DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Pastor's Reverie.
by Washington Gladden

The pastor sits in his easy-chair,
With the Bible upon his knee.
From gold to purple the clouds in the west
Are changing momently;
The shadows lie in the valleys below,
And hide in the curtain's fold;
And the page grows dim whereon he reads,
"I remember the days of old."
"Not clear nor dark," as the Scripture saith,
The pastor's memories are;
No day that is gone was shadowless,
No night was without its star;
But mingled bitter and sweet hath been
The portion of his cup:
"The hand that in love hath smitten," he saith,
"In love hath bound us up."
Fleet flies his thoughts over many a field
Of stubble and snow and bloom,
And now it trips through a festival,
And now it halts at a tomb;
Young faces smile in his reverie,
Of those that are young no more,
And voices are heard that only come
With the winds from a far-off shore.
He thinks of the day when first, with fear
And faltering lips, he stood
To speak in the sacred place the Word
To the waiting multitude;
He walks again to the house of God
With the voice of joy and praise,
With many whose feet long time have pressed
Heaven's safe and bless'd ways.
He enters again the homes of toil,
And joins in the homely chat;
He stands in the shop of the artisan;
He sits, where the Master sat,
At the poor man's fire and the rich man's feast.
But who to-day are the poor,
And who are the rich? Ask him who keeps
The treasures that ever endure.
Once more the green and the grove resound
With the merry children's din;
He hears their shout at the Christmas tide,
When Santa Claus stalks in.
Once more he lists while the camp-fire roars
On the distant mountain-side,
Or, proving apostleship, plies the brook
Where the fierce young troutlings hide.
And now he beholds the wedding train
To the altar slowly move,
And the solemn words are said that seal
The sacrament of love.
Anon at the font he meets once more
The tremulous youthful pair,
With a white-robed cherub crowing response
To the consecrating prayer.
By the couch of pain he kneels again;
Again, the thin hand lies
Cold in his palm, while the last far look
Steals into the steadfast eyes;
And now the burden of hearts that break
Lies heavy upon his own--
The widow's woe and the orphan's cry
And the desolate mother's moan.
So blithe and glad, so heavy and sad,
Are the days that are no more,
So mournfully sweet are the sounds that float
With the winds from a far-off shore.
For the pastor has learned what meaneth the word
That is given him to keep,--
"Rejoice with them that do rejoice,
And weep with them that weep."
It is not in vain that he has trod
This lonely and toilsome way.
It is not in vain that he has wrought
In the vineyard all the day;
For the soul that gives is the soul that lives,
And bearing another's load
Doth lighten your own and shorten the way,
And brighten the homeward road.
Portrait Of A Woman
by Edgar Lee Masters

The pathos in your face is like a peace,
It is like resignation or a grace
Which smiles at the surcease
Of hope. But there is in your face
The shadow of pain, and there is a trace
Of memory of pain.
I look at you again and again,
And hide my looks lest your quick eye perceives
My search for your despair.
I look at your pale hands, I look at your hair;
And I watch you use your hands, I watch the flare
Of thought in your eyes like light that interweaves
A flutter of color running under leaves,
Such anguished dreams in your eyes!
And I listen to you speak
Words like crystals breaking with a tinkle,
Or a star's twinkle.
Sometimes as we talk you rise
And leave the room, and then I rub a streak
Of a tear from my cheek.
You tell me such magical things
Of pictures, books, romance
And of your life in France
In the varied music of exquisite words,
And in a voice that sings.
All things are memory now with you,
For poverty girds
Your hopes, and only your dreams remain.
And sometimes here and there
I see as you turn your head a whitened hair,
Even when you are smiling most.
And a light comes in your eyes like a passing ghost,
And a color runs through your cheeks as fresh
As burns in a girl's flesh.
Then I can shut my eyes and feel the pain
That has become a part of you, though I feign
Laughter myself. One sees another's bruise
And shakes his thought out of it shuddering.
So I turn and clamp my will lest I bring
Your sorrow into my flesh, who cannot choose
But hear your words and laughter,
And watch your hands and eyes.
Then as I think you over after
I have gone from you, and your face
Comes to me with its grace
Of memory of unfound love:
You seem to me the image of all women
Who dream and keep under smiles the grief thereof,
Or sew, or sit by windows, or read books
To hide their Secret's looks.
And after a time go out of life and leave
No uttered words but in their silence grieve
For Life and for the things no tongue can tell:
Why Life hurts so, and why Love haunts and hurts
Poor men and women in this demi-hell.
Perhaps your pathos means that it is well
Death in his time the aspiring torch inverts,
And all tired flesh and haunted eyes and hands
Moving in pain'd whiteness are put under
The soothing earth to brighten April's wonder.
Ballade Of The Dead Face That Never Dies
by Richard Le Gallienne

The peril of fair faces all his days
No man shall 'scape: be it for joy or woe,
Each is the thrall of some predestined face
Divinely doomed to work his overthrow,
Transiently fair, as flowers in gardens blow,
Then fade, and charm no more our listless eyes;
But some fair faces ever fairer grow - 
Beware of the dead face that never dies.
No snare young beauty for thy manhood lays,
No honeyed kiss the girls of Paphos know,
Shall hold thee as the silent smiling ways
Of her that went - yet only seemed to go - 
With April blossoms and with last year's snow;
Each year she comes again in subtler guise,
And beckons us to her green bed below - 
Beware of the dead face that never dies.
The living fade before her lunar gaze,
Her phantom youth their ruddy veins out-glow,
She lays cold fingers on the lips that praise
Aught save her lovely face of long ago;
Oblivious poppies all in vain we sow
Before the opening gates of Paradise;
There shalt thou find her pacing to and fro - 
Beware of the dead face that never dies.
ENVOI
Prince, take thy fill of love, for even so
Sad men grow happy and no other wise;
But love the quick - and as thy mortal foe
Beware of the dead face that never dies.
The Forsaken
by William Wordsworth

The peace which others seek they find;
The heaviest storms not longest last;
Heaven grants even to the guiltiest mind
An amnesty for what is past;
When will my sentence be reversed?
I only pray to know the worst;
And wish as if my heart would burst.
O weary struggle! silent year
Tell seemingly no doubtful tale;
And yet they leave it short, and fear
And hopes are strong and will prevail.
My calmest faith escapes not pain;
And, feeling that the hope in vain,
I think that He will come again.
The Poet
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

The poet in a golden clime was born,
With golden stars above;
Dower'd with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,
The love of love.
He saw thro' life and death, thro' good and ill,
He saw thro' his own soul.
The marvel of the everlasting will,
An open scroll,
Before him lay; with echoing feet he threaded
The secretest walks of fame:
The viewless arrows of his thoughts were headed
And wing'd with flame,
Like Indian reeds blown from his silver tongue,
And of so fierce a flight,
From Calpe unto Caucasus they sung,
Filling with light
And vagrant melodies the winds which bore
Them earthward till they lit;
Then, like the arrow-seeds of the field flower,
The fruitful wit
Cleaving took root, and springing forth anew
Where'er they fell, behold,
Like to the mother plant in semblance, grew
A flower all gold,
And bravely furnish'd all abroad to fling
The winged shafts of truth,
To throng with stately blooms the breathing spring
Of Hope and Youth.
So many minds did gird their orbs with beams,
Tho' one did fling the fire;
Heaven flow'd upon the soul in many dreams
Of high desire.
Thus truth was multiplied on truth, the world
Like one great garden show'd,
And thro' the wreaths of floating dark up-curl'd,
Rare sunrise flow'd.
And Freedom rear'd in that august sunrise
Her beautiful bold brow,
When rites and forms before his burning eyes
Melted like snow.
There was no blood upon her maiden robes
Sunn'd by those orient skies;
But round about the circles of the globes
Of her keen eyes
And in her raiment's hem was traced in flame
WISDOM, a name to shake
All evil dreams of power'a sacred name.
And when she spake,
Her words did gather thunder as they ran,
And as the lightning to the thunder
Which follows it, riving the spirit of man,
Making earth wonder,
So was their meaning to her words. No sword
Of wrath her right arm whirl'd,
But one poor poet's scroll, and with his word
She shook the world.
Pipes O' Pan At Zekesbury
by James Whitcomb Riley

The pipes of Pan! Not idler now are they
Than when their cunning fashioner first blew
The pith of music from them: Yet for you
And me their notes are blown in many a way
Lost in our murmurings for that old day
That fared so well, without us. - Waken to
The pipings here at hand: - The clear halloo
Of truant-voices, and the roundelay
The waters warble in the solitude
Of blooming thickets, where the robin's breast
Sends up such ecstacy o'er dale and dell,
Each tree top answers, till in all the wood
There lingers not one squirrel in his nest
Whetting his hunger on an empty shell.
At The Window
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

The pine-trees bend to listen to the autumn wind as it mutters
Something which sets the black poplars ashake with hysterical laughter;
While slowly the house of day is closing its eastern shutters.
Further down the valley the clustered tombstones recede,
Winding about their dimness the mist's grey cerements, after
The street lamps in the darkness have suddenly started to bleed.
The leaves fly over the window and utter a word as they pass
To the face that leans from the darkness, intent, with two dark-filled eyes
That watch for ever earnestly from behind the window glass.
Sonnet CLXV.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

L' aura soave ch' al sol spiega e vibra.
HIS HEART LIES TANGLED IN HER HAIR.
The pleasant gale, that to the sun unplaits
And spreads the gold Love's fingers weave, and braid
O'er her fine eyes, and all around her head,
Fetters my heart, the wishful sigh creates:
No nerve but thrills, no artery but beats,
Approaching my fair arbiter with dread,
Who in her doubtful scale hath ofttimes weigh'd
Whether or death or life on me awaits;
Beholding, too, those eyes their fires display,
And on those shoulders shine such wreaths of hair,
Whose witching tangles my poor heart ensnare.
But how this magic's wrought I cannot say;
For twofold radiance doth my reason blind,
And sweetness to excess palls and o'erpowers my mind.
NOTT.
The soft gale to the sun which shakes and spreads
The gold which Love's own hand has spun and wrought.
There, with her bright eyes and those fairy threads,
Binds my poor heart and sifts each idle thought.
My veins of blood, my bones of marrow fail,
Thrills all my frame when I, to hear or gaze,
Draw near to her, who oft, in balance frail,
My life and death together holds and weighs,
And see those love-fires shine wherein I burn,
And, as its snow each sweetest shoulder heaves,
Flash the fair tresses right and left by turn;
Verse fails to paint what fancy scarce conceives.
From two such lights is intellect distress'd,
And by such sweetness weary and oppress'd.
MACGREGOR.
Fishing Nets
by Paul Cameron Brown

The polar stars drip in blood . . .
Orion's mythical crystal white
with clarity of forest and
low expanse of sky;
wooden barques, incandescent,
row peals of silver light
sowing each slough of wave,
spider hues drip upon wetness
forlorn with tug and rein.
The Ploughman.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "Up wi' the ploughman."
I.
The ploughman he's a bonnie lad,
His mind is ever true, jo,
His garters knit below his knee,
His bonnet it is blue, jo.
Then up wi' him my ploughman lad,
And hey my merry ploughman!
Of a' the trades that I do ken,
Commend me to the ploughman.
II.
My ploughman he comes hame at e'en,
He's aften wat and weary;
Cast off the wat, put on the dry,
And gae to bed, my dearie!
III.
I will wash my ploughman's hose,
And I will dress his o'erlay;
I will mak my ploughman's bed,
And cheer him late and early.
IV.
I hae been east, I hae been west,
I hae been at Saint Johnston;
The bonniest sight that e'er I saw
Was the ploughman laddie dancin'.
V.
Snaw-white stockins on his legs,
And siller buckles glancin';
A gude blue bonnet on his head,
And O, but he was handsome!
VI.
Commend me to the barn-yard,
And the corn-mou, man;
I never gat my coggie fou,
Till I met wi' the ploughman.
Up wi' him my ploughman lad,
And hey my merry ploughman!
Of a' the trades that I do ken,
Commend me to the ploughman.
Sonnet XV: On The Grasshopper And Cricket
by John Keats

The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper's, he takes the lead
In summer luxury, he has never done
With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills.
Treasured Memories.
by W. M. MacKeracher

The playful way thy wanton hair
Was tossing in the wind;
Thy girlish, vain vexation
Is treasured in my mind.
Held in my heart each sacred spot,
O'er which we roamed at will:
The rose that bloomed upon thy breast
Blooms in my memory still.
Still do I see thy sunny smile,
In sportive dimples traced,
Like truant beams of morning light
By flitting fairies chased.
Thy merry, maiden laughter still
Is ringing in my ear,
As silver streams in sylvan shades
Make music sweet to hear.
At The Play.
by Charles Hamilton Musgrove

The poet painted a woman's soul,
Human, trusting and kind,
And then he drew the soul of a man,
Brutal and base and blind;
And the woman loved in the old, old way,
And the man in the way of men,
And the poet christened their lives "A Play,"
And he sat down to watch it, and then ...
A woman rose with a bitter laugh,
And her eyes were as dry as stone
As she bowed her head at the poet's stall
And said in a strange, cold tone:
"He paints the best who has dipped his brush
In the heart's own blood, they say;
You took my love and you took my life,
But you gave the world--a play!"
The Pleasures of Imagination - The General Argument
by Mark Akenside

THE GENERAL ARGUMENT. 
The pleasures of the imagination proceed either from natural objects, as from a flourishing grove, a clear and murmuring fountain, a calm sea by moon-light; or from works of art, such as a noble edifice, a musical tune, a statue, a picture, a poem. In treating of these pleasures, we must begin with the former class; they being original to the other; and nothing more being necessary, in order to explain them, than a view of our natural inclination toward greatness and beauty, and of those appearances, in the world around us, to which that inclination is adapted. This is the subject of the first book of the following poem. But the pleasures which we receive from the elegant arts, from music, sculpture, painting, and poetry, are much more various and complicated. In them (besides greatness and beauty, or forms proper to the imagination) we find interwoven frequent representations of truth, of virtue and vice, of circumstances proper to move us with laughter, or to excite in us pity, fear, and the other passions. These moral and intellectual objects are described in the second book; to which the third properly belongs as an episode, though too large to have been included in it.
With the above-mentioned causes of pleasure, which are universal in the course of human life and appertain to our higher faculties, many others do generally concur, more limited in their operation, or of an inferior origin: such are the novelty of objects, the association of ideas, affections of the bodily senses, influences of education, national habits, and the like. To illustrate these, and from the whole to determine the character of a perfect taste, is the argument of the fourth book. Hitherto the pleasures of the imagination belong to the human species in general. But there are certain particular men whose imagination is endowed with powers, and susceptible of pleasures, which the generality of mankind never participate. these are the men of genius, destined by nature to excel in one or other of the arts already mentioned. It is proposed therefore, in the last place, to delineate that genius which in some degree appears common to them all; yet with a more peculiar consideration of poetry: inasmuch as poetry is the most extensive of those arts, the most philosophical, and the most useful.
Rural Bliss
by Anthony Charles Deane

The poet is, or ought to be, a hater of the city,
And so, when happiness is mine, and Maud becomes my wife,
We'll look on town inhabitants with sympathetic pity,
For we shall lead a peaceful and serene Arcadian life.
Then shall I sing in eloquent and most effective phrases,
The grandeur of geraniums and the beauty of the rose;
Immortalise in deathless strains the buttercups and daisies,
For even I can hardly be mistaken as to those.
The music of the nightingale will ring from leafy hollow,
And fill us with a rapture indescribable in words;
And we shall also listen to the robin and the swallow
(I wonder if a swallow sings?) and ... well, the other birds.
Too long I dwelt in ignorance of all the countless treasures
Which dwellers in the country have in such abundant store;
To give a single instance of the multitude of pleasures,
The music of the nighting, oh, I mentioned that before.
And shall I prune potato-trees and artichokes, I wonder,
And cultivate the silo-plant, which springs (I hope it springs?)
In graceful foliage overhead? Excuse me if I blunder,
It's really inconvenient not to know the name of things!
No matter; in the future, when I celebrate the beauty
Of country life in glowing terms, and "build the lofty rhyme"
Aware that every Englishman is bound to do his duty,
I'll learn to give the stupid things their proper names in time!
Meanwhile, you needn't wonder at the view I've indicated,
The country life appears to me indubitably blest,
For, even if its other charms are somewhat overstated,
As long as Maud is there, you see, what matters all the rest?
For Gavin Hamilton.
by Robert Burns

The poor man weeps, here Gavin sleeps,
Whom canting wretches blam'd:
But with such as he, where'er he be,
May I be sav'd or damn'd!
The Swan And The Cook.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
The pleasures of a poultry yard
Were by a swan and gosling shared.
The swan was kept there for his looks,
The thrifty gosling for the cooks;
The first the garden's pride, the latter
A greater favourite on the platter.
They swam the ditches, side by side,
And oft in sports aquatic vied,
Plunging, splashing far and wide,
With rivalry ne'er satisfied.
One day the cook, named Thirsty John,
Sent for the gosling, took the swan,
In haste his throat to cut,
And put him in the pot.
The bird's complaint resounded
In glorious melody;
Whereat the cook, astounded
His sad mistake to see,
Cried, 'What! make soup of a musician!
Please God, I'll never set such dish on.
No, no; I'll never cut a throat
That sings so sweet a note.'
'Tis thus, whatever peril may alarm us,
Sweet words will never harm us.
Songs In Many Keys 1849-1861
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

The piping of our slender, peaceful reeds
Whispers uncared for while the trumpets bray;
Song is thin air; our hearts' exulting play
Beats time but to the tread of marching deeds,
Following the mighty van that Freedom leads,
Her glorious standard flaming to the day!
The crimsoned pavement where a hero bleeds
Breathes nobler lessons than the poet's lay.
Strong arms, broad breasts, brave hearts, are better worth
Than strains that sing the ravished echoes dumb.
Hark! 't is the loud reverberating drum
Rolls o'er the prairied West, the rock-bound North
The myriad-handed Future stretches forth
Its shadowy palms. Behold, we come, - we come!
Turn o'er these idle leaves. Such toys as these
Were not unsought for, as, in languid dreams,
We lay beside our lotus-feeding streams,
And nursed our fancies in forgetful ease.
It matters little if they pall or please,
Dropping untimely, while the sudden gleams
Glare from the mustering clouds whose blackness seems
Too swollen to hold its lightning from the trees.
Yet, in some lull of passion, when at last
These calm revolving moons that come and go - 
Turning our months to years, they creep so slow - 
Have brought us rest, the not unwelcome past
May flutter to thee through these leaflets, cast
On the wild winds that all around us blow.
May 1, 1861.
Asolando - Prologue
by Robert Browning

'The Poet's age is sad: for why?
In youth, the natural world could show
No common object but his eye
At once involved with alien glow,
His own soul's iris-bow.
'And now a flower is just a flower:
Man, bird, beast are but beast, bird, man,
Simply themselves, uncinct by dower
Of dyes which, when life's day began,
Round each in glory ran.'
Friend, did you need an optic glass,
Which were your choice? A lens to drape
In ruby, emerald, chrysopras,
Each object, or reveal its shape
Clear outlined, past escape,
The naked very thing? so clear
That, when you had the chance to gaze,
You found its inmost self appear
Through outer seeming, truth ablaze,
Not falsehood's fancy-haze?
How many a year, my Asolo,
Since, one step just from sea to land,
I found you, loved yet feared you so,
For natural objects seemed to stand
Palpably fire-clothed! No.
No mastery of mine o'er these!
Terror with beauty, like the Bush
Burning but unconsumed. Bend knees,
Drop eyes to earthward! Language? Tush!
Silence 'tis awe decrees.
And now? The lambent flame is, where?
Lost from the naked world: earth, sky,
Hill, vale, tree, flower, Italia's rare
O'er-running beauty crowds the eye,
But flame? The Bush is bare.
Hill, vale, tree, flower, they stand distinct
Nature to know and name. What then?
A Voice spoke thence which straight unlinked
Fancy from fact: see, all's in ken:
Has once my eyelid winked?
No, for the purged ear apprehends
Earth's import, not the eye late dazed.
The Voice said, 'Call my works thy friends!
At Nature dost thou shrink amazed?
God is it who transcends.'
Asolo: September 6, 1889.
The Pine-Apple And The Bee.
by William Cowper

The pine-apples, in triple row,
Were basking hot, and all in blow;
A bee of most discerning taste
Perceived the fragrance as he pass'd,
On eager wing the spoiler came,
And search'd for crannies in the frame,
Urged his attempt on every side,
To every pane his trunk applied;
But still in vain, the frame was tight,
And only pervious to the light;
Thus having wasted half the day,
He trimm'd his flight another way.
Methinks, I said, in thee I find
The sin and madness of mankind.
To joys forbidden man aspires,
Consumes his soul with vain desires;
Folly the spring of his pursuit,
And disappointment all the fruit.
While Cynthio ogles as he passes,
The nymph between two chariot glasses,
She is the pine-apple, and he
The silly unsuccessful bee.
The maid who views with pensive air
The show-glass fraught with glittering ware,
Sees watches, bracelets, rings, and lockets,
But sighs at thought of empty pockets;
Like thine, her appetite is keen,
But ah, the cruel glass between!
Our dear delights are often such,
Exposed to view but not to touch;
The sight our foolish heart inflames,
We long for pine-apples in frames;
With hopeless wish one looks and lingers;
One breaks the glass, and cuts his fingers;
But they whom truth and wisdom lead
Can gather honey from a weed.