DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The House Of Dust: Part 02: 11: Snow Falls. The Sky Is Grey, And Sullenly Glares
by Conrad Potter Aiken

Snow falls. The sky is grey, and sullenly glares
With purple lights in the canyoned street.
The fiery sign on the dark tower wreathes and flares . . .
The trodden grass in the park is covered with white,
The streets grow silent beneath our feet . . .
The city dreams, it forgets its past to-night.
And one, from his high bright window looking down
Over the enchanted whiteness of the town,
Seeing through whirls of white the vague grey towers,
Desires like this to forget what will not pass,
The littered papers, the dust, the tarnished grass,
Grey death, stale ugliness, and sodden hours.
Deep in his heart old bells are beaten again,
Slurred bells of grief and pain,
Dull echoes of hideous times and poisonous places.
He desires to drown in a cold white peace of snow.
He desires to forget a million faces . . .
In one room breathes a woman who dies of hunger.
The clock ticks slowly and stops. And no one winds it.
In one room fade grey violets in a vase.
Snow flakes faintly hiss and melt on the window.
In one room, minute by minute, the flutist plays
The lamplit page of music, the tireless scales.
His hands are trembling, his short breath fails.
In one room, silently, lover looks upon lover,
And thinks the air is fire.
The drunkard swears and touches the harlot's heartstrings
With the sudden hand of desire.
And one goes late in the streets, and thinks of murder;
And one lies staring, and thinks of death.
And one, who has suffered, clenches her hands despairing,
And holds her breath . . .
Who are all these, who flow in the veins of the city,
Coil and revolve and dream,
Vanish or gleam?
Some mount up to the brain and flower in fire.
Some are destroyed; some die; some slowly stream.
And the new are born who desire to destroy the old;
And fires are kindled and quenched; and dreams are broken,
And walls flung down . . .
And the slow night whirls in snow over towers of dreamers,
And whiteness hushes the town.
Smiles
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Smile a little, smile a little,
As you go along,
Not alone when life is pleasant,
But when things go wrong.
Care delights to see you frowning,
Loves to hear you sigh;
Turn a smiling face upon her,
Quick the dame will fly.
Smile a little, smile a little,
All along the road;
Every life must have its burden,
Every heart its load.
Why sit down in gloom and darkness,
With your grief to sup?
As you drink Fate's bitter tonic,
Smile across the cup.
Smile upon the troubled pilgrims
Whom you pass and meet;
Frowns are thorns, and smiles are blossoms
Oft for weary feet.
Do not make the way seem harder
By a sullen face,
Smile a little, smile a little,
Brighten up the place.
Smile upon your undone labor;
Not for one who grieves
O'er his task, waits wealth or glory;
He who smiles achieves.
Though you meet with loss and sorrow
In the passing years,
Smile a little, smile a little,
Even through your tears.
The Leaf-Cricket
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
Small twilight singer
Of dew and mist: thou ghost-gray, gossamer winger
Of dusk's dim glimmer,
How chill thy note sounds; how thy wings of shimmer
Vibrate, soft-sighing,
Meseems, for Summer that is dead or dying.
I stand and listen,
And at thy song the garden-beds, that glisten
With rose and lily,
Seem touched with sadness; and the tuberose chilly,
Breathing around its cold and colorless breath,
Fills the pale evening with wan hints of death.
II.
I see thee quaintly
Beneath the leaf; thy shell-shaped winglets faintly
(As thin as spangle
Of cobwebbed rain) held up at airy angle;
I hear thy tinkle
With faery notes the silvery stillness sprinkle;
Investing wholly
The moonlight with divinest melancholy:
Until, in seeming,
I see the Spirit of Summer sadly dreaming
Amid her ripened orchards, russet-strewn,
Her great, grave eyes fixed on the harvest-moon.
III.
As dewdrops beady;
As mist minute, thy notes ring low and reedy:
The vaguest vapor
Of melody, now near; now, like some taper
Of sound, far-fading
Thou will-o'-wisp of music aye evading.
Among the bowers,
The fog-washed stalks of Autumn's weeds and flowers,
By hill and hollow,
I hear thy murmur and in vain I follow
Thou jack-o'-lantern voice, thou pixy cry,
Thou dirge, that tellest Beauty she must die.
IV.
And when the frantic
Wild winds of Autumn with the dead leaves antic;
And walnuts scatter
The mire of lanes; and dropping acorns patter
In grove and forest,
Like some frail grief with the rude blast thou warrest,
Sending thy slender
Far cry against the gale, that, rough, untender,
Untouched of sorrow,
Sweeps thee aside, where, haply, I to-morrow
Shall find thee lying tiny, cold and crushed,
Thy weak wings folded and thy music hushed.
Canada's Resources.
by James McIntyre

Small Scotland nobly held its own
Against the might of England's throne,
And shall this land with its vast bounds
Shrink with fear ere the trumpet sounds.
While British blood doth course each vein,
Proudly this heritage maintain,
With fertile acres by the billions,
Future homes for two hundred millions.
Each son could have a fertile farm,
Brave men who ne'er will feel alarm,
And they have both the nerve and skill
To work land with a right good will.
And she has got within her shores
Renowned mines of many ores,
While her furnaces and forges
Iron in useful shape disgorges.
Her mighty forests they do yield
Lumber, her cities for to build,
But her wealth is not in these alone,
She has great quarries too of stone.
Industry it here doth bloom,
And skilful webs come from each loom,
One of great nations under sun,
A mightier race it yet will run.
For with the Anglo-Saxon race
No other people can keep pace,
Here they have room for to expand
Into a nation mighty grand.
With great railroads and canals,
And care in legislative halls,
A mighty future she will gain,
And highest rank she will obtain.
Canada hopes it will be told,
That she hath patriots brave and bold,
To guide her helm shall be extolled,
As loving country more than gold.
The Sonnets LII - So am I as the rich, whose blessed key
by William Shakespeare

So am I as the rich, whose blessed key,
Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,
The which he will not every hour survey,
For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.
Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,
Since, seldom coming in that long year set,
Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,
Or captain jewels in the carcanet.
So is the time that keeps you as my chest,
Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,
To make some special instant special-blest,
By new unfolding his imprison'd pride.
Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,
Being had, to triumph; being lacked, to hope.
To The Husbandman.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Smoothly and lightly the golden seed by the furrow is cover'd;
Yet will a deeper one, friend, cover thy bones at the last.
Joyously plough'd and sow'd! Here food all living is budding,
E'en from the side of the tomb Hope will not vanish away.
Frying Pan's Theology
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

Scene: On Monaro.
Dramatis Personae
Shock-headed blackfellow,
Boy (on a pony).
Snowflakes are falling
Gentle and slow,
Youngster says, "Frying Pan
What makes it snow?"
Frying Pan, confident,
Makes the reply,
"Shake 'im big flour bag
Up in the sky!"
"What! when there's miles of it?
Surely that's brag.
Who is there strong enough
Shake such a bag?"
"What parson tellin' you,
Ole Mister Dodd,
Tell you in Sunday-School?
Big pfeller God!
"Him drive 'im bullock dray,
Then thunder go;
Him shake 'im flour bag,
Tumble down snow!"
The Fathers
by Siegfried Loraine Sassoon

Snug at the club two fathers sat,
Gross, goggle-eyed, and full of chat.
One of them said: "My eldest lad
Writes cheery letters from Bagdad.
But Arthur's getting all the fun
At Arras with his nine-inch gun."
"Yes," wheezed the other, "that's the luck!
My boy's quite broken-hearted, stuck
In England training all this year.
Still, if there's truth in what we hear,
The Huns intend to ask for more
Before they bolt across the Rhine."
I watched them toddle through the door - 
These impotent old friends of mine.
Smiles
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Smile a little, smile a little,
As you go along,
Not alone when life is pleasant,
But when things go wrong.
Care delights to see you frowning,
Loves to hear you sigh;
Turn a smiling face upon her - 
Quick the dame will fly.
Smile a little, smile a little,
All along the road;
Every life must have its burden,
Every heart its load.
Why sit down in gloom and darkness
With your grief to sup?
As you drink Fate's bitter tonic,
Smile across the cup.
Smile upon the troubled pilgrims
Whom you pass and meet;
Frowns are thorns, and smiles are blossoms
Oft for weary feet.
Do not make the way seem harder
By a sullen face;
Smile a little, smile a little,
Brighten up the place.
Smile upon your undone labour;
Not for one who grieves
O'er his task waits wealth or glory;
He who smiles achieves.
Though you meet with loss and sorrow
In the passing years,
Smile a little, smile a little,
Even through your tears.
Sonnet VIII: To My Brothers
by John Keats

Small, busy flames play through the fresh laid coals,
And their faint cracklings o'er our silence creep
Like whispers of the household gods that keep
A gentle empire o'er fraternal souls.
And while, for rhymes, I search around the poles,
Your eyes are fix d, as in poetic sleep,
Upon the lore so voluble and deep,
That aye at fall of night our care condoles.
This is your birth-day Tom, and I rejoice
That thus it passes smoothly, quietly.
Many such eves of gently whisp'ring noise
May we together pass, and calmly try
What are this world s true joys, ere the great voice,
From its fair face, shall bid our spirits fly.
Nursery Rhyme. DIII. Natural History.
by Unknown

Sneel, snaul,
Robbers are coming to pull down your wall;
Sneel, snaul,
Put out your horn,
Robbers are coming to steal your corn,
Coming at four o'clock in the morn.
The Ships Of St. John
by Bliss Carman (William)

Smile, you inland hills and rivers!
Flush, you mountains in the dawn!
But my roving heart is seaward
With the ships of gray St. John.
Fair the land lies, full of August,
Meadow island, shingly bar,
Open barns and breezy twilight,
Peace and the mild evening star.
Gently now this gentlest country
The old habitude takes on,
But my wintry heart is outbound
With the great ships of St. John.
Once in your wide arms you held me,
Till the man-child was a man,
Canada, great nurse and mother
Of the young sea-roving clan.
Always your bright face above me
Through the dreams of boyhood shone;
Now far alien countries call me
With the ships of gray St. John.
Swing, you tides, up out of Fundy!
Blow, you white fogs, in from sea!
I was born to be your fellow;
You were bred to pilot me.
At the touch of your strong fingers,
Doubt, the derelict, is gone;
Sane and glad I clear the headland
With the white ships of St. John.
Loyalists, my fathers, builded
This gray port of the gray sea,
When the duty to ideals
Could not let well-being be.
When the breadth of scarlet bunting
Puts the wreath of maple on,
I must cheer too,--slip my moorings
With the ships of gray St. John.
Peerless-hearted port of heroes,
Be a word to lift the world,
Till the many see the signal
Of the few once more unfurled.
Past the lighthouse, past the nunbuoy,
Past the crimson rising sun,
There are dreams go down the harbor
With the tall ships of St. John.
In the morning I am with them
As they clear the island bar,--
Fade, till speck by speck the midday
Has forgotten where they are.
But I sight a vaster sea-line,
Wider lee-way, longer run,
Whose discoverers return not
With the ships of gray St. John.
Birth-Day Ode, 1793.
by Robert Southey

Small is the new-born plant scarce seen
Amid the soft encircling green,
Where yonder budding acorn rears,
Just o'er the waving grass, its tender head:
Slow pass along the train of years,
And on the growing plant, their dews and showers they shed.
Anon it rears aloft its giant form,
And spreads its broad-brown arms to meet the storm.
Beneath its boughs far shadowing o'er the plain,
From summer suns, repair the grateful village train.
Nor BEDFORD will my friend survey
The book of Nature with unheeding eye;
For never beams the rising orb of day,
For never dimly dies the refluent ray,
But as the moralizer marks the sky,
He broods with strange delight upon futurity.
And we must muse my friend! maturer years
Arise, and other Hopes and other Fears,
For we have past the pleasant plains of Youth.
Oh pleasant plains! that we might stray
For ever o'er your faery ground--
For ever roam your vales around,
Nor onward tempt the dangerous way--
For oh--what numerous foes assail
The Traveller, from that chearful vale!
With toil and heaviness opprest
Seek not the flowery bank for rest,
Tho' there the bowering woodbine spread
Its fragrant shelter o'er thy head,
Tho' Zephyr there should linger long
To hear the sky-lark's wildly-warbled song,
There heedless Youth shalt thou awake
The vengeance of the coiling snake!
Tho' fairly smiles the vernal mead
To tempt thy pilgrim feet, proceed
Hold on thy steady course aright,
Else shalt thou wandering o'er the pathless plain,
When damp and dark descends the night
Shivering and shelterless, repent in vain.
And yet--tho' Dangers lurk on every side
Receive not WORLDLY WISDOM for thy guide!
Beneath his care thou wilt not know
The throb of unavailing woe,
No tear shall tremble in thine eye
Thy breast shall struggle with no sigh,
He will security impart,
But he will apathize thy heart!
Ah no!
Fly Fly that fatal foe,
Virtue shall shrink from his torpedo grasp--
For not more fatal thro' the Wretches veins
Benumb'd in Death's cold pains
Creeps the chill poison of the deadly asp.
Serener joys my friend await
Maturer manhood's steady state.
The wild brook bursting from its source
Meanders on its early course,
Delighting there with winding way
Amid the vernal vale to stray,
Emerging thence more widely spread
It foams along its craggy bed,
And shatter'd with the mighty shock
Rushes from the giddy rock--
Hurl'd headlong o'er the dangerous steep
On runs the current to the deep,
And gathering waters as it goes
Serene and calm the river flows,
Diffuses plenty o'er the smiling coast,
Rolls on its stately waves and is in ocean lost.
Lichtenberg
by Rudyard Kipling

Smells are surer than sounds or sights
To make your heart-strings crack,
They start those awful voices o' nights
That whisper, "Old man, come back!"
That must be why the big things pass
And the little things remain,
Like the smell of the wattle by Lichtenberg,
Riding in, in the rain.
There was some silly fire on the flank
And the small wet drizzling down,
There were the sold-out shops and the bank
And the wet, wide-open town;
And we were doing escort-duty
To somebody's baggage-train,
And I smelt wattle by Lichtenberg,
Riding in, in the rain.
It was all Australia to me,
All I had found or missed:
Every face I was crazy to see,
And every woman I'd kissed:
All that I should n't ha' done, God knows!
(As He knows I'll do it again),
That smell of the wattle round Lichtenberg,
Riding in, in the rain!
And I saw Sydney the same as ever,
The picnics and brass-bands;
And my little homestead on Hunter River
And my new vines joining hands.
It all came over me in one act
Quick as a shot through the brain,
With the smell of the wattle round Lichtenberg,
Riding in, in the rain.
I have forgotten a hundred fights,
But one I shall not forget,
With the raindrops bunging up my sights
And my eyes bunged up with wet;
And through the crack and the stink of the cordite
(Ah Christ! My country again!)
The smell of the wattle by Lichtenberg,
Riding in, in the rain!
The Two Loves
by John Greenleaf Whittier

Smoothing soft the nestling head
Of a maiden fancy-led,
Thus a grave-eyed woman said:
"Richest gifts are those we make,
Dearer than the love we take
That we give for love's own sake.
"Well I know the heart's unrest;
Mine has been the common quest,
To be loved and therefore blest.
"Favors undeserved were mine;
At my feet as on a shrine
Love has laid its gifts divine.
"Sweet the offerings seemed, and yet
With their sweetness came regret,
And a sense of unpaid debt.
"Heart of mine unsatisfied,
Was it vanity or pride
That a deeper joy denied?
"Hands that ope but to receive
Empty close; they only live
Richly who can richly give.
"Still," she sighed, with moistening eyes,
"Love is sweet in any guise;
But its best is sacrifice!
"He who, giving, does not crave
Likest is to Him who gave
Life itself the loved to save.
"Love, that self-forgetful gives,
Sows surprise of ripened sheaves,
Late or soon its own receives.
His Place.
by Marietta Holley

So all things come to our mind at last,
He is close by your side in the twilight gloom,
And you two are alone in the dim old room,
Yet he is mute, as you bade him be, time past.
You bade him to weary you, never again
With his idle love, in truth he was wise,
For he spake no more, although in his eyes
You read, you fancied, a language of pain.
But this is past, and vex you he never will,
With loving glance, or look of sad reproach;
His lips move not, smile not at your approach;
The flowers he clasps are not more calm and still.
Your favorite flowers he has heard you praise,
Purple pansies, and lilies creamy white;
But he offers them not to you to-night,
He troubles you not, he has learned "his place."
You wished to teach him that lesson, you told
Him as much, you know, in this very room,
'Twas about this hour, for the twilight gloom
As now, was enwrapping you, fold on fold.
Was "his place" in the haunts of the herded poor,
Where the pestilence stalked with deadly breath?
Face to face with its dreadful shadow, death,
How he wrestled with it from door to door,
Giving his life that others life might find,
Shaming you with his toil, his bravery,
Not by a word or look, no boaster he,
He was always gentle to you, and kind.
He has found "his place," but no need of fears,
No; you need not summon your jealous pride,
For "his place" will never be by your side,
Nevermore, nevermore, through all the years.
And when from Time shall drop Earth's days
Like chaff from the bloom of the year sublime,
With the gentle spirits of every time,
And the martyr souls, he will find his place.
So answers will come to our seeking wills,
Nevermore will his sad face vex your sight,
For you never will make your robes so white
As to stand by him on the heavenly hills.
Yes, lay your cheek upon his, and press
The clustering hair from his broad white brow,
Have no fear, he will not annoy you now
By a word in praise of your loveliness.
Yes, kneel by him, moaning, kissing his brow,
Not now will it grieve him, your tears' swift rain,
And he will not ask you to share your pain;
Ah! Once he would, but not now - not now.
So leave the old room in the waning light,
Go out in your peerless beauty and pride,
And let no shadow go out by your side
To follow you under the falling night.
Lament Of Mary Queen Of Scots
by William Wordsworth

Smile of the Moon! for I so name
That silent greeting from above;
A gentle flash of light that came
From her whom drooping captives love;
Or art thou of still higher birth?
Thou that didst part the clouds of earth,
My torpor to reprove!
Bright boon of pitying Heaven! alas,
I may not trust thy placid cheer!
Pondering that Time tonight will pass
The threshold of another year;
For years to me are sad and dull;
My very moments are too full
Of hopelessness and fear.
And yet, the soul-awakening gleam,
That struck perchance the farthest cone
Of Scotland's rocky wilds, did seem
To visit me, and me alone;
Me, unapproached by any friend,
Save those who to my sorrow lend
Tears due unto their own.
To night the church-tower bells will ring
Through these wide realms a festire peal;
To the new year a welcoming;
A tuneful offering for the weal
Of happy millions lulled in deep;
While I am forced to watch and weep,
By wounds that may not heal.
Born all too high, by wedlock raised
Still higher'to be cast thus low!
Would that mine eyes had never gazed
On aught of more ambitious show
Than the sweet flowerets of the fields
It is my royal state that yields
This bitterness of woe.
Yet how? for I, if there be truth
In the world's voice, was passing fair;
And beauty, for confiding youth,
Those shocks of passion can prepare
That kill the bloom before its time;
And blanch, without the owner's crime,
The most resplendent hair.
Unblest distinction! showered on me
To bind a lingering life in chains:
All that could quit my grasp, or flee,
Is gone; but not the subtle stains
Fixed in the spirit; for even here
Can I be proud that jealous fear
Of what I was remains.
A Woman rules my prison's key;
A sister Queen, against the bent
O' law and holiest sympathy,
Detains me, doubtful of the event;
Great God, who feel'st for my distress,
My thoughts are all that I possess,
O keep them innocent!
Farewell desire of human aid,
Which abject mortals vainly court!
By friends deceived, by foes betrayed,
Of fears the prey, of hopes the sport;
Nought but the world-redeeming Cross
Is able to support my loss,
My burthen to support.
Hark! the death-note of the year
Sounded by the castle-clock!
From her sunk eyes a stagnant tear
Stole forth, unsettled by the shock;
But oft the woods renewed their green,
Ere the tired head of Scotland's Queen
Reposed upon the block!
Jenifer's Love
by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Small is my secret--let it pass--
Small in your life the share I had,
Who sat beside you in the class,
Awed by the bright superior lad:
Whom yet with hot and eager face
I prompted when he missed his place.
For you the call came swift and soon:
But sometimes in your holidays
You meet me trudging home at noon
To dinner through the dusty ways,
And recognized, and with a nod
Passed on, but never guessed--thank God!
Truly our ways were separate.
I bent myself to hoe and drill,
Yea, with an honest man to mate,
Fulfilling God Almighty's will;
And bore him children. But my prayers
Were yours--and, only after, theirs.
While you--still loftier, more remote,
You sprang from stair to stair of fame,
And you've a riband on your coat,
And you've a title to your name;
But have you yet a star to shine
Above your bed, as I o'er mine?
Passer Le Temps.
by Hattie Howard

So that's the way you pass your time!
Indeed your charming, frank confession
Betrays no sort of heinous crime,
But marks a wonderful digression
From puritanic views, less bold,
That we were early taught to hold.
"Passer le temps," of course, implies
A little cycle of flirtations,
Wherein the actors never rise
To sober, serious relations,
But play just for amusement's sake
A harmless game of "give and take."
While moments pass on pinions fleet,
And youth in beauty effloresces,
The joy that finds itself complete
In honeyed words and soft caresses,
Alas! an index seems to be
Of perilous inconstancy.
It may be with disdainful smile
You greet this comment from a stranger,
Your pleasure-paths pursuing while
A siren voice discounts the danger,
Until, some day, in sadder rhyme
You rue your mode of "passing time."
Train Window
by Lola Ridge

Small towns
Crawling out of their green shirts...
Tubercular towns
Coughing a little in the dawn...
And the church...
There is always a church
With its natty spire
And the vestibule - 
That's where they whisper:
Tzz-tzz... tzz-tzz... tzz-tzz...
How many codes for a wireless whisper - 
And corn flatter than it should be
And those chits of leaves
Gadding with every wind?
Small towns
From Connecticut to Maine:
Tzz-tzz... tzz-tzz...tzz-tzz...
Inscription
by Walt Whitman

Small is the theme of the following Chant, yet the greatest - namely,
One's-Self - that wondrous thing a simple, separate person.
That, for the use of the New World, I sing.
Man's physiology complete, from top to toe, I sing. Not physiognomy alone, nor brain alone, is worthy for the muse; - I say the Form complete is worthier far. The female equal with the male, I sing,
Nor cease at the theme of One's-Self. I speak the word of the modern, the word En-Masse:
My Days I sing, and the Lands - with interstice I knew of hapless War.
O friend whoe'er you are, at last arriving hither to commence, I feel through every leaf the pressure of your hand, which I return.
And thus upon our journey link'd together let us go.