DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Despondency
by Anne Bronte

I have gone backward in the work;
The labour has not sped;
Drowsy and dark my spirit lies,
Heavy and dull as lead.
How can I rouse my sinking soul
From such a lethargy?
How can I break these iron chains
And set my spirit free?
There have been times when I have mourned!
In anguish o'er the past,
And raised my suppliant hands on high,
While tears fell thick and fast;
And prayed to have my sins forgiven,
With such a fervent zeal,
An earnest grief, a strong desire
As now I cannot feel.
And I have felt so full of love,
So strong in spirit then,
As if my heart would never cool,
Or wander back again.
And yet, alas! how many times
My feet have gone astray!
How oft have I forgot my God!
How greatly fallen away!
My sins increase, my love grows cold,
And Hope within me dies:
Even Faith itself is wavering now;
Oh, how shall I arise?
I cannot weep, but I can pray,
Then let me not despair:
Lord Jesus, save me, lest I die!
Christ, hear my humble prayer!
Wont And Done.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I Have loved; for the first time with passion I rave!
I then was the servant, but now am the slave;
I then was the servant of all:
By this creature so charming I now am fast bound,
To love and love's guerdon she turns all around,
And her my sole mistress I call.
l've had faith; for the first time my faith is now strong!
And though matters go strangely, though matters go wrong,
To the ranks of the faithful I'm true:
Though ofttimes 'twas dark and though ofttimes 'twas drear,
In the pressure of need, and when danger was near,
Yet the dawning of light I now view.
I have eaten; but ne'er have thus relish'd my food!
For when glad are the senses, and joyous the blood,
At table all else is effaced
As for youth, it but swallows, then whistles an air;
As for me, to a jovial resort I'd repair,
Where to eat, and enjoy what I taste.
I have drunk; but have never thus relish'd the bowl!
For wine makes us lords, and enlivens the soul,
And loosens the trembling slave's tongue.
Let's not seek to spare then the heart-stirring drink,
For though in the barrel the old wine may sink,
In its place will fast mellow the young.
I have danced, and to dancing am pledged by a vow!
Though no caper or waltz may be raved about now,
In a dance that's becoming, whirl round.
And he who a nosegay of flowers has dress'd,
And cares not for one any more than the rest,
With a garland of mirth is aye crown'd.
Then once more be merry, and banish all woes!
For he who but gathers the blossoming rose.
By its thorns will be tickled alone.
To-day still, as yesterday, glimmers the star;
Take care from all heads that hang down to keep far,
And make but the future thine own.
I Have Loved Hours At Sea
by Sara Teasdale

I have loved hours at sea, gray cities,
The fragile secret of a flower,
Music, the making of a poem
That gave me heaven for an hour;
First stars above a snowy hill,
Voices of people kindly and wise,
And the great look of love, long hidden,
Found at last in meeting eyes.
I have loved much and been loved deeply,
Oh when my spirit's fire burns low,
Leave me the darkness and the stillness,
I shall be tired and glad to go.
Betsie Brown.
by A. H. Laidlaw

I have loved you all my days,
Betsie Brown,
And I'll never cease to praise
Betsie Brown;
Still must I break love's tie,
To act a patriot part,
But I'll yield thee, as I die,
The last throb of my heart,
Betsie Brown!
For my country let me die,
Betsie Brown,
And never grieve nor cry,
Betsie Brown,
But lay me down to sleep
Where my country's tempests rave,
Where its mountain moss can creep
O'er an humble patriot's grave,
Betsie Brown!
And should my boy, with thee,
Betsie Brown,
By my grave once bend the knee,
Betsie Brown,
Teach him to bleed or die
For his country or his God,
Like him whose ashes lie
Beneath the loving sod,
Betsie Brown!
The Blind Boy
by Walter De La Mare

"I have no master," said the Blind Boy,
"My mother, 'Dame Venus' they do call;
Cowled in this hood she sent me begging
For whate'er in pity may befall.
"Hard was her visage, me adjuring, - 
'Have no fond mercy on the kind!
Here be sharp arrows, bunched in quiver,
Draw close ere striking - thou art blind.'
"So stand I here, my woes entreating,
In this dark alley, lest the Moon
Point with her sparkling my barbed armoury
Shine on my silver-lac'd shoon.
"Oh, sir, unkind this Dame to me-ward;
Of the salt billow was her birth ...
In your sweet charity draw nearer
The saddest rogue on Earth!"
Song.
by Sophie M. (Almon) Hensley

I have known a thousand pleasures, - 
Love is best - 
Ocean's songs and forest treasures,
Work and rest,
Jewelled joys of dear existence,
Triumph over Fate's resistance,
But to prove, through Time's wide distance,
Love is best.
Sonnet - The Poet To Nature
by Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell

I have no secrets from thee, lyre sublime,
My lyre whereof I make my melody.
I sing one way like the west wind through thee,
With my whole heart, and hear thy sweet strings chime.
But thou, who soundest in my tune and rhyme,
Hast tones I wake not, in thy land and sea,
Loveliness not for me, secrets from me,
Thoughts for another, and another time.
And as, the west wind passed, the south wind alters
His intimate sweet things, his hues of noon,
The voices of his waves, sound of his pine,
The meanings of his lost heart,-this thought falters
In my short song-'Another bard shall tune
Thee, my one Lyre, to other songs than mine.'
Submerged
by Lola Ridge

I have known only my own shallows - 
Safe, plumbed places,
Where I was wont to preen myself.
But for the abyss
I wanted a plank beneath
And horizons...
I was afraid of the silence
And the slipping toe-hold...
Oh, could I now dive
Into the unexplored deeps of me - 
Delve and bring up and give
All that is submerged, encased, unfolded,
That is yet the best.
To May
by Ellis Parker Butler

I have no heart to write verses to May;
I have no heart - yet I'm cheerful today;
I have no heart - she has won mine away
So - I have no heart to write verses to May.
Prelude - From The Man From Snowy River And Other Verses
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

I have gathered these stories afar
In the wind and the rain,
In the land where the cattle-camps are,
On the edge of the Plain.
On the overland routes of the west,
When the watches were long,
I have fashioned in earnest and jest
These fragments of song.
They are just the rude stories one hears
In sadness and mirth,
The records of wandering years,
And scant is their worth.
Though their merits indeed are but slight,
I shall not repine
If they give you one moment's delight,
Old comrades of mine.
Dinah Kneading Dough
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

I have seen full many a sight
Born of day or drawn by night:
Sunlight on a silver stream,
Golden lilies all a-dream,
Lofty mountains, bold and proud,
Veiled beneath the lacelike cloud;
But no lovely sight I know
Equals Dinah kneading dough.
Brown arms buried elbow-deep
Their domestic rhythm keep,
As with steady sweep they go
Through the gently yielding dough.
Maids may vaunt their finer charms--
Naught to me like Dinah's arms;
Girls may draw, or paint, or sew--
I love Dinah kneading dough.
Eyes of jet and teeth of pearl,
Hair, some say, too tight a-curl;
But the dainty maid I deem
Very near perfection's dream.
Swift she works, and only flings
Me a glance--the least of things.
And I wonder, does she know
That my heart is in the dough?
Dreams Old And Nascent - Old
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

I have opened the window to warm my hands on the sill
Where the sunlight soaks in the stone: the afternoon
Is full of dreams, my love, the boys are all still
In a wistful dream of Lorna Doone.
The clink of the shunting engines is sharp and fine,
Like savage music striking far off, and there
On the great, uplifted blue palace, lights stir and shine
Where the glass is domed in the blue, soft air.
There lies the world, my darling, full of wonder and wistfulness and strange
Recognition and greetings of half-acquaint things, as I greet the cloud
Of blue palace aloft there, among misty indefinite dreams that range
At the back of my life's horizon, where the dreamings of past lives crowd.
Over the nearness of Norwood Hill, through the mellow veil
Of the afternoon glows to me the old romance of David and Dora,
With the old, sweet, soothing tears, and laughter that shakes the sail
Of the ship of the soul over seas where dreamed dreams lure the unoceaned explorer.
All the bygone, hush'd years
Streaming back where the mist distils
Into forgetfulness: soft-sailing waters where fears
No longer shake, where the silk sail fills
With an unfelt breeze that ebbs over the seas, where the storm
Of living has passed, on and on
Through the coloured iridescence that swims in the warm
Wake of the tumult now spent and gone,
Drifts my boat, wistfully lapsing after
The mists of vanishing tears and the echo of laughter.
Letter IX. From The Dunghill-Cock To The Chaffinch. (The Bird And Insects' Post-Office.)
by Robert Bloomfield

I have often, during the spring and summer, heard you of a morning piping away in the hedges, sometimes as soon as I was up myself, and thought your singing pretty fair, and that you conducted yourself as you ought to do. But this I cannot say lately; for it is quite overstepping the bounds of decency and good manners when you and your brother pilferers, now the winter is come, make it your daily practice to come by scores, as you do, into our yard, and, without any ceremony, eat up all the barley you can lay your beaks to. I suppose when the spring comes again, and you find more to satisfy you outside a farmyard than within, you will be off to the hedges again. I shall let you alone, unless the barley runs short, which is to support my wives and children; when if you still venture to continue your pilferings, you must not be surprised should some of you feel the weight of my displeasure.
I must go after my family, who are all out of my sight, since I have been writing this.
Yours in haste, and a friend if possible,
CHANTICLEER.
The Bad Road
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

I have seen a pathway shaded by green great trees,
A road bordered by thickets light with flowers.
My eyes have entered in under the green shadow,
And made a cool journey far along the road.
But I shall not take the road,
Because it does not lead to her house.
When she was born
They shut her little feet in iron boxes,
So that my beloved never walks the roads.
When she was born
They shut her heart in a box of iron,
So that my beloved shall never love me.
From the Chinese.
The Student's Serenade
by Anne Bronte

I have slept upon my couch,
But my spirit did not rest,
For the labours of the day
Yet my weary soul opprest;
And, before my dreaming eyes
Still the learned volumes lay,
And I could not close their leaves,
And I could not turn away.
But I oped my eyes at last,
And I heard a muffled sound;
'Twas the night-breeze, come to say
That the snow was on the ground.
Then I knew that there was rest
On the mountain's bosom free;
So I left my fevered couch,
And I flew to waken thee!
I have flown to waken thee
For, if thou wilt not arise,
Then my soul can drink no peace
From these holy moonlight skies.
And, this waste of virgin snow
To my sight will not be fair,
Unless thou wilt smiling come,
Love, to wander with me there.
Then, awake! Maria, wake!
For, if thou couldst only know
How the quiet moonlight sleeps
On this wilderness of snow,
And the groves of ancient trees,
In their snowy garb arrayed,
Till they stretch into the gloom
Of the distant valley's shade;
I know thou wouldst rejoice
To inhale this bracing air;
Thou wouldst break thy sweetest sleep
To behold a scene so fair.
O'er these wintry wilds, alone,
Thou wouldst joy to wander free;
And it will not please thee less,
Though that bliss be shared with me.
The Message
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I have not the gift of vision,
I have not the psychic ear,
And the realms that are called Elysian
I neither see nor hear;
Yet oft when the shadows darken
And the daylight hides its face,
The soul of me seems to hearken
For the truths that speak through space.
They speak to me not through reason,
They speak to me not by word;
Yet my soul would be guilty of treason
If it did not say it had heard.
For Space has a message compelling
To give to the ear of Earth;
And the things which the Silence is telling
In the bosom of God have birth.
Now this is the truth as I hear it - 
That ever through good or ill,
The will of the Ruling Spirit
Is moving and ruling still.
In the clutch of the blood-red terror
That holds the world in its might,
The Race is learning its error
And will find its way to the light.
And this is the Truth as I see it - 
Whoever cries out for peace,
Must think it, and live it, and BE IT,
And the wars of the world will cease.
Men fight that man may awaken,
And no longer want to kill;
Wars rage, and the heavens are shaken
That man may learn how to be still.
In the silence he finds his Saviour - 
The God Who is dwelling within;
And only by Christ-behaviour
Is the soul of him saved from sin.
There is only one Source - no other - 
One Light, and each soul is a ray;
And he who would slaughter his brother,
HIMSELF he is seeking to slay.
Now these are the Truths we are learning
Through evils and horrors untold;
For the thought of the race is turning
Away from its methods of old.
And the mind of the race is sated,
With the things that it prized of yore,
And the monster of war is hated,
As never on earth before.
Oh, slow are God's mills in the grinding,
But they grind exceedingly small;
And slow is man's soul in the finding,
That he is a part of the All.
Through aeons and aeons, his story
Is bloody and blackened with crime;
But he will come out into glory
And stand on the summits sublime.
He will stand on the summits of Knowledge,
In the splendour of Light from the Source;
And the methods of church and of college
Will all of them change by his force.
For the creeds that are blind and cruel,
And the teachings by rule and by rod,
Will all be turned into fuel
To light up the pathway to God.
This is the Truth as I hear it - 
The clouds are rolling away,
And Spirit will talk with Spirit
In the swift approaching day.
War from the world shall be driven,
From evil shall come forth good;
And men shall make ready for Heaven
Through living in Brotherhood.
I Have Some Friends
by Robert William Service

I have some friends, some worthy friends,
And worthy friends are rare:
These carpet slippers on my feet,
That padded leather chair;
This old and shabby dressing-gown,
So well the worse of wear.
I have some friends, some honest friends,
And honest friends are few;
My pipe of briar, my open fire,
A book that's not too new;
My bed so warm, the nights of storm
I love to listen to.
I have some friends, some good, good friends,
Who faithful are to me:
My wrestling partner when I rise,
The big and burly sea;
My little boat that's riding there
So saucy and so free.
I have some friends, some golden friends,
Whose worth will not decline:
A tawny Irish terrier, a purple shading pine,
A little red-roofed cottage that
So proudly I call mine.
All other friends may come and go,
All other friendships fail;
But these, the friends I've worked to win,
Oh, they will never stale;
And comfort me till Time shall write
The finish to my tale.
In Snow-Time
by Duncan Campbell Scott

I have seen things that charmed the heart to rest:
Faint moonlight on the towers of ancient towns,
Flattering the soul to dream of old renowns;
The first clear silver on the mountain crest
Where the lone eagle by his chilly nest
Called the lone soul to brood serenely free;
Still pools of sunlight shimmering in the sea,
Calm after storm, wherein the storm seemed blest.
But here a peace deeper than peace is furled,
Enshrined and chaliced from the changeful hour;
The snow is still, yet lives in its own light.
Here is the peace which brooded day and night,
Before the heart of man with its wild power
Had ever spurned or trampled the great world.
To E.
by Sara Teasdale

I have remembered beauty in the night,
Against black silences I waked to see
A shower of sunlight over Italy
And green Ravello dreaming on her height;
I have remembered music in the dark,
The clean swift brightness of a fugue of Bach's,
And running water singing on the rocks
When once in English woods I heard a lark.
But all remembered beauty is no more
Than a vague prelude to the thought of you,
You are the rarest soul I ever knew,
Lover of beauty, knightliest and best;
My thoughts seek you as waves that seek the shore,
And when I think of you, I am at rest.
May Day Customs
by William Browne

I have seen the Lady of the May
Set in an arbour, on a holiday,
Built by the May-pole, where the jocund swains
Dance with the maidens to the bagpipe's strains,
When envious night commands them to be gone
Call for the merry youngsters one by one,
And for their well performance soon disposes:
To this a garland interwove with roses,
To that a carv'd hook or well-wrought scrip,
Gracing another with her cherry lip;
To one her garter, to another then
A handkerchief cast o'er and o'er again;
And none returneth empty that hath spent
His pains to fill their rural merriment.
From Britannia's Pastorals.
Beauty
by John Masefield

I have seen dawn and sunset on moors and windy hills 
Coming in solemn beauty like slow old tunes of Spain: 
I have seen the lady April bringing the daffodils, 
Bringing the springing grass and the soft warm April rain. 
I have heard the song of the blossoms and the old chant of the sea, 
And seen strange lands from under the arched white sails of ships; 
But the loveliest thing of beauty God ever has shown to me, 
Are her voice, and her hair, and eyes, and the dear red curve of her lips.
Scenes Of The Mind
by Aldous Leonard Huxley

I have run where festival was loud
With drum and brass among the crowd
Of panic revellers, whose cries
Affront the quiet of the skies;
Whose dancing lights contract the deep
Infinity of night and sleep
To a narrow turmoil of troubled fire.
And I have found my heart's desire
In beechen caverns that autumn fills
With the blue shadowiness of distant hills;
Whose luminous grey pillars bear
The stooping sky: calm is the air,
Nor any sound is heard to mar
That crystal silence - as from far,
Far off a man may see
The busy world all utterly
Hushed as an old memorial scene.
Long evenings I have sat and been
Strangely content, while in my hands
I held a wealth of coloured strands,
Shimmering plaits of silk and skeins
Of soft bright wool. Each colour drains
New life at the lamp's round pool of gold;
Each sinks again when I withhold
The quickening radiance, to a wan
And shadowy oblivion
Of what it was. And in my mind
Beauty or sudden love has shined
And wakened colour in what was dead
And turned to gold the sullen lead
Of mean desires and everyday's
Poor thoughts and customary ways.
Sometimes in lands where mountains throw
Their silent spell on all below,
Drawing a magic circle wide
About their feet on every side,
Robbed of all speech and thought and act,
I have seen God in the cataract.
In falling water and in flame,
Never at rest, yet still the same,
God shows himself. And I have known
The swift fire frozen into stone,
And water frozen changelessly
Into the death of gems. And I
Long sitting by the thunderous mill
Have seen the headlong wheel made still,
And in the silence that ensued
Have known the endless solitude
Of being dead and utterly nought.
Inhabitant of mine own thought,
I look abroad, and all I see
Is my creation, made for me:
Along my thread of life are pearled
The moments that make up the world.
Upon Blanch. Epig.
by Robert Herrick

I have seen many maidens to have hair,
Both for their comely need and some to spare;
But Blanch has not so much upon her head
As to bind up her chaps when she is dead.
Edgar
by Nora Pembroke (Margaret Moran Dixon McDougall)

I have not wept for Edgar, as a mother
Weeps for the tender lamb she lays to rest;
And yet it cannot be that any other
Baby like him shall lie upon my breast;
For he was with us but a passing guest,
A birdling that belonged not to the nest.
Looking upon his large dark eyes so tender,
Filled with the solemn light of Paradise,
I knew that word would soon come to surrender,
My babe, not mine, but native to the skies;
As the sweet lark that ever upward flies,
He would be taken from my longing eyes.
For from the first he looked to be earth-weary,
And clung to me with no desire to play;
He never laughed and crowed with spirit cheery
Like my earth babies; but from day to day
Seemed ever yearning for the far-away,
And well I knew he could not with me stay
The angels whispered things I knew not of,
My babe had visions of a far-off land,
I knew it, that he yearned for higher love,
And reached to touch another unseen hand,
That drew him from my little household band,
They wailed for him of whom they were so fond
And when he closed his eyes and fell asleep,
Loosening his baby grasp away from mine,
Turning from me that had no power to keep,
The glory of a placidness divine
Beamed on his face, I took it for a sign,
And bowed my head to say, Thy will is mine.
I weep for him in silence of the night,
I see him where the holy angels are,
His radiant eyes have lost their mournful light
And beam with happy glory like a star,
I weep with mournful joy to think that, where
The Master is, my little babe is there.
Beauty And Hate
by John Le Gay Brereton

I have sought and followed you, drunk with your sacred wine;
Led out by a laughing wind on a tumbling sea,
On crags amid clouds, in cups that allure the bee,
And deep in the gem-lit gloom of the tortuous mine,
And on widespread wings where the great worlds dance and shine
I have sought by the golden light; but have bent the knee
At last where you lie, a humble goddess and free,
Naked and flushed in the warmth of a crimson shrine.
The hordes of hate have trampled your blooms in mire,
And cackle and roar as their mockery priests blaspheme,
And sing the marching hymn of a wingless might.
They forge their god in the heat of unholy fire
The squat strong incubus born of an evil dream;
And it shrinks and crumbles away in the golden light.
September
by John Charles McNeill

I have not been among the woods,
Nor seen the milk-weeds burst their hoods,
The downy thistle-seeds take wing,
Nor the squirrel at his garnering.
And yet I know that, up to God,
The mute month holds her goldenrod,
That clump and copse, o'errun with vines,
Twinkle with clustered muscadines,
And in deserted churchyard places
Dwarf apples smile with sunburnt faces.
I know how, ere her green is shed,
The dogwood pranks herself with red;
How the pale dawn, chilled through and through,
Comes drenched and draggled with her dew;
How all day long the sunlight seems
As if it lit a land of dreams,
Till evening, with her mist and cloud,
Begins to weave her royal shroud.
If yet, as in old Homer's land,
Gods walk with mortals, hand in hand,
Somewhere to-day, in this sweet weather,
Thinkest thou not they walk together?