DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Life's Undercurrent.
by Alfred Castner King

Within the precincts of a hospital,
I wandered in a sympathetic mood;
Where face to face with wormwood and with gall,
With wrecks of pain and stern vicissitude,
The eye unused to human misery
Might view life's undercurrent vividly.
My gaze soon rested on the stricken form
Of one succumbing to the fever's drouth,
With throbbing brow intolerably warm,
With wasted lips and mute appealing mouth;
And when I watched that prostrate figure there
I thought that fate must be the worst to bear.
I next beheld a thin but patient face,
Aged by the constant twinge of hopeless pain,
Wheeled in an easy chair from place to place,
A form which ne'er might stand erect again;
I viewed that human shipwreck in his chair,
And thought a fate like that was worst to bear.
Within her room a beauteous maiden lay,
Moaning in agony no words express,
A cancer eating rapidly away
Her vital force,--so foul and pitiless;
And when I saw that face, so young and fair,
I thought such anguish was the worst to bear.
A helpless paralytic met my eyes,
Whose hands might never grasp a friendly hand,
But hung distorted and of shrunken size,
Insensible to muscular command;
His face an abject picture of despair;
I thought a fate like that was worst to bear.
With wasted form, emaciate and wan,
A pale consumptive coughed with labored breath,
His sunken eyes and hectic flush upon
His cheek, foretold a sure but lingering death;
I thought, whene'er I met his hollow stare,
A wasting death like that was worst to bear.
That day with fetters obdurate and fast,
With chain of summer, winter, spring and fall,
Is bounden to the dim receding past;
Time o'er my life has spread a somber pall,
With sightless eyes I grope and clutch the air,
My lot is now the hardest lot to bear.
Within Thine Eyes.
by Charles Sangster

Within thine eyes two spirits dwell,
The sweetest and the purest
That ever wove Love's mystic spell,
Or plied his arts the surest:
No smile of morn,
Though heaven-born,
Nor sunshine earthward straying,
E'er charmed the sight
With half the light
That round thy lips is playing.
The stars may shine, the moon may smile,
The earth in beauty languish,
Life's sorrows these can but beguile,
But thou canst heal its anguish.
Thy voice, like rills
Of silver, trills
Such sounds of liquid sweetness,
Each accent rolls
Along our souls,
In lyrical completeness.
If Friendship lend thee such a grace,
That men nor gods may slight it,
How blest the one who views thy face
When Love comes down to light it!
And, oh, if he
Who holds in fee
Thy beauty, truth, and reason,
A traitor prove
To thee and Love,
We'll spurn him for his treason.
To Laura In Death. Sonnet I.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Oim' il bel viso! oim' il soave sguardo!
ON THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DEATH OF LAURA.
Woe for the 'witching look of that fair face!
The port where ease with dignity combined!
Woe for those accents, that each savage mind
To softness tuned, to noblest thoughts the base!
And the sweet smile, from whence the dart I trace,
Which now leaves death my only hope behind!
Exalted soul, most fit on thrones to 've shined,
But that too late she came this earth to grace!
For you I still must burn, and breathe in you;
For I was ever yours; of you bereft,
Full little now I reck all other care.
With hope and with desire you thrill'd me through,
When last my only joy on earth I left:--
But caught by winds each word was lost in air.
ANON., OX., 1795.
Alas! that touching glance, that beauteous face!
Alas! that dignity with sweetness fraught!
Alas! that speech which tamed the wildest thought!
That roused the coward, glory to embrace!
Alas! that smile which in me did encase
That fatal dart, whence here I hope for nought--
Oh! hadst thou earlier our regions sought,
The world had then confess'd thy sovereign grace!
In thee I breathed, life's flame was nursed by thee,
For I was thine; and since of thee bereaved,
Each other woe hath lost its venom'd sting:
My soul's blest joy! when last thy voice on me
In music fell, my heart sweet hope conceived;
Alas! thy words have sped on zephyrs' wings!
WOLLASTON.
Fortune
by Madison Julius Cawein

Within the hollowed hand of God,
Blood-red they lie, the dice of fate,
That have no time nor period,
And know no early and no late.
Postpone you can not, nor advance
Success or failure that's to be;
All fortune, being born of chance,
Is bastard-child to destiny.
Bow down your head, or hold it high,
Consent, defy--no smallest part
Of this you change, although the die
Was fashioned from your living heart.
Wo! Wo!
by Thomas Moore

[1]
Wo, wo unto him who would check or disturb it--
That beautiful Light which is now on its way;
Which beaming, at first, o'er the bogs of Belturbet,
Now brightens sweet Ballinafad with its ray!
Oh Farnham, Saint Farnham, how much do we owe thee!
How formed to all tastes are thy various employs.
The old, as a catcher of Catholics, know thee;
The young, as an amateur scourger of boys.
Wo, wo to the man who such doings would smother!--
On, Luther of Bavan! On, Saint of Kilgroggy!
With whip in one hand and with Bible in t'other,
Like Mungo's tormentor, both "preachee and floggee."
Come, Saints from all quarters, and marshal his way;
Come, Lorton, who, scorning profane erudition,
Popt Shakespeare, they say, in the river one day,
Tho' 'twas only old Bowdler's Velluti edition.
Come, Roden, who doubtest--so mild are thy views--
Whether Bibles or bullets are best for the nation;
Who leav'st to poor Paddy no medium to choose
'Twixt good old Rebellion and new Reformation.
What more from her Saints can Hibernia require?
St. Bridget of yore like a dutiful daughter
Supplied her, 'tis said, with perpetual fire,[2]
And Saints keep her now in eternal hot water.
Wo, wo to the man who would check their career,
Or stop the Millennium that's sure to await us,
When blest with an orthodox crop every year,
We shall learn to raise Protestants fast as potatoes.
In kidnapping Papists, our rulers, we know,
Had been trying their talent for many a day;
Till Farnham, when all had been tried, came to show,
Like the German flea-catcher, "anoder goot way."
And nothing's more simple than Farnham's receipt;--
"Catch your Catholic, first--soak him well in poteen,
"Add salary sauce,[3] and the thing is complete.
"You may serve up your Protestant smoking and clean."
"Wo, wo to the wag, who would laugh at such cookery!"
Thus, from his perch, did I hear a black crow[4]
Caw angrily out, while the rest of the rookery
Opened their bills and re-echoed "Wo! wo!"
St. Laurence
by Alfred Joyce Kilmer (Joyce)

Within the broken Vatican
The murdered Pope is lying dead.
The soldiers of Valerian
Their evil hands are wet and red.
Unarmed, unmoved, St. Laurence waits,
His cassock is his only mail.
The troops of Hell have burst the gates,
But Christ is Lord, He shall prevail.
They have encompassed him with steel,
They spit upon his gentle face,
He smiles and bleeds, nor will reveal
The Church's hidden treasure-place.
Ah, faithful steward, worthy knight,
Well hast thou done.    Behold thy fee!
Since thou hast fought the goodly fight
A martyr's death is fixed for thee.
St. Laurence, pray for us to bear
The faith which glorifies thy name.
St. Laurence, pray for us to share
The wounds of Love's consuming flame.
King Witlaf's Drinking-Horn
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Witlaf, a king of the Saxons,
Ere yet his last he breathed,
To the merry monks of Croyland
His drinking-horn bequeathed,--
That, whenever they sat at their revels,
And drank from the golden bowl,
They might remember the donor,
And breathe a prayer for his soul.
So sat they once at Christmas,
And bade the goblet pass;
In their beards the red wine glistened
Like dew-drops in the grass.
They drank to the soul of Witlaf,
They drank to Christ the Lord,
And to each of the Twelve Apostles,
Who had preached his holy word.
They drank to the Saints and Martyrs
Of the dismal days of yore,
And as soon as the horn was empty
They remembered one Saint more.
And the reader droned from the pulpit
Like the murmur of many bees,
The legend of good Saint Guthlac,
And Saint Basil's homilies;
Till the great bells of the convent,
From their prison in the tower,
Guthlac and Bartholomaeus,
Proclaimed the midnight hour.
And the Yule-log cracked in the chimney,
And the Abbot bowed his head,
And the flamelets flapped and flickered,
But the Abbot was stark and dead.
Yet still in his pallid fingers
He clutched the golden bowl,
In which, like a pearl dissolving,
Had sunk and dissolved his soul.
But not for this their revels
The jovial monks forbore,
For they cried, "Fill high the goblet!
We must drink to one Saint more!"
How Jack Found That Beans May Go Back On A Chap
by Guy Wetmore Carryl

Without the slightest basis
For hypochondriasis
A widow had forebodings which a cloud around her flung,
And with expression cynical
For half the day a clinical
Thermometer she held beneath her tongue.
Whene'er she read the papers
She suffered from the vapors,
At every tale of malady or accident she'd groan;
In every new and smart disease,
From housemaid's knee to heart disease,
She recognized the symptoms as her own!
She had a yearning chronic
To try each novel tonic,
Elixir, panacea, lotion, opiate, and balm;
And from a homoeopathist
Would change to an hydropathist,
And back again, with stupefying calm!
The closets of her villa
Were full of sarsaparilla,
Ammonia, digitalis, bronchial troches, soda mint.
Restoratives hirsutical,
And soaps to clean the cuticle,
And iodine, and peptonoids, and lint.
She was nervous, cataleptic,
And anemic, and dyspeptic:
Though not convinced of apoplexy, yet she had her fears.
She dwelt with force fanatical
Upon a twinge rheumatical,
And said she had a buzzing in her ears!
Now all of this bemoaning
And this grumbling and this groaning
The mind of Jack, her son and heir, unconscionably bored.
His heart completely hardening,
He gave his time to gardening,
For raising beans was something he adored.
Each hour in accents morbid
This limp maternal bore bid
Her callous son affectionate and lachrymose good-bys.
She never granted Jack a day
Without some long "Alackaday!"
Accompanied by rolling of the eyes.
But Jack, no panic showing,
Just watched his beanstalk growing,
And twined with tender fingers the tendrils up the pole.
At all her words funereal
He smiled a smile ethereal,
Or sighed an absent-minded "Bless my soul!"
That hollow-hearted creature
Would never change a feature:
No tear bedimmed his eye, however touching was her talk.
She never fussed or flurried him,
The only thing that worried him
Was when no bean-pods grew upon the stalk!
But then he wabbled loosely
His head, and wept profusely,
And, taking out his handkerchief to mop away his tears,
Exclaimed: "It hasn't got any!"
He found this blow to botany
Was sadder than were all his mother's fears.
The Moral is that gardeners pine
Whene'er no pods adorn the vine.
Of all sad words experience gleans
The saddest are: "It might have beans."
(I did not make this up myself:
'Twas in a book upon my shelf.
It's witty, but I don't deny
It's rather Whittier than I!)
My Voice
by Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde

Within this restless, hurried, modern world
We took our hearts' full pleasure You and I,
And now the white sails of our ship are furled,
And spent the lading of our argosy.
Wherefore my cheeks before their time are wan,
For very weeping is my gladness fled,
Sorrow has paled my young mouth's vermilion,
And Ruin draws the curtains of my bed.
But all this crowded life has been to thee
No more than lyre, or lute, or subtle spell
Of viols, or the music of the sea
That sleeps, a mimic echo, in the shell.
In The Metropolitan Museum
by Sara Teasdale

Within the tiny Pantheon
We stood together silently,
Leaving the restless crowd awhile
As ships find shelter from the sea.
The ancient centuries came back
To cover us a moment's space,
And thro' the dome the light was glad
Because it shone upon your face.
Ah, not from Rome but farther still,
Beyond sun-smitten Salamis,
The moment took us, till you stooped
To find the present with a kiss.
Benedictio Domini
by Ernest Christopher Dowson

Without, the sullen noises of the street!
The voice of London, inarticulate,
Hoarse and blaspheming, surges in to meet
The silent blessing of the Immaculate.
Dark is the church, and dim the worshippers,
Hushed with bowed heads as though by some old spell.
While through the incense-laden air there stirs
The admonition of a silver bell.
Dark is the church, save where the altar stands,
Dressed like a bride, illustrious with light,
Where one old priest exalts with tremulous hands
The one true solace of man's fallen plight.
Strange silence here: without, the sounding street
Heralds the world's swift passage to the fire:
O Benediction, perfect and complete!
When shall men cease to suffer and desire?
On A Flemish Window-Pane.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("J'aime le carillon dans tes cit's antiques.")
[XVIII., August, 1837.]
Within thy cities of the olden time
Dearly I love to list the ringing chime,
Thou faithful guardian of domestic worth,
Noble old Flanders! where the rigid North
A flush of rich meridian glow doth feel,
Caught from reflected suns of bright Castile.
The chime, the clinking chime! To Fancy's eye - 
Prompt her affections to personify - 
It is the fresh and frolic hour, arrayed
In guise of Andalusian dancing maid,
Appealing by a crevice fine and rare,
As of a door oped in "th' incorporal air."
She comes! o'er drowsy roofs, inert and dull,
Shaking her lap, of silv'ry music full,
Rousing without remorse the drones abed,
Tripping like joyous bird with tiniest tread,
Quiv'ring like dart that trembles in the targe,
By a frail crystal stair, whose viewless marge
Bears her slight footfall, tim'rous half, yet free,
In innocent extravagance of glee
The graceful elf alights from out the spheres,
While the quick spirit - thing of eyes and ears - 
As now she goes, now comes, mounts, and anon
Descends, those delicate degrees upon,
Hears her melodious spirit from step to step run on.
Fraser's Magazine
The Wren
by John Frederick Freeman

Within the greenhouse dim and damp
The heat floats like a cloud.
Pale rose-leaves droop from the rust roof
With rust-edged roses bowed.
As I go in
Out flies the startled wren.
By the tall dark fir tree he sings
Morn after morn still,
Shy and bold he flits and sings
Tinily sweet and shrill.
As I go out
His song follows me about ...
About the orchard under trees
Beaded with cherries bright,
Past the rat-haunted Honeybourne
And up those hills of light:
As up I go
His notes more sweetly flow.
Or down those dark hills when night's there
Full of dark thoughts and deep,
A thin clear soundless music comes
Like stars in broken sleep.
When I come down
All those dark thoughts are flown.
And now that sweetness is more sweet,
Here where the aeroplanes
Labouring and groaning in the height
Lift their lifeless vans:--
Sweet, sweet to hear
The far off wren singing clear.
Reflecting upon a Human Lung in Alcohol
by Alfred Lichtenstein

Without horror you devour dead flesh every day.
And dead blood is a sweet syrup for you.
Aren't you afraid? - 
Indeed your earliest fathers also had,
And before you awoke,
Crammed thousands of the dead into your body.
However, how deeply frightened must the first person who killed
An animal have been - 
Because, when he saw that what roamed about,
What could jump and cry out and in the moment of death
Still could watch the beseeching world,
In a moment
Was not there.
The Ideal Of Woman. To Amanda.
by Friedrich Schiller

Woman in everything yields to man; but in that which is highest,
Even the manliest man yields to the woman most weak.
But that highest, what is it? The gentle radiance of triumph
As in thy brow upon me, beauteous Amanda, it beams.
When o'er the bright shining disk the clouds of affliction are fleeting,
Fairer the image appears, seen through the vapor of gold.
Man may think himself free! thou art so, for thou never knowest
What is the meaning of choice, know'st not necessity's name.
That which thou givest, thou always givest wholly; but one art thou ever,
Even thy tenderest sound is thine harmonious self.
Youth everlasting dwells here, with fulness that never is exhausted,
And with the flower at once pluckest thou the ripe golden fruit.
Within Us All
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Within us all a universe doth dwell;
And hence each people's usage laudable,
That ev'ry one the Best that meets his eyes
As God, yea e'en his God, doth recognise;
To Him both earth and heaven surrenders he,
Fears Him, and loves Him too, if that may be.
Conscience
by Madison Julius Cawein

Within the soul are throned two powers,
One, Love; one, Hate. Begot of these,
And veiled between, a presence towers,
The shadowy keeper of the keys.
With wild command or calm persuasion
This one may argue, that compel;
Vain are concealment and evasion--
For each he opens heaven and hell.
The Twelve-Forty-Five
by Alfred Joyce Kilmer (Joyce)

(For Edward J. Wheeler)
Within the Jersey City shed
The engine coughs and shakes its head,
The smoke, a plume of red and white,
Waves madly in the face of night.
And now the grave incurious stars
Gleam on the groaning hurrying cars.
Against the kind and awful reign
Of darkness, this our angry train,
A noisy little rebel, pouts
Its brief defiance, flames and shouts --
And passes on, and leaves no trace.
For darkness holds its ancient place,
Serene and absolute, the king
Unchanged, of every living thing.
The houses lie obscure and still
In Rutherford and Carlton Hill.
Our lamps intensify the dark
Of slumbering Passaic Park.
And quiet holds the weary feet
That daily tramp through Prospect Street.
What though we clang and clank and roar
Through all Passaic's streets?    No door
Will open, not an eye will see
Who this loud vagabond may be.
Upon my crimson cushioned seat,
In manufactured light and heat,
I feel unnatural and mean.
Outside the towns are cool and clean;
Curtained awhile from sound and sight
They take God's gracious gift of night.
The stars are watchful over them.
On Clifton as on Bethlehem
The angels, leaning down the sky,
Shed peace and gentle dreams.    And I --
I ride, I blasphemously ride
Through all the silent countryside.
The engine's shriek, the headlight's glare,
Pollute the still nocturnal air.
The cottages of Lake View sigh
And sleeping, frown as we pass by.
Why, even strident Paterson
Rests quietly as any nun.
Her foolish warring children keep
The grateful armistice of sleep.
For what tremendous errand's sake
Are we so blatantly awake?
What precious secret is our freight?
What king must be abroad so late?
Perhaps Death roams the hills to-night
And we rush forth to give him fight.
Or else, perhaps, we speed his way
To some remote unthinking prey.
Perhaps a woman writhes in pain
And listens -- listens for the train!
The train, that like an angel sings,
The train, with healing on its wings.
Now "Hawthorne!" the conductor cries.
My neighbor starts and rubs his eyes.
He hurries yawning through the car
And steps out where the houses are.
This is the reason of our quest!
Not wantonly we break the rest
Of town and village, nor do we
Lightly profane night's sanctity.
What Love commands the train fulfills,
And beautiful upon the hills
Are these our feet of burnished steel.
Subtly and certainly I feel
That Glen Rock welcomes us to her
And silent Ridgewood seems to stir
And smile, because she knows the train
Has brought her children back again.
We carry people home -- and so
God speeds us, wheresoe'er we go.
Hohokus, Waldwick, Allendale
Lift sleepy heads to give us hail.
In Ramsey, Mahwah, Suffern stand
Houses that wistfully demand
A father -- son -- some human thing
That this, the midnight train, may bring.
The trains that travel in the day
They hurry folks to work or play.
The midnight train is slow and old
But of it let this thing be told,
To its high honor be it said
It carries people home to bed.
My cottage lamp shines white and clear.
God bless the train that brought me here.
Lines
by Madison Julius Cawein

Within the world of every man's desire
Three things have power to lift his soul above,
Through dreams, religion, and ecstatic fire,
The star-like shapes of Beauty, Truth, and Love.
I never hoped that, this side far-off Heaven,
These three,--whom all exalted souls pursue,--
I e'er should see; until to me 't was given,
Lady, to meet the three, made one, in you.
Cloister Thoughts
by Maurice Henry Hewlett

(AT WESTMINSTER)
Within these long gray shadows many dead
Lie waiting: we wait with them. Do you believe
That at the last the threadbare soul will give
All his shifts over, and stand dishevell'd,
Naked in truth? Then we shall hear it said,
"Ye two have waited long, daring to live
Grimly through days tormented; now reprieve
Awaiteth you with all these ancient dead!"
The slope sun letteth down thro' our dark bars
His ladder from the skies. Hand fast in hand,
With quiet hearts and footsteps quiet and slow,
Like children venturous in an unknown land
We will come to the fields whose flowers are stars,
And kneeling ask, "Lord, wilt Thou crown us now?"
The Wishes.
by Jean de La Fontaine

Within the Great Mogul's domains there are
Familiar sprites of much domestic use:
They sweep the house, and take a tidy care
Of equipage, nor garden work refuse;
But, if you meddle with their toil,
The whole, at once, you're sure to spoil.
One, near the mighty Ganges flood,
The garden of a burgher good
Work'd noiselessly and well;
To master, mistress, garden, bore
A love that time and toil outwore,
And bound him like a spell.
Did friendly zephyrs blow,
The demon's pains to aid?
(For so they do, 'tis said.)
I own I do not know.
But for himself he rested not,
And richly bless'd his master's lot.
What mark'd his strength of love,
He lived a fixture on the place,
In spite of tendency to rove
So natural to his race.
But brother sprites conspiring
With importunity untiring,
So teased their goblin chief, that he,
Of his caprice, or policy,
Our sprite commanded to attend
A house in Norway's farther end,
Whose roof was snow-clad through the year,
And shelter'd human kind with deer.
Before departing to his hosts
Thus spake this best of busy ghosts: - 
'To foreign parts I'm forced to go!
For what sad fault I do not know; - 
But go I must; a month's delay,
Or week's perhaps, and I'm away.
Seize time; three wishes make at will;
For three I'm able to fulfil - 
No more.' Quick at their easy task,
Abundance first these wishers ask - 
Abundance, with her stores unlock'd - 
Barns, coffers, cellars, larder, stock'd - 
Corn, cattle, wine, and money, - 
The overflow of milk and honey.
But what to do with all this wealth!
What inventories, cares, and worry!
What wear of temper and of health!
Both lived in constant, slavish hurry.
Thieves took by plot, and lords by loan;
The king by tax, the poor by tone.
Thus felt the curses which
Arise from being rich, - 
'Remove this affluence!' they pray;
The poor are happier than they
Whose riches make them slaves.
'Go, treasures, to the winds and waves;
Come, goddess of the quiet breast,
Who sweet'nest toil with rest,
Dear Mediocrity, return!'
The prayer was granted as we learn.
Two wishes thus expended,
Had simply ended
In bringing them exactly where,
When they set out they were.
So, usually, it fares
With those who waste in such vain prayers
The time required by their affairs.
The goblin laugh'd, and so did they.
However, ere he went away,
To profit by his offer kind,
They ask'd for wisdom, wealth of mind, - 
A treasure void of care and sorrow - 
A treasure fearless of the morrow,
Let who will steal, or beg, or borrow.
To The Men And Brethren Of The Masonic Lodge At Tarbolton.
by Robert Burns

Within your dear mansion may wayward contention
Or withering envy ne'er enter:
May secrecy round be the mystical bound,
And brotherly love be the centre.
Edinburgh, 23 August, 1787.