DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Another Epitaph
by Thomas Carew

This little vault, this narrow room,
Of Love and Beauty is the tomb;
The dawning beam, that 'gan to clear
Our clouded sky, lies darken'd here,
For ever set to us: by Death
Sent to enflame the World Beneath.
'Twas but a bud, yet did contain
More sweetness than shall spring again;
A budding Star, that might have grown
Into a Sun when it had blown.
This hopeful Beauty did create
New life in Love's declining state;
But now his empire ends, and we
From fire and wounding darts are free;
His brand, his bow, let no man fear:
The flames, the arrows, all lie here.
Death At The Window
by Robert Fuller Murray

This morning, while we sat in talk
Of spring and apple-bloom,
Lo!    Death stood in the garden walk,
And peered into the room.
Your back was turned, you did not see
The shadow that he made.
He bent his head and looked at me;
It made my soul afraid.
The words I had begun to speak
Fell broken in the air.
You saw the pallor of my cheek,
And turned--but none was there.
He came as sudden as a thought,
And so departed too.
What made him leave his task unwrought?
It was the sight of you.
Though Death but seldom turns aside
From those he means to take,
He would not yet our hearts divide,
For love and pity's sake.
Life Is Jolly
by William Henry Davies

This life is jolly, O!
I envy no man's lot;
My eyes can much admire,
And still my heart crave not;
There's no true joy in gold,
It breeds desire for more;
Whatever wealth man has,
Desire can keep him poor.
This life is jolly, O!
Power has his fawning slaves,
But if he rests his mind,
Those wretches turn bold knaves.
Fame's field is full of flowers,
It dazzles as we pass,
But men who walk that field
Starve for the common grass.
This life is jolly, O!
Let others know they die,
Enough to know I live,
And make no question why;
I care not whence I came,
Nor whither I shall go;
Let others think of these, 
This life is jolly, O!
Epitaph On The Tombstone Of A Child
by Aphra Behn

This Little, Silent, Gloomy Monument,
Contains all that was sweet and innocent ;
The softest pratler that e'er found a Tongue,
His Voice was Musick and his Words a Song ;
Which now each List'ning Angel smiling hears,
Such pretty Harmonies compose the Spheres;
Wanton as unfledg'd Cupids, ere their Charms
Has learn'd the little arts of doing harms ;
Fair as young Cherubins, as soft and kind,
And tho translated could not be refin'd ;
The Seventh dear pledge the Nuptial Joys had given,
Toil'd here on Earth, retir'd to rest in Heaven ;
Where they the shining Host of Angels fill,
Spread their gay wings before the Throne, and smile.
If, After All ...!
by Richard Le Gallienne

This life I squander, hating the long days
That will not bring me either Rest or Thee,
This health I hack and ravage as with knives,
These nerves I fain would shatter, and this heart
I fain would break - this heart that, traitor-like,
Beats on with foolish and elastic beat:
If, after all, this life I waste and kill
Should still be thine, may still be lived for thee!
And this the dreadful trial of my love,
This silence and this blank that makes me mad,
That I be man to-day of all the days
My one poor hope of meeting thee again - 
If Death be Love, and God's great purpose kind!
Oh, love, if some day on the heavenly stair
A wild ecstatic moment we should stand,
And I, all hungry for your eyes and hair,
Should meet instead your great accusing gaze,
And hear, instead of welcome into heaven:
'Ah! hadst thou but been true! but manfully
Borne the high pangs that all high souls must bear,
Nor fled to low nepenthes for your pain!
Hadst said - "Is she not here? more reason then
To live as though still guarded by her eyes,
Cleaner my thought, and purer be my deed;
True will I be, though God Himself be false!"'
Oh, hadst thou thus been man, to-day had we
Walked on together undivided now - 
But now a thousand flaming years must pass,
And all the trial be gone o'er again.
The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - Love Of Self And God.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Questo amor singolar.
This love of self sinks man in sinful sloth:
Yet, if he seek to live, he needs must feign
Sense, goodness, courage. Thus he dwells in pain,
A sphinx, twy-souled, a false self-stunted growth.
Honours, applause, and wealth these torments soothe;
Till jealousy, contrasting his foul stain
With virtues eminent, by spur and rein
Drives him to slay, steal, poison, break his oath.
But he who loves our common Father, hath
All men for brothers, and with God doth joy
In whatsoever worketh for their bliss.
Good Francis called the birds upon his path
Brethren; to him the fishes were not coy.--
Oh, blest is he who comprehendeth this!
To The Reader Of This Book
by Alan L. Strang

This little book's a letter,
I send direct to you;
I hope that you will like it,
And read it thru and thru.
And after you have read it,
Just send a thot to me;
Your thots will help to make me
The "Poet" I would be.
Yours very truly,
ALAN L. STRANG,
Redwood City, California.
Note On Poems Of 1822
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

This morn thy gallant bark
Sailed on a sunny sea:
'Tis noon, and tempests dark
Have wrecked it on the lee.
Ah woe! ah woe!
By Spirits of the deep
Thou'rt cradled on the billow
To thy eternal sleep.
Thou sleep'st upon the shore
Beside the knelling surge,
And Sea-nymphs evermore
Shall sadly chant thy dirge.
They come, they come,
The Spirits of the deep, -
While near thy seaweed pillow
My lonely watch I keep.
From far across the sea
I hear a loud lament,
By Echo's voice for thee
From Ocean's caverns sent.
O list! O list!
The Spirits of the deep!
They raise a wail of sorrow,
While I forever weep.
Presences
by William Butler Yeats

This night has been so strange that it seemed
As if the hair stood up on my head.
From going-down of the sun I have dreamed
That women laughing, or timid or wild,
In rustle of lace or silken stuff,
Climbed up my creaking stair. They had read
All I had rhymed of that monstrous thing
Returned and yet unrequited love.
They stood in the door and stood between
My great wood lectern and the fire
Till I could hear their hearts beating:
One is a harlot, and one a child
That never looked upon man with desire,
And one it may be a queen.
She, To Him IV
by Thomas Hardy

This love puts all humanity from me;
I can but maledict her, pray her dead,
For giving love and getting love of thee -
Feeding a heart that else mine own had fed!
How much I love I know not, life not known,
Save as some unit I would add love by;
But this I know, my being is but thine own 
Fused from its separateness by ecstasy.
And thus I grasp thy amplitudes, of her
Ungrasped, though helped by nigh-regarding eyes;
Canst thou then hate me as an envier
Who see unrecked what I so dearly prize?
Believe me, Lost One, Love is lovelier
The more it shapes its moan in selfish-wise.
1866.
Wakening
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

This mortal dies,--
But, in the moment when the light fails here,
The darkness opens, and the vision clear
Breaks on his eyes.
The vail is rent,--
On his enraptured gaze heaven's glory breaks,
He was asleep, and in that moment wakes.
This Moment, Yearning And Thoughtful
by Walt Whitman

This moment yearning and thoughtful, sitting alone,
It seems to me there are other men in other lands, yearning and thoughtful;
It seems to me I can look over and behold them, in Germany, Italy,
France, Spain or far, far away, in China, or in Russia or
India talking other dialects;
And it seems to me if I could know those men, I should become attached to them, as I do to men in my own lands;
O I know we should be brethren and lovers,
I know I should be happy with them.
The Lovers' Wine
by Charles Baudelaire

This morning how grand is the space!
Without bridle or spurs, in our haste
Let us set out by horseback on wine,
For the heavens-enchanted, divine!
Like two angels gone insane
With delirium of the brain,
In the crystal blue of the sky
To the distant mirage we will fly!
Gently swinging within the wing
Of the whirlwind who gives us a ride,
My sister who swims by my side,
In a parallel ecstasy,
Without truce or repose we are bound
For the heaven my dreaming has found!
Epitaph X. On Mr Elijah Fenton,[1] At Easthamstead, In Berks, 1730.
by Alexander Pope

This modest stone, what few vain marbles can,
May truly say, Here lies an honest man:
A poet, blest beyond the poet's fate,
Whom Heaven kept sacred from the proud and great:
Foe to loud praise, and friend to learned ease,
Content with science in the vale of peace.
Calmly he look'd on either life, and here
Saw nothing to regret, or there to fear;
From Nature's temperate feast rose satisfied,
Thank'd Heaven that he had lived, and that he died.
Prayer.
by Francis William Lauderdale Adams

This is what I pray
In this horrible day,
In this terrible night,
God will give me light.
Such as I have had,
That I go not mad.
This is what I seek,
God will keep me meek
Till mine eyes behold,
Till my lips have told
All this hellish crime. - 
Then it's sleeping time!
This Living Hand
by John Keats

This living hand, now warm and capable
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
And in the icy silence of the tomb,
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood
So in my veins red life might stream again,
And thou be conscience-calmed, see here it is
I hold it towards you.
This Man Jones.
by James Whitcomb Riley

This man Jones was what you'd call
A feller 'at had no sand at all;
Kind o' consumpted, and undersize,
And sailor-complected, with big sad eyes,
And a kind-of-a sort-of-a hang-dog style,
And a sneakin' sort-of-a half-way smile
'At kind o' give him away to us
As a preacher, maybe, er somepin' wuss.
Didn't take with the gang - well, no -
But still we managed to use him, though, -
Coddin' the gilly along the rout',
And drivin' the stakes 'at he pulled out -
Far I was one of the bosses then,
And of course stood in with the canvasmen;
And the way we put up jobs, you know,
On this man Jones jes' beat the show!
Ust to rattle him scandalous,
And keep the feller a-dodgin' us,
And a-shyin' round half skeered to death,
And afeerd to whimper above his breath;
Give him a cussin', and then a kick,
And then a kind-of-a back-hand lick -
Jes' far the fun of seem' him climb
Around with a head on most the time.
But what was the curioust thing to me,
Was along o' the party - let me see, -
Who was our "Lion Queen" last year? -
Mamzelle Zanty, or De La Pierre? -
Well, no matter - a stunnin' mash,
With a red-ripe lip, and a long eye-lash,
And a figger sich as the angels owns -
And one too many far this man Jones.
He'd allus wake in the afternoon,
As the band waltzed in on the lion-tune,
And there, from the time 'at she'd go in
Till she'd back out of the cage agin,
He'd stand, shaky and limber-kneed -
'Specially when she come to "feed
The beasts raw meat with her naked hand" -
And all that business, you understand.
And it was resky in that den -
Far I think she juggled three cubs then,
And a big "green" lion 'at used to smash
Collar-bones far old Frank Nash;
And I reckon now she hain't fergot
The afternoon old "Nero" sot
His paws on her! - but as far me,
It's a sort-of-a mixed-up mystery: -
Kind o' remember an awful roar,
And see her back far the bolted door -
See the cage rock - heerd her call
"God have mercy!" and that was all -
Far they ain't no livin' man can tell
What it's like when a thousand yell
In female tones, and a thousand more
Howl in bass till their throats is sore!
But the keeper said 'at dragged her out,
They heerd some feller laugh and shout -
"Save her! Quick! I've got the cuss!"
And yit she waked and smiled on us!
And we daren't flinch, far the doctor said,
Seein' as this man Jones was dead,
Better to jes' not let her know
Nothin' o' that far a week er so.
Phoebe Ann, The Proud Girl
by Heinrich Hoffmann

This Phoebe Ann was a very proud girl,
Her nose had always an upward curl.
She thought herself better than all others beside,
And beat even the peacock himself in pride.
She thought the earth was so dirty and brown,
That never, by chance, would she look down;
And she held up her head in the air so high
That her neck began stretching by and by.
It stretched and it stretched; and it grew so long
That her parents thought something must be wrong.
It stretched and stretched, and they soon began
To look up with fear at their Phoebe Ann.
They prayed her to stop her upward gaze,
But Phoebe kept on in her old proud ways,
Until her neck had grown so long and spare
That her head was more than her neck could bear--
And it bent to the ground, like a willow tree,
And brought down the head of this proud Phoebe,
Until whenever she went out a walk to take,
The boys would shout, "Here comes a snake!"
Her head got to be so heavy to drag on,
That she had to put it on a little wagon.
So don't, my friends, hold your head too high,
Or your neck may stretch, too, by and by.
Arms And The Man. - The Ravages Of War.
by James Barron Hope

This on the water: on the land a scene
Whose Epic scope is far beyond my power,
For on this spot a People's fate hath been
Decided in an hour.
Long was the conflict waged through weary years
Counted from when the sturdy farmers fell:
Hopes crucified, red trenches, bitter tears,
Made Man another hell!
See pallid women girt in woe and weeds!
See little children gaunt for lack of food!
Behold the catalogue of War's black deeds
Where evil stands for good!
See slaughtered cattle, never more to roam,
Rot in the fields, while chimneys tall and bare
Tell in dumb pathos how some quiet home
Lit up the midnight air!
See that burnt crop, yon choked-up sylvan well,
This yeoman slain ye corven in the sun!
My GOD! shreds of a woman's dress to tell
Why murder there was done!
Such things as these gave edge to all the blows
Our fathers struck on this historic sod,
Feet, hands, and faces turned toward their foes - 
Their valiant hearts to GOD.
Good Manners At Meat.
by Robert Herrick

This rule of manners I will teach my guests:
To come with their own bellies unto feasts;
Not to eat equal portions, but to rise
Farced with the food that may themselves suffice.
A Barren "Idealty."
by George W. Doneghy

This song that I sing--
It is not of a spring,
Nor yet of a silvery stream--
But of a vision bright
Which came last night
In the garb of a blissful dream--
When I thought, as I lay,
It was Thanksgiving Day,
And I was invited to dine
Where a table stood
On which everything good
Spread a feast that was almost divine!
Where the savors arose,
Right under my nose,
From turkey--and pumpkin pies;
And from jolly roast pig
Were slices as big
As some of the campaign lies!
And celery so white
'Twas a thing of delight
To bite the crisp stalks in two.
And the cranberry sauce--
Oh, I tell you 'twas boss--
And flanked by an oyster stew!
Where the bread and the cake--
The best they can bake--
Were cut into slices heroic.
And the amber ice cream
Melted into my dream
Like love to the heart of a 'poet';
And they heaped up my plate,
And I sat there and ate
Till I awoke with a yell,
And a shiver and shake
And a pain and an ache
That rudely my dream did dispel!
But dreams, as you know,
By contraries go,
And thus I fear if it will be
With the one of delight
That came last night
When I feasted so heartily;
And Thanksgiving Day
In the usual way
Will come to me, don't you see,
And the dinner I had
And the ache that was bad
Prove a----barren "idealty"!
The Progress Of The Spark
by Rudyard Kipling

This spark now set, retarded, yet forbears 
To hold her light however so he swears
That turns a metalled crank, and leather cloked,
With some small hammers tappeth hither an yon;
Peering as when she showeth and when is gone;
For wait he must till the vext Power's evoked
That's one with the lightnings. Wait in the showers soaked;
Or by the road-side sunned. She'll not progress.
Poor soul, here taught how great things may by less
Be stayed, to file contacts doth himself address!
This pig
by Helen Beatrix Potter

This pig went to market;
This pig stayed at home;
This pig had a bit of meat;
And this pig had none;
This little pig cried
Wee! wee! wee!
I can't find my way home.
To The Book Of Follies.
by Thomas Moore

WRITTEN IN A COMMONPLACE BOOK, CALLED "THE BOOK OF FOLLIES;" IN WHICH EVERY ONE THAT OPENED IT WAS TO CONTRIBUTE SOMETHING.
This tribute's from a wretched elf,
Who hails thee, emblem of himself.
The book of life, which I have traced,
Has been, like thee, a motley waste
Of follies scribbled o'er and o'er,
One folly bringing hundreds more.
Some have indeed been writ so neat,
In characters so fair, so sweet,
That those who judge not too severely,
Have said they loved such follies dearly!
Yet still, O book! the allusion stands;
For these were penned by female hands:
The rest--alas! I own the truth--
Have all been scribbled so uncouth
That Prudence, with a withering look,
Disdainful, flings away the book.
Like thine, its pages here and there
Have oft been stained with blots of care;
And sometimes hours of peace, I own,
Upon some fairer leaves have shone,
White as the snowings of that heaven
By which those hours of peace were given;
But now no longer--such, oh, such
The blast of Disappointment's touch!--
No longer now those hours appear;
Each leaf is sullied by a tear:
Blank, blank is every page with care,
Not even a folly brightens there.
Will they yet brighten?--never, never!
Then shut the book, O God, for ever!
Poems From "A Shropshire Lad" - XXV
by Alfred Edward Housman

This time of year a twelvemonth past,
When Fred and I would meet,
We needs must jangle, till at last
We fought and I was beat.
So then the summer fields about,
Till rainy days began,
Rose Harland on her Sundays out
Walked with the better man.
The better man she walks with still,
Though now 'tis not with Fred:
A lad that lives and has his will
Is worth a dozen dead.
Fred keeps the house all kinds of weather,
And clay's the house he keeps;
When Rose and I walk out together
Stock-still lies Fred and sleeps.
Epitaph on the Marchioness of Winchester
by John Milton

This rich marble doth inter
The honoured wife of Winchester,
A viscount's daughter, an earl's heir,
Besides what her virtues fair
Added to her noble birth,
More than she could own from earth.
Summers three times eight save one
She had told; alas! too soon,
After so short time of breath,
To house with darkness and with death!
Yet, had the number of her days
Been as complete as was her praise,
Nature and Fate had had no strife
In giving limit to her life.
Her high birth and her graces sweet
Quickly found a lover meet;
The virgin quire for her request
The god that sits at marriage-feast;
He at their invoking came,
But with a scarce well-lighted flame;
And in his garland, as he stood,
Ye might discern a cypress-bud.
Once had the early Matrons run
To greet her of a lovely son,
And now with second hope she goes,
And calls Lucina to her throes;
But, whether by mischance or blame,
Atropos for Lucina came,
And with remorseless cruelty
Spoiled at once both fruit and tree.
The hapless babe before his birth
Had burial, yet not laid in earth;
And the languished mother's womb
Was not long a living tomb.
So have I seen some tender slip,
Saved with care from Winter's nip,
The pride of her carnation train,
Plucked up by some unheedy swain,
Who only thought to crop the flower
New shot up from vernal shower;
But the fair blossom hangs the head
Sideways, as on a dying bed,
And those pearls of dew she wears
Prove to be presaging tears
Which the sad morn had let fall
On her hastening funeral.
Gentle Lady, may thy grave
Peace and quiet ever have!
After this thy travail sore,
Sweet rest seize thee evermore,
That, to give the world encrease,
Shortened hast thy own life's lease!
Here, besides the sorrowing
That thy noble House doth bring,
Here be tears of perfect moan
Wept for thee in Helicon;
And some flowers and some bays
For thy hearse, to strew the ways,
Sent thee from the banks of Came,
Devoted to thy virtuous name;
Whilst thou, bright Saint, high sitt'st in glory,
Next her, much like to thee in story,
That fair Syrian Shepherdess,
Who, after years of barrenness,
The highly-favoured Joseph bore
To him that served for her before,
And at her next birth, much like thee,
Through pangs fled to felicity,
Far within the bosom bright
Of blazing Majesty and Light:
There with thee, new-welcome Saint,
Like fortunes may her soul acquaint,
With thee there clad in radiant sheen,
No Marchioness, but now a Queen.
Catawba Wine
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

This song of mine
Is a Song of the Vine,
To be sung by the glowing embers
Of wayside inns,
When the rain begins
To darken the drear Novembers.
It is not a song
Of the Scuppernong,
From warm Carolinian valleys,
Nor the Isabel
And the Muscadel
That bask in our garden alleys.
Nor the red Mustang,
Whose clusters hang
O'er the waves of the Colorado,
And the fiery flood
Of whose purple blood
Has a dash of Spanish bravado.
For richest and best
Is the wine of the West,
That grows by the Beautiful River;
Whose sweet perfume
Fills all the room
With a benison on the giver.
And as hollow trees
Are the haunts of bees,
For ever going and coming;
So this crystal hive
Is all alive
With a swarming and buzzing and humming.
Very good in its way
Is the Verzenay,
Or the Sillery soft and creamy;
But Catawba wine
Has a taste more divine,
More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy.
There grows no vine
By the haunted Rhine,
By Danube or Guadalquivir,
Nor on island or cape,
That bears such a grape
As grows by the Beautiful River.
Drugged is their juice
For foreign use,
When shipped o'er the reeling Atlantic,
To rack our brains
With the fever pains,
That have driven the Old World frantic.
To the sewers and sinks
With all such drinks,
And after them tumble the mixer;
For a poison malign
Is such Borgia wine,
Or at best but a Devil's Elixir.
While pure as a spring
Is the wine I sing,
And to praise it, one needs but name it;
For Catawba wine
Has need of no sign,
No tavern-bush to proclaim it.
And this Song of the Vine,
This greeting of mine,
The winds and the birds shall deliver
To the Queen of the West,
In her garlands dressed,
On the banks of the Beautiful River.
Sonnet: Written On A Blank Space At The End Of Chaucer's Tale Of 'The Floure And The Lefe'
by John Keats

This pleasant tale is like a little copse:
The honied lines do freshly interlace,
To keep the reader in so sweet a place,
So that he here and there full hearted stops;
And oftentimes he feels the dewy drops
Come cool and suddenly against his face,
And by the wandering melody may trace
Which way the tender-legged linnet hops.
Oh! What a power hath white simplicity!
What mighty power has this gentle story!
I, that for ever feel athirst for glory,
Could at this moment be content to lie
Meekly upon the grass, as those whose sobbings
Were heard of none beside the mournful robbins.
This Section is a Christmas Tree
by Vachel Lindsay

This section is a Christmas tree:
Loaded with pretty toys for you.
Behold the blocks, the Noah's arks,
The popguns painted red and blue.
No solemn pine-cone forest-fruit,
But silver horns and candy sacks
And many little tinsel hearts
And cherubs pink, and jumping-jacks.
For every child a gift, I hope.
The doll upon the topmost bough
Is mine.    But all the rest are yours.
And I will light the candles now.
Israel Zangwill
by Oliver Herford

This picture though it is not much
Like Zangwill, is not void of worth
It has one true Zangwillian touch
It looks like nothing else on earth.
Lines by Taj Mahomed
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

This passion is but an ember
Of a Sun, of a Fire, long set;
I could not live and remember,
And so I love and forget.
You say, and the tone is fretful,
That my mourning days were few,
You call me over forgetful - 
My God, if you only knew!