DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Sonnet - Silence
by Edgar Allan Poe

There are some qualities, some incorporate things,
That have a double life, which thus is made
A type of that twin entity which springs
From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.
There is a two-fold Silence, sea and shore,
Body and soul. One dwells in lonely places,
Newly with grass o'ergrown; some solemn graces,
Some human memories and tearful lore,
Render him terrorless: his name's "No More."
He is the corporate Silence: dread him not!
No power hath he of evil in himself;
But should some urgent fate (untimely lot!)
Bring thee to meet his shadow (nameless elf,
That haunteth the lone regions where hath trod
No foot of man,) commend thyself to God!
The Invisible Helpers
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

There are, there are
Invisible Great Helpers of the race.
Across unatlased continents of space,
From star to star.
In answer to some soul's imperious need,
They speed, they speed.
When the earth-loving young are forced to stand
Upon the border of the Unknown Land,
They come, they come - those angels who have trod
The altitudes of God,
And to the trembling heart
Their strength impart.
Have you not seen the delicate young maid,
Filled with the joy of life in her fair dawn,
Look in the face of death, all unafraid,
And smilingly pass on?
This is not human strength; not even faith
Has such large confidence in such an hour.
It is a power
Supplied by beings who have conquered death.
Floating from sphere to sphere
They hover near
The souls that need the courage they can give.
This is no vision of a dreamer's mind.
Though we are blind
They live, they live,
Filling all space - 
Invisible Great Helpers of the race.
The Two Loves.
by Thomas Moore

There are two Loves, the poet sings,
Both born of Beauty at a birth:
The one, akin to heaven, hath wings,
The other, earthly, walks on earth.
With this thro' bowers below we play,
With that thro' clouds above we soar;
With both, perchance, may lose our way:--
Then, tell me which,
Tell me which shall we adore?
The one, when tempted down from air,
At Pleasure's fount to lave his lip,
Nor lingers long, nor oft will dare
His wing within the wave to dip.
While plunging deep and long beneath,
The other bathes him o'er and o'er
In that sweet current, even to death:--
Then, tell me which,
Tell me which shall we adore?
The boy of heaven, even while he lies
In Beauty's lap, recalls his home;
And when most happy, inly sighs
For something happier still to come.
While he of earth, too fully blest
With this bright world to dream of more,
Sees all his heaven on Beauty's breast:--
Then, tell me which,
Tell me which shall we adore?
The maid who heard the poet sing
These twin-desires of earth and sky,
And saw while one inspired his string,
The other glistened in his eye,--
To name the earthlier boy ashamed,
To chose the other fondly loath,
At length all blushing she exclaimed,--
"Ask not which,
"Oh, ask not which--we'll worship both.
"The extremes of each thus taught to shun,
"With hearts and souls between them given,
"When weary of this earth with one,
"We'll with the other wing to heaven."
Thus pledged the maid her vow of bliss;
And while one Love wrote down the oath,
The other sealed it with a kiss;
And Heaven looked on,
Heaven looked on and hallowed both.
Lessons
by Walt Whitman

There are who teach only the sweet lessons of peace and safety;
But I teach lessons of war and death to those I love,
That they readily meet invasions, when they come.
Failure.
by Madison Julius Cawein

There are some souls
Whose lot it is to set their hearts on goals
That adverse Fate controls.
While others win
With little labor through life's dust and din,
And lord-like enter in
Immortal gates;
And, of Success the high-born intimates,
Inherit Fame's estates. . .
Why is't the lot
Of merit oft to struggle and yet not
Attain? to toil for what?
Simply to know
The disappointment, the despair and woe
Of effort here below?
Ambitious still to reach
Those lofty peaks, which men aspiring preach,
For which their souls beseech:
Those heights that swell
Remote, removed, and unattainable,
Pinnacle on pinnacle:
Still yearning to attain
Their far repose, above life's stress and strain,
But all in vain, in vain!. . .
Why hath God put
Great longings in some souls and straightway shut
All doors of their clay hut?
The clay accurst
That holds achievement back; from which, immersed,
The spirit may not burst.
Were it, at least,
Not better to have sat at Circe's feast,
If afterwards a beast?
Than aye to bleed,
To strain and strive, to toil in thought and deed,
And nevermore succeed?
Three Things.
by Madison Julius Cawein

There are three things of Earth
That help us more
Than those of heavenly birth
That all implore
Than Love or Faith or Hope,
For which we strive and grope.
The first one is Desire,
Who takes our hand
And fills our hearts with fire
None may withstand;
Through whom we're lifted far
Above both moon and star.
The second one is Dream,
Who leads our feet
By an immortal gleam
To visions sweet;
Through whom our forms put on
Dim attributes of dawn.
The last of these is Toil,
Who maketh true,
Within the world's turmoil
The other two;
Through whom we may behold
Ourselves with kings enrolled.
The Deadliest Sin
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

There are not many sins when once we sift them.
In actions of evolving human souls
Striving to reach high goals
And falling backward into dust and mire,
Some element we find that seems to lift them
Above our condemnation - even higher
Into the realm of pity and compassion.
So beauteous a thing as love itself can fashion
A chain of sins; descending to desire,
It wanders into dangerous paths, and leads
To most unholy deeds,
And light-struck, walks in madness toward the night.
Wrong oft-times is an over-ripened right,
A rank weed grown from some neglected flower,
The lightning uncontrolled:    flames meant for joy
And beauty, used to ravage and destroy.
For sins like these repentance can atone.
There is one sin alone
Which seems all unforgivable, because
It springs from no temptation and no need
And no desire, save to make sweet faith bleed,
And to defame God's laws.
Oh! viler than the murderer or the thief
Who slays the body and who robs the purse,
Is he who strives to kill the mind's belief
And rob it of its hope
Of life beyond this little pain-filled span.
God has no curse
Quite dark enough to punish such a man,
Who, seeing how souls grope
And suffer in this world of mighty losses,
And how hearts stagger on beneath life's crosses,
Yet strives to rob them of their staff of faith
And make them think dark death
Ends all existence; think the worshipped child
Cold in its mother's arms is but a clod
And has not gone to God;
That souls united by love undefiled
And holy can by death be torn asunder
To meet no more.
It must be true that under
This earth of ours there lies a Purgatory
For those who seek to rob grief of the glory
That shines through hope of life immortal.    In
Sin's lexicon this is the vilest sin - 
Needless and cruel, ugly, gaunt and mean,
Without one poor excuse on which to lean,
A vandal sin, that with no hope of gain
Finds pleasure only in another's pain.
God! though all other sins on earth persist,
Strike dumb the blatant, loud-mouthed atheist.
Happiness
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

There are so many little things that make life beautiful.
I can recall a day in early youth when I was longing for happiness.
Toward the western hills I gazed, watching for its approach.
The hills lay between me and the setting sun, and over them led a highway.
When some traveller crossed the hill, always a fine grey dust rose cloudless against the sky.
The traveller I could not distinguish, but the dust-cloud I could see.
And the dust-cloud seemed formed of hopes and possibilities -each speck an embryo event.
At sunset, when the skies were fair, the dust-cloud grew radiant and shone with visions.
The happiness for which I waited came not to me adown that western slope,
But now I can recall the cloud of golden dust, the sunset, and the highway leading over the hill,
The wonderful hope and expectancy of my heart, the visions of youth in my eyes; and I know this was happiness.
There are so many little things that make life beautiful.
I can recall another day when I rebelled at life's monotony.
Everywhere about me was the commonplace; and nothing seemed to happen.
Each day was like its yesterday, and to-morrow gave no promise of change.
My young heart rose rebellious in my breast; and I ran aimlessly into the sunlight -the glowing sunlight of June.
I sent out a dumb cry to Fate, demanding larger joys and more delight.
I ran blindly into a field of blooming clover.
It was breast-high, and billowed about me like rose-red waves of a fragrant sea.
The bees were singing above it; and their little brown bodies were loaded with honey-dew, extracted from the clover blossoms.
The sun reeled in the heavens dizzy with its own splendour.
The day went into night, without bringing any new event to change my life.
But now I recall the field of blooming clover, and the honey-laden bees, the glorious June sunlight, and the passion of youth in my heart; and I know that was happiness.
There are so many little things that make life beautiful.
Yesterday a failure stared me in the face, where I had thought to welcome proud success.
There was no radiant cloud of dust against the western sky, and no clover field lying fragrant under mid-June suns,
Neither was youth with me any more.
But under the vines that clung against my walls, a flock of birds sought shelter just at twilight;
And, standing at my casement, I could hear the twitter of their voices and the soft, sweet flutter of their wings.
Then over me there fell a sense of peace and calm, and love for all created things, and trust illimitable.
And that I knew was happiness.
There are so many little things to make life beautiful.
Which Are You?
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

There are two kinds of people on earth to-day;
Just two kinds of people, no more, I say.
Not the sinner and the saint, for it's well understood,
The good are half bad and the bad are half good.
Not the rich and the poor, for to rate a man's wealth,
You must first know the state of his conscience and health.
Not the humble and proud, for in life's little span,
Who puts on vain airs, is not counted a man.
Not the happy and sad, for the swift flying years
Bring each man his laughter and each man his tears.
No; the two kinds of people on earth I mean,
Are the people who lift, and the people who lean.
Wherever you go, you will find the earth's masses,
Are always divided in just these two classes.
And oddly enough, you will find too, I ween,
There's only one lifter to twenty who lean.
In which class are you? Are you easing the load,
Of overtaxed lifters, who toil down the road?
Or are you a leaner, who lets others share
Your portion of labor, and worry and care?
Twin Idols
by Eugene Field

There are two phrases, you must know,
So potent (yet so small)
That wheresoe'er a man may go
He needs none else at all;
No servile guide to lead the way
Nor lackey at his heel,
If he be learned enough to say
"Comme bien" and "Wie viel."
The sleek, pomaded Parleyvoo
Will air his sweetest airs
And quote the highest rates when you
"Comme bien" for his wares;
And, though the German stolid be,
His so-called heart of steel
Becomes as soft as wax when he
Detects the words "Wie viel."
Go, search the boulevards and rues
From Havre to Marseilles--
You'll find all eloquence you use
Except "Comme bien" fails;
Or in the country auf der Rhine
Essay a business deal
And all your art is good fuhr nein
Beyond the point--"Wie viel."
It matters not what game or prey
Attracts your greedy eyes--
You must pursue the good old way
If you would win the prize;
It is to get a titled mate
All run down at the heel,
If you inquire of stock effete,
"Comme bien" or "Wie viel."
So he is wise who envieth not
A wealth of foreign speech,
Since with two phrases may be got
Whatever's in his reach;
For Europe is a soulless shrine
In which all classes kneel
Before twin idols, deemed divine--
"Comme bien" and "Wie viel."
Ballade Of The Bees Of Trebizond
by Richard Le Gallienne

There blooms a flower in Trebizond
Stored with such honey for the bee,
(So saith the antique book I conned)
Of such alluring fragrancy,
Not sweeter smells the Eden-tree;
Thither the maddened feasters fly,
Yet - so alas! is it with me - 
To taste that honey is to die.
Belov'd, I, as foolish fond,
Feast still my eyes and heart on thee,
Asking no blessedness beyond
Thy face from morn till night to see,
Ensorcelled past all remedy;
Even as those foolish bees am I,
Though well I know my destiny - 
To taste that honey is to die.
O'er such a doom shall I despond?
I would not from thy snare go free,
Release me not from thy sweet bond,
I live but in thy mystery;
Though all my senses from me flee,
I still would glut my glazing eye,
Thou nectar of mortality - 
To taste that honey is to die.
ENVOI
Princess, before I cease to be,
Bend o'er my lips so burning dry
Thy honeycombs of ivory - 
To taste that honey is to die.
There Blooms No Bud In May
by Walter De La Mare

There blooms no bud in May
Can for its white compare
With snow at break of day,
On fields forlorn and bare.
For shadow it hath rose,
Azure, and amethyst;
And every air that blows
Dies out in beauteous mist.
It hangs the frozen bough
With flowers on which the night
Wheeling her darkness through
Scatters a starry light.
Fearful of its pale glare
In flocks the starlings rise;
Slide through the frosty air,
And perch with plaintive cries.
Only the inky rook,
Hunched cold in ruffled wings,
Its snowy nest forsook,
Caws of unnumbered Springs.
Obstacles
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

'The slothful man saith, There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the street.' - PROVERBS xxvi. 13.
There are no lions in the street;
No lions in the way.
Go seek the goal, thou slothful soul,
Awake, awake, I say.
Thou dost but dream of obstacles;
In God's great lexicon,
That word illstarred, no page has marred;
Press on, I say, press on.
Nothing can keep thee from thine own
But thine own slothful mind.
To one who knocks, each door unlocks;
And he who seeks, shall find.
He Cries Out Against Love
by Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory

There are three fine devils eating my heart--
They left me, my grief! without a thing;
Sickness wrought, and Love wrought,
And an empty pocket, my ruin and my woe.
Poverty left me without a shirt,
Barefooted, barelegged, without any covering;
Sickness left me with my head weak
And my body miserable, an ugly thing.
Love left me like a coal upon the floor,
Like a half-burned sod that is never put out.
Worse than the cough, worse than the fever itself,
Worse than any curse at all under the sun,
Worse than the great poverty
Is the devil that is called "Love" by the people.
And if I were in my young youth again
I would not take, or give, or ask for a kiss!
A Translation
by Rudyard Kipling

There are whose study is of smells,
And to attentive schools rehearse
How something mixed with something else
Makes something worse.
Some cultivate in broths impure
The clients of our body, these,
Increasing without Venus, cure,
Or cause, disease.
Others the heated wheel extol,
And all its offspring, whose concern
Is how to make it farthest roll
And fastest turn.
Me, much incurious if the hour
Present, or to be paid for, brings
Me to Brundusium by the power
Of wheels or wings;
Me, in whose breast no flame hath burned 
Life-long, save that by Pindar lit,
Such lore leaves cold. I am not turned
Aside to it
More than when, sunk in thought profound
Of what the unaltering Gods require,
My steward (friend but slave) brings round
Logs for my fire.
Which Are You?
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

There are two kinds of people on earth to-day;
Just two kinds of people, no more, I say.
Not the sinner and saint, for it's well understood
The good are half bad, and the bad are half good.
Not the rich and the poor, for to rate a man's wealth
You must first know the state of his conscience and health.
Not the humble and proud, for, in life's little span,
Who puts on vain airs is not counted a man.
Not the happy and sad, for the swift flying years
Bring each man his laughter, and each man his tears.
No; the two kinds of people on earth I mean
Are the people who lift, and the people who lean.
Wherever you go, you will find the earth's masses
Are always divided in just these two classes.
And, oddly enough, you will find too, I ween,
There's only one lifter to twenty who lean.
In which class are you?    Are you easing the load
Of overtaxed lifters, who toil down the road?
Or are you a leaner, who lets others share
Your portion of labour and worry and care?
New Year's Eve
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

There are only two things now,
The great black night scooped out
And this fire-glow.
This fire-glow, the core,
And we the two ripe pips
That are held in store.
Listen, the darkness rings
As it circulates round our fire.
Take off your things.
Your shoulders, your bruised throat
Your breasts, your nakedness!
This fiery coat!
As the darkness flickers and dips,
As the firelight falls and leaps
From your feet to your lips!
Within Reach
by Paul Cameron Brown

There are two images,
a moon within reach
yet trapped under snow - 
an old woman's threadbare shawl
with peasants furiously working brooms
scraping ice shavings
into howls and husks of frenzy.
Ii
Then the same pond,
this time summer
with fishing nets,
and briefer shawls
pirating light's wanton swoon,
a spyglass hour moon
all bathed in yellow
colour of kerosene
- a rich creamy butter - 
goldilocks let out on weekends
her spun, golden tresses
lowered onto the water
like so many little boats
nimbly hopping aboard.
lii
A kerchief folded on a fence
a man wearing an overcoat living there
in white satin swooning
to the pianist's expert touch
down magic chambers
soothing, soothing there
to fold and tear
the pileated moonlit edge
of her skin.
Eurunderee
by Henry Lawson

There are scenes in the distance where beauty is not,
On the desolate flats where gaunt appletrees rot.
Where the brooding old ridge rises up to the breeze
From his dark lonely gullies of stringy-bark trees,
There are voice-haunted gaps, ever sullen and strange,
But Eurunderee lies like a gem in the range.
Still I see in my fancy the dark-green and blue
Of the box-covered hills where the five-corners grew;
And the rugged old sheoaks that sighed in the bend
O'er the lily-decked pools where the dark ridges end,
And the scrub-covered spurs running down from the Peak
To the deep grassy banks of Eurunderee Creek.
On the knolls where the vineyards and fruit-gardens are
There's a beauty that even the drought cannot mar;
For I noticed it oft, in the days that are lost,
As I trod on the siding where lingered the frost,
When the shadows of night from the gullies were gone
And the hills in the background were flushed by the dawn.
I was there in late years, but there's many a change
Where the Cudgegong River flows down through the range,
For the curse of the town with the railroad had come,
And the goldfields were dead. And the girl and the chum
And the old home were gone, yet the oaks seemed to speak
Of the hazy old days on Eurunderee Creek.
And I stood by that creek, ere the sunset grew cold,
When the leaves of the sheoaks are traced on the gold,
And I thought of old things, and I thought of old folks,
Till I sighed in my heart to the sigh of the oaks;
For the years waste away like the waters that leak
Through the pebbles and sand of Eurunderee Creek.
The Jester
by Rudyard Kipling

There are three degrees of bliss
At the foot of Allah's Throne,
And the highest place is his
Who saves a brother's soul
At peril of his own.
There is the Power made known!
There are three degrees of bliss
In Gardens of Paradise,
And the second place is his 
Who saves his brother's soul
By exellent advice.
For there the Glory lies!
There the are three degrees of bliss
And three abodes of the Blest,
And the lowest place is his 
Who has saved a soul by jest
And    a brother's soul in sport...
But there do the Angels resort!
The Dying Prince
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

There are no days for me any more, for the dawn is dark with tears,
There is no rest for me any more, for the night is thick with fears.
There are no flowers nor any fruit, for the sorrowful locusts came,
And the garden is but a memory, the vineyard only a name.
There is no light in the empty sky, no sail upon the sea,
Birds are yet on their nests perchance, but they sing no more to me.
Past - vanished - faded away - all the joys that were.
My youth died down in a swift decline when they married her to despair.
"My lord, the crowd in the Audience Hall; how long wilt thou have them wait?"
I have given my father's younger son the guidance of the State.
"The steeds are saddled, the Captains call for the orders of the day."
Tell them that I shall ride no more to the hunting or the fray.
"Sweet the scent of the Moghra flowers;" Brother, it may be so.
"The young, flushed spring is with us again."    Is it?    I did not know.
"The Zamorin's daughter draweth near, on slender golden feet;"
Oh, a curse upon all sweet things say I, to whom they are no more sweet!
Dost think that a man as sick as I can compass a woman's ease?
That the sons of a man who is like to me could ever find rest or peace?
Tell them to marry them where they will, if their longing be so sore,
Such are the things that all men seek, but I shall seek no more.
All my muscles are fallen in, and the blood deserts my veins,
Every fibre and bone of me is waxen full of pains,
The iron feet of mine enemy's curse are heavy upon my head,
Look at me and judge for thyself, thou seest I am but dead.
"Then, who is it, Prince, who has done this thing, has sown such a bitter seed,
That we hale him forth to the Market-place, bind him and let him bleed,
That the flesh may shudder and wince and writhe, reddening 'neath the rod."
Love is the evil-doer, alas! and how shalt thou scourge a God?
Ghosts Of The New World
by Alfred Noyes

"There are no ghosts in America."
There are no ghosts, you say,
To haunt her blaze of light;
No shadows in her day,
No phantoms in her night.
Columbus' tattered sail
Has passed beyond our hail.
What? On that magic coast,
Where Raleigh fought with fate,
Or where that Devon ghost
Unbarred the Golden Gate,
No dark, strange, ear-ringed men
Beat in from sea again?
No ghosts in Salem town
With silver buckled shoon?
No lovely witch to drown
Or burn beneath the moon?
Not even a whiff of tea,
On Boston's glimmering quay.
O, ghostly Spanish walls,
Where brown Franciscans glide,
Is there no voice that calls
Across the Great Divide,
To pilgrims on their way
Along the Santa Fe?
Then let your Pullman cars
Go roaring to the West,
Till, watched by lonelier stars,
The cactus lifts its crest.
There, on that painted plain,
One ghost will rise again.
Majestic and forlorn,
Wreck of a dying race,
The Red Man, half in scorn,
Shall raise his haughty face,
Inscrutable as the sky,
To watch our ghosts go by.
What? Is earth dreaming still?
Shall not the night disgorge
The ghosts of Bunker Hill
The ghosts of Valley Forge,
Or, England's mightiest son,
The ghost of Washington?
No ghosts where Lincoln fell?
No ghosts for seeing eyes?
I know an old cracked bell
Shall make ten million rise
When one immortal ghost
Calls to the slumbering host.
There Are Sounds Of Mirth.
by Thomas Moore

There are sounds of mirth in the night-air ringing,
And lamps from every casement shown;
While voices blithe within are singing,
That seem to say "Come," in every tone.
Ah! once how light, in Life's young season,
My heart had leapt at that sweet lay;
Nor paused to ask of graybeard Reason
Should I the syren call obey.
And, see--the lamps still livelier glitter,
The syren lips more fondly sound;
No, seek, ye nymphs, some victim fitter
To sink in your rosy bondage bound.
Shall a bard, whom not the world in arms
Could bend to tyranny's rude control,
Thus quail at sight of woman's charms
And yield to a smile his freeborn soul?
Thus sung the sage, while, slyly stealing,
The nymphs their fetters around him cast,
And,--their laughing eyes, the while, concealing,--
Led Freedom's Bard their slave at last.
For the Poet's heart, still prone to loving,
Was like that rack of the Druid race,[1]
Which the gentlest touch at once set moving,
But all earth's power couldn't cast from its base.