DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Hymn. (Translations From The Hebrew Poets Of Medaeval Spain.)
by Emma Lazarus

Almighty! what is man?
But flesh and blood.
Like shadows flee his days,
He marks not how they vanish from his gaze,
Suddenly, he must die -
He droppeth, stunned, into nonentity.
Almighty! what is man?
A body frail and weak,
Full of deceit and lies,
Of vile hypocrisies.
Now like a flower blowing,
Now scorched by sunbeams glowing.
And wilt thou of his trespasses inquire?
How may he ever bear
Thine anger just, thy vengeance dire?
Punish him not, but spare,
For he is void of power and strength!
Almighty! what is man?
By filthy lust possessed,
Whirled in a round of lies,
Fond frenzy swells his breast.
The pure man sinks in mire and slime,
The noble shrinketh not from crime,
Wilt thou resent on him the charms of sin?
Like fading grass,
So shall he pass.
Like chaff that blows
Where the wind goes.
Then spare him, be thou merciful, O King,
Upon the dreaded day of reckoning!
Almighty! what is man?
The haughty son of time
Drinks deep of sin,
And feeds on crime
Seething like waves that roll,
Hot as a glowing coal.
And wilt thou punish him for sins inborn?
Lost and forlorn,
Then like the weakling he must fall,
Who some great hero strives withal.
Oh, spare him, therefore! let him win
Grace for his sin!
Almighty! what is man?
Spotted in guilty wise,
A stranger unto faith,
Whose tongue is stained with lies,
And shalt thou count his sins - so is he lost,
Uprooted by thy breath.
Like to a stream by tempest tossed,
His life falls from him like a cloak,
He passes into nothingness, like smoke.
Then spare him, punish not, be kind, I pray,
To him who dwelleth in the dust, an image wrought in clay!
Almighty! what is man?
A withered bough!
When he is awe-struck by approaching doom,
Like a dried blade of grass, so weak, so low
The pleasure of his life is changed to gloom.
He crumbles like a garment spoiled with moth;
According to his sins wilt thou be wroth?
He melts like wax before the candle's breath,
Yea, like thin water, so he vanisheth,
Oh, spare him therefore, for thy gracious name,
And be not too severe upon his shame!
Almighty! what is man?
A faded leaf!
If thou dost weigh him in the balance - lo!
He disappears - a breath that thou dost blow.
His heart is ever filled
With lust of lies unstilled.
Wilt thou bear in mind his crime
Unto all time?
He fades away like clouds sun-kissed,
Dissolves like mist.
Then spare him! let him love and mercy win,
According to thy grace, and not according to his sin!
Solomon Ben Judah Gabirol (Died Between 1070-80.)
The Lost Path
by James Whitcomb Riley

Alone they walked - their fingers knit together,
And swaying listlessly as might a swing
Wherein Dan Cupid dangled in the weather
Of some sun-flooded afternoon of Spring.
Within the clover-fields the tickled cricket
Laughed lightly as they loitered down the lane,
And from the covert of the hazel-thicket
The squirrel peeped and laughed at them again.
The bumble-bee that tipped the lily-vases
Along the road-side in the shadows dim,
Went following the blossoms of their faces
As though their sweets must needs be shared with him.
Between the pasture bars the wondering cattle
Stared wistfully, and from their mellow bells
Shook out a welcoming whose dreamy rattle
Fell swooningly away in faint farewells.
And though at last the gloom of night fell o'er them
And folded all the landscape from their eyes,
They only know the dusky path before them
Was leading safely on to Paradise.
Young Love XIV - A June Lily
by Richard Le Gallienne

[The poet dramatises his Lady's loneliness]
Alone! once more alone! how like a tomb
My little parlour sounds which only now
Yearned like some holy chancel with his voice.
So still! so empty! Surely one might fear
The walls should meet in ruinous collapse
That held no more his music. Yet they stand
Firm in a foolish firmness, meaningless
As frescoed sepulchre some Pharaoh built
But never came to sleep in; built, indeed,
For - that grey moth to flit in like a ghost!
Alone! another feast-day come and gone,
Watched through the weeks as in my garden there
I watch a seedling grow from blade to bud
Impatient for its blossom. So this day
Has bloomed at last, and we have plucked its flower
And shared its sweetness, and once more the time
Is as that stalk from which but now I plucked
Its last June-lily as a parting sign.
Yea, but he seemed to love it! yet if he
But craved it in deceit of tenderness
To make my heart glow brighter with a lie!
Will it indeed be cherished as he said,
Or will he keep it near his book a while,
And when grown rank forget it in his glass,
And leave it for the maid who dusts his room
To clear away and cast upon the heap?
Or, may be, will he bury it away
In some old drawer with other mummy-flowers?
Nay, but I wrong thee, dear one, thinking so.
My boy, my love, my poet! Nay, I know
Thy lonely room, tomb-like to thee as mine,
Tomb-like as tomb of some returning ghost
Seems only bright about my lily-flower.
And, mayhap, while I wrong thee thus in thought
Thou bendest o'er it, feigning for some ease
Of parted ache conceits of poet-wit
On petal and on stamen - let me try!
If lilies be alike thine is as this,
I wonder if thy reading tallies too.
Six petals with a dewdrop in their heart,
Six pure brave years, an ivory cup of tears;
Six pearly-pillared stamens golden-crowned
Growing from out the dewdrop, and a seventh
Soaring alone trilobed and mystic green;
Six pearl-bright years aflower with gold of joy,
Sprung from the heart of those brave tear-fed years:
But what that seventh single stamen is
My little wit must leave for thee to tell.
But neither poet nor a sibyl thou!
What brave conceit had he, my poet, built;
No jugglery of numbers that mean nought,
That can mean nought for ever, unto us.
The House Of Life
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

All wondering, and eager-eyed, within her portico
I made my plea to Hostess Life, one morning long ago.
"Pray show me this great house of thine, nor close a single door;
But let me wander where I will, and climb from floor to floor!
For many rooms, and curious things, and treasures great and small
Within your spacious mansion lie, and I would see them all."
Then Hostess Life turned silently, her searching gaze on me,
And with no word, she reached her hand, and offered up the key.
It opened first the door of Hope, and long I lingered there,
Until I spied the room of Dreams, just higher by a stair.
And then a door whereon the one word "Happiness" was writ;
But when I tried the little key I could not make it fit.
It turned the lock of Pleasure's room, where first all seemed so bright - 
But after I had stayed awhile it somehow lost its light.
And wandering down a lonely hall, I came upon a room
Marked "Duty," and I entered it - to lose myself in gloom.
Along the shadowy halls I groped my weary way about,
And found that from dull Duty's room, a door of Toil led out.
It led out to another door, whereon a crimson stain
Made sullenly against the dark these words:    "The Room of Pain."
But oh the light, the light, the light, that spilled down from above
And upward wound, the stairs of Faith, right to the Tower of Love!
And when I came forth from that place, I tried the little key - 
And lo! the door of Happiness swung open, wide and free.
On Gold
by Jonathan Swift

All-ruling tyrant of the earth,
To vilest slaves I owe my birth,
How is the greatest monarch blest,
When in my gaudy livery drest!
No haughty nymph has power to run
From me; or my embraces shun.
Stabb'd to the heart, condemn'd to flame,
My constancy is still the same.
The favourite messenger of Jove,
And Lemnian god, consulting strove
To make me glorious to the sight
Of mortals, and the gods' delight.
Soon would their altar's flame expire
If I refused to lend them fire.
By fate exalted high in place,
Lo, here I stand with double face:
Superior none on earth I find;
But see below me all mankind
Yet, as it oft attends the great,
I almost sink with my own weight.
At every motion undertook,
The vulgar all consult my look.
I sometimes give advice in writing,
But never of my own inditing.
I am a courtier in my way;
For those who raised me, I betray;
And some give out that I entice
To lust, to luxury, and dice.
Who punishments on me inflict,
Because they find their pockets pickt.
By riding post, I lose my health,
And only to get others wealth.
Song Of Bells
by John Kendall (Dum-Dum)

Allons! Allons! Tra-la-la! Hear my Bellata!
Why do you not return to Mandalay O soldier?
Do you not remember the boats, and the paddles as they chunked outside the boats?
Do you not remember the elephants, the mighty elephants, strong, mysterious, impalpable (no, not impalpable), pachydermatous, and the extraordinary accuracy with which they succeeded in balancing trees or parts of trees, branches, logs, beams, planks, ... etc., ... with their trunks (the beams carefully supported at their centre of gravity, the logs carefully supported at their centre of gravity, the elephants without a smile at their centre of gravity)
From Rangoon to Mandalay?
For - 
On the road to Mandalay the flying-fishes play,
But there are no omnibuses to ply.
Is there not a thirst here, and are there any ten commandments?
O you commandments! you first, second, third ... and tenth commandments!
What has Mandalay to do with you, and what have you to do with Mandalay?
Ha! What is that?
Is it a sound, is it the thunder, the sudden thunder, strepitant, tonant?
Is it the midday (twelve o'clock) cannon?
No!
Is it not then the ocean, the storm of the ocean?
Divil a bit!
Return, return then O soldiers,
Return, you that have been discharged with pensions, as time-expired men, or as incorrigible and worthless,
Return, for it is the dawn, and it is calling to you as it comes up from China,
Though why from China do you ask me?
Then ask me another!
The Solitary.
by Nathaniel Parker Willis

Alone! alone! How drear it is
Always to be alone!
In such a depth of wilderness,
The only thinking one!
The waters in their path rejoice,
The trees together sleep - 
But I have not one silver voice
Upon my ear to creep!
The sun upon the silent hills
His mesh of beauty weaves,
There's music in the laughing rills
And in the whispering leaves.
The red deer like the breezes fly
To meet the bounding roe,
But I have not a human sigh
To cheer me as I go.
I've hated men - I hate them now - 
But, since they are not here,
I thirst for the familiar brow - 
Thirst for the stealing tear.
And I should love to see the one,
And feel the other creep,
And then again I'd be alone
Amid the forest deep.
I thought that I should love my hound,
And hear my cracking gun
Till I forgot the thrilling sound
Of voices - one by one.
I thought that in the leafy hush
Of nature, they would die;
But, as the hindered waters rush,
Resisted feelings fly
I'm weary of my lonely hut
And of its blasted tree,
The very lake is like my lot,
So silent constantly.
I've lived amid the forest gloom
Until I almost fear - 
When will the thrilling voices come
My spirit thirsts to hear?
Pauline Barrett
by Edgar Lee Masters

Almost the shell of a woman after the surgeon's knife
And almost a year to creep back into strength,
Till the dawn of our wedding decennial
Found me my seeming self again.
We walked the forest together,
By a path of soundless moss and turf.
But I could not look in your eyes,
And you could not look in my eyes,
For such sorrow was ours - the beginning of gray in your hair.
And I but a shell of myself.
And what did we talk of? - sky and water,
Anything, 'most, to hide our thoughts.
And then your gift of wild roses,
Set on the table to grace our dinner.
Poor heart, how bravely you struggled
To imagine and live a remembered rapture!
Then my spirit drooped as the night came on,
And you left me alone in my room for a while,
As you did when I was a bride, poor heart.
And I looked in the mirror and something said:
"One should be all dead when one is half-dead - "
Nor ever mock life, nor ever cheat love."
And I did it looking there in the mirror - 
Dear, have you ever understood?
The Sonnet
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Alone it stands in Poesy's fair land,
A temple by the muses set apart;
A perfect structure of consummate art,
By artists builded and by genius planned,
Beyond the reach of the apprentice hand,
Beyond the ken of the untutored heart,
Like a fine carving in a common mart,
Only the favoured few will understand.
A chef d'auvre toiled over with great care,
Yet which the unseeing careless crowd goes by,
A plainly set, but well-cut solitaire,
An ancient bit of pottery, too rare
To please or hold aught save the special eye,
These only with the sonnet can compare.
Day Dawn
by Emily Pauline Johnson

All yesterday the thought of you was resting in my soul,
And when sleep wandered o'er the world that very thought she stole
To fill my dreams with splendour such as stars could not eclipse,
And in the morn I wakened with your name upon my lips.
Awakened, my beloved, to the morning of your eyes,
Your splendid eyes, so full of clouds, wherein a shadow tries
To overcome the flame that melts into the world of grey,
As coming suns dissolve the dark that veils the edge of day.
Cool drifts the air at dawn of day, cool lies the sleeping dew,
But all my heart is burning, for it woke from dreams of you;
And O! these longing eyes of mine look out and only see
A dying night, a waking day, and calm on all but me.
So gently creeps the morning through the heavy air,
The dawn grey-garbed and velvet-shod is wandering everywhere
To wake the slumber-laden hours that leave their dreamless rest,
With outspread, laggard wings to court the pillows of the west.
Up from the earth a moisture steals with odours fresh and soft,
A smell of moss and grasses warm with dew, and far aloft
The stars are growing colourless, while drooping in the west,
A late, wan moon is paling in a sky of amethyst.
The passing of the shadows, as they waft their pinions near,
Has stirred a tender wind within the night-hushed atmosphere,
That in its homeless wanderings sobs in an undertone
An echo to my heart that sobbing calls for you alone.
The night is gone, beloved, and another day set free,
Another day of hunger for the one I may not see.
What care I for the perfect dawn? the blue and empty skies?
The night is always mine without the morning of your eyes.
Alone
by Pamela S. Vining, (J. C. Yule)

Alone, alone! - the night is very silent,
Voiceless the stars are, and the pallid moon
Through the unknown sends down no tone, no utt'rance
To break the hush of midnight's solemn noon!
I stretch my arms toward the unanswering heavens,
'Tis empty space, - no form, no shape is here!
I call, - no answer to my cry is given,
Powerless my voice falls on Night's leaden ear!
Alone, alone! - I thought the dead were near me, - 
The holy dead.    E'en now, methought I heard
Low tones whose music long ago did cheer me,
That shadowy hands the parting branches stirred
'Twas but the night wind's mournful sigh above me, - 
'Twas but the lonely streamlet's grieving tone,
No voice comes back from those who once did love me, - 
No white hand beckons - I am all alone!
Alone? - not so! One sacred, unseen Presence
Fills the far depths, broods round me and above,
Enfolding all in His own Omnipresence,
Pervading all with His unstinted love,
In Him I live, and move, and have my being,
My soul's deep yearnings all to Him are known,
On me in kindness rests His eye all seeing,
His arm upholds me, - I am not alone!
A South-Sea Islander.
by Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Aloll in the warm clear water,
On her back with languorous limbs,
She lies. The baby upon her breasts
Paddles and falls and swims.
With half-closed eyes she smiles,
Guarding it with her hands;
And the sob swells up in my heart - 
In my heart that understands.
Dear, in the English country,
The hatefullest land on earth,
The mothers are starved and the children die,
And death is better than birth!
Lines Written On Leaving Philadelphia.
by Thomas Moore

Alone by the Schuylkill a wanderer roved,
And bright were its flowery banks to his eye;
But far, very far were the friends that he loved,
And he gazed on its flowery banks with a sigh.
Oh Nature, though blessed and bright are thy rays,
O'er the brow of creation enchantingly thrown,
Yet faint are they all to the lustre that plays
In a smile from the heart that is fondly our own.
Nor long did the soul of the stranger remain
Unblest by the smile he had languished to meet;
Though scarce did he hope it would soothe him again,
Till the threshold of home had been pressed by his feet.
But the lays of his boyhood had stolen to their ear,
And they loved what they knew of so humble a name;
And they told him, with flattery welcome and dear,
That they found in his heart something better than fame.
Nor did woman--oh woman! Whose form and whose soul
Are the spell and the life of each path we pursue;
Whether sunned in the tropics or chilled at the pole,
If woman be there, there is happiness too:--
Nor did she her enamoring magic deny,--
That magic his heart had relinquished so long,--
Like eyes he had loved was her eloquent eye,
Like them did it soften and weep at his song.
Oh, blest be the tear, and in memory oft
May its sparkle be shed o'er the wanderer's dream;
Thrice blest be that eye, and may passion as soft,
As free from a pang, ever mellow its beam!
The stranger is gone--but he will not forget,
When at home he shall talk of the toils he has known,
To tell, with a sigh, what endearments he met,
As he strayed by the wave of the Schuylkill alone.
Herbert Marshall
by Edgar Lee Masters

All your sorrow, Louise, and hatred of me
Sprang from your delusion that it was wantonness
Of spirit and contempt of your soul's rights
Which made me turn to Annabelle and forsake you.
You really grew to hate me for love of me,
Because I was your soul's happiness,
Formed and tempered
To solve your life for you, and would not.
But you were my misery.
If you had been
My happiness would I not have clung to you?
This is life's sorrow:
That one can be happy only where two are;
And that our hearts are drawn to stars
Which want us not.
The Goal
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

All your wonderful inventions,
All your houses vast and tall,
All your great gun-fronted vessels,
Every fort and every wall,
With the passing of the ages,
They shall pass and they shall fall.
As you sit among the idols
That your avarice gave birth,
As you count the hoarded treasures
That you think of priceless worth,
Time is digging tombs to hide them
In the bosom of the earth.
There shall come a great convulsion
Or a rushing tidal wave,
Or a sound of mighty thunders
From a subterranean cave,
And a boasting world's possessions
Shall be buried in one grave.
From the Centuries of Silence
We are bringing back again
Buried vase and bust and column
And the gods they worshipped then,
In the strange unmentioned cities
Built by prehistoric men.
Did they steal, and lie, and slaughter?
Did they steep their souls in shame?
Did they sell eternal virtues
Just to win a passing fame?
Did they give the gold of honour
For the tinsel of a name?
We are hurrying all together
Toward the silence and the night;
There is nothing worth the seeking
But the sun-kissed moral height - 
There is nothing worth the doing
But the doing of the RIGHT.
Our Native Birds
by Nathan Haskell Dole

Alone I sit at eventide;
The twilight glory pales,
And o'er the meadows far and wide
I hear the bobolinks - 
(We have no nightingales!)
Song-sparrows warble on the tree,
I hear the purling brook,
And from the old manse on the lea
Flies slow the cawing crow - 
(In England 'twere a rook!)
The last faint golden beams of day
Still glow on cottage panes,
And on their lingering homeward way
Walk weary laboring men - 
(Alas! we have no swains!)
From farmyards, down fair rural glades
Come sounds of tinkling bells,
And songs of merry brown milkmaids
Sweeter than catbird's strains - 
(I should say Philomel's!)
I could sit here till morning came,
All through the night hours dark,
Until I saw the sun's bright flame
And heard the oriole - 
(Alas! we have no lark!)
We have no leas, no larks, no rooks,
No swains, no nightingales,
No singing milkmaids (save in books)
The poet does his best: - 
It is the rhyme that fails.
Nathan Haskell Dole.
In The Wilderness
by Morris Rosenfeld

Alone in desert dreary,
A bird with folded wings
Beholds the waste about her,
And sweetly, sweetly sings.
So heaven-sweet her singing,
So clear the bird notes flow,
'Twould seem the rocks must waken,
The desert vibrant grow.
Dead rocks and silent mountains
Would'st waken with thy strain,--
But dumb are still the mountains,
And dead the rocks remain.
For whom, O heavenly singer,
Thy song so clear and free?
Who hears or sees or heeds thee,
Who feels or cares for thee?
Thou may'st outpour in music
Thy very soul... 'Twere vain!
In stone thou canst not waken
A throb of joy or pain.
Thy song shall soon be silenced;
I feel it... For I know
Thy heart is near to bursting
With loneliness and woe.
Ah, vain is thine endeavor;
It naught availeth--nay;
For lonely as thou camest,
So shalt thou pass away.
The Scarecrow
by Walter De La Mare

All winter through I bow my head
Beneath the driving rain;
The North wind powders me with snow
And blows me black again;
At midnight 'neath a maze of stars
I flame with glittering rime,
And stand, above the stubble, stiff
As mail at morning-prime.
But when that child, called Spring, and all
His host of children, come,
Scattering their buds and dew upon
Those acres of my home,
Some rapture in my rags awakes;
I lift void eyes and scan
The skies for crows, those ravening foes,
Of my strange master, Man.
I watch him striding lank behind
His clashing team, and know
Soon will the wheat swish body high
Where once lay sterile snow;
Soon shall I gaze across a sea
Of sun-begotten grain,
Which my unflinching watch hath sealed
For harvest once again.
The Eagle of the Blue.
by Herman Melville

[12]
Aloft he guards the starry folds
Who is the brother of the star;
The bird whose joy is in the wind
Exultleth in the war.
No painted plume - a sober hue,
His beauty is his power;
That eager calm of gaze intent
Foresees the Sibyl's hour.
Austere, he crowns the swaying perch,
Flapped by the angry flag;
The hurricane from the battery sings,
But his claw has known the crag.
Amid the scream of shells, his scream
Runs shrilling; and the glare
Of eyes that brave the blinding sun
The vollied flame can bear.
The pride of quenchless strength is his - 
Strength which, though chained, avails;
The very rebel looks and thrills - 
The anchored Emblem hails.
Though scarred in many a furious fray,
No deadly hurt he knew;
Well may we think his years are charmed - 
The Eagle of the Blue.
12. Among the Northwestern regiments there would seem to have been more than one which carried a living eagle as an added ensign. The bird commemorated here was, according the the account, borne aloft on a perch beside the standard; went through successive battles and campaigns; was more than once under the surgeon's hands; and at the close of the contest found honorable repose in the capital of Wisconsin, from which state he had gone to the wars.
Grace And Providence.
by William Cowper

Almighty King! whose wondrous hand
Supports the weight of sea and land,
Whose grace is such a boundless store,
No heart shall break that sighs for more.
Thy providence supplies my food,
And 'tis thy blessing makes it good;
My soul is nourish'd by thy word,
Let soul and body praise the Lord.
My streams of outward comfort came
From him who built this earthly frame;
Whate'er I want his bounty gives,
By whom my soul for ever lives.
Either his hand preserves from pain,
Or, if I feel it, heals again;
From Satan's malice shields my breast,
Or overrules it for the best.
Forgive the song that falls so low
Beneath the gratitude I owe!
It means thy praise, however poor;
An angel's song can do no more.