DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Dream-March
by James Whitcomb Riley

"Wasn't it a funny dream! - perfectly bewild'rin'! - 
Last night, and night before, and night before that,
Seemed like I saw the march o' regiments o' children,
Marching to the robin's fife and cricket's rat-ta-tat!
Lily-banners overhead, with the dew upon 'em,
On flashed the little army, as with sword and flame;
Like the buzz o' bumble-wings, with the honey on 'em,
Came an eerie, cheery chant, chiming as it came: - 
Where go the children? Travelling! Travelling!
Where go the children, travelling ahead?
Some go to kindergarten; some go to day-school;
Some go to night-school; and some go to bed!
Smooth roads or rough roads, warm or winter weather,
On go the children, tow-head and brown,
Brave boys and brave girls, rank and file together,
Marching out of Morning-Land, over dale and down:
Some go a-gypsying out in country places - 
Out through the orchards, with blossoms on the boughs
Wild, sweet, and pink and white as their own glad faces;
And some go, at evening, calling home the cows.
Where go the children? Travelling! Travelling!
Where go the children, travelling ahead?
Some go to foreign wars, and camps by the firelight - 
Some go to glory so; and some go to bed!
Some go through grassy lanes leading to the city - 
Thinner grow the green trees and thicker grows the dust;
Ever, though, to little people any path is pretty
So it leads to newer lands, as they know it must.
Some go to singing less; some go to list'ning;
Some go to thinking over ever-nobler themes;
Some go anhungered, but ever bravely whistling,
Turning never home again only in their dreams.
Where go the children? Travelling! Travelling!
Where go the children, travelling ahead?
Some go to conquer things; some go to try them;
Some go to dream them; and some go to bed!
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part I. - VIII - Temptations From Roman Refinements
by William Wordsworth

Watch, and be firm! for, soul-subduing vice,
Heart-killing luxury, on your steps await.
Fair houses, baths, and banquets delicate,
And temples flashing, bright as polar ice,
Their radiance through the woods, may yet suffice
To sap your hardy virtue, and abate
Your love of Him upon whose forehead sate
The crown of thorns; whose life-blood flowed, the price
Of your redemption. Shun the insidious arts
That Rome provides, less dreading from her frown
Than from her wily praise, her peaceful gown,
Language, and letters; these, though fondly viewed
As humanising graces, are but parts
And instruments of deadliest servitude!
The Source
by Richard Le Gallienne

Water in hidden glens
From the secret heart of the mountains,
Where the red fox hath its dens
And the gods their crystal fountains;
Up runnel and leaping cataract,
Boulder and ledge, I climbed and tracked,
Till I came to the top of the world and the fen
That drinks up the clouds and cisterns the rain,
And down through the floors of the deep morass
The procreant woodland essences drain - 
The thunder's home, where the eagles scream
And the centaurs pass;
But, where it was born, I lost my stream.
'Twas in vain I said: "'Tis here it springs,
Though no more it leaps and no more it sings;"
And I thought of a poet whose songs I knew
Of morning made and shining dew - 
I remembered the mire of the marshes too.
Another.
by Robert Herrick

Wassail the trees, that they may bear
You many a plum and many a pear:
For more or less fruits they will bring,
As you do give them wassailing.
Unmasked
by Madison Julius Cawein

Was it a dream,
Or a whim of the night?
Or did they gleam
Upon my sight
An instant there in the wan moonlight?
I saw them all, I think,
Under the bowers,
The faery folk, in a moonbeam wink,
Disguised as flowers.
First came the Bleeding-Hearts, that hang like bells
Or delicate shells;
Who, gowned in white and red,
Hooped skirts and furbelows,
A long procession led
Of Faery Ladies and their beaux,
Such as the Violet and Early Rose,
Into the ball-room of the flower-bed,
Where they began a Pixy minuet.
Then suddenly, from whence nobody knows,
The Johnny-Jump-Ups glimmered in that set,
Tipping about on tiny flower-toes,
All dressed in twinkling velvet, black and blue,
Faint-jeweled with the dew:
Stout sons of Fa'rie, Yeomen of the Night,
Glittering, each one, a rapier-ray of light:
Then, bowing two by two,
While all the Bleeding-Hearts stood by and fanned,
They, silken hand in hand,
Began a faery saraband,
That wound and interwound, and went and came again.
And then,
In ruffed and ribboned lines,
The gold-and-ruby gleaming Columbines,
Fair Maids-of-Honor to the Faery Queen,
Who still remained unseen,
Trailed twinkling into view.
And then a trumpet blew
A beetle-blast and there!
Adown a glowworm-lanthorned avenue,
Tall two by two,
With sapphire-helm'd hair,
Proud Knights and minions of the moon,
The Larkspurs, to a cricket tune,
Marched with a haughty air.
And golden-cuirassed, blowing a wild fanfare
Of fragrant notes
From honey-crystaled throats,
Snapdragons, Trumpeters of the Faery King,
With pomp and glittering
Of many an elfin prince and peer,
Drew near.
And when I felt secure,
And sure
The King and Queen of Faerie would appear,
My dear,
A cockerel crew, a thwarting cockerel crew,
And, presto! whew!
The whole scene went in air,
Leaving it there,
The garden, glimmering with the moon and dew,
Looking demure
With all its flowers. But I knew,
Nay, I was sure,
It was not quite as innocent as it seemed.
It could not fool me with its looks demure.
I knew I had not dreamed.
Sincerity.
by Robert Herrick

Wash clean the vessel, lest ye sour
Whatever liquor in ye pour.
After Storm
by Lola Ridge

Was there a wind?
Tap... tap...
Night pads upon the snow
with moccasined feet...
and it is still... so still...
an eagle's feather
might fall like a stone.
Could there have been a storm...
mad-tossing golden mane on the neck of the wind...
tearing up the sky...
loose-flapping like a tent
about the ice-capped stars?
Cool, sheer and motionless
the frosted pines
are jeweled with a million flaming points
that fling their beauty up in long white sheaves
till they catch hands with stars.
Could there have been a wind
that haled them by the hair....
and blinding
blue-forked
flowers of the lightning
in their leaves?
Tap... tap...
slow-ticking centuries...
Soft as bare feet upon the snow...
faint... lulling as heard rain
upon heaped leaves....
Silence
builds her wall
about a dream impaled.
To Erinna
by Sara Teasdale

Was Time not harsh to you, or was he kind,
O pale Erinna of the perfect lyre,
That he has left no word of singing fire
Whereby you waked the dreaming Lesbian wind,
And kindled night along the lyric shore?
O girl whose lips Erato stooped to kiss,
Do you go sorrowing because of this
In fields where poets sing forevermore?
Or are you glad and is it best to be
A silent music men have never heard,
A dream in all our souls that we may say:
"Her voice had all the rapture of the sea,
And all the clear cool quiver of a bird
Deep in a forest at the break of day"?
Wings
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

Was it worth while to forego our wings
To gain these dextrous hands ?
Truly they fashion us wonderful things
As the fancy of man demands.
But - to fly! to sail through the lucid air
From crest to violet crest
Of these great grey mountains, quartz-veined and bare,
Where the white clouds gather and rest.
Even to flutter from flower to flower, - 
To skim the tops of the trees, - 
In the roseate light of a sun-setting hour
To drift on a sea-going breeze.
Ay, the hands have marvellous skill
To create us curious things, - 
Baubles, playthings, weapons to kill, - 
But - I would we had chosen wings!
The Scare-Fire.
by Robert Herrick

Water, water I desire,
Here's a house of flesh on fire;
Ope the fountains and the springs,
And come all to bucketings:
What ye cannot quench pull down;
Spoil a house to save a town:
Better 'tis that one should fall,
Than by one to hazard all.
Threnody
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Watching here alone by the fire whereat last year
Sat with me the friend that a week since yet was near,
That a week has borne so far and hid so deep,
Woe am I that I may not weep,
May not yearn to behold him here.
Shame were mine, and little the love I bore him were,
Now to mourn that better he fares than love may fare
Which desires, and would not have indeed, its will,
Would not love him so worse than ill,
Would not clothe him again with care.
Yet can love not choose but remember, hearts but ache,
Eyes but darken, only for one vain thought's poor sake,
For the thought that by this hearth's now lonely side
Two fast friends, on the day he died,
Looked once more for his hand to take.
Let thy soul forgive them, and pardon heal the sin,
Though their hearts be heavy to think what then had been,
The delight that never while they live may be,
Love's communion of speech with thee,
Soul and speech with the soul therein.
O my friend, O brother, a glory veiled and marred!
Never love made moan for a life more evil-starred.
Was it envy, chance, or chance-compelling fate,
Whence thy spirit was bruised so late,
Bowed so heavily, bound so hard?
Now released, it may be, if only love might know,
Filled and fired with sight, it beholds us blind and low
With a pity keener yet, if that may be,
Even than ever was this that we
Felt, when love of thee wrought us woe.
None may tell the depths and the heights of life and death.
What we may we give thee: a word that sorrow saith,
And that none will heed save sorrow: scarce a song.
All we may, who have loved thee long,
Take: the best we can give is breath.
Towards Break Of Day
by William Butler Yeats

Was it the double of my dream
The woman that by me lay
Dreamed, or did we halve a dream
Under the first cold gleam of day?
I thought: "There is a waterfall
Upon Ben Bulben side
That all my childhood counted dear;
Were I to travel far and wide
I could not find a thing so dear.'
My memories had magnified
So many times childish delight.
I would have touched it like a child
But knew my finger could but have touched
Cold stone and water. I grew wild.
Even accusing Heaven because
It had set down among its laws:
Nothing that we love over-much
Is ponderable to our touch.
I dreamed towards break of day,
The cold blown spray in my nostril.
But she that beside me lay
Had watched in bitterer sleep
The marvelous stag of Arthur,
That lofty white stag, leap
From mountain steep to steep.
Rispetto
by Sara Teasdale

Was that his step that sounded on the stair?
Was that his knock I heard upon the door?
I grow so tired I almost cease to care,
And yet I would that he might come once more.
It was the wind I heard, that mocks at me,
The bitter wind that is more cruel than he;
It was the wind that knocked upon the door,
But he will never knock nor enter more.
Memorials Of A Tour On The Continent, 1820 - VI. - Aix-La-Chapelle
by William Wordsworth

Was it to disenchant, and to undo,
That we approached the Seat of Charlemaine?
To sweep from many an old romantic strain
That faith which no devotion may renew!
Why does this puny Church present to view
Her feeble columns? and that scanty chair!
This sword that one of our weak times might wear!
Objects of false pretense, or meanly true!
If from a traveler's fortune I might claim
A palpable memorial of that day,
Then would I seek the Pyrenean Breach
That Roland clove with huge two-handed sway,
And to the enormous labour left his name,
Where unremitting frosts the rocky crescent bleach.
Was, Is, And Yet-To-Be
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Was, Is, and Yet-to-Be
Were chatting over a cup of tea.
In tarnished finery smelling of must,
Was talked of people long turned to dust;
Of titles and honours and high estate,
All forgotten or out of date;
Of wonderful feasts in the long ago,
Of pride that perished with nothing to show.
"I loathe the present," said Was, with a groan;
"I live in pleasures that I HAVE known."
The Yet-to-be, in a gown of gauze,
Looked over the head of musty Was,
And gazed far off into misty space
With a wrapt expression upon her face.
"Such wonderful pleasures are coming to me,
Such glory, such honour," said Yet-to-be.
"No one dreamed, in the vast Has-Been,
Of such successes as I shall win.
"The past, the present -why, what are they?
I live for the joy of a future day."
Then practical Is, in a fresh print dress,
Spoke up with a laugh, "I must confess
"I find to-day so pleasant," she said,
"I never look back, and seldom ahead.
"Whatever has been, is a finished sum;
Whatever will be -why, let it come.
"To-day is mine.    And so, you see,
I have the past and the yet-to-be;
"For to-day is the future of yesterday,
And the past of to-morrow.    I live while I may,
"And I think the secret of pleasure is this.
And this alone," said practical Is.
Watchman! What Of The Night?
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

Watchman!    What of the night?
No light we see,--
Our souls are bruised and sickened with the sight
Of this foul crime against humanity.
The Ways are dark----
"I SEE THE MORNING LIGHT!"
--The Ways are dark;
Faith folds her wings; and Hope, in piteous plight,
Has dimmed her radiant lamp to feeblest spark.
Love bleeding lies----
"I SEE THE MORNING LIGHT!"
--Love bleeding lies,
Struck down by this grim fury of despight,
Which once again her Master crucifies.
He dies again----
"I SEE THE MORNING LIGHT!"
--He dies again,
By evil slain!    Who died for man's respite
By man's insensate rage again is slain.
O woful sight!----
"I SEE THE MORNING LIGHT!
--Beyond the war-clouds and the reddened ways,
I see the Promise of the Coming Days!
I see His Sun arise, new-charged with grace
Earth's tears to dry and all her woes efface!
Christ lives!    Christ loves!    Christ rules!
No more shall Might,
Though leagued with all the Forces of the Night,
Ride over Right.    No more shall Wrong
The world's gross agonies prolong.
Who waits His Time shall surely see
The triumph of His Constancy;--
When, without let, or bar, or stay,
The coming of His Perfect Day
Shall sweep the Powers of Night away;--
And Faith, replumed for nobler flight,
And Hope, aglow with radiance bright,
And Love, in loveliness bedight,
SHALL GREET THE MORNING LIGHT!"
The Game
by Oliver Herford

Watching a ball on the end of a string,
Watching it swing back and to,
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a Kitten can do.
First it goes this way, then it goes that,
Just like a bird on the wing.
And all of a tremble I crouch on the mat
Like a Lion, preparing to spring.
And now with a terrible deafening mew,
Like a Tiger I leap on my prey,
And just when I think I have torn it in two
It is up in the air and away.
Fulfilment.
by Robert Malise Bowyer Nichols

Was there love once? I have forgotten her.
Was there grief once? grief yet is mine.
Other loves I have, men rough, but men who stir
More grief, more joy, than love of thee and thine.
Faces cheerful, full of whimsical mirth,
Lined by the wind, burned by the sun;
Bodies enraptured by the abounding earth,
As whose children we are brethren: one.
And any moment may descend hot death
To shatter limbs! pulp, tear, blast
Beloved soldiers who love rough life and breath
Not less for dying faithful to the last.
O the fading eyes, the grimed face turned bony,
Oped mouth gushing, fallen head,
Lessening pressure of a hand shrunk, clammed, and stony!
O sudden spasm, release of the dead!
Was there love once? I have forgotten her.
Was there grief once? grief yet is mine.
O loved, living, dying, heroic soldier,
All, all, my joy, my grief, my love, are thine!
Water Is Taught By Thirst;
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Water is taught by thirst;
Land, by the oceans passed;
Transport, by throe;
Peace, by its battles told;
Love, by memorial mould;
Birds, by the snow.
Music: an Ode
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

I
Was it light that spake from the darkness, or music that shone from the word,
When the night was enkindled with sound of the sun or the first-born bird?
Souls enthralled and entrammelled in bondage of seasons that fall and rise,
Bound fast round with the fetters of flesh, and blinded with light that dies,
Lived not surely till music spake, and the spirit of life was heard.
II
Music, sister of sunrise, and herald of life to be,
Smiled as dawn on the spirit of man, and the thrall was free.
Slave of nature and serf of time, the bondman of life and death,
Dumb with passionless patience that breathed but forlorn and reluctant breath,
Heard, beheld, and his soul made answer, and communed aloud with the sea.
III
Morning spake, and he heard: and the passionate silent noon
Kept for him not silence: and soft from the mounting moon
Fell the sound of her splendour, heard as dawn's in the breathless night,
Not of men but of birds whose note bade man's soul quicken and leap to light:
And the song of it spake, and the light and the darkness of earth were as chords in tune.
A Single Night
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

Was one night,
And that a night
Without much sleep,
Enough to make me love
All the life long?
From the Japanese of the wife of the Mikado Sui-toka In (twelfth century).
The Dying Gipsy Smuggler
by Walter Scott (Sir)

Wasted, weary, wherefore stay,
Wrestling thus with earth and clay?
From the body pass away;
Hark! the mass is singing.
From thee doff thy mortal weed,
Mary Mother be thy speed,
Saints to help thee at thy need;
Hark! the knell is ringing.
Fear not snow-drift driving fast,
Sleet, or hail, or levin blast;
Soon the shroud shall lap thee fast,
And the sleep be on thee cast
That shall ne'er know waking.
Haste thee, haste thee, to be gone,
Earth flits fast, and time draws on,
Gasp thy gasp, and groan thy groan,
Day is near the breaking.
Ghosts
by Madison Julius Cawein

Was it the strain of the waltz that, repeating
"Love," so bewitched me? or only the gleam
There of the lustres, that set my heart beating,
Feeling your presence as one feels a dream?
For, on a sudden, the woman of fashion,
Soft at my side in her diamonds and lace,
Vanished, and pale with reproach or with passion,
You, my dead sweetheart, smiled up in my face.
Music, the nebulous lights, and the sifting
Fragrance of women made amorous the air;
Born of these three and my thoughts you came drifting,
Clad in dim muslin, a rose in your hair.
There in the waltz, that followed the lancers,
Hard to my breast did I crush you and hold;
Far through the stir and the throng of the dancers
Onward I bore you as often of old.
Pale were your looks; and the rose in your tresses
Paler of hue than the dreams we have lost;--
"Who," then I said, "is it sees or who guesses,
Here in the hall, that I dance with a ghost?"
Gone! And the dance and the music are ended.
Gone! And the rapture dies out of the skies.
And, on my arm, in her elegance splendid,
The woman of fashion smiles up in my eyes.
Had I forgotten? and did you remember?--
You, who are dead, whom I cannot forget;
You, for whose sake all my heart is an ember
Covered with ashes of dreams and regret.
Beauty
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Was never form and never face
So sweet to SEYD as only grace
Which did not slumber like a stone,
But hovered gleaming and was gone.
Beauty chased he everywhere,
In flame, in storm, in clouds of air.
He smote the lake to feed his eye
With the beryl beam of the broken wave;
He flung in pebbles well to hear
The moment's music which they gave.
Oft pealed for him a lofty tone
From nodding pole and belting zone.
He heard a voice none else could hear
From centred and from errant sphere.
The quaking earth did quake in rhyme,
Seas ebbed and flowed in epic chime.
In dens of passion, and pits of woe,
He saw strong Eros struggling through,
To sun the dark and solve the curse,
And beam to the bounds of the universe.
While thus to love he gave his days
In loyal worship, scorning praise,
How spread their lures for him in vain
Thieving Ambition and paltering Gain!
He thought it happier to be dead,
To die for Beauty, than live for bread.
A Dream
by Matthew Arnold

Was it a dream? We sail'd, I thought we sail'd,
Martin and I, down a green Alpine stream,
Under o'erhanging pines; the morning sun,
On the wet umbrage of their glossy tops,
On the red pinings of their forest floor,
Drew a warm scent abroad; behind the pines
The mountain skirts, with all their sylvan change
Of bright-leaf'd chestnuts, and moss'd walnut-trees,
And the frail scarlet-berried ash, began.
Swiss chalets glitter'd on the dewy slopes,
And from some swarded shelf high up, there came
Notes of wild pastoral music: over all
Rang'd, diamond-bright, the eternal wall of snow.
Upon the mossy rocks at the stream's edge.
Back'd by the pines, a plank-built cottage stood,
Bright in the sun; the climbing gourd-plant's leaves
Muffled its walls, and on the stone-strewn roof
Lay the warm golden gourds; golden, within,
Under the eaves, peer'd rows of Indian corn.
We shot beneath the cottage with the stream.
On the brown rude-carv'd balcony two Forms
Came forth, Olivia's, Marguerite! and thine.
Clad were they both in white, flowers in their breast;
Straw hats bedeck'd their heads, with ribbons blue
Which wav'd, and on their shoulders fluttering play'd.
They saw us, they conferr'd; their bosoms heav'd,
And more than mortal impulse fill'd their eyes.
Their lips mov'd; their white arms, wav'd eagerly,
Flash'd once, like falling streams:, we rose, we gaz'd
One moment, on the rapid's top, our boat
Hung pois'd, and then the darting River of Life,
Loud thundering, bore us by: swift, swift it foam'd;
Black under cliffs it rac'd, round headlands shone.
Soon the plank'd cottage 'mid the sun-warm'd pines
Faded, the moss, the rocks; us burning Plains
Bristled with cities, us the Sea receiv'd
When We First Played "Show"
by James Whitcomb Riley

Wasn't it a good time,
Long Time Ago - 
When we all were little tads
And first played "Show"! - 
When every newer day
Wore as bright a glow
As the ones we laughed away - 
Long Time Ago!
Calf was in the back-lot;
Clover in the red;
Bluebird in the pear-tree;
Pigeons on the shed;
Tom a-chargin' twenty pins
At the barn; and Dan
Spraddled out just like "The
'Injarubber'-Man!"
Me and Bub and Rusty,
Eck and Dunk and Sid,
'Tumblin' on the sawdust
Like the A-rabs did;
Jamesy on the slack-rope
In a wild retreat,
Grappling back, to start again - 
When he chalked his feet!
Wasn't Eck a wonder,
In his stocking-tights?
Wasn't Dunk - his leaping lion - 
Chief of all delights!
Yes, and wasn't "Little Mack"
Boss of all the Show, - 
Both Old Clown and Candy-Butcher - 
Long Time Ago!
Sid the Bareback-Rider;
And - oh-me-oh-my! - 
Bub, the spruce Ring-master,
Stepping round so spry! - 
In his little waist-and-trousers
All made in one,
Was there a prouder youngster
Under the sun!
And NOW - who will tell me, - 
Where are they all?
Dunk's a sanatorium doctor,
Up at Waterfall;
Sid's a city street-contractor;
Tom has fifty clerks;
And Jamesy he's the "Iron Magnate"
Of "The Hecla Works."
And Bub's old and bald now,
Yet still he hangs on, - 
Dan and Eck and "Little Mack,"
Long, long gone!
But wasn't it a good time,
Long Time Ago - 
When we all were little tads
And first played "Show"!
To An Old Friend In England. "Esau."
by Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Was it for nothing in the years gone by,
O my love, O my friend,
You thrilled me with your noble words of faith? - 
Hope beyond life, and love, love beyond death!
Yet now I shudder, and yet you did not die,
O my friend, O my love!
Was it for nothing in the dear dead years,
O my love, O my friend,
I kissed you when you wrung my heart from me,
And gave my stubborn hand where trust might be?
Yet then I smiled, and see, these bitter tears,
O my friend, O my love!
No bitter words to say to you have I,
O my love, O my friend!
That faith, that hope, that love was mine, not yours!
And yet that kiss, that clasp endures, endures.
I have no bitter words to say. Good-bye,
O my friend, O my love!
Ave Maria Gratia Plena
by Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde

Was this His coming! I had hoped to see
A scene of wondrous glory, as was told
Of some great God who in a rain of gold
Broke open bars and fell on Danae:
Or a dread vision as when Semele
Sickening for love and unappeased desire
Prayed to see God's clear body, and the fire
Caught her brown limbs and slew her utterly:
With such glad dreams I sought this holy place,
And now with wondering eyes and heart I stand
Before this supreme mystery of Love:
Some kneeling girl with passionless pale face,
An angel with a lily in his hand,
And over both the white wings of a Dove.
FLORENCE.