me patience.
Sara Teasdale
by Sara Teasdale

Across the dimly lighted room
The violin drew wefts of sound,
Airily they wove and wound
And glimmered gold against the gloom.
I watched the music turn to light,
But at the pausing of the bow,
The web was broken and the glow
Was drowned within the wave of night.
Achilles' Tomb
by Thomas O'Hagan

Achilles awoke in his ancient tomb
Hard by the coast of Troy;
He rattled his armor now full of dust
And rubbed his eyes like a boy,
As he gazed on the ships of the allied fleet,
Ploughing the seas from afar,
Bent on their course to the Dardanelles
'Neath the light of Victory's star.
"Why, I've been asleep," Achilles said,
"On the windy plains of Troy;
Three thousand years have turned to dust
With their maddening mirth and joy;
Yet it seems but a day since Ilium fell,
Since Sinon spun out his tale,
And the Greeks returned from Tenedos
With a light and prosperous gale.
"Three thousand years is a long, long time,
But I'll doze for a thousand more;
For I'm sick of the bluff of the Teuton hosts
And the gas from each army corps.
So lay me down in my ancient tomb,
Where the Phrygian winds sweep by,
And I'll dream of the days when heroes fought,
'Round the lofty walls of Troy."
For Very Rev. W. R. Harris, D.D.
The Call
by Virna Sheard

Across the dusty, foot-worn street
Unblessed of flower or tree,
Faint and far-off - there ever sounds
The calling of the sea.
From out the quiet of the hills,
Where purple shadows lie,
The pine trees murmur, "Come and rest
And let the world go by."
The west wind whispers all night long
"Oh, journey forth afar
To the green and pleasant places
Where little rivers are!"
And the soft and silken rustling
Of bending yellow wheat
Says, "See the harvest moon - that dims
The arc-lights of the street."
Though the city holds thee captive
By trick, and wile, and lure,
Out yonder lies the loveliness
Of things that shall endure.
The river road is wide and fair,
The prairie-path is free,
And still the old earth waits to give
Her strength and joy to thee.
The Skylark
by John Clare

Above the russet clods the corn is seen
Sprouting its spiry points of tender green,
Where squats the hare, to terrors wide awake,
Like some brown clod the harrows failed to break.
Opening their golden caskets to the sun,
The buttercups make schoolboys eager run,
To see who shall be first to pluck the prize--
Up from their hurry see the Skylark flies,
And oer her half-formed nest, with happy wings,
Winnows the air till in the cloud she sings,
Then hangs a dust spot in the sunny skies,
And drops and drops till in her nest she lies,
Which they unheeded passed--not dreaming then
That birds, which flew so high, would drop again
To nests upon the ground, which anything
May come at to destroy. Had they the wing
Like such a bird, themselves would be too proud
And build on nothing but a passing cloud!
As free from danger as the heavens are free
From pain and toil, there would they build and be,
And sail about the world to scenes unheard
Of and unseen,--O were they but a bird!
So think they, while they listen to its song,
And smile and fancy and so pass along;
While its low nest, moist with the dews of morn,
Lies safely, with the leveret, in the corn.
A Minuet Of Mozart's
by Sara Teasdale

Across the dimly lighted room
The violin drew wefts of sound,
Airily they wove and wound
And glimmered gold against the gloom.
I watched the music turn to light,
But at the pausing of the bow,
The web was broken and the glow
Was drowned within the wave of night.
Sonnets From The Portuguese XV
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear
Too calm and sad a face in front of thine;
For we two look two ways, and cannot shine
With the same sunlight on our brow and hair.
On me thou lookest with no doubting care,
As on a bee shut in a crystalline;
Since sorrow hath shut me safe in love's divine,
And to spread wing and fly in the outer air
Were most impossible failure, if I strove
To fail so. But I look on thee, on thee,
Beholding, besides love, the end of love,
Hearing oblivion beyond memory;
As one who sits and gazes from above,
Over the rivers to the bitter sea.
Sonnet: - VIII.
by Charles Sangster

Above where I am sitting, o'er these stones,
The ocean waves once heaved their mighty forms;
And vengeful tempests and appalling storms
Wrung from the stricken sea portentous moans,
That rent stupendous icebergs, whose huge heights
Crashed down in fragments through the startled nights.
Change, change, eternal change in all but God!
Mysterious nature! thrice mysterious state
Of body, soul, and spirit! Man is awed,
But triumphs in his littleness. A mote,
He specks the eye of the age and turns to dust,
And is the sport of centuries. We note
More surely nature's ever-changing fate;
Her fossil records tell how she performs her trust.
The Sonnets CXVII - Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all
by William Shakespeare

Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all,
Wherein I should your great deserts repay,
Forgot upon your dearest love to call,
Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day;
That I have frequent been with unknown minds,
And given to time your own dear-purchas'd right;
That I have hoisted sail to all the winds
Which should transport me farthest from your sight.
Book both my wilfulness and errors down,
And on just proof surmise, accumulate;
Bring me within the level of your frown,
But shoot not at me in your waken'd hate;
Since my appeal says I did strive to prove
The constancy and virtue of your love.
Names Upon a Stone
by Henry Kendall

Across bleak widths of broken sea
A fierce north-easter breaks,
And makes a thunder on the lea
A whiteness of the lakes.
Here, while beyond the rainy stream
The wild winds sobbing blow,
I see the river of my dream
Four wasted years ago.
Narrara of the waterfalls,
The darling of the hills,
Whose home is under mountain walls
By many-luted rills!
Her bright green nooks and channels cool
I never more may see;
But, ah! the Past was beautiful
The sights that used to be.
There was a rock-pool in a glen
Beyond Narrara's sands;
The mountains shut it in from men
In flowerful fairy lands;
But once we found its dwelling-place
The lovely and the lone
And, in a dream, I stooped to trace
Our names upon a stone.
Above us, where the star-like moss
Shone on the wet, green wall
That spanned the straitened stream across,
We saw the waterfall
A silver singer far away,
By folded hills and hoar;
Its voice is in the woods to-day
A voice I hear no more.
I wonder if the leaves that screen
The rock-pool of the past
Are yet as soft and cool and green
As when we saw them last!
I wonder if that tender thing,
The moss, has overgrown
The letters by the limpid spring
Our names upon the stone!
Across the face of scenes we know
There may have come a change
The places seen four years ago
Perhaps would now look strange.
To you, indeed, they cannot be
What haply once they were:
A friend beloved by you and me
No more will greet us there.
Because I know the filial grief
That shrinks beneath the touch
The noble love whose words are brief
I will not say too much;
But often when the night-winds strike
Across the sighing rills,
I think of him whose life was like
The rock-pool's in the hills.
A beauty like the light of song
Is in my dreams, that show
The grand old man who lived so long
As spotless as the snow.
A fitting garland for the dead
I cannot compass yet;
But many things he did and said
I never will forget.
In dells where once we used to rove
The slow, sad water grieves;
And ever comes from glimmering grove
The liturgy of leaves.
But time and toil have marked my face,
My heart has older grown
Since, in the woods, I stooped to trace
Our names upon the stone.
Portents
by Madison Julius Cawein

Above the world a glare
Of sunset guns and spears;
An army, no one hears,
Of mist and air:
Long lines of bronze and gold,
Huge helmets, each a cloud;
And then a fortress old
There in the night that phantoms seem to crowd.
A face of flame; a hand
Of crimson alchemy
Is waved: and, solemnly,
At its command,
Opens a fiery well,
A burning hole,
From which a stream of hell,
A river of blood, in frenzy, seems to roll.
And there, upon a throne,
Like some vast precipice,
Above that River of Dis,
Behold a King! alone!
Around whom shapes of blood
Take form: each one the peer
Of those, who, in the wood
Of Dante's Hell froze up the heart with fear.
Then shapes, that breast to breast
Gallop to face a foe:
And through the crimson glow
Th' imperial crest
Of him whose banner flies
Above a world that burns,
A raven in the skies,
And as it flies into a Death's-Head turns.
The wild trees writhe and twist
Their gaunt limbs, wrung with fear:
And now into my ear
A word seems hissed;
A message, filled with dread,
A dark, foreboding word,
"Behold! we are the dead,
Who here on Earth lived only by the sword!"
The Ackerman Steppe
by Adam Bernard Mickiewicz

Across sea-meadows measureless I go,
My wagon sinking under grass so tall
The flowery petals in foam on me fall,
And blossom-isles float by I do not know.
No pathway can the deepening twilight show;
I seek the beckoning stars which sailors call,
And watch the clouds. What lies there brightening all?
The Dneister's, the steppe-ocean's evening glow!
The silence! I can hear far flight of cranes--
So far the eyes of eagle could not reach--
And bees and blossoms speaking each to each;
The serpent slipping adown grassy lanes;
From my far home if word could come to me!--
Yet none will come. On, o'er the meadow-sea!
Irish Antiquities.
by Thomas Moore

According to some learned opinions
The Irish once were Carthaginians;
But trusting to more late descriptions
I'd rather say they were Egyptians.
My reason's this:--the Priests of Isis,
When forth they marched in long array,
Employed, 'mong other grave devices,
A Sacred Ass to lead the way;
And still the antiquarian traces
'Mong Irish Lords this Pagan plan,
For still in all religious cases
They put Lord Roden in the van.
The Bird In The Valley
by Violet Jacob

Above the darkened house the night is spread,
The hidden valley holds
Vapour and dew and silence in its folds,
And waters sighing on the river-bed.
No wandering wind there is
To swing the star-wreaths of the clematis
Against the stone;
Out of the hanging woods, above the shores,
One liquid voice of throbbing crystal pours,
Singing alone.
A stream of magic through the heart of night
Its unseen passage cleaves;
Into the darkened room below the eaves
It falls from out the woods upon the height,
A strain of ecstasy
Wrought on the confines of eternity,
Glamour and pain,
And echoes gathered from a world of years,
Old phantoms, dim like mirage seen through tears,
But young again.
"Peace, peace," the bird sings on amid the woods,
"Peace, from the land that is the spirit's goal, - 
The land that nonce may see but with his soul, - 
Peace on the darkened house above the floods."
Pale constellations of the clematis,
Hark to that voice of his
That will not cease,
Swing low, droop low your spray,
Light with your white stars all the shadowed way
To peace, peace!
Astarte
by Henry Kendall

Across the dripping ridges,
O, look, luxurious night!
She comes, the bright-haired beauty,
My luminous delight!
My luminous delight!
So hush, ye shores, your roar,
That my soul may sleep, forgetting
Dead Love's wild Nevermore!
Astarte, Syrian sister,
Your face is wet with tears;
I think you know the secret
One heart hath held for years!
One heart hath held for years!
But hide your hapless love,
And my sweet my Syrian sister,
Dead Love's wild Nevermore!
Ah, Helen Hope in heaven,
My queen of long ago,
I've swooned with adoration,
But could not tell you so,
Or dared not tell you so,
My radiant queen of yore!
And you've passed away and left me
Dead Love's wild Nevermore!
Astarte knoweth, darling,
Of eyes that once did weep,
What time entranced Passion
Hath kissed your lips in sleep;
Hath kissed your lips in sleep;
But now those tears are o'er,
Gone, my saint, with many a moan to
Dead Love's wild Nevermore!
If I am past all crying,
What thoughts are maddening me,
Of you, my darling, dying
Upon the lone, wide sea,
Upon the lone, wide sea,
Ah! hush, ye shores, your roar,
That my soul may sleep, forgetting
Dead Love's wild Nevermore!
Hymn [1]
by Charles Kingsley

Accept this building, gracious Lord,
No temple though it be;
We raised it for our suffering kin,
And so, Good Lord, for Thee.
Accept our little gift, and give
To all who here may dwell,
The will and power to do their work,
Or bear their sorrows well.
From Thee all skill and science flow;
All pity, care, and love,
All calm and courage, faith and hope,
Oh! pour them from above.
And part them, Lord, to each and all,
As each and all shall need,
To rise like incense, each to Thee,
In noble thought and deed.
And hasten, Lord, that perfect day,
When pain and death shall cease;
And Thy just rule shall fill the earth
With health, and light, and peace.
When ever blue the sky shall gleam,
And ever green the sod;
And man's rude work deface no more
The Paradise of God.
Eversley, 1870.
Sunset In The City
by Richard Le Gallienne

Above the town a monstrous wheel is turning,
With glowing spokes of red,
Low in the west its fiery axle burning;
And, lost amid the spaces overhead,
A vague white moth, the moon, is fluttering.
Above the town an azure sea is flowing,
'Mid long peninsulas of shining sand,
From opal unto pearl the moon is growing,
Dropped like a shell upon the changing strand.
Within the town the streets grow strange and haunted,
And, dark against the western lakes of green,
The buildings change to temples, and unwonted
Shadows and sounds creep in where day has been.
Within the town, the lamps of sin are flaring,
Poor foolish men that know not what ye are!
Tired traffic still upon his feet is faring -
Two lovers meet and kiss and watch a star.
The Germans On The Height Of Hochheim
by William Wordsworth

Abruptly paused the strife; the field throughout
Resting upon his arms each warrior stood,
Checked in the very act and deed of blood,
With breath suspended, like a listening scout.
O Silence! thou wert mother of a shout
That through the texture of yon azure dome
Cleaves its glad way, a cry of harvest home
Uttered to Heaven in ecstasy devout!
The barrier Rhine hath flashed, through battle-smoke,
On men who gaze heart-smitten by the view,
As if all Germany had felt the shock!
Fly, wretched Gauls! ere they the charge renew
Who have seen, themselves now casting off the yoke
The unconquerable Stream his course pursue.
A Winter's Day
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Across the hills and down the narrow ways,
And up the valley where the free winds sweep,
The earth is folded in an ermined sleep
That mocks the melting mirth of myriad Mays.
Departed her disheartening duns and grays,
And all her crusty black is covered deep.
Dark streams are locked in Winter's donjon-keep,
And made to shine with keen, unwonted rays.
O icy mantle, and deceitful snow!
What world-old liars in your hearts ye are!
Are there not still the darkened seam and scar
Beneath the brightness that you fain would show?
Come from the cover with thy blot and blur,
O reeking Earth, thou whited sepulchre!
Return
by John Wilmot

Absent from thee, I languish still;
Then ask me not, When I return?
The straying fool 'twill plainly kill
To wish all day, all night to mourn.
Dear, from thine arms then let me fly,
That my fantastic mind may prove
The torments it deserves to try,
That tears my fix'd heart from my love.
When, wearied with a world of woe,
To thy safe bosom I retire,
Where love, and peace, and truth does flow,
May I contented there expire!
Lest, once more wandering from that heaven,
I fall on some base heart unblest;
Faithless to thee, false, unforgiven,
And lose my everlasting rest.
The Results Of Thought
by William Butler Yeats

Acquaintance; companion;
One dear brilliant woman;
The best-endowed, the elect,
All by their youth undone,
All, all, by that inhuman
Bitter glory wrecked.
But I have straightened out
Ruin, wreck and wrack;
I toiled long years and at length
Came to so deep a thought
I can summon back
All their wholesome strength.
What images are these
That turn dull-eyed away,
Or Shift Time's filthy load,
Straighten aged knees,
Hesitate or stay?
What heads shake or nod?
Vpon The Death Of Mistris Elianor Fallowfield
by Michael Drayton

Accursed Death, what neede was there at all
Of thee, or who to councell thee did call;
The subiect whereupon these lines I spend
For thee was most vnfit, her timelesse end
Too soone thou wroughtst, too neere her thou didst stand;
Thou shouldst haue lent thy leane and meager hand
To those who oft the help thereof beseech,
And can be cured by no other Leech.
In this wide world how many thousands be,
That hauing past fourescore, doe call for thee.
The wretched debtor in the Iayle that lies,
Yet cannot this his Creditor suffice
Doth woe thee oft with many a sigh and teare,
Yet thou art coy, and him thou wilt not heare.
The Captiue slaue that tuggeth at the Oares,
And vnderneath the Bulls tough sinewes rores,
Begs at thy hand, in lieu of all his paines,
That thou wouldst but release him of his chaines;
Yet thou a niggard listenest not thereto,
With one short gaspe which thou mightst easily do,
But thou couldst come to her ere there was neede,
And euen at once destroy both flower and seede.
But cruell Death if thou so barbarous be,
To those so goodly, and so young as shee;
That in their teeming thou wilt shew thy spight;
Either from marriage thou wilt Maides affright,
Or in their wedlock, Widowes liues to chuse
Their Husbands bed, and vtterly refuse,
Fearing conception; so shalt thou thereby
Extirpate mankinde by thy cruelty.
If after direfull Tragedy thou thirst,
Extinguish Himens Torches at the first;
Build Funerall pyles, and the sad pauement strewe,
With mournfull Cypresse, and the pale-leau'd Yewe.
Away with Roses, Myrtle, and with Bayes;
Ensignes of mirth, and iollity, as these;
Neuer at Nuptials vsed be againe,
But from the Church the new Bride entertaine
With weeping Nenias, euer and among,
As at departings be sad Requiems song.
Lucina by th' olde Poets that wert sayd,
Women in Childe-birth euermore to ayde,
Because thine Altars, long haue layne neglected:
Nor as they should, thy holy fiers reflected
Vpon thy Temples, therefore thou doest flye,
And wilt not helpe them in necessitie.
Thinking vpon thee, I doe often muse,
Whether for thy deare sake I should accuse
Nature or Fortune, Fortune then I blame,
And doe impute it as her greatest shame,
To hast thy timelesse end, and soone agen
I vexe at Nature, nay I curse her then,
That at the time of need she was no stronger,
That we by her might haue enioy'd thee longer.
But whilst of these I with my selfe debate,
I call to minde how flinty-hearted Fate
Seaseth the olde, the young, the faire, the foule,
No thing on earth can Destinie controule:
But yet that Fate which hath of life bereft thee,
Still to eternall memory hath left thee,
Which thou enioy'st by the deserued breath,
That many a great one hath not after death.