DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Woman That You Pass By
by Pat O'Cotter

My trade was old when the world was new,
Ere the pyramids rose by the Nile
Men quitted their wives, and gave me their goods
For the warmth of my kiss, and my smile.
For never was wife who could hold her man
By the honeymoon's afterglow
Did I veil mine eyes and beckon to him,
God's truth, and 'tis you who know.
My trade was old when the world was new,
Long ere Caesar ruled in Rome,
To spend their gold in a harlot's cell
Patricians quitted home.
And high born dames since the world began
Have learned to sit and to sigh
And to patiently wait for their lords to leave
The woman that you pass by.
I'm only a pawn in the game called life,
Yet I take what you never could hold;
I garner the kisses you'd barter life for
And with them, I gather your gold.
I garner the best of your manhood's prime
Then quit them when shattered in health;
I bring to heel the ones that you love
And smiling I shear them of wealth.
To garner the wealth that you hold in store
I must keep me surpassing fair,
For the life that I lead is an open book
And the game that I deal is square.
Stop--think of the maids and wives you know
As you drift thru life's subtle game--
How many are dealing as straight as I?
How many can say the same?
You give your all, and you slave your life
In a struggle to hold one man;
You think you're paid if he call you wife
And be true to you for a span.
You keep his house and you bear his child
And you walk with your head held high
But most of his love, and his kisses go
To the woman that you pass by.
The favors you give, I sell for gold,
And men prize what costs them high;
You never will learn that love goes out
With the tear in a woman's eye;
That the patient drudge who sits at home
And learns to save and to mend
Can never hold the light of love
But is doomed to lose in the end.
So I follow the old dishonored trade,
Bedecked in garments fine,
And the cream of the earth is saved for me
In raiment and food and wine.
And life to me is a merry game
Tho, sometimes, I weep and sigh,
For deep down in your heart, do you envy me
The woman that you pass by?
1940
by Bertolt Brecht

My young son asks me: Must I learn mathematics?
What is the use, I feel like saying. That two pieces
Of bread are more than one's about all you'll end up with.
My young son asks me: Must I learn French?
What is the use, I feel like saying. This State's collapsing.
And if you just rub your belly with your hand and
Groan, you'll be understood with little trouble.
My young son asks me: Must I learn history?
What is the use, I feel like saying. Learn to stick
Your head in the earth, and maybe you'll still survive.
Yes, learn mathematics, I tell him.
Learn your French, learn your history!
Immortality
by Arthur Sherburne Hardy

My window is the open sky,
The flower in farthest wood is mine;
I am the heir to all gone by,
The eldest son of all the line.
And when the robbers Time and Death
Athwart my path conspiring stand,
I cheat them with a clod, a breath,
And pass the sword from hand to hand!
A Lament
by William Henry Drummond

My thoughts hold mortal strife;
I do detest my life,
And with lamenting cries
Peace to my soul to bring
Oft call that prince which here doth monarchize:
But he, grim grinning King,
Who caitiffs scorns, and doth the blest surprise,
Late having decked with beauty's rose his tomb,
Disdains to crop a weed, and will not come.
To Crown It.
by Robert Herrick

My wearied bark, O let it now be crown'd!
The haven reach'd to which I first was bound.
Dreams Old And Nascent - Nascent
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

My world is a painted fresco, where coloured shapes
Of old, ineffectual lives linger blurred and warm;
An endless tapestry the past has woven drapes
The halls of my life, compelling my soul to conform.
The surface of dreams is broken,
The picture of the past is shaken and scattered.
Fluent, active figures of men pass along the railway, and I am woken
From the dreams that the distance flattered.
Along the railway, active figures of men.
They have a secret that stirs in their limbs as they move
Out of the distance, nearer, commanding my dreamy world.
Here in the subtle, rounded flesh
Beats the active ecstasy.
In the sudden lifting my eyes, it is clearer,
The fascination of the quick, restless Creator moving through the mesh
Of men, vibrating in ecstasy through the rounded flesh.
Oh my boys, bending over your books,
In you is trembling and fusing
The creation of a new-patterned dream, dream of a generation:
And I watch to see the Creator, the power that patterns the dream.
The old dreams are beautiful, beloved, soft-toned, and sure,
But the dream-stuff is molten and moving mysteriously,
Alluring my eyes; for I, am I not also dream-stuff,
Am I not quickening, diffusing myself in the pattern, shaping and shapen?
Here in my class is the answer for the great yearning:
Eyes where I can watch the swim of old dreams reflected on the molten metal of dreams,
Watch the stir which is rhythmic and moves them all as a heart-beat moves the blood,
Here in the swelling flesh the great activity working,
Visible there in the change of eyes and the mobile features.
Oh the great mystery and fascination of the unseen Shaper,
The power of the melting, fusing Force - heat, light, all in one,
Everything great and mysterious in one, swelling and shaping the dream in the flesh,
As it swells and shapes a bud into blossom.
Oh the terrible ecstasy of the consciousness that I am life!
Oh the miracle of the whole, the widespread, labouring concentration
Swelling mankind like one bud to bring forth the fruit of a dream,
Oh the terror of lifting the innermost I out of the sweep of the impulse of life,
And watching the great Thing labouring through the whole round flesh of the world;
And striving to catch a glimpse of the shape of the coming dream,
As it quickens within the labouring, white-hot metal,
Catch the scent and the colour of the coming dream,
Then to fall back exhausted into the unconscious, molten life!
Fragment: Thoughts Come And Go In Solitude.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

My thoughts arise and fade in solitude,
The verse that would invest them melts away
Like moonlight in the heaven of spreading day:
How beautiful they were, how firm they stood,
Flecking the starry sky like woven pearl!
Love's Humility.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

My worthiness is all my doubt,
His merit all my fear,
Contrasting which, my qualities
Do lowlier appear;
Lest I should insufficient prove
For his beloved need,
The chiefest apprehension
Within my loving creed.
So I, the undivine abode
Of his elect content,
Conform my soul as 't were a church
Unto her sacrament.
Old Song
by John Collings Squire, Sir

My window is darkness,
The sighs of the night die in silence;
The lamp on my table
Burns gravely, the walls are withdrawn;
And beneath, in your darkness,
You are sleeping and dreaming forgetful,
But I think of you smiling,
For I'm wakeful and now it is only an hour to the dawn.
When the first throb of light comes
I shall rise and go out to the garden,
And walk the lawn's verdure
Before the wet gossamer goes;
And when you come down, sweet,
All singing and light in the morning,
Delight will break ambush
With your garden's most fragrant and softest and reddest red rose.
Ballata II.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Occhi miei lassi, mentre ch' io vi giro.
HE INVITES HIS EYES TO FEAST THEMSELVES ON LAURA.
My wearied eyes! while looking thus
On that fair fatal face to us,
Be wise, be brief, for--hence my sighs--
Already Love our bliss denies.
Death only can the amorous track
Shut from my thoughts which leads them back
To the sweet port of all their weal;
But lesser objects may conceal
Our light from you, that meaner far
In virtue and perfection are.
Wherefore, poor eyes! ere yet appears,
Already nigh, the time of tears,
Now, after long privation past,
Look, and some comfort take at last.
MACGREGOR.
Quotations VI
by Walter Savage Landor

"My thoughts are my company; I can bring them together, select them, detain them, dismiss them."
"The wise become as the unwise in the enchanted chambers of Power, whose lamps make every face the same colour."
"We often fancy that we suffer from ingratitude, while in reality we suffer from self-love."
"Goodness does not more certainly make men happy than happiness makes them good."
"Everything that looks to the future elevates human nature. Never is life so low or so little as when occupied with the present."
"Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose their direction and begin to bend."
"Prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry; on the other hand, poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose."
"Be always displeased at what thou art, if thou desire to attain to what thou art not; for where thou hast pleased thyself, there thou abidest."
"Even the weakest disputant is made so conceited by what he calls religion, as to think himself wiser than the wisest who think differently from him."
A Winter Night
by Sara Teasdale

My window-pane is starred with frost,
The world is bitter cold to-night,
The moon is cruel, and the wind
Is like a two-edged sword to smite.
God pity all the homeless ones,
The beggars pacing to and fro,
God pity all the poor to-night
Who walk the lamp-lit streets of snow.
My room is like a bit of June,
Warm and close-curtained fold on fold,
But somewhere, like a homeless child,
My heart is crying in the cold.
Astrophel and Stella - Sonnet XLIV
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

My words I know do well set forth my minde;
My mind bemones his sense of inward smart;
Such smart may pitie claim of any hart;
Her heart, sweet heart, is of no tygres kind:
And yet she heares and yet no pitie I find,
But more I cry, less grace she doth impart.
Alas, what cause is there so ouerthwart
That Nobleness it selfe makes thus vnkind?
I much do ghesse, yet finde no truth saue this,
That when the breath of my complaints doth tuch
Those dainty doors vnto the Court of Blisse,
The heau'nly nature of that place is such,
That, once come there, the sobs of mine annoyes
Are metamorphos'd straight to tunes of ioyes.
The Resolve
by Walter Scott (Sir)

In Imitation of An Old English Poem
My wayward fate I needs must plain,
Though bootless be the theme;
I loved, and was beloved again,
Yet all was but a dream:
For, a her love was quickly got,
So it was quickly gone;
No more I'll bask in flame so hot,
But coldly dwell alone.
Not maid more bright than maid was e'er
My fancy shall beguile,
By flattering word, or feigned tear,
By gesture, look, or smile:
No more I'll call the shaft fair shot,
Till it has fairly flown,
Nor scorch me at a flame so hot;
I'll rather freeze alone.
Each ambush'd Cupid I'll defy,
In cheek, or chin, or brow,
And deem the glance of woman's eye
As weak as woman's vow:
I'll lightly hold the lady's heart,
That is but lightly won;
I'll steel my breast to beauty's art,
And learn to live alone.
The flaunting torch soon blazes out,
The diamond's ray abides;
The flame its glory hurls about,
The gem its lustre hides;
Such gem I fondly deem'd was mine,
And glow'd a diamond stone,
But, since each eye may see it shine,
I'll darkling dwell alone.
No waking dream shall tinge my thought
With dyes so bright and vain.
No silken net, so slightly wrought,
Shall tangle me again:
No more I'll pay so dear for wit,
I'll live upon mine own,
Nor shall wild passion trouble it,
I'll rather dwell alone.
And thus I'll hush my heart to rest,
"Thy loving labour's lost;
Thou shalt no more be wildly blest,
To be so strangely crost;
The widow'd turtles mateless die,
The phoenix is but one;
They seek no loves, no more will I
I'll rather dwell alone."
Dreams.
by Madison Julius Cawein

My thoughts have borne me far away
To Beauties of an older day,
Where, crowned with roses, stands the DAWN,
Striking her seven-stringed barbiton
Of flame, whose chords give being to
The seven colours, hue for hue;
The music of the colour-dream
She builds the day from, beam by beam.
My thoughts have borne me far away
To Myths of a diviner day,
Where, sitting on the mountain, NOON
Sings to the pines a sun-soaked tune
Of rest and shade and clouds and skies,
Wherein her calm dreams idealize
Light as a presence, heavenly fair,
Sleeping with all her beauty bare.
My thoughts have borne me far away
To Visions of a wiser day,
Where, stealing through the wilderness,
NIGHT walks, a sad-eyed votaress,
And prays with mystic words she hears
Behind the thunder of the spheres,
The starry utterance that's hers,
With which she fills the Universe.
A Poem Written In Time Of Trouble By An Irish Priest Who Had Taken Orders In France
by Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory

My thoughts, my grief! are without strength
My spirit is journeying towards death
My eyes are as a frozen sea
My tears my daily food;
There is nothing in life but only misery.
My poor heart is torn
And my thoughts are sharp wounds within me,
Mourning the miserable state of Ireland.
Misfortune has come upon us all together
The poor, the rich, the weak and the strong
The great lord by whom hundreds were maintained
The powerful strong man, and the man that holds the plough;
And the cross laid on the bare shoulder of every man.
Our feasts are without any voice of priests
And none at them but women lamenting
Tearing their hair with troubled minds
Keening miserably after the Fenians.
The pipes of our organs are broken
Our harps have lost their strings that were tuned
That might have made the great lamentations of Ireland.
Until the strong men come back across the sea
There is no help for us but bitter crying,
Screams, and beating of hands, and calling out.
I do not know of anything under the sky
That is friendly or favourable to the Gael
But only the sea that our need brings us to,
Or the wind that blows to the harbour
The ship that is bearing us away from Ireland;
And there is reason that these are reconciled with us,
For we increase the sea with our tears
And the wandering wind with our sighs.
Undulate, My Tongue
by Paul Cameron Brown

My tongue undulates, a wave to shore,
knocks a vigorous reef,
then slides to sea once more.
The coral pink horizon of the mouth,
cavernous shores,
my tongue laps pier white teeth
in servitude like an oar.
Heavy drifting, bobbing as a buoy,
the tongue sinks slowly down before
surprising saliva
going ashore.
Nursery Rhyme. CCCLXXV. Paradoxes.
by Unknown

My true love lives far from me,
Perrie, Merrie, Dixie, Dominie.
Many a rich present he sends to me,
Petrum, Partrum, Paradise, Temporie,
Perrie, Merrie, Dixie, Dominie.
He sent me a goose, without a bone;
He sent me a cherry, without a stone.
Petrum, & c.
He sent me a Bible, no man could read;
He sent me a blanket, without a thread.
Petrum, & c.
How could there be a goose without a bone?
How could there be a cherry without a stone?
Petrum, & c.
How could there be a Bible no man could read?
How could there be a blanket without a thread?
Petrum, & c.
When the goose is in the egg-shell, there is no bone;
When the cherry is in the blossom, there is no stone.
Petrum, & c.
When ye Bible is in ye press no man it can read;
When ye wool is on ye sheep's back, there is no thread.
Petrum, & c.
Sonnet XXIX.
by Fernando Ant'nio Nogueira Pessoa

My weary life, that lives unsatisfied
On the foiled off-brink of being e'er but this,
To whom the power to will hath been denied
And the will to renounce doth also miss;
My sated life, with having nothing sated,
In the motion of moving pois'd aye,
Within its dreams from its own dreams abated--
This life let the Gods change or take away.
For this endless succession of empty hours,
Like deserts after deserts, voidly one,
Doth undermine the very dreaming powers
And dull even thought's active inaction,
Tainting with fore-unwilled will the dreamed act
Twice thus removed from the unobtained fact.
A Song of Autumn
by Arthur Hugh Clough

My wind is turned to bitter north,
That was so soft a south before;
My sky, that shone so sunny bright,
With foggy gloom is clouded o'er
My gay green leaves are yellow-black,
Upon the dank autumnal floor;
For love, departed once, comes back
No more again, no more.
A roofless ruin lies my home,
For winds to blow and rains to pour;
One frosty night befell, and lo,
I find my summer days are o'er:
The heart bereaved, of why and how
Unknowing, knows that yet before
It had what e'en to Memory now
Returns no more, no more.
Vanitas! Vanitatum Vanitas!
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

My trust in nothing now is placed,
Hurrah!
So in the world true joy I taste,
Hurrah!
Then he who would be a comrade of mine
Must rattle his glass, and in chorus combine,
Over these dregs of wine.
I placed my trust in gold and wealth,
Hurrah!
But then I lost all joy and health,
Lack-a-day!
Both here and there the money roll'd,
And when I had it here, behold,
From there had fled the gold!
I placed my trust in women next,
Hurrah!
But there in truth was sorely vex'd,
Lack-a-day!
The False another portion sought,
The True with tediousness were fraught,
The Best could not be bought.
My trust in travels then I placed,
Hurrah!
And left my native land in haste.
Lack-a-day!
But not a single thing seem'd good,
The beds were bad, and strange the food,
And I not understood.
I placed my trust in rank and fame,
Hurrah!
Another put me straight to shame,
Lack-a-day!
And as I had been prominent,
All scowl'd upon me as I went,
I found not one content.
I placed my trust in war and fight,
Hurrah!
We gain'd full many a triumph bright,
Hurrah!
Into the foeman's land we cross'd,
We put our friends to equal cost,
And there a leg I lost.
My trust is placed in nothing now,
Hurrah!
At my command the world must bow,
Hurrah!
And as we've ended feast and strain,
The cup we'll to the bottom drain;
No dregs must there remain!
Fleeing Away.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

My thoughts soar not as they ought to soar,
Higher and higher on soul-lent wings;
But ever and often, and more and more
They are dragged down earthward by little things,
By little troubles and little needs,
As a lark might be tangled among the weeds.
My purpose is not what it ought to be,
Steady and fixed, like a star on high,
But more like a fisherman's light at sea;
Hither and thither it seems to fly - 
Sometimes feeble, and sometimes bright,
Then suddenly lost in the gloom of night.
My life is far from my dream of life - 
Calmly contented, serenely glad;
But, vexed and worried by daily strife,
It is always troubled, and ofttimes sad - 
And the heights I had thought I should reach one day
Grow dimmer and dimmer, and farther away.
My heart finds never the longed-for rest;
Its worldly striving, its greed for gold,
Chilled and frightened the calm-eyed guest,
Who sometimes sought me in days of old;
And ever fleeing away from me
Is the higher self that I long to be.
The Sonnets LXXXV - My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still
by William Shakespeare

My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still,
While comments of your praise richly compil'd,
Reserve their character with golden quill,
And precious phrase by all the Muses fil'd.
I think good thoughts, whilst others write good words,
And like unlettered clerk still cry 'Amen'
To every hymn that able spirit affords,
In polish'd form of well-refined pen.
Hearing you praised, I say ''tis so, 'tis true,'
And to the most of praise add something more;
But that is in my thought, whose love to you,
Though words come hindmost, holds his rank before.
Then others, for the breath of words respect,
Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.
Her Terms
by William Schwenck Gilbert

My wedded life
Must every pleasure bring
On scale extensive!
If I'm your wife
I must have everything
That's most expensive -
A lady's-maid -
(My hair alone to do
I am not able) -
And I'm afraid
I've been accustomed to
A first-rate table.
These things one must consider when one marries -
And everything I wear must come from Paris!
Oh, think of that!
Oh, think of that!
I can't wear anything that's not from Paris!
From top to toes
Quite Frenchified I am,
If you examine.
And then - who knows? -
Perhaps some day a fam -
Perhaps a famine!
My argument's correct, if you examine,
What should we do, if there should come a f-famine!
Though in green pea
Yourself you needn't stint
In July sunny,
In Januaree
It really costs a mint -
A mint of money!
No lamb for us -
House lamb at Christmas sells
At prices handsome:
Asparagus,
In winter, parallels
A Monarch's ransom:
When purse to bread and butter barely reaches,
What is your wife to do for hot-house peaches?
Ah! tell me that!
Ah! tell me that!
What IS your wife to do for hot-house peaches?
Your heart and hand
Though at my feet you lay,
All others scorning!
As matters stand,
There's nothing now to say
Except - good morning!
Though virtue be a husband's best adorning,
That won't pay rates and taxes - so, good morning!
Inexorable
by William Henry Drummond

My thoughts hold mortal strife;
I do detest my life,
And with lamenting cries
Peace to my soul to bring
Oft call that prince which here doth monarchise:
But he, grim-grinning King,
Who caitiffs scorns, and doth the blest surprise,
Late having deck'd with beauty's rose his tomb,
Disdains to crop a weed, and will not come.
The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - The Human Comedy.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Natura dal Signor.
Nature, by God directed, formed in space
The universal comedy we see;
Wherein each star, each man, each entity,
Each living creature, hath its part and place:
And when the play is over, it shall be
That God will judge with justice and with grace.--
Aping this art divine, the human race
Plans for itself on earth a comedy:
It makes kings, priests, slaves, heroes for the eyes
Of vulgar folk; and gives them masks to play
Their several parts--not wisely, as we see;
For impious men too oft we canonise,
And kill the saints; while spurious lords array
Their hosts against the real nobility.
Native Moments
by Walt Whitman

Native moments! when you come upon me - Ah you are here now! 
Give me now libidinous joys only! 
Give me the drench of my passions! 
Give me life coarse and rank! To-day, 
I go consort with nature's darlings - to-night too;
I am for those who believe in loose delights - I share the midnight orgies of young men; 
I dance with the dancers, and drink with the drinkers; 
The echoes ring with our indecent calls; 
I take for my love some prostitute - I pick out some low person for my dearest friend, 
He shall be lawless, rude, illiterate - he shall be one condemn'd by others for deeds done; 
I will play a part no longer - Why should I exile myself from my companions?
O you shunn'd persons! I at least do not shun you, I come forthwith in your midst - I will be your poet, 
I will be more to you than to any of the rest.
A Quiet Tawk.
by John Hartley

"Nah, lass, caar thi daan, an let's have a chat, - 
It's long sin we'd th' haase to ussen;
Just give me thi nooations o' this thing an that,
What tha thinks abaat measures an men.
We've lived a long time i' this world an we've seen,
A share of its joys an its cares;
Tha wor nooan born baght wit, an tha'rt net varry green,
Soa let's hear what tha thinks of affairs."
"Well, Jooany, aw've thowt a gooid deal i' mi time,
An aw think wi' one thing tha'll agree, - 
If tha'd listened sometimes to advice sich as mine,
It mud ha been better for thee.
This smookin an drinkin - tha knows tha does booath,
It's a sad waste o' brass tha'll admit;
But awm net findin fault, - noa indeed! awd be looath!
But aw want thi to reason a bit."
"Then tha'rt lawse i' thi tawk, tho' tha doesn't mean wrang,
An tha says stuff aw darnt repeat;
An tha grumels at hooam if we chonce to be thrang,
When tha comes throo thi wark of a neet.
An if th' childer are noisy, tha kicks up a shine,
Tha mud want 'em as dummy as wax;
An if they should want owt to laik wi' 'at's thine,
They're ommost too freetened to ax."
"An they all want new clooas, they're ashamed to be seen,
An aw've net had a new cap this year;
An awm sewer it's fair cappin ha careful we've been,
There's nooan like us for that onnywhear."
"Come, lass, that's enuff, - when aw ax'd thi to talk,
It worn't a sarmon aw meant,
Soa aw'll don on mi hat, an aw'll goa for a walk,
For dang it! tha'rt nivver content!"