DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Onward
by Pamela S. Vining, (J. C. Yule)

Onward, still on! - though the pathway be dreary, - 
Though few be the fountains that gladden the way, - 
Though the tired spirit grow feeble and weary,
And droop in the heat of the toil-burdened day;
Green in the distance the hills of thy Canaan
Lift their bright heads in a tenderer light,
Where the full boughs with rich fruits overladen
Spread their luxurious treasures in sight.
Onward, still onward! - around us are falling
Lengthening shadows as daylight departs;
Up from the past mournful voices are calling,
Often we pause with irresolute hearts.
Wherefore look backward? - the flower thou didst gather
Wounded thy hand with the thorn it concealed, - 
Onward, and stay not! - the voice of thy Father
Calls thee to glory and bliss unrevealed.
Onward!-Earth's radiance fadeth, - the glory
That gilded her brow when the noon was in prime
Faileth each hour, and the chill mist is hoary!
Gathering thick on the dim shores of time.
Yet as the stars come out brighter and clearer
While the day faints in the slow-fading west,
So do the home-lights grow larger and nearer,
Clearer the ray on the hills of thy rest.
Onward, and stay not! - the fountain, the flower,
Toward which thou'rt pressing with wearying haste.
Are but the mirage that floats for an hour,
Glowing and green o'er the desolate waste;
Yet from the distance come tender home-melodies
Borne from the Summer-land over the flood,
Lovingly wooing thee homeward and Heavenward
To the sweet rest of thy Saviour and God.
St. Francis Of Borgia By The Coffin Of Queen Isabel.
by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

"Open the coffin and shroud until
I look on the dead again
Ere we place her in Grenada's vaults,
Where sleep the Monarchs of Spain;
For unto King Charles must I swear
That I myself have seen
The regal brow of the royal corpse,
Our loved, lamented Queen."
The speaker was Borgia, Gaudia's Duke,
A noble and gallant knight,
Whose step was welcome in courtly halls,
As his sword was keen in fight.
To him had his Monarch given the task
Of conveying to the tomb.
The Princess ravished from his arms
In the pride of youthful bloom.
While they slowly raised the coffin lid,
Borgia stood silent by,
Recalling the beauty of the dead
With low, half-uttered sigh - 
Longing to look on that statue fair
That wanted but life's warm breath,
That matchless form which he hoped to find
Beautiful e'en in death.
'Tis done, and with silent, rev'rent step
To the coffin draws he near,
And sadly looks in its depths, where lies
Spain's Queen, his sovereign dear.
But what does he see? What horrors drear
Are those that meet his eye,
For he springs aside and shades his brow
With a sharp, though stifled, cry?
Ah' youth and beauty, in spirit gaze
On what that coffin holds - 
On the fearful object that now lies
In the shroud's white ample folds:
Nay, turn not away with loathing look,
Lest that hideous sight you see,
In a few short years from now, alas!
It is what we all shall be.
Let us learn as Francis Borgia learned,
By that lifeless form of clay,
To despise the changing things of earth,
All doomed to swift decay - 
Deep into his heart the lesson sank,
Effacing earthly taint,
And Spain's Court lost a gallant knight,
While the Church gained a Saint!
Our Hero.
by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Onward to her destination,
O'er the stream the Hannah sped,
When a cry of consternation
Smote and chilled our hearts with dread.
Wildly leaping, madly sweeping,
All relentless in their sway,
Like a band of cruel demons
Flames were closing 'round our way
Oh! the horror of those moments;
Flames above and waves below -
Oh! the agony of ages
Crowded in one hour of woe.
Fainter grew our hearts with anguish
In that hour with peril rife,
When we saw the pilot flying,
Terror-stricken, for his life.
Then a man uprose before us -
We had once despised his race -
But we saw a lofty purpose
Lighting up his darkened face.
While the flames were madly roaring,
With a courage grand and high,
Forth he rushed unto our rescue,
Strong to suffer, brave to die.
Helplessly the boat was drifting,
Death was staring in each face,
When he grasped the fallen rudder,
Took the pilot's vacant place.
Could he save us? Would he save us?
All his hope of life give o'er?
Could he hold that fated vessel
'Till she reached the nearer shore?
All our hopes and fears were centered
'Round his strong, unfaltering hand;
If he failed us we must perish,
Perish just in sight of land.
Breathlessly we watched and waited
While the flames were raging fast;
When our anguish changed to rapture -
We were saved, yes, saved at last.
Never strains of sweetest music
Brought to us more welcome sound
Than the grating of that steamer
When her keel had touched the ground.
But our faithful martyr hero
Through a fiery pathway trod,
Till he laid his valiant spirit
On the bosom of his God.
Fame has never crowned a hero
On the crimson fields of strife,
Grander, nobler, than that pilot
Yielding up for us his life.
To the Birds.
by Harriet Annie Wilkins

Onward, sail on in your boundless flight,
Neath shadowing skies and moonbeams bright,
Kissing the clouds as it drops the rain,
Touching the wall of the rainbow's fane;
With your wings unfurled, your lyres strung,
You sail where stars in their orbs are hung,
Or for stranger lands where bright flow'rs spring,
Ye have plumed the down and spread the wing.
We lay the strength of the forest down,
We wear the robe and the shining crown,
We tread down kings in our battle path,
And voices fail at our gathered wrath;
We touch; the numbers forget to pour,
From the serpent's hiss to the lion's roar;
But we may not tread the paths ye've trod,
Though children of men and sons of God.
Ye haste, ye haste, but ye bring not back
To waiting spirits the news we lack,
Ye do not tell what it is to see
The snow capped home of the thunder free,
Ye do not speak of the worlds above,
Ye tell no tales of the things we love,
No height or breadth of the sunbeam's roof,
You touch in your travels--terror proof.
You're strange in bright radience, wonderful;
You're soft in your plumage, beautiful.
Bold to bask in the clouds of even,
Free in your flight to floors of heaven.
Like dews that over the flowers spring,
Like billows rolled over Egypt's king,
You leave no track in the misty air,
Or records of wonders that meet you there.
Despondency. - An Ode.
by Robert Burns

I.
Oppress'd with grief, oppress'd with care,
A burden more than I can bear,
I set me down and sigh:
O life! thou art a galling load,
Along a rough, a weary road,
To wretches such as I!
Dim-backward as I cast my view,
What sick'ning scenes appear!
What sorrows yet may pierce me thro'
Too justly I may fear!
Still caring, despairing,
Must be my bitter doom;
My woes here shall close ne'er
But with the closing tomb!
II.
Happy, ye sons of busy life,
Who, equal to the bustling strife,
No other view regard!
Ev'n when the wished end's deny'd,
Yet while the busy means are ply'd,
They bring their own reward:
Whilst I, a hope-abandon'd wight,
Unfitted with an aim,
Meet ev'ry sad returning night
And joyless morn the same;
You, bustling, and justling,
Forget each grief and pain;
I, listless, yet restless,
Find every prospect vain.
III.
How blest the solitary's lot,
Who, all-forgetting, all forgot,
Within his humble cell,
The cavern wild with tangling roots,
Sits o'er his newly-gather'd fruits,
Beside his crystal well!
Or, haply, to his ev'ning thought,
By unfrequented stream,
The ways of men are distant brought,
A faint collected dream;
While praising, and raising
His thoughts to heav'n on high,
As wand'ring, meand'ring,
He views the solemn sky.
IV.
Than I, no lonely hermit plac'd
Where never human footstep trac'd,
Less fit to play the part;
The lucky moment to improve,
And just to stop, and just to move,
With self-respecting art:
But, ah! those pleasures, loves, and joys,
Which I too keenly taste,
The solitary can despise,
Can want, and yet be blest!
He needs not, he heeds not,
Or human love or hate,
Whilst I here, must cry here
At perfidy ingrate!
V.
Oh! enviable, early days,
When dancing thoughtless pleasure's maze,
To care, to guilt unknown!
How ill exchang'd for riper times,
To feel the follies, or the crimes,
Of others, or my own!
Ye tiny elves that guiltless sport,
Like linnets in the bush,
Ye little know the ills ye court,
When manhood is your wish!
The losses, the crosses,
That active man engage!
The fears all, the tears all,
Of dim declining age!
Memories Of West Street And Lepke
by Robert Lowell

Only teaching on Tuesdays, book-worming
in pajamas fresh from the washer each morning,
I hog a whole house on Boston's
"hardly passionate Marlborough Street,"
where even the man
scavenging filth in the back alley trash cans,
has two children, a beach wagon, a helpmate,
and is "a young Republican."
I have a nine months' daughter,
young enough to be my granddaughter.
Like the sun she rises in her flame-flamingo infants' wear.
These are the tranquilized Fifties,
and I am forty. Ought I to regret my seedtime?
I was a fire-breathing Catholic C.O.,
and made my manic statement,
telling off the state and president, and then
sat waiting sentence in the bull pen
beside a negro boy with curlicues
of marijuana in his hair.
Given a year,
I walked on the roof of the West Street Jail, a short
enclosure like my school soccer court,
and saw the Hudson River once a day
through sooty clothesline entanglements
and bleaching khaki tenements.
Strolling, I yammered metaphysics with Abramowitz,
a jaundice-yellow ("it's really tan")
and fly-weight pacifist,
so vegetarian,
he wore rope shoes and preferred fallen fruit.
He tried to convert Bioff and Brown,
the Hollywood pimps, to his diet.
Hairy, muscular, suburban,
wearing chocolate double-breasted suits,
they blew their tops and beat him black and blue.
I was so out of things, I'd never heard
of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
"Are you a C.O.?" I asked a fellow jailbird.
"No," he answered, "I'm a J.W."
He taught me the "hospital tuck,"
and pointed out the T-shirted back
of Murder Incorporated's Czar Lepke,
there piling towels on a rack,
or dawdling off to his little segregated cell full
of things forbidden to the common man:
a portable radio, a dresser, two toy American
flags tied together with a ribbon of Easter palm.
Flabby, bald, lobotomized,
he drifted in a sheepish calm,
where no agonizing reappraisal
jarred his concentration on the electric chair
hanging like an oasis in his air
of lost connections....
Sonnets IV
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Only until this cigarette is ended,
A little moment at the end of all,
While on the floor the quiet ashes fall,
And in the firelight to a lance extended,
Bizarrely with the jazzing music blended,
The broken shadow dances on the wall,
I will permit my memory to recall
The vision of you, by all my dreams attended.
And then adieu,--farewell!--the dream is done.
Yours is a face of which I can forget
The color and the features, every one,
The words not ever, and the smiles not yet;
But in your day this moment is the sun
Upon a hill, after the sun has set.
Remonstrance.
by Sidney Lanier

"Opinion, let me alone: I am not thine.
Prim Creed, with categoric point, forbear
To feature me my Lord by rule and line.
Thou canst not measure Mistress Nature's hair,
Not one sweet inch: nay, if thy sight is sharp,
Would'st count the strings upon an angel's harp?
Forbear, forbear.
"Oh let me love my Lord more fathom deep
Than there is line to sound with: let me love
My fellow not as men that mandates keep:
Yea, all that's lovable, below, above,
That let me love by heart, by heart, because
(Free from the penal pressure of the laws)
I find it fair.
"The tears I weep by day and bitter night,
Opinion! for thy sole salt vintage fall.
- As morn by morn I rise with fresh delight,
Time through my casement cheerily doth call
`Nature is new, 'tis birthday every day,
Come feast with me, let no man say me nay,
Whate'er befall.'
"So fare I forth to feast: I sit beside
Some brother bright: but, ere good-morrow's passed,
Burly Opinion wedging in hath cried
`Thou shalt not sit by us, to break thy fast,
Save to our Rubric thou subscribe and swear -
`Religion hath blue eyes and yellow hair:'
She's Saxon, all.'
"Then, hard a-hungered for my brother's grace
Till well-nigh fain to swear his folly's true,
In sad dissent I turn my longing face
To him that sits on the left: `Brother, - with you?'
- `Nay, not with me, save thou subscribe and swear
`Religion hath black eyes and raven hair:'
Nought else is true.'
"Debarred of banquets that my heart could make
With every man on every day of life,
I homeward turn, my fires of pain to slake
In deep endearments of a worshipped wife.
`I love thee well, dear Love,' quoth she, `and yet
Would that thy creed with mine completely met,
As one, not two.'
"Assassin! Thief! Opinion, 'tis thy work.
By Church, by throne, by hearth, by every good
That's in the Town of Time, I see thee lurk,
And e'er some shadow stays where thou hast stood.
Thou hand'st sweet Socrates his hemlock sour;
Thou sav'st Barabbas in that hideous hour,
And stabb'st the good
"Deliverer Christ; thou rack'st the souls of men;
Thou tossest girls to lions and boys to flames;
Thou hew'st Crusader down by Saracen;
Thou buildest closets full of secret shames;
Indifferent cruel, thou dost blow the blaze
Round Ridley or Servetus; all thy days
Smell scorched; I would
" - Thou base-born Accident of time and place -
Bigot Pretender unto Judgment's throne -
Bastard, that claimest with a cunning face
Those rights the true, true Son of Man doth own
By Love's authority - thou Rebel cold
At head of civil wars and quarrels old -
Thou Knife on a throne -
"I would thou left'st me free, to live with love,
And faith, that through the love of love doth find
My Lord's dear presence in the stars above,
The clods below, the flesh without, the mind
Within, the bread, the tear, the smile.
Opinion, damned Intriguer, gray with guile,
Let me alone."
Baltimore, 1878-9.
His Poetry His Pillar
by Robert Herrick

Only a little more
I have to write:
Then I'll give o'er,
And bid the world good-night.
'Tis but a flying minute,
That I must stay,
Or linger in it:
And then I must away.
O Time, that cut'st down all,
And scarce leav'st here
Memorial
Of any men that were;
How many lie forgot
In vaults beneath,
And piece-meal rot
Without a fame in death?
Behold this living stone
I rear for me,
Ne'er to be thrown
Down, envious Time, by thee.
Pillars let some set up
If so they please;
Here is my hope,
And my Pyramides.
My Garden
by Kate Seymour Maclean

Only the commonest flowers
Grow in my garden small,
Like buttercups, and bouncing-bets,
And hollyhocks by the wall,
And sunflowers nodding their stately heads,
Like grenadiers so tall.
But the purple pansy grows beneath--
The sweetest flower of all--
And tiny feathery filmy ferns
You scarce can see at all,
Fleck the shady side of the stones,
So dainty, fine and small
Only the commonest flowers
Grow in this garden of mine,
The larkspur flaunting her sky-blue cap,
And the twinkling celandine
Shakes her jewels of freckled gold,
And drinks her honey-wine,
Making a cup of her lucent stem,
So slender and so fine.
You hear the waves that dimple and slide,
Slide and shimmer and shine,
Under her fairy-slippered feet--
My golden celandine.
The hands of the little children
Gather them without fear;
Wonders of beauty and gladness
To them my flowers appear.
I have seen them bend to listen,
With poised and patient ear,
The curfew chime of the fairies,
In the lily's bell to hear.
Oh, blessed and innocent children,
With eyes so crystal clear,
That ye look with the dual vision
Of the baby and the seer.
To you the stars and the angels,
And the heavens themselves are near,
And the amaranths of paradise,
That blossom all the year:
I would I could see what ye see,
And hear what ye can hear.
Only In Sleep
by Sara Teasdale

Only in sleep I see their faces,
Children I played with when I was a child,
Louise comes back with her brown hair braided,
Annie with ringlets warm and wild.
Only in sleep Time is forgotten,
What may have come to them, who can know?
Yet we played last night as long ago,
And the doll-house stood at the turn of the stair.
The years had not sharpened their smooth round faces,
I met their eyes and found them mild,
Do they, too, dream of me, I wonder,
And for them am I too a child?
The Bane-Setter.
by David Rorie M.D.

Oor Jock's gude mither's second man
At banes was unco skilly;
It cam' by heirskep frae an aunt,
Leeb Tod o' Nether Tillie.
An' when he thocht to sough awa',
He sent for Jock, ay did he,
An' wulled him the bane-doctorin',
Wi' a' the lave o's smiddy.
A braw doon-settin' 'twas for Jock,
An' for a while it paid him,
For wi's great muckle nieves like mells
He pit in banes wi' smeddum.
Ay! mony a bane he snappit in
At elbuck, thee, an' shouther;
Gin ony wouldna gang his gait,
Jock dang them a' to poother.
Noo, smiddy wark's a droothy job,
Sae whiles Jock wat his whustle,
When wi' a horse-shoe or a bane
He'd held some unco tussle.
But even though miracklous whiles,
It mattered nane whativer,
For whaur's the body disna ken
A drucken doctor's cliver?
Ae nicht when Jock was gey weel on,
An' warslin' wi' some shoein',
They brocht a bane case intil him
That proved puir Jock's undoin',
A cadger wi' an auld cork leg,
An' fou as Jock or fouer,
Wha swore that o' his lower limb
He'd fairly lost the pooer.
Jock fin's the leg, an' shaks his heid,
Syne tells the man richt solemn,
"Your knee-pan's slippit up your thee
Aside your spinal column;
But gin ye'll tak a seat owre here,
An' lat them haud ye ticht, man,
I'se warrant for a quart o' beer
I'll quickly hae ye richt, man."
Jock yokit noo wi' rale guid wull
To better the condeetion,
While Corkie swore he had his leg
Ca'd a' to crockaneetion.
Jock banned the lamp-"'twas in his een"-
An' deaved wi' Corkie's granin',
Quo' he, "Gin ye'll pit oot the licht
I'll gey sune pit the bane in!"
Oot went the licht, Jock got his grup,
He yarkit an' he ruggit,
He doobled up puir Corkie's leg,
Syne strauchtened it an' tuggit.
An' while that baith the twa o' them
Were sayin' some orra wordies,
Auld Corkie's leg, wi' hauf o's breeks,
Cam' clean aff at the hurdies.
Jock swat wi' fear, an' in the dark
He crep' attour the smiddy,
For, weel-a-wat, he thocht his wark
Would land him on the widdy.
An' wi' the leg he ran till's hoose,
Just half way doon the clachan,
His cronies oxterin' Corkie oot,
An' nearly deein' o' lauchin'.
But at Jock's door they stude an hour,
An' vainly kicked an' knockit,
Sin' Jock, in a' the fear o' death,
Had got it barred an' lockit.
An' 'twas na till the neist forenune
They fand the leg, weel hidden,
For Jock was oot afore daylicht
An' stuck it in the midden.
This feenished Jock, an' efter han'
He buckled til his ain wark,
For sune a' owre the kintra-side
They kent aboot his bane wark,
An' hoo a law-wer fleggit Jock
At Corkie's instigation,
An' gart him pay a five-pun' note
By way o' compensation.
Ne sutor ultra crepidam
Is gude enough for maist o's,
For aye there's wark that's bude to get
The better o' the best o's.
An' just as doctors canna shoe
Or haud a hin' leg stiddy,
Ye needa seek for surgery
Inside a country smiddy.
Sweet Clover
by Edgar Lee Masters

Only a few plants up - and not a blossom
My clover didn't catch. What is the matter?
Old John comes by. I show him my result.
Look, John! My clover patch is just a failure,
I wanted you to sow it. Now you see
What comes of letting Hunter do your work.
The ground was not plowed right, or disced perhaps,
Or harrowed fine enough, or too little seed
Was sown.
But John, who knows a clover field,
Pulls up a plant and cleans the roots of soil
And studies them.
He says, Look at the roots!
Hunter neglected to inoculate
The seed, for clover seed must always have
Clover bacteria to make it grow,
And blossom. In a thrifty field of clover
The roots are studded thick with tubercles,
Like little warts, made by bacteria.
And somehow these bacteria lay hold
Upon the nitrogen that fills the soil,
And make the plants grow, make them blossom too.
When Hunter sowed this field he was not well:
He should have hauled some top-soil to this field
From some old clover field, or made a culture
Of these bacteria and soaked the seed
In it before he sowed it.
As I said,
Hunter was sick when he was working here.
And then he ran away to Indiana
And left his wife and children. Now he's back.
His cough was just as bad in Indiana
As it is here. A cough is pretty hard
To run away from. Wife and children too
Are pretty hard to leave, since thought of them
Stays with a fellow and cannot be left.
Yes, Hunter's back, but he can't work for you.
He's straightening out his little farm and making
Provision for his family. Hunter's changed.
He is a better man. It almost seems
That Hunter's blossomed. ...
I am sorry for him.
The doctor says he has tuberculosis.
Faded Pictures
by William Vaughn Moody

Only two patient eyes to stare
Out of the canvas. All the rest--
The warm green gown, the small hands pressed
Light in the lap, the braided hair
That must have made the sweet low brow
So earnest, centuries ago,
When some one saw it change and glow--
All faded! Just the eyes burn now.
I dare say people pass and pass
Before the blistered little frame,
And dingy work without a name
Stuck in behind its square of glass.
But I, well, I left Raphael
Just to come drink these eyes of hers,
To think away the stains and blurs
And make all new again and well.
Only, for tears my head will bow,
Because there on my heart's last wall,
Scarce one tint left to tell it all,
A picture keeps its eyes, somehow.
Mount Bukaroo
by Henry Lawson

Only one old post is standing,
Solid yet, but only one,
Where the milking, and the branding,
And the slaughtering were done.
Later years have brought dejection,
Care, and sorrow; but we knew
Happy days on that selection
Underneath old Bukaroo.
Then the light of day commencing
Found us at the gully's head,
Splitting timber for the fencing,
Stripping bark to roof the shed.
Hands and hearts the labour strengthened;
Weariness we never knew,
Even when the shadows lengthened
Round the base of Bukaroo.
There for days below the paddock
How the wilderness would yield
To the spade, and pick, and mattock,
While we toiled to win the field.
Bronzed hands we used to sully
Till they were of darkest hue,
`Burning off' down in the gully
At the back of Bukaroo.
When we came the baby brother
Left in haste his broken toys,
Shouted to the busy mother:
`Here is dadda and the boys!'
Strange it seems that she was able
For the work that she would do;
How she'd bustle round the table
In the hut 'neath Bukaroo!
When the cows were safely yarded,
And the calves were in the pen,
All the cares of day discarded,
Closed we round the hut-fire then.
Rang the roof with boyish laughter
While the flames o'er-topped the flue;
Happy days remembered after,
Far away from Bukaroo.
But the years were full of changes,
And a sorrow found us there;
For our home amid the ranges
Was not safe from searching Care.
On he came, a silent creeper;
And another mountain threw
O'er our lives a shadow deeper
Than the shade of Bukaroo.
All the farm is disappearing;
For the home has vanished now,
Mountain scrub has choked the clearing,
Hid the furrows of the plough.
Nearer still the scrub is creeping
Where the little garden grew;
And the old folks now are sleeping
At the foot of Bukaroo.
The Token.
by George W. Doneghy

I.
Only a ringlet of flaxen hair,
Tied with a ribbon blue,
Laid by the hand of a mother there--
Cherished with love so true!
II.
Only a soft and silken curl,
Bound with a knotted bow;
Worn on the head of a little girl
Lost in the long-ago.
III.
Only a hallowed treasure kept
From the grave's decay and mold,
Over which her eyes have wept
With anguish all untold!
IV.
Only a link in the golden chain,
By Death's cold hand unbroken,
Which leads to where she'll meet again
The wearer of this token.
V.
Only a relic undefiled,
Enshrined in a broken heart--
Rent in twain when a darling child
And a loving mother part!
VI.
Only a ringlet of flaxen hair,
Tied with a ribbon blue,
Clipped from the head of an angel fair,
Whose hands are beckoning you!