DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
To The Flying-Fish.[1]
by Thomas Moore

When I have seen thy snow-white wing
From the blue wave at evening spring,
And show those scales of silvery white,
So gayly to the eye of light,
As if thy frame were formed to rise,
And live amid the glorious skies;
Oh! it has made me proudly feel,
How like thy wing's impatient zeal
Is the pure soul, that rests not, pent
Within this world's gross element,
But takes the wing that God has given,
And rises into light and heaven!
But, when I see that wing, so bright,
Grow languid with a moment's flight,
Attempt the paths of air in vain,
And sink into the waves again;
Alas! the flattering pride is o'er;
Like thee, awhile, the soul may soar,
But erring man must blush to think,
Like thee, again, the soul may sink.
Oh Virtue! when thy clime I seek,
Let not my spirit's flight be weak;
Let me not, like this feeble thing,
With brine still dropping from its wing,
Just sparkle in the solar glow
And plunge again to depths below;
But, when I leave the grosser throng
With whom my soul hath dwelt so long,
Let me, in that aspiring day,
Cast every lingering stain away,
And, panting for thy purer air,
Fly up at once and fix me there.
Her Love-Birds
by Thomas Hardy

When I looked up at my love-birds
That Sunday afternoon,
There was in their tiny tune
A dying fetch like broken words,
When I looked up at my love-birds
That Sunday afternoon.
When he, too, scanned the love-birds
On entering there that day,
'Twas as if he had nought to say
Of his long journey citywards,
When he, too, scanned the love-birds,
On entering there that day.
And billed and billed the love-birds,
As 'twere in fond despair
At the stress of silence where
Had once been tones in tenor thirds,
And billed and billed the love-birds
As 'twere in fond despair.
O, his speech that chilled the love-birds,
And smote like death on me,
As I learnt what was to be,
And knew my life was broke in sherds!
O, his speech that chilled the love-birds,
And smote like death on me!
Fare Well
by Walter De La Mare

When I lie where shades of darkness
Shall no more assail mine eyes,
Nor the rain make lamentation
When the wind sighs;
How will fare the world whose wonder
Was the very proof of me?
Memory fades, must the remembered
Perishing be?
Oh, when this my dust surrenders
Hand, foot, lip, to dust again,
May these loved and loving faces
Please other men!
May the rustling harvest hedgerow
Still the Traveller's Joy entwine,
And as happy children gather
Posies once mine.
Look thy last on all things lovely,
Every hour. Let no night
Seal thy sense in deathly slumber
Till to delight
Thou have paid thy utmost blessing;
Since that all things thou wouldst praise
Beauty took from those who loved them
In other days.
I Must Not Be Selfish.
by H. P. Nichols

When I play with little children
I must very gentle be;
I must always do to others
As I'd have them do to me.
I must like to give and lend them,
If they want my prettiest toy;
More than my delight and pleasure
I must love my playmate's joy.
Children who are kind and loving
God above is pleased to see;
Let me ever this remember,
Ever sweet and pleasant be.
When I Heard At The Close Of The Day
by Walt Whitman

When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been receiv'd with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me that follow'd;
And else, when I carous'd, or when my plans were accomplish'd, still I was not happy;
But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health, refresh'd, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,
When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the morning light,
When I wander'd alone over the beach, and undressing, bathed, laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise,
And when I thought how my dear friend, my lover, was on his way coming, O then I was happy;
O then each breath tasted sweeter, and all that day my food nourish'd me more, and the beautiful day pass'd well,
And the next came with equal joy, and with the next, at evening, came my friend;
And that night, while all was still, I heard the waters roll slowly continually up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands, as directed to me, whispering, to congratulate me,
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night,
In the stillness, in the autumn moonbeams, his face was inclined toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast, and that night I was happy.
Lydia Dick.
by Eugene Field

When I was a boy at college,
Filling up with classic knowledge,
Frequently I wondered why
Old Professor Demas Bently
Used to praise so eloquently
"Opera Horatii."
Toiling on a season longer
Till my reasoning power got stronger,
As my observation grew,
I became convinced that mellow,
Massic-loving poet fellow
Horace knew a thing or two
Yes, we sophomores figured duly
That, if we appraised him truly,
Horace must have been a brick;
And no wonder that with ranting
Rhymes he went a-gallivanting
Round with sprightly Lydia Dick!
For that pink of female gender
Tall and shapely was, and slender,
Plump of neck and bust and arms;
While the raiment that invested
Her so jealously suggested
Certain more potential charms.
Those dark eyes of her that fired him--
Those sweet accents that inspired him,
And her crown of glorious hair--
These things baffle my description;
I should have a fit conniption
If I tried--so I forbear!
May be Lydia had her betters;
Anyway, this man of letters
Took that charmer as his pick;
Glad--yes, glad I am to know it!
I, a fin de siecle poet,
Sympathize with Lydia Dick!
Often in my arbor shady
I fall thinking of that lady
And the pranks she used to play;
And I'm cheered--for all we sages
Joy when from those distant ages
Lydia dances down our way.
Otherwise some folks might wonder
With good reason why in thunder
Learned professors, dry and prim,
Find such solace in the giddy
Pranks that Horace played with Liddy
Or that Liddy played on him.
Still this world of ours rejoices
In those ancient singing voices,
And our hearts beat high and quick,
To the cadence of old Tiber
Murmuring praise of roistering Liber
And of charming Lydia Dick.
Still, Digentia, downward flowing,
Prattleth to the roses blowing
By the dark, deserted grot;
Still, Soracte, looming lonely,
Watcheth for the coming only
Of a ghost that cometh not.
Friendship's Garland
by John Collings Squire, Sir

I
When I was a boy there was a friend of mine:
We thought ourselves warriors and grown folk swine,
Stupid old animals who never understood
And never had an impulse and said "you must be good."
We slank like stoats and fled like foxes,
We put cigarettes in the pillar-boxes,
Lighted cigarettes and letters all aflame, 
O the surprise when the postman came!
We stole eggs and apples and made fine hay
In people's houses when people were away,
We broke street lamps and away we ran,
Then I was a boy but now I am a man.
Now I am a man and don't have any fun,
I hardly ever shout and I never, never run,
And I don't care if he's dead that friend of mine,
For then I was a boy and now I am a swine.
II
We met again the other night
With people; you were quite polite,
Shook my hand and spoke a while
Of common things with cautious smile;
Paid the usual debt men owe
To fellows whom they used to know.
But, when our eyes met full, yours dropped,
And sudden, resolute, you stopped,
Moving with hurried syllables
To make remarks to someone else.
I caught them not, to me they said:
"Let the dead past bury its dead,
Things were very different then,
Boys are fools and men are men."
Several times the other night
You did your best to be polite;
When in the conversation's round
You heard my tongue's familiar sound
You bent in eager pose my way
To hear what I had got to say;
Trying, you thought with some success,
To hide the chasm's nakedness.
But on your eyes hard films there lay;
No mock-interest, no pretence
Could veil your blank indifference;
And if thoughts came recalling things
Far-off, far-off, from those old springs
When underneath the moon and sun
Our separate pulses beat as one,
Vagrant tender thoughts that asked
Admittance found the portal masked;
You spurned them; when I'd said my say,
With laugh and nod you turned away
To toss your friends some easy jest
That smote my brow and stabbed my breast.
Foolish though it be and vain
I am not master of my pain,
And when I said good-night to you
I hoped we should not meet again,
And wondered how the soul I knew
Could change so much; have I changed too?
III
There was a man whom I knew well
Whose choice it was to live in hell;
Reason there was why that was so
But what it was I do not know.
He had a room high in a tower,
And sat there drinking hour by hour,
Drinking, drinking all alone
With candles and a wall of stone.
Now and then he sobered down,
And stayed a night with me in town.
If he found me with a crowd,
He shrank and did not speak aloud.
He sat in a corner silently,
And others of the company
Would note his curious face and eye,
His twitching face and timid eye.
When they saw the eye he had
They thought, perhaps, that he was mad:
I knew he was clear and sane
But had a horror in his brain.
He had much money and one friend
And drank quite grimly to the end.
Why he chose to die in hell
I did not ask, he did not tell.
Death's Eloquence.
by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

When I shall go
Into the narrow home that leaves
No room for wringing of the hands and hair,
And feel the pressing of the walls which bear
The heavy sod upon my heart that grieves,
(As the weird earth rolls on),
Then I shall know
What is the power of destiny. But still,
Still while my life, however sad, be mine,
I war with memory, striving to divine
Phantom to-morrows, to outrun the past;
For yet the tears of final, absolute ill
And ruinous knowledge of my fate I shun.
Even as the frail, instinctive weed
Tries, through unending shade, to reach at last
A shining, mellowing, rapture-giving sun;
So in the deed of breathing joy's warm breath,
Fain to succeed,
I, too, in colorless longings, hope till death.
Nursery Rhyme. CXXIX. Scholastic.
by Unknown

When I was a little boy, I had but little wit
It is some time ago, and I've no more yet;
Nor ever ever shall, until that I die,
For the longer I live, the more fool am I.
Before Knowledge
by Thomas Hardy

When I walked roseless tracks and wide,
Ere dawned your date for meeting me,
O why did you not cry Halloo
Across the stretch between, and say:
"We move, while years as yet divide,
On closing lines which - though it be
You know me not nor I know you -
Will intersect and join some day!"
Then well I had borne
Each scraping thorn;
But the winters froze,
And grew no rose;
No bridge bestrode
The gap at all;
No shape you showed,
And I heard no call!
To The Most Virtuous Mistress Pot, Who Many Times Entertained Him.
by Robert Herrick

When I through all my many poems look,
And see yourself to beautify my book,
Methinks that only lustre doth appear
A light fulfilling all the region here.
Gild still with flames this firmament, and be
A lamp eternal to my poetry.
Which, if it now or shall hereafter shine,
'Twas by your splendour, lady, not by mine.
The oil was yours; and that I owe for yet:
He pays the half who does confess the debt.
The Invalid Child.
by Margaret Steele Anderson

When I see other women's sons at play,
God, pity me, lest I should turn away
In rage and grief, and should not dare to look
At my child, sitting patient with his book!
But when their sons hold all the world in fee,
With young men's pride, oh, then think not of me!
Load me with burdens, let me feel the rod,
And give my son his manhood, my God!
Astrophel and Stella - Sonnet LXXXVII
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

When I was forst from Stella euer deere,
Stella, food of my thoughts, hart of my hart;
Stella, whose eyes make all my tempests cleere,
By Stellas lawes of duetie to depart;
Alas, I found that she with me did smart;
I saw that teares did in her eyes appeare;
I sawe that sighes her sweetest lips did part,
And her sad words my sadded sense did heare.
For me, I wept to see pearles scatter'd so;
I sigh'd her sighes, and wailed for her wo;
Yet swam in ioy, such loue in her was seene.
Thus, while th' effect most bitter was to me,
And nothing then the cause more sweet could be,
I had bene vext, if vext I had not beene.
Completion
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

When I shall meet God's generous dispensers
Of all the riches in the heavenly store,
Those lesser gods, who act as Recompensers
For loneliness and loss upon this shore,
Methinks abashed, and somewhat hesitating,
My soul its wish and longing will declare.
Lest they reply:    'Here are no bounties waiting:
We gave on earth, your portion and your share.'
Then shall I answer:    'Yea, I do remember
The many blessings to my life allowed;
My June was always longer than December,
My sun was always stronger than my cloud,
My joy was ever deeper than my sorrow,
My gain was ever greater than my loss,
My yesterday seemed less than my to-morrow,
The crown looked always larger than the cross.
'I have known love, in all its radiant splendour,
It shone upon my pathway to the end.
I trod no road that did not bloom with tender
And fragrant blossoms, planted by some friend.
And those material things we call successes,
In modest measure, crowned my earthly lot.
Yet was there one sweet happiness that blesses
The life of woman, which to me came not.
'I knew the hope of motherhood; a season
I felt a fluttering heart beat 'neath my own;
A little cry - then silence.    For that reason
I dare, to you, my only wish make known.
The babe who grew to angelhood in heaven,
I never watched unfold from child to man.
And so I ask, that unto me be given
That motherhood, which was God's primal plan.
'All womankind He meant to share its glories;
He meant us all to nurse our babes to rest.
To croon them songs, to tell them sleepy stories,
Else why the wonder of a woman's breast?
He must provide for all earth's cheated mothers
In His vast heavens of shining sphere on sphere,
And with my son, there must be many others - 
My spirit children who will claim me here.
'Fair creatures by my loving thoughts created - 
Too finely fashioned for a mortal birth - 
Between the borders of two worlds they waited
Until they saw my spirit leave the earth.
In God's great nursery they must be waiting
To welcome me with many an infant wile.
Now let me go and satisfy this longing
To mother children for a little while.'
Faith
by John Collings Squire, Sir

When I see truth, do I seek truth
Only that I may things denote,
And, rich by striving, deck my youth
As with a vain unusual coat?
Or seek I truth for other ends:
That she in other hearts may stir,
That even my most familiar friends
May turn from me to look on her?
So I this day myself was asking;
Out of the window skies were blue
And Thames was in the sunlight basking;
My thoughts coiled inwards like a screw.
I watched them anxious for a while;
Then quietly, as I did watch,
Spread in my soul a sudden smile:
I knew that no firm thing they'd catch.
And I remembered if I leapt
Upon the bosom of the wind
It would sustain me; question slept;
I felt that I had almost sinned.
The Telephone
by Robert Lee Frost

'When I was just as far as I could walk
From here today,
There was an hour
All still
When leaning with my head again a flower
I heard you talk.
Don't say I didn't, for I heard you say 
You spoke from that flower on the window sill
Do you remember what it was you said?'
'First tell me what it was you thought you heard.'
'Having found the flower and driven a bee away,
I leaned on my head
And holding by the stalk,
I listened and I thought I caught the word 
What was it? Did you call me by my name?
Or did you say 
Someone said "Come"     I heard it as I bowed.'
'I may have thought as much, but not aloud.'
"Well, so I came.'
The Day's Ration
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

When I was born,
From all the seas of strength Fate filled a chalice,
Saying, 'This be thy portion, child; this chalice,
Less than a lily's, thou shalt daily draw
From my great arteries,--nor less, nor more.'
All substances the cunning chemist Time
Melts down into that liquor of my life,--
Friends, foes, joys, fortunes, beauty and disgust.
And whether I am angry or content,
Indebted or insulted, loved or hurt,
All he distils into sidereal wine
And brims my little cup; heedless, alas!
Of all he sheds how little it will hold,
How much runs over on the desert sands.
If a new Muse draw me with splendid ray,
And I uplift myself into its heaven,
The needs of the first sight absorb my blood,
And all the following hours of the day
Drag a ridiculous age.
To-day, when friends approach, and every hour
Brings book, or starbright scroll of genius,
The little cup will hold not a bead more,
And all the costly liquor runs to waste;
Nor gives the jealous lord one diamond drop
So to be husbanded for poorer days.
Why need I volumes, if one word suffice?
Why need I galleries, when a pupil's draught
After the master's sketch fills and o'erfills
My apprehension? Why seek Italy,
Who cannot circumnavigate the sea
Of thoughts and things at home, but still adjourn
The nearest matters for a thousand days?
Nursery Rhyme. LXXII. Tales.
by Unknown

When I was a little girl, about seven years old,
I hadn't got a petticoat, to cover me from the cold;
So I went into Darlington, that pretty little town,
And there I bought a petticoat, a cloak, and a gown.
I went into the woods and built me a kirk,
And all the birds of the air, they helped me to work;
The hawk with his long claws pulled down the stone,
The dove, with her rough bill, brought me them home;
The parrot was the clergyman, the peacock was the clerk,
The bullfinch play'd the organ, and we made merry work.
Romance
by W.J. Turner

When I was but thirteen or so
I went into a golden land,
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
Took me by the hand.
My father died, my brother too,
They passed like fleeting dreams,
I stood where Popocatapetl
In the sunlight gleams.
I dimly heard the master's voice
And boys far-off at play,
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
Had stolen me away.
I walked in a great golden dream
To and fro from school -
Shining Popocatapetl
The dusty streets did rule.
I walked home with a gold dark boy
And never a word I'd say,
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
Had taken my speech away:
I gazed entranced upon his face
Fairer than any flower -
O shining Popocatapetl
It was thy magic hour:
The houses, people, traffic seemed
Thin fading dreams by day,
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
They had stolen my soul away!
The Palace
by Rudyard Kipling

When I was a King and a Mason, a Master proven and skilled,
I cleared me ground for a Palace such as a King should build.
I decreed and dug down to my levels. Presently, under the silt,
I came on the wreck of a Palace such as a King had built.
There was no worth in the fashion, there was no wit in the plan,
Hither and thither, aimless, the ruined footings ran,
Masonry, brute, mishandled, but carven on every stone:
"After me cometh a Builder. Tell him, I too have known."
Swift to my use in my trenches, where my well-planned ground-works grew,
I tumbled his quoins and his ashlars, and cut and reset them anew.
Lime I milled of his marbles; burned it, slacked it, and spread;
Taking and leaving at pleasure the gifts of the humble dead.
Yet I despised not nor gloried; yet, as we wrenched them apart,
I read in the razed foundations the heart of that builder's heart.
As he had risen and pleaded, so did I understand
The form of the dream he had followed in the face of the thing he had planned.
*    *    *    *    *
When I was a King and a Mason, in the open noon of my pride,
They sent me a Word from the Darkness. They whispered and called me aside.
They said, "The end is forbidden." They said, "Thy use is fulfilled.
"Thy Palace shall stand as that other's, the spoil of a King who shall build."
I called my men from my trenches, my quarries, my wharves, and my sheers.
All I had wrought I abandoned to the faith of the faithless years.
Only I cut on the timber, only I carved on the stone:
"AfterT me cometh a BuilderT. Tell him, I too have known!"
The Little Man In The Tinshop
by James Whitcomb Riley

When I was a little boy, long ago,
And spoke of the theater as the "show,"
The first one that I went to see,
Mother's brother it was took me -
(My uncle, of course, though he seemed to be
Only a boy - I loved him so!)
And ah, how pleasant he made it all!
And the things he knew that I should know! -
The stage, the "drop," and the frescoed wall;
The sudden flash of the lights; and oh,
The orchestra, with its melody,
And the lilt and jingle and jubilee
Of "The Little Man in the Tinshop"!
For Uncle showed me the "Leader" there,
With his pale, bleak forehead and long, black hair;
Showed me the "Second," and "'Cello," and "Bass,"
And the "B-Flat," pouting and puffing his face
At the little end of the horn he blew
Silvery bubbles of music through;
And he coined me names of them, each in turn,
Some comical name that I laughed to learn,
Clean on down to the last and best, -
The lively little man, never at rest,
Who hides away at the end of the string,
And tinkers and plays on everything, -
That's "The Little Man in the Tinshop"!
Raking a drum like a rattle of hail,
Clinking a cymbal or castanet;
Chirping a twitter or sending a wail
Through a piccolo that thrills me yet;
Reeling ripples of riotous bells,
And tipsy tinkles of triangles -
Wrangled and tangled in skeins of sound
Till it seemed that my very soul spun round,
As I leaned, in a breathless joy, toward my
Radiant uncle, who snapped his eye
And said, with the courtliest wave of his hand,
"Why, that little master of all the band
Is 'The Little Man in the Tinshop'!
"And I've heard Verdi, the Wonderful,
And Paganini, and Ole Bull,
Mozart, Handel, and Mendelssohn,
And fair Parepa, whose matchless tone
Karl, her master, with magic bow,
Blent with the angels', and held her so
Tranced till the rapturous Infinite -
And I've heard arias, faint and low,
From many an operatic light
Glimmering on my swimming sight
Dimmer and dimmer, until, at last,
I still sit, holding my roses fast
For 'The Little Man in the Tinshop.'"
Oho! my Little Man, joy to you -
And yours - and theirs - your lifetime through!
Though I've heard melodies, boy and man,
Since first "the show" of my life began,
Never yet have I listened to
Sadder, madder, or gladder glees
Than your unharmonied harmonies;
For yours is the music that appeals
To all the fervor the boy's heart feels -
All his glories, his wildest cheers,
His bravest hopes, and his brightest tears;
And so, with his first bouquet, he kneels
To "The Little Man in the Tinshop."