DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Dibdin's Ghost.
by Eugene Field

Dear wife, last midnight while I read
The tomes you so despise,
A specter rose beside the bed
And spoke in this true wise;
"From Canaan's beatific coast
I've come to visit thee,
For I'm Frognall Dibdin's ghost!"
Says Dibdin's ghost to me.
I bade him welcome and we twain
Discussed with buoyant hearts
The various things that appertain
To bibliomaniac arts.
"Since you are fresh from t'other side,
Pray tell me of that host
That treasured books before they died,"
Says I to Dibdin's ghost.
"They've entered into perfect rest,
For in the life they've won
There are no auctions to molest,
No creditors to dun;
Their heavenly rapture has no bounds
Beside that jasper sea--
It is a joy unknown to Lowndes!"
Says Dibdin's ghost to me.
Much I rejoiced to hear him speak
Of biblio-bliss above,
For I am one of those who seek
What bibliomaniacs love;
"But tell me--for I long to hear
What doth concern me most--
Are wives admitted to that sphere?"
Says I to Dibdin's ghost.
"The women folk are few up there,
For 'twere not fair you know
That they our heavenly joy should share
Who vex us here below!
The few are those who have been kind
To husbands such as we--
They knew our fads, and didn't mind,"
Says Dibdin's ghost to me.
"But what of those who scold at us
When we would read in bed?
Or, wanting victuals, make a fuss
If we buy books, instead?
And what of those who've dusted not
Our motley pride and boast?
Shall they profane that sacred spot?"
Says I to Dibdin's ghost.
"Oh, no! they tread that other path
Which leads where torments roll,
And worms--yes bookworms--vent their wrath
Upon the guilty soul!
Untouched of bibliomaniac grace
That saveth such as we,
They wallow in that dreadful place!"
Says Dibdin's ghost to me.
"To my dear wife will I recite
What things I've heard you say;
She'll let me read the books by night
She's let me buy by day;
For we, together, by and by,
Would join that heavenly host--
She's earned a rest as well as I!"
Says I to Dibdin's ghost.
Sonnets: Idea XXXVII
by Michael Drayton

Dear, why should you command me to my rest,
When now the night doth summon all to sleep?
Methinks this time becometh lovers best;
Night was ordained together friends to keep.
How happy are all other living things,
Which though the day disjoin by several flight,
The quiet evening yet together brings,
And each returns unto his love at night!
O thou that art so courteous else to all,
Why shouldst thou, Night, abuse me only thus,
That every creature to his kind dost call,
And yet 'tis thou dost only sever us?
Well could I wish it would be ever day,
If when night comes, you bid me go away.
Verses To The Tomb Of A Friend.
by John Carr (Sir)

Dearer to me, thou pile of dust!
Tho' with the wild flow'r simply crown'd,
Than the vast dome or beauteous bust,
By genius form'd, by wit renown'd.
Wave, thou wild flow'r! for ever wave,
O'er my lov'd relic of delight;
My tears shall bathe her green-rob'd grave
More than the dews of heav'n by night.
Methinks my Delia bids me go,
Says, "Florio, dry that fruitless tear!
Feed not a wild flow'r with thy woe,
Thy long-lov'd Delia is not here.
"No drop of feeling from her eye
Now starts to hear thy sorrows speak;
And, did thy bosom know one joy,
No smile would bloom upon her cheek.
"Pale, wan, and torpid, droops that cheek,
Whereon thy lip impress'd its red;
Those eyes, which Florio taught to speak,
Unnotic'd close amid the dead!"
True, true, too idly mourns this heart;
Why, Mem'ry, dost thou paint the past?
Why say you saw my Delia part,
Still press'd, still lov'd her, to the last?
Then, thou wild flow'r, for ever wave!
To thee this parting tear is given;
The sigh I offer at her grave
Shall reach my sainted love in heaven!
The Explorer
by John Le Gay Brereton

I
Dearest, when I left your side,
I stood a moment, hesitating,
And plunged. The boiling tide
Of darkness took me, and down I went
Swift as a bird with folded wing,
And upward sent
The bubbles of my vital breath
That shuddered from my secret deeps
To freedom and light;
Then, dimly, on my sight
Opened the still abode of living death.
Amid the mire,
In which invisibly sightless horror creeps,
Sat, each intent on his own woe,
The host that burns with inward fire,
Crowded like monuments of memorial stone
Beneath a pitchy sky
Where even the flash of tempest dare not show,
Yet each of them alone;
And each was I.
II
Breathless I struggled up,
As if the gloom had arms to clutch at me
And drag and hold,
Until the daylight's gold
Shook faintly above my dizzy head
And parted suddenly, that I might see
The sky, a sheltering cup
Of hopeful azure, and your eyes of blue,
One promise and yet two
Of harbouring bliss;
And your lips parted and said,
'Shall not we twain
Find joy upon joy on earth
Together and see,
In the kinship of all that has birth
From the mutual reach of desire,
A joy beyond this,
A fire at the heart of the fire?'
And we clung till our spirit was free
As the flame of a kiss.
III
So we soared and the earth fell away, and the region of night
Was melted in limitless day of ineffable light
Till the myriad souls of the dead were united as we,
Themselves, and yet merged in the spread of an infinite sea
The joy that is life, and around us, below and above,
The One that all lovers have found, our eternity, Love.
Savitri. Part III.
by Toru Dutt

Death in his palace holds his court,
His messengers move to and fro,
Each of his mission makes report,
And takes the royal orders,--Lo,
Some slow before his throne appear
And humbly in the Presence kneel:
"Why hath the Prince not been brought here?
The hour is past; nor is appeal
Allowed against foregone decree;
There is the mandate with the seal!
How comes it ye return to me
Without him? Shame upon your zeal!"
"O King, whom all men fear,--he lies
Deep in the dark Medhya wood,
We fled from thence in wild surprise,
And left him in that solitude.
We dared not touch him, for there sits,
Beside him, lighting all the place,
A woman fair, whose brow permits
In its austerity of grace
And purity,--no creatures foul
As we seemed, by her loveliness,
Or soul of evil, ghost or ghoul,
To venture close, and far, far less
"To stretch a hand, and bear the dead;
We left her leaning on her hand,
Thoughtful; no tear-drop had she shed,
But looked the goddess of the land,
With her meek air of mild command."--
"Then on this errand I must go
Myself, and bear my dreaded brand,
This duty unto Fate I owe;
I know the merits of the prince,
But merit saves not from the doom
Common to man; his death long since
Was destined in his beauty's bloom."
A Dirge
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Death and a dirge at midnight;
Yet never a soul in the house
Heard anything more than the throb and beat
Of a beautiful waltz of Strauss.
Dead, dead, dead, and staring,
With a ghastly smile on its face;
But the world saw only laughing eyes
And roses, and billows of lace.
Floating and whirling together,
Into the beautiful night,
How little you dreamed of the ghastly thing
I was hiding away from your sight.
Meeting your dark eyes' splendour,
Feeling your warm, sweet breath,
How could you know that my passionate heart
Had died a horrible death?
Died in its fever and fervour,
Died in its beautiful bloom;
And that waltz of Strauss was a funeral dirge,
Leading the way to the tomb.
But you held my hand at parting,
And I smiled back a gay good night;
And you never knew of the ghastly corpse
I was hiding away from your sight.
Yet whenever I hear the Danube -
Under its pulsing strain,
I catch the wail of the funeral dirge,
And my heart dies over again.
Death.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Death is like the insect
Menacing the tree,
Competent to kill it,
But decoyed may be.
Bait it with the balsam,
Seek it with the knife,
Baffle, if it cost you
Everything in life.
Then, if it have burrowed
Out of reach of skill,
Ring the tree and leave it, --
'T is the vermin's will.
To Dianeme
by Robert Herrick

Dear, though to part it be a hell,
Yet, Dianeme, now farewell!
Thy frown last night did bid me go,
But whither, only grief does know.
I do beseech thee, ere we part,
(If merciful, as fair thou art;
Or else desir'st that maids should tell
Thy pity by Love's chronicle)
O, Dianeme, rather kill
Me, than to make me languish still!
'Tis cruelty in thee to th' height,
Thus, thus to wound, not kill outright;
Yet there's a way found, if thou please,
By sudden death, to give me ease;
And thus devised,--do thou but this,
--Bequeath to me one parting kiss!
So sup'rabundant joy shall be
The executioner of me.
The Philosopher To His Love
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Dearest, a look is but a ray
Reflected in a certain way;
A word, whatever tone it wear,
Is but a trembling wave of air;
A touch, obedience to a clause
In nature's pure material laws.
The very flowers that bend and meet,
In sweetening others, grow more sweet;
The clouds by day, the stars by night,
Inweave their floating locks of light;
The rainbow, Heaven's own forehead's braid,
Is but the embrace of sun and shade.
Oh! in the hour when I shall feel
Those shadows round my senses steal,
When gentle eyes are weeping o'er
The clay that feels their tears no more,
Then let thy spirit with me be,
Or some sweet angel, likest thee!
How few that love us have we found!
How wide the world that girds them round
Like mountain streams we meet and part,
Each living in the other's heart,
Our course unknown, our hope to be
Yet mingled in the distant sea.
But Ocean coils and heaves in vain,
Bound in the subtle moonbeam's chain;
And love and hope do but obey
Some cold, capricious planet's ray,
Which lights and leads the tide it charms
To Death's dark caves and icy arms.
Alas! one narrow line is drawn,
That links our sunset with our dawn;
In mist and shade life's morning rose,
And clouds are round it at its close;
But ah! no twilight beam ascends
To whisper where that evening ends.
Respectability
by Robert Browning

Dear, had the world in its caprice
Deigned to proclaim 'I know you both,
'Have recognized your plighted troth,
Am sponsor for you: live in peace!'
How many precious months and years
Of youth had passed, that speed so fast,
Before we found it out at last,
The world, and what it fears?
How much of priceless life were spent
With men that every virtue decks,
And women models of their sex,
Society's true ornament,
Ere we dared wander, nights like this,
Thro' wind and rain, and watch the Seine,
And feel the Boulevart break again
To warmth and light and bliss?
I know! the world proscribes not love;
Allows my finger to caress
Your lips' contour and downiness,
Provided it supply a glove.
The world's good word! the Institute!
Guizot receives Montalembert!
Eh? Down the court three lampions flare:
Put forward your best foot!
To My Friend.
by Nora Pembroke (Margaret Moran Dixon McDougall)

Dearest of all, whose tenderness could rise
To share all sorrow and to soothe all pain;
The blessings breathed for thee with weeping eyes
Will come to thee as sunshine after rain.
My spirit clings to thine, dear, in this hour;
Thy sorrow touches me as though 'twere mine;
And pleading prayers for thee shall have the power
To draw down comfort from my Lord and thine.
For thou hast felt the sorrow and the care
Of other lives, as though they were thine own;
And grateful prayers, for a memorial are
Laid up for thee before the great white throne.
You sit bereaved, and I sit with you there
In sympathy, my soul and yours can meet;
Missing the face that was so very fair,
Missing the voice that was so very sweet.
I know how hard to bear heart-hunger is
For her quaint words and bits of bird-like song;
The touch of dimpled hands, the soft warm kiss,
O Friend, it makes the "little while" so long!
Take comfort, dear, the "little while" is brief,
It is His love sends pain to thee or me,
We gather fruit of peace from blossomed grief
And where our treasure is our hearts shall be
'Tis good to suffer, as He knows whose hand
Mixes the bitterness for every cup,
No grief befals but love divine has planned,
Every bereavement cries to us, look up
Dearest, look up, and see where, sweet and fair,
Flow the bright waters ruffled by no storm,
Under the trees whose leaves for healing are,
See 'mid the blessed throng one angel form
The tired pet, who wanted to go home,
The Elder Brother drew her to his breast,
Earth weariness earth soil alike unknown,
Crowned without conflict, bore her into rest
Among the shining ones she walks my friend,
Robed in the garments of her Fatherland,
And your earth-weary feet shall upward tend,
Drawn by the beck of that dear pierced hand
Who in his arms enfolds your little one,
And calls you, "Come up higher where we are,
For with the well belov'd the child is gone,
Follow and faint not, friend, it is not far
"The little one for whom your fond heart bleeds,
The dear, dear lamb who sees her Father's face,
Up to the great white throne the rough path leads,
Where Christ shall fold you both in one embrace"
The Unseen
by Sara Teasdale

Death went up the hall
Unseen by every one,
Trailing twilight robes
Past the nurse and the nun.
He paused at every door
And listened to the breath
Of those who did not know
How near they were to Death.
Death went up the hall
Unseen by nurse and nun;
He passed by many a door
But he entered one.
Sr'hmand'zi*
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

Deep embowered beside the forest river,
Where the flame of sunset only falls,
Lapped in silence lies the House of Dying,
House of them to whom the twilight calls.
There within when day was near to ending,
By her lord a woman young and strong,
By his chief a songman old and stricken
Watched together till the hour of song.
"O my songman, now the bow is broken,
Now the arrows one by one are sped,
Sing to me the song of Sr'hmand'zi,
Sr'hmand'zi, home of all the dead."
Then the songman, flinging wide his songnet,
On the last token laid his master's hand,
While he sang the song of Sr'hmand'zi,
None but dying men can understand.
"Yonder sun that fierce and fiery-hearted
Marches down the sky to vanish soon,
At the self-same hour in Sr'hmand'zi
Rises pallid like the rainy moon.
"There he sees the heroes by their river,
Where the great fish daily upward swim;
Yet they are but shadows hunting shadows,
Phantom fish in waters drear and dim.
"There he sees the kings among their headmen,
Women weaving, children playing games;
Yet they are but shadows ruling shadows,
Phantom folk with dim forgotten names.
"Bid farewell to all that most thou lovest,
Tell thy heart thy living life is done;
All the days and deeds of Sr'hmand'zi
Are not worth an hour of yonder sun.
Dreamily the chief from out the songnet
Drew his hand and touched the woman's head:
"Know they not, then, love in Sr'hmand'zi?
Has a king no bride among the dead?"
Then the songman answered, "O my master,
Love they know, but none may learn it there;
Only souls that reach that land together
Keep their troth and find the twilight fair.
"Thou art still a king, and at thy passing
By thy latest word must all abide:
If thou willest, here am I, thy songman;
If thou lovest, here is she, thy bride."
Hushed and dreamy lay the House of Dying,
Dreamily the sunlight upward failed,
Dreamily the chief on eyes that loved him
Looked with eyes the coming twilight veiled.
Then he cried, "My songman, I am passing;
Let her live, her life is but begun;
All the days and nights of Sr'hmand'zi
Are not worth an hour of yonder sun."
Yet, when there within the House of Dying
The last silence held the sunset air,
Not alone he came to Sr'hmand'zi,
Not alone she found the twilight fair:
While the songman, far beneath the forest
Sang of Srahmandazi all night through,
"Lovely be thy name, O Land of shadows,
Land of meeting, Land of all the true!"
Death Stands Above Me, Whispering Low
by Walter Savage Landor

Death stands above me, whispering low
I know not what into my ear:
Of his strange language all I know
Is, there is not a word of fear.
Baby Mary
by Madison Julius Cawein

TO LITTLE M. E. C. G.
Deep in baby Mary's eyes,
Baby Mary's sweet blue eyes,
Dwell the golden memories
Of the music once her ears
Heard in far-off Paradise;
So she has no time for tears, 
Baby Mary, 
Listening to the songs she hears.
Soft in baby Mary's face,
Baby Mary's lovely face,
If you watch, you, too, may trace
Dreams her spirit-self hath seen
In some far-off Eden-place,
Whence her soul she can not wean, 
Baby Mary, 
Dreaming in a world between.
The Bull And The Mastiff.
by John Gay

Deem you to train your son and heir,
For his preceptor then take care;
To sound his mind your cares employ,
E'er you commit to him your boy.
Once on a time on native plain
A bull enjoyed a native reign.
A mastiff, stranger there, with ire
Beheld the bull, with eyes of fire.
The bovine monarch, on his part,
Spurned up the dust with dauntless heart,
Advised the mastiff to think twice,
And asked - if lust or avarice,
From which, in main, contention springs,
Caused him to break the peace of kings?
The mastiff answered him, 'twas glory - 
To emulate the sons of story;
Told him that C'sar was his sire,
And he a prince baptized in fire;
That rifles and the mitrailleur
Had thrown his bosom in a stir.
"Accursed cur!" the bull replied,
"Delighting in the sanguine tide:
If you are Revolution trained,
Doubtless your paws with blood are stained - 
Demons that take delight in slaughter,
And pour out human blood as water - 
Take then thy fate." With goring wound
The monarch tossed him from the ground
In air gyrating - on the stones
He fell a mass of broken bones.
The Lute and the Lyre
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Deep desire, that pierces heart and spirit to the root,
Finds reluctant voice in verse that yearns like soaring fire,
Takes exultant voice when music holds in high pursuit
Deep desire.
Keen as burns the passion of the rose whose buds respire,
Strong as grows the yearning of the blossom toward the fruit,
Sounds the secret half unspoken ere the deep tones tire.
Slow subsides the rapture that possessed love's flower-soft lute,
Slow the palpitation of the triumph of the lyre:
Still the soul feels burn, a flame unslaked though these be mute,
Deep desire.
Nursery Rhyme. CCCCXV. Jingles.
by Unknown

Deedle, deedle, dumpling, my son John
Went to bed with his trowsers on;
One shoe off, the other shoe on,
Deedle, deedle, dumpling, my son John.
Late November
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
Morning
Deep in her broom-sedge, burs and iron-weeds,
Her frost-slain asters and dead mallow-moons,
Where gray the wilding clematis balloons
The brake with puff-balls: where the slow stream leads
Her sombre steps: decked with the scarlet beads
Of hip and haw: through dolorous maroons
And desolate golds, she goes: the wailing tunes
Of all the winds about her like wild reeds.
The red wrought-iron hues that flush the green
Of blackberry briers, and the bronze that stains
The oak's sere leaves, are in her cheeks: the gray
Of forest pools, clocked thin with ice, is keen
In her cold eyes: and in her hair the rain's
Chill silver glimmers like a winter ray.
II.
Noon
Lost in the sleepy grays and drowsy browns
Of woodlands, smoky with the autumn haze,
Where dull the last leafed maples, smouldering, blaze
Like ghosts of wigwam fires, the Month uncrowns
Her frosty hair, and where the forest drowns
The road in shadows, in the rutted ways,
Filled full of freezing rain, her robe she lays
Of tattered gold, and seats herself and frowns.
And at her frown each wood and bushy hill
Darkens with prescience of approaching storm,
Her soul's familiar fiend, who, with wild broom
Of wind and rain, works her resistless will,
Sweeping the world, and driving with mad arm
The clouds, like leaves, through the tumultuous gloom.
III.
Evening
The shivering wind sits in the oaks, whose limbs,
Twisted and tortured, nevermore are still;
Grief and decay sit with it, they, whose chill
Autumnal touch makes hectic red the rims
Of all the oak leaves; desolating dims
The ageratum's blue that banks the rill,
And splits the milkweed's pod upon the hill,
And shakes it free of the last seed that swims.
Down goes the day despondent to its close:
And now the sunset's hands of copper build
A tower of brass, behind whose burning bars
The day, in fierce, barbarian repose,
Like some imprisoned Inca sits, hate-filled,
Crowned with the gold corymbus of the stars.
IV.
Night
There is a booming in the forest boughs:
Tremendous feet seem trampling through the trees:
The storm is at his wildman revelries,
And earth and heaven echo his carouse.
Night reels with tumult. And from out her house
Of cloud the moon looks, like a face one sees
In nightmare, hurrying with pale eyes that freeze,
Stooping above with white, malignant brows.
The isolated oak upon the hill,
That seemed, at sunset, in terrific lands
A Titan head black in a sea of blood,
Now seems a monster harp, whose wild strings thrill
To the vast fingering of innumerable hands,
The Spirits of Tempest and of Solitude.
God in the Night
by Abram Joseph Ryan

Deep in the dark I hear the feet of God:
He walks the world; He puts His holy hand
On every sleeper -- only puts His hand --
Within it benedictions for each one --
Then passes on; but ah! whene'er He meets
A watcher waiting for Him, He is glad.
(Does God, like man, feel lonely in the dark?)
He rests His hand upon the watcher's brow --
But more than that, He leaves His very breath
Upon the watcher's soul; and more than this,
He stays for holy hours where watchers pray;
And more than that, He ofttimes lifts the veils
That hide the visions of the world unseen.
The brightest sanctities of highest souls
Have blossomed into beauty in the dark.
How extremes meet! the very darkest crimes
That blight the souls of men are strangely born
Beneath the shadows of the holy night.
Deep in the dark I hear his holy feet --
Around Him rustle archangelic wings;
He lingers by the temple where His Christ
Is watching in His Eucharistic sleep;
And where poor hearts in sorrow cannot rest,
He lingers there to soothe their weariness.
Where mothers weep above the dying child,
He stays to bless the mother's bitter tears,
And consecrates the cradle of her child,
Which is to her her spirit's awful cross.
He shudders past the haunts of sin -- yet leaves
E'er there a mercy for the wayward hearts.
Still as a shadow through the night He moves,
With hands all full of blessings, and with heart
All full of everlasting love; ah, me!
How God does love this poor and sinful world!
The stars behold Him as He passes on,
And arch His path of mercy with their rays;
The stars are grateful -- He gave them their light,
And now they give Him back the light He gave.
The shadows tremble in adoring awe;
They feel His presence, and they know His face.
The shadows, too, are grateful -- could they pray,
How they would flower all His way with prayers!
The sleeping trees wake up from all their dreams --
Were their leaves lips, ah, me! how they would sing
A grand Magnificat, as His Mary sang.
The lowly grasses and the fair-faced flowers
Watch their Creator as He passes on,
And mourn they have no hearts to love their God,
And sigh they have no souls to be beloved.
Man -- only man -- the image of his God --
Lets God pass by when He walks forth at night.
Invasion
by Alfred Lichtenstein

Decline already - 
But that was quick...
Hardly a trace of rising - 
I have grown above the whole world.
I have become the complete God
And horribly awake.
And now I must cast away death.
My death is mute
And without images...
Without redemption -
Atavism
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

Deep in the jungle vast and dim,
That knew not a white man's feet,
I smelt the odour of sun-warmed fur,
Musky, savage, and sweet.
Far it was from the huts of men
And the grass where Sambur feed;
I threw a stone at a Kadapu tree
That bled as a man might bleed.
Scent of fur and colour of blood: - 
And the long dead instincts rose,
I followed the lure of my season's mate, - 
And flew, bare-fanged, at my foes.
*         *         *
Pale days: and a league of laws
Made by the whims of men.
Would I were back with my furry cubs
In the dusk of a jungle den.