DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Dying Patriot
by James Elroy Flecker

Day breaks on England down the Kentish hills,
Singing in the silence of the meadow-footing rills,
Day of my dreams, O day!
I saw them march from Dover, long ago,
With a silver cross before them, singing low,
Monks of Rome from their home where the blue seas break in foam,
Augustine with his feet of snow.
Noon strikes on England, noon on Oxford town,
- Beauty she was statue cold - there's blood upon her gown:
Noon of my dreams, O noon!
Proud and godly kings had built her, long ago,
With her towers and tombs and statues all arow,
With her fair and floral air and the love that lingers there,
And the streets where the great men go.
Evening on the olden, the golden sea of Wales,
When the first star shivers and the last wave pales:
O evening dreams!
There's a house that Britons walked in, long ago,
Where now the springs of ocean fall and flow,
And the dead robed in red and sea-lilies overhead
Sway when the long winds blow.
Sleep not, my country: though night is here, afar
Your children of the morning are clamorous for war:
Fire in the night, O dreams!
Though she send you as she sent you, long ago,
South to desert, east to ocean, west to snow,
West of these out to seas colder than the Hebrides I must go
Where the fleet of stars is anchored, and the young Star-captains glow.
Days
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,
Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,
And marching single in an endless file,
Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.
To each they offer gifts after his will,
Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all.
I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp,
Forgot my morning wishes, hastily
Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day
Turned and departed silent. I, too late,
Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn.
Sonnets. X
by John Milton

Daughter to that good Earl, once President
Of Englands Counsel, and her Treasury,
Who liv'd in both, unstain'd with gold or fee,
And left them both, more in himself content,
Till the sad breaking of that Parlament
Broke him, as that dishonest victory
At Chaeronea, fatal to liberty
Kil'd with report that Old man eloquent,
Though later born, then to have known the dayes
Wherin your Father flourisht, yet by you
Madam, me thinks I see him living yet;
So well your words his noble vertues praise,
That all both judge you to relate them true,
And to possess them, Honour'd Margaret.
The Wreck Of The `Derry Castle'
by Henry Lawson

Day of ending for beginnings!
Ocean hath another innings,
Ocean hath another score;
And the surges sing his winnings,
And the surges shout his winnings,
And the surges shriek his winnings,
All along the sullen shore.
Sing another dirge in wailing,
For another vessel sailing
With the shadow-ships at sea;
Shadow-ships for ever sinking,
Shadow-ships whose pumps are clinking,
And whose thirsty holds are drinking
Pledges to Eternity.
Pray for souls of ghastly, sodden
Corpses, floating round untrodden
Cliffs, where nought but sea-drift strays;
Souls of dead men, in whose faces
Of humanity no trace is,
Not a mark to show their races,
Floating round for days and days.
.    .    .    .    .
Ocean's salty tongues are licking
Round the faces of the drowned,
And a cruel blade seems sticking
Through my heart and turning round.
Heaven! shall HIS ghastly, sodden
Corpse float round for days and days?
Shall it dash 'neath cliffs untrodden,
Rocks where nought but sea-drift strays?
God in heaven! hide the floating,
Falling, rising, face from me;
God in heaven! stay the gloating,
Mocking singing of the sea!
A Love-Letter
by Richard Le Gallienne

Darling little woman, just a little line,
Just a little silver word
For that dear gold of thine,
Only a whisper you have so often heard:
Only such a whisper as hidden in a shell
Holds a little breath of all the mighty sea,
But think what a little of all its depth and swell,
And think what a little is this little note of me.
'Darling, I love thee, that is all I live for' -
There is the whisper stealing from the shell,
But here is the ocean, O so deep and boundless,
And each little wave with its whisper as well.
Evening By A Tailor
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Day hath put on his jacket, and around
His burning bosom buttoned it with stars.
Here will I lay me on the velvet grass,
That is like padding to earth's meagre ribs,
And hold communion with the things about me.
Ah me! how lovely is the golden braid
That binds the skirt of night's descending robe!
The thin leaves, quivering on their silken threads,
Do make a music like to rustling satin,
As the light breezes smooth their downy nap.
Ha! what is this that rises to my touch,
So like a cushion? Can it be a cabbage?
It is, it is that deeply injured flower,
Which boys do flout us with; - but yet I love thee,
Thou giant rose, wrapped in a green surtout.
Doubtless in Eden thou didst blush as bright
As these, thy puny brethren; and thy breath
Sweetened the fragrance of her spicy air;
But now thou seemest like a bankrupt beau,
Stripped of his gaudy hues and essences,
And growing portly in his sober garments.
Is that a swan that rides upon the water?
Oh no, it is that other gentle bird,
Which is the patron of our noble calling.
I well remember, in my early years,
When these young hands first closed upon a goose;
I have a scar upon my thimble finger,
Which chronicles the hour of young ambition.
My father was a tailor, and his father,
And my sire's grandsire, all of them were tailors;
They had an ancient goose, - it was an heirloom
From some remoter tailor of our race.
It happened I did see it on a time
When none was near, and I did deal with it,
And it did burn me, - oh, most fearfully!
It is a joy to straighten out one's limbs,
And leap elastic from the level counter,
Leaving the petty grievances of earth,
The breaking thread, the din of clashing shears,
And all the needles that do wound the spirit,
For such a pensive hour of soothing silence.
Kind Nature, shuffling in her loose undress,
Lays bare her shady bosom; - I can feel
With all around me; - I can hail the flowers
That sprig earth's mantle, - and yon quiet bird,
That rides the stream, is to me as a brother.
The vulgar know not all the hidden pockets,
Where Nature stows away her loveliness.
But this unnatural posture of the legs
Cramps my extended calves, and I must go
Where I can coil them in their wonted fashion.
Lines Suggested By The Fourteenth Of February.
by Charles Stuart Calverley

Darkness succeeds to twilight:
Through lattice and through skylight
The stars no doubt, if one looked out,
Might be observed to shine:
And sitting by the embers
I elevate my members
On a stray chair, and then and there
Commence a Valentine.
Yea! by St. Valentinus,
Emma shall not be minus
What all young ladies, whate'er their grade is,
Expect to-day no doubt:
Emma the fair, the stately -
Whom I beheld so lately,
Smiling beneath the snow-white wreath
Which told that she was "out."
Wherefore fly to her, swallow,
And mention that I'd "follow,"
And "pipe and trill," et cetera, till
I died, had I but wings:
Say the North's "true and tender,"
The South an old offender;
And hint in fact, with your well-known tact,
All kinds of pretty things.
Say I grow hourly thinner,
Simply abhor my dinner -
Tho' I do try and absorb some viand
Each day, for form's sake merely:
And ask her, when all's ended,
And I am found extended,
With vest blood-spotted and cut carotid,
To think on Her's sincerely.
To The Memory Of Mrs. Ewing.
by Susanna Moodie

Written After Perusing The Interesting Memoir Composed By Her Husband, The Rev. Greville Ewing.
Daughter of Scotland! may a stranger twine
One cypress wreath around thy honoured urn?--
Yet, when I meditate on faith like thine,
I feel my breast with sacred ardour burn;
Deep admiration checks the starting tear,--
Such drops would stain a Ewing's holy bier!
Death was to thee a messenger of love;
He met thee in the path thy Saviour trod,
Bearing this blessed mandate from above,
"Come, happy spirit--come away to God!
Thy works of piety on earth are o'er,--
Plume thy bright wing to reach the heavenly shore!"
Calm was thy exit from this troubled scene;
Pain from thy lips no hasty murmurs wrung;
With brow unruffled and with mind serene,
Thy Saviour's praise employed thy faltering tongue:
And though no kindling raptures marked thy flight,
Thy faith unshaken _showed that all was right_!
Those who beheld thee in the burning hour,
When fever raged in every throbbing vein,
Oft shall recount the parting struggle o'er,
The scene on memory's tablets long retain--
Each gracious word, each kindly glance, that told
The Christian's love, ere that warm heart was cold!
Thy memory is a pure and holy thing,
Embalmed and treasured in the hearts of those
Who saw thee, like an angel, ministering
The precious balm that softens human woes.
Thou didst not hide thy talent in the dust;
Anxious that all should own the same high trust.--
Deeply concerned that other realms should share
Those blessed promises so dear to thee,--
That messengers of mercy should declare
Glad tidings far beyond thy native sea;--
Thy bounteous spirit compassed land and wave
To send redemption to the soil-bound slave!
But not to foreign realms and climes alone
Didst thou confine a Christian's sacred zeal;
With all a mother's fondness for thine own,
The deep devotion faith alone could feel,
'Twas thine the drooping penitent to cheer,
And wipe from sorrow's eyes the gushing tear!
And like the faithful saints and priests of old,
Thou with thy honoured partner didst go forth,
Exploring barren heath and mountain hold,
Far through the isles and highlands of the north,
To teach the Gospel in each rocky glen,
And bless with Scripture truths unlearned men!
Thy zeal was felt along the rugged wild,
Heard round the hearth where pious maidens meet;
And matrons oft shall tell the rosy child,
Twining its wilding garlands at their feet,
To bless her name--who, conquering selfish pride,
Sought them on foot to tell how Jesus died!
Daughter of Scotland! when her bards shall trace
The noble deeds of thy illustrious line,
Thy sainted name a fairer page shall grace,
A brighter wreath for thee the minstrel twine
Than ever crowned thy warlike sires of yore,
Than history ever gave or genius wore!
The Hunter's Moon
by Madison Julius Cawein

Darkly October; Where the wild fowl fly,
Utters a harsh and melancholy cry;
And slowly closing, far a sunset door,
Day wildly glares upon.the world once more,
Where Twilight, with one star to lamp her by,
Walks with the Wind that haunts the hills and shore.
The Spirit of Autumn, with averted gaze,
Comes slowly down the ragged garden ways;
And where she walks she lays a finger cold
On rose and aster, lily and marigold,
And at her touch they turn, in mute amaze,
And bow their heads, assenting to the cold.
And all around rise phantoms of the flowers,
Scents, ghost-like, gliding from the dripping bowers;
And evermore vague, spectral voices ring
Of Something gone, or Something perishing:
Joy's requiem; hope's tolling of the Hours;
Love's dirge of dreams for Beauty sorrowing.
And now the moon above the garden side
Lifts a pale face and looks down misty-eyed,
As if she saw the ghost of yesteryear
That once with Happiness went wandering here
And the young Loveliness of days that died
Sitting with Memory 'mid the sad and sere.
Perturbation At Dawn
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

Day comes....
And when she sees the withering of the violet garden
And the saffron garden flowering,
The stars escaping on their black horse
And dawn on her white horse arriving,
She is afraid.
Against the sighing of her frightened breasts
She puts her hand;
I see what I have never seen,
Five perfect lines on a crystal leaf
Written with coral pens.
From the Arabic of Ebn Maatuk (seventeenth century).
When Paganini Plays.
by Jean Blewett

"Dawn!" laughs the bow, and we straight see the sky,
Crimson, and golden, and gray,
See the rosy cloudlets go drifting by,
And the sheen on the lark as, soaring high,
He carols to greet the day.
Fast moves the bow o'er the wonderful strings - 
We feel the joy in the air - 
'Tis alive with the glory of growing things,
With wild honeysuckle that creeps and clings,
Rose of the briar bush - queen of the springs - 
Anemones frail and fair!
We listen, and whisper with laughter low,
"It voices rare gladness, that ancient bow!"
Then, sad as the plaint of a child at night - 
A child aweary with play - 
The falling of shadows, a lost delight,
The moaning of watchers counting the flight
Of hours 'twixt the dark and day.
It echoes the cry of a broken heart,
It grieves o'er a "might have been,"
It holds all the passionate tears that start
When our heaven and our earth drift far apart,
And the way lies dark between.
It stills all our laughter, and whispers low - 
'Tis heart-strings it plays on, that ancient bow!
Mine Sweepers
by Rudyard Kipling

Dawn off the Foreland, the young flood making
Jumbled and short and steep,
Black in the hollows and bright where it's breaking,
Awkward water to sweep.
"Mines reported in the fairway,
"Warn all traffic and detain.
"'Sent up Unity, Cralibel, Assyrian, Stormcock, and Golden
Gain."
Noon off the Foreland, the first ebb making
Lumpy and strong in the bight.
Boom after boom, and the golf-hut shaking
And the jackdaws wild with fright!
"Mines located in the fairway,
"Boats now working up the chain,
"Sweepers, Unity, Claribel, Assyrian, Stormcock, and Golden
Gain."
Dusk off the Foreland--the last light going
And the traffic crowding through,
And five damned trawlers with their syreens blowing
Heading the whole review!
"Sweep completed in the fairway.
"No more mines remain.
"'Sent back Unity, Claribel, Assyrian, Stormcock, and Golden
Gain."
Our Dead In South Africa.
by Jean Blewett

Day of battle and day of blood
Found you steady and strong, I ween;
Sons of the land of the Maple Leaf,
Face to the foe, you died for the Queen.
Brave boys, our boys, filling to-day
Nameless graves upon veldt and plain,
Here's to your mem'ry gallant and true,
Sons of our soil, who thought it gain
To fight and win, or to fight and fall!
Strong of purpose, you took your stand,
Proved with your life-blood red and warm
Canada's faith in the Motherland!
Brave boys, our boys, this have you done,
Drawn us closer, and bound us fast;
One are we with the Isle in the sea,
One in the future, the present, the past.
Brave boys, our boys, honor we owe,
Honor and homage a mighty debt - 
You proved our love and our loyalty - 
The land that bore you will not forget!
Canada's soldiers, Canada's sons,
The land that bore you will not forget!
Waking
by Aldous Leonard Huxley

Darkness had stretched its colour,
Deep blue across the pane:
No cloud to make night duller,
No moon with its tarnish stain;
But only here and there a star,
One sharp point of frosty fire,
Hanging infinitely far
In mockery of our life and death
And all our small desire.
Now in this hour of waking
From under brows of stone,
A new pale day is breaking
And the deep night is gone.
Sordid now, and mean and small
The daylight world is seen again,
With only the veils of mist that fall
Deaf and muffling over all
To hide its ugliness and pain.
But to-day this dawn of meanness
Shines in my eyes, as when
The new world's brightness and cleanness
Broke on the first of men.
For the light that shows the huddled things
Of this close-pressing earth,
Shines also on your face and brings
All its dear beauty back to me
In a new miracle of birth.
I see you asleep and unpassioned,
White-faced in the dusk of your hair--
Your beauty so fleetingly fashioned
That it filled me once with despair
To look on its exquisite transience
And think that our love and thought and laughter
Puff out with the death of our flickering sense,
While we pass ever on and away
Towards some blank hereafter.
But now I am happy, knowing
That swift time is our friend,
And that our love's passionate glowing,
Though it turn ash in the end,
Is a rose of fire that must blossom its way
Through temporal stuff, nor else could be
More than a nothing. Into day
The boundless spaces of night contract
And in your opening eyes I see
Night born in day, in time eternity.
The Day of Wrath
by Ambrose Bierce

Day of Satan's painful duty!
Earth shall vanish, hot and sooty;
So says Virtue, so says Beauty.
Ah! what terror shall be shaping
When the Judge the truth's undraping, 
Cats from every bag escaping!
Now the trumpet's invocation
Calls the dead to condemnation;
All receive an invitation.
Death and Nature now are quaking,
And the late lamented, waking,
In their breezy shrouds are shaking.
Lo! the Ledger's leaves are stirring,
And the Clerk, to them referring,
Makes it awkward for the erring.
When the Judge appears in session,
We shall all attend confession,
Loudly preaching non-suppression.
How shall I then make romances
Mitigating circumstances?
Even the just must take their chances.
King whose majesty amazes,
Save thou him who sings thy praises;
Fountain, quench my private blazes.
Pray remember, sacred Saviour,
Mine the playful hand that gave your
Death-blow. Pardon such behavior.
Seeking me, fatigue assailed thee,
Calvary's outlook naught availed thee;
Now 'twere cruel if I failed thee.
Righteous judge and learn'd brother,
Pray thy prejudices smother
Ere we meet to try each other.
Sighs of guilt my conscience gushes,
And my face vermilion flushes;
Spare me for my pretty blushes.
Thief and harlot, when repenting,
Thou forgavest, complimenting
Me with sign of like relenting.
If too bold is my petition
I'll receive with due submission
My dismissal, from perdition.
When thy sheep thou hast selected
From the goats, may I, respected,
Stand amongst them undetected.
When offenders are indited,
And with trial-flames ignited,
Elsewhere I'll attend if cited.
Ashen-hearted, prone and prayerful,
When of death I see the air full,
Lest I perish too be careful.
On that day of lamentation,
When, to enjoy the conflagration,
Men come forth, O be not cruel:
Spare me, Lord, make them thy fuel.
The Child's Appeal.
by Mary Gardiner Horsford

An Incident Of The French Revolution And Reign Of Robespierre.
Day dawned above a city's mart,
Yet not 'mid peace and prayer:
The shouts of frenzied multitudes
Were on the thrilling air.
A guiltless man to death was led,
Through crowded streets and wide,
And a fairy child, with waving curls,
Was clinging to his side.
The father's brow with pride was calm,
But, trusting and serene,
The child's was like the Holy One's
In Raphael's paintings seen.
She shrank not from the heartless throng,
Nor from the scaffold high;
But now and then, with beaming smile,
Addressed her parent's eye.
Athwart the golden flood of morn
Was poised the wing of Death,
As 'neath the fearful guillotine
The doomed one drew his breath.
Then all of fiercest agony
The human heart can bear,
Was suffered in the brief caress,
The wild, half-uttered prayer.
Then she, the child, beseechingly
Upraised her eyes of blue,
And whispered, while her cheek grew pale,
"I am to go with you!"
The murmur of impatient fiends
Rang in her infant ear,
And purpose strong woke in her heart,
And spoke in accent clear: - 
"They tore my mother from our side,
In the dark prison's cell;
Her eyes were filled with tears, - she had
No time to say farewell.
"And you were all that loved me then,
And you are pale with care,
And every night a silver thread
Has mingled with your hair.
"My mother used to tell me of
A better land afar,
I've seen it through the prison bars
Where burns the evening star.
"O let us find a new home there,
I will be brave and true;
You cannot leave me here alone,
O let me die with you!"
The gentle tones were drowned by shrill
And long-protracted cries;
The father on his darling gazed,
The child looked on the skies.
Anon, far up the cloudless blue,
Unseen by mortal eye,
God's angels with two spirits passed
To purer realms on high.
The one was touched with earthly hues,
And dim with earthly care,
The other, as a lily's cup,
Unutterably fair.
Songs From Pippa Passes
by Robert Browning

Day! Faster and more fast,
O'er night's brim, day boils at last:
Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim.
Where spurting and suppressed it lay,
For not a froth-flake touched the rim
Of yonder gap in the solid gray
Of the eastern cloud, an hour away;
But forth one wavelet, then another, curled,
Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed,
Rose, reddened, and its seething breast
Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the world.
All service ranks the same with God:
If now, as formerly He trod
Paradise, His presence fills
Our earth, each only as God wills
Can work God's puppets, best and worst,
Are we: there is no last nor first.
The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn:
Morning's at seven;
The hillside's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn:
God's in His heaven,
All's right with the world!
Give her but a least excuse to love me!
When, where,
How can this arm establish her above me,
If fortune fixed her as my lady there,
There already, to eternally reprove me?
("Hist!" said Kate the queen;
But "Oh," cried the maiden, binding her tresses,
"'Tis only a page that carols unseen,
Crumbling your hounds their messes!")
Is she wronged? To the rescue of her honour,
My heart!
Is she poor? What costs it to be styled a donor?
Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part.
But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her!
("Nay, list!" bade Kate the queen;
And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses,
"'Tis only a page that carols unseen,
Fitting your hawks their jesses!")
Forgotten Dead, I Salute You.
by Muriel Stuart

Dawn has flashed up the startled skies,
Night has gone out beneath the hill
Many sweet times; before our eyes
Dawn makes and unmakes about us still
The magic that we call the rose.
The gentle history of the rain
Has been unfolded, traced and lost
By the sharp finger-tips of frost;
Birds in the hawthorn build again;
The hare makes soft her secret house;
The wind at tourney comes and goes,
Spurring the green, unharnessed boughs;
The moon has waxed fierce and waned dim:
He knew the beauty of all those
Last year, and who remembers him?
Love sometimes walks the waters still,
Laughter throws back her radiant head;
Utterly beauty is not gone,
And wonder is not wholly dead.
The starry, mortal world rolls on;
Between sweet sounds and silences,
With new, strange wines her beakers brim
He lost his heritage with these
Last year, and who remembers him?
None remember him: he lies
In earth of some strange-sounding place,
Nameless beneath the nameless skies,
The wind his only chant, the rain
The only tears upon his face;
Far and forgotten utterly
By living man.    Yet such as he
Have made it possible and sure
For other lives to have, to be;
For men to sleep content, secure.
Lip touches lip and eyes meet eyes
Because his heart beats not again:
His rotting, fruitless body lies
That sons may grow from other men.
He gave, as Christ, the life he had -
The only life desired or known;
The great, sad sacrifice was made
For strangers; this forgotten dead
Went out into the night alone.
There was his body broken for you,
There was his blood divinely shed
That in the earth lie lost and dim.
Eat, drink, and often as you do,
For whom he died, remember him.
Remonstrance.
by Jean Ingelow

Daughters of Eve! your mother did not well:
She laid the apple in your father's hand,
And we have read, O wonder! what befell, - 
The man was not deceived, nor yet could stand:
He chose to lose, for love of her, his throne, - 
With her could die, but could not live alone.
Daughters of Eve! he did not fall so low,
Nor fall so far, as that sweet woman fell;
For something better, than as gods to know,
That husband in that home left off to dwell:
For this, till love be reckoned less than lore,
Shall man be first and best for evermore.
Daughters of Eve! it was for your dear sake
The world's first hero died an uncrowned king;
But God's great pity touched the grand mistake,
And made his married love a sacred thing:
For yet his nobler sons, if aught be true,
Find the lost Eden in their love to you.