DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
War
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I
There is no picturesqueness and no glory,
No halo of romance, in war to-day.
It is a hideous thing; Time would turn grey
With horror, were he not already hoary
At sight of this vile monster, foul and gory.
Yet while sweet women perish as they pray,
And new-born babes are slaughtered, who dare say
'Halt!' till Right pens its 'Finis' to the story!
There is no pathway, but the path through blood,
Out of the horrors of this holocaust.
Hell has let loose its scalding crimson flood,
And he who stops to argue now is lost.
Not brooms of creeds, not Pacifistic words
Can stem the tide, but swords - uplifted swords!
II
Yet, after Peace has turned the clean white page
There shall be sorrow on the earth for years;
Abysmal grief, that has no eyes for tears,
And youth that hobbles through the earth like age.
But better to play this part upon life's stage
Than to aid structures that a tyrant rears,
To live a stalwart hireling torn with fears,
And shamed by feeding on a conqueror s wage.
Death, yea, a thousand deaths, were sweet in truth
Rather than such ignoble life.    God gave
Being, and breath, and high resolve to youth
That it might be Wrong's master, not its slave.
Our road to Freedom is the road to guns!
Go, arm your sons!    I say, Go, arm your sons!
III
Arm! arm! that mandate on each wind is whirled.
Let no man hesitate or look askance,
For from the devastated homes of France
And ruined Belgium the cry is hurled.
Why, Christ Himself would keep peace banners furled
Were He among us, till, with lifted lance,
He saw the hosts of Righteousness advance
To purify the Temples of the world.
There is no safety on the earth to-day
For any sacred thing, or clean, or fair;
Nor can there be, until men rise and slay
The hydra-headed monster in his lair.
War! horrid War! now Virtue's only friend;
Clasp hands with War, and battle to the end!
The Ruined Mill.
by Madison Julius Cawein

There is the ruined water-mill
With its rotten wheel, that stands as still
As its image that sleeps in the glassy pool
Where the water snake coils dim and cool
In the flaky light of the setting sun
Showering his gold in bullion.
And the languid daisies nod and shine
By the trickling fall in a starry line;
The drowsy daisies with eyes of gold - 
Large as the eyes of a queen of old
Dreaming of revels by day and night - 
Coyly o'erdropped with lashes white.
The hawk sails high in the sleepy air,
The buzzard on wings as strong and fair
Circles and stoops 'neath the lazy cloud,
And crows in the wood are cawing aloud.
Will ye enter with me this ruined mill
When the shades of night its chambers fill,
Stand and lurk in the heavy dark
Like scowling fiends, each eye a spark,
A spark of moonlight shot thro' gloom?
While a moist, rank, stifling, dead perfume
Of rotting timbers and rotting grain,
And roofs all warped with the sun and rain
Makes of the stagnant air a cell,
In the haunted chambers broods like a spell?
A spell that makes the awed mind run
To the thoughts of a hidden skeleton,
A skeleton ghastly and livid and lank
'Neath the mossy floors in a cellar dank,
Grinning and glow'ring, moisture wet,
In its hollow eyes a mad regret.
Or with me enter when the evening star
In the saffron heaven is sparkling afar,
In all its glory of light divine,
Like a diamond bathed in kingly wine.
Or when the heavens hang wild and gray,
And the chilly clouds are hurrying away
Like the driven leaves of an Autumn day;
When the night-rain sounds on the sodden roof,
And the spider lulls in his dusty woof;
When the wet wind whines like a hound that's lashed,
'Round the crazy angles strongly dashed,
Or wails in a cranny - 'tis she who plays
On her airy harp sad, olden lays,
And sings and moans in a room above
Of a vague despair and a blighted love.
You will see her sit on the shattered sill,
Her sable tresses dropped loose at will;
And down in the West 'neath the storm's black bank
A belt of wild green, cold, livid, and lank,
And a crescent moon, like a demon's barque,
Into the green dips a horn from the dark,
While a lurid light of ghoulish gold
On the eldrich creature falls strangely cold.
Her insane eyes bulge mad with desire,
And her face's beauty is darkly dire;
For she sees in the pool, that solidly lies
'Neath the mill's great wheel and the stormy skies,
Her murdered lover lie faint and white,
A haunting horror, a loadstone's might
Drawing and dragging her soul from its seat
To the glimmering ice of his ghastly feet.
The Road Through Chaos
by Alfred Noyes

I.
There is one road, one only, to the Light:
A narrow way, but Freedom walks therein;
A straight, firm road through Chaos and old Night,
And all these wandering Jack-o-Lents of Sin.
It is the road of Law, where Pilate stays
To hear, at last, the answer to his cry;
And mighty sages, groping through their maze
Of eager questions, hear a child reply.
Truth? What is Truth? Come, look upon my tables.
Begin at your beginnings once again.
Twice one is two! Though all the rest be fables,
Here's one poor glimpse of Truth to keep you sane.
For Truth, at first, is clean accord with fact,
Whether in line or thought, or word, or act.
II.
Then, by those first, those clean, precise, accords,
Build to the Lord your temples and your song;
The curves of beauty, music's wedded chords
Resolving into heaven all hate and wrong.
Let harmonies of colour marry and follow
And breaking waves in a rhythmic dance ensue;
And all your thought fly free as the wings of the swallow,
Whose arrowy curves obey their measure, too.
Then shall the marching stars and tides befriend you,
And your own heart, and the world's heart, pulse in rhyme;
Then shall the mob of the passions that would rend you
Crown you their Captain and march on in time.
So shall you repossess your struggling soul,
Conquer your world, and find the eternal goal.
Golden Silences.
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

There is silence that saith, "Ah me!"
There is silence that nothing saith;
One the silence of life forlorn,
One the silence of death;
One is, and the other shall be.
One we know and have known for long,
One we know not, but we shall know,
All we who have ever been born;
Even so, be it so, -
There is silence, despite a song.
Sowing day is a silent day,
Resting night is a silent night;
But whoso reaps the ripened corn
Shall shout in his delight,
While silences vanish away.
William and Emily
by Edgar Lee Masters

There is something about
Death Like love itself!
If with some one with whom you have known passion
And the glow of youthful love,
You also, after years of life
Together, feel the sinking of the fire
And thus fade away together,
Gradually, faintly, delicately,
As it were in each other's arms,
Passing from the familiar room - 
That is a power of unison between souls
Like love itself!
A Vagabond Song.
by Bliss Carman (William)

There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood--
Touch of manner, hint of mood;
And my heart is like a rhyme,
With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.
The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry
Of bugles going by.
And my lonely spirit thrills
To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills.
There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir;
We must rise and follow her,
When from every hill of flame
She calls and calls each vagabond by name.
After Love
by Sara Teasdale

There is no magic any more,
We meet as other people do,
You work no miracle for me
Nor I for you.
You were the wind and I the sea,
There is no splendor any more,
I have grown listless as the pool
Beside the shore.
But though the pool is safe from storm
And from the tide has found surcease,
It grows more bitter than the sea,
For all its peace.
Progress
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

There is no progress in the world of bees,
However wise and wonderful they are.
Their wisdom makes not increase.    Lies the bar,
To wider goals, in that tense strife to please
A Sovereign Ruler?    Forth from flowers to trees
Their little quest is; not from star to star.
This is not growth; the mighty avatar
Comes not to do his work with such as these.
So in the world of men; when legions toil
To feed a Monarch, and begem a crown,
They build before high heaven a narrowing wall
And the great purpose of Creation spoil.
Not on, and upward, is the trend, but down;
The Race can rise but with the rise of all.
The Eternal Will
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

There is no thing we cannot overcome
Say not thy evil instinct is inherited,
Or that some trait inborn makes thy whole life forlorn,
And calls down punishment that is not merited.
Back of thy parents and grandparents lies
The Great Eternal Will.    That, too, is thine
Inheritance; strong, beautiful, divine,
Sure lever of success for one who tries.
Pry up thy faults with this great lever, Will.
However deeply bedded in propensity,
However firmly set, I tell thee firmer yet
Is that vast power that comes from Truth's immensity.
Thou art a part of that strange world, I say.
Its forces lie within thee, stronger far
Than all thy mortal sins and frailties are,
Believe thyself divine, and watch, and pray.
There is no noble height thou canst not climb.
All triumphs may be thine in Time's futurity,
If whatso'er thy fault, thou dost not faint or halt,
But lean upon the staff of God's security.
Earth has no claim the soul can not contest.
Know thyself part of that Eternal Source,
And naught can stand before thy spirit's force.
The soul's divine inheritance is best.
Easter Even
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

(Lyra Messianica, 1864.)
There is nothing more that they can do
For all their rage and boast;
Caiaphas with his blaspheming crew,
Herod with his host,
Pontius Pilate in his Judgement-hall
Judging their Judge and his,
Or he who led them all and passed them all,
Arch-Judas with his kiss.
The sepulchre made sure with ponderous Stone,
Seal that same stone, O Priest;
It may be thou shalt block the holy One
From rising in the east:
Set a watch about the sepulchre
To watch on pain of death;
They must hold fast the stone if One should stir
And shake it from beneath.
God Almighty, He can break a seal
And roll away a Stone,
Can grind the proud in dust who would not kneel,
And crush the mighty one.
*    *    *    *    *    *    *
There is nothing more that they can do
For all their passionate care,
Those who sit in dust, the blessed few,
And weep and rend their hair:
Peter, Thomas, Mary Magdalene,
The Virgin unreproved,
Joseph, with Nicodemus, foremost men,
And John the Well-beloved,
Bring your finest linen and your spice,
Swathe the sacred Dead,
Bind with careful hands and piteous eyes
The napkin round His head;
Lay Him in the garden-rock to rest;
Rest you the Sabbath length:
The Sun that went down crimson in the west
Shall rise renewed in strength.
God Almighty shall give joy for pain,
Shall comfort him who grieves:
Lo! He with joy shall doubtless come again,
And with Him bring His sheaves.
Forest Moods
by Archibald Lampman

There is singing of birds in the deep wet woods,
In the heart of the listening solitudes,
Pewees, and thrushes, and sparrows, not few,
And all the notes of their throats are true.
The thrush from the innermost ash takes on
A tender dream of the treasured and gone;
But the sparrow singeth with pride and cheer
Of the might and light of the present and here.
There is shining of flowers in the deep wet woods,
In the heart of the sensitive solitudes,
The roseate bell and the lily are there,
And every leaf of their sheaf is fair.
Careless and bold, without dream of woe,
The trilliums scatter their flags snow;
But the pale wood-daffodil covers her face,
Agloom with the doom of a sorrowful race.
The Shrine
by Sara Teasdale

There is no lord within my heart,
Left silent as an empty shrine
Where rose and myrtle intertwine,
Within a place apart.
No god is there of carven stone
To watch with still approving eyes
My thoughts like steady incense rise;
I dream and weep alone.
But if I keep my altar fair,
Some morning I shall lift my head
From roses deftly garlanded
To find the god is there.
The Master Of The Isles
by Bliss Carman (William)

There is rumor in Dark Harbor,
And the folk are all astir;
For a stranger in the offing
Draws them down to gaze at her,
In the gray of early morning,
Black against the orange streak,
Making in below the ledges,
With no colors at her peak.
Something makes their hearts uneasy
As they watch the long black hull,
For she brings the storm behind her
While before her there is lull.
With no pilot and unspoken,
Where the dancing breakers are,
Presently she veers and races
In across the roaring bar,--
Rounds and luffs and comes to anchor,
While the wharf begins to throng.
Silence falls upon the women.
And misgiving stirs the strong.
Then with some obscure foreboding,
As a gray-haired watcher smiles,
They perceive the fearless captain
Is the Master of the Isles.
They recall the bleak December
Many streaming years ago,
When the stranger had been sighted
Driving shoreward with the snow;
When the Master came among them
With his calm and courtly pride,
And had sailed away at sundown
With pale Dora for his bride;
How again he came one summer
When the herring schools were late,
And had cleared before the morning
With old Alec's son for mate.
There was glamour with the Master;
He had tales of far-off seas;
But his habit and demeanor
Were of other lands than these.
He had never made the Harbor
But there sailed away with him
Wife or child or friend or lover,
Leaving eyes to strain and swim,--
Strain and wait for their returning;
Yet they never had come back;
For the pale wake of the Master
Is a wandering, fading track.
Just beyond our utmost fathom
Is the anchorage we crave,
But the Master knows the soundings
By the reach of every wave.
Just beyond the last horizon,
Vague upon the weather-gleam,
Loom the Faroff Isles forever,
The tradition of a dream.
There a white and brooding summer
Haunts upon the gray sea-plain,
Where the gray sea-winds are quiet
At the sources of the rain.
There where all world-weary dreamers
Get them forth to their release,
Lie the colonies of the kindred,
In the provinces of peace.
Thither in the stormy sunset
Will the Master sail to-night;
And the village will be silent
When he drops below the light.
Not a soul on all the hillside
But will watch her when she clears,
Dreaming of the Port o' Strangers
In the roadstead of the years.
"Port o' Strangers, Port o' Strangers!"
"Where away?" "On the weather bow."
"Drive her down the closing distance!"...
That's to-morrow, but not now.
What imperial adventure
Some wide morning it will be,
Sweeping in to Lonely Haven
From the chartless round of sea!
How imposing a departure,
While this little harbor smiles,
Steering for the outer sea-rim
With the Master of the Isles!
No Time Like The Old Time
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

There is no time like the old time, when you and I were young,
When the buds of April blossomed, and the birds of spring-time sung!
The garden's brightest glories by summer suns are nursed,
But oh, the sweet, sweet violets, the flowers that opened first!
There is no place like the old place, where you and I were born,
Where we lifted first our eyelids on the splendors of the morn
From the milk-white breast that warmed us, from the clinging arms that bore,
Where the dear eyes glistened o'er us that will look on us no more!
There is no friend like the old friend, who has shared our morning days,
No greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise
Fame is the scentless sunflower, with gaudy crown of gold;
But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.
There is no love like the old love, that we courted in our pride;
Though our leaves are falling, falling, and we're fading side by side,
There are blossoms all around us with the colors of our dawn,
And we live in borrowed sunshine when the day-star is withdrawn.
There are no times like the old times, - they shall never be forgot!
There is no place like the old place, - keep green the dear old spot!
There are no friends like our old friends, - may Heaven prolong their lives
There are no loves like our old loves, - God bless our loving wives!
Her Eyes And Mouth.
by Madison Julius Cawein

There is no Paradise like that which lies
Deep in the heavens of her azure eyes:
There is no Eden here on Earth that glows
Like that which smiles rich in her mouth's red rose.
God's Kin
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

There is no summit you may not attain,
No purpose which you may not yet achieve,
If you will wait serenely and believe
Each seeming loss is but a step toward gain.
Between the mountain-tops lie vale and plain;
Let nothing make you question, doubt or grieve;
Give only good, and good alone receive;
And as you welcome joy, so welcome pain.
That which you most desire awaits your word;
Throw wide the door and bid it enter in.
Speak, and the strong vibrations shall be stirred;
Speak, and above earth's loud, unmeaning din
Your silent declarations shall be heard.
All things are possible to God's own kin.
The Wanderer
by Thomas Hardy

There is nobody on the road
But I,
And no beseeming abode
I can try
For shelter, so abroad
I must lie.
The stars feel not far up,
And to be
The lights by which I sup
Glimmeringly,
Set out in a hollow cup
Over me.
They wag as though they were
Panting for joy
Where they shine, above all care,
And annoy,
And demons of despair -
Life's alloy.
Sometimes outside the fence
Feet swing past,
Clock-like, and then go hence,
Till at last
There is a silence, dense,
Deep, and vast.
A wanderer, witch-drawn
To and fro,
To-morrow, at the dawn,
On I go,
And where I rest anon
Do not know!
Yet it's meet this bed of hay
And roofless plight;
For there's a house of clay,
My own, quite,
To roof me soon, all day
And all night.
The Lily Of The Valley
by George MacDonald

There is not any weed but hath its shower,
There is not any pool but hath its star;
And black and muddy though the waters are
We may not miss the glory of a flower,
And winter moons will give them magic power
To spin in cylinders of diamond spar;
And everything hath beauty near and far,
And keepeth close and waiteth on its hour!
And I, when I encounter on my road
A human soul that looketh black and grim,
Shall I more ceremonious be than God?
Shall I refuse to watch one hour with him
Who once beside our deepest woe did bud
A patient watching flower about the brim?
Attainment
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

There is no summit you may not attain,
No purpose which you may not yet achieve,
If you will wait serenely and believe.
Each seeming loss is but a step to'rd gain.
Between the mountain-tops lie vale and plain;
Let nothing make you question, doubt, or grieve;
Give only good, and good alone receive;
And as you welcome joy, so welcome pain.
That which you most desire awaits your word;
Throw wide the door and bid it enter in.
Speak, and the strong vibrations shall be stirred;
Speak, and above earth's loud, unmeaning din
Your silent declarations shall be heard.
All things are possible to God's own kin.
Smiles.
by Alfred Castner King

There is the warm, congenial smile,
Benign, and honest, too,
Free from deception, fraud, and guile;
The smile of friendship true.
There is the smile most fair to see,
Which wreathes the modest glance
Of spotless maiden purity;
The smile of innocence.
There is the smile of woman's love,
That potent, siren spell,
Which uplifts men to heaven above,
Or lures them down to hell!
There is the vain, derisive smile,
Of cynical conceit;
The drunken leer, the grimace vile,
Of lives with crime replete.
There is the smile of vacancy,
Expressionless, we find
On idiot physiognomy,
The vacuum of a mind.
There is a smile, which more than tears
Or language can express;
The grim disguise which anguish wears,
The mask of dire distress
There is a smile of practiced art,
More false than treason's kiss;
But penetrate that dual heart,
And hear the serpent's hiss.
A smile, the visage shall embrace,
When nature's cup is full;
Behind the stern and frowning face
There lies a grinning skull.
The Power of the Dog
by Rudyard Kipling

There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
And when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.
Buy a pup and your money will buy
Love unflinching that cannot lie,
Perfect passion and worship fed
By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.
Nevertheless it is hardly fair
To risk your heart for a dog to tear.
When the fourteen years which Nature permits
Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,
And the vet's unspoken prescription runs
To lethal chambers or loaded guns,
Then you will find, it's your own affair,
But . . . you've given your heart to a dog to tear.
When the body that lived at your single will,
With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!)
When the spirit hat answered your every mood
Is gone, wherever it goes, for good,
You will discover how much you care,
And will give your heart to a dog to tear.
We've sorrow enough in the natural way,
When it comes to burying Christian clay.
Our loves are not given, but only lent,
At compound interest of cent per cent.
Though it is not always the case, I believe,
That the longer we've kept'em, the more do we grieve;
For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,
A short-time loan is as bad as a long,
So why in, Heaven (before we are there)
Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?
Katharine Jaffray
by Frank Sidgwick

The Text is from Herd's MSS., two copies showing a difference of one word and a few spellings. Stt. 3 and 5 are interchanged for the sake of the sense.
Many copies of this ballad exist (Child prints a dozen), but this one is both the shortest and simplest.
The Story.--In The Cruel Brother (First Series, p. 76) it was shown that a lover must 'speak to the brother' of his lady. Here the lesson, it seems, is that he must 'tell the lass herself' before her wedding-day. Katharine, however, not only proves her faith to her first lover (her 'grass-green' dress, 10.2, shows an ill-omened marriage), but prefers the Scot to the Southron. This lesson the ballad drives home in the last two verses.
Presumably Scott founded Young Lochinvar on the story of this ballad, as in six versions the Scots laird bears that name.
KATHARINE JAFFRAY
1.
There liv'd a lass in yonder dale,
And doun in yonder glen, O,
And Kath'rine Jaffray was her name,
Well known by many men, O.
2.
Out came the Laird of Lauderdale,
Out frae the South Countrie,
All for to court this pretty maid,
Her bridegroom for to be.
3.
He has teld her father and mither baith,
And a' the rest o' her kin,
And has teld the lass hersell,
And her consent has win.
4.
Then came the Laird of Lochinton,
Out frae the English border,
All for to court this pretty maid,
Well mounted in good order.
5.
He's teld her father and mither baith,
As I hear sindry say,
But he has nae teld the lass hersell,
Till on her wedding day.
6.
When day was set, and friends were met,
And married to be,
Lord Lauderdale came to the place,
The bridal for to see.
7.
'O are you come for sport, young man?
Or are you come for play?
Or are you come for a sight o' our bride,
Just on her wedding day?'
8.
'I'm nouther come for sport,' he says,
'Nor am I come for play;
But if I had one sight o' your bride,
I'll mount and ride away.'
9.
There was a glass of the red wine
Fill'd up them atween,
And ay she drank to Lauderdale,
Wha her true-love had been.
10.
Then he took her by the milk-white hand,
And by the grass-green sleeve,
And he mounted her high behind him there,
At the bridegroom he askt nae leive.
11.
Then the blude run down by Cowden Banks,
And down by Cowden Braes,
And ay she gard the trumpet sound,
'O this is foul, foul play!'
12.
Now a' ye that in England are,
Or are in England born,
Come nere to Scotland to court a lass,
Or else ye'l get the scorn.
13.
They haik ye up and settle ye by,
Till on your wedding day,
And gie ye frogs instead o' fish,
And play ye foul, foul play.
Spinsters
by Unknown

There once was a lonesome, lorn spinster,
And luck had for years been ag'inst her;
When a man came to burgle
She shrieked, with a gurgle,
"Stop thief, while I call in a min'ster!"
Foresight
by Unknown

There once was a pious young priest,
Who lived almost wholly on yeast;
"For," he said, "it is plain
We must all rise again,
And I want to get started, at least."