DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Firstborn.
by Jean Blewett

The harvest sun lay hot and strong
On waving grain and grain in sheaf,
On dusty highway stretched along,
On hill and vale, on stalk and leaf.
The wind which stirred the tasseled corn
Came creeping through the casement wide,
And softly kissed the babe new born
That nestled at its mother's side.
That mother spoke in tones that thrilled:
"My firstborn's cradled in my arm,
Upon my breast his cry is stilled,
And here he lies so dear, so warm."
To her had come a generous share
Of worldly honors and of fame,
Of hours replete with gladness rare,
But no one hour seemed just the same
As that which came when, white and spent
With pain of travail great, she lay,
Thrilled through with rapture and content,
And love and pride, that August day.
The fairest picture of the past - 
Life's tenderest page till all is done - 
A glad young mother holding fast
God's wondrous gift - her little son.
The Spirit's Salute.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The hero's noble shade stands high
On yonder turret grey;
And as the ship is sailing by,
He speeds it on his way.
"See with what strength these sinews thrill'd!
This heart, how firm and wild!
These bones, what knightly marrow fill'd!
This cup, how bright it smil'd!
"Half of my life I strove and fought,
And half I calmly pass'd;
And thou, oh ship with beings fraught,
Sail safely to the last!"
The Hasty Higgeldipiggledy Hen
by Edward Lear

The Hasty Higgeldipiggledy Hen,
who went to market in a Blue Bonnet and Shawl,
and bought a Fish for her Supper.
Gone.
by Nora Pembroke (Margaret Moran Dixon McDougall)

The heavens look down with chilly frown,
The sun blinks oot wi' watery e'e,
The drift flies fast upon the blast,
The naked trees moan shiveringly.
The sun is gone, by mists withdrawn,
Muffling his head in snow-clouds grey,
The earth turns white, against the night,
The laden winds drive furiously.
The flowers are slain that graced the plain,
The earth is locked wi' bitter frost;
And my heart cries to stormy skies
After the dreary loved and lost.
The spring will come, the flowers will bloom,
The leaves in beauty clothe the tree,
But never more, oh, never more,
Will my lost darling come to me.
Beyond the skies her happy eyes
Look fearlessly in eyes Divine;
The bitter smart, the hungry heart,
Waiting with empty arms, is mine.
The Highest Goal
by Joseph Horatio Chant

The highest goal is not success,
If that be made the aim;
But faithfulness, tho' counted less,
Is what God promises to bless:
These goals are not the same.
And if I am to do my best
In every line of life,
My effort will be surely blest,
And I will find in toil sweet rest,
Tho' in a world of strife.
And when before the throne I stand
To answer for the use
Of gifts received from God's own hand,
He will not then, in wrath, demand
From me some strong excuse,
To show why I had not attained
The goal of grand success,
Such as some noted men have gained,
For if my work is not sin-stained
God will my failures bless.
And I will hear Him say, "My son,
A throne thou hast attained;
Without applause thy race was run,
'Midst failures oft thy work was done,
Life's highest goal is gained."
"The Heart Asks Pleasure First,"
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

The heart asks pleasure first,
And then, excuse from pain;
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering;
And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The liberty to die.
Sotto Voce
by Walter De La Mare

(To EDWARD THOMAS)
The haze of noon wanned silver-grey,
The soundless mansion of the sun;
The air made visible in his ray,
Like molten glass from furnace run,
Quivered o'er heat-baked turf and stone
And the flower of the gorse burned on, 
Burned softly as gold of a child's fair hair
Along each spiky spray, and shed
Almond-like incense in the air
Whereon our senses fed.
At foot, a few sparse harebells: blue
And still as were the friend's dark eyes
That dwelt on mine, transfix'd through
With sudden ecstatic surmise.
'Hst!' he cried softly, smiling, and lo,
Stealing amidst that maze gold-green,
I heard a whispering music flow
From guileful throat of bird, unseen: 
So delicate, the straining ear
Scarce carried its faint syllabling
Into a heart caught-up to hear
That inmost pondering
Of bird-like self with self. We stood,
In happy trance-like solitude,
Hearkening a lullay grieved and sweet, 
As when on isle uncharted beat
'Gainst coral at the palm-tree's root,
With brine-clear, snow-white foam afloat,
The wailing, not of water or wind, 
A husht, far, wild, divine lament,
When Prospero his wizardry bent
Winged Ariel to bind....
Then silence, and o'er-flooding noon.
I raised my head; smiled too. And he, 
Moved his great hand, the magic gone, 
Gently amused to see
My ignorant wonderment. He sighed.
'It was a nightingale,' he said,
'That sotto voce cons the song
He'll sing when dark is spread;
And Night's vague hours are sweet and long,
And we are laid abed.'
Earth's Moments Of Gloom.
by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

"The heart knoweth its own bitterness"
The heart hath its moments of hopeless gloom,
As rayless as is the dark night of the tomb;
When the past has no spell, the future no ray,
To chase the sad cloud from the spirit away;
When earth, though in all her rich beauty arrayed,
Hath a gloom o'er her flowers - o'er her skies a dark shade,
And we turn from all pleasure with loathing away,
Too downcast, too spirit sick, even to pray!
Oh! where may the heart seek, in moments like this,
A whisper of hope, or a faint gleam of bliss?
When friendship seems naught but a cold, cheerless flame,
And love a still falser and emptier name;
When honors and wealth are a wearisome chain,
Each link interwoven with grief and with pain,
And each solace or joy that the spirit might crave
Is barren of comfort and dark as the grave.
Lift - lift up thy sinking heart, pilgrim of life!
A sure spell there is for thy spirit's sad strife;
'Tis not to be found in the well-springs of earth, - 
Oh! no, 'tis of higher and holier birth.
Sonnet. About Jesus. XVII
by George MacDonald

The highest marble Sorrow vanishes
Before a weeping child.[2] The one doth seem,
The other is. And wherefore do we dream,
But that we live? So I rejoice in this,
That Thou didst cast Thyself, in all the bliss
Of conscious strength, into Life's torrent stream,
(Thy deeds fresh life-springs that with blessings teem)
Acting, not painting rainbows o'er its hiss.
Forgive me, Lord, if in these verses lie
Mean thoughts, and stains of my infirmity;
Full well I know that if they were as high
In holy song as prophet's ecstasy,
'Tis more to Thee than this, if I, ah me!
Speak gently to a child for love of Thee.
To Napoleon
by John Clare

The heroes of the present and the past
Were puny, vague, and nothingness to thee:
Thou didst a span grasp mighty to the last,
And strain for glory when thy die was cast.
That little island, on the Atlantic sea,
Was but a dust-spot in a lake: thy mind
Swept space as shoreless as eternity.
Thy giant powers outstript this gaudy age
Of heroes; and, as looking at the sun,
So gazing on thy greatness, made men blind
To merits, that had adoration won
In olden times. The world was on thy page
Of victories but a comma. Fame could find
No parallel, thy greatness to presage.
Quitting Again
by Eugene Field

The hero of
Affairs of love
By far too numerous to be mentioned,
And scarred as I'm,
It seemeth time
That I were mustered out and pensioned.
So on this wall
My lute and all
I hang, and dedicate to Venus;
And I implore
But one thing more
Ere all is at an end between us.
O goddess fair
Who reignest where
The weather's seldom bleak and snowy,
This boon I urge:
In anger scourge
My old cantankerous sweetheart, Chloe!
The Grief
by Theodosia Garrison

The heart of me's an empty thing, that never stirs at all
For Moon-shine or Spring-time, or a far bird's call.
I only know 'tis living by a grief that shakes it so,--
Like an East wind in Autumn, when the old nests blow.
Grey Eyes and Black Hair, 'tis never you I blame.
'Tis long years and easy years since last I spoke your name.
And I'm long past the knife-thrust I got at wake or fair.
Or looking past the lighted door and fancying you there.
Grey Eyes and Black Hair--the grief is never this;
I've long forgot the soft arms--the first, wild kiss.
But, Oh, girl that tore my youth,--'tis this I have to bear,--
If you were kneeling at my feet I'd neither stay nor care.
Sonnet XXIII.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Il successor di Carlo, che la chioma.
ON THE MOVEMENT OF THE EMPEROR AGAINST THE INFIDELS, AND THE RETURN OF THE POPE TO ROME.
The high successor of our Charles,[P] whose hair
The crown of his great ancestor adorns,
Already has ta'en arms, to bruise the horns
Of Babylon, and all her name who bear;
Christ's holy vicar with the honour'd load
Of keys and cloak, returning to his home,
Shall see Bologna and our noble Rome,
If no ill fortune bar his further road.
Best to your meek and high-born lamb belongs
To beat the fierce wolf down: so may it be
With all who loyalty and love deny.
Console at length your waiting country's wrongs,
And Rome's, who longs once more her spouse to see,
And gird for Christ the good sword on thy thigh.
MACGREGOR.
A Lair At Noon.
by John Clare

The hawthorn gently stopt the sun, beneath,
The ash above its quiv'ring shadows spread,
And downy bents, that to the air did wreathe,
Bow'd 'neath my pressure in an easy bed;
The water whirled round each stunted nook,
And sweet the splashings on the ear did swim
Of fly-bit cattle gulshing in the brook,
Nibbling the grasses on the fountain's brim:
The little minnows, driv'n from their retreat,
Still sought the shelving bank to shun the heat.
I fain had slept, but flies would buzz around;
I fain had looked calmly on the scene,
But the sweet snug retreat my search had found
Waken'd the Muse to sing the woody screen.
Statio Septima
by Thomas Edward Brown

The heavens are very blue
Above the western hill;
The earth is very still,
I will draw near, and view
The spot
Where he is . . . not.
But O dear cliff, O big, good-natured giant,
I think some delicate dint must still remain
On your broad surface, from the strain
Of limbs so sweetly pliant.
Behold!
The lamb! the lamb! fallen from the very rock!
Cold! cold!
Dead! dead!
His little head
Rests on the very block
That Braddan trod,
Dear lambs! twin lambs of God!
Old cliff, such things
Might move some stubborn questionings,
But now I question not,
See, see! the waterfall
Is robed in rainbows, what!
Our lambs? My Braddan shall have charge
Of him, and lead him by the marge
Of some bright stream celestial.
Braddan shall be a happy shepherd boy;
No trouble shall annoy
That soft green pasture,
Ab, Murillo, saint!
Kind fiiend! that for all sorrowing hearts didst paint
John Baptist and the Lamb, those arms thrown round
That neck! Forgive me, God, that I have found
Some comfort in this little parable,
It gives me strength to climb the hill,
And humbly so return,
God bless the merry burn!
I have no will
But thine, O God! I know that Thou art true,
Be blue, O heavens, be blue!
Be still, O earth, be still!
The Menace
by Madison Julius Cawein

The hat he wore was full of holes,
And his battered shoes were worn to the soles.
His shirt was a rag, held together with pins,
And his trousers patched with outs and ins.
A negro tramp, a roustabout,
Less safe than a wild beast broken out:
And like to a beast, he slouched along
The lane which the birds made sweet with song:
Where the wild rose wooed with golden eyes
The honeybees and the butterflies.
But the bird's glad song and the scent of the rose
Meant nothing to him of the love man knows.
If he heard or heeded 't was but to curse
Love had no place in his universe.
And there in the lane one met with him
A girl of ten who was fair and slim:
A farmer's daughter, whose auburn hair
Shone bright as a sunbeam moving there:
And bare of head, as she was of foot,
She passed the tramp with a smiled salute.
She bore in her hand, that was dark with stain,
A pail of berries she'd picked I' the lane.
Without a word he let her pass
Like a wildrose nodding above the grass.
Innocent, trusting, free from guile,
She met his look with a friendly smile.
And he? He laughed when the child had passed,
And a furtive glance about him cast,
Then turned and followed. His chance was now
To serve the Whiteman out somehow.
He would get even for many a kick.
Now was his time to turn a trick.
Next day they found her, battered and torn,
Her small child's body hid under a thorn.
And, oh! I wonder, good brother of mine,
Why God in His Heaven gave never a sign.
Why she, the lovely, the young, the shy,
Like a beast of the field should have to die:
While he, the hideous, kin to the ape,
God, in His Heaven, should let escape.
Sonnet CLXIV.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

L' aura celeste che 'n quel verde Lauro.
HER HAIR AND EYES.
The heavenly airs from yon green laurel roll'd,
Where Love to Phoebus whilom dealt his stroke,
Where on my neck was placed so sweet a yoke,
That freedom thence I hope not to behold,
O'er me prevail, as o'er that Arab old
Medusa, when she changed him to an oak;
Nor ever can the fairy knot be broke
Whose light outshines the sun, not merely gold;
I mean of those bright locks the curl'd snare
Which folds and fastens with so sweet a grace
My soul, whose humbleness defends alone.
Her mere shade freezes with a cold despair
My heart, and tinges with pale fear my face;
And oh! her eyes have power to make me stone.
MACGREGOR.
The Heifer, The Goat, And The Sheep, In Company With The Lion.[1]
by Jean de La Fontaine

The heifer, the goat, and their sister the sheep,
Compacted their earnings in common to keep,
'Tis said, in time past, with a lion, who sway'd
Full lordship o'er neighbours, of whatever grade.
The goat, as it happen'd, a stag having snared,
Sent off to the rest, that the beast might be shared.
All gather'd; the lion first counts on his claws,
And says, 'We'll proceed to divide with our paws
The stag into pieces, as fix'd by our laws.'
This done, he announces part first as his own;
''Tis mine,' he says, 'truly, as lion alone.'
To such a decision there's nought to be said,
As he who has made it is doubtless the head.
'Well, also, the second to me should belong;
'Tis mine, be it known, by the right of the strong.
Again, as the bravest, the third must be mine.
To touch but the fourth whoso maketh a sign,
I'll choke him to death
In the space of a breath!'
Satiety
by Richard Le Gallienne

The heart of the rose - how sweet
Its fragrance to drain,
Till the greedy brain
Reels and grows faint
With the garnered scent,
Reels as a dream on its silver feet.
Sweet thus to drain - then to sleep:
For, beware how you stay
Till the joy pass away,
And the jaded brain
Seeketh fragrance in vain,
And hates what it may not reap.
The Tyrant Sway.
by George Pope Morris

The heart that owns thy tyrant sway,
Whate'er its hopes may be,
Is like a bark that drifts away
Upon a shoreless sea!
No compass left to guide her on,
Upon the surge she's tempest-torn--
And such is life to me!
And what is life when love is fled?
The world, unshared by thee?
I'd rather slumber with the dead,
Than such a waif to be!
The bark that by no compass steers
Is lost, which way soe'er she veers--
And such is life to me!
Veronica's Napkin
by William Butler Yeats

The Heavenly Circuit; Berenice's Hair;
Tent-pole of Eden; the tent's drapery;
Symbolical glory of the earth and air!
The Father and His angelic hierarchy
That made the magnitude and glory there
Stood in the circuit of a needle's eye.
Some found a different pole, and where it stood
A pattern on a napkin dipped in blood.
Anxiety
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

The hoar-frost crumbles in the sun,
The crisping steam of a train
Melts in the air, while two black birds
Sweep past the window again.
Along the vacant road, a red
Bicycle approaches; I wait
In a thaw of anxiety, for the boy
To leap down at our gate.
He has passed us by; but is it
Relief that starts in my breast?
Or a deeper bruise of knowing that still
She has no rest.
At Aleciras - A Meditaton Upon Death
by William Butler Yeats

The heron-billed pale cattle-birds
That feed on some foul parasite
Of the Moroccan flocks and herds
Cross the narrow Straits to light
In the rich midnight of the garden trees
Till the dawn break upon those mingled seas.
Often at evening when a boy
Would I carry to a friend --
Hoping more substantial joy
Did an older mind commend --
Not such as are in Newton's metaphor,
But actual shells of Rosses' level shore.
Greater glory in the Sun,
An evening chill upon the air,
Bid imagination run
Much on the Great Questioner;
What He can question, what if questioned I
Can with a fitting confidence reply.
A Prisoner
by George MacDonald

The hinges are so rusty
The door is fixed and fast;
The windows are so dusty
The sun looks in aghast:
Knock out the glass, I pray,
Or dash the door away,
Or break the house down bodily,
And let my soul go free!
Late Snow
by John Collings Squire, Sir

The heavy train through the dim country went rolling, rolling,
Interminably passing misty snow-covered plough-land ridges
That merged in the snowy sky; came turning meadows, fences,
Came gullies and passed, and ice-coloured streams under frozen bridges.
Across the travelling landscape evenly drooped and lifted
The telegraph wires, thick ropes of snow in the windless air;
They drooped and paused and lifted again to unseen summits,
Drawing the eyes and soothing them, often, to a drowsy stare.
Singly in the snow the ghosts of trees were softly pencilled,
Fainter and fainter, in distance fading, into nothingness gliding,
But sometimes a crowd of the intricate silver trees of fairyland
Passed, close and intensely clear, the phantom world hiding.
O untroubled these moving mantled miles of shadowless shadows,
And lovely the film of falling flakes; so wayward and slack;
But I thought of many a mother-bird screening her nestlings,
Sitting silent with wide bright eyes, snow on her back.
Monday in the courtyard of the barracks
by Alfred Lichtenstein

The heat sticks closely to the gun and to the hand.
It pricks the eyes.    Nothing remained forgotten.
The troops stepped, half drunk, into the fire.
The non-coms stand rigidly in front.
The glaring earth is a dead carousel.
Nothing stirs.    No one drops down.    No streaked sky flies.
Only rarely a hoarse barking tears apart the blue sow
Which lies on the stone barracks.
Now the army leaves me alone.
Who still pays attention to me.    They got used
To my strange civilian eyes long ago.
On maneuvers I am half dreaming,
And as we march I compose poems.
But war comes.    There was peace too long.
No more good times.    Trumpets screech
Deep into your heart.    And all the nights are burning.
You freeze in tents.    You're hot.    You're hungry.
You drown.    Explode.    Bleed to death.    Fields rattle noisily.
Church towers fall.    Flames in the distance.
Winds twitch.    Large cities crash.
On the horizon cannons thunder.
Around the hill tops a white vapor rises,
And grenades burst at your head.
Devotion
by Robert Lee Frost

The heart can think of no devotion
Greater than being shore to the ocean,
Holding the curve of one position,
Counting an endless repetition.
Katty Gollagher (The Rocky Road To Dublin)
by James Stephens

The hill is bare: I only find
The grass, the sky, and one small tree
Tossing wildly on the wind;
And that is all there is to see:
A tree, a hill, a wind, a sky
Where nothing ever passes by.
Etheline
by Henry Kendall

The heart that once was rich with light,
And happy in your grace,
Now lieth cold beneath the scorn
That gathers on your face;
And every joy it knew before,
And every templed dream,
Is paler than the dying flash
On yonder mountain stream.
The soul, regretting foundered bliss
Amid the wreck of years,
Hath mourned it with intensity
Too deep for human tears!
The forest fadeth underneath
The blast that rushes by
The dripping leaves are white with death,
But Love will never die!
We both have seen the starry moss
That clings where Ruin reigns,
And one must know his lonely breast
Affection still retains;
Through all the sweetest hopes of life,
That clustered round and round,
Are lying now, like withered things,
Forsaken on the ground.
'Tis hard to think of what we were,
And what we might have been,
Had not an evil spirit crept
Across the tranquil scene:
Had fervent feelings in your soul
Not failed nor ceased to shine
As pure as those existing on,
And burning still in mine.
Had every treasure at your feet
That I was wont to pour,
Been never thrown like worthless weeds
Upon a barren shore!
The bitter edge of grief has passed,
I would not now upbraid;
Or count to you the broken vows,
So often idly made!
I would not cross your path to chase
The falsehood from your brow
I know, with all that borrowed light,
You are not happy now:
Since those that once have trampled down
Affection's early claim,
Have lost a peace they need not hope
To find on earth again.
Maxims
by John Le Gay Brereton

The heart is hard that cannot feel
The bruising of a light appeal.
The heart is deaf that cannot hear
The splashing of a tiny tear.
The heart is dumb that cannot say
'God speed you, comrades,' night and day.
The heart is blind that cannot see
The beckoning soul of mystery.
The heart is lame that cannot rise
From clamouring earth to silent skies.
And O that heart were better dead
That truckles to the prudent head.
Divine Visitation
by George William Russell

The heavens lay hold on us: the starry rays
Fondle with flickering fingers brow and eyes:
A new enchantment lights the ancient skies.
What is it looks between us gaze on gaze?
Does the wild spirit of the endless days
Chase through my heart some lure that ever flies?
Only I know the vast within me cries
Finding in thee the ending of all ways.
Ah, but they vanish; the immortal train
From thee, from me, depart, yet take from thee
Memorial grace: laden with adoration
Forth from this heart they flow that all in vain
Would stay the proud eternal powers that flee
After the chase in burning exultation.
Dawn
by John Charles McNeill

The hills again reach skyward with a smile.
Again, with waking life along its way,
The landscape marches westward mile on mile
And time throbs white into another day.
Though eager life must wait on livelihood,
And all our hopes be tethered to the mart,
Lacking the eagle's wild, high freedom, would
That ours might be this day the eagle's heart!
After Autumn Rain
by Madison Julius Cawein

The hillside smokes
With trailing mist around the rosy oaks;
While sunset builds
A gorgeous Asia in the west she gilds.
Auroral streaks
Sword through the heavens' Himalayan peaks:
In which, behold,
Burn mines of Indian ruby and of gold.
A moment and
A shadow stalks between it and the land.
A mist, a breath,
A premonition, with the face of death,
Turning to frost
The air it breathes, like some invisible ghost.
Then, wild of hair,
Demons seem streaming to their fiery lair:
A chasm, the same
That splits the clouds' face with a leer of flame.
The wind comes up
And fills the hollow land as wine a cup.
Around and round
It skips the dead leaves o'er the forest's ground.
A myriad fays
And imps seem dancing down the withered ways.
And far and near
It makes of every bush a whisperer;
Telling dark tales
Of things that happened in the ghostly vales:
Of things the fox
Barks at and sees among the haunted rocks:
At which the owl
Hoots, and the wolf-hound cringes with a growl.
Now on the road
It walks like feet too weary for their load.
Shuffling the leaves,
With stormy sighs, onward it plods and heaves;
Till in the hills
Among the red death there itself it kills.
And with its death
Earth, so its seems, draws in a mighty breath.
And, like a clown
Who wanders lost upon a haunted down,
Turns towards the east,
Fearful of coming goblin or of beast,
And sees a light,
The jack-o'-lantern moon, glow into sight..
The Exile
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

(AFTER TALIESSIN)
The heavy blue chain
Of the boundless main
Didst thou, just man, endure.
I have an arrow that will find its mark,
A mastiff that will bite without a hark.