DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Italian Music In Dakota
by Walt Whitman

Through the soft evening air enwrinding all,
Rocks, woods, fort, cannon, pacing sentries, endless wilds,
In dulcet streams, in flutes' and cornets' notes,
Electric, pensive, turbulent artificial,
(Yet strangely fitting even here, meanings unknown before,
Subtler than ever, more harmony, as if born here, related here,
Not to the city's fresco'd rooms, not to the audience of the opera house,
Sounds, echoes, wandering strains, as really here at home,
Sonnambula's innocent love, trios with Norma's anguish,
And thy ecstatic chorus Poliuto;)
Ray'd in the limpid yellow slanting sundown,
Music, Italian music in Dakota.
While Nature, sovereign of this gnarl'd realm,
Lurking in hidden barbaric grim recesses,
Acknowledging rapport however far remov'd,
(As some old root or soil of earth its last-born flower or fruit,)
Listens well pleas'd.
Composed Among The Ruins Of A Castle In North Wales
by William Wordsworth

Through shattered galleries, 'mid roofless halls,
Wandering with timid footsteps oft betrayed,
The Stranger sighs, nor scruples to upbraid
Old Time, though he, gentlest among the Thralls
Of Destiny, upon these wounds hath laid
His lenient touches, soft as light that falls,
From the wan Moon, upon the towers and walls,
Light deepening the profoundest sleep of shade.
Relic of Kings! Wreck of forgotten wars,
To winds abandoned and the prying stars,
Time 'loves' Thee! at his call the Seasons twine
Luxuriant wreaths around thy forehead hoar;
And, though past pomp no changes can restore,
A soothing recompense, his gift, is thine!
Apollo
by Matthew Arnold

CALLICLES (front below)
Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts,
Thick breaks the red flame;
All Etna heaves fiercely
Her forest-cloth'd frame.
Not here, O Apollo
Are haunts meet for thee.
But, where Helicon breaks down
In cliff to the sea,
Where the moon-silver'd inlets
Send far their light voice
Up the still vale of Thisbe,
O speed, and rejoice!
On the sward at the cliff-top
Lie strewn the white flocks;
On the cliff-side the pigeons
Roost deep in the rocks.
In the moonlight the shepherds,
Soft lull'd by the rills,
Lie wrapt in their blankets,
Asleep on the hills.
What forms are these coming
So white through the gloom:'
What garments out-glistening
The gold-flower'd broom?
What sweet-breathing presence
Out-perfumes the thyme?
What voices enrapture
The night's balmy prime?
'Tis Apollo comes leading
His choir, the Nine.
The leader is fairest,
But all are divine.
They are lost in the hollows!
They stream up again!
What seeks on this mountain
The glorified train?
They bathe on this mountain,
In the spring by their road;
Then on to Olympus,
Their endless abode!
Whose praise do they mention
Of what is it told?
What will be for ever;
What was from of old.
First hymn they the Father
Of all things; and then
The rest of immortals,
The action of men.
The day in his hotness,
The strife with the palm;
The night in her silence,
The stars in their calm.
Seen By The Waits
by Thomas Hardy

Through snowy woods and shady
We went to play a tune
To the lonely manor-lady
By the light of the Christmas moon.
We violed till, upward glancing
To where a mirror leaned,
We saw her airily dancing,
Deeming her movements screened;
Dancing alone in the room there,
Thin-draped in her robe of night;
Her postures, glassed in the gloom there,
Were a strange phantasmal sight.
She had learnt (we heard when homing)
That her roving spouse was dead;
Why she had danced in the gloaming
We thought, but never said.
In a Rosary
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Through the low grey archway children's feet that pass
Quicken, glad to find the sweetest haunt of all.
Brightest wildflowers gleaming deep in lustiest grass,
Glorious weeds that glisten through the green sea's glass,
Match not now this marvel, born to fade and fall.
Roses like a rainbow wrought of roses rise
Right and left and forward, shining toward the sun.
Nay, the rainbow lit of sunshine droops and dies
Ere we dream it hallows earth and seas and skies;
Ere delight may dream it lives, its life is done.
Round the border hemmed with high deep hedges round
Go the children, peering over or between
Where the dense bright oval wall of box inwound,
Reared about the roses fast within it bound,
Gives them grace to glance at glories else unseen.
Flower outlightening flower and tree outflowering tree
Feed and fill the sense and spirit full with joy.
Nought awhile they know of outer earth and sea:
Here enough of joy it is to breathe and be:
Here the sense of life is one for girl and boy.
Heaven above them, bright as children's eyes or dreams,
Earth about them, sweet as glad soft sleep can show
Earth and sky and sea, a world that scarcely seems
Even in children's eyes less fair than life that gleams
Through the sleep that none but sinless eyes may know.
Near beneath, and near above, the terraced ways
Wind or stretch and bask or blink against the sun.
Hidden here from sight on soft or stormy days
Lies and laughs with love toward heaven, at silent gaze,
All the radiant rosary'all its flowers made one.
All the multitude of roses towering round
Dawn and noon and night behold as one full flower,
Fain of heaven and loved of heaven, curbed and crowned,
Raised and reared to make this plot of earthly ground
Heavenly, could but heaven endure on earth an hour.
Swept away, made nothing now for ever, dead,
Still the rosary lives and shines on memory, free
Now from fear of death or change as childhood, fled
Years on years before its last live leaves were shed:
None may mar it now, as none may stain the sea.
Nirvana.
by Sidney Lanier

Through seas of dreams and seas of phantasies,
Through seas of solitudes and vacancies,
And through my Self, the deepest of the seas,
I strive to thee, Nirvana.
Oh long ago the billow-flow of sense,
Aroused by passion's windy vehemence,
Upbore me out of depths to heights intense,
But not to thee, Nirvana.
By waves swept on, I learned to ride the waves.
I served my masters till I made them slaves.
I baffled Death by hiding in his graves,
His watery graves, Nirvana.
And once I clomb a mountain's stony crown
And stood, and smiled no smile and frowned no frown,
Nor ate, nor drank, nor slept, nor faltered down,
Five days and nights, Nirvana.
Sunrise and noon and sunset and strange night
And shadow of large clouds and faint starlight
And lonesome Terror stalking round the height,
I minded not, Nirvana.
The silence ground my soul keen like a spear.
My bare thought, whetted as a sword, cut sheer
Through time and life and flesh and death, to clear
My way unto Nirvana.
I slew gross bodies of old ethnic hates
That stirred long race-wars betwixt States and States.
I stood and scorned these foolish dead debates,
Calmly, calmly, Nirvana.
I smote away the filmy base of Caste.
I thrust through antique blood and riches vast,
And all big claims of the pretentious Past
That hindered my Nirvana.
Then all fair types, of form and sound and hue,
Up-floated round my sense and charmed anew.
- I waved them back into the void blue:
I love them not, Nirvana.
And all outrageous ugliness of time,
Excess and Blasphemy and squinting Crime
Beset me, but I kept my calm sublime:
I hate them not, Nirvana.
High on the topmost thrilling of the surge
I saw, afar, two hosts to battle urge.
The widows of the victors sang a dirge,
But I wept not, Nirvana.
I saw two lovers sitting on a star.
He kissed her lip, she kissed his battle-scar.
They quarrelled soon, and went two ways, afar.
O Life! I laughed, Nirvana.
And never a king but had some king above,
And never a law to right the wrongs of Love,
And ever a fanged snake beneath a dove,
Saw I on earth, Nirvana.
But I, with kingship over kings, am free.
I love not, hate not: right and wrong agree:
And fangs of snakes and lures of doves to me
Are vain, are vain, Nirvana.
So by mine inner contemplation long,
By thoughts that need no speech nor oath nor song,
My spirit soars above the motley throng
Of days and nights, Nirvana.
O Suns, O Rains, O Day and Night, O Chance,
O Time besprent with seven-hued circumstance,
I float above ye all into the trance
That draws me nigh Nirvana.
Gods of small worlds, ye little Deities
Of humble Heavens under my large skies,
And Governor-Spirits, all, I rise, I rise,
I rise into Nirvana.
The storms of Self below me rage and die.
On the still bosom of mine ecstasy,
A lotus on a lake of balm, I lie
Forever in Nirvana.
Macon, Georgia, 1869.
Worlds
by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

Through the pale green forest of tall bracken-stalks,
Whose interwoven fronds, a jade-green sky,
Above me glimmer, infinitely high,
Towards my giant hand a beetle walks
In glistening emerald mail; and as I lie
Watching his progress through huge grassy blades
And over pebble boulders, my own world fades
And shrinks to the vision of a beetle's eye.
Within that forest world of twilight green
Ambushed with unknown perils, one endless day
I travel down the beetle-trail between
Huge glossy boles through green infinity ...
Till flashes a glimpse of blue sea through the bracken asway,
And my world is again a tumult of windy sea.
The Jacket
by Rudyard Kipling

Through the Plagues of Egyp' we was chasin' Arabi,
Gettin' down an' shovin' in the sun;
An' you might 'ave called us dirty, an' you might ha' called us dry,
An' you might 'ave 'eard us talkin' at the gun.
But the Captain 'ad 'is jacket, an' the jacket it was new,
('Orse Gunners, listen to my song!)
An' the wettin' of the jacket is the proper thing to do,
Nor we didn't keep 'im waiting very long.
One day they gave us orders for to shell a sand redoubt,
Loadin' down the axle-arms with case;
But the Captain knew 'is dooty, an' he took the crackers out
An' he put some proper liquor in its place.
An' the Captain saw the shrapnel, which is six-an'-thirty clear.
('Orse Gunners, listen to my song!)
"Will you draw the weight," sez 'e, "or will you draw the beer?"
An' we didn't keep 'im waitin' very long.
For the Captain, etc.
Then we trotted gentle, not to break the bloomin' glass,
Though the Arabites 'ad all their ranges marked;
But we dursn't 'ardly gallop, for the most was bottled Bass,
An' we'd dreamed of it since we was disembarked,
So we fired economic with the shells we 'ad in 'and,
('Orse Gunners, listen to my song!)
But the beggars under cover 'ad the impidence to stand,
An' we couldn't keep 'em waitin' very long.
And the Captain, etc.
So we finished 'arf the liquor (an' the Captain took champagne),
An' the Arabites was shootin' all the while;
An' we left our wounded 'appy with the empties on the plain,
An' we used the bloomin' guns for projectile!
We limbered up an' galloped, there were nothin' else to do,
('Orse Gunners, listen to my song!)
An' the Battery came a-boundin' like a boundin' kangaroo,
But they didn't watch us comin' very long.
As the Captain, etc.
We was goin' most extended, we was drivin' very fine,
An' the Arabites were loosin' 'igh an' wide,
Till the Captain took the glacis with a rattlin' "right incline,"
An' we dropped upon their 'eads the other side.
Then we give 'em quarter, such as 'adn't up and cut,
('Orse Gunners, listen to my song!)
An' the Captain stood a limberful of fizzy somethin' Brutt,
But we didn't leave it fizzing very long.
For the Captain, etc.
We might ha' been court-martialled, but it all come out all right
When they signalled us to join the main command.
There was every round expended, there was every gunner tight,
An' the Captain waved a corkscrew in 'is 'and.
But the Captain 'ad 'is jacket, etc.
The Martyrs.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Through the straight pass of suffering
The martyrs even trod,
Their feet upon temptation,
Their faces upon God.
A stately, shriven company;
Convulsion playing round,
Harmless as streaks of meteor
Upon a planet's bound.
Their faith the everlasting troth;
Their expectation fair;
The needle to the north degree
Wades so, through polar air.
Through The Long Days.
by John Milton Hay

Through the long days and years
What will my loved one be,
Parted from me?
Through the long days and years.
Always as then she was,
Loveliest, brightest, best,
Blessing and blest, -
Always as then she was.
Never on earth again
Shall I before her stand,
Touch lip or hand, -
Never on earth again.
But while my darling lives
Peaceful I journey on,
Not quite alone,
Not while my darling lives.
The Mother Bird
by Walter De La Mare

Through the green twilight of a hedge
I peered, with cheek on the cool leaves pressed,
And spied a bird upon a nest:
Two eyes she had beseeching me
Meekly and brave, and her brown breast
Throbb'd hot and quick above her heart;
And then she oped her dagger bill, - 
'Twas not a chirp, as sparrows pipe
At break of day; 'twas not a trill,
As falters through the quiet even;
But one sharp solitary note,
One desperate, fierce, and vivid cry
Of valiant tears, and hopeless joy,
One passionate note of victory:
Off, like a fool afraid, I sneaked,
Smiling the smile the fool smiles best,
At the mother bird in the secret hedge
Patient upon her lonely nest.
A Child's Nightmare
by Robert von Ranke Graves

Through long nursery nights he stood
By my bed unwearying,
Loomed gigantic, formless, queer,
Purring in my haunted ear
That same hideous nightmare thing,
Talking, as he lapped my blood,
In a voice cruel and flat,
Saying for ever, "Cat! ... Cat! ... Cat!..."
That one word was all he said,
That one word through all my sleep,
In monotonous mock despair.
Nonsense may be light as air,
But there's Nonsense that can keep
Horror bristling round the head,
When a voice cruel and flat
Says for ever, "Cat! ... Cat! ... Cat!..."
He had faded, he was gone
Years ago with Nursery Land
When he leapt on me again
From the clank of a night train,
Overpowered me foot and head,
Lapped my blood, while on and on
The old voice cruel and flat
Says for ever, "Cat!... Cat!... Cat!..."
Morphia drowsed, again I lay
In a crater by High Wood:
He was there with straddling legs,
Staring eyes as big as eggs,
Purring as he lapped my blood,
His black bulk darkening the day,
With a voice cruel and flat,
"Cat!... Cat!... Cat!..." he said,
"Cat!... Cat!..."
When I'm shot through heart and head,
And there's no choice but to die,
The last word I'll hear, no doubt,
Won't be "Charge!" or "Bomb them out!"
Nor the stretcher-bearer's cry,
"Let that body be, he's dead!"
But a voice cruel and flat
Saying for ever, "Cat!... Cat!... Cat!"
The Song Of Callicles
by Matthew Arnold

Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts,
Thick breaks the red flame.
All Etna heaves fiercely
Her forest-clothed frame.
Not here, O Apollo!
Are haunts meet for thee.
But, where Helicon breaks down
In cliff to the sea.
Where the moon-silver'd inlets
Send far their light voice
Up the still vale of Thisbe,
O speed, and rejoice!
On the sward at the cliff-top,
Lie strewn the white flocks;
On the cliff-side, the pigeons
Roost deep in the rocks.
In the moonlight the shepherds,
Soft lull'd by the rills,
Lie wrapt in their blankets,
Asleep on the hills.
What forms are these coming
So white through the gloom?
What garments out-glistening
The gold-flower'd broom?
What sweet-breathing Presence
Out-perfumes the thyme?
What voices enrapture
The night's balmy prime?
'Tis Apollo comes leading
His choir, The Nine.
The Leader is fairest,
But all are divine.
They are lost in the hollows.
They stream up again.
What seeks on this mountain
The glorified train?
They bathe on this mountain,
In the spring by their road.
Then on to Olympus,
Their endless abode.
Whose praise do they mention:
Of what is it told?
What will be for ever.
What was from of old.
First hymn they the Father
Of all things: and then,
The rest of Immortals,
The action of men.
The Day in his hotness,
The strife with the palm;
The Night in her silence,
The Stars in their calm.
Ella with the Shining Hair
by Henry Kendall

Through many a fragrant cedar grove
A darkened water moans;
And there pale Memory stood with Love
Amongst the moss-green stones.
The shimmering sunlight fell and kissed
The grasstree's golden sheaves;
But we were troubled with a mist
Of music in the leaves.
One passed us, like a sudden gleam;
Her face was deadly fair.
'Oh, go,' we said, 'you homeless Dream
Of Ella's shining hair!
'We halt, like one with tired wings,
And we would fain forget
That there are tempting, maddening things
Too high to clutch at yet!
'Though seven Springs have filled the Wood
With pleasant hints and signs,
Since faltering feet went forth and stood
With Death amongst the pines.'
From point to point unwittingly
We wish to clamber still,
Till we have light enough to see
The summits of the hill.
'O do not cry, my sister dear,'
Said beaming Hope to Love,
'Though we have been so troubled here
The Land is calm above;
'Beyond the regions of the storm
We'll find the golden gates,
Where, all the day, a radiant Form,
Our Ella, sits and waits.'
And Memory murmured: 'She was one
Of God's own darlings lent;
And Angels wept that she had gone,
And wondered why she went.
'I know they came, and talked to her,
Through every garden breeze,
About eternal Hills of Myrrh,
And quiet Jasper Seas.
'For her the Earth contained no charms;
All things were strange and wild;
And I believe a Seraph's arms
Caught up the sainted Child.'
And Love looked round, and said: 'Oh, you
That sit by Beulah's streams,
Shake on this thirsty life the dew
Which brings immortal dreams!
'Ah! turn to us, and greet us oft
With looks of pitying balm,
And hints of heaven, in whispers soft,
To make our troubles calm.
'My Ella with the shining hair,
Behold, these many years,
We've held up wearied hands in prayer;
And groped about in tears.'
But Hope sings on: 'Beyond the storm
We'll find the golden gates
Where, all the day, a radiant Form,
Our Ella, sits and waits.'
Saint Germain-En-Laye
by Ernest Christopher Dowson

(1887-1895)
Through the green boughs I hardly saw thy face,
They twined so close: the sun was in mine eyes;
And now the sullen trees in sombre lace
Stand bare beneath the sinister, sad skies.
O sun and summer! Say in what far night,
The gold and green, the glory of thine head,
Of bough and branch have fallen? Oh, the white
Gaunt ghosts that flutter where thy feet have sped,
Across the terrace that is desolate,
And rang then with thy laughter, ghost of thee,
That holds its shroud up with most delicate,
Dead fingers, and behind the ghost of me,
Tripping fantastic with a mouth that jeers
At roseal flowers of youth the turbid streams
Toss in derision down the barren years
To death the host of all our golden dreams.
On Leaving N - St - D.
by George Gordon Byron

Through the cracks in these battlements loud the winds whistle,
For the hall of my fathers is gone to decay;
And in yon once gay garden the hemlock and thistle
Have choak'd up the rose, which late bloom'd in the way.
Of the barons of old, who once proudly to battle
Led their vassals from Europe to Palestine's plain;
The escutcheon and shield, which with ev'ry blast rattle,
Are the only sad vestiges now that remain.
No more does old Robert, with harp-stringing numbers,
Raise a flame in the breast, for the war laurell'd wreath,
Near Askalon's Towers John of Horiston[1] slumbers,
Unnerv'd is the hand of his minstrel by death.
Paul and Hubert too sleep in the valley of Cressy,
For the safety of Edward and ENGLAND they fell,
My fathers! the tears of your country redress ye,
How you fought! how you died! still her annals can tell.
On [2]Marston with Rupert[3] 'gainst traitors contending,
Four Brothers enrich'd with their blood the bleak field
For Charles the Martyr their country defending,
Till death their attachment to royalty scal'd.
Shades of heroes farewell! your descendant departing,
From the seat of his ancestors, bids ye adieu!
Abroad, or at home, your remembrance imparting
New courage, he'll think upon glory, and you.
Though a tear dims his eye at this sad separation,
'Tis nature, not fear, which commands his regret;
Far distant he goes with the same emulation,
In the grave, he alone can his fathers forget.
Your fame, and your memory, still will he cherish,
He vows that he ne'er will disgrace your renown;
Like you will he live, or like you will he perish,
When decay'd, may he mingle his dust with your own.
A Song Long Ago.
by George Parsons Lathrop

Through the pauses of thy fervid singing
Fell crystal sound
That thy fingers from the keys were flinging
Lightly around:
I felt the vine-like harmonies close clinging
About my soul;
And to my eyes, as fruit of their sweet bringing,
The full tear stole!
Catullus At His Brother's Grave
by Robert Fuller Murray

Through many lands and over many seas
I come, my Brother, to thine obsequies,
To pay thee the last honours that remain,
And call upon thy voiceless dust, in vain.
Since cruel fate has robbed me even of thee,
Unhappy Brother, snatched away from me,
Now none the less the gifts our fathers gave,
The melancholy honours of the grave,
Wet with my tears I bring to thee, and say
Farewell! farewell! for ever and a day.
Death
by Madison Julius Cawein

Through some strange sense of sight or touch
I find what all have found before,
The presence I have feared so much,
The unknown's immaterial door.
I seek not and it comes to me:
I do not know the thing I find:
The fillet of fatality
Drops from my brows that made me blind.
Point forward now or backward, light!
The way I take I may not choose:
Out of the night into the night,
And in the night no certain clews.
But on the future, dim and vast,
And dark with dust and sacrifice,
Death's towering ruin from the past
Makes black the land that round me lies.
In Flanders
by Eugene Field

Through sleet and fogs to the saline bogs
Where the herring fish meanders,
An army sped, and then, 't is said,
Swore terribly in Flanders:
"--------!"
"--------!"
A hideous store of oaths they swore,
Did the army over in Flanders!
At this distant day we're unable to say
What so aroused their danders;
But it's doubtless the case, to their lasting disgrace,
That the army swore in Flanders:
"--------!"
"--------!"
And many more such oaths they swore,
Did that impious horde in Flanders!
Some folks contend that these oaths without end
Began among the commanders,
That, taking this cue, the subordinates, too,
Swore terribly in Flanders:
Twas "------------!"
"--------"
Why, the air was blue with the hullaballoo
Of those wicked men in Flanders!
But some suppose that the trouble arose
With a certain Corporal Sanders,
Who sought to abuse the wooden shoes
That the natives wore in Flanders.
Saying: "--------!"
"--------"
What marvel then, that the other men
Felt encouraged to swear in Flanders!
At any rate, as I grieve to state,
Since these soldiers vented their danders
Conjectures obtain that for language profane
There is no such place as Flanders.
"--------"
"--------"
This is the kind of talk you'll find
If ever you go to Flanders.
How wretched is he, wherever he be,
That unto this habit panders!
And how glad am I that my interests lie
In Chicago, and not in Flanders!
"----------------!"
"----------------!"
Would never go down in this circumspect town
However it might in Flanders.
Sonnets on Separation V.
by Edward Shanks

Through the closed curtains comes the early sun,
First a pale finger, preluding the hand.
Outside more certainly the day's begun,
Where bright and brighter still the chestnuts stand,
Broad candles lighting up at the first fire.
I stir and turn in my uneasy sleep
But in my sorrow sleep's my whole desire.
About the still room small lights move and creep
Silently, stealthily on wall and chair,
Till to strong rays and shining lights they grow,
Which with their magic change the waiting air
And all its sleeping motes to gold and throw
A golden radiance on your empty bed,
Which wakes me with vain likeness to your head.