DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Gascon
by Jean de La Fontaine

I AM always inclined to suspect
The best story under the sun
As soon as by chance I detect
That teller and hero are one.
We're all of us prone to conceit,
And like to proclaim our own glory,
But our purpose we're apt to defeat
As actors in chief of our story.
To prove the truth of what I state
Let me an anecdote relate:
A Gascon with his comrade sat
At tavern drinking. This and that
He vaunted with assertion pat.
From gasconade to gasconade
Passed to the conquests he had made
In love.    A buxom country maid,
Who served the wine, with due attention
Lent patient ear to each invention,
And pressed her hands against her side
Her bursting merriment to hide.
To hear our Gascon talk, no Sue
Nor Poll in town but that he knew;
With each he'd passed a blissful night
More to their own than his delight.
This one he loved for she was fair,
That for her glossy ebon hair.
One miss, to tame his cruel rigour,
Had brought him gifts. - She owned his vigour
In short it wanted but his gaze
To set each trembling heart ablaze.
His strength surpassed his luck, - the test - 
In one short night ten times he'd blessed
A dame who gratefully expressed
Her thanks with corresponding zest.
At this the maid burst forth, "What more?
"I never heard such lies before!
"Content were I if at that sport
"I had what that poor dame was short."
Social Amenities
by Aldous Leonard Huxley

I am getting on well with this anecdote,
When suddenly I recall
The many times I have told it of old,
And all the worked-up phrases, and the dying fall
Of voice, well timed in the crisis, the note
Of mock-heroic ingeniously struck - 
The whole thing sticks in my throat,
And my face all tingles and pricks with shame
For myself and my hearers.
These are the social pleasures, my God!
But I finish the story triumphantly all the same.
Little Phillis.
by Kate Greenaway

I am a very little girl,
I think that I've turned two;
And if you'd like to know my name
I'd like to tell it you.
They always call me Baby,
But Phillis is my name.
No no one ever gave it me,
I think it only came.
I've got a pretty tulip
In my little flower-bed;
If you would like I'll give it you 
It's yellow, striped with red.
I've got a little kitten, but
I can't give that away,
She likes to play with me so much;
She's gone to sleep to-day.
And I've got a nice new dolly,
Shall I fetch her out to you?
She's got such pretty shoes on,
And her bonnet's trimmed with blue.
You'd like to take her home with you?
Oh, no, she mustn't go;
Good-bye I want to run now,
You walk along so slow.
Sonnet To Byron.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

[I am afraid these verses will not please you, but]
If I esteemed you less, Envy would kill
Pleasure, and leave to Wonder and Despair
The ministration of the thoughts that fill
The mind which, like a worm whose life may share
A portion of the unapproachable,
Marks your creations rise as fast and fair
As perfect worlds at the Creator's will.
But such is my regard that nor your power
To soar above the heights where others [climb],
Nor fame, that shadow of the unborn hour
Cast from the envious future on the time,
Move one regret for his unhonoured name
Who dares these words: - the worm beneath the sod
May lift itself in homage of the God.
Rose Of All The World
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

I am here myself; as though this heave of effort
At starting other life, fulfilled my own:
Rose-leaves that whirl in colour round a core
Of seed-specks kindled lately and softly blown
By all the blood of the rose-bush into being - 
Strange, that the urgent will in me, to set
My mouth on hers in kisses, and so softly
To bring together two strange sparks, beget
Another life from our lives, so should send
The innermost fire of my own dim soul out- spinning
And whirling in blossom of flame and being upon me!
That my completion of manhood should be the beginning
Another life from mine! For so it looks.
The seed is purpose, blossom accident.
The seed is all in all, the blossom lent
To crown the triumph of this new descent.
Is that it, woman? Does it strike you so?
The Great Breath blowing a tiny seed of fire
Fans out your petals for excess of flame,
Till all your being smokes with fine desire?
Or are we kindled, you and I, to be
One rose of wonderment upon the tree
Of perfect life, and is our possible seed
But the residuum of the ecstasy?
How will you have it? - the rose is all in all,
Or the ripe rose-fruits of the luscious fall?
The sharp begetting, or the child begot?
Our consummation matters, or does it not?
To me it seems the seed is just left over
From the red rose-flowers' fiery transience;
Just orts and slarts; berries that smoulder in the bush
Which burnt just now with marvellous immanence.
Blossom, my darling, blossom, be a rose
Of roses unchidden and purposeless; a rose
For rosiness only, without an ulterior motive;
For me it is more than enough if the flower un- close.
Fragment: Wedded Souls.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I am as a spirit who has dwelt
Within his heart of hearts, and I have felt
His feelings, and have thought his thoughts, and known
The inmost converse of his soul, the tone
Unheard but in the silence of his blood,
When all the pulses in their multitude
Image the trembling calm of summer seas.
I have unlocked the golden melodies
Of his deep soul, as with a master-key,
And loosened them and bathed myself therein -
Even as an eagle in a thunder-mist
Clothing his wings with lightning.
Behind The Bars
by Edward Smyth Jones

I am a pilgrim far from home,
A wanderer like Mars,
And thought my wanderings ne'er should come,
So fixed behind the bars!
I left my sunny Southern home
Beneath the silver stars;
A northward path began to roam,
Not seeking prison bars.
I sought a higher, holier life,
Which never virtue mars;
But Fate had spun a net of strife
For me behind the bars!
My mother's lowly thatched-roofed cot
My nobler senses jars;
And so I seek to aid her lot,
But not behind the bars!
'Tis said, forsooth, the poet learns
Through sufferings and wars
To sing the song which deepest burns
Behind the prison bars!
Thus I resign myself to Fate,
Regardless of her scars;
For soon she'll open wide the gate
For me behind the bars.
I plead to you, my fellow man,
For all who wear the tars;
To lend what little help you can
To us behind the bars.
O God, I breathe my prayer to Thee,
Who never sinner bars:
Set each immortal spirit free
Behind these prison bars!
Spring.
by Margaret Steele Anderson

I am a virgin, whom no man hath known,
And all desire to know. The figure I
Of mortal dream and mortal prophecy.
Thou desert Sphinx, with thy gray lips of stone,
Keep thy poor secret, I have kept mine own!
A Minor Poet
by Stephen Vincent Benet

I am a shell. From me you shall not hear
The splendid tramplings of insistent drums,
The orbed gold of the viol's voice that comes,
Heavy with radiance, languorous and clear.
Yet, if you hold me close against the ear,
A dim, far whisper rises clamorously,
The thunderous beat and passion of the sea,
The slow surge of the tides that drown the mere.
Others with subtle hands may pluck the strings,
Making even Love in music audible,
And earth one glory. I am but a shell
That moves, not of itself, and moving sings;
Leaving a fragrance, faint as wine new-shed,
A tremulous murmur from great days long dead.
Ballad Of The Primitive Jest
by Andrew Lang

I am an ancient Jest!
Paleolithic man
In his arboreal nest
The sparks of fun would fan;
My outline did he plan,
And laughed like one possessed,
'Twas thus my course began,
I am a Merry Jest.
I am an early Jest!
Man delved and built and span;
Then wandered South and West
The peoples Aryan,
I journeyed in their van;
The Semites, too, confessed,
From Beersheba to Dan,
I am a Merry Jest.
I am an ancient Jest,
Through all the human clan,
Red, black, white, free, oppressed,
Hilarious I ran!
I'm found in Lucian,
In Poggio, and the rest,
I'm dear to Moll and Nan!
I am a Merry Jest!
|envoy|:
Prince, you may storm and ban
Joe Millers are a pest,
Suppress me if you can!
I am a Merry Jest!
Man's Dignity.
by Friedrich Schiller

I am a man! Let every one
Who is a man, too, spring
With joy beneath God's shining sun,
And leap on high, and sing!
To God's own image fair on earth
Its stamp I've power to show;
Down to the front, where heaven has birth
With boldness I dare go.
'Tis well that I both dare and can!
When I a maiden see,
A voice exclaims: thou art a man!
I kiss her tenderly.
And redder then the maiden grows,
Her bodice seems too tight
That I'm a man the maiden knows,
Her bodice therefore's tight.
Will she, perchance, for pity cry,
If unawares she's caught?
She finds that I'm a man then, why
By her is pity sought?
I am a man; and if alone
She sees me drawing near,
I make the emperor's daughter run,
Though ragged I appear.
This golden watchword wins the smile
Of many a princess fair;
They call ye'd best look out the while,
Ye gold-laced fellows there!
That I'm a man is fully shown
Whene'er my lyre I sweep;
It thunders out a glorious tone
It otherwise would creep.
The spirit that my veins now hold,
My manhood calls its brother!
And both command, like lions bold,
And fondly greet each other.
From out this same creative flood
From which we men have birth,
Both godlike strength and genius bud,
And everything of worth.
My talisman all tyrants hates,
And strikes them to the ground;
Or guides us gladly through life's gates
To where the dead are found.
E'en Pompey, at Pharsalia's fight,
My talisman o'erthrew;
On German sand it hurled with might
Rome's sensual children, too.
Didst see the Roman, proud and stern,
Sitting on Afric's shore?
His eyes like Hecla seem to burn,
And fiery flames outpour.
Then comes a frank and merry knave,
And spreads it through the land:
"Tell them that thou on Carthage's grave
Hast seen great Marius stand!"
Thus speaks the son of Rome with pride,
Still mighty in his fall;
He is a man, and naught beside,
Before him tremble all.
His grandsons afterwards began
Their portions to o'erthrow,
And thought it well that every man
Should learn with grace to crow.
For shame, for shame, once more for shame!
The wretched ones? they've even
Squandered the tokens of their fame,
The choicest gifts of heaven.
God's counterfeit has sinfully
Disgraced his form divine,
And in his vile humanity
Has wallowed like the swine.
The face of earth each vainly treads,
Like gourds, that boys in sport
Have hollowed out to human heads,
With skulls, whose brains are naught.
Like wine that by a chemist's art
Is through retorts refined,
Their spirits to the deuce depart,
The phlegma's left behind.
From every woman's face they fly,
Its very aspect dread,
And if they dared and could not why,
'Twere better they were dead.
They shun all worthies when they can,
Grief at their joy they prove
The man who cannot make a man,
A man can never love!
The world I proudly wander o'er,
And plume myself and sing
I am a man! Whoe'er is more?
Then leap on high, and spring!
The Pipe
by Charles Baudelaire

I am a writer's pipe; you see
In looking at my dusky face,
Complexion of the Kaffir race,
My master makes good use of me.
When he is full of grief and gloom
I smoke as if I were a shack
With supper stewing in the back
To feed the ploughman coming home.
I cradle and enwrap his soul
Within the blue and moving net
That from my fiery mouth uncoils,
And is healing balm the rolls
To charm his weary heart, and let
His spirit rest from heavy toils.
Penetralia
by Madison Julius Cawein

I am a part of all you see
In Nature; part of all you feel:
I am the impact of the bee
Upon the blossom; in the tree
I am the sap, that shall reveal
The leaf, the bloom, that flows and flutes
Up from the darkness through its roots.
I am the vermeil of the rose,
The perfume breathing in its veins;
The gold within the mist that glows
Along the west and overflows
The heaven with light; the dew that rains
Its freshness down and strings with spheres
Of wet the webs and oaten ears.
I am the egg that folds the bird,
The song that beaks and breaks its shell;
The laughter and the wandering word
The water says; and, dimly heard,
The music of the blossom's bell
When soft winds swing it; and the sound
Of grass slow-creeping o'er the ground.
I am the warmth, the honey-scent
That throats with spice each lily-bud
That opens, white with wonderment,
Beneath the moon; or, downward bent,
Sleeps with a moth beneath its hood:
I am the dream that haunts it too,
That crystallizes into dew.
I am the seed within its pod;
The worm within its closed cocoon:
The wings within the circling clod,
The germ that gropes through soil and sod
To beauty, radiant in the noon:
I am all these, behold! and more
I am the love at the world-heart's core.
Song Of The Road
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I am a Road; a good road, fair and smooth and broad;
And I link with my beautiful tether
Town and Country together,
Like a ribbon rolled on the earth, from the reel of God.
Oh, great the life of a Road!
I am a Road; a long road, leading on and on;
And I cry to the world to follow,
Past meadow and hill and hollow,
Through desolate night, to the open gates of dawn.
Oh, bold the life of a Road!
I am a Road; a kind road, shaped by strong hands.
I make strange cities neighbours;
The poor grow rich with my labours,
And beauty and comfort follow me through the lands.
Oh, glad the life of a Road!
I am a Road; a wise road, knowing all men's ways;
And I know how each heart reaches
For the things dear Nature teaches;
And I am the path that leads into green young Mays.
Oh, sweet the life of a Road!
I am a Road; and I speed away from the slums,
Away from desolate places,
Away from unused spaces;
Wherever I go, there order from chaos comes.
Oh, brave the life of a Road!
I am a Road; and I would make the whole world one.
I would give hope to duty,
And cover the earth with beauty.
Do you not see, O men! how all this might be done?
So vast the power of the Road!
A Thought For Spring.
by Charles Sangster

I am happier for the Spring;
For my heart is like a bird
That has many songs to sing,
But whose voice is never heard
Till the happy year is caroling
To the daisies on the sward.
I'd be happier for the Spring,
Though my heart had grown so old
Like a crone 'twould sit and sing
Its shrill runes of wintry cold;
For I'd know the year was caroling
To the daisies on the wold.
Penetralia
by Madison Julius Cawein

I am a part of all you see
In Nature; part of all you feel:
I am the impact of the bee
Upon the blossom; in the tree
I am the sap, - that shall reveal
The leaf, the bloom, - that flows and flutes
Up from the darkness through its roots.
I am the vermeil of the rose,
The perfume breathing in its veins;
The gold within the mist that glows
Along the west and overflows
With light the heaven; the dew that rains
Its freshness down and strings with spheres
Of wet the webs and oaten ears.
I am the egg that folds the bird;
The song that beaks and breaks its shell;
The laughter and the wandering word
The water says; and, dimly heard,
The music of the blossom's bell
When soft winds swing it; and the sound
Of grass slow-creeping o'er the ground.
I am the warmth, the honey-scent
That throats with spice each lily-bud
That opens, white with wonderment,
Beneath the moon; or, downward bent,
Sleeps with a moth beneath its hood:
I am the dream that haunts it too,
That crystallizes into dew.
I am the seed within the pod;
The worm within its closed cocoon:
The wings within the circling clod,
The germ, that gropes through soil and sod
To beauty, radiant in the noon:
I am all these, behold! and more - 
I am the love at the world-heart's core.
Song: Fear in the Night.
by Edward Shanks

I am afraid to-night,
We are too glad, too gay,
Our life too sweet, too bright
To last another day.
What hap, what chance can fall,
What sorrow come, what schism,
What loss, what cataclysm
To part us two at all?
The stars with ageless fire
In skies serene the same
Observe our young desire
And watch our loves aflame.
A whisper soft, a sound
Unfollowed, unattended,
Shakes all the branches round:
They sleep and it is ended.
You sleep and I alone
Torment myself with fear
For new joys coming near
And gracious actions done.
I am afraid to-night,
We are too glad, too gay,
Our life too sweet, too bright
To last another day.
Verses For Pictures.
by William Morris

Day.
I am Day; I bring again
Life and glory, Love and pain:
Awake, arise! from death to death
Through me the World's tale quickeneth.
Spring.
Spring am I, too soft of heart
Much to speak ere I depart:
Ask the Summer-tide to prove
The abundance of my love.
Summer.
Summer looked for long am I;
Much shall change or e'er I die.
Prithee take it not amiss
Though I weary thee with bliss.
Autumn.
Laden Autumn here I stand
Worn of heart, and weak of hand:
Nought but rest seems good to me,
Speak the word that sets me free.
Winter.
I am Winter, that do keep
Longing safe amidst of sleep:
Who shall say if I were dead
What should be remembered?
Night.
I am Night: I bring again
Hope of pleasure, rest from pain:
Thoughts unsaid 'twixt Life and Death
My fruitful silence quickeneth.
The Dream Is Which?
by Thomas Hardy

I am laughing by the brook with her,
Splashed in its tumbling stir;
And then it is a blankness looms
As if I walked not there,
Nor she, but found me in haggard rooms,
And treading a lonely stair.
With radiant cheeks and rapid eyes
We sit where none espies;
Till a harsh change comes edging in
As no such scene were there,
But winter, and I were bent and thin,
And cinder-gray my hair.
We dance in heys around the hall,
Weightless as thistleball;
And then a curtain drops between,
As if I danced not there,
But wandered through a mounded green
To find her, I knew where.
March 1913.
Religion
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

I am no priest of crooks nor creeds,
For human wants and human needs
Are more to me than prophets' deeds;
And human tears and human cares
Affect me more than human prayers.
Go, cease your wail, lugubrious saint!
You fret high Heaven with your plaint.
Is this the "Christian's joy" you paint?
Is this the Christian's boasted bliss?
Avails your faith no more than this?
Take up your arms, come out with me,
Let Heav'n alone; humanity
Needs more and Heaven less from thee.
With pity for mankind look 'round;
Help them to rise--and Heaven is found.
The Philosophers.
by Friedrich Schiller

PUPIL.
I am rejoiced, worthy sirs, to find you in pleno assembled;
For I have come down below, seeking the one needful thing.
ARISTOTLE.
Quick to the point, my good friend! For the Jena Gazette comes to hand here,
Even in hell, so we know all that is passing above.
PUPIL.
So much the better! So give me (I will not depart hence without it)
Some good principle now, one that will always avail!
FIRST PHILOSOPHER.
Cogito, ergo sum. I have thought, and therefore existence!
If the first be but true, then is the second one sure.
PUPIL.
As I think, I exist. 'Tis good! But who always is thinking?
Oft I've existed e'en when I have been thinking of naught.
SECOND PHILOSOPHER.
Since there are things that exist, a thing of all things there must needs be;
In the thing of all things dabble we, just as we are.
THIRD PHILOSOPHER.
Just the reverse, say I. Besides myself there is nothing;
Everything else that there is is but a bubble to me.
FOURTH PHILOSOPHER.
Two kinds of things I allow to exist, the world and the spirit;
Naught of others I know; even these signify one.
FIFTH PHILOSOPHER.
I know naught of the thing, and know still less of the spirit;
Both but appear unto me; yet no appearance they are.
SIXTH PHILOSOPHER.
I am I, and settle myself, and if I then settle
Nothing to be, well and good there's a nonentity formed.
SEVENTH PHILOSOPHER.
There is conception at least! A thing conceived there is, therefore;
And a conceiver as well, which, with conception, make three.
PUPIL.
All this nonsense, good sirs, won't answer my purpose a tittle:
I a real principle need, one by which something is fixed.
EIGHTH PHILOSOPHER.
Nothing is now to be found in the theoretical province;
Practical principles hold, such as: thou canst, for thou shouldst.
PUPIL.
If I but thought so! When people know no more sensible answer,
Into the conscience at once plunge they with desperate haste.
DAVID HUME.
Don't converse with those fellows! That Kant has turned them all crazy;
Speak to me, for in hell I am the same that I was.
LAW POINT.
I have made use of my nose for years together to smell with;
Have I a right to my nose that can be legally proved?
PUFFENDORF.
Truly a delicate point! Yet the first possession appeareth
In thy favor to tell; therefore make use of it still!
SCRUPLE OF CONSCIENCE.
Willingly serve I my friends; but, alas, I do it with pleasure;
Therefore I often am vexed that no true virtue I have.
DECISION.
As there is no other means, thou hadst better begin to despise them;
And with aversion, then, do that which thy duty commands.
Shrift.
by Muriel Stuart

I am not true, but you would pardon this
If you could see the tortured spirit take
Its place beside you in the dark, and break
Your daily food of love and kindliness.
You'd guess the bitter thing that treachery is,
Furtive and on its guard, asleep, awake,
Fearing to sin, yet fearing to forsake,
And daily giving Christ the Judas kiss.
But piteous amends I make each day
To recompense the evil with the good;
With double pang I play the double part
Of all you trust and all that I betray.
What long atonement makes my penitent blood,
To what sad tryst goes my unfaithful heart!
The Duel
by Thomas Hardy

"I am here to time, you see;
The glade is well-screened - eh? - against alarm;
Fit place to vindicate by my arm
The honour of my spotless wife,
Who scorns your libel upon her life
In boasting intimacy!
"'All hush-offerings you'll spurn,
My husband. Two must come; one only go,'
She said. 'That he'll be you I know;
To faith like ours Heaven will be just,
And I shall abide in fullest trust
Your speedy glad return.'"
"Good. Here am also I;
And we'll proceed without more waste of words
To warm your cockpit. Of the swords
Take you your choice. I shall thereby
Feel that on me no blame can lie,
Whatever Fate accords."
So stripped they there, and fought,
And the swords clicked and scraped, and the onsets sped;
Till the husband fell; and his shirt was red
With streams from his heart's hot cistern. Nought
Could save him now; and the other, wrought
Maybe to pity, said:
"Why did you urge on this?
Your wife assured you; and 't had better been
That you had let things pass, serene
In confidence of long-tried bliss,
Holding there could be nought amiss
In what my words might mean."
Then, seeing nor ruth nor rage
Could move his foeman more - now Death's deaf thrall -
He wiped his steel, and, with a call
Like turtledove to dove, swift broke
Into the copse, where under an oak
His horse cropt, held by a page.
"All's over, Sweet," he cried
To the wife, thus guised; for the young page was she.
"'Tis as we hoped and said 't would be.
He never guessed . . . We mount and ride
To where our love can reign uneyed.
He's clay, and we are free."
The Plunder.
by Robert Herrick

I am of all bereft,
Save but some few beans left,
Whereof, at last, to make
For me and mine a cake,
Which eaten, they and I
Will say our grace, and die.
Man And His Makers.
by Muriel Stuart

1.
I am one of the wind's stories,
I am a fancy of the rain, -
A memory of the high noon's glories,
The hint the sunset had of pain.
2.
They dreamed me as they dreamed all other;
Hawthorn and I, I and the grass,
With sister shade and phantom brother
Across their slumber glide and pass.
3.
Twilight is in my blood, my being
Mingles with trees and ferns and stones;
Thunder and stars my lips are freeing,
And there is sea-rack in my bones.
4.
Those that have dreamed me shall out-wake me,
But I go hence with flowers and weeds;
I am no more to those who make me
Than other drifting fruit and seeds.
5.
And though I love them - mourn to leave them -
Sea, earth and sunset, stars and streams,
My tears, my passing do not grieve them...
Other dreams have they, other dreams.