DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
On Receiving An Eagle's Quill From Lake Superior
by John Greenleaf Whittier

All day the darkness and the cold
Upon my heart have lain,
Like shadows on the winter sky,
Like frost upon the pane;
But now my torpid fancy wakes,
And, on thy Eagle's plume,
Rides forth, like Sindbad on his bird,
Or witch upon her broom!
Below me roar the rocking pines,
Before me spreads the lake
Whose long and solemn-sounding waves
Against the sunset break.
I hear the wild Rice-Eater thresh
The grain he has not sown;
I see, with flashing scythe of fire,
The prairie harvest mown!
I hear the far-off voyager's horn;
I see the Yankee's trail,
His foot on every mountain-pass,
On every stream his sail.
By forest, lake, and waterfall,
I see his pedler show;
The mighty mingling with the mean,
The lofty with the low.
He's whittling by St. Mary's Falls,
Upon his loaded wain;
He's measuring o'er the Pictured Rocks,
With eager eyes of gain.
I hear the mattock in the mine,
The axe-stroke in the dell,
The clamor from the Indian lodge,
The Jesuit chapel bell!
I see the swarthy trappers come
From Mississippi's springs;
And war-chiefs with their painted brows,
And crests of eagle wings.
Behind the scared squaw's birch canoe,
The steamer smokes and raves;
And city lots are staked for sale
Above old Indian graves.
I hear the tread of pioneers
Of nations yet to be;
The first low wash of waves, where soon
Shall roll a human sea.
The rudiments of empire here
Are plastic yet and warm;
The chaos of a mighty world
Is rounding into form!
Each rude and jostling fragment soon
Its fitting place shall find,
The raw material of a State,
Its muscle and its mind!
And, westering still, the star which leads
The New World in its train
Has tipped with fire the icy spears
Of many a mountain chain.
The snowy cones of Oregon
Are kindling on its way;
And California's golden sands
Gleam brighter in its ray!
Then blessings on thy eagle quill,
As, wandering far and wide,
I thank thee for this twilight dream
And Fancy's airy ride!
Yet, welcomer than regal plumes,
Which Western trappers find,
Thy free and pleasant thoughts, chance sown,
Like feathers on the wind.
Thy symbol be the mountain-bird,
Whose glistening quill I hold;
Thy home the ample air of hope,
And memory's sunset gold!
In thee, let joy with duty join,
And strength unite with love,
The eagle's pinions folding round
The warm heart of the dove!
So, when in darkness sleeps the vale
Where still the blind bird clings
The sunshine of the upper sky
Shall glitter on thy wings!
Astrophel and Stella - Sonnet XIV
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

Alas, haue I not pain enough, my friend,
Vpon whose breast a fiecer Gripe doth tire
Than did on him who first stale down the fire,
While Loue on me doth all his quiuer spend,
But with your rhubarbe words ye must contend
To grieue me worse, in saying that Desire
Doth plunge my wel-form'd soul euen in the mire
Of sinfull thoughts, which do in ruin end?
If that be sinne which doth the manners frame,
Well staid with truth in word and faith of deede,
Ready of wit, and fearing nought but shame;
If that be sin which in fixt hearts doth breed
A loathing of all loose vnchastitie,
Then loue is sin, and let me sinfull be.
How A Beauty Was Waked And Her Suitor Was Suited
by Guy Wetmore Carryl

Albeit wholly penniless,
Prince Charming wasn't any less
Conceited than a Croesus or a modern millionaire:
Though often in necessity,
No one would ever guess it. He
Was candidly insolvent, and he frankly didn't care!
Of the many debts he made
Not a one was ever paid,
But no one ever pressed him to refund the borrowed gold:
While he recklessly kept spending,
People gladly kept on lending,
For the fact they knew a title
Was requital
Twenty-fold!
(He lived in sixteen sixty-three,
This smooth unblushing article,
Since when, as far as I can see,
Men haven't changed a particle!)
In Charming's principality
There was a wild locality,
Composed of sombre forest, and of steep and frowning crags,
Of pheasant and of rabbit, too;
And here it was his habit to
Go hunting with his courtiers in the keen pursuit of stags.
But the charger that he rode
So mercurially strode
That the prince on one occasion left the others in the lurch,
And the falling darkness found him,
With no vassals left around him,
Near a building like an abbey,
Or a shabby
Ruined church.
His Highness said: "I'll ring the bell
And stay till morning in it!" (He
Took Hobson's choice, for no hotel
There was in the vicinity.)
His ringing was so vehement
That any one could see he meant
To suffer no refusal, but, in spite of all the din,
There was no answer audible,
And so, with courage laudable,
His Royal Highness turned the knob, and stoutly entered in.
Then he strode across the court,
But he suddenly stopped short
When he passed within the castle by a massive oaken door:
There were courtiers without number,
But they all were plunged in slumber,
The prince's ear delighting
By uniting
In a snore.
The prince remarked: "This must be Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania!"
(And so was born the jest that's still
The comic journal's mania!)
With torpor reprehensible,
Numb, comatose, insensible,
The flunkeys and the chamberlains all slumbered like the dead,
And snored so loud and mournfully,
That Charming passed them scornfully
And came to where a princess lay asleep upon a bed.
She was so extremely fair
That His Highness didn't care
For the risk, and so he kissed her ere a single word he spoke:--
In a jiffy maids and pages,
Ushers, lackeys, squires, and sages,
As fresh as if they'd been at least
A week awake,
Awoke,
And hastened, bustled, dashed and ran
Up stairways and through galleries:
In brief, they one and all began
Again to earn their salaries!
Aroused from her paralysis,
As if in deep analysis
Of him who had awakened her, the princess met his eye:
Her glance at first was critical,
And sternly analytical.
And then she dropped her lashes and she gave a little sigh.
As he watched her, wholly dumb,
She observed: "You doubtless come
For one of two good reasons, and I'm going to ask you which.
Do you mean my house to harry,
Or do you propose to marry?"
He answered: "I may rue it,
But I'll do it,
If you're rich!"
The princess murmured with a smile:
"I've millions, at the least, to come!"
The prince cried: "Please excuse me, while
I go and get the priest to come!"
The Moral: When affairs go ill
The sleeping partner foots the bill.
On Seeing A Bust Of R. B. Sheridan, From A Cast Taken After Death.[209]
by William Lisle Bowles

Alas, poor Sheridan! when first we met,
'Twas 'mid a smiling circle, and thine eye,
That flashed with eloquent hilarity
And playful fancy, I remember yet
Freshly as yesterday. The gay and fair,
The young and beautiful, - now in their graves - 
Surrounded us; while on the lucid wave
Of Hampton's waters, to the morning air
The streamer softly played of our light boat,
Which seemed as on a magic sea to float.
I saw thee after in this crowd of life,
Conflicting, but yet blandly, with its strife.
As the still car of Time rolled on, thy cheek
Wore the same smile, yet with a trace more weak.
Lone sorrow came as life declined, and care,
And age, with slowly furrowing line, was there.
I could have spared this fearful sight! Most strange
Is the eventful tale of mortal change,
Inevitable; but death, brought so nigh,
In form so tangible, harrows the eye.
As all the past floats like a cloud away,
Alas, poor Sheridan! I turn and say,
Not without feelings which such sights impart,
Sad, but instructive, to the Christian's heart!
May 18, 1826.
Misgiving
by Robert Lee Frost

All crying, 'We will go with you, O Wind!'
The foliage follow him, leaf and stem;
But a sleep oppresses them as they go,
And they end by bidding them as they go,
And they end by bidding him stay with them.
Since ever they flung abroad in spring
The leaves had promised themselves this flight,
Who now would fain seek sheltering wall,
Or thicket, or hollow place for the night.
And now they answer his summoning blast
With an ever vaguer and vaguer stir,
Or at utmost a little reluctant whirl
That drops them no further than where they were.
I only hope that when I am free
As they are free to go in quest
Of the knowledge beyond the bounds of life
It may not seem better to me to rest.
Song. - From The Spanish Of Iglesias. (Translations.)
by William Cullen Bryant

Alexis calls me cruel;
The rifted crags that hold
The gathered ice of winter,
He says, are not more cold.
When even the very blossoms
Around the fountain's brim,
And forest walks, can witness
The love I bear to him.
I would that I could utter
My feelings without shame;
And tell him how I love him,
Nor wrong my virgin fame.
Alas! to seize the moment
When heart inclines to heart,
And press a suit with passion,
Is not a woman's part.
If man comes not to gather
The roses where they stand,
They fade among their foliage;
They cannot seek his hand.
In The Valley Of Cautertz
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

All along the valley, stream that flashest white,
Deepening thy voice with the deepening of the night,
All along the valley, where thy waters flow,
I walk'd with one I loved two and thirty years ago.
All along the valley, while I walk'd to-day,
The two and thirty years were a mist that rolls away;
For all along the valley, down thy rocky bed,
Thy living voice to me was as the voice of the dead,
And all along the valley, by rock and cave and tree,
The voice of the dead was a living voice to me.
The Chapel In Lyoness
by William Morris

SIR OZANA LE CURE HARDY. SIR GALAHAD. SIR BORS DE GANYS.
SIR OZANA.
All day long and every day,
From Christmas-Eve to Whit-Sunday,
Within that Chapel-aisle I lay,
And no man came a-near.
Naked to the waist was I,
And deep within my breast did lie,
Though no man any blood could spy,
The truncheon of a spear.
No meat did ever pass my lips
Those days. Alas! the sunlight slips
From off the gilded parclose, dips,
And night comes on apace.
My arms lay back behind my head;
Over my raised-up knees was spread
A samite cloth of white and red;
A rose lay on my face.
Many a time I tried to shout;
But as in dream of battle-rout,
My frozen speech would not well out;
I could not even weep.
With inward sigh I see the sun
Fade off the pillars one by one,
My heart faints when the day is done,
Because I cannot sleep.
Sometimes strange thoughts pass through my head;
Not like a tomb is this my bed,
Yet oft I think that I am dead;
That round my tomb is writ,
'Ozana of the hardy heart,
Knight of the Table Round,
Pray for his soul, lords, of your part;
A true knight he was found.'
Ah! me, I cannot fathom it.            [He sleeps.
SIR GALAHAD.
All day long and every day,
Till his madness pass'd away,
I watch'd Ozana as he lay
Within the gilded screen.
All my singing moved him not;
As I sung my heart grew hot,
With the thought of Launcelot
Far away, I ween.
So I went a little space
From out the chapel, bathed my face
In the stream that runs apace
By the churchyard wall.
There I pluck'd a faint wild rose,
Hard by where the linden grows,
Sighing over silver rows
Of the lilies tall.
I laid the flower across his mouth;
The sparkling drops seem'd good for drouth;
He smiled, turn'd round towards the south.
Held up a golden tress.
The light smote on it from the west;
He drew the covering from his breast,
Against his heart that hair he prest;
Death him soon will bless.
SIR BORS.
I enter'd by the western door;
I saw a knight's helm lying there:
I raised my eyes from off the floor,
And caught the gleaming of his hair.
I stept full softly up to him;
I laid my chin upon his head;
I felt him smile; my eyes did swim,
I was so glad he was not dead.
I heard Ozana murmur low,
'There comes no sleep nor any love.'
But Galahad stoop'd and kiss'd his brow:
He shiver'd; I saw his pale lips move.
SIR OZANA.
There comes no sleep nor any love;
Ah me! I shiver with delight.
I am so weak I cannot move;
God move me to thee, dear, to-night!
Christ help! I have but little wit:
My life went wrong; I see it writ,
'Ozana of the hardy heart,
Knight of the Table Round,
Pray for his soul, lords, on your part;
A good knight he was found.'
Now I begin to fathom it.            [He dies.
SIR BORS.
Galahad sits dreamily;
What strange things may his eyes see,
Great blue eyes fix'd full on me?
On his soul, Lord, have mercy.
SIR GALAHAD.
Ozana, shall I pray for thee?
Her cheek is laid to thine;
No long time hence, also I see
Thy wasted fingers twine
Within the tresses of her hair
That shineth gloriously,
Thinly outspread in the clear air
Against the jasper sea.
The Prophet
by Josephine Preston Peabody

All day long he kept the sheep:--
Far and early, from the crowd,
On the hills from steep to steep,
Where the silence cried aloud;
And the shadow of the cloud
Wrapt him in a noonday sleep.
Where he dipped the water's cool,
Filling boyish hands from thence,
Something breathed across the pool
Stir of sweet enlightenments;
And he drank, with thirsty sense,
Till his heart was brimmed and full.
Still, the hovering Voice unshed,
And the Vision unbeheld,
And the mute sky overhead,
And his longing, still withheld!
--Even when the two tears welled,
Salt, upon that lonely bread.
Vaguely bless'd in the leaves,
Dim-companioned in the sun,
Eager mornings, wistful eves,
Very hunger drew him on;
And To-morrow ever shone
With the glow the sunset weaves.
Even so, to that young heart,
Words and hands, and Men were dear;
And the stir of lane and mart
After daylong vigil here.
Sunset called, and he drew near,
Still to find his path apart.
When the Bell, with gentle tongue,
Called the herd-bells home again,
Through the purple shades he swung,
Down the mountain, through the glen;
Towards the sound of fellow-men,--
Even from the light that clung.
Dimly too, as cloud on cloud,
Came that silent flock of his:
Thronging whiteness, in a crowd,
After homing twos and threes;
With the thronging memories
Of all white things dreamed and vowed.
Through the fragrances, alone,
By the sudden-silent brook,
From the open world unknown,
To the close of speech and book;
There to find the foreign look
In the faces of his own.
Sharing was beyond his skill;
Shyly yet, he made essay:
Sought to dip, and share, and fill
Heart's-desire, from day to day.
But their eyes, some foreign way,
Looked at him; and he was still.
Last, he reached his arms to sleep,
Where the Vision waited, dim,
Still beyond some deep-on-deep.
And the darkness folded him,
Eager heart and weary limb.--
All day long, he kept the sheep.
Sonnet CLXX.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Lasso, ch' i' ardo, ed altri non mel crede!
POSTERITY WILL ACCORD TO HIM THE PITY WHICH LAURA REFUSES.
Alas, with ardour past belief I glow!
None doubt this truth, except one only fair,
Who all excels, for whom alone I care;
She plainly sees, yet disbelieves my woe.
O rich in charms, but poor in faith! canst thou
Look in these eyes, nor read my whole heart there?
Were I not fated by my baleful star,
For me from pity's fount might favour flow.
My flame, of which thou tak'st so little heed,
And thy high praises pour'd through all my song,
O'er many a breast may future influence spread:
These, my sweet fair, so warns prophetic thought,
Closed thy bright eye, and mute thy poet's tongue,
E'en after death shall still with sparks be fraught.
NOTT.
Alas! I burn, yet credence fail to gain
All others credit it save only she
All others who excels, alone for me;
She seems to doubt it still, yet sees it plain
Infinite beauty, little faith and slow,
Perceive ye not my whole heart in mine eyes?
Well might I hope, save for my hostile skies,
From mercy's fount some pitying balm to flow.
Yet this my flame which scarcely moves your care,
And your warm praises sung in these fond rhymes,
May thousands yet inflame in after times;
These I foresee in fancy, my sweet fair,
Though your bright eyes be closed and cold my breath,
Shall lighten other loves and live in death.
MACGREGOR.
Poem: Libertatis Sacra Fames
by Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde

Albeit nurtured in democracy,
And liking best that state republican
Where every man is Kinglike and no man
Is crowned above his fellows, yet I see,
Spite of this modern fret for Liberty,
Better the rule of One, whom all obey,
Than to let clamorous demagogues betray
Our freedom with the kiss of anarchy.
Wherefore I love them not whose hands profane
Plant the red flag upon the piled-up street
For no right cause, beneath whose ignorant reign
Arts, Culture, Reverence, Honour, all things fade,
Save Treason and the dagger of her trade,
Or Murder with his silent bloody feet.
The Other
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

All alone with my heart to-night
I sit, and wonder, and sigh.
What is she like, is she dark, or light,
This other woman who has the right
To love him better than I?
We never have spoken her name, we two;
There was no need somehow,
But she lives, and loves, and her heart is true;
From the very first this much I knew,
So why should it hurt me now.
I fancy her tall, and I think her fair,
Oh! fairer than I by half.
With sweet, calm eyes, and a wealth of hair,
And a heart as perfectly free from care
As is her silvery laugh.
She loves rich jewels that flash in the light,
And revels in costly lace,
And first in the morning, and last at night
She kisses one ring on her finger white;
(How came those tears on my face?)
She has all best things to make life sweet:
Youth, and beauty, and gold,
And a love that renders it quite complete.
(I wonder why from my head to my feet
I feel so deathly cold?)
Yet in all the store of her great delight
(And she has so much, so much)
She cannot be gladder than I, in the bright
Sweet smile he gave her when he said good night -
And his warm hand's close, kind touch.
I must put out the light and go to bed;
I wonder would she care
If she knew, when I knelt with low bowed head,
I prayed for her, but that I said
His name the last in my prayer?
Mis' Smith
by Albert Bigelow Paine

All day she hurried to get through,
The same as lots of wimmin do;
Sometimes at night her husban' said,
"Ma, ain't you goin' to come to bed?"
And then she'd kinder give a hitch,
And pause half way between a stitch,
And sorter sigh, and say that she
Was ready as she'd ever be,
She reckoned.
And so the years went one by one,
An' somehow she was never done;
An' when the angel said, as how
"Mis' Smith, it's time you rested now,"
She sorter raised her eyes to look
A second, as a stitch she took;
"All right, I'm comin' now," says she,
"I'm ready as I'll ever be,
I reckon."
A Woman's Hand
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

All day long there has haunted me
A spectre out of my lost youth-land.
Because I happened last night to see
A woman's beautiful snow-white hand.
Like part of a statue broken away,
And carefully kept in a velvet case,
On the crimson rim of her box it lay;
The folds of the curtain hid her face.
Years had drifted between us two,
In another clime, in another land,
We had lived and parted, and yet I knew
That cruelly beautiful perfect hand.
The ringless beauty of fingers fine,
The sea-shell tint of their taper tips,
The sight of them stirred my blood like wine,
Oh, to hold them again to my lips!
To feel their tender touch on my hair,
Their mute caress, and their clinging hold;
Oh for the past that was green and fair,
With a cloudless sky, and a sun of gold!
But the sun has set, and a dead delight
Shadows my life with a dull despair,
Oh why did I see that hand of white,
Like a marble ornament lying there?
All Day I Hear The Noise Of Waters
by James Joyce

All day I hear the noise of waters
Making moan,
Sad as the sea-bird is when, going
Forth alone,
He hears the winds cry to the water's
Monotone.
The grey winds, the cold winds are blowing
Where I go.
I hear the noise of many waters
Far below.
All day, all night, I hear them flowing
To and fro.
Gallio's Song
by Rudyard Kipling

All day long to the judgment-seat
The crazed Provincials drew
All day long at their ruler's feet
Howled for the blood of the Jew.
Insurrection with one accord
Banded itself and woke,
And Paul was about to open his mouth
When Achaia's Deputy spoke
"Whether the God descend from above
Or the Man ascend upon high,
Whether this maker of tents be Jove
Or a younger deity
I will be no judge between your gods
And your godless bickerings.
Lictor, drive them hence with rods
I care for none of these things!
Were it a question of lawful due
Or Caesar's rule denied,
Reason would I should bear with you
And order it well to be tried;
But this is a question of words and names,
I know the strife it brings.
I will not pass upon any your claims.
I care for none of these things.
One thing only I see most clear,
As I pray you also see.
Claudius Caesar hath set me here
Rome's Deputy to be.
It is Her peace that ye go to break
Not mine, nor any king's.
But, touching your clamour of 'Conscience sake,'
I care for none of these things.
Whether ye rise for the sake of a creed,
Or riot in hope of spoil,
Equally will I punish the deed,
Equally check the broil;
Nowise permitting injustice at all
From whatever doctrine it springs
But whether ye follow Priapus or Paul,
I care for none of these things!"
A Man And His Image
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

All day the nations climb and crawl and pray
In one long pilgrimage to one white shrine,
Where sleeps a saint whose pardon, like his peace,
Is wide as death, as common, as divine.
His statue in an aureole fills the shrine,
The reckless nightingale, the roaming fawn,
Share the broad blessing of his lifted hands,
Under the canopy, above the lawn.
But one strange night, a night of gale and flood,
A sound came louder than the wild wind's tone;
The grave-gates shook and opened: and one stood
Blue in the moonlight, rotten to the bone.
Then on the statue, graven with holy smiles,
There came another smile--tremendous--one
Of an Egyptian god. 'Why should you rise?
'Do I not guard your secret from the sun?
The nations come; they kneel among the flowers
Sprung from your blood, blossoms of May and June,
Which do not poison them--is it not strange?
Speak!' And the dead man shuddered in the moon.
Shall I not cry the truth?'--the dead man cowered--
Is it not sad, with life so tame and cold,
What earth should fade into the sun's white fires
With the best jest in all its tales untold?
'If I should cry that in this shrine lie hid
Stories that Satan from his mouth would spew;
Wild tales that men in hell tell hoarsely--speak!
Saint and Deliverer!    Should I slander you?'
Slowly the cowering corse reared up its head,
'Nay, I am vile ... but when for all to see,
You stand there, pure and painless--death of life!
Let the stars fall--I say you slander me!
'You make me perfect, public, colourless;
You make my virtues sit at ease--you lie!
For mine were never easy--lost or saved,
I had a soul--I was. And where am I?
Where is my good? the little real hoard,
The secret tears, the sudden chivalries;
The tragic love, the futile triumph--where?
Thief, dog, and son of devils--where are these?
I will lift up my head: in leprous loves
Lost, and the soul's dishonourable scars--
By God I was a better man than This
That stands and slanders me to all the stars.
'Come down!' And with an awful cry, the corse
Sprang on the sacred tomb of many tales,
And stone and bone, locked in a loathsome strife,
Swayed to the singing of the nightingales.
Then one was thrown: and where the statue stood
Under the canopy, above the lawn,
The corse stood; grey and lean, with lifted hands
Raised in tremendous welcome to the dawn.
'Now let all nations climb and crawl and pray;
Though I be basest of my old red clan,
They shall not scale, with cries or sacrifice,
The stature of the spirit of a man.'
All But Blind
by Walter De La Mare

All but blind
In his chambered hole
Gropes for worms
The four-clawed Mole.
All but blind
In the evening sky
The hooded Bat
Twirls softly by.
All but blind
In the burning day
The Barn-Owl blunders
On her way.
And blind as are
These three to me,
So, blind to Some-one
I must be.