DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Where Is the Real Non-resistant?
by Vachel Lindsay

(Matthew 5:38-48)
Who can surrender to Christ, dividing his best with the stranger,
Giving to each what he asks, braving the uttermost danger
All for the enemy, MAN? Who can surrender till death
His words and his works, his house and his lands,
His eyes and his heart and his breath?
Who can surrender to Christ? Many have yearned toward it daily.
Yet they surrender to passion, wildly or grimly or gaily;
Yet they surrender to pride, counting her precious and queenly;
Yet they surrender to knowledge, preening their feathers serenely.
Who can surrender to Christ? Where is the man so transcendent,
So heated with love of his kind, so filled with the spirit resplendent
That all of the hours of his day his song is thrilling and tender,
And all of his thoughts to our white cause of peace
Surrender, surrender, surrender?
Echo-Song
by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

I
Who can say where Echo dwells?
In some mountain-cave, methinks,
Where the white owl sits and blinks;
Or in deep sequestered dells,
Where the foxglove hangs its bells,
Echo dwells.
Echo!
Echo!
II
Phantom of the crystal Air,
Daughter of sweet Mystery!
Here is one has need of thee;
Lead him to thy secret lair,
Myrtle brings he for thy hair--
Hear his prayer,
Echo!
Echo!
III
Echo, lift thy drowsy head,
And repeat each charmed word
Thou must needs have overheard
Yestere'en ere, rosy-red,
Daphne down the valley fled--
Words unsaid,
Echo!
Echo!
IV
Breathe the vows she since denies!
She hath broken every vow;
What she would she would not now--
Thou didst hear her perjuries.
Whisper, whilst I shut my eyes,
Those sweet lies,
Echo!
Echo!
The Master Is Come, And Calleth For Thee.
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Who calleth? - Thy Father calleth,
Run, O Daughter, to wait on Him:
He Who chasteneth but for a season
Trims thy lamp that it burn not dim.
Who calleth? - Thy Master calleth,
Sit, Disciple, and learn of Him:
He Who teacheth wisdom of Angels
Makes thee wise as the Cherubim,
Who calleth? - Thy Monarch calleth,
Rise, O Subject, and follow Him:
He is stronger than Death or Devil,
Fear not thou if the foe be grim.
Who calleth? - Thy Lord God calleth.
Fall, O Creature, adoring Him:
He is jealous, thy God Almighty,
Count not dear to thee life or limb.
Who calleth? - Thy Bridegroom calleth,
Soar, O Bride, with the Seraphim:
He Who loves thee as no man loveth,
Bids thee give up thy heart to Him.
After Thomas Kempis
by George MacDonald

I.
Who follows Jesus shall not walk
In darksome road with danger rife;
But in his heart the Truth will talk,
And on his way will shine the Life.
So, on the story we must pore
Of him who lives for us, and died,
That we may see him walk before,
And know the Father in the guide.
II.
In words of truth Christ all excels,
Leaves all his holy ones behind;
And he in whom his spirit dwells
Their hidden manna sure shall find.
Gather wouldst thou the perfect grains,
And Jesus fully understand?
Thou must obey him with huge pains,
And to God's will be as Christ's hand.
III.
What profits it to reason high
And in hard questions court dispute,
When thou dost lack humility,
Displeasing God at very root!
Profoundest words man ever spake
Not once of blame washed any clear;
A simple life alone could make
Nathanael to his master dear.
IV.
The eye with seeing is not filled,
The ear with hearing not at rest;
Desire with having is not stilled;
With human praise no heart is blest.
Vanity, then, of vanities
All things for which men grasp and grope!
The precious things in heavenly eyes
Are love, and truth, and trust, and hope.
V.
Better the clown who God doth love
Than he that high can go
And name each little star above
But sees not God below!
What if all things on earth I knew,
Yea, love were all my creed,
It serveth nothing with the True;
He goes by heart and deed.
VI.
If thou dost think thy knowledge good,
Thy intellect not slow,
Bethink thee of the multitude
Of things thou dost not know.
Why look on any from on high
Because thou knowest more?
Thou need'st but look abroad, to spy
Ten thousand thee before.
Wouldst thou in knowledge true advance
And gather learning's fruit,
In love confess thy ignorance,
And thy Self-love confute.
VII.
This is the highest learning,
The hardest and the best--
From self to keep still turning,
And honour all the rest.
If one should break the letter,
Yea, spirit of command,
Think not that thou art better,
Thou may'st not always stand!
We all are weak--but weaker
Hold no one than thou art;
Then, as thou growest meeker,
Higher will go thy heart.
VIII.
Sense and judgment oft indeed
Spy but little and mislead,
Ground us on a shelf!
Happy he whom Truth doth teach,
Not by forms of passing speech,
But her very self!
Why of hidden things dispute,
Mind unwise, howe'er astute,
Making that thy task
Where the Judge will, at the last,
When disputing all is past,
Not a question ask?
Folly great it is to brood
Over neither bad nor good,
Eyes and ears unheedful!
Ears and eyes, ah, open wide
For what may be heard or spied
Of the one thing needful!
The Fall.
by Thomas Hood

"Down, down, down, ten thousand fathoms deep."
Count Fathom.
Who does not know that dreadful gulf, where Niagara falls,
Where eagle unto eagle screams, to vulture vulture calls;
Where down beneath, Despair and Death in liquid darkness grope,
And upward, on the foam there shines a rainbow without Hope;
While, hung with clouds of Fear and Doubt, the unreturning wave
Suddenly gives an awful plunge, like life into the grave;
And many a hapless mortal there hath dived to bale or bliss;
One - only one - hath ever lived to rise from that abyss!
Oh, Heav'n! it turns me now to ice with chill of fear extreme,
To think of my frail bark adrift on that tumultuous stream!
In vain with desperate sinews, strung by love of life and light,
I urged that coffin, my canoe, against the current's might:
On - on - still on - direct for doom, the river rush'd in force,
And fearfully the stream of Time raced with it in its course.
My eyes I closed - I dared not look the way towards the goal;
But still I viewed the horrid close, and dreamt it in my soul.
Plainly, as through transparent lids, I saw the fleeting shore!
And lofty trees, like wing'd things, flit by for evermore;
Plainly - but with no prophet sense - I heard the sullen sound,
The torrent's voice - and felt the mist, like death-sweat gathering round.
Oh agony! Oh life! My home! and those that made it sweet:
Ere I could pray, the torrent lay beneath my very feet.
With frightful whirl, more swift than thought, I passed the dizzy edge,
Bound after bound, with hideous bruise, I dashed from ledge to ledge,
From crag to crag, - in speechless pain, - from midnight deep to deep;
I did not die, but anguish stunn'd my senses into sleep.
How long entranced, or whither dived, no clue I have to find:
At last the gradual light of life came dawning o'er my mind;
And through my brain there thrill'd a cry, - a cry as shrill as birds
Of vulture or of eagle kind, but this was set to words:
"It's Edgar Huntley[1] in his cap and nightgown, I declares!
He's been a-walking in his sleep, and pitch'd all down the stairs!"
To The Eleven Ladies
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Who Presented Me With A Silver Loving Cup On The Twenty-Ninth Of August, M Dccc Lxxxix
"Who gave this cup?" The secret thou wouldst steal
Its brimming flood forbids it to reveal:
No mortal's eye shall read it till he first
Cool the red throat of thirst.
If on the golden floor one draught remain,
Trust me, thy careful search will be in vain;
Not till the bowl is emptied shalt thou know
The names enrolled below.
Deeper than Truth lies buried in her well
Those modest names the graven letters spell
Hide from the sight; but wait, and thou shalt see
Who the good angels be.
Whose bounty glistens in the beauteous gift
That friendly hands to loving lips shall lift
Turn the fair goblet when its floor is dry, - 
Their names shall meet thine eye.
Count thou their number on the beads of Heaven
Alas! the clustered Pleiads are but seven;
Nay, the nine sister Muses are too few, - 
The Graces must add two.
"For whom this gift?" For one who all too long
Clings to his bough among the groves of song;
Autumn's last leaf, that spreads its faded wing
To greet a second spring.
Dear friends, kind friends, whate'er the cup may hold,
Bathing its burnished depths, will change to gold
Its last bright drop let thirsty Maenads drain,
Its fragrance will remain.
Better love's perfume in the empty bowl
Than wine's nepenthe for the aching soul;
Sweeter than song that ever poet sung,
It makes an old heart young!
Fragments Of Ancient Poetry, Fragment IV
by James Macpherson

CONNAL,    CRIMORA,
CRIMORA.
Who cometh from the hill, like
a cloud tinged with the beam
of the west? Whose voice is that, loud
as the wind, but pleasant as the harp of
Carryl? It is my love in the light of
steel; but sad is his darkened brow.
Live the mighty race of Fingal? or
what disturbs my Connal?
CONNAL.
They live. I saw them return from
the chace, like a stream of light. The
sun was on their shields: In a line they
descended the hill. Loud is the voice of
the youth; the war, my love, is near.
To-morrow the enormous Dargo comes
to try the force of our race. The race of
Fingal he defies; the race of battle and
wounds.
CRIMORA.
Connal, I saw his sails like grey mist
on the sable wave. They came to land.
Connnal, many are the warriors of
Dargo!
CONNAL.
Bring me thy father's shield; the iron
shield of Rinval; that shield like the
full moon when it is darkened in the
sky.
CRIMORA.
That shield I bring, O Connal; but
it did not defend my father. By the
spear of Gauror he fell. Thou mayst
fall, O Connal!
CONNAL.
Fall indeed I may: But raise my
tomb, Crimora. Some stones, a mound
of earth, shall keep my memory.
Though fair thou art, my love, as the
light; more pleasant than the gale of
the hill; yet I will not stay. Raise my
tomb, Crimora.
CRIMORA,
Then give me those arms of light;
that sword, and that spear of steel. I
shall meet Dargo with thee, and aid my
lovely Connal. Farewell, ye rocks of
Ardven! ye deer! and ye streams of
the hill!--We shall return no more.
Our tombs are distant far.
The Village Bells. (From The Villager's Verse-Book.)
by William Lisle Bowles

Who does not love the village bells,
Their cheerful peal, and solemn toll!
One of the rustic wedding tells,
And one bespeaks a parting soul.
The lark in sunshine sings his song,
And, dressed in garments white and gay,
The village lasses trip along,
For this is Susan's wedding-day.
Ah! gather flowers of sweetest hue,
Young violets from the bank's green side,
And on poor Mary's coffin strew,
For in the bloom of life she died.
So passes life! the smile, the tear,
Succeed, as in our path we stray,
Thy kingdom come, for we are here
As guests who tarry but a day.
Magdalena.
by Marietta Holley

Who falsely called thee destroyer, still white Angel of Death?
Oh not a destroyer here, but a kind restorer, thou,
For the guilty look is gone, died out with her failing breath,
And the sinless peace of a babe has come to lip and brow.
Drowned in the heaving tide with her life, is her burden of woe,
The dreary weight of sin, the woeful, troublesome years,
The cold pure touch of the water has washed the shame from her brow
Leaving a calm immortal, that looks like the chrism of peace.
I fancy her smile was like this, as she pulled at her mother's gown
Drawing her out with childish fingers to watch the red of the skies
On the old brown doorstep of home, while the peaceful sun went down,
With her mother's hand on her brow, and the glow of the west in her eyes.
"An outcast vile and lost," you say, yes, she went astray,
Astray, when the crimson wine of life ran fresh and wild,
With mother's tender hand no more on her brow, put away
The grasses beneath, and she was alone and almost a child.
Like a kid decoyed to its death, the stealthy panther lures,
Mocking the voice of its dam, thus he led the innocent child
Through her tenderness down to ruin, he is a friend of yours,
And admired by all; as you say, "men will be wild."
But I wonder if God, so far above on His great white throne
The clanging tumult of trouble and doubt that mortals vex;
When the murmur of a crime sweeps up from earth with woeful moan,
If He pauses, ere He condemns, to ask the offender's sex.
And if so, whether the weaker or stronger He blames the most,
The tempter or tempted a tithe of His tender compassion claims,
Whether the selfish or too unselfish, those who through love or lust are lost,
He in His infinite wisdom and mercy most condemns.
Frown not, I know her evil our womanly nature shuns,
Turns from, with shuddering horror; but now so low is her head
For God's sake, woman, remember your own little ones
Lying safely at home in their snow-white sheltered bed.
Your own little girls, for them does the flame of your anger burn,
"Such creatures will draw down innocence into guilt and woe."
I think from eternity vast she will scarcely return
To entice them to sin, you can safely forgive her now.
"You will not countenance wrong, but fiercely war for the right
Even unto the bitter death." Very good, you should do so,
But, my friend, if your own secret thought had blossomed to light
In temptation, you might have been in this outcast's place, you know.
So let us be pitiful, grateful that God's strong hand
Has held our own, and the tale of a woman's despair
And penitent sin, He stooped and wrote in the perishing sand;
We carve the record in stone, weak, sinful souls that we are.
In the arms of the kind all-mother, but close to the sorrowful wave,
With its voice no longer moaning to her a despairing call,
But a dirge deploring and deep; we will make her grave,
With healing grasses above her, and God over all.
Song Of The Sea-Fight, In Amboyna.
by John Dryden

Who ever saw a noble sight,
That never view'd a brave sea-fight!
Hang up your bloody colours in the air,
Up with your fights, and your nettings prepare;
Your merry mates cheer, with a lusty bold spright.
Now each man his brindace, and then to the fight.
St George, St George, we cry,
The shouting Turks reply.
Oh, now it begins, and the gun-room grows hot,
Ply it with culverin and with small shot;
Hark, does it not thunder? no, 'tis the guns' roar,
The neighbouring billows are turn'd into gore;
Now each man must resolve to die,
For here the coward cannot fly.
Drums and trumpets toll the knell,
And culverins the passing bell.
Now, now they grapple, and now board amain;
Blow up the hatches, they're off all again:
Give them a broadside, the dice run at all,
Down comes the mast and yard, and tacklings fall;
She grows giddy now, like blind Fortune's wheel,
She sinks there, she sinks, she turns up her keel.
Who ever beheld so noble a sight,
As this so brave, so bloody sea-fight!
Song: 'Who Can Say'
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Who can say
Why To-day
To-morrow will be yesterday?
Who can tell
Why to smell
The violet recalls the dewy prime
Of youth and buried time?
The cause is nowhere found in rhyme.
Climbing
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Who climbs the mountain does not always climb.
The winding road slants downward many a time;
Yet each descent is higher than the last.
Has thy path fallen?    That will soon be past.
Beyond the curve the way leads up and on.
Think not thy goal forever lost or gone.
Keep moving forward; if thine aim is right
Thou canst not miss the shining mountain height.
Who would attain to summits still and fair,
Must nerve himself through valleys of despair.
Faintly we echo--like this spake the Shadow and like this the Glory.
by George William Russell

The Shadow
Who art thou, O Glory,
In flame from the deep,
Where stars chant their story,
Why trouble my sleep?
I hardly had rested,
My dreams wither now:
Why comest thou crested
And gemmed on they brow?
The Glory
Up, Shadow, and follow
The way I will show;
The blue gleaming hollow
To-night we will know,
And rise mid the vast to
The fountain of days;
From whence we had pass to
The parting of ways.
The Shadow
I know thee, O Glory:
Thine eyes and thy brow
With white fire all hoary
Come back to me now.
Together we wandered
In ages agone;
Our thoughts as we pondered
Were stars at the dawn.
The glory has dwindled,
My azure and gold:
Yet you keep enkindled
The Sun-fire of old.
My footsteps are tied to
The heath and the stone;
My thoughts earth-allied-to--
Ah! leave me alone.
Go back, thou of gladness,
Nor wound me with pain,
Nor spite me with madness,
Nor come nigh again.
The Glory
Why tremble and weep now,
Whom stars once obeyed?
Come forth to the deep now
And be not afraid.
The Dark One is calling,
I know, for his dreams
Around me are falling
In musical streams.
A diamond is burning
In depths of the Lone
Thy spirit returning
May claim for its throne.
In flame-fringed islands
Its sorrows shall cease,
Absorbed in the silence
And quenched in the peace.
Come lay thy poor head on
My breast where it glows
With love ruby-red on
Thy heart for its woes.
My power I surrender:
To thee it is due:
Come forth, for the splendor
Is waiting for you.
Who But Is Pleased To Watch The Moon On High
by William Wordsworth

Who but is pleased to watch the moon on high
Traveling where she from time to time enshrouds
Her head, and nothing loth her Majesty
Renounces, till among the scattered clouds
One with its kindling edge declares that soon
Will reappear before the uplifted eye
A Form as bright, as beautiful a moon,
To glide in open prospect through clear sky.
Pity that such a promise e'er should prove
False in the issue, that yon seeming space
Of sky should be in truth the steadfast face
Of a cloud flat and dense, through which must move
(By transit not unlike man's frequent doom)
The Wanderer lost in more determined gloom.
Australia Vindex
by Henry Kendall

Who cometh from fields of the south
With raiment of weeping and woe,
And a cry of the heart in her mouth,
And a step that is muffled and slow?
Her paths are the paths of the sun;
Her house is a beautiful light;
But she boweth her head, and is one
With the daughters of dolour and night.
She is fairer than flowers of love;
She is fiercer than wind-driven flame;
And God from His thunders above
Hath smitten the soul of her shame.
She saith to the bloody one curst
With the fever of evil, she saith
'My sorrow shall strangle thee first
With an agony wilder than death!
'My sorrow shall hack at thy life!
Thou shalt wrestle with wraiths of thy sin,
And sleep on a pillow of strife
With demons without and within!'
She whispers, 'He came to the land
A lord and a lover of me
A son of the waves with a hand
As fearless and frank as the sea.
'On the shores of the stranger he stood
With the sweetness of youth on his face;
Till there started a fiend from the wood,
Who stabbed at the peace of the place!
'Because of the dastardly thing
Thou hast done in the sight of the day,
All horrors that sicken and sting
Shall make thee for ever their prey.
'Because of the beautiful trust
Destroyed by a devil like thee,
Thy bed shall be low in the dust
And my heel as a shackle shall be!
'Because' (and she mutters it deep
Who curseth the coward in chains)
'Thou hast stricken and murdered our sleep,
Thy sleep shall be perished with pains;
'Thy sleep shall be broken and sharp
And filled with fierce spasms and dreams,
And shadow shall haunt thee and harp
On hellish and horrible themes!
'I will set my right hand on thy neck
And my foot on thy body, nor bate,
Till thy name shall become as a wreck
And a byword for hisses and hate!'
Joseph Dixon
by Edgar Lee Masters

Who carved this shattered harp on my stone?
I died to you, no doubt. But how many harps and pianos
Wired I and tightened and disentangled for you,
Making them sweet again - with tuning fork or without?
Oh well! A harp leaps out of the ear of a man, you say,
But whence the ear that orders the length of the strings
To a magic of numbers flying before your thought
Through a door that closes against your breathless wonder?
Is there no Ear round the ear of a man, that it senses
Through strings and columns of air the soul of sound?
I thrill as I call it a tuning fork that catches
The waves of mingled music and light from afar,
The antennae of
Thought that listens through utmost space.
Surely the concord that ruled my spirit is proof
Of an Ear that tuned me, able to tune me over
And use me again if I am worthy to use.
Adoration
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

Who does not feel desire unending
To solace through his daily strife,
With some mysterious Mental Blending,
The hungry loneliness of life?
Until, by sudden passion shaken,
As terriers shake a rat at play,
He finds, all blindly, he has taken
The old, Hereditary way.
Yet, in the moment of communion,
The very heart of passion's fire,
His spirit spurns the mortal union,
"Not this, not this, the Soul's desire!"
*    *    *    *
Oh You, by whom my life is riven,
And reft away from my control,
Take back the hours of passion given!
Love me one moment from your soul.
Although I once, in ardent fashion,
Implored you long to give me this;
(In hopes to stem, or stifle, passion)
Your hair to touch, your lips to kiss
Now that your gracious self has granted
The loveliness you hold as naught,
I find, alas! not that I wanted - 
Possession has not stifled Thought.
Desire its aim has only shifted, - 
Built hopes upon another plan,
And I in love for you have drifted
Beyond all passion known to man.
Beyond all dreams of soft caresses
The solacing of any kiss, - 
Beyond the fragrance of your tresses
(Once I had sold my soul for this!)
But now I crave no mortal union
(Thanks for that sweetness in the past);
I need some subtle, strange communion,
Some sense that I join you, at last.
Long past the pulse and pain of passion,
Long left the limits of all love, - 
I crave some nearer, fuller fashion,
Some unknown way, beyond, above, - 
Some infinitely inner fusion,
As Wave with Water; Flame with Fire, - 
Let me dream once the dear delusion
That I am You, Oh, Heart's Desire!
Your kindness lent to my caresses
That beauty you so lightly prize, - 
The midnight of your sable tresses,
The twilight of your shadowed eyes.
Ah, for that gift all thanks are given!
Yet, Oh, adored, beyond control,
Count all the passionate past forgiven
And love me once, once, from your soul.
Who Bides His Time
by James Whitcomb Riley

Who bides his time, and day by day
Faces defeat full patiently,
And lifts a mirthful roundelay,
However poor his fortunes be,
He will not fail in any qualm
Of poverty - the paltry dime
It will grow golden in his palm,
Who bides his time.
Who bides his time - he tastes the sweet
Of honey in the saltest tear;
And though he fares with slowest feet,
Joy runs to meet him, drawing near;
The birds are heralds of his cause;
And like a never-ending rhyme,
The roadsides bloom in his applause,
Who bides his time.
Who bides his time, and fevers not
In the hot race that none achieves,
Shall wear cool-wreathen laurel, wrought
With crimson berries in the leaves;
And he shall reign a goodly king,
And sway his hand o'er every clime,
With peace writ on his signet-ring,
Who bides his time.