DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
In the Great Metropolis
by Arthur Hugh Clough

Each for himself is still the rule
We learn it when we go to school
The devil take the hindmost, O!
And when the schoolboys grow to men,
In life they learn it o'er again
The devil take the hindmost, O!
For in the church, and at the bar,
On 'Change, at court, where'er they are,
The devil takes the hindmost, O!
Husband for husband, wife for wife,
Are careful that in married life
The devil takes the hindmost, O!
From youth to age, whate'er the game,
The unvarying practice is the same
The devil take the hindmost, O!
And after death, we do not know,
But scarce can doubt, where'er we go,
The devil takes the hindmost, O!
Ti rol de rol, ti rol de ro,
The devil take the hindmost, O!
Virtue.
by Robert Herrick

Each must in virtue strive for to excel;
That man lives twice that lives the first life well.
His Youth
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

"Dying?    I am not dying?    Are you mad?
You think I need to ask for heavenly grace?
I think you are a fiend, who would be glad
To see me struggle in death's cold embrace.
"But, man, you lie! for I am strong - in truth
Stronger than I have been in years; and soon
I shall feel young again as in my youth,
My glorious youth - life's one great priceless boon.
"O youth, youth, youth!    O God! that golden time,
When proud and glad I laughed the hours away.
Why, there's no sacrifice (perhaps no crime)
I'd pause at, could it make me young to-day.
"But I'm not old!    I grew - just ill, somehow;
Grew stiff of limb, and weak, and dim of sight.
It was but sickness.    I am better now,
Oh, vastly better, ever since last night.
"And I could weep warm floods of happy tears
To think my strength is coming back at last,
For I have dreamed of such an hour for years,
As I lay thinking of my glorious past.
"You shake your head?    Why, man, if you were sane
I'd strike you to my feet, I would, in truth.
How dare you tell me that my hopes are vain?
How dare you say I have outlived my youth?
"'In heaven I may regain it'?    Oh, be still!
I want no heaven but what my glad youth gave.
Its long, bright hours, its rapture and its thrill - 
O youth, youth, youth! it is my youth I crave.
"There is no heaven!    There's nothing but a deep
And yawning grave from which I shrink in fear.
I am not sure of even rest or sleep;
Perhaps we lie and think as I have here.
"Think, think, think, think, as we lie there and rot,
And hear the young above us laugh in glee.
How dare you say I'm dying!    I am not.
I would curse God if such a thing could be.
"Why, see me stand! why, hear this strong, full breath - 
Dare you repeat that silly, base untruth?"
A cry - a fall - the silence known as death
Hushed his wild words.    Well, has he found his youth?
Astraea
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Each the herald is who wrote
His rank, and quartered his own coat.
There is no king nor sovereign state
That can fix a hero's rate;
Each to all is venerable,
Cap-a-pie invulnerable,
Until he write, where all eyes rest,
Slave or master on his breast.
I saw men go up and down,
In the country and the town,
With this tablet on their neck,
'Judgment and a judge we seek.'
Not to monarchs they repair,
Nor to learned jurist's chair;
But they hurry to their peers,
To their kinsfolk and their dears;
Louder than with speech they pray,--
'What am I? companion, say.'
And the friend not hesitates
To assign just place and mates;
Answers not in word or letter,
Yet is understood the better;
Each to each a looking-glass,
Reflects his figure that doth pass.
Every wayfarer he meets
What himself declared repeats,
What himself confessed records,
Sentences him in his words;
The form is his own corporal form,
And his thought the penal worm.
Yet shine forever virgin minds,
Loved by stars and purest winds,
Which, o'er passion throned sedate,
Have not hazarded their state;
Disconcert the searching spy,
Rendering to a curious eye
The durance of a granite ledge.
To those who gaze from the sea's edge
It is there for benefit;
It is there for purging light;
There for purifying storms;
And its depths reflect all forms;
It cannot parley with the mean,--
Pure by impure is not seen.
For there's no sequestered grot,
Lone mountain tarn, or isle forgot,
But Justice, journeying in the sphere,
Daily stoops to harbor there.
From Omar Khayyam
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Each spot where tulips prank their state
Has drunk the life-blood of the great;
The violets yon field which stain
Are moles of beauties Time hath slain.
Unbar the door, since thou the Opener art,
Show me the forward way, since thou art guide,
I put no faith in pilot or in chart,
Since they are transient, and thou dost abide.
Dust To Dust
by Hanford Lennox Gordon

Dust to dust:
Fall and perish love and lust:
Life is one brief autumn day;
Sin and sorrow haunt the way
To the narrow house of clay,
Clutching at the good and just:
Dust to dust.
Dust to dust:
Still we strive and toil and trust,
From the cradle to the grave:
Vainly crying, "Jesus, save!"
Fall the coward and the brave,
Fall the felon and the just:
Dust to dust.
Dust to dust:
Hark, I hear the wintry gust;
Yet the roses bloom to-day,
Blushing to the kiss of May,
While the north winds sigh and say:
"Lo we bring the cruel frost 
Dust to dust."
Dust to dust:
Yet we live and love and trust,
Lifting burning brow and eye
To the mountain peaks on high:
From the peaks the ages cry,
Strewing ashes, rime and rust:
"Dust to dust!"
Dust to dust:
What is gained when all is lost?
Gaily for a day we tread 
Proudly with averted head
O'er the ashes of the dead 
Blind with pride and mad with lust:
Dust to dust.
Hope and trust:
All life springs from out the dust:
Ah, we measure God by man,
Looking forward but a span
On His wondrous, boundless plan;
All His ways are wise and just;
Hope and trust.
Hope and trust:
Hope will blossom from the dust;
Love is queen: God's throne is hers;
His great heart with loving force
Throbs throughout the universe;
We are His and He is just;
Hope and trust.
Dwell Not With Me
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

Dwell, not with me,
For you'll never see
More than a 'possum or a kangaroo,
And now and then a cockatoo.
Oh, would you wish,
Without a dish,
Your scanty meal from a piece of bark,
And a wood fire to illume the dark.
'Tis there you'd mourn,
'Tis there you'd mourn
The sweet woodbine
That round your lattice now doth twine.
Fond friends, don't grieve
For scenes like these,
Or smart from bugs, mosquitoes, fleas.
Dwell not with me.
Funeral Hymn
by Walter Scott (Sir)

Dust unto dust,
To this all must;
The tenant hath resign'd
The faded form To waste and worm
Corruption claims her kind.
Through paths unknown
Thy soul hath flown,
To seek the realms of woe,
Where fiery pain
Shall purge the stain
Of actions done below.
In that sad place,
By Mary's grace,
Brief may thy dwelling be
Till prayers and alms,
And holy psalms,
Shall set the captive free.
E'en The Fair Orb.
by W. M. MacKeracher

to -----.
E'en the fair orb on which I gaze
Suggests thy radiance by its rays:
That silvery, soft, and dreamy light,
So soft, and yet so beauteous bright,
Falling in glowing tints so faint, -
The hues which artists love to paint;
Around whose sphere the fancies claim
That angels float, and fan the flame:
The lover's choice, it doth belong
To lover's lute and poet's song.
That light, though native to the skies,
Is all reflected in thine eyes.
To Laura In Death. Sonnet LXXX.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Ogni giorno mi par pi' di mill' anni.
FAR FROM FEARING, HE PRAYS FOR DEATH.
Each day to me seems as a thousand years,
That I my dear and faithful star pursue,
Who guided me on earth, and guides me too
By a sure path to life without its tears.
For in the world, familiar now, appears
No snare to tempt; so rare a light and true
Shines e'en from heaven my secret conscience through,
Of lost time and loved sin the glass it rears.
Not that I need the threats of death to dread,
(Which He who loved us bore with greater pain)
That, firm and constant, I his path should tread:
'Tis but a brief while since in every vein
Of her he enter'd who my fate has been,
Yet troubled not the least her brow serene.
MACGREGOR.
Apples And Water.
by Robert von Ranke Graves

Dust in a cloud, blinding weather,
Drums that rattle and roar!
A mother and daughter stood together
Beside their cottage door.
"Mother, the heavens are bright like brass,
The dust is shaken high,
With labouring breath the soldiers pass,
Their lips are cracked and dry."
"Mother, I'll throw them apples down,
I'll bring them pails of water."
The mother turned with an angry frown
Holding back her daughter.
"But mother, see, they faint with thirst,
They march away to die,"
"Ah, sweet, had I but known at first
Their throats are always dry."
"There is no water can supply them
In western streams that flow,
There is no fruit can satisfy them
On orchard trees that grow."
"Once in my youth I gave, poor fool,
A soldier apples and water,
So may I die before you cool
Your father's drouth, my daughter."
Echo
by Madison Julius Cawein

Dweller in hollow places, hills and rocks,
Daughter of Silence and old Solitude,
Tip-toe she stands within her cave or wood,
Her only life the noises that she mocks.
Tokens.
by Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncey Woolsey)

Each day upon the yellow Nile, 'tis said.
Joseph, the youthful ruler, cast forth wheat,
That haply, floating to his father's feet,--
The sad old father, who believed him dead,--
It might be sign in Egypt there was bread;
And thus the patriarch, past the desert sands
And scant oasis fringed with thirsty green,
Be lured toward the love that yearned unseen.
So, flung and scattered--ah! by what dear hands?--
On the swift-rushing and invisible tide,
Small tokens drift adown from far, fair lands,
And say to us, who in the desert bide,
"Are you athirst? Are there no sheaves to bind?
Beloved, here is fulness; follow on and find."
Participation.
by Friedrich Schiller

E'en by the hand of the wicked can truth be working with vigor;
But the vessel is filled by what is beauteous alone.
To A Little Girl.
by Thomas Frederick Young

E ach wish, my fairest child, I pen,
F or thee I write with earnest heart;
F or who shall say, that ere, again,
I shall behold thee; when we part
E 'en now the time is near, I start.
H ere are my wishes, then, sweet child,
A long life's pathway may thou go,
R ob'd white, as now, in virtue mild,
R etaining pure, thy virtue's snow.
I wish thee this, and wish thee more,--
S o long as thou on earth hath life,
O h! may thy heart be never sore,
N or vex'd with anxious care or strife!
Too Late
by Matthew Arnold

Each on his own strict line we move,
And some find death ere they find love.
So far apart their lives are thrown
From the twin soul that halves their own.
And sometimes, by still harder fate,
The lovers meet, but meet too late.
Thy heart is mine! True, true! ah, true!
Then, love, thy hand! Ah, no! adieu!
Each Road
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Each road to the proper end
Runs straight on, without a bend.
Sonnet
by Joseph Horatio Chant

Each human life with mysteries is replete;
They press upon us in its early dawn,
And multiply apace as years roll on,
And at each turn we must their problems meet.
Reason is blind, and fails their end to see,
Misjudges God and gathers only woe,
And from this spring much turbid waters flow.
Only the pure in heart from doubt are free;
They read aright the writing on the wall
Which solves the problems of our earthly lot;
To them God draws aside the veil, and shows
The golden threads with which the garment glows,
And why one dwells in palace, one in cot,
And how His love is working good to all.
The Drunkard And His Wife.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
Each has his fault, to which he clings
In spite of shame or fear.
This apophthegm a story brings,
To make its truth more clear.
A sot had lost health, mind, and purse;
And, truly, for that matter,
Sots mostly lose the latter
Ere running half their course.
When wine, one day, of wit had fill'd the room,
His wife inclosed him in a spacious tomb.
There did the fumes evaporate
At leisure from his drowsy pate.
When he awoke, he found
His body wrapp'd around
With grave-clothes, chill and damp,
Beneath a dim sepulchral lamp.
'How's this? My wife a widow sad?'
He cried, 'and I a ghost? Dead? dead?'
Thereat his spouse, with snaky hair,
And robes like those the Furies wear,
With voice to fit the realms below,
Brought boiling caudle to his bier - 
For Lucifer the proper cheer;
By which her husband came to know - 
For he had heard of those three ladies - 
Himself a citizen of Hades.
'What may your office be?'
The phantom question'd he.
'I'm server up of Pluto's meat,
And bring his guests the same to eat.'
'Well,' says the sot, not taking time to think,
'And don't you bring us anything to drink?'
G. G.
by Friedrich Schiller

Each one, when seen by himself, is passably wise and judicious;
When they in corpore are, naught but a blockhead is seen.
Duty
by Arthur Hugh Clough

Duty that's to say, complying,
With whate'er's expected here;
On your unknown cousin's dying,
Straight be ready with the tear;
Upon etiquette relying,
Unto usage nought denying,
Lend your waist to be embraced,
Blush not even, never fear;
Claims of kith and kin connection,
Claims of manners honour still,
Ready money of affection
Pay, whoever drew the bill.
With the form conforming duly,
Senseless what it meaneth truly,
Go to church the world require you,
To balls the world require you too,
And marry papa and mamma desire you,
And your sisters and schoolfellows do.
Duty 'tis to take on trust
What things are good, and right, and just;
And whether indeed they be or be not,
Try not, test not, feel not, see not:
'Tis walk and dance, sit down and rise
By leading, opening ne'er your eyes;
Stunt sturdy limbs that Nature gave,
And be drawn in a Bath chair along to the grave.
'Tis the stern and prompt suppressing,
As an obvious deadly sin,
All the questing and the guessing
Of the souls own soul within:
'Tis the coward acquiescence
In a destiny's behest,
To a shade by terror made,
Sacrificing, aye, the essence
Of all that's truest, noblest, best:
'Tis the blind non-recognition
Or of goodness, truth, or beauty,
Save by precept and submission;
Moral blank, and moral void,
Life at very birth destroyed.
Atrophy, exinanition!
Duty!
Yea, by duty's prime condition
Pure nonentity of duty!
Bolt That Door!
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

Each sin has its door of entrance.
Keep--that--door--closed!
Bolt it tight!
Just outside, the wild beast crouches
In the night.
Pin the bolt with a prayer,
God will fix it there.
Song
by George William Russell

Dusk its ash-grey blossoms sheds on violet skies,
Over twilight mountains where the heart songs rise,
Rise and fall and fade away from earth to air.
Earth renews the music sweeter. Oh, come there.
Come, acushla, come, as in ancient times
Rings aloud the underland with faery chimes.
Down the unseen ways as strays each tinkling fleece
Winding ever onward to a fold of peace,
So my dreams go straying in a land more fair;
Half I tread the dew-wet grasses, half wander there.
Fade your glimmering eyes in a world grown cold;
Come, acushla, with me to the mountains old.
There the bright ones call us waving to and fro--
Come, my children, with me to the ancient go.
Any Way For Wealth.
by Robert Herrick

E'en all religious courses to be rich
Hath been rehers'd by Joel Michelditch:
But now perceiving that it still does please
The sterner fates, to cross his purposes;
He tacks about, and now he doth profess
Rich he will be by all unrighteousness;
Thus if our ship fails of her anchor hold
We'll love the divel, so he lands the gold.
A Christmas Fancy
by Robert Fuller Murray

Early on Christmas Day,
Love, as awake I lay,
And heard the Christmas bells ring sweet and clearly,
My heart stole through the gloom
Into your silent room,
And whispered to your heart, 'I love you dearly.'
There, in the dark profound,
Your heart was sleeping sound,
And dreaming some fair dream of summer weather.
At my heart's word it woke,
And, ere the morning broke,
They sang a Christmas carol both together.
Glory to God on high!
Stars of the morning sky,
Sing as ye sang upon the first creation,
When all the Sons of God
Shouted for joy abroad,
And earth was laid upon a sure foundation.
Glory to God again!
Peace and goodwill to men,
And kindly feeling all the wide world over,
Where friends with joy and mirth
Meet round the Christmas hearth,
Or dreams of home the solitary rover.
Glory to God!    True hearts,
Lo, now the dark departs,
And morning on the snow-clad hills grows grey.
Oh, may love's dawning light
Kindled from loveless night,
Shine more and more unto the perfect day!
Earth! My Likeness!
by Walt Whitman

Earth! my likeness!
Though you look so impassive, ample and spheric there,
I now suspect that is not all;
I now suspect there is something fierce in you, eligible to burst forth;
For an athlete is enamour'd of me--and I of him;
But toward him there is something fierce and terrible in me, eligible to burst forth,
I dare not tell it in words--not even in these songs.
The Fall Of The Leaf.
by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

Earnest and sad the solemn tale
That the sighing winds give back,
Scatt'ring the leaves with mournful wail
O'er the forest's faded track;
Gay summer birds have left us now
For a warmer, brighter clime,
Where no leaden sky or leafless bough
Tell of change and winter-time.
Reapers have gathered golden store
Of maize and ripened grain,
And they'll seek the lonely fields no more
Till the springtide comes again.
But around the homestead's blazing hearth
Will they find sweet rest from toil,
And many an hour of harmless mirth
While the snow-storm piles the soil.
Then, why should we grieve for summer skies - 
For its shady trees - its flowers,
Or the thousand light and pleasant ties
That endeared the sunny hours?
A few short months of snow and storm,
Of winter's chilling reign,
And summer, with smiles and glances warm,
Will gladden our earth again.
Nursery Rhyme. DXXXV. Natural History. [Bird boy's song.]
by Unknown

Eat, Birds, eat, and make no waste,
I lie here and make no haste;
If my master chance to come,
You must fly, and I must run.
Love And Art.
by Charles Hamilton Musgrove

I.
Eagle-heart, child-heart, bonnie lad o' dreams,
Far away thy soul hears passion-throated Art
Singing where the future lies
Wrapped in hues of Paradise,
Pleading with her poignant note
That forever seems to float
Farther down the vista that is calling to thy heart.
Hearken! From the heights
Where thy soul alights
Bend thine ear to listen for the lute of Love is sighing:
"Eagle-heart, child-heart,
Love is love, and art is art;
Answer while thy lips are red;
Wilt thou have a barren bed?
Choose between us which to wed:
Answer, for thy bride awaits, and fragile hours are flying!"
II.
Eagle-heart, child-heart, bonnie lad o' dreams,
Far away thy soul hears Love's enraptured strain,
Calling with her plaintive note,
Pleading lute and pensive oat,
Burning, yearning, ever turning back to one refrain:
"Choose between us which to wed;
Love is love, and art is art;
Wilt thou have a barren bed?
Joyless mate and bloodless heart?
She will bring thee for her dower
Shrunken limb and shriveled breast,
Bitter thralldom, bootless power,
Days and nights of endless quest,
She will take thee heart and brain,
Hold thee with a vampire charm,
Kiss thee cold in every vein,
Drink thy blood to make her warm!"
III.
Eagle-heart, child-heart, bonnie lad o' dreams,
Far away thy soul hears passion-throated Art
Singing from her peaks of snow,
Wrapped in pale, unearthly glow,
Pleading with her poignant note
That forever seems to float
Farther down the vista that is calling to thy heart.
Hearken! From the heights
Where thy soul alights
Lift thy head to listen for the voice of Art is calling:
"Eagle-heart, child-heart,
Love is love, and art is art,
Answer while thy soul is strong;
Love is brief, but art is long;
Love is sighs, but art is song;
Answer, for thy bride awaits, and moonless night is falling!"
The Harp Of Aengus
by William Butler Yeats

Edain came out of Midhir's hill, and lay
Beside young Aengus in his tower of glass,
Where time is drowned in odour-laden winds
And Druid moons, and murmuring of boughs,
And sleepy boughs, and boughs where apples made
Of opal and ruhy and pale chrysolite
Awake unsleeping fires; and wove seven strings,
Sweet with all music, out of his long hair,
Because her hands had been made wild by love.
When Midhir's wife had changed her to a fly,
He made a harp with Druid apple-wood
That she among her winds might know he wept;
And from that hour he has watched over none
But faithful lovers.
Faith
by George MacDonald

"Earth, if aught should check thy race,
Rushing through unfended space,
Headlong, stayless, thou wilt fall
Into yonder glowing ball!"
"Beggar of the universe,
Faithless as an empty purse!
Sent abroad to cool and tame,
Think'st I fear my native flame?"
"If thou never on thy track
Turn thee round and hie thee back,
Thou wilt wander evermore,
Outcast, cold--a comet hoar!"
"While I sweep my ring along
In an air of joyous song,
Thou art drifting, heart awry,
From the sun of liberty!"
Possum
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Ef dey 's anyt'ing dat riles me
An' jes' gits me out o' hitch,
Twell I want to tek my coat off,
So 's to r'ar an' t'ar an' pitch,
Hit's to see some ign'ant white man
'Mittin' dat owdacious sin--
Wen he want to cook a possum
Tekin' off de possum's skin.
W'y dey ain't no use in talkin',
Hit jes' hu'ts me to de hea't
Fu' to see dem foolish people
Th'owin' 'way de fines' pa't.
W'y, dat skin is jes' ez tendah
An' ez juicy ez kin be;
I knows all erbout de critter--
Hide an' haih--don't talk to me!
Possum skin is jes lak shoat skin;
Jes' you swinge an' scrope it down,
Tek a good sha'p knife an' sco' it,
Den you bake it good an' brown.
Huh-uh! honey, you 's so happy
Dat yo' thoughts is 'mos' a sin
When you 's settin' dah a-chawin'
On dat possum's cracklin' skin.
White folks t'ink dey know 'bout eatin',
An' I reckon dat dey do
Sometimes git a little idee
Of a middlin' dish er two;
But dey ain't a t'ing dey knows of
Dat I reckon cain't be beat
Wen we set down at de table
To a unskun possum's meat!
Neglectful Edward.
by Robert von Ranke Graves

Nancy
"Edward back from the Indian Sea,
What have you brought for Nancy?"
Edward
"A rope of pearls and a gold earring,
And a bird of the East that will not sing.
A carven tooth, a box with a key, "
Nancy
"God be praised you are back," says she,
"Have you nothing more for your Nancy?"
Edward
"Long as I sailed the Indian Sea
I gathered all for your fancy:
Toys and silk and jewels I bring,
And a bird of the East that will not sing:
What more can you want, dear girl, from me?"
Nancy
"God be praised you are back," said she,
"Have you nothing better for Nancy?"
Edward
"Safe and home from the Indian Sea,
And nothing to take your fancy?"
Nancy
"You can keep your pearls and your gold earring,
And your bird of the East that will not sing,
But, Ned, have you nothing more for me
Than heathenish gew-gaw toys?" says she,
"Have you nothing better for Nancy?"
The Muse's Mirror.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Early one day, the Muse, when eagerly bent on adornment,
Follow'd a swift-running streamlet, the quietest nook by it seeking.
Quickly and noisily flowing, the changeful surface distorted
Ever her moving form; the goddess departed in anger.
Yet the stream call'd mockingly after her, saying: "What, truly!
Wilt thou not view, then, the truth, in my mirror so clearly depicted?"
But she already was far away, on the brink of the ocean,
In her figure rejoicing, and duly arranging her garland.