DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
In The South. [Serenade.]
by Madison Julius Cawein

The dim verbena drugs the dusk
With heavy lemon odors rare;
Wan heliotropes Arabian musk
Exhale into the dreamy air;
A sad wind with long wooing husk
Swoons in the roses there.
The jasmine at thy casement flings
Star-censers oozing rich perfumes;
The clematis, long petaled, swings
Deep clusters of dark purple blooms;
With flowers like moons or sylphide wings
Magnolias light the glooms.
Awake, awake from sleep!
Thy balmy hair,
Unbounden deep on deep,
Than blossoms fair,
Who sweetest fragrance weep,
Will fill the night with prayer.
Awake, awake from sleep!
And dreaming here it seems to me
Some dryad's bosoms grow confessed
Nude in the dark magnolia tree,
That rustles with the murmurous West,--
Or is it but a dream of thee
That thy white beauty guessed?
In southern heavens above are rolled
A million feverish gems, which burst
From night's deep ebon caskets old,
With inner fires that seem to thirst;
Tall oleanders to their gold
Drift buds where dews are nursed.
Unseal, unseal thine eyes,
Where long her rod
Queen Mab sways o'er their skies
In realms of Nod!
Confessed, such majesties
Will fill the night with God.
Unseal, unseal thine eyes!
On Captain Francis Grose.
by Robert Burns

The devil got notice that Grose was a-dying,
So whip! at the summons, old Satan came flying;
But when he approach'd where poor Francis lay moaning,
And saw each bed-post with its burden a-groaning,
Astonish'd! confounded! cry'd Satan, "By ----,
I'll want him, ere I take such a damnable load!"
The Dream Of Those Days.
by Thomas Moore

The dream of those days when first I sung thee is o'er,
Thy triumph hath stained the charm thy sorrows then wore;
And even of the light which Hope once shed o'er thy chains,
Alas, not a gleam to grace thy freedom remains.
Say, is it that slavery sunk so deep in thy heart,
That still the dark brand is there, though chainless thou art;
And Freedom's sweet fruit, for which thy spirit long burned,
Now, reaching at last thy lip, to ashes hath turned?
Up Liberty's steep by Truth and Eloquence led,
With eyes on her temple fixt, how proud was thy tread!
Ah, better thou ne'er hadst lived that summit to gain
Or died in the porch than thus dishonor the fane.
What the Scare-crow Said
by Vachel Lindsay

The dim-winged spirits of the night
Do fear and serve me well.
They creep from out the hedges of
The garden where I dwell.
I wave my arms across the walk.
The troops obey the sign,
And bring me shimmering shadow-robes
And cups of cowslip-wine.
Then dig a treasure called the moon,
A very precious thing,
And keep it in the air for me
Because I am a King.
Chapter Headings - Life's Handicap
by Rudyard Kipling

The doors were wide, the story saith,
Out of the night came the patient wraith.
He might not speak, and he could not stir
A hair of the Baron's minniver.
Speechless and strengthless, a shadow thin,
He roved the castle to find his kin.
And oh! 'twas a piteous sight to see
The dumb ghost follow his enemy!
The Return of Imray.
Before my Spring I garnered Autumn's gain,
Out of her time my field was white with grain,
The year gave up her secrets, to my woe.
Forced and deflowered each sick season lay
In mystery of increase and decay;
I saw the sunset ere men see the day,
Who am too wise in all I should not know.
Without Benefit of Clergy.
There's a convict more in the Central Jail,
Behind the old mud wall;
There's a lifter less on the Border trail,
And the Queen's Peace over all,
Dear boys,
The Queen's Peace over all!
For we must bear our leader's blame,
On us the shame will fall,
If we lift our hand from a fettered land
And the Queer's Peace over all,
Dear boys,
The Queen's Peace over all!
The Head of the District.
The Earth gave up her dead that tide,
Into our camp he came,
And said his say and went his way,
And left our hearts aflame.
Keep tally, on the gun-butt score
The vengeance we must take
When God shall bring full reckoning
For our dead comrade's sake!
The Man Who Was.
The sky is lead, and our faces are red,
And the Gates of Hell are opened and riven,
And the winds of Hell are loosened and driven,
And the dust flies up in the face of Heaven,
And the clouds come down in a fiery sheet,
Heavy to raise and hard to be borne.
And the soul of man is turned from his meat,
Turned from the trifles for which he has striven,
Sick in his body and heavy-hearted,
And his soul flies up like the dust in the street
Breaks from his flesh and is gone and departed
Like the blasts that they blow on the cholera-horn.
At the End of the Passage.
Shadows On The Shore
by Madison Julius Cawein

The doubtful dawn came dim and wan,
And dimmer grew the day:
The kildee whistled among the weeds,
The blue crane clanged in the river reeds,
And a mist fell wild and gray.
At dawn she stood, her heavy hood
Flung back, in the ferry boat,
To watch the rebel raiders ride,
Her rebel-love, with his men beside,
His kiss on her mouth and throat.
Like some dark spell the tempest fell,
Like some wild curse night came:
For hours she heard the warring dead,
Whose batteries opened overhead
With thunder and with flame.
And now again, in wind and rain,
She toiled at the creaking oar:
Oh what had she heard in the night and storm?
Whose voice was that? and whose the form
That galloped to the shore?
Across the stream, in the tempest's gleam,
Who sent that wild halloo?
In the lightning's glare, who was it there,
The wind and the rain in his tossing hair,
And his gray cloak torn in two?
Through rain and blast pull fast, pull fast!
Oar down the rushing tide!
Look where he rides in the lightning's glow!
And hearken now to his far hallo!
But only his horse, with head hung low,
A blur of blood on the saddlebow,
Comes whinnying to her side.
The Dreams Of My Heart
by Sara Teasdale

The dreams of my heart and my mind pass,
Nothing stays with me long,
But I have had from a child
The deep solace of song;
If that should ever leave me,
Let me find death and stay
With things whose tunes are played out and forgotten
Like the rain of yesterday.
The Village Miser
by Madison Julius Cawein

The dogs made way for him and snarled and ran;
And little children to their parents clung,
Big-eyed with fear, when, gruff of look and tongue,
Bent-backed he passed who had the village ban.
In old drab coat and trousers, shoes of tan,
And scarecrow hat, from some odd fashion sprung,
A threadbare cloak about his shoulders flung,
Grasping a crooked stick, limped by this man.
Unspeaking and unspoken to, but oft
Cursed after for a miser as he passed,
Or barked at by the dogs who feared his cane.
One day they found him dead; killed in his loft.
Among his books, the hoard which he had massed.
And then they laughed and swore he was insane.
Voices Of The Night.
by Charles Stuart Calverley

"The tender Grace of a day that is past."
The dew is on the roses,
The owl hath spread her wing;
And vocal are the noses
Of peasant and of king:
"Nature" (in short) "reposes;"
But I do no such thing.
Pent in my lonesome study
Here I must sit and muse;
Sit till the morn grows ruddy,
Till, rising with the dews,
"Jeameses" remove the muddy
Spots from their masters' shoes.
Yet are sweet faces flinging
Their witchery o'er me here:
I hear sweet voices singing
A song as soft, as clear,
As (previously to stinging)
A gnat sings round one's ear.
Does Grace draw young Apollos
In blue mustachios still?
Does Emma tell the swallows
How she will pipe and trill,
When, some fine day, she follows
Those birds to the window-sill?
And oh! has Albert faded
From Grace's memory yet?
Albert, whose "brow was shaded
By locks of glossiest jet,"
Whom almost any lady'd
Have given her eyes to get?
Does not her conscience smite her
For one who hourly pines,
Thinking her bright eyes brighter
Than any star that shines -
I mean of course the writer
Of these pathetic lines?
Who knows? As quoth Sir Walter,
"Time rolls his ceaseless course:
"The Grace of yore" may alter -
And then, I've one resource:
I'll invest in a bran-new halter,
And I'll perish without remorse.
Midwinter.
by Madison Julius Cawein

The dew-drop from the rose that slips
Hath not the sparkle of her lips,
My lady's lips.
Than her long braids of yellow hold
The dandelion hath not more gold,
Her braids like gold.
The blue-bell hints not more of skies
Than do the flowers in her eyes,
My lady's eyes.
The sweet-pea blossom doth not wear
More dainty pinkness than her ear,
My lady's ear.
So, heigho! then, tho' skies be gray,
My heart's a garden that is gay
This sorry day.
Cameron's Heart
by Henry Lawson

The diggings were just in their glory when Alister Cameron came,
With recommendations, he told me, from friends and a parson `at hame';
He read me his recommendations, he called them a part of his plant,
The first one was signed by an Elder, the other by Cameron's aunt.
The meenister called him `ungodly, a stray frae the fauld o' the Lord',
And his aunt set him down as a spendthrift, `a rebel at hame and abroad'.
He got drunk now and then and he gambled (such heroes are often the same);
That's all they could say in connection with Alister Cameron's name.
He was straight and he stuck to his country and spoke with respect of his kirk;
He did his full share of the cooking, and more than his share of the work.
And many a poor devil then, when his strength and his money were spent,
Was sure of a lecture, and tucker, and a shakedown in Cameron's tent.
He shunned all the girls in the camp, and they said he was proof to the dart,
That nothing but whisky and gaming had ever a place in his heart;
He carried a packet about him, well hid, but I saw it at last,
And, well, 'tis a very old story, the story of Cameron's past:
A ring and a sprig o' white heather, a letter or two and a curl,
A bit of a worn silver chain, and the portrait of Cameron's girl.
.        .        .        .        .
It chanced in the first of the Sixties that Ally and I and McKean
Were sinking a shaft on Mundoorin, near Fosberry's puddle-machine.
The bucket we used was a big one, and rather a weight when 'twas full,
Though Alister wound it up easy, for he had the strength of a bull.
He hinted at heart-disease often, but, setting his fancy apart,
I always believed there was nothing the matter with Cameron's heart.
One day I was working below, I was filling the bucket with clay,
When Alister cried, `Pack it on, mon! we ought to be bottomed to-day.'
He wound, and the bucket rose steady and swift to the surface until
It reached the first log on the top, where it suddenly stopped, and hung still.
I knew what was up in a moment when Cameron shouted to me:
`Climb up for your life by the footholes. I'll stick tae th' haun'le, or dee!'
And those were the last words he uttered. He groaned, for I heard him quite plain,
There's nothing so awful as that when it's wrung from a workman in pain.
The strength of despair was upon me; I started, and scarcely drew breath,
But climbed to the top for my life in the fear of a terrible death.
And there, with his waist on the handle, I saw the dead form of my mate,
And over the shaft hung the bucket, suspended by Cameron's weight.
I wonder did Alister think of the scenes in the distance so dim,
When Death at the windlass that morning took cruel advantage of him?
He knew if the bucket rushed down it would murder or cripple his mate,
His hand on the iron was closed with a grip that was stronger than Fate;
He thought of my danger, not his, when he felt in his bosom the smart,
And stuck to the handle in spite of the Finger of Death on his heart.
The Dog
by Oliver Herford

The Dog is black or white or brown
And sometimes spotted like a clown.
He loves to make a foolish noise
And Human Company enjoys.
The Human People pat his head
And teach him to pretend he's dead,
And beg, and fetch and carry too;
Things that no well-bred Cat will do.
At Human jokes, however stale,
He jumps about and wags his tail,
And Human People clap their hands
And think he really understands.
They say "Good Dog" to him. To us
They say "Poor Puss," and make no fuss.
Why Dogs are "good" and Cats are "poor"
I fail to understand, I'm sure.
To Someone very Good and Just,
Who has proved worthy of her trust,
A Cat will _sometimes_ condescend--
The Dog is Everybody's friend.
On Ne Badine Pas Avec La Mort
by Arthur Sherburne Hardy

1
The dew was full of sun that morn
(Oh I heard the doves in the ladyricks coop!)
As he crossed the meadows beyond the corn,
Watching his falcon in the blue.
How could he hear my song so far, 
The song of the blood where the pulses are!
Straight through the fields he came to me,
(Oh I saw his soul as I saw the dew!)
But I hid my joy that he might not see,
I hid it deep within my breast,
As the starling hides in the maize her nest.
2
Back through the corn he turned again,
(Oh little he cared where his falcon flew!)
And my heart lay still in the hand of pain,
As in winter's hand the rivers do.
How could he hear its secret cry,
The cry of the dove when the cummers die!
Thrice in the maize he turned to me,
(Oh I saw his soul as I saw the dew!)
But I hid my pain that he might not see 
I hid it deep as the grave is made,
Where the heart that can ache no more is laid.
3
Last night, where grows the river grass,
(Oh the stream was dark though the moon was new!)
I saw white Death with my lover pass,
Side by side as the troopers so.
"Give me," said Death, "thy purse well-filled,
And thy mantle-clasp which the moonbeams gild;
Save the heart which beats for thy dear sake,"
(Oh I saw my heart as I saw the dew!)
"All life hath given is Death's to take."
Dear God! how can I love thy day
If thou takest the heart that loves away!
Dewdrops
by John Clare

The dewdrops on every blade of grass are so much like silver drops
that I am obliged to stoop down as I walk to see if they are pearls,
and those sprinkled on the ivy-woven beds of primroses underneath the
hazels, whitethorns and maples are so like gold beads that I stooped
down to feel if they were hard, but they melted from my finger. And
where the dew lies on the primrose, the violet and whitethorn leaves
they are emerald and beryl, yet nothing more than the dews of the
morning on the budding leaves; nay, the road grasses are covered with
gold and silver beads, and the further we go the brighter they seem to
shine, like solid gold and silver. It is nothing more than the sun's
light and shade upon them in the dewy morning; every thorn-point and
every bramble-spear has its trembling ornament: till the wind gets
a little brisker, and then all is shaken off, and all the shining
jewelry passes away into a common spring morning full of budding
leaves, primroses, violets, vernal speedwell, bluebell and orchis, and
commonplace objects.
Penitence.
by Robert Herrick

The doctors, in the Talmud, say,
That in this world one only day
In true repentance spent will be
More worth than heaven's eternity.
What Of The Night?
by John Le Gay Brereton

The doom is imminent of unholy hate.
Hail to the light that glimmers where the leaves
Are shaken by winds of dawning, and the sheaves
Of hemlock swirl and scatter in the spate!
Love, that has learned in faith to sorrow and wait,
Sings loud his glorious charm and subtly weaves
The spell subduing madness that receives
The madman at his own mad estimate.
Ah, but the ponderous horror! Nay, not yet
The cloud of sorrow leeward growls and rolls;
The eyes that meet the morn are heavy and wet.
The loss the military mind enscrolls,
Spilt blood and battered bones, we may forget,
But not the wastage of beloved souls
Alushta By Night
by Adam Bernard Mickiewicz

The drooping, weary day night pushed aside;
On Tschatir Dagh the sullen sun and low
Paints phantom purple upon ancient snow;
While forest ways within, the wanderers hide.
Night veils the mountains and the valleys wide;
The thunderous brooks are dream-held, dulled, and slow;
Beneath the blackness fragrant flowers blow
And rich leaf-music clothes each valley side.
Almost my waking eyes are dream-held too;
With gold a meteor marks the deep-domed sky
And fountain-like the fiery sparks float by.
Oh! Beauty of the Eastern Night, you woo
My spirit like the odalisque, who held
Men captive till her kiss the dream dispelled!
The Man Who Knew
by Robert William Service

The Dreamer visioned Life as it might be,
And from his dream forthright a picture grew,
A painting all the people thronged to see,
And joyed therein - till came the Man Who Knew,
Saying: "'Tis bad! Why do ye gape, ye fools!
He painteth not according to the schools."
The Dreamer probed Life's mystery of woe,
And in a book he sought to give the clue;
The people read, and saw that it was so,
And read again - then came the Man Who Knew,
Saying: "Ye witless ones! this book is vile:
It hath not got the rudiments of style."
Love smote the Dreamer's lips, and silver clear
He sang a song so sweet, so tender true,
That all the market-place was thrilled to hear,
And listened rapt - till came the Man Who Knew,
Saying: "His technique's wrong; he singeth ill.
Waste not your time." The singer's voice was still.
And then the people roused as if from sleep,
Crying: "What care we if it be not Art!
Hath he not charmed us, made us laugh and weep?
Come, let us crown him where he sits apart."
Then, with his picture spurned, his book unread,
His song unsung, they found their Dreamer - DEAD.
Shut Out
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

The door was shut. I looked between
Its iron bars; and saw it lie,
My garden, mine, beneath the sky,
Pied with all flowers bedewed and green:
From bough to bough the song-birds crossed,
From flower to flower the moths and bees;
With all its nests and stately trees
It had been mine, and it was lost.
A shadowless spirit kept the gate,
Blank and unchanging like the grave.
I peering through said: 'Let me have
Some buds to cheer my outcast state.'
He answered not. 'Or give me, then,
But one small twig from shrub or tree;
And bid my home remember me
Until I come to it again.'
The spirit was silent; but he took
Mortar and stone to build a wall;
He left no loophole great or small
Through which my straining eyes might look:
So now I sit here quite alone
Blinded with tears; nor grieve for that,
For nought is left worth looking at
Since my delightful land is gone.
A violet bed is budding near,
Wherein a lark has made her nest:
And good they are, but not the best;
And dear they are, but not so dear.
Songs Of The Summer Nights
by George MacDonald

I.
The dreary wind of night is out,
Homeless and wandering slow;
O'er pale seas moaning like a doubt,
It breathes, but will not blow.
It sighs from out the helpless past,
Where doleful things abide;
Gray ghosts of dead thought sail aghast
Across its ebbing tide.
O'er marshy pools it faints and flows,
All deaf and dumb and blind;
O'er moor and mountain aimless goes--
The listless woesome wind!
Nay, nay!--breathe on, sweet wind of night!
The sigh is all in me;
Flow, fan, and blow, with gentle might,
Until I wake and see.
II.
The west is broken into bars
Of orange, gold, and gray;
Gone is the sun, fast come the stars,
And night infolds the day.
My boat glides with the gliding stream,
Following adown its breast
One flowing mirrored amber gleam,
The death-smile of the west.
The river moves; the sky is still,
No ceaseless quest it knows:
Thy bosom swells, thy fair eyes fill
At sight of its repose.
The ripples run; all patient sit
The stars above the night.
In shade and gleam the waters flit:
The heavens are changeless bright!
III.
Alone I lie, buried amid
The long luxurious grass;
The bats flit round me, born and hid
In twilight's wavering mass.
The fir-top floats, an airy isle,
High o'er the mossy ground;
Harmonious silence breathes the while
In scent instead of sound.
The flaming rose glooms swarthy red;
The borage gleams more blue;
Dim-starred with white, a flowery bed
Glimmers the rich dusk through.
Hid in the summer grass I lie,
Lost in the great blue cave;
My body gazes at the sky,
And measures out its grave.
IV.
What art thou, gathering dusky cool,
In slow gradation fine?
Death's lovely shadow, flickering full
Of eyes about to shine.
When weary Day goes down below,
Thou leanest o'er his grave,
Revolving all the vanished show
The gracious splendour gave.
Or art thou not she rather--say--
Dark-browed, with luminous eyes,
Of whom is born the mighty Day,
That fights and saves and dies?
For action sleeps with sleeping light;
Calm thought awakes with thee:
The soul is then a summer night,
With stars that shine and see.
The House Of Dust: Part 04: 02: Death: And A Derisive Chorus
by Conrad Potter Aiken

The door is shut. She leaves the curtained office,
And down the grey-walled stairs comes trembling slowly
Towards the dazzling street.
Her withered hand clings tightly to the railing.
The long stairs rise and fall beneath her feet.
Here in the brilliant sun we jostle, waiting
To tear her secret out . . . We laugh, we hurry,
We go our way, revolving, sinister, slow.
She blinks in the sun, and then steps faintly downward.
We whirl her away, we shout, we spin, we flow.
Where have you been, old lady? We know your secret!
Voices jangle about her, jeers, and laughter. . . .
She trembles, tries to hurry, averts her eyes.
Tell us the truth, old lady! where have you been?
She turns and turns, her brain grows dark with cries.
Look at the old fool tremble! She's been paying,
Paying good money, too, to talk to spirits. . . .
She thinks she's heard a message from one dead!
What did he tell you? Is he well and happy?
Don't lie to us, we all know what he said.
He said the one he murdered once still loves him;
He said the wheels in wheels of time are broken;
And dust and storm forgotten; and all forgiven. . . .
But what you asked he wouldn't tell you, though,
Ha ha! there's one thing you will never know!
That's what you get for meddling so with heaven!
Where have you been, old lady? Where are you going?
We know, we know! She's been to gab with spirits.
Look at the old fool! getting ready to cry!
What have you got in an envelope, old lady?
A lock of hair? An eyelash from his eye?
How do you know the medium didn't fool you?
Perhaps he had no spirit, perhaps he killed it.
Here she comes! the old fool's lost her son.
What did he have, blue eyes and golden hair?
We know your secret! what's done is done.
Look out, you'll fall, and fall, if you're not careful,
Right into an open grave. . . .but what's the hurry?
You don't think you will find him when you're dead?
Cry! Cry! Look at her mouth all twisted,
Look at her eyes all red!
We know you, know your name and all about you,
All you remember and think, and all you scheme for.
We tear your secret out, we leave you, go
Laughingly down the street. . . .Die, if you want to!
Die, then, if you're in such a hurry to know!
. . . .She falls. We lift her head. The wasted body
Weighs nothing in our hands. Does no one know her?
Was no one with her when she fell? . . .
We eddy about her, move away in silence.
We hear slow tollings of a bell.
Nursery Rhyme. DLIV. Natural History.
by Unknown

The dove says coo, coo, what shall I do?
I can scarce maintain two.
Pooh, pooh, says the wren, I have got ten,
And keep them all like gentlemen!
The Valley Of The Black Pig
by William Butler Yeats

The dews drop slowly and dreams gather: unknown spears
Suddenly hurtle before my dream-awakened eyes,
And then the clash of fallen horsemen and the cries
Of unknown perishing armies beat about my ears.
We who still labour by the cromlec on the shore,
The grey cairn on the hill, when day sinks drowned in dew,
Being weary of the world's empires, bow down to you
Master of the still stars and of the flaming door.
The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - Apology By Paradox.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Non ' brutto il Demon.
The Devil's not so ugly as they paint;
He's well with all, compact of courtesy:
Real heroism is real piety:
Before small truth great falsehoods shrink and faint
If pots stain worse than pipkins, it were quaint
To charge the pipkins with impurity:
Freedom I crave: who craves not to be free?
Yet life that must be feigned for, leaves a taint.
Ill conduct brings repentance?--If you prate
This wise to me, why prate not thus to all
Philosophers and prophets, and to Christ?
Not too much learning, as some arrogate,
But the small brains of dullards have sufficed
To make us wretched and the world enthrall.